Windows has had it’s share of vulnerabilities in the past, so now Microsoft is offering more than $250,000 in cash and prizes for contestants who can come up with new ways to mitigate exploits. Anonymous and LulzSec are out there after all, taking companies down.

Microsoft will pay $200,000 for the best “novel runtime mitigation technology designed to prevent the exploitation of memory safety vulnerabilities.” Two runners up will also receive $50,000 and a MSDN Universal subscription valued at $10,000. I’d say that is lots of incentive to come up with some new tricks, wouldn’t you?

The Verizon Fascinate was the last Samsung Galaxy S variant to hit the U.S. and the carrier is doing its best to keep the phone up to date with software updates, even though some of them caused problems for users. Interestingly, Verizon is now listing the phone with a “retired” label.

You can see the red watermark embedded all over the device page. It says the phone is retired and so has already been removed from the carrier’s online store. So what would they replace it with? Probably the Galaxy S II variant for Verizon (whether it will be called Samsung Galaxy S II, Function, Fascinate II or Stratosphere).

The Qosmio F750 glasses-free 3D laptop is now called the F755. August 16th is the date when you’ll be able to pick up Toshiba’s latest 15.6-inch media machine starting at $1,699. The notebook packs in a Core i7 processor, 6GB of RAM, and a 750GB hard disk.

Other features include a Blu-ray drive, and GeForce GT 540M GPU. It won’t be able to convert 2D games to 3D out of the box, but Toshiba is working with Nvidia to deliver that feature by November, if you can wait that long. It starts shipping in about two weeks.

LG Revolution users on Verizon LTE are about to get a new OTA update for their smartphones very soon. Not Gingerbread on the Revolution just yet, but VS910ZV6 has new apps, updates, and bugfixes in the meantime.

Verizon will provide you with its latest VCAST media apps, as well as provide updates for some of the pre-installed titles on the Revolution. None of the bugfixes address any serious problems with the phone itself, but they’ll make sure that it works the way you expect it to, with proper call notifications when in vibrate mode, auto-correct not turning on by default, album art displaying correctly etc.

We know that you can’t wait to get yourself a Droid Bionic and you’ve no doubt been wondering about the specs. Well, they are on Motorola’s developer site. It features a TI OMAP 4430 1GHz dual-core CPU bundled with 1GB RAM, a 4.3-inch qHD display with 960 x 540 resolution, HDMI 1.4, 8 megapixel rear camera and a VGA front-facing camera.

Other specs include 1080p HD video capture, webtop capabilities, and LTE radio. No GSM / EDGE of course. At least now we know some more of what it’s offering.

If you like to make calls from Gmail, then here’s some good news. The service will now support over 38 different languages, and Google has also lowered the call rates to more than 150 destinations.

The rates have been cut quite a bit. For example, you can make calls to a landline in France for $0.02/min, while it will only cost you $0.10/min to call a mobile phone in UK and chat up your British friends. Calls to the U.S. or Canada placed within those countries will continue to be free for the rest of 2011. Calls to the U.S. or Canada placed from outside these countries will be charged $0.01 per minute. That’s a bargain.

Upgrading your hard disk is a pain, you have to backup, transfer files, and reinstall all your programs. Samsung to the rescue! Samsung will be including a full version of Norton Ghost 15 with their new SSD drives, which allows users to safely and quickly migrate their existing system data to another hard disk.

This allows users to skip the whole process of having to reinstall their OS. Plus with SSD you get increased speeds, less energy consumption and a longer lifespan. All good reasons to upgrade.

LG has finally released the 47-inch 47LW9800 and 55-inch 55LW9800 3D HDTVs in the South Korean market. Both are ultra slim HDTVs and feature full LED technology, LG’s True Motion 480Hz and passive 3D glasses for all of your 3D viewing needs.

These 3D HDTVs also support LG’s Magic-Motion remote control, LG’s Smart Board, a web browser and Wi-Fi, so that you can stream media from your smartphone or computer wirelessly to your TV. No info on pricing yet though.

We all want higher resolution for better image quality, especially on smaller screens. The good news is that Samsung Mobile Display will be developing a new 7-inch AMOLED display with a higher resolution.

This AMOLED display will feature a resolution of 1024×768. The previous AMOLED display had a resolution of 1024×600. But you won’t be seeing the new displays on tablets this year. When we hear more we will let you know.

How smart is your washing machine? Not as smart as LGs latest. It comes equipped with an app for Android phones that allows you to control the washing machine right from your Android smartphone.

The app has several functions offering a status check of the laundry, changing the scheduled time, preventing wrinkles and more. The LG Smart Washing Machine will be released in South Korea for about $165,000.

Kingston’s HyperX SSD powered by SandForce is finally shipping. The HyperX SSD powered by SandForce will come in capacities of 120GB and 240GB and are apparently capable of sequential read speeds up to 555MB/s and sequential write speeds up to 510MB/s.

These drives will be available by themselves or come bundled as part of a “HyperX Upgrade Kit”, which includes Acronis True Image HD migration software, a desktop mounting plate, external drive bay, multi-head screwdriver, and a SATA data cable.

This new budget phone will be offered by Motorola this month in China. Thе Motorola Domino+, model number XT531, had already hit the FCC last week and wіlƖ hаνе a price point οf 2198 yuan (around $341). What kind of specs does it have?

It has an 800MHz Qualcomm MSM7227 processor, 512MB οf RAM and ROM, 3.5-inch HVGA ԁіѕрƖау, five-megapixel camera wіth LED flash, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi and GPS plus Android 2.3.4. It wіƖƖ bе available wіth piano paint technology іn black and white.

The new Toshiba MQ01ABD series of 2.5-inch HDDs offers up to 1TB of storage capacity. Standing at 9.5mm tall, the 5,400RPM drives also boast an areal density of 744Gb per square inch, and are designed to maximize energy efficiency, burning just 0.55 watts while in idle mode.

Gamers and entertainment enthusiasts will enjoy the MQ01ABD’s enhanced acoustics, which max out at 19dB in idle, and 24dB while seeking. No info yet on pricing, but they will arrive soon.

Google has unveiled another enhancement to its Google+ social network with stars which can be used to bookmark memorable posts with Google+. It works like an internal bookmarking system for personal use rather than using the +1 button which is more for public bookmarking.

The new star is located in the top right hand corner of each post with a “Starred” option added to the bottom of the circles list in the left menu list.

The Eee Slider has many people drooling over it’s sleek lines and specs and there’s news that a 32GB model of the Asus Eee Slider will be coming our way soon, but that also means that they will ditch the 16GB model. Folks in Europe will be able to get the 32GB model for €499, we just don’t know when.

We also have no info on what the delay is about, but it is likely a software issue. There is a 3G version coming in 2012 as well.