Siemens uncovers worm designed to steal industrial secrets

In today's podcast: Twitter updates its Web site; Siemens uncovers worm designed to steal industrial secrets; and Apple to sell Wi-Fi iPad in China this Friday.

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In an effort to refresh the Twitter.com site, pull users back in from third-party platforms -- and take a swipe at Facebook -- Twitter launched a significant site redesign on Tuesday. The new homepage, which still has a distinctive Twitter feel about it, has quite a different look and a bunch of new features. While tweets are still shown on the left of the page, there's an expanded sidebar on the right with new features like maps of geo-location tagged tweets and embedded pictures and videos.

A sophisticated worm designed to steal industrial secrets and disrupt operations has infected at least 14 plants, according to Siemens. Called Stuxnet, the worm was discovered in July when researchers at VirusBlokAda found it on computers in Iran. It is one of the most sophisticated and unusual pieces of malicious software ever created -- the worm leveraged a previously unknown Windows vulnerability (now patched) that allowed it to spread from computer to computer, typically via USB sticks.

Apple announced on Monday that it will be releasing the Wi-Fi models of the iPad in China on Friday, September 17. The iPads will be available from Apple Stores and selected Apple Authorized Resellers in the country, starting at 10:00 a.m. local time. There is no word, however, as to when the Wi-Fi + 3G models will arrive in the planet's most populous nation.

Heroku hopes to make its platform-as-a-service offering more appealing by formalizing a process for accepting and offering add-on applications built by third parties. The result is that Heroku's customers can easily shop for and start using applications like search, tools for accessing the Twitter API or services for accessing NoSQL databases. Heroku's cloud application platform, based on Ruby, currently hosts about 80,000 Web applications including some from Comcast and Best Buy.

...And those are the top stories from the IDG Global IT News Update, brought to you by the IDG News Service. I'm Sumner Lemon in Singapore. Join us again later for more news from the world of technology.