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Want IE8 Beta 2? You May Have To Jump Through Hoops
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=61616
Microsoft warned developers preparing to download the new Beta 2 release of Internet Explorer 8 that under certain conditions those who have already installed IE8 Beta 1 cannot revert to older iterations of the browser.
For Windows XP users with IE8 Beta 1 already installed, Windows XP Service Pack 3 and IE8 Beta 2 would become permanent, said Jane Maliouta, the deployment product manager for IE8 at Microsoft. "You will still be able to upgrade to later IE8 builds as they become available, but you won't be able to uninstall them," she said.
Developers will need to be careful because IE8 Beta 2 will not work with several key services, applications and add-on programs, including certain versions of the Google Toolbar, RealPlayer and Skype, and is even incompatible with Microsoft products and services, such as Visual Studio .NET and Windows Live Mail. IE8 Beta 2 users also are currently unable to view movies on demand from Netflix, though Microsoft said the two companies are working to resolve the compatibility issue as quickly as possible.
Maliouta strongly encouraged those who have already downloaded IE8 Beta 1 to follow several steps before installing the new Beta 2 version. First uninstall the Beta 1 version and SP3 for Windows XP, followed by reinstalling SP3, and only then install IE8 Beta 2.
"If you have IE8 Beta 1 installed, the IE8 installer will automatically uninstall any earlier versions and then install the latest version of IE8 Beta 2 for you," Maliouta said. "You will be prompted to reboot twice. The first reboot is to remove IE8 Beta 1 from your machine and the second one to complete the IE8 Beta 2 installation."
According to Microsoft, IE8 Beta 1 was only intended for use by developers. Consumers running Windows XP need not worry about downloading IE8...
Sat, 30 Aug 08
Speculation Focuses on iPhone Tethering Approval
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=61615
Having banned from its App Store an application that turned an iPhone 3G into a wireless modem, is Apple ready to enable just such an application itself?
That's the rumor based on an e-mail response allegedly from Apple CEO Steve Jobs to an inquiring user. The questioner forwarded the response to the Gizmodo blog, which posted the question and Jobs' purported response.
The question: Why, since AT&T offers a plan by which users can pay an extra $30 to tether their laptops to their BlackBerry, don't Apple and AT&T offer a similar plan for iPhone 3G users?
The response: "We agree, and are discussing it with ATT." The message is signed "Steve" and includes the familiar tag, "Sent from my iPhone."
Gizmodo thinks the response is "legitimate-looking," but concedes "that 'Sent from my iPhone' kicker either makes this e-mail completely legitimate or illegitimate." On the other hand, Wired News engaged in a little grammatical sleuthing, noting that a message, purportedly from Jobs, posted on the MacRumors site contained a similar construction.
"We are working on some bugs which affect around two percent of the iPhones shipped, and hope to have a software update soon," the message read. Wired points out that both messages incorrectly use a comma before the "and." (A comma is appropriate to separate independent clauses; in both cases the phrases after the comma are dependent clauses.)
"I don't mean to draw a conclusion based on this nitpicky observation, but I just thought it'd be interesting to point out," Wired writer Brian Chen pointed out.
Any tethering application would require a change to AT&T's terms of service. Those terms state: "Furthermore, plans (unless specifically designated for tethering usage) cannot be used for any applications that tether the device (through use of, including without limitation, connection kits, other phone/PDA-to-computer...
Sat, 30 Aug 08
Yahoo Will End Mash To Start a New Social Service
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=61614
Yahoo plans to smash Mash, just one year after launching the new profile service. Yahoo describes Mash as a new approach to users' profiles that brings people together and keeps things interesting.
Mash users are being told that Mash will close on Sept. 29. The company plans to consolidate what it has learned with Mash into a new profile experience.
"We launched Mash as an experimental profile service with the goal of providing an interactive and social way of connecting with others," said Yahoo spokesperson Devon Corvasce. "Yahoo has announced we will soon be launching a new profile experience (an upgrade to profiles.yahoo.com) to work across the network, in the effort to make all of Yahoo more social."
Asked when the new service would launch, Corvasce said, "At this time, we are not publicly discussing the launch date of the new profile experience. You can look forward to seeing it in coming months."
Yahoo first began testing the Mash service is September 2007, making its foray into social networking. Yahoo offered the service to selected people outside of Yahoo's walls. Some observers speculated Yahoo offered the beta service after its expected purchase of Facebook failed.
Mash includes similar features to Facebook, MySpace, and My Yahoo. Mash users are able to create and customize a profile by filling Web pages with information, add modules such as photos and Web games, and add applications such as Flickr RSS, Common Friends, Asteroids, PimpMyPet, Kaleidescope and more. Friends are also able to make changes to the user's page.
The intent was to extend features of the experimental Mash into other Yahoo services, according to the company. Yahoo also hinted about adding social-networking functions to its e-mail service.
A Yahoo community manager said earlier this year that users' dedication to mashing had helped the community...
Sat, 30 Aug 08
Apple Won't Fix iPhone Passcode Hole Until September
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=61613
The latest iPhone embarrassment is a security hole that makes it simple to access stored data on supposedly locked iPhones. Apple said Thursday that a software patch to solve the problem is in the works.
An unauthorized user can exploit the security hole simply by double-pressing the button to make an emergency call. That behavior brings up the owner's preferred contacts and clicking on a number provides full access to the phone's features. Clicking on an e-mail provides access to all e-mail. And clicking on a contact name provides full access to all contacts data.
Apple spokesperson Jennifer Bowcock said, "The minor iPhone security issue which surfaced this week is fixed in a software update which will be released in September."
There is a simple workaround, Bowcock said: iPhone owners can simply change the settings so double-clicking the emergency button returns a user to the home screen, which will present a password login field if password protection is turned on.
While an attacker must be in physical possession of the iPhone to exploit the security bug, it "highlights a fundamental design deficiency with the iPhone," said Andrew Storms, director of security operations with nCircle Network Security.
"Despite Steve Jobs from day one saying the iPhone was secure, functionality and aesthetics of the device seem to always win out over security," Storms said. A case in point, Storms said, "Apple quickly released updates to fix 3G connectivity issues this year, but consistently takes many months to release security updates."
This particular security hole -- a simple bypass of access restrictions -- was created by Apple's preference for functionality over security, he added. "Even when a user chooses to physically secure the device with a four-digit passcode, Apple has chosen to still permit the user to use some functionality," Storms said. "By selecting to perform...
Sat, 30 Aug 08
Veoh Decision May Not Let Google Off the Hook
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=61612
In a first-of-its kind decision, a California federal court has dismissed a copyright-infringement lawsuit against online video-sharing site Veoh Networks. IO Group, an adult entertainment company, filed the suit against Veoh, alleging the site displayed its content in violation of copyright laws. But Magistrate Judge Howard Lloyd of the U.S. District Court in San Jose ruled against the gay-porn distributor on Wednesday.
IO Group's suit is not unlike Viacom's $1.6 billion lawsuit against Google-owned YouTube. In fact, MySpace, MP3tunes, Hi5, Stage6 and several other sites are facing similar battles over user-generated content.
Could this ruling be a boon for these sites? Or is the ruling merely an isolated incident in a California trial court? Google and the Electronic Frontier Foundation are betting on the former.
EFF Legal Analyst Fred von Lohman said the ruling should be required reading for the executives of every Web 2.0 business that relies on user-generated content. The key to Veoh's victory, he said, was its scrupulous attention to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act's safe harbors.
"Veoh responded to compliant DMCA takedown notices on a same-day basis, it notified users of its policies against copyright infringement, it registered a copyright agent with the copyright office, it terminated users who were repeat infringers and blocked new registrations from the same e-mail addresses, it used hashes to stop the same infringing videos from being uploaded by other users," von Lohman wrote in the EFF blog.
As von Lohman sees it, Judge Lloyd's ruling debunks some of the favorite arguments of entertainment-industry lawyers and gives YouTube a boost in its billion-dollar battle against Viacom.
But the Google case is a little different. While the California court did spell out that there is no affirmative obligation for service providers to track users or police their sites, the context of...
Sat, 30 Aug 08
Comcast Limits Homes To 250GB in New Public Policy
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=61611
Comcast has made it official: Home Internet service customers are limited to 250GB of data per month. According to the company, the move is in response to heavy usage by some customers that can cause network congestion.
The new policy was posted on Comcast's Web site early Friday, and the meter starts running on Oct. 1.
Charlie Douglas, director of corporate communications for online services, said, "The amount of data measured is aggregate monthly usage of uploads and downloads."
And Comcast has added some teeth to the usage limit -- the first time the limit is exceeded, the offending customer will receive a phone call from a Comcast representative. The second violation will result in a shutdown of Internet service for one year.
The amended service policy states in part: "It's no secret we've been evaluating a specific monthly data usage or bandwidth threshold for our Comcast High-Speed Internet residential customers for some time." The threshold is high for the majority of Comcast users.
Examples of what a 250GB limit equates to are cited in the amendment, such as sending 50 million e-mails, downloading 62,500 songs, 125 standard-definition movies, or uploading 25,000 high-resolution digital photos. The policy says the median monthly usage for residential Comcast customers is 2GB to 3GB per month.
Some observers say Comcast has a reasonable argument. The company has expanded rapidly into business and residential phone service, meanwhile maintaining its large cable-television enterprise. There is only so much available bandwidth at any given time.
Comcast is moving data, voice and television and high-definition video over the same pipes. It only takes a few peer-to-peer file-sharing applications to cause unexpected congestion.
Comcast's previous efforts to address the problem brought a rebuke from the Federal Communications Commission. Comcast was caught throttling down the connections of BitTorrent P2P users on...
Sat, 30 Aug 08
Lexmark Offers To Help People Print Less
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=61602
A leading printer maker wants to help you do less printing.
Printing an article off the Web often produces several pages of waste, including ads, links and boxes for entering text. So the latest version of a Web toolbar from Lexmark International Inc. gives people more ways to block such images from coming out of the printer, saving ink and paper.
Some of Lexmark's tools already exist in standard printer settings, but accessing them normally requires several mouse clicks. Lexmark's free program brings those functions to the forefront. For example, one click converts a Web page into black and white for printing, extending the life of expensive color ink cartridges.
The Web software also extends the "printer-friendly" features many sites offer. Often those printer-friendly versions still carry logos and other graphics; the Lexmark tools let you eliminate those as well.
Although printer companies make much of their money from ink cartridges and other products that consumers constantly have to replace, Lexmark figures it can improve customer satisfaction. Most of the features work regardless of whether your printer was made by Lexmark, Hewlett-Packard Co. or another rival.
Lexmark has versions available for both Microsoft Corp.'s Internet Explorer and Mozilla's Firefox browsers.
The Firefox version offers more functions. Lexmark says Firefox users tend to be more technically advanced, and thus open to more customization. While the Internet Explorer tool lets you eliminate images, for instance, the Firefox version lets you remove forms, links and other elements, too.
Craig Le Clair, a senior analyst at Forrester Research, said the Lexmark tools can help reduce office printing. Companies already have made progress going electronic with insurance claims, bank transactions and other paperwork, he said, and they are now turning to "the knowledge worker and the ad hoc use of paper."
But Le Clair said any effect will be small compared with initiatives...
Sat, 30 Aug 08
Researchers Offer New Way To Avoid Bogus Web Sites
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=61600
Intercepting Internet traffic, and spying on the communication between two computers, is a gold mine for hackers. Now Carnegie Mellon University researchers hope software they've built will make it harder for criminals to hit that jackpot.
The software, a free download for use with latest version of the Firefox Web browser, creates an additional way for people to verify whether the site they're trying to visit is authentic.
Most browsers already alert users when a site appears bogus. One way is by warning that a site that claims to be equipped to handle confidential information securely hasn't been verified by a third party, like VeriSign Inc. or GoDaddy.com Inc. Those are two of many companies that sell so-called Secure Sockets Layer certificates, which generate the padlock icon in the address bar.
The problem, the Carnegie Mellon researchers say, is that many people are perplexed about how to proceed once they get one of those warnings about a bad certificate.
Some click through, going on to malicious sites that steal their personal information, while others retreat, skipping over harmless sites that used less expensive, "self-signed" certificates.
So the researchers -- David Andersen, Adrian Perrig and Dan Wendlandt -- created a program that performs a novel extra step. It can tap into a network of publicly accessible servers that have been programmed to ping Web sites and record changes in the encryption keys they use to secure data.
Any discrepancy can be a sign that hackers are rerouting traffic through machines under their control, a pernicious type of attack known as a "man in the middle."
As a result, the new program either overrides the security warning if a site is deemed legitimate, or throws up another warning if the subsequent probes reveal more red flags.
Sat, 30 Aug 08
SEC Proposes International Accounting Plan
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=61599
Federal regulators on Wednesday proposed a plan to allow public companies to begin using international accounting standards for reporting financial results in two years, and may require them to do so starting in 2014.
The push by the Securities and Exchange Commission toward acceptance of a single, global accounting standard has raised objections from some investor advocates and key lawmakers. Supporters of the change say it makes sense in an era of increasingly globalized financial markets and would help lure foreign companies to U.S. markets.
The five SEC commissioners voted unanimously at a public meeting to propose a timetable for the switch to international financial reporting standards, or IFRS, to replace the U.S. standards known as generally accepted accounting principles, or GAAP.
Under the proposal, U.S. companies would have the option of adopting the international standards starting in 2010. The agency then would assess the outcome and decide the following year whether to make it mandatory for all U.S. public companies beginning in 2014 with a completion date of 2016.
The SEC could formally adopt the proposal sometime after a 60-day public comment period.
Wall Street interests and the accounting industry welcomed the plan Wednesday.
"We believe the capital markets ultimately will insist on IFRS for public companies," said Barry Melancon, president and chief executive of the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants. "Today's action by the SEC continues a robust and thoughtful debate that is critical as the transition occurs."
The SEC in November eliminated a rule requiring foreign companies with U.S.-traded shares to report their financial results in line with U.S. accounting standards.
Many foreign public companies comply with the international standards, and some had argued the U.S. mandate was burdensome and costly.
Among companies expressing support for the SEC move were Wall Street powerhouses Goldman Sachs Group Inc., Morgan Stanley, Citigroup, Deutsche Bank and Merrill Lynch...
Sat, 30 Aug 08
Hackers Take Aim at Users of Facebook
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=61592
On the Internet, popularity often draws the attention of hackers. So it is not surprising that Facebook has become the target of a spate of attacks, just as the membership on the site has swelled to about 100 million active users worldwide.
In recent days, many Facebook users have seen a sharp increase in spam, some of it pretty racy. Over the weekend, several Facebook users contacted this newspaper saying that their accounts appeared to have been hijacked, and some said their accounts had been deactivated.
Facebook acknowledges that it has been under attack but suggested the problems were largely under control. "Over the past few days, we have received reports from users of spam and phishing attacks," the company said in a statement. "We have also detected and contained a worm. We are investigating every report, removing false content, blocking bogus links and addressing the concerns of our users. These efforts have limited the affected users to a small percentage of those on Facebook."
Some of the attacks were linked to Koobface, an Internet worm that began targeting Facebook and MySpace users in late July. Since then, the Internet security firm Kaspersky Lab has identified about 27 variants of Koobface.
"It is very similar to a lot of the old worms," said David Emm, a senior technology consultant at Kaspersky.
Emm said Koobface, like many other viruses and worms, relies on what is known as "social engineering" techniques, which attempt to trick people into performing actions that will expose them unwittingly to a virus.
The technique may prove particularly effective on social networks, he said.
"If you receive messages from a friend on a social network, you are not expecting them to be a vehicle to carry a worm or Trojan horse," Emm said.
In the wake of Koobface, that may change.
In the meantime, Facebook recommends...
Sat, 30 Aug 08
Blogger Arrested over Leak of Guns N' Roses Songs
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=61590
A blogger suspected of streaming songs from the unreleased Guns N' Roses album "Chinese Democracy" on his Web site was arrested Wednesday and appeared in court, where his bail was set at $10,000.
FBI agents arrested 27-year-old Kevin Cogill on Wednesday morning on suspicion of violating federal copyright laws. Cogill appeared in court in the afternoon wearing a T-shirt; his girlfriend sat court and afterward said, "Rally the troops," but declined further comment.
Federal authorities say Cogill posted nine unreleased Guns N' Roses songs on his Web site in June. The songs were later removed.
In later posts, Cogill wrote that the FBI had questioned him and asked his readers if any of them knew a good attorney. He was represented Wednesday by a federal public defender.
According to an arrest affidavit, Cogill admitted to agents that he posted the songs on his Web site. Prosecutors said Wednesday the leak could result in a "significant" financial loss for the band.
Cogill will not face any special Internet restrictions, but was ordered to appear in court for a preliminary hearing on Sept. 17.
"Guns N' Roses representatives have been made aware of the arrest and are leaving the matter to the authorities," said Larry Solters, the band's spokesman.
"Chinese Democracy" is a much anticipated -- and repeatedly delayed -- new album by Guns N' Roses that is more than 10 years in the making. At least one of the album's songs could be heard legally: The band wrote on its Web site in July that its track, "Shackler's Revenge" will be featured on the video game Rock Band 2, slated for release in September.
Sat, 30 Aug 08
Reborn Retail Site Fires Salvo in Shipping War
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=61586
With gas prices high and consumers stretching shopping dollars, competition is heating up online for deals -- and a discount retail site hopes to fan the flames by shipping orders for $1.95.
Chicago-based Enable Holdings Inc. plans to launch RedTag.com on Friday and sell retailers' excess inventory at a fixed price. Its shipping charge will undercut a similar site, Overstock.com Inc., which charges $2.95 for standard ground shipping.
"We're willing to take less for shipping because we think you'll buy five more items from us -- as opposed to if we got as much as we could from you, shipping this product, you may never buy again," said Enable Holdings' CEO, Jeffrey D. Hoffman.
The site is coming online a few months after gas hit $4 per gallon, a milestone that caused many consumers to see buying online as a way to make fewer car trips, said Scott Silverman, executive director of the National Retail Federation's digital division, Shop.org.
Even though fuel prices have come down, he thinks the habits consumers have adopted to save gas are still in place. Cheap or free shipping could be another way to keep them shopping on the Web.
This launch marks a revival of RedTag.com, which shuttered in 2004. Enable Holdings, which runs uBid.com, an auction site for excess inventory, bought the RedTag Internet address this spring from one of its major shareholders.
RedTag is selling items it gets mainly from retailers that have gone out of business, or manufacturers that have produced more of a product than was sold. Sometimes companies want to get an older model -- a laptop, for example -- off store shelves to make room for a new one.
By selling such excess goods, a site like RedTag has more flexibility than regular retailers in negotiating with manufacturers on the final price of a product,...
Fri, 29 Aug 08
Steve Jobs' Death Greatly Exaggerated -- But Is He Well?
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=61610
In a stunning example of a journalistic screwup, financial news wire service Bloomberg published Steve Jobs' obituary Wednesday. The Apple cofounder and CEO is very much alive.
It's common procedure for news organizations to pre-write obituaries for politicians, sports figures and titans of business, but the premature release of Jobs' obituary is stunning because Jobs has been struggling with pancreatic cancer.
Bloomberg quickly issued a retraction, which neglected to note the seriousness of the blunder or even that the story was about Jobs. The retraction said in its entirety: "An incomplete story referencing Apple Inc. was inadvertently published by Bloomberg News at 4:27 p.m. New York time today. The item was never meant for publication and has been retracted."
The Gawker blog, which originally reported the mistake, noted that, "Jobs' battle with pancreatic cancer, and speculation over his health, jarred Wall Street earlier this year and continues to be the subject of speculation."
Jobs' only public discussion of the subject came in a 2004 commencement address at Stanford, where he said, "No one wants to die. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it."
He told the graduates that he had been diagnosed with a tumor on his pancreas and that his doctors gave him six months to live. Later that day, a biopsy revealed he had a rare form of cancer treatable with surgery. "I had the surgery and I'm fine now," Jobs told his audience, adding, "Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose."
But a New York Times column in July revealed that Jobs had been diagnosed with the cancer nine months before he had the surgery, and that he had been hoping to cure himself with...
Fri, 29 Aug 08
Facing Extradition, British Hacker Makes Last Stand
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=61609
After eight years of litigation, accused British hacker Gary McKinnon is set to be extradited to the United States to stand trial.
Shortly after the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, computer break-ins at more than 90 U.S. military and governmental agencies caused severe security compromises and data destruction. In 2002, U.S. investigators reportedly tracked the software used for the attacks to an e-mail account belong to McKinnon's girlfriend. Since that time, the United States has sought McKinnon's extradition.
On Thursday, the European Court of Human Rights -- where appeals had escalated the case -- finally gave the OK to send McKinnon to the United States. But in what some see as a last-ditch effort to keep McKinnon on British soil, reports are circulating that the 42-year-old has just been diagnosed with Aspberger's syndrome. Aspberger's is often described as a form of high-functioning autism. In itself, this diagnosis wouldn't prevent his trial in the United States, but British law may see things differently.
McKinnon has already admitted publicly that he broke into U.S. government computer systems, but he maintains he did no damage. Justice Department officials charge, however, that he compromised and deleted records at a key naval-operations center in New Jersey and repeatedly crashed systems belonging to NASA and the Pentagon. McKinnon claims he was snooping for evidence of a UFO cover-up by the U.S. government.
Allegedly, McKinnon posted the following message on a military computer system during his months-long spree: "U.S. foreign policy is akin to government-sponsored terrorism these days ... It was not a mistake that there was a huge security stand down on September 11 last year ... I am SOLO. I will continue to disrupt at the highest levels."
McKinnon and his lawyers rejected several plea offers by the...
Fri, 29 Aug 08
'iPhone Girl' Photos Shines Light on Worker Conditions
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=61608
An unnamed girl employed by the Shenzhen plant in China, operated by subcontractor Foxconn Technology Group, has become popular overnight after photos of her appeared on an iPhone customer's device.
A British customer reportedly turned on his iPhone last week to find photos of a plant worker posing and making the peace sign. The user posted the photos and this note on the Web: "Not sure if this is or is not the 'norm,' but I just received my brand new iPhone here in the UK and once it had been activated on iTunes I found that the home screen (the screen you can personalize with a photo) already had a photo set against it !!!! It would appear that someone on the production line was having a bit of fun -- has anyone else found this?"
A spokesperson for Foxconn said it was a "beautiful mistake," according to published reports. Some, however, believe it was a publicity stunt to show a happy worker in a clean factory environment after a 2006 investigation by a British newspaper said the plant forced employees to work 15-hour days and live in overcrowded dormitories while earning just more than US$49 a month.
After the British paper's report, Apple sent its own team of auditors to China to conduct random employee interviews, view living conditions, and dispel any allegations of mistreatment, child labor, or substandard living conditions.
In August 2006, Apple released a report of its findings, admitting it found some mistreatment of workers that violated its zero-tolerance labor policy and its supplier code of conduct. That code specifically states that "suppliers may not use any form of forced, bonded, indentured or prison labor," and "all work must be voluntary."
Apple's audit also found that employees were working long hours.
"We found no instances of forced...
Fri, 29 Aug 08
Sprint Will Launch 4G WiMAX with Localized Features
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=61607
In advance of its WiMAX rollout this fall, Sprint announced Thursday a lineup of mobile partners to localize its customer's 4G experience. In what the company calls "geobrowsing," XOHM users will get local news, weather and many other localized networking features delivered to their laptops and mobile devices.
The WiMAX service is expected to kick off in Baltimore in September, with Chicago and Washington, D.C., to follow before the end of the year.
GPS in the XOHM system continually updates the user's position and feeds it to back-end applications. This feature is added by California-based Open Wave. Using uLocate as the foundation for the service, Sprint has tested and implemented a number of applications before rollout.
The partnership between Sprint and uLocate includes building the entire XOHM localized experience, with APIs provided to third-party developers for their applications. Some big names will be part of the launch.
Yelp will provide local business news all the way through local restaurant reviews. Eventful service will not only list events for XOHM users but will also map the locations. NAVTEQ will stream up-to-the-minute local traffic information, while Google will serve up localized searching and map features.
John Polivka, spokesperson at Sprint, explained the difference between the XOHM user experience and using the Internet. "With Internet access you could go to each vendor now as a separate interaction; but with XOHM, the services are aggregated into a service package that correlates them due to the intelligence in the network; for example, plotting friend locations on a map, identifying a restaurant or entertainment venue from local search, and sharing plans to convene with the benefit of weather, traffic or ticket-purchase convenience."
XOHM users will have standard Internet as well. Polivka noted that there is no charge for third-party developers to become part of the program, but there would be...
Fri, 29 Aug 08
New Beta of Internet Explorer 8 Ready for Download
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=61606
The second beta release of Internet Explorer 8 is now available for download by developers and consumers alike on Windows-based PCs running Vista, XP, Server 2003 and Server 2008.
Microsoft's next-generation browser for 32-bit and 64-bit computing platforms is currently available in English, Japanese, Chinese and German, with additional languages coming soon, said Dean Hachamovitch, general manager of Microsoft's IE8 development team.
"While Beta 1 was for developers, we think that anyone who browses or works on the Web will enjoy IE8 Beta 2," Hachamovitch said.
Suggested Sites is one good example of the IE8 development team's commitment to streamlining Web navigation. Click on the Suggested Sites button on the toolbar to see the top recommendations, based on choices made by online users visiting the same page.
In addition, the browser's new address bar is no longer just for URLs. Simply type a keyword into IE8's new "smart" address bar and the browser immediately searches across a user's history, favorites and RSS feeds to identify all the resources accessed during past online sessions. Users also can hit the return key after inputting a word to tell the browser to display the results of a Windows Live search.
Moreover, IE8's Web Slices capability gives users the ability to subscribe, view and interact with portions of their favorite Web sites with a single click on the Favorites bar.
"We looked very hard at how people really browse the Web," Hachamovitch said, "and tried a lot of different designs in front of many kinds of people, not just technologists."
Much like the Mozilla Labs new Ubiquity plug-in for Firefox 3, IE8's Accelerators option makes it easy for users to launch a variety of online services without leaving the page currently being displayed. Simply highlight any text on a page and right-click on...
Fri, 29 Aug 08
Nvidia, Intel End Standoff as SLI Added To X58 Chipset
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=61605
In a move to boost both companies, Nvidia announced it will provide native Scalable Link Interface support on Intel's X58 chipset, which is due in the fourth quarter. Nvidia's nForce 200 SLI architecture aggregates multiple graphics cards in separate PCI slots and runs them as one card for greater performance.
"Intel and Nvidia have finally come to their senses," said analyst Jon Peddie of JPR, a leading GPU, multimedia and gaming analysis group in Tiburon, CA. The two companies have been in a standoff.
Until now, Nvidia has held all the cards in the SLI game, dealing out licenses for its chipset to motherboard manufacturers such as Gigatrend and aBit. Since many board makers rely heavily on gaming enthusiasts -- a market where Nvidia's GForce GPUs are a top player -- they bought Nvidia's chipsets by the bucket load, despite reports that competing chipsets had no technical limits with Nvidia's multi-GPU cards.
However, heat issues, motherboard elbow room, and the cost of the nForce 200 gave some board makers pause, according to reports. Some industry insiders even speculated that Nvidia would get out of the chipset market entirely.
Not so, said Peddie and sources at Nvidia. "They will have some chipset announcements in October," he said. Nonetheless, this announcement by Nvidia pretty much underscores that the nForce 200 had very little proprietary technology other than helping to create a licensing market for Nvidia's SLI.
Others believe the chipset market is ripe for a shake-up. In an interview with Custom PC earlier this month, chipset maker VIA Technologies admitted the business is being swallowed up by Intel and AMD.
Richard Brown, VIA's vice president of marketing, said the Taiwan-based company, once the leader in CPU support chips, is moving into the X86 market instead.
Virtually any well-designed chipset, including Intel's X58, can...
Fri, 29 Aug 08
Passcode Vulnerability Returns in iPhone Updates
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=61604
Apple's publicity nightmare keeps growing worse. The latest twist is more serious than dropped calls or lost e-mail -- it's a security flaw in the iPhone that could dial up trouble for users.
The flaw isn't a new issue. Apple first addressed what is known as the passcode flaw last January. The fix prevented unauthorized users from circumventing the password-protected locking feature in an early version of the software. But the problem has reemerged in new versions of the iPhone software.
The flaw apparently allows attackers to bypass the passcode locking feature by touching "Emergency Call" on the password-entry screen and then double-tapping the Home button. An attacker would then have access to the iPhone users' frequently called contacts list, which includes both addresses and phone numbers.
An attacker could also use the breach to access the iPhone's e-mail application and gain access to e-mail addresses or Web sites, as well as the user's Safari browser. The flaw is reportedly present in iPhone software versions 2.0 and 2.0.2. The issue also affects the iPod touch.
It appears that the security update Apple issued for iPhone 1.1.3 in January didn't make it into later versions of the handset's software. That January update offered three security patches for several vulnerabilities.
Besides the passcode, other issues included a memory-corruption issue in Safari's handling of URLs and a WebKit that allowed a page to navigate the subframes of any other page. There is no evidence that the latest versions of the iPhone's software continue to have these two issues. Apple could not immediately be reached for comment, but offered this explanation of the passcode flaw in January:
"The Passcode Lock feature is designed to prevent applications from being launched unless the correct passcode is entered. An implementation issue in the handling of emergency calls allows users...
Fri, 29 Aug 08
YouTube Cheers Dismissal of Veoh Copyright Suit
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=61580
In a ruling that could have implications for Viacom's $1.65 billion lawsuit against YouTube, a California federal court on Wednesday dismissed a copyright-infringement lawsuit against online video-sharing site Veoh Networks.
IO Group, an adult entertainment company, had sued Veoh, alleging the site was displaying its content in violation of copyright laws. Veoh had uploaded IO Group's content without permission.
However, Judge Howard Lloyd of the U.S. District Court in San Jose disagreed with IO Group's argument. The judge ruled that Veoh is protected by the safe-harbor provision in the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. That provision protects against copyright infringement if action is taken after notification of a copyright violation.
"Veoh has a strong DMCA policy, takes active steps to limit incidents of infringement on its Web site and works diligently to keep unauthorized works off its site," Judge Lloyd wrote in his decision.
Google-owned YouTube was quick to praise the decision. YouTube Chief Counsel Zahavah Levine applauded the court for confirming that the DMCA protects services like YouTube that follow the law and respect copyrights. Zahavah then reiterated Google's oft-repeated statement:
"YouTube has gone above and beyond the law to protect content owners while empowering people to communicate and share their experiences online.
"We work every day to give content owners choices about whether to take down, leave up, or even earn revenue from their videos, and we are developing state-of-the-art tools to let them do that even better."
Viacom could not immediately be reached for comment.
Viacom filed a suit against Google in 2006 in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York. Viacom called YouTube a "significant, for-profit organization that has built a lucrative business out of exploiting the devotion of fans to others' creative works in order to enrich itself and its corporate parent, Google."
Google might...
Fri, 29 Aug 08
Dell Unveils New PCs Targeting Emerging Markets
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=61567
Dell Inc. unveiled four low-cost computer models for China, India and other emerging economies Wednesday in a new bid to tap the potential of high-growth markets outside the United States.
The two notebook and two desktop PCs are the first Dell models designed especially for emerging markets, said Steve Felice, the U.S. computer maker's president for the Asia-Pacific. They are meant for small-business users and are to be sold in 20 countries across Asia, Africa and Latin America.
Strong sales in Asia helped Dell turn in better-than-expected results in the last quarter despite a slowing U.S. economy. It is due to report its latest quarterly results after the U.S. markets close Thursday, and analysts are watching whether it can maintain its growth pace.
"Our success is going to be largely dependent on our ability to expand globally," Felice said in an interview.
Dell and rivals Hewlett-Packard Co., Taiwan-based Acer Inc. and China's Lenovo Group are expanding aggressively in emerging economies as sales growth in the United States and other developed markets slows.
Dell's first-quarter sales in China, India, Russia and Brazil -- markets known collectively as BRIC -- grew by 58 percent, about 10 times the U.S. rate, Felice said. He said Dell expects 20-30 percent annual growth in those markets in coming years.
Prices for the new Vostro notebooks will start at 3,299 yuan ($475) and for the desktop PCs at 2,999 yuan ($440).
Dell, based in Round Rock, Texas, broke with its usual development and marketing strategy for its latest products, Felice said.
"We used to design products for global requirements and distribute the same product globally," he said. "In this situation, we started with talking to emerging country customers, designing a product for emerging countries, and our initial launch of the product is only in emerging countries. That's a big departure in our strategy."
The new...
Fri, 29 Aug 08
Tech Startup Tackles Energy Use by Data Centers
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=61550
Data centers in the U.S. have created a carbon footprint that is larger than that of countries such as The Netherlands and Argentina. Internet companies such as Google are investing billions of dollars in setting up massive data centers and struggling to control soaring power usage. While Google may want its users to trawl thousands of terabytes of data and get their search results almost immediately, this activity gobbles up plenty of energy.
Here's the problem for companies such as Google: power usage by data centers accounts for around 2 percent of all the power supplied to the U.S. grid and 2-3 percent globally.
As companies struggle to balance their quest for greater computing capacity while controlling power use, they are turning to technology for answers. Virident, a California-based startup set up by a couple of IIT grads who also went to the same graduate school at University of Illinois, is looking to address this issue using by enhancing the memory capacity of servers using specially designed flash memory chips (commonly used in cell phones, for example) to increase the computing capability of servers.
Virident (derived from Viridus in Latin meaning green and dent meaning to make; literally to make green), was started by Kumar Ganapathy and Vijay Karamcheti, who blended their experience across the semiconductor industry and academia to set up this company.
Ganapathy was a Fellow with Rockwell Semiconductor before he set up his own start-up, VX Tel, which built voice over IP chipsets, and then worked with Artiman Ventures. Karamcheti worked with Google and spent the last 15 years working on parallelization techniques at New York University.
The duo has teamed up with an assortment of business acquaintances to set up Virident and embed these flash memory chips in data centers. As a first step, the company roped in Raj Parekh, a...
Fri, 29 Aug 08
Portable Storage Devices: Data on the Go
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=61546
"Location, location, location" is the mantra for real estate agents. And extra real estate is essential for high-volume video editors and post studios. So what if you want to take your real estate on the road? Some high-capacity portable storage systems for digital media assets -- including graphics, photos, and digital audio and video -- have been announced or released recently, bringing the ability to move large amounts of digital data easily, reliably, and conveniently.
LaCie, long known for its stylish storage devices, has just announced its biggest, littlest such device yet -- the Little Big Disk (LBG) Quadra.
With storage capacity up to 1 terabyte (TB) and transfer speeds of up to 110 megabytes per second (MB/sec) via eSATA or 80MB/sec over FireWire 800, the LBG is a terrific answer to the question, "How fast, and how much, storage do I need for professional content creation?"
There are already 500GB and 400GB (7,200 RPM) versions, so this new portable Little Big Disk really ups the ante with two 2.5" hard disks that work together in a built-in RAID 0 configuration. The unit also has one eSATA 3Gbits, two FireWire 800 (FireWire 400-compatible with included adapter), and one TJSB 2.0 interface, so it can work with cross-platform compatibility in almost any production environment.
In spite of the two disks inside, the unit is powered entirely by the FireWire interface. It has a proven heat sink design, developed by Neil Poulton, and it operates quietly, without a fan. It weighs in at a little more than 1.4 pounds, so it can be a very portable storage solution.
Fully plug-and-play with Mac OS X v10.5 Leopard (including Time Machine) and Windows Vista, the Little Big Disk Quadra comes preloaded with the LaCie Setup Assistant, a utility that optimizes the drive according to your needs (Mac, Windows, or...
Fri, 29 Aug 08
Big Disk-Drive Makers Look at SSD Technology
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=61542
Some big names have been sniffing around at Aliso Viejo's SiliconSystems Inc., a privately held maker of flash memory drives for industrial uses. Disk drive makers Scotts Valley-based Seagate Technology LLC and Lake Forest's Western Digital Corp. have been arranging chats with Chief Executive Michael Hajeck for some time now.
The big guys are looking to make sense of the market for solid state drives -- drives made of non-moving flash memory chips -- that are quickly replacing hard drives in high-end data storage networks, notebook computers and other industry-specific devices that can't break down.
Solid state drives made of flash memory are more durable, save power and are faster at some tasks than traditional disk drives.
Makers of electronics for data storage networks, including Costa Mesa's Emulex Corp., Aliso Viejo's QLogic Corp. and Milpitas' LSI Corp. are also looking into solid state drives.
"A week doesn't go by that we aren't contacted by someone in the storage industry," Hajeck said. "They are in the early stages of exploration and understanding who the players are in this market, how it will affect them, what's real, what's hype and when they'll need to get in."
Hajeck insists that his young company isn't for sale.
Networking gear makers Brocade Communications Systems Inc. of San Jose and NetApp Inc. of Sunnyvale are also said to be interested, according to Hajeck.
All the buzz "increases the size of the pie," for a time when he might make a move, he said.
Potential suitors might not only be after SiliconSystems' flash drives, according to Krishna Chander, a storage analyst at El Segundo-based market tracker iSuppli Corp. They may have set their sights on its controllers-interface chips that allow the drive to communicate with the brains of a device, he said.
"The hard drive companies understand the interface between a microprocessor in a PC and...
Thu, 28 Aug 08
Inventor of PDA Files More Suits, Now for Voice Mail
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=61578
Klausner Technologies, a patent-holding company, is at it again. The New York-based company said late Tuesday that it has filed a patent-infringement lawsuit against Verizon Wireless, LG Electronics, Google and a long list of others.
The lawsuit filed in the U.S. District Court of Texas said Verizon Wireless' visual voice mail and LG's Voyager phone infringe on Klausner's patent that covers the ability of a user to view and retrieve voice mail via a menu.
"We anticipated Klausner's action," Robin Nicol, a Verizon Wireless spokesperson, told us in an interview. "We filed a declaratory judgment action in New York federal court on Aug. 13. We are seeking a declaration that Klausner's visual voice mail patent is invalid and that Verizon's system does not infringe the patent in any event."
Citrix Systems Inc., Cox Communications, Comverse Technologies, Embarq Communications, RingCentral, Phone Fusion and Grand Central, purchased in June 2007 by Google, are also named in the lawsuit.
The company is known for its lawsuits against other tech giants for infringement, including AT&T, Apple, Skype, Comcast, Simulscribe and Cablevision. Skype's Voicemail, Cablevision's Optimum Voicemail, and Comcast's Digital Voice all violate Klausner's IP rights, it says.
Klausner sought $360 million in damages from Apple, claiming the inbox display featuring the ability for a user to retrieve voice mail on the iPhone infringed on Klausner's patent. The inventor also sought $300 million from each of the other companies listed in the suit.
Time Warner AOL, however, was the first to be sued by Klausner, for $200 million. Since the 2006 lawsuit, AOL has settled and is currently a licensee of Klausner's patent.
To date, all of the companies have settled accept Cablevision, according to a company spokesperson. Sprint was the only company to proactively license technology from the company and avoid litigation, said the spokesperson.
Judah Klausner, the inventor of...
Thu, 28 Aug 08
Firefox Plug-In Simplifies Interactions with Web Pages
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=61577
Mozilla Labs has rolled out an experimental Firefox plug-in that promises to streamline the way Web surfers manage the mountains of information online. Called Ubiquity, the proof-of-concept prototype is an experiment with two parts -- it's both an interface and a development platform, notes the plug-in's developer, Aza Raskin.
"Ubiquity 0.1 focuses on the platform aspects while beginning to explore language-driven methods of controlling the browser," Raskin said.
The main goal of Ubiquity is to simplify the time-consuming interactions that Web surfers typically perform on the Internet today, Raskin said. "It's even worse on mobile devices, where limited capability and fidelity makes this onerous or nearly impossible," he added.
Browser users now must use cut and paste along with a separate Web site such as Babel Fish to translate foreign-language content on the Web. With Ubiquity, however, users simply highlight the text they wish to translate, then right-click to open a menu of commands that includes the "translate" option. The text is then automatically converted into English and inserted right onto the original Web page.
The same technique can be used to initiate a wide range of other commands, such as defining an unfamiliar word or technical term, access weather information, or even Twitter friends with the latest news. Moreover, Web developers eventually will be able to build customized Ubiquity commands to which online visitors can subscribe.
Ubiquity also features a separate command-line box that opens in the upper left-hand corner of any Web page whenever a user presses the Ctrl and spacebar keys simultaneously. The command line, Raskin said, empowers users to control browsers with language-based instructions.
"Let's say you're arranging to meet up with a friend at a restaurant and you want to include a map in the e-mail," Rankin said. "Today, this involves the disjointed tasks of message...
Thu, 28 Aug 08
Nvidia Sees Smartphones as a Second PC Revolution.
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=61576
It will come as no surprise that Nvidia CEO and cofounder Jen-Hsun Huang believes in the future of graphics processing. As he pointed out in a two-and-a-half hour presentation at the Nvision 2008 conference, today's GPUs have the equivalent of 1,000 times the processing power of a Cray supercomputer from 30 years ago.
What's less obvious is that Huang also sees Nvidia's future in smartphones.
"Few technologies have made the leaps that the GPU has over the past 10 years. Years ago, the GPU was really just an accelerator, an application-specific integrated circuit. Now it's a general-purpose parallel computing processor," Huang said in his keynote.
But smartphones, he added, are no less than a "second personal computing revolution." Huang said when it comes to smartphones, Nvidia is "completely focused on Windows Mobile 7."
"Focusing on smartphones. That's our strategy," he said.
The overarching goal of Nvidia's smartphone strategy will be to set on its ear the current assumption that the devices are phones first, computers second. Apple's iPhone and iPod touch -- with full Web browser and third-party applications sold via the App Store -- have made it clear to most observers that there's a market for what are essentially mobile computers that happen to have phones built in (or not, in the case of the iPod touch.)
With cell-phone penetration clearly peaking, the opportunity is to put more computing functions in consumers' pockets. And that's where Nvidia steps in.
Toward that end, Nvidia is working to optimize its chips for VIA, a Taiwanese maker of low-power chips, and its new CPU called Nano. "We're excited about VIA; we're optimizing our entire software stack for Nano," the Nvidia boss said.
As Nvidia's fortunes have risen and those of Intel's chief rival, AMD -- which appears to have choked on its $5.4...
Thu, 28 Aug 08
Apple's 'Misleading' iTunes Ad Banned in the UK
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=61575
There's more trouble for the iPhone. The United Kingdom's Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) has banished an iPhone ad because it deems the content misleading.
The ad shows the iPhone in someone's hand and a finger switching it on. The menu page pops up, and the finger touches the weather icon to show the forecast for Cape Town. The finger then navigates through a Heathrow Airport area map, a Safari icon, hotels and a stock market Web page. The iPhone rings, and the hand is shown answering it.
The ad's voice-over says, "You never know which part of the Internet you'll need. The do-you-need-sun-cream part? The what's-the-quickest-way-to-the-airport part? The what-about-an-ocean-view-room part? Or the can-you-really-afford-this part? Which is why all the parts of the Internet are on the iPhone."
According to the ASA, two viewers complained that the iPhone ad was misleading because the device does not support Flash or Java, both of which are key to viewing many Web pages. The ASA ruled in favor of the viewers.
The ASA noted in its ruling that Java and Flash proprietary software was not enabled on the iPhone, so users could not access certain features on some Web sites or view Web sites that relied solely on Flash or Java.
"We noted Apple's argument that the ad was about site availability rather than technical detail, but considered that the claims 'You'll never know which part of the Internet you'll need' and 'all parts of the Internet are on the iPhone' implied users would be able to access all Web sites and see them in their entirety," the ASA said in its ruling.
"We considered that, because the ad had not explained the limitations, viewers were likely to expect to be able to see all the content on a Web site normally accessible...
Thu, 28 Aug 08
Enterprises Likely To Turn Off IE8 'Porn Mode'
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=61574
Anyone perusing porn sites at home will appreciate Microsoft's latest efforts at browser privacy, but it's not clear it will do much for the enterprise. Internet Explorer product manager Andrew Ziegler discussed the new privacy features of IE8, currently in its second beta, in an extensive blog post Monday. Users of the new software will be able to turn on Microsoft's InPrivate Browsing and Blocking features.
When what many observers are calling "porn mode" is turned on, IE8 doesn't store history, cookies, form data, passwords, URLs, search queries or visited links.
Ziegler suggested the need for such privacy is completely on the up-and-up. "Maybe you need to buy a gift for a loved one without ruining the surprise," he wrote. "Maybe you're at an Internet kiosk and don't want the next person using it to know at which Web site you bank."
While the problem of clearing sensitive passwords on public machines is real, observers say the hands-down, number-one reason most people would want to clear history, URLs and search queries is to erase signs of pornography viewing. "The most likely situation is the obvious one. Nudge nudge, wink wink, say no more," said Ars Technica. "Microsoft dishes dirt on IE8 'prOn mode,'" British Web site the Register smirked.
People can do what they want at home, but enterprises need to know where people are surfing at work. Porn surfing can expose a corporation to liability for sexual harassment, and managers obviously need to know employees are working.
"The enterprise is more concerned with keeping user information guarded from untrusted Web sites than making sure your off-business Internet habits are kept secret," said Andrew Storms, director of security operations at nCircle Network Security, in an e-mail. "The features so far described by Microsoft seem to fall more squarely into the...
Thu, 28 Aug 08
Computer Virus Hitches Ride on Space Station
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=61573
Perhaps you've seen this movie: A virus infects a human-piloted spacecraft, and within days the mission is compromised and Earth is lost to the alien attackers. There's now a report that the first part of that storyline has come true -- only it's a computer virus on the International Space Station.
Space-oriented Web site SpaceRef.com has reported that a laptop aboard the International Space Station has become infected with a Level 0 virus, and on Tuesday the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) confirmed that a virus was carried aboard last month.
The governmental agency says the virus is a "nuisance," adding that it was on non-critical laptops that are used for relatively low-level functions like e-mail and experiments about nutrition.
NASA spokesman Kelly Humphries noted that the agency has previously had to deal with virus control as one of the threats in space, although specifics weren't given. "It's not a frequent occurrence," Humphries said, "but this isn't the first time."
While NASA didn't identify the virus, SpaceRef said it was one called W.32.Gammima.AG worm. This virus' claim to fame is that it tries to steal sensitive information, like credentials, from any of about a dozen online games, including ZhengTu, Wanmi Shije (Perfect World), HuangYi Online, Seal Online, Maple Story, Talesweaver, R2 (Reign of Revolution), and others. The games are popular in Asia.
The virus, which was first detected in 2007, was found on more than one laptop in the space station. No word on whether the infection was laptop-to-laptop, through an intranet or a USB drive, but the evidence points to a drive.
The mystery is how the virus managed to hitch an unpaid ride on the most expensive vehicle in or out of this world.
NASA's Humphries said that it was not clear which country had purchased the laptops, or...
Thu, 28 Aug 08
Mac Cloner Psystar Sues Apple Under Antitrust Laws
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=61572
Psystar, the plucky Mac cloner in Doral, Fla,, has thrown down the gauntlet and countersued Apple. At a small press conference in the office of Psystar's attorneys in Palo Alto, Calif., the lawyers said they have answered Apple's original lawsuit filed July 3 and upped the ante by filing one of their own in a Northern California federal court.
The countersuit filed Tuesday alleges that Apple is in violation of the Sherman and Clayton antitrust acts. In particular, Psystar contends that Apple, by tying its Mac OS X operating system to Apple hardware, creates restraint of trade.
Citing Microsoft and Linux as examples, Psystar attorney Colby Springer of the antitrust law firm of Carr and Ferrell said these OS providers have no such restrictions on hardware.
Psystar President Rudy Pedraza affirmed that his company believes Mac OS X is a great operating system, but customers shouldn't have to pay high hardware prices for what he termed "generic hardware." Psystar maintains it is giving customers a hardware alternative to Apple's Macintosh.
Psystar's OpenPro Mac-compatible computer retails for about $1,600, half the cost of a similarly equipped Mac, while its entry-level Open Computer lists on the company's Web site for about $550.
In its original lawsuit, Apple charged that Psystar was damaging its intellectual property in violation of the end-user license agreement (EULA) that states Mac OS X must be installed on Apple hardware only. Apple alleges that installation on unapproved hardware may cause problems and thereby diminish the reputation and worth of its operating system.
Apple's suit also says Psystar was selling modified versions of Mac OS X Leopard on its white-box clones. Both Springer and Pedraza denied that Psystar modified any portion of Apple's Mac OS X and underscored that every copy of Mac software sold is a legitimate license. Pedraza said all...
Thu, 28 Aug 08
iPhone News: Orange Caps 3G Speed; Security Flaw Seen
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=61571
The iPhone took hits on two fronts Wednesday as Orange -- an iPhone 3G carrier in France -- admitted to limiting 3G bandwidth for its customers, and a security flaw was discovered in the iPhone that enables unauthorized users to access private data on the phone when it is supposedly locked.
When 3G-bug rumors and substandard network performance on the iPhone prompted a groundswell of irate customers last week, forums overflowed with anecdotal tales of the 3G network's slow performance. One Internet forum began to collate users' data speeds to get some answers. After thousands of results were in, France's 3G carrier Orange came in consistently at the bottom of the performance heap.
Calls to the company by angry customers resulted in many of those consumers receiving special treatment by tech-savvy support folks, who upped their bandwidth. After online petitions and more calls to the company, Orange officials reluctantly admitted they had been throttling iPhone users to a paltry 384KB bandwidth. By comparison, neighboring German iPhone users are logging 1MB speeds, as posted in the forum.
In a statement released by Orange, the company admitted its bandwidth restrictions, and promised that it would up the speeds to 1MB by mid-September. No word on why customers have to wait that long to get full 3G service or whether they will see compensation on their bills.
The French Connection problems have fueled Internet rumors that AT&T may be rigging its 3G data speeds here in the United States, as more and more customers complain about substandard data rates.
Reports began surfacing today that the iPhone suffers from a serious security flaw that could put users' private data in jeopardy. Nearly all cell phones have the option of providing a lock code that prevents anyone from using the phone...
Thu, 28 Aug 08
Google Suggest Comes Late to Search-Assist Party
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=61559
It's a product four years in the making: Google Suggest debuted on Tuesday to help users formulate queries and get better results.
Google began developing the search-suggestion product in 2004. The feature started as a "20-percent project" (a Google philosophy that allows employees to spend one day a week working on something not in the regular job description). But now, the tool has expanded and is included on Google Labs, the Google Toolbar, the Firefox search box, Google Maps and Web Search for select countries, the iPhone and BlackBerry, YouTube, and now Google.com.
Google Suggest is officially available by default on the Google.com home page. Over the next week, the company plans to roll out the tool so that more and more searchers will start seeing a list of query suggestions when they start typing into the search box.
"Have you ever been stumped in finding the right words to search for? Back when I was planning my wedding, I had a list of wedding songs in mind, but the problem was that I couldn't remember any of the artist names or song titles," Jennifer Liu, a Google product manager, wrote on the company's blog.
Liu tells the story of how she started typing into the Google search box parts of the lyrics that she did remember, and saw suggestions with the artist name and song titles that she wanted. "We find that by providing suggestions up-front, we can help people search more efficiently and conveniently," she wrote.
Liu outlined three key benefits of Google Suggest: help formulate queries, reduce spelling errors, and save keystrokes.
Google Suggest helps users formulate more precise queries that yield more accurate results. So, instead of just typing "hotels in Florida," the technology will ask you a "Did you mean?" question that encourages you to select a...
Thu, 28 Aug 08
Immersion and Microsoft End Six-Year Court Battle
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=61558
After more than six years of disputes and battles between Immersion and Microsoft, the companies are waving white flags. After suing Microsoft for patent infringement on Xbox controller technology and winning, and then suing again for breach of a confidentiality agreement, Immersion will now pay Microsoft $20.75 million of the $26 million it received in a previous settlement.
The resolution gives Microsoft the one-time payment and makes Immersion part of Microsoft's Partner Program, according to Immersion. "We are pleased to resolve our outstanding dispute with Microsoft and to put this litigation behind us," said Client Richardson, Immersion president and CEO.
In February 2002 Immersion, the developer and licensor of haptic feedback technology, filed a patent-infringement lawsuit against Microsoft and Sony in U.S. District Court in California. Immersion said Microsoft and Sony's use of haptic technology in the Microsoft Xbox and Sony PlayStation systems and controllers infringed on its TouchSense technology.
Haptic technology gives users touch sensations from a game controller. Immersion has been focused on haptic-based products since 1993, according to Immersion, and held more than 150 patents worldwide as of 2002. Today, the company has more than 400 filed and pending patents.
Bob O'Malley, the then-chief executive of Immersion, said Immersion had exhausted its attempts to settle infringement issues with Microsoft before filing suit to protect its intellectual property.
Microsoft agreed to settle and paid $35 million to Immersion ($26 million of which was settlement costs) in return for licensing rights and equity.
The two companies also agreed that in the event that Immersion settled with Sony, it would pay Microsoft a minimum of $15 million for any amount received from Sony up to $100 million, plus 25 percent of any amount over $100 million up to $150 million.
Four years later, Sony settled its patent-infringement lawsuit with Immersion after...
Thu, 28 Aug 08
Nokia Unveils Smartphone 'Multimedia Computers'
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=61557
Nokia has taken the wraps off two new smartphones in its N series -- the N79 and the N85. Both phones further blur the distinction between a phone and a computer, a blending that Nokia is encouraging by describing each of them as a "multimedia computer."
The N79 features integrated navigation, 3.5G HSDPA and Wi-Fi connectivity, music with a built-in FM transmitter, Web browsing, built-in GPS, a five-megapixel camera with Carl Zeiss optics and dual LED flash, and a 4GB microSD card. Video can be edited right in the camera, and images can be geotagged to reference specific locations. The FM transmitter allows the music on the device to be heard on a car radio. It will begin shipping in October.
Juha Kukkohen, director of the N series, said the new model "packs cutting-edge technology into a compact design," as do others in this line. He noted that it comes with "interchangeable covers that have automatically matching screen themes." Those XPress-on "smart covers" have five possible colors -- Light Sea Blue, Expresso Brown, Olive Green, White and Coral Red -- and three come with each N79.
The Finnish company said the N85 sets "new standards for mobile entertainment, gaming and sharing." It features a 2.6-inch OLED screen, N-Gage gaming, music with a built-in FM transmitter, a five-megapixel camera with Zeiss optics, 30-frames-per second video, geotagging, high-speed connectivity, GPS and a three-month license to turn-by-turn voice directions. It also is expected to ship in October.
Nokia said the N85 is a "complete entertainment package designed for connecting, sharing and discovery," noting that the "iconic" Nokia N-series dual slider design has become smaller and sleeker.
The N85 comes preloaded with "at least" 10 made-for-mobile N-gage gaming titles, plus a voucher to activate one full game. Gaming keys light up...
Thu, 28 Aug 08
Online Olympic Games Audience Unprecedented
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=61538
Steve Ferguson woke up early on Friday -- 3 a.m. to be exact -- to watch his stepdaughter Margaux Isaksen, a 16-year-old Olympian, complete a grueling 11-hour performance in the modern pentathlon.
Ferguson did not watch Margaux compete in person. From his home in Fayetteville, Arkansas, he watched a live stream of her sport on NBCOlympics.com, where 2,200 live hours of the Summer Olympics were shown for Internet users.
The ratings for NBC's television coverage of the Games were record-breaking this month. But the extent to which the Internet served as a supplement to television was unprecedented, and there were two clear winners: NBC's own Web site and Yahoo's Olympics section.
Benefiting from the growth in broadband Internet access, NBCOlympics.com served up more than 1.2 billion pages and 72 million video streams through Saturday, more than doubling the combined traffic to its site during the 2004 Games in Athens and the 2006 Games in Turin. The popularity of the site will very likely make digital rights more significant in next year's bidding for the 2014 and 2016 Games.
As this Olympics demonstrated, the Internet turns the action into a digital version of the "Choose Your Own Adventure" children's books, where every sport can receive its time in the spotlight. Enjoy cycling? NBC had 90 videos of the competitions by Sunday. Prefer softball? Yahoo had 186 photos.
The Internet is "allowing people to create their own broader Olympics experience," said Jon Gibs, the vice president for media analytics at Nielsen Online.
During previous pentathlons, Ferguson would sometimes have to wait until a Wednesday to see Margaux's performances from the prior weekend.
"It's really nice to have this available," he said of the streaming video, even though his connection at home was somewhat slow.
NBC, as the holder of U.S. rights to the Olympics, was the sole source for online...
Thu, 28 Aug 08
VoIP Invades the Mobile-Phone Service Market
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=61534
Scott Goldman uses his mobile phone to call friends and business contacts all over the world, from Britain to Australia. But the Southern California-based consultant doesn't pay a dime in international tolls to his mobile-phone carrier, AT&T, the biggest in the U.S.
Instead, Goldman places the international portion of the calls -- roughly 100 minutes a month -- through a service called Gorilla Mobile that relies on Internet-based technology to route wireless calls virtually toll-free. Goldman, a user of Apple's iPhone, estimates that he saves hundreds of dollars a year with Gorilla's service. He stands to cut wireless bills even more by signing up for another, iCall, that's due for the iPhone in the coming weeks. The service will let him place low-priced calls from Wi-Fi hotspots -- bypassing the AT&T network altogether. "Once I can make calls using the Wi-Fi network, I will, in all likelihood, reduce the monthly minutes I have [with AT&T,]," Goldman says.
Gorilla, iCall, and a growing number of other services rely on what's known as Voice over Internet Protocol technology that delivers speech via the Internet in much the same way as e-mail. VoIP calling is already raising a ruckus in telecommunications, putting pressure on the price of land-line calling and luring subscribers toward upstarts like Vonage and Comcast away from incumbents such as AT&T, and Verizon. Now, the technology threatens to erode sales for mobile-phone service providers too.
By 2011 the number of mobile VoIP users around the world may rise to 100 million from 7 million in 2007, according to ON World, a consulting firm based in San Diego. ON World estimates that in 2011, mobile VoIP voice services may generate $33.7 billion, up from $516 million in 2006, the most recent year for which the figure is available. If that sounds...
Wed, 27 Aug 08
Nvidia Challenges Intel, Others in Smartphone Chips
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=61556
Nvidia Corp., a 5,000-employee company known for its graphics processing units, is gearing up for battle against giant chipmaker Intel. During the first day of the Nvision 2008 conference Monday, Nvidia CEO Jen-Hsuan Huang said his Santa Clara, Calif.-based company plans to focus on the smartphone market.
He added that he expects smartphones to become the next personal computer and noted that today's smartphones are focused on the phone first and computing second. He said it should be the opposite.
On one side of the ring is Nvidia's Tegra, a graphics system on a chip. In the other corner is Intel's Atom, the smallest mobile-device processor.
Bill Henry, general manager of Nvidia's mobile Internet devices division, said Tegra, which has one-tenth the power consumption of the Atom, is at the heart of an experience that gives users the better battery life of a cell phone, the graphical environment of a computer, and Internet browsing capabilities.
Nvidia has been working with Taiwan-based Via Technologies, maker of the Nano central-processing unit, on other products that are notebook-focused.
Asked if Nvidia plans to partner with Via in the smartphone market, Henry said, "We have a solution all our own and don't need other components." From a smartphone perspective, he said, the Tegra has everything it needs.
Henry added that he sees a lot of opportunity in mobile Internet devices, calling Tegra a big move forward in computing.
"One of the demos we did (while in Taipei, Taiwan), is compare our Tegra that uses one watt versus the Atom-based Netbook that was using over 13 watts," Henry said from the Nvision 2008 floor. "When you are trying to make something mobile, you have to make things small. Everything is integrated into one chip."
With Intel's chip there are different components doing different jobs, according...
Wed, 27 Aug 08
Next Firefox Update To Feature Dramatic Speed Boost
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=61554
The Mozilla Foundation is on the verge of adopting a new software-programming technique that promises to dramatically improve the speeds at which browsers interact with the Web. The first step, the nonprofit organization said, will be to optimize the way that JavaScript runs in Firefox 3.1 -- the next incremental update to Mozilla's popular open-source browser.
Originally developed by Netscape and currently maintained by Mozilla, JavaScript is a powerful cross-platform scripting language that is already used in millions of Web pages and server applications worldwide. Moreover, the scripting language's deployment in Internet applications such as Firefox is driven by an embeddable JavaScript engine that Mozilla calls SpiderMonkey.
Earlier this summer, Mozilla engineers launched a new project called TraceMonkey that promises to revolutionize Web-browser performance, noted Mike Shaver, Mozilla's vice president of engineering.
"Based on a technique developed at UC Irvine called 'trace trees,'" Shaver said, "a few of us have spent the last two months -- and most of the last few nights -- teaching SpiderMonkey some exciting new tricks."
University of California researchers have succeeded in building a compiler featuring the ability to dynamically detect frequently executed byte-code instructions and then generate code on the fly for exactly these hot code paths, called "traces."
"Tracing follows only the hot paths, and builds a trace-tree cache," noted Mozilla CTO Brendan Eich. Given that "cold code never gets traced," memory bloat is avoided, he explained.
The early results from Mozilla's ongoing TraceMonkey project -- which adds native code compilation to the organization's SpiderMonkey engine -- takes JavaScript performance to "another level, where instead of competing against other interpreters, we start to compete against native code," Shaver said. "Even with this very, very early version, we're already seeing some promising results."
TraceMonkey employs a new kind of just-in-time compiler to boost JavaScript performance by...
Wed, 27 Aug 08
Adobe Photoshop Elements Goes Online and Mobile
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=61553
Adobe Systems has announced major updates to its Photoshop Elements suite of video- and photo-editing software, including online sharing and mobile-phone options. In beta now, the software is expected to be on retail shelves in early October.
Photoshop Premiere Elements 7 adds significant features to video editing, while Photoshop Elements 7 incorporates major enhancements to the photo-editing program. Mobile features cover only a limited number of phones.
Have too many grumpy-looking locals in the background of your shot of the Eiffel Tower? Elements 7 promises you can "scrub" unwanted elements from pictures with its new Scene Cleaner feature. Quick Fix tools whiten teeth, enhance colors, and soften details, among other things. A powerful new Smart Brush allows users to assign repetitive tasks to the brush tool, then use it on multiple sections of a photo, like removing wrinkles.
The Premiere video suite gained a few IQ points with a new analysis mode that scans video files for picture quality, number of faces and sound levels, and applies Smart Tags as placeholders for what the software believes are the best clips. If you agree, you can just click a button to assemble a finished movie.
InstantMovie is a quick way to assemble a themed video. Dragging and dropping clips into a theme, such as Birthday, will add appropriate music, transitions and graphics. Green-screen technology has a Videomerge feature to superimpose you and the family going for a stroll on the moon, for example. Version 7 now outputs to DVD, Blu-ray and the AVCHD high-definition tapeless file format, and it supports instant uploads to phones and YouTube accounts.
To compete with online sites such as Flickr, Adobe announced an enhanced online service for Photoshop Elements customers called Photoshop.com. A basic subscription with 5GB of storage is available free for storing and...
Wed, 27 Aug 08
AT&T Lowers 3G International Roaming Rates
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=61552
Perhaps it was the resounding howls of pain from AT&T international business travelers when they opened their monthly 3G phone bills, or a fit of corporate generosity, but AT&T unveiled new international roaming data plans on Tuesday. While still pricey, they cut the cost of iPhone Web surfing overseas a great deal over previous rates. The new rates to into effect as of Wednesday, for the asking.
AT&T's new data-roaming rates come not a billable minute too soon for some customers. Past rates for roaming came in at roughly $40 for 2MB of data -- not hard to do when you hit YouTube or a Facebook photo gallery.
"AT&T has worked diligently to provide affordable options for international roaming because the feature-rich mobile experience of [the] iPhone is indispensable to users," said Bill Hague, AT&T wireless operations international executive vice president. "With these new international data plans, iPhone users can access more data in more countries for less cost."
Less cost equates to either $119 or $199 per month. The $119 plan gets you 100MB of data, while the $199 plan doubles your data to 200MB. The per-month packages can be added and deleted at will, with no penalty, giving international callers a great pay-as-you-travel option when planning overseas trips.
To that end, AT&T also announced a travel site (www.wireless.att.com/travelguide) to help customers decide on rate plans according to their itinerary. The roaming-rate packages cover more than 67 countries worldwide, including Japan and South Korea. Countries off the rate-plan list -- including Venezuela and the United Arab Emirates -- are charged at the standard $0.0195/KB rate.
M
Asked if AT&T intends to add to the list of countries covered on the new data-plan list, Jenny Parker, spokesperson at AT&T, said, "We're always looking to find ways to...
Wed, 27 Aug 08
BlueAnt's Bluetooth Headset Takes Your Voice Commands
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=61551
In a move to set itself apart from the flood of Bluetooth headsets on the market, BlueAnt Wireless on Tuesday introduced the BlueAnt V1 headset.
The BlueAnt V1 is the only fully voice-controlled Bluetooth headset. The headset is powered by Sensory Inc.'s BlueGenie Voice Interface and BlueAnt's voice-isolation technology. The headset aims to change the way consumers interact with technology by providing a new spin on hands-free calling. The device retails for $130.
"The intuitive voice interface not only appeals to technology power users, but also first-time Bluetooth headset users looking for a simple yet effective hands-free solution," said Taisen Maddern, BlueAnt's CEO.
The new headset taps Sensory's BlueGenie Voice Interface technology to let users control their headset with voice commands rather than pressing multiple buttons or even looking at the phone. Other headsets do support voice-dial capabilities through a mobile phone's voice features, but the BlueAnt device embeds voice technology into the headset itself rather than relying on the handset's functionality.
In addition to voice-dial capabilities, the V1 also lets users control all headset features such as pairing, volume and connection status by voice command. For example, the user would issue commands such as, "Pair Me," "Redial," "Call Back," "Answer/Ignore Call," and "Call GOOG-411."
Users who aren't sure what commands the voice-activated headset will respond to can ask the question: "What can I say?" and the headset will verbally list all features available on the device. Users new to voice technology or to Bluetooth headsets can also say "teach me," and the device will talk users through its functions.
"The BlueAnt product is very nice. In a market that's quickly becoming commoditized, it's difficult for Bluetooth headset manufacturers to distinguish themselves," said Michael Gartenberg, vice president of Mobile Research for Jupiter Research. "Some, like the Jawbone, have tried to set themselves...
Wed, 27 Aug 08
New, Larger Kindle Could Appeal to Textbook Market
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=61535
A number of news outlets say they have confirmed that Amazon.com is on the verge of releasing an updated version of its Kindle e-book reader. And, rumors say, Amazon will change its focus from mass-market books to the education market.
Tim Bueneman, an analyst with McAdams Wright Ragen, told the Seattle Post-Intelligencer that Amazon sees a major opportunity for the Kindle with college students. He also told the paper that Amazon is planning several new versions of the device.
"There are already several new, improved versions of the Kindle in the works," Bueneman wrote the paper in an e-mail. "We guess the new version will have improved interface operating controls. This has been an issue with some buyers."
While Amazon doesn't release sales figures for the Kindle, some analysts have put sales as high as 380,000. Those numbers are probably off the mark. Amazon managers told the analysts "that the Kindle is definitely selling very well, but they also said the analysts and reporters giving out these extremely high estimates 'did not run them by the company,'" Bueneman wrote.
Of course, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos' hopes for the Kindle go well beyond that mark. In launching the product last year, Bezos predicted it would do no less than "change the way readers read, writers write and publishers publish."
Kleiner Perkins venture capitalist John Doerr -- and presumably Bezos -- has predicted the Kindle will be a $1 billion business. One year out, the Kindle has a long way to go in that regard, said Tim Bajarin, principal analyst with Creative Strategies, in an e-mail.
"The Kindle is by far the best implementation of a complete digital book ecosystem on the market today, thanks to its over-the-air instant delivery of books," Bajarin said. "However, we are at the dawn of the digital-book...
Wed, 27 Aug 08
Facebook Spells 'Banned' for Scrabulous -- Except in India
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=61530
If you're on Facebook and were thinking about playing Scrabulous -- an online, unauthorized version of the classic word game Scrabble -- the word you're looking for is "banned." As in "banned from Facebook," since that popular social-networking site has now pulled the game from most of the world that could still play it.
Announced Monday by Facebook, the action resulted from protests about copyright ownership by Mattel, which has rights to the game outside the U.S. and Canada. Scrabulous had already been pulled voluntarily from North America by its developers because of a lawsuit filed by Hasbro, which owns the rights in that region.
Facebook said it had to act outside North America as well, after Mattel made a formal request and the game's developers took no action.
The ban applies to all countries except India. A lawsuit by Mattel is pending in India, and Facebook's approach there is that this is a matter for Indian courts to handle. Scrabulous was developed by two brothers, Rajat and Jayant Agarwalla, of Calcutta, India.
After Scrabulous was removed in North America, the brothers offered Wordscraper instead. The alternative game uses circles instead of Scrabble-familiar squares, which the developers hope will resolve legal issues.
"It surprises us that Mattel chose to direct Facebook to take down Scrabulous" even before the court in India had issued a ruling, Jayant Agarwalla said in an e-mail to news media. "Mattel's action speaks volumes about their business practices and respect for the judiciary. It is even more astonishing that Facebook, which claims to be a fair and neutral party, took this step."
Neither Facebook nor Mattel has commented on the matter.
Facebook has been encouraging outside developers to create applications for its platform, so the battle over Scrabulous counters that effort. But it could have faced legal...
Wed, 27 Aug 08
Microsoft Plans Native Privacy Features for IE8
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=61529
Microsoft on Monday revealed some new privacy features for Internet Explorer 8, the next version of its market-leading Web browser. The features address the concerns of consumers and privacy advocates, who called the plans a positive step.
The new features will let users control their history, cookies and other information that IE8 stores. Other features aim to help users control how their browsing history is shared by Web sites. By default, IE8 browses the Web the same way IE7 does.
"Having privacy native in the browser as opposed to just an extension is something we've been advocating for a long time from all the browser manufacturers," said Ari Schwartz, deputy director at the Center for Democracy and Technology. "Incorporating all of these privacy features at once is a major step forward. Safari has some built-in privacy and Firefox has extensions. Native privacy is better."
When a new feature called InPrivate Browsing is activated, new cookies are not stored. Rather, all new cookies become session cookies and existing cookies can still be read. New history entries will not be recorded and new temporary Internet files will be deleted after the private browsing window is closed. Form data, passwords, queries typed into a search box, visited links, and addresses typed into the address bar are not stored.
"If you are using a shared PC, a borrowed laptop from a friend, or a public PC, sometimes you don't want other people to know where you've been on the Web. Internet Explorer 8's InPrivate Browsing makes that 'over the shoulder' privacy easy by not storing history, cookies, temporary Internet files, or other data," Andy Zeigler, a program manager at Microsoft, wrote in the company's blog.
IE8 will also offer a feature to delete browsing history without deleting cookies that allow trusted Web sites to remember...
Wed, 27 Aug 08
Hooking Up Your Home, Without the Wires
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=61512
In Singapore, the Dutch consumer electronics maker Philips is designing a multimedia server to stream audio and video through the air, from the Internet to any device in the home. In Munich, a former unit of Siemens envisions a cordless phone that would double as a music player, wirelessly drawing music from home computers. In Japan, members of Sony's global "digital home team" are redesigning 90 percent of the company's home electronics components to connect wirelessly to the Internet by 2011.
Across the consumer electronics industry, the leading players are revamping their audio and video equipment for a future centered around the Internet, a world in which televisions, stereos, computers -- even kitchen appliances like dishwashers and refrigerators -- can communicate with each other over a wireless home network.
Expanded lines of "networked entertainment equipment" will take center stage this week at the Internationale Funkausstellung in Berlin, the largest consumer electronics convention in Europe, with 1,200 exhibitors and 200,000 visitors.
Sony plans to introduce plug-in adapters to enable some of its Bravia television sets to connect to the Internet wirelessly. Philips will demonstrate a line of hard-disc stereo systems that can wirelessly read and play music stored on personal computers or laptops in other rooms, streaming music selectively through the house.
Pioneer, Samsung and Sharp will present flat-panel TVs that hook up to the Internet, some with wires, some without. Hewlett Packard's MediaSmart LCD TV will wirelessly stream high-definition video. Some industry executives say the new focus on Internet content and wireless networks reflects a fundamental shift in home entertainment.
"The Internet is so massive," said Tim Page, technology marketing manager at Sony Europe. "So are the opportunities for electronics makers, content providers and consumers to get connected. The push to develop networked devices is one of the main directions for Sony now."
The convergence of...
Wed, 27 Aug 08
SAP Plans New Strategies to Overtake Oracle
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=61511
Henning Kagermann wants you to know that he is more than just a software geek.
Kagermann, the longtime chief executive of SAP, the giant maker of complex computer applications for business, is in the middle of a slow transition in which he will yield the top job entirely to Leo Apotheker, now the co-chief executive, when he retires in March.
Apotheker rose through the ranks of the SAP sales force, taking a notably different career path than Kagermann, a former physics professor who made his name as a developer.
The transition from Kagermann to Apotheker has fed an irresistible narrative in financial markets: The software egghead who shoveled cash into new projects is yielding to the uncompromising moneymaker. It is also a story that Kagermann dismisses with an unprintable barnyard epithet, and a terse reminder that he can do more than write code.
"People forget that I was head of sales for a few years," Kagermann said during an interview. "I was not always the tech guy."
There is some truth to the tale being told in the markets, but the reasons run deeper than a mere change of chief executives. The company is indeed shifting its focus more toward the bottom line, and less on the multibillion-dollar investments in technology that helped make it the market leader in the lucrative field of business software.
The goal, it seems clear, is for SAP to show that it can not only produce sophisticated software that companies depend on to run their businesses, but that it can do as well as its American archrival, Oracle, in satisfying the demands of investors.
Oracle achieved a pretax profit margin of about 35 percent last year, well ahead of the 26.7 percent operating margin that the German company managed in 2007.
And despite its edge in market share, SAP has lagged behind...
Wed, 27 Aug 08
Newark and the Future of Crime Fighting
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=61509
One recent spring day, two cops in the Newark Police Dept. watched a shoot-out erupt in broad daylight. Two suspected drug dealers started blasting away at each other in the middle of an apartment complex. The cops didn't witness the violence on the beat, though. They watched it from the city's new communications command center, which collects live video feeds from more than 100 surveillance cameras scattered across the crime-ridden city.
As the shooting broke out, the policemen zoomed in on the scene with a joystick controller. They saw one gunman flee, while the other dragged himself into a nearby apartment, one blood-soaked leg trailing behind. Because of the camera network, the Newark police were able to dispatch a team to the crime scene immediately -- 90 seconds before the first 911 calls. The gunman who crawled into his apartment was arrested on the spot. "Those complexes are like mazes, but we knew exactly where to send the unit," says Sergeant Marvin Carpenter, commanding officer of the communications post.
The surveillance system is the centerpiece of Mayor Cory Booker's ambitious plan to use cutting-edge technologies to slash Newark's violent crime rate. This August, Newark finished its initial deployment of 111 cameras, adding 76 to the 35 that were in place last summer. Newark is investing in a whole range of tools, everything from mundane PCs to more novel technologies such as a new citywide broadband wireless network that will let cops fill out police reports from their squad cars instead of schlepping back to the station house. By late fall, Newark expects to complete the deployment of an audio sensor system to pinpoint gunshot locations that cameras fail to catch. "We are trying to leave the Flintstones and get to the Jetsons," says Booker.
Major cities such as London, New York, and Chicago...
Wed, 27 Aug 08
Trulia's New iPhone House Finder
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=61507
House hunting? Forget the listing agents and classified ads. Now you can find homes for sale with a few taps on a smartphone.
Trulia, one of the Web's most visited home listing sites, on Aug. 25 is introducing a tool available on Apple's iPhone that can locate all the listings and open houses in a user's vicinity.
The free software application uses navigation technology to summon data and displays the results on an interactive map. It lets users call up such information as price, photos, square footage, and number of bedrooms. Another tap of the screen sends a call or e-mail directly to the listing agent. "It's all about convenience," says Trulia CEO Pete Flint.
Trulia is also releasing home listing applications for Research In Motion's BlackBerry, Samsung's BlackJack, and Dash Navigation's Dash Express, which provides navigation services using GPS technology. Trulia's service will also be available on various mobile operating systems, and on devices made by Sony Ericsson and Nokia.
Trulia, which boasts information for 70 percent to 80 percent of the properties on the multiple-listing service database of real estate listings, will be the biggest listing site with an iPhone application. But it's hardly alone. FrontDoor.com says it will introduce an iPhone application later this year that not only searches nearby listings, but also integrates video and information about what it's like to live in a given neighborhood.
StreetEasy.com's two-week-old iPhone application, which provides location-based for-sale listing information for New York City, has been downloaded about 5,000 times. The application was designed with New Yorkers in mind, letting surfers see available properties not just in a neighborhood, but also in a given building.
Coming versions of StreetEasy's iPhone software will make it possible to search for open house and broadcast observations about specific buildings. "People are experiencing real estate by walking down...
Tue, 26 Aug 08
Intuit Brings QuickBooks To Blackberry and iPhone
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=61527
For business professionals who can't stand to waste a minute, Intuit is delivering the ability to do accounting on a smartphone. On Monday, Intuit announced integration for both the iPhone and Blackberry with QuickBooks Online, a Web-based business accounting application.
Intuit is billing the integration as a means to give small-business owners more freedom to manage their business anywhere, anytime -- with or without a computer -- in what it calls an early version Web-based mobile application.
"A growing number of small businesses are looking to mobile technology to run their business," said Rick Jensen, senior vice president of Intuit's Small Business Division. "Our goal with these new mobile services is to give QuickBooks Online users the edge they need to compete and manage their busy lives by keeping tabs on their business even when they are out of the office."
Intuit said QuickBooks Online gives mobile customers views of their finances by checking current bank and credit-card balances, tracking who owes them money and who they owe, and finding vendor and customer contact information with addresses through Google Maps. The program also lets them run balance sheets and profit-and-loss reports.
Laura Olcott, treasurer for Twin Cities Co-op Preschool in Corte Madera, Calif., said QuickBooks Online is perfect for her company because there is no "office," just volunteers working from home or work offices.
"Given the virtual nature of our interactions, iPhone support helps us be more productive," Olcott said. "While waiting for an appointment, I was able to check QuickBooks Online using my iPhone to look up parents with open balances and send them an e-mail reminder to pay their bill."
Is mobile accounting a concept ready for prime time? Jaimee Steel, a vice president at M:Metrics, offers data that show the possibilities.
Fifteen percent of smartphone users traded stock...
Tue, 26 Aug 08
Survey Says Carriers Are iPhone's Problem
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=61526
A survey of more than 2,000 iPhone 3G users shows that problems with the device strongly correlate to which network carrier is being used, rather than the device itself.
Wired.com surveyed 2,636 iPhone users in the United States, Europe, Australia and Canada. The results showed variation by country, major metropolitan areas and carrier.
"In our view, this data is a strong indicator that performance of the mobile carrier's network is affecting the iPhone 3G more than the handset itself," wrote Brian X. Chen of Wired.com. "[I]t's highly unlikely that Apple is going to wave a magic wand and say, '3G problems, be gone' with a software update. Before Apple can make such a claim, it needs to wait for all of its carriers to optimize 3G network behavior -- in terms of number of towers, how they're positioned and how much bandwidth each tower can handle."
The survey ranked U.S. carrier AT&T third, tied with Telstra, Telia and SoftBank. AT&T users averaged 990 Kbps, half of the 1,822 Kbps averaged on T-Mobile's European networks but miles beyond the 390 Kbps offered by Australian carriers Virgin and Optus. The average in Australia was 759 Kbps.
But the vast majority of participants reporting "0" speeds, meaning they dropped off of 3G entirely, were AT&T customers in the U.S. Out of more than 1,600 survey participants from the U.S., 63 reported speeds of 0. Only 80 participants worldwide reported speeds of 0.
In the American cities that should be the most built-out for 3G, many users are getting no better than EDGE speeds, the survey found. In San Francisco, one-third of respondents (10 out of 30) reported speeds just barely better than EDGE. This is probably because the number of iPhone 3G users are overwhelming the available 3G towers, the report said.
The...
Tue, 26 Aug 08
Verizon Targets Tween Market with New Blitz Phone
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=61525
In a move to cash in on the back-to-school mobile phone-buying sprees, Verizon Wireless on Monday launched a new phone dubbed "Blitz."
Verizon Wireless is billing the phone as a device designed for the heaviest of texters. Loosely translated, that means tweens, or preteens.
The Blitz comes with a slide-out QWERTY keyboard and a dedicated My Messaging key. The tween-friendly phone also offers a 2.2-inch screen for browsing the Web or checking e-mail.
Also important to the youth demographic, the Blitz is a music player. Verizon's latest product comes equipped with an MP3 player that can access the Verizon V CAST Music with Rhapsody service.
"The nice part about technology, as with most things, is that mature platforms fragment," said Michael Gartenberg, vice president of mobile research for Jupitermedia. "So we have these youth-optimized devices that we really have never seen just a few years ago."
The Blitz is selling for $69.99 after a $50 mail-in rebate and a new two-year customer agreement with Verizon. Customers can sign up for V CAST Music with Rhapsody for a $14.99 monthly subscription.
"What's nice about it is that it appeals to a demographic that doesn't have a whole lot of money in their pocket," Gartenberg said. "These kids don't have $200 or $300 to spend on a phone, although they'd like to. The Blitz is cool enough that you don't have to be branded as the person using the cheap phone in school."
The Blitz also incorporates a 1.3-megapixel camera with color effects and a self-portrait mirror. It supports Bluetooth devices; is mobile Web-capable; offers mobile e-mail functionality through MSN, Hotmail, America Online, and Yahoo; and offers a media center that lets young people download games, ringtones, wallpapers, location-based services, and other media.
The Blitz also comes with mobile instant-messaging capabilities and picture messaging, as well...
Tue, 26 Aug 08
Reports Say Apple's iPod Line to Get New Look, Features
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=61524
Like Bigfoot in recent weeks, the Apple iPod is the subject of a wave of new reports and at least one photo. According to the postings, Apple's iPod line will undergo a restructuring by the end of next month. But given the credibility of those making the reports, the chances for accuracy behind the iPod reports seem better than Bigfoot's.
Kevin Rose, founder of the popular social-bookmarking site Digg, wrote on his blog Friday that there would to be a revamp of the entire iPod line, including both "small cosmetic changes" for the iPod touch and a "significant redesign" for the iPod nano.
His blog showed a purported photo of a rounded nano. "The kind of smaller, fatter, chunkier nano is going away for something a lot skinnier and longer," he said in a video posted on his blog. He also said it would have "a kind of widescreen across the nano" and that it's going to be "rounded, kind of oval, so the actual glass on the outside will be curved."
He also said the iPod touch will get some small updates, and the touch will be the first device to have the new 2.1 software, with the "iPhone to get updates very soon after."
Rose also mentioned a new iTunes 8.0, which he quoted an unnamed source as calling "a big update with new features." Rose added that, according to his sources, the new iTunes "really is a true point upgrade," with a lot of new features and functionalities, not just bug fixes.
A big part of the refresh for the iPods, he said, are the relative price points. "They're really trying to get away from the iPhone" at $199, he said, adding that we'll see a lot of price cuts in iPods so that the "iPhone sales...
Tue, 26 Aug 08
Red Hat, Fedora Servers Face Hack Attack
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=61523
Last week, Red Hat security specialists had a problem on their hands when they detected an illegal intrusion on the company's computer systems. The attack affected both the Red Hat Enterprise Linux servers and the servers of the Fedora Project, a Linux-based operating system supported by Red Hat.
Servers were instantly taken offline. Red Hat issued an advisory to its customers, telling them how to check to see if they had been compromised and offering an updated version of the affected packages, including Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4 and Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.
"Security specialists and administrators have been working since [they discovered the attack] to analyze the intrusion and the extent of the compromise, as well as reinstall Fedora systems," said Paul W. Fields, Fedora's project leader. "We are using the requisite outages as an opportunity to do other upgrades for the sake of functionality as well as security."
A system used for signing Fedora packages was compromised, according to Fields. He also said he believes the intruder did not steal the pass phrase used to secure the Fedora package signing key, but had not yet confirmed that.
"While there is no definitive evidence that the Fedora key has been compromised, because Fedora packages are distributed via multiple third-party mirrors and repositories, we have decided to convert to a new Fedora signing key," Fields said.
Red Hat has built a custom hardware solution to prevent having to disclose private keys to developers. "Assuming that [this was done correctly], there was no risk of their key being compromised," said Justin Cappos, a post-doc student at the University of Washington who has studied and written papers on the subject. "Someone was able to get a token, but was not actually able to get the key."
Packages obtained by Red Hat Enterprise Linux...
Tue, 26 Aug 08
Quick Photosynth Action Lauded Amid Other Cloud Woes
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=61522
Microsoft surprised the photography and tech communities last week by rolling out Photosynth, an innovative hybrid application for building 3-D environments out of overlapping photos.
But it seems no one was quite as surprised as Microsoft at Photosynth's popularity. The Photosynth site was overwhelmed shortly after launch and Microsoft took it offline Friday to add capacity.
Early Friday morning, a blog post hinted that Microsoft was not quite ready for the onslaught of "synths," as the creations are called. "We have been overwhelmed (in both good and bad ways) over the past 24 hours with the amount of interest Photosynth has attracted and the amount of creativity that many of you are demonstrating with your synths," the post read. "We've been working very hard to meet your expectations and learning and growing along the way. So how has the first day gone, you ask? Well, as of 1 a.m. (Pacific), more than 7,727 synths have been created containing 286,689 images."
By Friday night, less than 48 hours after launching the site, Microsoft announced, "We're changing out some hardware and adding capacity. We'll go offline around 11:30 p.m. PST (7:30 a.m. GMT) for about 30 minutes."
The root of the problem is that Photosynth is yet another cloud application, where users both create and store files remotely, on Microsoft's servers. In an earlier era, the company would have sold the software and let users store images on their own hard drives, resorting to bulletin boards or Web sites to share their creations. By centralizing both the user interface and storage, Microsoft is building an online property but has to foot the infrastructure bill itself.
In the aftermath of well-reported failures with Apple's MobileMe and Amazon's S3 services, does Photosynth's brief failure add more evidence to the argument that cloud computing is not...
Tue, 26 Aug 08
Google Takes Both Political Conventions Mobile
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=61521
Were you one of the millions to receive news of Sen. Joe Biden's selection as Sen. Barack Obama's running mate via text message from the Obama campaign at 3 a.m. Saturday? Then Google's new mobile election coverage is probably right up your campaign trail.
Just in time for the Democratic National Convention this week and the Republican National Convention next week, Google has expanded its election news coverage, tailored specifically to mobile political junkies. The Democratic convention is in Denver and the Republican convention will be in Minneapolis.
According to Effie Seiberg on Google's Mobile Blog, mobile-phone users can get the latest political action sent directly to their phones by going to m.google.com/elections. The site includes a Mobile Search function that will pull up the latest news results without re-keying the candidate's names each time. Another link runs pre-searched news items related to the campaigns for quick access. Google is running constant back-end searches for political news and pre-serving them in mobile screens.
Both Democrat Obama and Republican Sen. John McCain have YouTube channels, and the Google service can dish out in video optimized for mobile the latest political ads and speeches as soon as they are posted by either campaign. And in a bid to snare as many political conventioneers as possible, Google has rolled out custom mobile maps for the Denver and Minneapolis areas.
The site also promotes Google's Power Readers in Politics site. Users who download and install the Google Reader have access to hundreds of political articles, commentaries and editorials from leading political pundits. Selections include blogs and the mainstream press from Time, Newsweek and CNN. Users can subscribe to content from these sources.
This season's presidential campaign will be the most tech-heavy ever. Google, Yahoo, Microsoft and YouTube are among the technology companies...
Tue, 26 Aug 08
T-Mobile's iPhone 3G Sales in Europe Hit 120,000
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=61506
Apple's iPhone 3G is continuing its march around the globe with reports of 120,000 sold by T-Mobile in Europe, plus a deal for distribution in Russia.
In an interview Monday, the head of Deutsche Telekom told the German magazine Focus that its wireless arm, T-Mobile, has sold that number since it was made available on July 11. The sales figure was reached, said Hamid Akhavan, in spite of distribution problems.
Those problems, Akhavan said, include customers having to wait weeks for delivery, although he added that the backlog of deliveries will be resolved by the end of this month. He attributed the delays to Apple's decision to distribute the iPhone 3G in 22 countries simultaneously.
Akhavan said 75,000 of the sales were in Germany. In Europe, T-Mobile also sells the iPhone in Austria and the Netherlands.
The news about the iPhone 3G's progress in some parts of Europe comes on the heels of a report that Apple has agreed to a deal for distribution in Russia. A Russian business daily newspaper, Vedomosti, reported a deal with the largest mobile-phone operator in Russia, Mobile TeleSystems (MTS).
Negotiations are also reportedly under way with the other two top carriers, VimpelCom and MegaFon. The sale of iPhone 3Gs in Russia is expected to begin in October. The report indicates that MTS alone expects to sell one million 3G iPhones over the next two years, and all three carriers together are targeting 3.5 million in sales over two years. Apple has set a goal of selling 10 million iPhones by the end of this year.
Although iPhones are not officially sold in Russia, they have been appearing on the black market there. Some industry observers estimate that monthly figures for these unauthorized sales are around 20,000, with the total of...
Tue, 26 Aug 08
Amazon To Offer New Versions of Kindle e-Book Reader
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=61505
Amazon will ship new versions of its Kindle e-book reader before year's end. The original reader launched last November sold out in its first week and had Amazon scrambling to fill holiday orders. While sales have been brisk, estimates vary.
A Seattle newspaper confirmed late last week that Amazon.com is in the late stages of rolling out two new versions of Kindle. Reports unconfirmed by Amazon indicate there will be at least two new devices -- one with a new user interface but the same dimensions of the original paperback-sized reader, and another the size of an 8-by-11-inch sheet of paper. Other tantalizing details are that the new readers may sport color choices.
The original Kindle has been criticized for its bland appearance and somewhat clunky controls, so color and a new interface could help sales. Not that Amazon seems to be complaining. Low estimates of current Kindle sales are pegged at around 230,000 units shipped in nine months, while others speculate that more than 380,00 have been sold.
According to Mark Mahaney, a financial analyst at Citigroup, "Although (Amazon) has not disclosed Kindle sales, our collection of data points leads us to double our '08 unit assumption from 190,000 to 380,000. In its first year, that's exactly how many iPods were sold. Turns out the Kindle is becoming the iPod of the book world."
The $5.5 billion textbook market is prime turf for the Kindle and Amazon. While e-book readers have made no significant dent in the market yet, a number of factors may push things along.
The chief complaint among students is textbook prices. Electronic versions can drive down both the production and distribution costs.
Another problem is weight. Students are lugging tens of pounds of books to and from classes.
Add to the mix that the Kindle has a built-in...
Tue, 26 Aug 08
Tips To Ensure the Health of Your Computer
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=61487
Chip Reaves, national director of Australia-based Computer Troubleshooters, maintains that whether we are part of a small business, a multinational, or are just trying to find a recipe online at home, we spend just as much time fixing "issues" and "conflicts" on our computers as we do working on them. For the home user this is merely an inconvenience, but to a business it can add up to tens of thousands of dollars lost to decreased productivity or repairs. Although the mere thought of trying to "fix" a computer would cause a cold sweat to break out in most people, it is in fact the simple little things that even the most timid technophile could prevent, which cause the majority of desktop woes.
"Malware, viruses, identity theft and spyware account for approximately 80 percent of all computer issues resulting in downtime," Reaves maintains. "It is estimated that the lost productivity cost due to these alone is around $50 billion, and the associated IT costs of dealing with it has skyrocketed from $20 billion to $198 billion in the last five years."
That is a lot of money and a lot of work time lost. But Reaves explains that there are certain simple tips everyone could adhere to - businesses and individual computer users alike -- that will keep computers (and wallets) in tip-top shape:
* Old Hardware -- "Studies have shown that the likelihood of physical problems with computer equipment goes up significantly after 24 to 36 months," says Reaves. "Consider replacing computer systems every three years -- considering how inexpensive computers have become, one major repair bill could easily cost more than purchasing an entire new system."
* Power Protection -- "Surges and power drops can cause data loss and are always damaging to sensitive components, reducing their life span. Most people do...
Tue, 26 Aug 08
Congress: Terror Database Upgrade Failing
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=61486
A congressional committee on Thursday asked for an investigation into a counterterrorism database software upgrade that it says is months behind schedule, millions over budget and would actually be less capable than the U.S. government terrorist tracking system it is meant to replace.
At issue is Railhead, a software upgrade to the Terrorist Identities Datamart Environment, which is a vast database of names that feeds the nation's terrorist watch list. It is meant to help analysts "connect the dots" between known or suspected terrorists and their contacts, potential targets and safe houses. As of January, the database contained 500,000 names. The upgrade was supposed to be completed by the end of this year.
But the House Science and Technology investigations and oversight subcommittee said Thursday that the program "has been imploding for more than one year," citing internal program documents and e-mails obtained by the committee.
"The program appears to be on the brink of collapse after an estimated half-billion dollars in taxpayer funding has been spent on it," said subcommittee chairman Rep. Brad Miller, D-N.C., in a statement issued Thursday.
Miller said the "majority" of more than 800 private contractors from dozens of companies working on Railhead have been laid off, and the National Counterterrorism Center "drastically curtailed" the program last week and may shut it down completely.
Spokesman Carl Kropf of the counterterrorism center declined immediate comment.
Miller sent a letter to the national intelligence director's inspector general requesting an investigation.
The committee also says "Railhead insiders" allege the government paid the Boeing Co. $200 million to retrofit the company's Herndon, Va., office with security upgrades so top secret software work could be performed there and then leased the office space from Boeing. A Boeing spokesman could not be immediately reached for comment.
The committee investigation also found problems with the existing terrorist database. It says...
Tue, 26 Aug 08
New PlayStation Portable Can Double as Phone
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=61484
The consumer electronics giant Sony has announced a new version of its PlayStation Portable handheld games console that can be used as a telephone, to go on sale in Europe and the United States in mid-October.
The PlayStation Portable 3000, which has been the subject of speculation on technology Web sites, will have a built-in microphone and a new screen that has more colors and is better suited for use outdoors, Sony said at a video games convention in Leipzig on Wednesday. The PSP already supports the software program Skype, which enables users to make free telephone calls over the Internet, but the new PSP, with a built-in microphone, will make the process easier, Sony says.
"We believe that this will establish the PSP as a viable communication device," said David Reeves, president of Sony Computer Entertainment Europe.
The PSP 3000 will retail for euro 199, or $293, compared with euro 169 for the current slim version of the PSP, which will remain on sale.
Sony also said it would launch a version of its flagship PlayStation 3 console with a 160 gigabyte hard drive to store more downloaded content and video, to retail for euro 449 on Oct. 31, including euro 70 credit for downloads.
A version of the PS3 with an 80 gigabyte hard drive will go on sale for euro 399 later in August, Sony said.
Music videos streamed over the Internet would soon be available free for the PS3, while a music and video download service modeled on its U.S. version should be available across Europe by the third quarter of 2009, the company added.
Tue, 26 Aug 08
Telecom Rollouts Raise Ire over Utility Boxes
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=61481
The road to advanced video, Internet and phone services is bumpy -- and the bumps can be almost as big as refrigerators.
As cable and phone companies race to upgrade services or offer video for the first time, they're doing it by installing equipment in boxes on lawns, easements and curbs all over American neighborhoods. Telecommunications rollouts have always been messy, but several towns and residents are fighting back with cries of "Not in my front yard!"
AT&T Inc.'s nearly fridge-sized units, which route its new U-verse video product to customers, are drawing particular ire. A few caught fire or even exploded. AT&T said it has fixed that by replacing the units' backup batteries.
That's not much comfort to David Crommie, who thinks the boxes are an eyesore. Crommie, who is president of a San Francisco neighborhood group called the Cole Valley Improvement Association, complained after seeing some boxes sprout in town and managed to delay AT&T's plans to install up to 850. AT&T now is expected to reapply for an exemption to the city's environmental-review procedures.
"We have nothing against the technology. We just don't want that delivery system," Crommie said. "It's 19th century packaging for 21st century technology."
AT&T's rival Comcast Corp., the nation's largest cable company, apparently thought so too. It ran ads in Illinois calling the cabinets "giant utility boxes." In most locations, U-verse cabinets are 4 feet tall, 4 feet wide and 2 feet deep.
AT&T didn't think it was funny and sued Comcast in March for running a "false, deceptive and disparaging advertising campaign." The companies signed a standstill agreement in May.
But Comcast has utility box problems of its own.
Several residents in Lower Makefield Township, about 30 miles northeast of Philadelphia, got upset when new green boxes from Comcast popped up around town, sometimes between driveways.
"All of a sudden we...
Sat, 23 Aug 08
Poland's Phony iPhone Lines Could Hurt Apple's Image
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=61503
Apple's iPhone partners may be working overtime to enhance the phone maker's image.
Poland Orange, Poland's largest mobile operator, has launched a pre-iPhone 3G marketing campaign that is paying dozens of actors to stand in line to buy one of the new devices, according to a Reuters report. And Orange isn't trying to hide it, either.
"We have these fake queues in front of 20 stores around the country to drum up interest in the iPhone," a spokesman told Reuters. The wire service reported no queues at T-Mobile's Era stores, which will also began selling iPhone 3Gs on Friday.
The Orange spokesperson told the Associated Press that "the aim was to 'warm up' the atmosphere around the launch of the iPhone."
AT&T didn't need to resort to such marketing stunts when the iPhone 3G launched in the U.S. on July 11. Apple sold one million iPhone 3Gs in just three days. Twenty-one countries have been selling the iPhone 3G since July 17. Of course, no one knew the iPhone 3G was going to run into problems with reception and Apple's MobileMe synchronization service.
Will this stunt spur Polish consumers to purchase iPhones? Or will it somehow backfire on Apple -- even though Orange is setting up the campaign?
"If you're as antique as I am, you may recall that when the Beatles first came to America, they premiered on the Ed Sullivan show," said Rob Frankel, a branding expert with clients like Honda, Microsoft, Sony and Marriott hotels.
"What a more naive American public didn't know was that most of the girls in the audience were hired and paid to scream as part of the hype," he said. "And it worked, big time."
"This is really nothing new, though. For centuries, various civilizations have watched as the families of kings and noblemen paid...
Sat, 23 Aug 08
Apple's iPhone 3G Worldwide Rollout Not So Maniac
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=61502
Apple continued its worldwide drive to dominate the 3G cell-phone market with iPhone 3G rollouts this week in parts of Europe, South America, the Far East, and India. Demand in all locales, however, wasn't nearly as high as in the U.S.
Analysts chalked up the less-than-manic reception to the high price of the iPhone 3G as well as the cost for 3G data service in many countries.
In India, an iPhone 3G retails for more than $700 with bundled service -- hardly affordable for middle-class Indians with a per-capita income of only $3,000. As a result, Vodafone, the India iPhone provider, is expected to sell the phone on installment plans.
Elsewhere, 3G data expenses for a year's subscription easily make the iPhone 3G three to four times more expensive than competing cell phones and plans.
Such is the case in Poland, where local carrier Orange hired actors to pose as people waiting in line in front of its stores. Orange officials admitted they pulled the stunt to fuel interest in the launch. Competitor T-Mobile, which also offers the iPhone 3G in Poland, played the launch straight with no queues -- real or fake -- outside its Warsaw storefronts.
Reports from New Zealand put the cost of the iPhone 3G at more than $1,000 with bundled service, but they are selling. Some stores in South America ran out of the device on launch day, and iPhone 3Gs showed up on Argentina's eBay.
Reports from the United Kingdom and Germany, where the iPhone 3G was launched at the same time as in the U.S., have the device selling, but not flying off the shelves. The UK's exclusive carrier, O2, is even tripling minutes and text-messaging limits to help sales. 02 reportedly wanted to sell 200,000 units by this time...
Sat, 23 Aug 08
Intel Innovators See Computers Smarter Than Humans
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=61501
Computers will outsmart humans some day, said some of the nation's most successful innovators at the Intel Developer Forum this week in San Francisco.
Intel's chief technology officer, Justin Rattner, on Thursday led his keynote with the idea that advancements in technology have surpassed predictions and that in the not-so-distant future machines could surpass humans in intelligence.
Rattner touched on the idea of technological singularity, or rapid progress, championed by innovator and artificial-intelligence expert Ray Kurzweil. In blogs and talks, Kurzweil has said he believes machine intelligence will surpass human intelligence. He said he also believes that technological change is so rapid and profound that it will lead to immortal software-based humans and ultra-high levels of intelligence.
The most common idea of singularity is based on AI, but it goes beyond that, according to the Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence, based in Palo Alto. It also includes direct brain-computer interfaces and genetic engineering.
Through a video discussion at the forum, Kurzweil said machines are talking to each other at billions of bits per second. Human neurons send signals at a top speed of 150 meters per second. And most human neurons can go a maximum of 200 times per second, according to the Singularity Institute. In comparison, speeds in modern computer chips are about 2GHz, a 10 million-fold difference.
Tan Le, Emotiv Systems president and cofounder, demonstrated an example of brain-computer interface. Emotiv, based in San Francisco, uses brain interface and electroencephalography, or EEG, technology. Brain-interface technology works by looking at a person's electrical brain activity and processing it so the computer takes commands directly from the brain.
This happens by observing the electrical impulses emitted from a person's brain cells or neurons through EEG, a noninvasive technology. These impulses are sent through the company's EPOC, a wearable headset, which...
Sat, 23 Aug 08
AT&T Rolls Out New In-Home Tech Support Service
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=61500
AT&T is taking on Best Buy's Geek Squad through the launch of a new 50-state technical-support program that promises to provide the services that consumers need when it comes to installing and troubleshooting a variety of computing equipment, software and home-entertainment gear.
Called ConnecTech, AT&T's new in-home services program runs the gamut from television and home-theater installations and PC troubleshooting to home network setup and hardware repair.
AT&T expects to capitalize on the fact that the communications giant has long been a familiar face in the homes of Americans, noted Carmen Nava, AT&T's senior vice president of consumer marketing. "AT&T is taking that expertise to a whole new level with robust in-home tech support, and with the same great customer service and reliability we've delivered for more than a century," Nava said.
AT&T is clearly hoping to capitalize on the past mistakes and lapses of judgment by Geek Squad associates, which "have led to legal actions for lost laptops, inappropriate videotapes, and sensitive personal photos," said Gale Daikoku, a Gartner research director. But as Daikoku noted last month, Wal-Mart and Sam's Club are also gearing up to make services an integral part of their customer support in cooperation with Dell.
AT&T, Wal-Mart and Sam's Club will join an increasingly crowded field that also includes partners Circuit City and Verizon Communications. "The market seems destined to become oversaturated with services," Daikoku said, "because of the potential margin contribution services represent to the business."
During Best Buy's first-quarter earnings call, Daikoku noted, one of the executives said that the Geek Squad grew twice as fast as the rest of the business. "In recessionary times, that says something about the importance of services to Best Buy that has focused its entire business around customer-centricity," Daikoku explained. "Services in general would be...
Sat, 23 Aug 08
$10M for Jerry Seinfeld May -- or May Not -- Help Microsoft
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=61499
Microsoft will pay comedian Jerry Seinfeld $10 million to advertise its Windows Vista operating system. In all, the campaign, which includes a series of ads featuring Seinfeld and Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates, will cost $300 million.
Based on the theme "Windows Not Walls," the series aims to shed a more favorable light on Windows Vista. Launched by Microsoft's new ad agency, Miami-based Crispin Porter + Bogusky, the campaign is set to debut Sept. 4 and will be one of Microsoft's largest ad blitzes. Crispin is credited with turning around Burger King's image.
But will it work? That depends on whom you ask. Some public-relations pros think it's a slam dunk. Others say it's all in the execution. Still others say Seinfeld won't reach the right demographic.
Tara Parker, a marketing specialist for the law firm of Holland + Knight, thinks Microsoft's campaign is a home run.
"Jerry could sell anything. People will watch these. Jerry is rich, successful, everything that regular people want to be. If this ad runs internationally, it will have an even bigger impact," Parker said. "Microsoft is already an established brand, their software is unbeatable, and to have Seinfeld on the screen making a joke or two will just seal the deal and beat the Apple ads."
Jane Ranzman, a marketing strategist for Corporate Performance Arts, said Microsoft signing Seinfeld is a great move in theory. How well it works depends on execution.
"Microsoft has strategic and operational problems with Vista. It's perceived as too complicated and difficult to use. The company also has perceptional problems," Ranzman said. "Using Seinfeld could be a brilliant move if he addresses some of the real issues in a funny way. For example, 'At first I couldn't use Vista, but then I ...'"
PR professional Evan White doesn't think the...
Sat, 23 Aug 08
MobileMe Service Could Present Spamming Risk
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=61498
Along with the myriad other problems with Apple's MobileMe service -- syncing conflicts, corrupted data, dropped connections -- users can now add another concern: spam.
Apple has provided spammers with a "dead simple way to easily spider their iDisk property to retrieve the entire MobileMe user name list," Michael Arrington charged Thursday on his TechCrunch blog.
Every MobileMe user gets a public iDisk file-sharing site where they can post files for their public or private use, Arrington explained. Even if users set their pages to private, "it still shows the username if you go to the page," Arrington said. "There is no way as a user to hide or delete your public folder. If you are a MobileMe customer, you have one."
A simple dictionary attack to gather e-mail addresses by appending @mac.com or @me.com should be trivial.
Apple confirmed that users cannot remove their account names from iDisk. A spokesman discounted the risk, saying, "We've never had a complaint from a customer about people spamming them because of their iDisk public folder name. There is no way to remove your account name from the iDisk folders. I'm very sorry."
That's a very weak response, according to Andrew Storms, director of security operations for nCircle Network Security. "Every public Internet service needs to be concerned with this kind of information-gathering tactic," he said. "It's both a well-known and long-standing issue that some people just don't see where the problem lies."
The data on an iDisk is "enough information to seed spam and phishing databases," Storms added.
"Simply put, this is unneeded information disclosure," Storms asserted. "The right thing for Apple to have done would be to default to the closed state. Everything should be set to private unless the user chooses differently." Instead of telling the world that the user has selected the "private"...
Sat, 23 Aug 08
'Great Firewall of China' Blocks Apple's iTunes Store
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=61497
China may be open to the Olympics, but it has shut off access to Apple's iTunes Store -- apparently because of a new album dedicated to Tibet. According to the album's sponsoring organization, more than 40 Olympic athletes from North America, Europe and China downloaded it "as an act of solidarity with Tibet" before the shutdown.
The New York-based Art of Peace Foundation has charged the Chinese government with trying to block access to Songs for Tibet, which features music by Sting, Moby, John Mayer, Dave Matthews, Alanis Morissette, Garbage and others, as well as 15 minutes of talking by exiled Tibetan leader the Dalai Lama.
The group has described China's blocking of Internet sites that it dislikes as "The Great Firewall of China," and it has called the album "a celebration of Tibet and the Dalai Lama's philosophy of peace, nonviolence and compassion." While there is no China-based iTunes store, users in that country had been able to log onto the site in the U.S.
The Chinese Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, which has authority over Internet use, has not responded to requests from news media for comments.
Apple said Friday it was looking into why access to the iTunes Store blocking. According to news reports, the popular music site has been unavailable for the past week. Huang Yuna, an Apple spokesperson based in Beijing, said the company has noticed that Chinese users have had problems logging into the site.
The album has already had some success, which the publicity surrounding the blocking could increase. The foundation said it was a top seller in the U.S., Europe and Japan, and has reached the number-four spot on Billboard's chart of top downloaded albums.
The foundation added that the Chinese government is striking back in other ways as well. It said china.org.cn, a portal...
Sat, 23 Aug 08
Verizon May Switch To Google for Mobile Searches
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=61480
According to a report in Thursday's Wall Street Journal, Verizon is on the verge of a deal with Google to provide Web-search services on its wireless network. The ubiquitous Google search bar is already on the iPhone and on a number of Sprint PCS phones.
The deal would give Verizon users a one-stop search screen rather than the layered searches they have today. The state of mobile search is chaotic, as each carrier has implemented its own structure and service. Many users already bypass the carrier search interfaces and log onto Google and Yahoo with phone browsers.
Chris Ambrosio, director of wireless strategies at Strategy Analytics, a worldwide analyst firm, said, "[Wireless] operators need to do more for their customers if they ever hope to monetize the wireless search market." He said it makes sense for Verizon to team up with Google, as the search giant already has experience in the wireless market.
Reportedly Google and Verizon have been in discussions for nearly a year, with ad revenue and search data retention the key sticking points. Although ad revenue is a paltry $200 million across the entire mobile market now, according to industry estimates, that will increase exponentially if wireless users have better search tools.
Enter Microsoft, Google and Yahoo. Verizon is rumored to have flirted with using Microsoft's search capabilities before entering into serious negotiations with Google. AT&T wireless is already carrying the Yahoo brand as an expansion of their partnership on the DSL front.
Retention of search data and who gets it is the real mother lode, however. Vendors can mine the data to not only optimize their search capabilities but also to better serve up targeted advertisements and gather potentially useful demographic data. Verizon may be digging in its heels in terms of owning that data, for...
Sat, 23 Aug 08
Breaching Encrypted Data with a Blast of Cold Air
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=61470
A group led by Princeton University computer security researchers has found a startlingly simple way to breach encrypted data -- by chilling the computer memory chip that holds it. The technique only requires chilling the chip with a blast of cold air from a can of dust remover sold for a few dollars at major retailers.
This action, described by the group on the Web site of Princeton's Center for Information Technology Policy (http://citp.princeton.edii/memory), takes advantage of a vulnerability of the dynamic random access chip, which temporarily holds data, including the keys to modern data-scrambling algorithms. When the computer's electrical power is turned off, the data and the keys are supposed to disappear. However, the group's technical paper published online explains, standard memory chips actually retain their data for seconds, even minutes, after the power is turned off.
When the chips were chilled using a can of air, the data was frozen in place, enabling researchers to read the keys from the chip's memory.
"Cool the chips in liquid nitrogen (-196 [degrees]C) and they hold their state for hours at least, without any power," Edward W. Feiten, a Princeton computer scientist, wrote in a Web posting. "Just put the chips back into a machine and you can read out their contents."
The researchers used special pattern-recognition software of their own to identify security keys among the millions or even billions of pieces of data on the memory chip.
The discovery could have serious implications for companies and governments that rely on encryption to protect their critical data stored on computers, particularly in portable laptops that are especially susceptible to loss or theft.
"We think this is pretty serious to the extent people are relying on file protection," Feiten told the New York Times.
The team, which included Feiten, five graduate students, and three independent technical experts,...
Sat, 23 Aug 08
The Best Ethernet May Be Still Coming
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=61468
Advances in security, data-transmission reliability, and environmental packaging have readied wireless Ethernet for demanding industrial applications.
As Ethernet and Internet Protocol (IP) connectivity quickly become the "serial port" of the future, it is clear wireless technology trends will closely follow, providing ever-greater network and data access.
Wireless Ethernet capabilities via technology based on public standard IEEE 802.11 has gained commercial success. A quick look at available wireless networks from your laptop in virtually any public place or even your residential neighborhood is sure to find few.
However, just because a technology is approaching critical mass in the commercial world, does that mean it is ready for use in industrial applications?
While industry asked this question and answered regarding wired Ethernet (yes), it still remains a viable query regarding wireless applications. In addition to providing a broad comparison of different spread spectrum wireless technologies currently deployed in industrial automation applications, this article will explore the industrial use of public standard IEEE 802.11 technology.
Wireless is a shared medium; therefore, different techniques are necessary to assure multiple signals can coexist in the same frequency range. The allocation of frequency for different uses is typically the role of government agencies.
In the U.S., this agency is the Federal Communication Commission (FCC). Typically, government agencies set aside some spectrum for public use. Different users and applications must share this public use; therefore for unlicensed applications, there is typically a limit set for the power that can be transmitted, and additionally some type of spectrum spreading technique is necessary. The allocation of frequencies requires sharing of frequencies when at all possible.
The requirement for spread spectrum in unlicensed applications is a good thing in terms of robustness and reliability for industrial applications. Spreading the communication over a wider frequency range means the signal transmission more readily overcomes EMI or RFI...
Sat, 23 Aug 08
Phones Hacked at Department of Homeland Security
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=61465
A hacker broke into a federal Homeland Security Department telephone system during the weekend and racked up about $12,000 in calls to the Middle East and Asia.
The hacker made more than 400 calls on a Federal Emergency Management Agency voice-mail system Saturday and Sunday, according to FEMA spokesman Tom Olshanski. FEMA is the principal government agency for helping victims of natural disasters.
The agency is part of Homeland Security, which in 2003 put out a warning about such a vulnerability.
The voice-mail system is new and recently installed. It is a Private Branch Exchange, or PBX, a traditional corporate phone network that is used in thousands of companies and government offices. Many companies are moving to a higher tech version, known as Voice Over Internet Telephony.
This type of hacking is very low-tech and "old school," said John Jackson, a security consultant. It was popular 10 to 15 years ago. Telecommunications security administrators now know to configure security settings, such as having individual users create unique passwords and not continue to use the password assigned to users in the initial setup.
"In this case it's sort of embarrassing that it happened to FEMA themselves -- FEMA being a child of DHS, with calls going to the Middle East," Johnson said.
Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia, India and Yemen are among the countries calls were made to, Olshanski said. Most of the calls were about three minutes long, but some were as long as 10 minutes.
Sprint, the telephone company, detected the fraud during the weekend and halted outgoing long-distance calls from FEMA's National Emergency Training Center in Emmitsburg, Maryland, about 70 miles north of Washington.
FEMA's chief information officer is investigating who hacked into the system and where exactly the calls were placed to. At this point it appears a "hole" was left open by the contractor when the...
Sat, 23 Aug 08
Powering Up for Today's Faster Internet Needs
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=61462
In the beginning, the Internet was fast enough for most. Checking e-mail and reading a Web site didn't require scads of bandwidth. Any broadband connection was more than enough for anyone other than power users.
But a funny thing happened in the past few years: Many people became power users. People started buying albums from iTunes, they started downloading episodes of "Mad Men," they watched endless videos on YouTube. All this added activity calls for a faster Internet.
Until that day comes, there are things that a user can do to make sure their connection is as fast as possible.
The starting point for any broadband connection is an Internet service provider, or ISP. Consumer broadband is split between two competing technologies: digital subscriber line, or DSL, and cable.
Depending on how many providers service your area, you may have a choice. Generally speaking, cable is faster. But cable speeds can be affected by how many people are online and even by how close your connection is to your local broadband source, or "hub."
Even within cable and DSL, there are options. Most service providers offer more than one tier of Internet access. Pay a higher monthly fee and you'll get faster maximum download and upload speeds. But there is a catch: What is advertised as a maximum may rarely be reached.
Many ISPs do not configure their services to the maximum speed because they're configuring them for shared networks. Yet raising your maximum download threshold from 768 kilobits per second to 10 megabits per second should have an overall positive effect on your browsing and downloading.
The second link in an Internet connection is your computer itself. Today's Web sites demand more from your PC than they did even two years ago, so some upgrades may be in order. The single most effective thing you can...
Sat, 23 Aug 08
IBM's Speech Recognition: Social, Commercial Impact
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=61408
There aren't too many good-news stories coming out of Iraq, but here's one. The U.S. military is bridging the communications gap between its soldiers and Iraqis by tapping some innovative speech recognition technology from IBM Research. Using a laptop computer or PDA, soldiers speak into a microphone and the software translates what they say in English into Arabic. Iraqi soldiers or civilians see and hear the words in Arabic, and their answers are immediately translated into English. About 10,000 of these systems are in use in the battle zone.
But what's a boon for the U.S. military highlights a conundrum for IBM Research, which provides the technology gratis. When the military selected speech recognition technology for a new medical records network, it chose an offering from market leader, Burlington [Mass.]-based Nuance Communications. For all of IBM's expertise and resources, the 3,000 or so scientists in its basic research facilities worldwide face a major challenge to shepherd their innovations from the lab into the marketplace.
David Nahamoo, the chief technology officer for IBM Research's speech and translation division, is out to change that. On Aug. 18, Nahamoo announced a new strategy at SpeechTEK 2008, a gathering of the leaders in the speech recognition industry in New York City. Rather than trying to push its technology mainly through IBM's product and services divisions, the speech research group is focusing on forming partnerships with other companies to take the technology to market. Partners include Vlingo, the company that provides speech services for Yahoo! oneSearch; PhoneTag, which converts mobile voice mail to text; and Jajah, which offers real-time phone translation between English and Mandarin. "We can find partners, spread the risk, and improve our ability to address these markets," says Nahamoo.
IBM has been performing research into speech recognition for four decades. Some of the technology...
Fri, 22 Aug 08
Breakthrough in Charging Mobile Devices Reported
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=61479
Road warriors may be a step closer to dumping the rat's nest of recharging wires in their laptop bags. According to reports, Intel was to demonstrate Thursday at the Intel Developers Forum a major breakthrough in charging devices such as laptops, cell phones, and MP3 players without wires.
But according to Dr. Izahr Matzkevich, cofounder of wireless developer WildCharge, the technology has a long way to go.
The technology is based on pioneering work done by Dr. Marin Soljacic at the MIT Department of Physics and Research Laboratory of Electronics. In details published in 2006, Soljacic demonstrated the transmission of electricity at a distance of seven feet using magnetic resonance. In a nutshell, transmitter and receiver must be on the same magnetic frequency for electrical current to travel from one point to the next.
The Intel technology focuses on two key factors in wirelessly recharging devices -- distance and efficiency. Up to this point wireless recharge technology has been mired by a 50 percent loss in energy. In other words, only about half the transmitted energy ever reaches the target device. Reports are that Intel has broken that barrier with yields as high as 60 to 75 percent.
Also a drawback, according to some analysts, is distance -- the present technology requires that wireless rechargers must be in contact with recharging bases or recharging mats. But Matzkevich said distance will be a problem for a long time to come.
"Resonance technology like the MIT demonstration requires a heavy infrastructure -- right now, with coils of at least two feet -- to accomplish even a small distance," he said. "Add to that a 35 percent loss in power, this is not insignificant."
He also noted that such resonant fields could cause interference problems with other wireless devices, and miniaturization of the transmitter coils from two...
Fri, 22 Aug 08
Legal Actions Seek Nintendo Wii Import Ban
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=61478
Hillcrest Labs has submitted a patent-infringement complaint against Nintendo and its popular Wii game system with the U.S. International Trade Commission, and said it has filed a separate patent-infringement suit against Nintendo in the U.S. District Court in Maryland.
"While Hillcrest Labs has a great deal of respect for Nintendo and the Wii, Hillcrest Labs believes that Nintendo is in clear violation of its patents and has taken this action to protect its intellectual property rights," the company said.
Three of the Hillcrest patents at issue pertain to a handheld three-dimensional pointing device, while the fourth covers a navigation interface display system that graphically organizes content for display on a television. Company spokesman Jeremy Pemble said that Hillcrest's legal actions include requests for damages as well as an injunction that would block Japan-based Nintendo from importing its Wii gaming console and Wii remote into the United States.
Nintendo told media outlets Thursday that it had no comment because the Wii console maker had not yet received the new complaints.
Hillcrest Labs announced it would be licensing its patented Freespace motion-control technology in November 2006. By making Freespace available independently, "we're able to serve a wider audience of customers and partners, enabling them to deliver uniquely interactive experiences with a wide range of CE devices," said CEO Dan Simpkins at the time.
Freespace's patented DSP algorithms rely on gravity and other inertial input to determine their position in the air and then translate motion instantaneously and even compensate automatically for natural hand tremors, Hillcrest noted. Moreover, Freespace-enabled devices will work regardless of directional orientation, which means users are free to hold the device in whatever position feels most comfortable to them.
Consumers simply point and click to navigate content and application choices on any digital media devices into which the technology...
Fri, 22 Aug 08
Woman Sues Apple over iPhone 3G Issues
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=61477
Apple is receiving more than consumer backlash in support forums and negative press for the iPhone 3G issues -- the company is getting sued.
On Wednesday, an Alabama woman filed suit against Apple. Her claims sound similar to what's been reported widely in the media: receptivity issues, slow connections to AT&T's 3G network, and dropped calls.
The plaintiff, Jessica Smith, is seeking class-action status that could let thousands of others join the fight. Smith wants Apple to repair or replace the new phone. She is also seeking unspecified damages.
The Birmingham resident is charging Apple with breach of express and implied warranty for what she has labeled the "Defective iPhone 3G."
"Defendant intended for customers to believe its statements and representations about the Defective iPhone 3Gs, and to trust that the device was 'twice as fast at half the price,'" the lawsuit claims, suggesting that Apple's "Twice as Fast. Half the Price" slogan mislead consumer expectations.
"Immediately after purchase, Plaintiff soon noticed that her Internet connection, receipt and sending of e-mail, text messages and other data transfers were slower than expected and advertised," the lawsuit explained.
"The Defective iPhone 3G appeared to connect to the 3G standard and protocol less than 25 percent of the time. Additionally, Plaintiff experienced an inordinate amount of dropped calls," the lawsuit continued.
Apple released a software fix Monday that was reportedly related to a chip inside Apple's music-playing cell phone. But applications are still crashing. In fact, the update created new issues for some iPhone users even as others are wrestling with MobileMe foul-ups that make receiving e-mail on the handset sketchy.
It seems as though Smith isn't willing to wait for another promised fix in September.
"Defendant expressly warranted that the Defective iPhone 3G would be 'twice as fast' and would otherwise perform...
Fri, 22 Aug 08
Microsoft Picks Seinfeld To Push Vista Against Mac Ads
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=61476
In a move to compete with Apple's attention-getting "Mac vs PC" ads that spotlight Apple's so-called coolness factor, Microsoft is looking to comedian Jerry Seinfeld to pep up its advertising.
The $300 million advertising campaign will star Seinfeld and Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates, according to The Wall Street Journal. Based on the theme "Windows Not Walls," the series aims to shed a more favorable light on Windows Vista.
Launched by Microsoft's new ad agency, Miami-based Crispin Porter + Bogusky, the campaign is set to debut Sept. 4 and will be one of Microsoft's largest ad blitzes. Crispin is credited with turning around Burger King's image.
The series will put about $10 million into Seinfeld's pocket.
"Jerry Seinfeld is an extremely talented individual. I don't know that he's necessarily
associated with technology," said Michael Cherry, an analyst at Directions on Microsoft. "But maybe Seinfeld can help. I've never been impressed with a Microsoft ad. They are not memorable."
Windows Vista hasn't exactly hit the home run Microsoft had hoped. In fact, many complaints have been leveled against the software giant's latest operating system based on a poor user experience, heavy hardware requirements, and too many security hoops.
As Microsoft's largest profit center -- Windows generated 28 percent of the company's $60.4 billion in revenue for the year ended June 30 -- the company has seemingly decided to take drastic steps to reverse the poor perceptions.
Microsoft may have the lion's share of the operating-system market, but Apple is gaining ground with 7.8 percent of new PC shipments in the U.S. running Mac OSX in the second quarter, according to IDC. That compares to 6.2 percent in the year-ago period. In Mac terms, that means Apple sold 41 percent more Macs than it did a year earlier while Windows PC shipments only gained 15.3 percent,...
Fri, 22 Aug 08
Comcast Proposes 'Fair Share' Internet Traffic Control
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=61474
Following a Federal Communications Commission ruling that Comcast blocked Internet traffic and ordering the company to submit a compliance plan about how it intends to stop "discriminatory management practices," Comcast is planning a new traffic-managing system.
Called Fair Share, the system is intended to limit the heaviest Internet users over short periods of time.
In an interview with Bloomberg news service on Wednesday, Mitch Bowling, Comcast senior vice president and general manager of online services, described the proposed "time-out" mechanism. Users who reach the top download limits will have their bandwidth reduced to DSL speeds for 10- to 20-minute periods, after which it would return to normal.
The new approach, he said, will move toward looking at congestion issues as triggers for bandwidth management, rather than at the kinds of applications being used, such as the peer-to-peer application BitTorrent.
At the beginning of this month, the FCC found the cable company used "unreasonable network-management practices" in blocking P2P programs such as BitTorrent, and that it had repeatedly changed its story when asked by the FCC to explain its actions. It gave the company 30 days to provide a plan to change this practice by the end of the year.
News media had reported that Comcast was secretly blocking users' P2P traffic, and two consumer-advocacy groups, Free Press and Public Knowledge, filed a complaint which led to the FCC decision.
Larry Hettick, an analyst with industry research firm Current Analysis, said the three most important things Comcast needs to do is provide a policy that is "clear, reasonable and published."
One of the main reasons the cable company "got into hot water with the FCC," he said, was because it was reducing bandwidth for users without telling them and without making clear what the policy was.
As for the specific...
Fri, 22 Aug 08
Photosynth Stitches Photos Into a 3-D Web Canvas
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=61473
Microsoft's name has never been synonymous with photography, visual imaging or innovative online applications. But its release Wednesday of Photosynth -- a hybrid software/service that allows users to create 3-D environments by stitching multiple photographs together -- suggests the company has more than a few cards up its sleeve.
In announcing the new technology, Microsoft said it has created "an entirely new visual medium." In a video posted on Microsoft's site, Gary Flake, a technical fellow at Microsoft, said, "Photosynth, more than any other technology that I can think of, points us in the direction of what's to come. Photosynth will mark the beginning of an important transition in photography and the Internet."
To create "synths," as Microsoft calls Photosynth's creations, users take between 20 and 300 overlapping photos. The Photosynth software analyzes the collection for similarities and uses that data to estimate where a photo was taken and "recreates the environment ... as a canvas on which to display the photos," according to a release.
But rather than just enabling users to create these environments on their PCs -- Macs are not yet supported -- Microsoft has fashioned Photosynth as an online application. Users create synths and upload source images via the Photosynth.com Web site. The site generates code to embed the results on Web sites -- much like YouTube -- but users will have to install an ActiveX control to see synths.
Microsoft expects the technology to boost MSN, where it plans to make synths an integral part of the network. MSN will feature synths of popular destinations and notable events, the company said.
Brady Forrest, a former Microsoft Live Search executive and chairman of several O'Reilly Media conferences, wrote on the O'Reilly Radar blog that the release of Photosynth "as a product is very significant for Microsoft." Redmond...
Fri, 22 Aug 08
Intel, Yahoo Launch Widget Channel for TV Devices
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=61456
"Honey, let's see what's on the Widget Channel." That dialog is what Intel and Yahoo are hoping for with their announcement Wednesday of an application framework for TVs and other consumer devices called The Widget Channel.
The companies said the framework is optimized for consumer equipment with Intel architecture. The channel is designed to allow users to access and use rich Internet applications, even while watching TV programs.
Yahoo's Widget Engine will power the channel. It describes the engine as a fifth-generation platform for the delivery of small Net applications that can offer content and community features via a remote control. On the hardware side, Intel said the software framework is intended to work on a new generation of consumer devices based on its system-on-a-chip media processors. These devices can include optical media players, set-top boxes, digital TVs, and others.
Using widgets, users can selectively watch videos, follow stocks or sports teams, communicate with friends, or pull down the latest news. The widgets are based on Internet services such as Yahoo Finance, Yahoo Sports, Blockbuster, and eBay and can be personalized.
The channel also could open up TVs and other consumer electronics devices to third-party developers using JavaScript, XML, HTML and Adobe Flash. Intel and Yahoo said they will make a development kit available and offer a Widget Gallery where outside developers can publish.
Yahoo will feed the channel with its branded mini-applications. Major companies are developing widgets as well, including CBS Interactive, CinemaNow, Comcast, Disney-ABC Television Group, eBay, GE, Samsung, Showtime, Toshiba, Twitter and others.
Eric Kim, Intel senior vice president and general manager of its digital home group, said the alliance will help TV to "fundamentally change how we talk about, imagine and experience the Internet." He added that The Widget Channel will allow TV to move beyond being a...
Fri, 22 Aug 08
Palm Intros Windows Mobile-Based Treo Pro Smartphone
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=61451
Struggling device-maker Palm Inc. introduced its new Windows Mobile-based, touch-screen Treo Pro Wednesday. The business-targeted smartphone will be released in Europe and Australia, although an unlocked version will be available directly from Palm in the United States and Asia Pacific, as well as in some parts of Europe.
The Sunnyvale, California-based company called the sleek new device an "effortlessly usable smartphone for businesses that want to simplify their IT infrastructures and lower costs," as well as for users looking for a way to manage their professional and personal lives.
The Pro features Palm shortcuts integrated with Windows Mobile 6.1 Professional, and offers e-mail and Wi-Fi, as well as GPS for maps, turn-by-turn directions and point-of-interest searches. In Europe, the Pro is available from Vodafone and O2, and from Telstra in Australia.
Palm President and CEO Ed Colligan said that "businesses want the control and savings that Windows Mobile affords," in the kind of "innovative and elegant packages that keep their users happy."
The company is promoting the ability for IT departments to maintain and secure their mobile workforce infrastructure with the Treo Pro, utilizing the integration of Palm and Windows Mobile 6.1. This includes Microsoft Direct Push technology, offering a direct connection to Exchange Server 2003 SP2 or 2007 for e-mail, contacts and calendars, as well as Microsoft System Center Mobile Device Manager 2008.
The company is also emphasizing the thousands of Windows Mobile applications, and the operating system's "familiar Windows experience" of browsing the Web with Internet Explorer Mobile; using Word, Excel, and PowerPoint files; and opening PDFs or ZIP files.
In addition, the Pro offers a high-resolution color touch screen, a full QWERTY keyboard, and a removable battery that can handle up to five hours of talk time.
For easy use, there is one-touch...
Fri, 22 Aug 08
All SEC Financial Data To Be Interactive
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=61443
Investors will be able to access financial disclosures from all U.S. public companies and mutual funds in an interactive format within two years, as regulators replace a 1980s-vintage, text-based reporting system with an Internet-based platform.
The new system, called Interactive Data Electronic Applications, or IDEA, was introduced at a news conference Tuesday by Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Christopher Cox.
IDEA is "a fundamental change in the way the SEC manages, collects and distributes information" that make it more accessible and reliable for investors, Cox said.
With the change, all the data in companies' SEC filings will be searchable on the Internet. Investors will be able to immediately collate information from thousands of companies, creating reports and analyses "on the fly, in any way they choose," the SEC said.
Around 90 companies have voluntarily been filing their disclosures to the SEC using the so-called XBRL, or extensible business reporting language, that provides advanced search capabilities with data-tagging. All public companies and mutual funds will be required to do so through the IDEA system within two years.
Edgar, the SEC's online reporting system since the 1980s, stores paper corporate filings in electronic form.
Rather than treating financial information as a block of text -- as in a standard Internet page or a printed document -- XBRL provides a unique identifying tag for each individual item of data, such as company net profit. That enables users to extract specific information more easily from SEC filings, run calculations and aggregate data without having to open and review multiple filings.
Companies' interactive data filings through IDEA are expected to begin being available late this year during the transition to the new system, the SEC said. Those who use the current reporting system will be able to continue doing so indefinitely.
Fri, 22 Aug 08
WAN Optimization Can Speed Up Performance
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=61393
Take steps to optimize application performance and disaster recovery in a virtual server environment.
In a virtualized environment, IT managers should pay attention to the impact WAN performance has on application performance. When virtual servers are placed in centralized locations, limited bandwidth, high latency and packet loss on the WAN can impact application performance for end users. At the same time, the WAN can present a major obstacle for data protection and disaster recovery in these environments, when large virtual images must be replicated between geographically disperse locations. For all of these reasons, WAN optimization has become a key enabler for strategic virtualization projects.
There are many reasons why enterprises turn to virtualization as a way of consolidating application servers and databases. While hardware and management costs are typically the most recognized, performance, scalability and security benefits can also be primary drivers.
Virtual machines suffer all the same performance challenges as physical servers when accessed across a WAN. More specifically, the following WAN characteristics can all adversely impact the performance of centrally hosted virtual applications:
Limited bandwidth. Depending on the volume of data being accessed and transferred across the WAN, bandwidth can be a major concern in a virtualized environment. WAN speeds typically function at a fraction of LAN speeds, which creates a natural bottleneck that can adversely impact the performance of many virtual applications.
High latency. Time is necessary to physically communicate from one location to another, which can be exacerbated by "chatty" communication protocols, such as the transport control protocol (TCP). The impact latency will have on performance will depend on the type of application being hosted centrally.
Packet loss. As enterprises move increasingly to multi-protocol label switching (MPLS) and Internet protocol virtual private networks (IP VPNs), packet loss is becoming a bigger problem. These networks are oversubscribed by the carriers, which can...
Fri, 22 Aug 08
Prevent a Tech Disaster by Preparing for the Worst
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=61386
When an explosion last June knocked out 9,000 servers at The Planet, a Texas data center, 7,500 customers were affected. Though this level of disruption is rare, it provides a sobering reminder of how reliant businesses are on high tech, and if that technology suddenly fails how fast it can sink a business.
Prevention and disaster planning are key, say experts, to surviving a crash and keeping costs down over the long haul.
Businesses "can lose so much money when their servers go down," says Gordon Ruby of Portland-based River City Technical Services. Web sites that can't be accessed can often immediately lose sales or advertising revenue, or billing or scheduling data. And productivity suffers. "You don't want employees twiddling their thumbs," says Ruby.
Smaller businesses likely don't have IT experts on staff and a mid-size company might have a part-timer, but what if the circuitry goes haywire while they're on vacation?
Whether it's Web sites or hard drives holding vital business information, David Lechnyr of Oregon Tech Support in Eugene says businesses must prepare for a total technology meltdown -- and many don't. When Lechnyr gets a call from frantic businesses, he often hears the same words: "Wow, I never realized how dependent we are."
It's what Geoff Birkemeier of Birkemeier Consulting in Tigard calls the Catch-22 of office technology management: If everything is working fine, many wonder why they are paying somebody to maintain it.
"People don't realize they need it, until they need it," he says.
Lechnyr says businesses can be out of operation for up to five days while the problem is fixed, and spend up to $10,000 in fees. It can cost thousands for emergency data-recovery services, too.
If you want to avoid technology holding your business hostage, start planning in advance:
1. Be choosey before hiring an IT consultant. Check references and make...
Fri, 22 Aug 08
Digital Data Storage for the Long Run
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=61365
Long-term storage and recovery of digital information is something that everyone -- from governments and businesses to home computer users -- is struggling with today. Even as more and more information goes digital, there is currently no sure-fire way to ensure that such data will be accessible in the future. According to a Science Daily report, University of California-Santa Cruz (UCSC) scientists are working on a solution.
Pergamum, named after an ancient Greek library, uses hard drives to provide energy- efficient, cost-effective, long-term digital data storage. The distributed network of intelligent, disk-based storage devices was developed by UCSC graduate students Mark Storer and Kevin Greenan and researcher Kaladhar Voruganti of NetApp.
"There is a risk that an entire generation's cultural history could be lost if people aren't able to retrieve that data," Storer told Science Daily. "Everyone is switching to digital cameras, but we've never demonstrated that digital data can be reliably preserved for a long time."
The researchers said they designed the system to provide reliable, energy-efficient data storage using off-the-shelf components. The key, however, is that it also has the ability to evolve over time as storage technologies change.
According to Storer, Pergamum uses individual building blocks consisting of a hard drive, a small, low-power processor similar to the kind used in an iPod, a flash memory card, and an Ethernet port. These units, called "tomes," are connected using relatively inexpensive Ethernet switches. Each tome is like a minicomputer, but with very low power demands, according to Science Daily. When not in use, it can shut down almost completely.
Even when active, the devices use less than 13 watts of power, which can be delivered over the network using Power over Ethernet technology. As a result, each unit is essentially a self-contained box with a network connection. The flash memory provides low-power, persistent...
Thu, 21 Aug 08
American Airlines Beams In-Flight Internet Access
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=61454
American Airlines has announced the availability of Wi-Fi Internet service aboard three of its domestic routes. Customers aboard American Airlines flights from New York to Los Angeles, New York to San Francisco and New York to Miami can access the Internet for $12.95 per flight on its 767-200 airplanes via the service, called Gogo.
According to AA officials, beta testing in May and early August with real customers on cross-country flights showed that the service would be well received.
John Tiliacos, managing director of onboard products at American Airlines, said, "During dress rehearsals, customers were enthusiastic. Our business customers value it, and it is something they have told us they want." Once the selected AA flights reach the 10,000-foot electronics-clear altitude, customers can boot up their laptops and sign on to the Wi-Fi service with a one-time charge to a credit card. Users can access IM and virtually any Web site, although VoIP applications will be blocked. Otherwise, the Web experience should be the same as on the ground, according to the company.
When asked when the initial service would be expanded to other flights and routes, Tiliacos said, "We're going to run the service for a few months, evaluate how it performs, then make a determination."
The American Airlines Internet experience is powered by Itasca, Illinois-based Aircell Inc. The Gogo technology is similar in nature to traditional cell-phone coverage, with land-based Aircell towers carrying signals throughout the continental United States. "We have 92 cells, and cover border to border, coast to coast," said Fran Phillips, senior vice president of airline solutions at Aircell. "We are looking to expand coverage into Mexico and Canada next year, as well."
The infrastructure for retrofitting existing airplanes for Internet service is minimal, Tiliacos explained. "There's some lightweight network...
Thu, 21 Aug 08
Google Invites Security Researchers To Debug Android
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=61453
In a move that could help it avoid an iPhone 3G-like software drama, Google wants bug hunters to test its Android mobile platform. On Monday, the Android Security Team posted a message to introduce itself to the security research and vulnerability communities.
Android is Google's Linux-based mobile development platform, which also contains a collection of standard applications that can be installed on a mobile device.
"As you may expect, building and maintaining a secure mobile platform is a
difficult task," the team wrote. "While we have found and fixed many of our own bugs as well as flaws in other open-source projects, we realize that the discovery of additional security issues in a system this large and complex is inevitable."
The team invited the security community to collaborate on what amounts to a debugging effort. Bug hunters can report a bug in Android or one of its components by e-mailing security at android.com. Google promised to respond to bug report with requests for more information, if needed, and to keep bug reporters informed of progress in closing the issue.
"We do appreciate and encourage responsible disclosure, especially since Android will be deployed on many different devices that will require a large amount of coordination to patch," the team wrote. "Help from security researchers in the form of usable bug reports and responsible time lines will greatly assist us in securing the ecosystem of Android devices as quickly as possible. Our vulnerability bulletins will credit responsible reporters of any flaws."
Google said it will release more details of the security features in the Android
platform over the next several months, as well as developer documentation and
guidance on how to use these features in Android applications.
Michael Gartenberg, vice president of mobile strategy for Jupitermedia, said there's nothing particularly innovative about what Google is...
Thu, 21 Aug 08
Salesforce.com Acquires Instranet for $31.5 Million
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=61452
Salesforce.com, based in San Francisco, has acquired its fourth company in the last two years. The provider of customer-service support acquired Instranet, its largest acquisition to date, for $31.5 million in cash, which includes $4.2 million from Instranet's balance sheet. The two companies closed the deal on Aug. 4.
The acquisition of Chicago-based Instranet, a maker of call-center technology, will give call-center agents more specific information about a caller, including product or geography, to help agents find the best-matched answer to questions, according to Salesforce. The deal includes Instranet's 44 employees.
Instranet, according to Salesforce, provides the knowledge-management piece of the CRM puzzle. "They are an absolute killer in knowledge base," said Bruce Francis, vice president of corporate strategy for Salesforce. "They have 350,000 agents around the world using this technology and have incredible success in call-center technology."
The move is expected to thrust Salesforce forward in a fast-growing market. The CRM support and services market is currently valued at $3.4 billion, according to Gartner reports. Instranet has 50 customers, including blue-chip companies such as Orange, Comcast, Vimplecom, France Telecom, Expedia and Transcom.
"We're very fired up about this deal," Francis said in an interview with us. "We feel that a customer service and support market is a fantastic one, and we feel this market is really poised to flip to software as a service. That is why we are saying we want to have all of the pieces in place for an absolutely killer offering."
The acquisition of Instranet comes on the heels of Salesforce announcing a new chief financial officer, a new president of alliances and services, and rolling out new content-management applications.
Salesforce.com provides sales, marketing and customer-service support to more than 41,000 businesses. In April 2006, Salesforce acquired Sendia, which led to Force.com Mobile. In August 2006,...
Thu, 21 Aug 08
Apple Reportedly Plans Another Fix for the iPhone
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=61450
The Apple rumor mill is churning, but this week it's about software fixes instead of new products. News reports are raising expectations of yet another iPhone software fix in September.
Apple was not immediately available for comment.
What is known is that Monday's software update 2.0.2 didn't fix connection problems -- in fact, it created new issues for some iPhone users even as others are wrestling with MobileMe foul-ups that make receiving e-mail on the handset sketchy.
The software fix Apple released Monday was reportedly related to a chip inside Apple's music-playing cell phone. BusinessWeek reported last week that Apple was working on a remedy through a software upgrade. Apple declined to offer details about its iPhone 2.0.1 update, other than saying it included "bug fixes."
But applications are still crashing. Apple has set itself up for failure because it's vetting all of the applications on its App Store to ensure the software doesn't contain any bad code, according to Mike Disabato, a wireless analyst at the Burton Group.
"I've got three applications on my iPhone right now that don't work. Apple killed the Netshare application. Why did that do that? Is Apple enforcing AT&T's terms of service? I didn't sign a contract with Apple that allows them to do that," Disabato said. "Let me buy what I want and it's my problem if I run afoul of AT&T!"
Apple is becoming the gatekeeper for all things iPhone, which is what the company wanted, Disabato continued, but it's backfiring.
The failed software fix is causing some observers to wonder if the problem runs deeper -- right down to the Infineon chipset. Apple hasn't commented on the possibility, perhaps because of the implications. If Apple focuses on the software-fix story, analysts said, the company is only expected to issue another software fix. If it's...
Thu, 21 Aug 08
Intel's Nehalem Features Advanced Power Management
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=61449
The picture of the Nehalem processor is getting clearer. On Tuesday at the Intel Developer Forum in San Francisco, Intel Senior Vice President Pat Gelsinger described a new "turbo mode" that pushes the 45-nanometer Nehalem into a higher gear without heat consequences.
The Nehalem series aims to increase energy efficiency and processing performance while also improving hyperthreading and memory bandwidth.
In Intel's "tick-tock" strategy, smaller processors and revamped manufacturing alternate years with new processor architectures, and Nehalem fits into the processor-architecture part of the road map.
Gelsinger, in his keynote address, said a new "power gating" technology will be introduced with Nehalem. Although Intel chips can cut off power to an unused core, the core sometimes leaks power in sleep mode. The new technology has a transistor design that allows power to be more completely cut off when not needed.
The power gate includes on-chip sensors and a power-control unit. This means not only can power be turned off when a unit is idle, but it can also direct more power to active cores. Gelsinger told news media that this turbo mode offers greater capabilities, especially in environments where heat is a factor.
The new microarchitecture also features QuickPath Interconnect to join processors, chipsets and memory in a way that provides up to three times the memory bandwidth of earlier Intel microarchitectures.
These technologies, according to Gelsinger, help improve laptop battery life and can help data centers realize significant power savings.
As the number of cores in processors increases -- and Intel's upcoming Larrabee "many core" architecture could involve arrays of hundreds or even thousands -- power control becomes critical for energy costs, battery life, and heat dissipation.
The first Nehalem-based processors are expected to be manufactured in the fourth quarter. Last week, Intel said its first desktop processors based on the Nehalem...
Thu, 21 Aug 08
Microsoft Details Strategy To Grab Google's Market
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=61448
Microsoft laid out its "catch Google" strategy at the Search Engines Strategies Conference and Expo in San Jose Tuesday. Appearing as the second keynote, Satya Nadella,
senior vice president for search and advertising, vowed that additional investment and new deep-search techniques will allow the company to gain share over market behemoth Google.
Currently Microsoft gleans less than 10 percent of all Internet searches and less than five percent of Internet ad revenue from searches.
Nadella maintains that deeper, connected searches will yield better results and, hopefully, more satisfied Microsoft customers. He said nearly half of search users spend 30 minutes on a query looking for the right result.
While current search technology can use the previous search results, Nadella believes interrelated and deeper queries can get accurate results faster. Such tailored searches can be achieved by looking over multiple searches and histories.
Nadella also indicated that search could evolve from merely seeking results to using search engines to perform actual work based on a query. How this could tie into, for example, Office or other applications was not detailed.
The presentation was part of Microsoft's push to gain a respectable foothold in the lucrative search and online ad market. The company has attempted everything from innovation to acquisition to further this goal. In the past nine months the software giant has been foiled three times in its bid to take over rival Yahoo's search business.
In April it acquired start-up Farecast.com, an airfare search company, and quickly rolled it into Microsoft Live Search. And what speaks louder than cash? Microsoft unveiled a Live Search cash-back program in the spring, giving customers discounts on millions of items when using the Live Search engine to find products.
The most significant acquisition, however, may be Powerset, a San Francisco-based natural-language software developer. According to a...
Thu, 21 Aug 08
Microsoft Eases Server-Virtualization Restrictions
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=61447
Microsoft has elected to jettison certain licensing restrictions that previously discouraged its customers from moving the software giant's server applications within a server farm at will.
Beginning next month, Microsoft says its customers will be able to move any of 41 server applications as often as necessary without paying additional licensing fees. The goal is to enable data center managers to more effectively employ virtualization technology as the means for creating more dynamic enterprise IT systems, the company said.
"Businesses are taking steps to make their IT operations more dynamic and are delving into virtualization as a cornerstone strategy," said Zane Adam, senior director of integrated virtualization at Microsoft. "Microsoft recognizes this and is innovating its licensing policies, product support and a wide range of IT solutions to help customers get virtual now."
Microsoft is also encouraging third-party providers to participate in a new program launched last June that the software giant is backing through its introduction of product-support policies governing 31 server applications. Analysts say the program is good news for the industry, given that the need for interoperability is becoming more important as server virtualization quickly moves past the early adopter stage and becomes a mainstream solution.
"As IT professionals update their standard server images for new installations, they are increasingly integrating virtualization to simplify deployments, to increase the system flexibility, boost usage rates and increase portability of the applications," explained Al Gillen, a research vice president at IDC. "With this latest update to its licensing rules, Microsoft is knocking down barriers to virtualized deployments, which should help further accelerate the adoption rates."
Microsoft's Server Virtualization Validation Program (SVVP) is open to any software vendor to test and validate its software to run Windows Server 2008 and previous versions of Windows Server. Cisco Systems, Citrix Systems, Novell, Sun...
Thu, 21 Aug 08
Judge Lifts Gag Order Against MIT Students
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=61446
A federal judge on Tuesday lifted a gag order placed on three Massachusetts Institute of Technology students earlier this month. The trio, Zack Anderson, R.J. Ryan, and Alessandro Chiesa, were going to discuss the vulnerabilities of the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority's fare system at the annual Defcon conference.
The judge found the MBTA had a minimal case against the students under the federal computer-intrusion law and denied the MBTA's request for a five-month injunction.
"In a world where conferences of hackers convene to share findings, corporations and public agencies are always making security-related changes and enhancements," said Joe Pesaturo, an MBTA spokesperson, in an e-mail to us.
The Electronic Frontier Foundation, which provided legal support to the students, said the MBTA in papers filed Tuesday acknowledged flaws in its CharlieCard and CharlieTicket system and said it will take five months to fix.
"Absolutely not," said Pesaturo. "The system is not flawed, nor is the CharlieTicket. The CharlieCard isn't at issue at all."
Pesaturo added that someone has has tried to figure out the combination to the padlock on the ticket's magnetic stripe. "We are changing the combination and adding more security enhancements," he said. "The first changes will be implemented before the end of next month, with additional security enhancements to follow in the subsequent weeks and months."
The gag order sparked a frenzy of discussions on First Amendment rights and prompted groups such as the EFF and the American Civil Liberties Union of Massachusetts to come to the students' aid.
"We are puzzled and disappointed by the MBTA in trying to silence the messengers that there were these problems and vulnerabilities with the pay fare system," said Chris Ott, ACLU Massachusetts spokesperson. "It would have been smarter for the MBTA to embrace the research the students had done instead of clamping down on...
Thu, 21 Aug 08
How To Ensure that Online Shopping Is Safe
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=61429
Q: With so much talk about Internet security problems and credit card fraud, how do I protect myself while shopping online?
A: One of the biggest risks in shopping online is clicking on a link to what appears to be a legitimate site but is, in fact, a forgery run by criminals interested in your credit card number and other personal information. An estimated $3.2 billion was lost to such "phishing" sites in the United States last year, according to a survey by Gartner Inc.
Watching out for fraudulent sites isn't hard, and is the crucial first step in a secure online shopping experience. The key in most cases is to type in the Web site's address independently, and not to follow links sent in e-mails, as those can often be malicious spam sent by the creators of the bogus sites.
Most Web browsers will alert you when you're navigating to known phishing sites or those serving up viruses, but the key word there is "known." Many harmful sites are set up and dismantled within 24 hours, so it's often a cat-and-mouse game to identify and block them before the criminals have a chance to inflict too much damage.
Also look for your browser's address bar to turn green; that's a sign the site you're visiting has paid for -- and passed -- an extra layer of background checks to verify it's a legitimate business. The so-called Extended Validation Secure Sockets Layer certificate is a new feature that also indicates the site is sending your data securely using proper encryption methods.
If a site doesn't have that feature, look for the traditional SSL padlock when you get to a site's order page, and click on that if you have doubts about the site's authenticity. It will identify the site's owner and the agency that issued...
Thu, 21 Aug 08
Not All Antivirus Programs Are Created Equal
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=61428
There are many antivirus programs available, either in retail stores or over the Internet, and most new computers come with a pre-installed trial version that expires after 30 days or so.
These programs offer differing levels of protection, loosely falling into three categories: free, paid antivirus and paid security suites. The differences between each are significant.
Free: These are readily available for download through the Internet and normally offer a basic level of protection against viruses but not other nasties such as spyware and adware.
The big drawback with these free products is that they are not normally updated as frequently or with the immediacy of paid-for programs. This means that if a new virus is doing the rounds, your antivirus may not get updated before it is too late.
Paid Antivirus: Paid antivirus products defend you against software virus programs that are intentionally written to alter or damage your computer and automatically distribute themselves to other computers.
Again, however, antivirus-only programs do not normally defend you against spyware and adware unless it is specifically mentioned.
Paid Security Suites: Security suites defend you against the full range of nasties that can infect your computer, be they viruses, spyware or adware.
They also normally provide you with a personal firewall.
So what is:
* Spyware: Software that you either unwittingly install or which automatically installs itself when you're browsing the Web.
Spyware secretly collects and distributes information about you. The information collected can relate to Web sites you visited or something more sensitive like passwords or credit card details. A spyware program can even track the keys you push on your keyboard.
* Adware: Software that installs on your computer (again either by you or automatically) and displays advertisements using pop-up banners. These may even appear when you're not on the...
Thu, 21 Aug 08
Workday: The Next Software Powerhouse?
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=61420
Ever since veteran software entrepreneur Dave Duffield launched his new startup, Workday, a year and a half ago, people have wondered if it could become the next Salesforce.com. Marc Benioff, Salesforce.com's chief executive, had shaken up the customer-relationship management software world and created a company with a market cap of $8 billion with an online service that replaces expensive and complex traditional software packages. Could Duffield and Workday do the same? Just now, there's growing evidence they can.
Workday has landed three large companies as customers -- important votes of confidence that it can be trusted to handle some of a corporation's most crucial computing tasks. Flextronics, the biggest of the three, plans on rolling out the Workday human resources management system worldwide for more than 200,000 employees in the next two years. "Workday could definitely be the next Salesforce.com," says David Smoley, Flextronics' chief information officer. "Their model is in line with companies like us. We want to keep things as simple as possible and keep costs as low as possible."
The other major customers are Chiquita, with 25,000 employees, and Life Time Fitness, which plans to adopt all three of Workday's services, adding accounting and payroll to human resources management.
If Workday does a good job of serving these clients it will gain credibility with large corporations that are looking for alternatives to traditional software packages. "They're in the phase where they're getting big customers. If they do well with the rollouts they'll get the attention of a lot of mainstream corporations," says analyst Jim Holincheck of market researcher Gartner. David Dobrin of B2B Analysts is even more effusive: "Workday is like the iPod for enterprise HR software. It's a better and simpler way of doing things, and people can see it."
Rivals caution that these are still early days...
Thu, 21 Aug 08
Analysts: U.S. Consumers Buying Fewer Cell Phones
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=61410
U.S. consumers have been buying significantly fewer cell phones but paying higher prices for them, according to a research firm.
The NPD Group said in a report Tuesday that 28 million cell phones were sold in the United States in the second quarter, a decline of 13 percent from the same period a year ago.
It was the third quarter in a row with a year-over-year decline, and the lowest number of phones sold since NPD began tracking the category in 2005, said Ross Rubin, the firm's director of industry analysis.
However, the phones that were sold tended to have more features and be more expensive, and the total value of the market was down only 2 percent from a year ago, at $2.4 billion, according to NPD.
Motorola Inc.'s phones were the most popular, but its share of the units sold dropped to 21 percent, from 32 percent last year.
One important caveat is that NPD figures were based on online surveys of cell phone buyers, and exclude government and corporate buyers. Figures from another research firm, IDC, indicate that institutional buyers are making up for slackening consumer demand.
Ramon Llamas, IDC's senior research analyst for mobile phones, said 42.9 million handsets were shipped to the U.S. market in the second quarter, up 6 percent from a year ago. IDC's figures are based on manufacturer reports.
The average cell phone in NPD's surveys cost $84, up 14 percent from a year ago, as sales of feature-rich "smart" phones nearly doubled. Cell phones with full-alphabet keyboards, like Research In Motion Ltd.'s BlackBerry models, saw the biggest increase. Meanwhile, sales of simpler phones used mainly for calls are falling off, Rubin said.
"One explanation might be that there's a group of consumers that's holding off, making do with the devices that they have, either because of larger economic concerns...
Thu, 21 Aug 08
A Look at How Cybercrime Went Professional
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=61392
A huge increase in Internet crime is only part of the picture. The bigger worry for many organizations is that they are now being individually targeted by criminals using sophisticated technology.
As Russian and Georgian soldiers were flinging explosive artillery shells at each other, both sides in the South Ossetia conflict were also exploiting the very latest in cyber aggression, using techniques honed by professional gangsters specializing in online crime.
Although the attacks are largely untraceable, both sides are pointing the finger firmly at each other. Russian reports claim that South Ossetian government sites were brought down by Georgian hackers. But Georgian institutions, including government departments and the National Bank, have also suffered a string of attacks. Georgia's foreign ministry is posting all news content to the Polish President's Web site after its own was taken out when President Mikheil Saakashvili's pages were replaced with pictures of Adolf Hitler. Meanwhile, reports also claim that Russia's RIA Novosti news agency site is being targeted and crashed.
Such tactics are not only political weapons. The start of the Beijing Olympics last week kicked off a slew of malicious Internet activity. Some are relatively indiscriminate -- using malicious software embedded in innocent Web sites, often of news organizations with audience numbers boosted by their sports coverage, which then infects the visitor's computer.
Some are more sophisticated. MessageLabs, a security company, detected a bogus e-mail sent to at least 19 national sporting organizations that purported to be International Olympic Committee information on media plans for the Games, but was actually carrying a Trojan which takes control of the PC and scans all files and networks to steal information.
Hacking, which was once the preserve of tech-savvy teenagers showing off, has turned into big business. By some estimates, organized crime represents up to 20 percent of the global GDP, and...
Wed, 20 Aug 08
2005-2006 iPod Nanos Blamed for Fires in Japan
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=61425
The Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry, after two years of speculating fires in Japan involved iPod nanos, confirmed Tuesday that the fires were caused by Apple's music players.
Ministry officials said public-safety investigators examining the fires believe lithium-ion batteries may have caused the iPod nanos to overheat. The ministry said Apple is aware of 14 additional cases in Japan of iPod batteries overheating.
"We are not in the position to speculate on the outcome of the investigation," Hiroyuki Yoshitsune, a Ministry official, told Agence France Press. "But after several incidents like these, it would be appropriate for Apple to take some measures to raise the public's awareness."
Lithium-ion batteries, found in many computers and mobile phones, have a higher power density than nickel-based batteries, according to Apple. This higher power provides a longer battery life. Apple warns on its Web site that iPod owners should keep the music players out of the sun or a hot car because heat will degrade the battery's performance.
It is not clear whether the iPod nanos believed to have caused the fires were basking in the sun. Short-circuiting a lithium-ion battery can cause it to ignite or explode.
Officials have pointed to four specific models as the cause of the incidents -- MA004J/A, MA005J/A, MA009J/A and MA107J/A. More than 1.8 million of these players were sold in Japan between September 2005 and September 2006, according to published reports.
Quasi-government safety officials and Apple, according to published reports, will work together to find the specific cause of the overheating. Ministry officials are also asking Apple to improve its technology to avoid any additional fires.
Lithium-Ion batteries have been the core problem behind many technological recalls in recent years.
In late 2006 Sony Energy Device Corp. in Japan recalled all its lithium-ion batteries...
Wed, 20 Aug 08
Apple Offers 60 More Days of Free MobileMe Service
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=61424
MobileMe. It could go down in Apple's history as "Woe is me."
MobileMe is a subscriber service that delivers push e-mail, push contacts and push calendars into the "cloud" of native applications for the iPhone, iPod touch, Macs and PCs. The goal is to keep them all synchronized, but MobileMe saw major outages and lost customer e-mails, leaving many users angry.
Even after a leadership change and promises to fix the issues, MobileMe is still plagued with problems. In the latest chapter, Apple is offering MobileMe subscribers a 60-day extension of the service for free. The running total of giveaway usage is now up to three months for a service that is just more than a month old.
Apple sent an e-mail to users late Monday night saying it had made "many improvements" to the problematic service. The e-mail read:
"To recognize our users' patience, we are giving every MobileMe subscriber as of today a free 60-day extension. This is in addition to the one-month extension most subscribers have already received. We are working very hard to make MobileMe a great service we can all be proud of. We know that MobileMe's launch has not been our finest hour, and we truly appreciate your patience as we turn this around. Read this article for more details."
The article merely offers more information about the free 60-day extension to MobileMe subscribers. A Q&A on the page dives into the "why" Apple is granting the extension and who is eligible for the extension and under what conditions. No further details were given about the root of the problems with MobileMe.
"Apple is not the superman its PR and its cult members say they are," said Bill Ho, a wireless analyst at Current Analysis. However, he added, reports of Android-based devices as iPhone-killers are premature. As...
Wed, 20 Aug 08
Google Releases Android SDK, Version 0.9
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=61423
A new beta software development kit is out for Android, the open-source mobile operating system backed by Google. Version 0.9 of the SDK was announced Monday on the Android Developers Blog.
An early version was released in November and, although some developers praised it, many said they found it buggy.
The goal with the early version, wrote Google Developer Advocate Dan Morrill on the Android Developers Blog, was "to give developers insight into the platform as early on as possible, and to get some initial feedback." Since that release, he added, Google has been working with the Open Handset Alliance to utilize developers' feedback and get ready for the release of the first devices, now expected in the fourth quarter.
The beta SDK, he said, is another step toward an Android 1.0 release. Morrill added that it is "pretty stable and we don't expect any major changes."
But there are changes from the first release. A new home screen, along with various user-interface changes, are included in the beta. New applications include an alarm clock, a calculator, a camera, a music player, a picture viewer, and SMS/MMS text messaging.
There are also new development tools, including a graphical preview for XML layouts for users of Eclipse, plus new APIs and what Morrill described as "tons" of bug fixes.
He also pointed to the Android Developer Roadmap, "a living document" that is continually updated with achieved and upcoming milestones. Its time line, which includes Monday's release, points to additional, pre-1.0 SDK releases in September, and the 1.0 release in the third or fourth quarter.
The time line includes other milestones for the fourth quarter, including the first availability at retail of Android 1.0 devices, a release of source code, and a "key announcement" on Android Developer Challenge II.
Al Hilwa,...
Wed, 20 Aug 08
Apple's iPhone 3G Firmware Update Bombs
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=61404
After lots of complaints about iPhone 3G connection issues, Apple released a firmware update Monday with hopes it would fix the issues. But early reports suggest it didn't work as planned.
Complaints have included dropped calls, abrupt network switches, poor reception, and service interruptions.
The glitches were reportedly related to a chip inside Apple's music-playing cell phone. BusinessWeek reported last week that Apple was working on a remedy through a software upgrade.
Apple declined to offer details about its iPhone 2.0.1 update, other than saying it included "bug fixes." However, comments in Apple's support forum say plenty about the latest attempt to rectify poor user experiences. In fact, the update seems to be causing new issues, apparently interfering with the GPS function, among others.
"The first thing I noticed was the really jerky scrolling in applications like looking at photos and e-mail lists. Anything that had long lists didn't like to scroll, but on the previous firmware it was very, very fast!" Demlotcrew wrote in the Apple support forum.
Other iPhone users reported having no issues with the original firmware, but now having problems with Monday's fix. One user reported the firmware turned the iPhone into a virtual brick. Many users are trying to reinstall the original firmware to avoid the new issues, opting for what they see as the lesser of two evils.
Richard Windsor, a financial analyst at Nomura Securities, could be right after all. In a research paper released last week, he pointed to similar complaints with 3G phones launched in Europe five years ago and speculated the culprit could be the chipset inside the iPhone 3G. The handset runs on an Infineon 3G chipset.
"We believe that these issues are typical of an immature chipset and radio protocol stack where we are almost certain that...
Wed, 20 Aug 08
AT&T Wants To Exploit Customers' Web Activity
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=61396
AT&T is mulling over the idea of monitoring its customers' surfing habits for those who use the company as their ISP, according to the New York Times on Thursday. While it has not yet done so, the company pointed to practices by Google in defense of its plans. However, if it does move forward, AT&T said it would do the right thing and require an "opt-in."
The practice is anticipated for customers who use AT&T as their ISP, and no mention of iPhone or other AT&T smartphone web browsers was made. Given Apple's historical concern over customer privacy and location services "opt-in" actions, that may not be on AT&T's radar right away for iPhone users.
The AT&T statements were part of a response to an inquiry from the House Committee on Energy and Commerce after reports that some ISPs, including Charter Communications, was going to sell detailed logs of their customer's Web surfing activities to an advertising company called NebuAd.
Charter has put it's plans on hold. In its response to the House Committee, the company said it was going to use an "opt-out" approach -- the customer would have to actively ask not to be included. [However, those notifications are seldom put in a single postal letter and sent to the customer. The provision is often simply buried deep in the fine print of a service agreement.]
Comcast, Verizon, Time Warner Cable, and AOL responded to the committee and said that they don't monitor customer activity on sites that they don't run.
Dorothy Attwood, AT&T's senior vice president for public policy, provided a spirited defense of behavioral targeting, and claimed that their potential plans would benefit customers "online experience while protecting their privacy."
Recently, the FCC has been monitoring ISPs, particularly Comcast, for adherence to Net Neutrality principles. Now, the federal government also appears to...
Wed, 20 Aug 08
Mobile Search May Soon Find Its Niche
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=61387
The growth of mobile search has been hindered over the past five years by perceived high data costs and limited handset capability. However, higher bandwidths and the uptake of 2.5G- and 3G-capable handsets by more mainstream consumers means the medium is likely to become a more important driver of both revenue and traffic for brands.
Nokia estimates that by 2015, 5 billion people globally will have access to an always-on mobile Internet connection, and there will be a 100-fold increase in mobile network traffic. What does this mean for brands? First, mobile Internet users will use search in a different way from regular Internet users. While the latter tend to search for several keywords to refine their results, mobile users - particularly because of the small size of their screen -- will look for only a couple. This means that only the biggest brands with the deepest pockets will even appear to consumers in the majority of mobile search listings.
The biggest trend in mobile search, and use of the mobile Internet in general, is for users to venture beyond their operator's designated portal to access that of another brand. Mobile Web advertising is encouraging this practice; click-through rates for mobile Web ads are reportedly five to 10 times higher than those for other forms of online advertising.
Scott Gallacher, director of online and partnerships at Sky, believes that many brands are wary of investing a huge amount of money in mobile search because it has not yet been seen to have sufficient penetration to warrant the spending. "I don't think mobile search is on the radar for most companies because it's just not that important a channel [to them], so why would they invest in it?" he asks. "From a brand perspective, it's slightly different for us because we have a mobile-based...
Wed, 20 Aug 08
Laptop Brand Not Important -- It's the Hard Drive, RAM
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=61385
Last week, a colleague [wrote an article that] offered advice for purchasing a laptop for college. While some of the advice was sound, I feel the need to rebut and offer my perspective as someone who is a few years removed from college.
During my years at Purdue, I used a laptop for the majority of my note taking and paper writing.
As for hardware, the brand does not matter. The hardware differences between a Dell, Toshiba or HP are nonexistent. Each manufacturer uses the same parts and shell to enclose the hardware.
Look for a machine that has at least 2 gigabytes of random-access memory (RAM) and ample hard drive space. The more RAM, the more programs can run concurrently without degrading performance.
If your student is planning to walk the campus with a laptop, steer away from the 17-inch offerings. The typical dorm room desk is small, and space is a premium. Seventeen-inch laptops are also notorious for being heavy and having incredibly poor battery life.
With respect to the choice of XP or Vista on a Windows-based laptop, there is no reason anyone buying a new computer for college should be seeking XP.
XP will be more than a decade old by the time the student finishes a four-year program. Downgrading to XP, if given the option, is irresponsible.
The security improvements in Vista's universal account control (UAC) can be immensely beneficial on a freewheeling dorm room network that is potentially filled with viruses and malware.
UAC can be a bit annoying, with its persistent pop-ups asking you to "Cancel" or "Allow" an action. But given the choice of a few mouse clicks or spending the night reinstalling Windows because your machine has slowed to a crawl with spyware, the answer is obvious.
If you want to avoid the security issues altogether, buy a Mac. It...
Wed, 20 Aug 08
Analog TV Shutdown Kills Free Cell-Phone TV
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=61380
Picture whipping out your cell phone and catching up with "Lost" or "Jeopardy," or watching the local 11 o'clock news, all for free. You can do this with an imported Chinese phone, but you can't with any phone sold in the U.S. -- at least not without monthly charges.
This is one of the reasons the United States is behind several other countries when it comes to making television an attractive option for cell phones. Carrier business models are partly at fault, but choices about TV technology made long ago are largely to blame.
Most phones sold in Japan can tune in to free TV broadcasts, and there are tens of millions of viewers. Cell phones that can tune in to free broadcasts are also available in South Korea, Germany and China.
But only 3 percent of Americans regularly watched video on their cell phones late last year, according to a survey by the Pew Internet & American Life Project. That figure includes people who watched short, downloaded clips rather than broadcast TV.
For starters, you can blame the impending shutdown of all full-power analog TV broadcasts on Feb. 17, a deadline set by the government. That Chinese handset, made by ZTE Corp., can only tune in to analog transmissions. Because most of them are going away, there's no real point in selling phones like that in the United States.
China is keeping its analog broadcasts until 2015, six years longer than the U.S., so the phones are viable there. Ironically, the TV reception chip inside comes from a U.S. company, Telegent Systems Inc., based in Sunnyvale, Calif.
The analog U.S. broadcasts are being replaced by digital broadcasts, but there are no phones anywhere that can tune in to those.
When the U.S. digital TV standard was laid down in the early '90s by the Advanced Television...
Wed, 20 Aug 08
Twitter's Business Model Is Starting To Show
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=61378
Twitter's business model is starting to show. An early sign came in April, when the popular microblogging service launched in Japan and the home page for every Japanese user included a big banner ad in the top right corner.
Then, on Aug. 7, Twitter made another change, this time in the U.S., by limiting the number of people a single user could connect with, or "follow," to about 2,000. Most recently, on Aug. 14, Twitter made the biggest move yet to slash costs. It killed outbound message delivery to mobile phones via short message, or SMS, in all countries except the U.S., Canada, and India.
Taken together, these moves point to the trouble with Twitter. Investors and marketers have been agog over the potential for Twitter -- unlike other social media properties, such as Facebook and MySpace -- to crack the code, finally, on wringing revenue from millions of users. But the optimists better brace for disappointment.
To understand the limits of Twitter's value, first look inside. Robert Metcalfe, co-inventor of the Ethernet, noticed that communication networks tend to increase exponentially with each single addition, a logic that today is called Metcalfe's Law. Think of a fax machine sitting alone and unplugged in your office; it has little value by itself. But plug it into a network of fax machines around the world, and suddenly that communications tool has huge potential.
Metcalfe's logic drove a lot of the inflated company valuations of the Internet bubble in the 1990s. And today, investors have the same hopes for a lot of companies that rely on users and their networks, including Yahoo's photo site Flickr, video sharing companies YouTube and Vimeo, and human networks on Facebook, MySpace, Pownce, and Twitter. Just think how delighted marketers would be to lob a single, online message to the...
Wed, 20 Aug 08
Online Sharing with Creative Commons
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=61376
Not long after Joichi Ito uploaded a photo he had taken of Internet pioneer Vinton Cerf to the online encyclopedia Wikipedia last year, he noticed something odd. Most of the Internet luminaries and technology gurus who had write-ups on Wikipedia had poor-quality photos or none at all. It wasn't just that. "I realized that some famous people have no free photos online," says Ito, a U.S.-educated Japanese venture capitalist and co-founder of Digital Garage, a Tokyo Net startup incubator.
Ito decided to do something about it. Last May he started turning his Leica and medium-format cameras on practically anyone he met on his travels. Ito spent half the year crisscrossing the globe for meetings and conferences, and within months he had a trove of thousands of images: from O'Reilly Media founder Tim O'Reilly, Wikipedia co-founder Jimmy Wales, to film directors George Lucas and J.J. Abrams [of Cloverfield and Mission: Impossible III fame]. There were even shots of Ito's own sister Mizuko and other family members.
Now he plans to publish them in a book, titled Freesoul. But Ito doesn't expect to profit. In September, when the book goes on sale on Amazon, Ito will give away the photos online. Anyone will be able to download, re-use, republish, or remix the photos for free; Ito only asks that they credit him for the originals. He thinks more people will download the photos than buy the book. "If we sell a couple thousand copies [to recoup the costs], that's fine," says the boyish 42-year-old Ito.
Ito isn't just some amateur shutterbug with an altruistic streak. In April he took over as the head of Creative Commons, a nonprofit organization that offers copyright licenses for creative works. Creative Commons is the brainchild of Stanford law professor Lawrence Lessig. He started it...
Tue, 19 Aug 08
ThinkPad X301 Mirrors Business Notebook Trends
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=61403
Lenovo has taken the wraps off a new ultrathin, lightweight notebook for enterprise workers that analysts are already calling a worthy successor to the company's ThinkPad X300. Leslie Fiering doesn't usually discuss spot product announcements, but the Gartner Research vice president was willing to make an exception Monday because, she said, the X301 exemplifies where the notebook market is heading.
It's all too easy these days for road warriors to pick up a notebook to shed a few extra pounds, Fiering noted. "It's only when they get on the road that they realize all the compromises they've had to make," she said.
"The ThinkPad X301 manages to follow the industry trend of thin and lighter for traveling workers who don't want to carry any extra weight, while at the same time be able to carry their full office environment anywhere around the world," Fiering added.
Housed in an inch-thick case, the X301 weighs less than three pounds. Though the machine has shed weight, Fiering noted, its 13.3-inch screen is a very workable size in comparison to the 12-inch screens on competing models.
The X301 does not employ conventional hard-disk technology. Instead, it features the user's choice of a 64GB or 128GB solid-state drive (SSD), which Fiering says is at the high end of what ultraportable notebook manufacturers now offer.
Though SSD technology adds to the overall cost, Fiering thinks it's worthwhile for certain classes of users. By eliminating the hard drive, "they've taken out a mechanical part that has a high failure rate," she explained.
Featuring a 13.3-inch LED backlit display and ultrathin DVR, the ThinkPad X301 mates an Intel Core 2 Duo processor with DDR3 memory (512MB, 1GB or 2GB) -- a combo that achieves nearly a 20 percent improvement in performance over the ThinkPad X300, Lenovo...
Tue, 19 Aug 08
EA Declines To Extend Take-Two Bid Deadline
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=61402
The Electronic Arts, Take-Two Interactive Software acquisition drama continues as the mammoth video-game publisher said it won't extend a Monday deadline for its $2 billion offer to buy Take-Two, maker of the Grand Theft Auto franchise series.
It may not be as dramatic as the Microsoft and Yahoo story, but EA and Take-Two have danced a few rounds -- and they apparently aren't done dancing.
Take-Two on Monday confirmed that it expects to sign a confidentiality agreement with EA that allows the gaming giant to enter into Take-Two's formal process to evaluate strategic alternatives. Take-Two said it is keeping lines of communication with EA open as part of a process to "maximize value" for its stockholders.
"We welcome EA into our formal process and look forward to demonstrating to their board the significant strides made by Take-Two since they last undertook a detailed review of our business in early 2007," said Strauss Zelnick, chairman of Take-Two. "Our board remains unwavering in its belief that EA's unsolicited conditional tender offer of $25.74 per share was inadequate and undervalued Take-Two's world-class entertainment franchises and our strong operational and financial performance."
Headquartered in New York City, Take-Two publishes and develops products through several of its labels, including Rockstar Games, 2K Games, 2K Sports, and 2K Play. The company is perhaps best known for its Grand Theft Auto series, but also has such hits as BioShock. EA isn't willing to call it quits on the deal, but agreeing on a price is the challenge.
"This deal comes down to leverage and agreeing on a price. At least for the moment, EA doesn't have a lot of leverage over Take-Two, and Take-Two doesn't like the price EA has offered," said Mike Goodman, an analyst at The Yankee Group. "Take-Two is flying high right...
Tue, 19 Aug 08
FCC Approves Android-Based HTC Dream Smartphone
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=61401
As the hype behind T-Mobile and HTC's anticipated launch of the Dream smartphone continues, the carrier and its partner are a step closer to making the Dream a reality for consumers.
The Federal Communications Commission on Monday gave Taiwan-based HTC approval to operate the Android-based smartphone in the U.S. in head-to-head competition with Apple's popular iPhone and its App Store.
Few details about the phone have been made public because of a confidentiality request filed by HTC which asked the FCC to keep several details about the device confidential until Nov. 10. In a written request dated June 18, Dalton Chuang, a senior manager at HTC, asked the FCC to protect "system and equipment description" because public disclosure of the details might be harmful to the company and "would give unfair competitor advantage in the market."
There are a few things, however, that have been leaked about the smartphone that will use the Google-backed Android operating system.
The Dream, according to published reports, will support T-Mobile's 3G network, will have Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 2.O, and is three inches wide by five inches long. Additional specs include a large touchscreen with haptic (touch) feedback, a QWERTY keypad, and Internet navigation controls below the touchscreen.
IBB consulting analyst Moe Tanabian told BusinessWeek that T-Mobile will include an application store similar to Apple's App Store. Tanabian, who could not be reached for comment, also said the phone will come preinstalled with Google's ad software and customers who opt to receive ads from Google may be given discounted monthly fees or a discount on the purchase.
Calls to HTC's U.S. headquarters were not returned in time for publication.
John Jackson, a Yankee Group analyst, said the recent negative publicity about poor performance with Apple's iPhone 3G will not give HTC an edge. "That does not mean,...
Tue, 19 Aug 08
Google Launches 'Free the Airwaves' Campaign
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=61400
Having organized a coalition to promote open networks to the Federal Communications Commission with some success, Google has launched a new effort in support of "white spaces" called Free the Airwaves.
White spaces are the static between channels. According to Google on a new Web site promoting the Free the Airwaves initiative, more than three-quarters of those airwaves are not being used. Google cofounder Larry Page has described the potential as "Wi-Fi on steroids."
"This vast public resource could offer a revolution in wireless services of all kinds, including universal wireless Internet," the Free the Airwaves site proclaims. It adds that the FCC will soon make a decision about whether this unused spectrum should be made available for public use, and asks visitors to sign its petition and "spread the word."
Supporters of using the white spaces contend that services not offered today, such as universal wireless online access, could be provided. Google's newest effort, like the one in favor of open networks, joins with other companies and with public-interest groups.
The Free the Airwaves consumer effort is now allied in the same cause as the White Space Coalition, an industry group whose members include Google, Microsoft, Dell, HP, Intel, Philips, EarthLink, Samsung and others. The coalition has developed a device that, with "smart" reception that intelligently separates received signals, can utilize white spaces for such goals as 80Mbps download speeds to homes.
Such access could also dramatically affect broadband access in rural and smaller markets. Opponents, such as the TV industry's Association for Maximum Service Television, say that utilizing white spaces will interfere with transmissions by licensees of the channels.
Google has had some success this year in lobbying the FCC. After efforts by an alliance led by Google, the FCC required that the auctioned C block of...
Tue, 19 Aug 08
Pandora Founder Says Rising Fees Threaten Webcaster
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=61399
A report has surfaced that Pandora -- the popular music-mix service for computers and mobile devices such as the iPhone -- may have to stop music streaming as royalty fees drain its cash.
In an interview published Saturday by The Washington Post, Pandora founder Tim Westergren said, "We're reaching a pull-the-plug kind of decision. This is like a last stand for Webcasting."
At issue are the royalty fees paid by online, satellite and land radio stations. Each has a separate fee structure, and proponents of Webcasting radio feel the rates for their medium is unfairly targeted.
Satellite radio pays royalties based on the subscriber base -- an easy enough number to determine from week to week, and the fees amount to 1.6 cents per listener per hour, according to some estimates.
Traditional radio stations pay no performance royalty fees. So far, so good.
But the fees imposed on Internet-based radio are byzantine and difficult to track. Under the terms of a 2007 ruling by the Copyright Royalty Board (CRB), Internet-based services must pay a minimum of $500 per channel of content, plus about 60 cents per user per month. Per-song royalty rates from the CRB ruling were .0008 cents in 2006, .0011 cents in 2007, and .0014 cents this year, rising to .0018 cents in 2009 and .0019 cents in 2010.
Westergren estimated before a Senate subcommittee last month that these fees will amount to 70 percent of Pandora's revenue. And it's about to get worse. Under the 2007 agreement, fees will nearly double by 2010. If that weren't enough, hearings to begin soon will set royalty rates for 2011 and beyond, and many assume those rates will be even higher.
The Copyright Royalty Board is comprised of a three-judge panel, selected by the Librarian of Congress. In essence, the fate of all musical-performance...
Tue, 19 Aug 08
GraphOn Sues Google for Patent Infringement
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=61398
Google is in the legal crosshairs once again. On Monday, GraphOn announced it has filed a lawsuit against the search giant alleging infringement on four of the company's patents.
GraphOn, a developer of server-based application publishing and Web-enabling software solutions, filed the complaint in U.S. District Court in the Eastern District of Texas. This district is well known for its specialized rules for patent-infringement cases and judges well versed in patent law.
The complaint alleges Google is infringing on patents that protect GraphOn's method of maintaining an automated and network-accessible database. Specifically, the suit alleges that Google's Base, AdWords, Blogger, Sites and YouTube services infringe GraphOn patents. GraphOn is seeking a permanent injunction against Google as well as unspecified damages.
"The number of patents now owned by GraphOn as a result of the NES acquisition has increased to 23, a number that is expected to continue to increase as patent applications on file at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office mature into issued patents," GraphOn CEO Robert Dilworth said. "Aggressively protecting the technology represented in these patents is an important part of maximizing their value to GraphOn."
Although GraphOn is clearly not a patent troll, the Google lawsuit is not its only attempt to protect its patents. The company filed a lawsuit against AutoTrader.com in November 2005 that also claimed infringement on some of the same patents Google is accused of trespassing on. In January 2008 GraphOn announced a license agreement and the end of its legal dispute with AutoTrader.com.
GraphOn also filed a lawsuit against Juniper Networks in August 2007. That lawsuit claimed infringement of GraphOn patents that protect the company's fundamental network security and firewall technologies.
GraphOn's lawsuits are becoming more frequent. The company filed suit in March against Classified Ventures, IAC/InterActiveCorp, Match.com, Yahoo, eHarmony.com and CareerBuilder alleging infringement...
Tue, 19 Aug 08
Toshiba End-Runs Blu-ray with Up-Converting DVD Player
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=61397
What's your next step if your company's high-definition DVD format lost the war? If you're Toshiba, you come out with a new DVD player that converts to high-def.
Toshiba America announced Monday its XD-E500 player with XDE technology -- that is, "eXtended Detail Enhancement." The company said the E500 is "more than just DVD up-conversion." It provides conversion from 480i/p to 720p, 1080i or 1080p, as well as selectable picture-enhancement modes so that a user can get more details, more colors, and better contrast. (720p, progressive, and 1080i, interlaced, are HD video modes.)
Louis Masses, director of product planning at Toshiba, said XDE lets consumers "experience their existing DVD library and the tens of thousands of DVD titles in a whole new way" as part of a "high-quality experience at an affordable price" of $149.99. The XD-E500 does not play HD DVD or Blu-Ray high-definition discs, and the converted difference is best seen on a HDTV or monitor.
The company said its Sharp Mode is "one step closer to high-definition," providing a different kind of sharpness than what a normal DVD player provides. Specifically, the company said that XDE analyzes the full image and only adds edge enhancement where it's needed.
The player's Contrast Mode also works better than traditional versions, Toshiba said, in that scenes can be made darker without the usual "washing out." The new player also offers capabilities found in most converting machines, including HDMI-CEC, DivX certification and support for JPEG, MP3 and WMA.
In short, Toshiba wants consumers to feel that they are getting closer to the HD experience without the Blu-ray price and using existing DVD collections.
Michael Gartenberg, vice president of consumer strategy at Jupitermedia, said the player makes it clear that Toshiba, at least for the moment, is going to fight Blu-ray...
Tue, 19 Aug 08
New BlackBerry Expected Within a Month
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=61361
The new BlackBerry model should be coming to North America within a month now that Research In Motion Ltd. has started selling it in Germany and Chile.
The first major new BlackBerry model in more than a year, the Bold is a high-end BlackBerry that has twice the screen resolution of current models made by RIM. The Bold, or 9000, matches the resolution, but not the size, of the screen on Apple Inc.'s iPhone, which has emerged as a potent competitor in the smart-phone category.
AT&T Inc. says it will be the exclusive U.S. carrier for the Bold, as it is for the iPhone. An AT&T spokesman declined to say Thursday when the company will release it.
But Peter Misek, an analyst with Canaccord Adams, said he expects AT&T to start selling it on Sept. 15 and Rogers Communications in Canada to release it on Aug. 18.
Some stores in Canada have already unveiled a store model and fliers.
Genuity Capital Markets analyst Deepak Chopra also expects it will be released in the United States in mid-September.
RIM had announced a summer release for the Bold, but many people had expected the phone to be available in June. Misek said issues with chips and battery life caused a delay.
The company has begun to roll out the BlackBerry Bold in some markets through partnerships with wireless carriers there. RIM unveiled the Bold in Chile on July 22 and in Germany on Aug. 6.
RIM had no comment about specific plans in North America.
Misek said the Bold will cost about $200 in the United States depending on the contract.
According to T-Mobile web site in Germany the cost of the phone without a service plan is EU459.95 euros. With a plan, it is EU129.95.
After enjoying years of success in the corporate market, RIM has targeted the consumer market with the...
Tue, 19 Aug 08
Teen Hacker Pleads Guilty to Computer Fraud
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=61358
A 19-year-old Cheyenne, Wyoming man pleaded guilty in a federal courtroom Wednesday in connection with the development of software to take over thousands of computers and gain access to financial information.
The case against Jason M. Milmont marks the first time someone has been prosecuted for using peer-to-peer software in such a way, federal prosecutors have said.
Milmont faces up to five years in prison and a $250,000 fine for felony unauthorized access to a computer to further a fraud.
Federal prosecutors indicated in June that Milmont would be allowed to enter a plea in Wyoming, although he was charged in Los Angeles.
"That was part of his cooperation on the agreement," said John Powell, spokesman for the U.S. Attorney's Office in Cheyenne, of the guilty plea.
Milmont is scheduled to be sentenced Oct. 23 in federal court.
According to the U.S. Attorney's Office, the defendant has agreed to pay more than $73,000 in restitution.
The charge stems from Milmont's alleged security compromise of 5,000 to 15,000 computers by modifying the file-sharing program LimeWire.
Users who downloaded the software from a Web site offering a modified version of the program would be infected and turned into "botnets." The software exploit came to be known as the Nugache Worm.
Milmont's attorney, Bob Rose, was unavailable for comment.
U.S. Attorney Wesley L. Hsu, chief of the Cyber and Intellectual Property Crimes Section in Los Angeles, has said Milmont engaged in some of the alleged activities before he was 18 years old, but that he has been charged as an adult.
Hsu called the manner in which Milmont obtained information -- developing his own version of the file-sharing program LimeWire -- "very creative."
The type of program Milmont is accused of creating is known as "malware."
Hsu said computer and Internet users can help prevent such hacking by regularly updating the software they use.
The assistant U.S....
Tue, 19 Aug 08
Yahoo Selects New Board Members
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=61357
Yahoo Inc. said Thursday it will add the former chief executives of Viacom and Nextel Partners to its board of directors as part of the company's deal to ward off a proxy fight with billionaire investor Carl Icahn.
The company, based in Sunnyvale, Calif., selected Frank Biondi Jr. and John Chapple, former chief executives of Viacom Inc. and Nextel Partners, respectively, from a list of nine recommendations from Icahn.
Icahn, who has a long history of corporate rabble-rousing, had been pressing Microsoft Corp. and Yahoo to renew buyout talks. The New York-based financier acquired 5 percent of Yahoo's shares and spent two months spearheading a campaign to replace the Internet company's entire board after it rejected Microsoft's $47.5 billion takeover bid in May.
A showdown with Icahn had been set to culminate in a shareholder vote at Yahoo's Aug. 1 annual meeting, but a truce in late July headed it off.
As part of the deal, Icahn got a seat on the board, and Yahoo agreed to name two others backed by the activist investor. To make way for the new directors, Robert Kotick, chief executive of video game maker Activision Blizzard Inc., stepped down after five years on Yahoo's board.
None of the three new directors has led a Web company, but together Biondi and Chapple have high-profile content and technology credentials.
"Frank's extensive experience in the entertainment and media industries, combined with John's deep management experience in telecommunications, will provide valuable perspectives to our already diverse board," Yahoo Chairman Roy Bostock said in a statement.
Biondi, 63, served as CEO of Viacom, the entertainment company that owns MTV and Paramount Pictures, among many other content brands, from 1987 to 1996. He led Universal Studios until 1998 and is currently senior managing director of WaterView Advisors, a private equity fund specializing in media and entertainment ventures.
Biondi...
Tue, 19 Aug 08
eBay Steps Up Its Asian-Expansion Plans
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=61356
Electronic commerce giant eBay is stepping up overseas expansion efforts, making good on pledges that it would use a growing cash pile to fuel growth. San Jose-based eBay plans to acquire a minority stake in Asian e-commerce giant Gmarket, worth $404 million as of Aug. 12.
The proposed acquisition was outlined on Aug. 13, two weeks after eBay initially sent a letter to the Korean Fair Trade Commission saying it wanted to buy the equity of the company's largest shareholder, Chairman Ki Hyung Lee. "While no definitive agreement has yet been signed or reached in connection with the discussions, a voluntary preliminary filing has been made," eBay said in a statement. Lee holds about 36.4 percent of the company's 50.05 million outstanding shares. Gmarket closed Aug. 12 at 22.18. Should eBay and Chairman Lee agree on a price, the KFTC would still have to approve the transaction.
Buying the stake would help eBay with a long-held aim to widen its beachhead in Asia. Like many U.S. companies, eBay has repeatedly tried to extend its success in the U.S. and Europe to Asia, where local competitors have strong ties to users.
The move may also help eBay counter competition for Asian e-commerce from Yahoo, which purchased a 10 percent stake in Gmarket in 2006 and has a 40 percent stake in the Alibaba Group, the parent company of China's largest e-commerce company.
EBay's decision fits with a strategy of acquiring stakes in companies that can expand its core shopping business to new markets. The company has an 18.7 percent stake in MercadoLibre, a leading Latin American shopping site. More than 41 percent of eBay's revenue comes from acquisitions, most notably from payments giant PayPal.
This is the second time eBay has purchased a large minority stake in an Asian company. It has a...
Tue, 19 Aug 08
Microsoft 'Surface' Computer Has Touch of Future
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=61354
Microsoft Corp. is putting its touchy-feely side to the test at the Sheraton Hotel.
The software giant yesterday showed off its new Surface technology at five Sheraton hotels nationwide, including the Boston location. The demonstration allows the public to get a feel for Microsoft's first fully touch-screen computer.
"I was very impressed with its capabilities," said Jessica Aron, who tapped into the music player and Google Earth features while her father, Mark, watched. "It is really cool-looking. I was impressed that it's basically all-in-one, with all the things that you can do with it. It's the future, I guess."
The table-like Surface computer operates entirely through a 30- inch interactive screen, which works along the same lines as Apple's iPhone. But the Surface also recognizes and interacts with objects such as iPods and digital cameras that it comes in contact with, allowing users to edit photos or play music on the spot. The display, which rotates, can also recognize multiple hands or fingers.
"I think that this would be a great application for a business desk," said Mark Aron. "Your calendar's there. Your client comes in, you can write up a work order or whatever, turn the paper around, hand them a stylus and say, sign here."
The test computers surfaced at 2 a.m. yesterday in the Boston Sheraton's lobby and 29th-floor club lounge. Staff reported the lobby Surface drew a steady stream of curious people.
Sheraton is looking at the computers as a way to liven up their lobbies. The Boston hotel plans to put another Surface in the bar and maybe more spots if guests can't get enough of it.
"People are going to gravitate to places where they feel comfortable and can stay connected, and having that little extra feature helps," said Sheraton Boston General Manager Mark Anderson. "So, competitively, we definitely see it...
Tue, 19 Aug 08
For Customers, There's No Need To Suffer in Silence
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=61352
Have you been bumped from a flight? Belittled by a hotel clerk? Or stewed in a doctor's waiting room? Then Rupert Barkoff wants to hear all about it.
By day, Barkoff is a lawyer at Kilpatrick Stockton in Atlanta and a national expert on business franchising. But his hobby -- his golf, as he puts it -- is dissecting customer service horror stories, starting with his own.
The 60-year-old "self-appointed expert on customer service" is on a mission to collect 1,000 customer service stories. Barkoff created a Web site called anecdatabook.com to collect the tales, and he aims to write a book about the findings, a how-to tome that coaches people (and businesses) about how to right customer service wrongs.
He has co-authored a book on franchising and was a technical adviser on "Franchising for Dummies." Those subjects are limited, however. His current project is universal because everyone is a consumer who has endured shoddy or hostile service.
"Maybe we can teach people to do the right thing and be noisy about it," said Barkoff, a frequent traveler and somewhat of a serial letter-writing complainer. "You're doing a disservice to the business if you don't complain."
Constructive complaining is a lost art, he said. Customers often get nasty or, more often, shrug and walk away, figuring it's not worth the effort to right a wrong. Or they think no one cares. Businesses can be tin-eared when hearing complaints. Or they can even aggravate customers more when they respond.
Case in point: Barkoff ordered his wife a dozen roses. They arrived dead. He complained to the florist, who quickly offered Barkoff a cash refund. Barkoff was put off. The man should have immediately sent out a replacement arrangement, he said, even if he had to get it from a competitor. Barkoff says he brings maybe $400 a...
Sat, 16 Aug 08
Judge Refuses to Lift Gag Order on MIT Students
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=61374
A federal judge Thursday refused to lift the gag order imposed on three students at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology barring them from disseminating information about the security flaws they identified with Boston's "T" mass transportation system.
The temporary restraining order had been granted by another judge on Saturday after the Massachusetts Bay Transit Authority found out that the students planned to present their findings at the Defcon hacker conference in Las Vegas. Another hearing is scheduled for Tuesday, when the original temporary restraining order will expire. MBTA is seeking to convert the restraining order into a preliminary injunction of indefinite duration.
As part of his order Thursday, Judge George O'Toole Jr. ordered the students and their professor to turn over any additional documents relating to their research into security holes and ways to crack security on the system's CharlieCards.
The students have already produced a five-page memo and a 30-page report, but the MBTA requested that they produce additional documents. While there other documents, such as the students' class paper, the code they had planned to distribute, and e-mail correspondence, they provide no additional information on how to exploit the CharlieCard's weaknesses, said Rebecca Jeschke, an Electronic Frontier Foundation spokesperson, in a telephone interview.
In arguing that the restraining order should be removed, EFF attorney Jennifer Granick said the court was violating the students' First Amendment rights. Jeschke added, "The gag order is an unconstitutional prior restraint on the students' right to speak."
The case raises to a new level a long-simmering conflict between security researchers and the agencies that fear an onslaught of malicious hackers. "The students did the right thing," Jeschke said. "They informed MBTA of their findings; they were planning to withhold information that would allow people to exploit the system."
Major media sentiment veered toward the...
Sat, 16 Aug 08
Kill Bits for Aurigma, HP Support in Microsoft Patches
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=61372
For all talk the about the mammoth Patch Tuesday this week, there was little discussion surrounding a new set of ActiveX kill bits Microsoft also released. The update includes kill bits for third-party software applications Aurigma Image Uploader and HP Instant Support.
A kill bit is a security feature in Microsoft Internet Explorer. Not to be confused with Apple's infamous iPhone kill switch, the kill bit prevents the Internet Explorer HTML-rendering engine from loading an ActiveX control. The kill bit accomplishes this by making a registry setting and is referred to as "setting the kill bit."
After the kill bit is set, the control can never be loaded, even when it is fully installed, according to Microsoft. Setting the kill bit ensures that even if a vulnerable component is introduced or reintroduced to a system, it remains inert and harmless. Microsoft has issued kill bits for third-party software providers in past months, and continues to fill in the missing pieces.
Local ActiveX controls and browser plug-ins marked safe for scripting are supposed to play by certain rules, like not downloading and running executable payloads or changing security settings on the local machine, according to Paul Zimski, vice president of security solutions at Lumension Security.
If you have a vulnerable plug-in that is trusted by the browser, it's fairly easy to write some malicious HTML and get the browser to feed bad instructions to carry out an attack, he said.
"Because this type of attack requires the browser to interact with the already local ActiveX plug-in, there are basically two ways to eliminate these kinds of issues. One, fix the vulnerable plug-in, or two, tell the browser to stop talking to it. The kill-bit does the latter," Zimski said. "Microsoft seems to be stepping up to the plate by issuing kill bits for...
Sat, 16 Aug 08
Microsoft Opens Windows 7 Blog for Discussions
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=61371
Microsoft has launched a new blog page for discussions with customers and partners about the next Windows operating system. "We strongly believe that success for Windows 7 includes an open and honest, and two-way, discussion," said Windows 7 development engineers Jon DeVaan and Steven Sinofsky.
For a while now, Microsoft has said it would deliver Windows 7 approximately three years after the January 2007 launch of Windows Vista. "The product is tracking very, very well," said Senior Vice President Bill Veghte, who runs Microsoft's Windows business. "And we are looking good relative to our commitment," he told analysts last month.
To prep developers on the new OS, Microsoft will hold two major Windows events. "The Professional Developers Conference on October 27 and the Windows Hardware Engineering Conference the following week represent the first venues where we will provide in-depth technical information about Windows 7," DeVaan and Sinofsky said.
Sales of licenses for Windows Vista surpassed the 180 million in the second quarter, according to Colleen Healy, general manager of investor relations at Microsoft. "And Windows Vista had driven client revenue to an average growth rate of 16 percent since it became generally available," she said during a conference call with analysts last month.
However, Vista has come under fire because of its failure to work well with other software applications and hardware. Adoption rates in enterprises have also lagged analysts' expectations.
With the launch of Windows 7, Microsoft will have its first major opportunity to improve industry perceptions about its operating system. "The biggest problem Vista has today is in perception --- a perceived lack of value and perceived instability," said Michael Silver, a research director at Gartner Client Computing.
Microsoft says it plans to listen more closely to what the world has to say about Windows. Earlier this year, Veghte...
Sat, 16 Aug 08
Palm Treo Pro Details Leaked on Web Site
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=61370
Yet another vendor has fallen prey to "premature launch syndrome." Yesterday someone at Palm uploaded a text and visual presentation of the Treo Pro to the Palm Web site, and it didn't escape notice. Even though the presentation was pulled just minutes later, pictures and text were dutifully scooped up by bloggers and passed throughout the Net.
The as-yet-unannounced Treo Pro, formerly known as the Treo 850, sports clean, sculpted lines, a black finish with silver trim, and other features Palm fans have been waiting for.
According to the annotated online photo, the Treo Pro includes a 2.4-inch, 320-by-320-pixel touch screen, a micro-USB connector, microSD expansion slot, and a long-awaited headphone jack. The unit is supposed to include both Wi-Fi and GSM. The snatched information, most clearly on display at Gizmondo (http://gizmodo.com/5037301/palm-treo-pro-revealed-best-looking-palm-ever), seems to indicate that the device will run Windows Mobile 6.1 Professional rather than the not-yet-released refresh of the Palm OS.
The Pro seems to be a variant of the Palm Treo 800w that is on the streets now, with some keyboard layout differences. The current Treo 800w, a CDMA network phone, includes GPS -- so odds are the GSM version of the Pro will, as well. A camera port is clearly labeled on the captured photos, but there is no indication of the resolution. The current 800w has a two-megapixel camera. Speculation is that T-Mobile or AT&T will be the first carriers to offer the Treo Pro with their GSM 3G networks.
According to one source, the following unconfirmed specs were grabbed online:
* 14 mm in thickness, width 60 mm, and length 113 mm
* GSM, EDGE and UMTS HSDPA 3.6
* GPS
* Wi-F 802.11b/g
* 320-by-320-pixel screen, touch panel
* microSD slot under the battery
* Two-megapixel camera
* 1500mAh battery
* A micro-USB connector for...
Sat, 16 Aug 08
U.S. Not Ready for Georgia-Style Computer Attacks
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=61369
While Internet attacks continue in Georgia, security experts say the U.S. is not prepared for similar attacks that could steal confidential data and wreak havoc on U.S. computer systems.
National intelligence officials earlier this year told a Senate committee that unlike the U.S. military, the federal government and private sector are not prepared for cyber attacks and pointed to China and Russia as threats to consider. It wasn't the first time government officials cited China as a threat.
A 2007 Department of Defense report said the Chinese government sees cyber war as part of its first strike. Also last year, General James Cartwright, vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said China is carrying out widespread reconnaissance of America's networks. Earlier this year, Chinese hackers attempted to take out CNN's Web site, according to CNN.
Scott Borg, director of the independent U.S. Cyber Consequences Unit, has blamed Russia for taking down about 20 Georgian government, banking and media sites. Borg said the U.S. is ready for physical attacks, but not from computer systems.
China and Russia "are the biggest single countries that provide a challenge to the U.S.," said Jose Nezario, a senior security researcher with Arbor Networks. "I would say they are closely matched in terms of capability and programming to be able to induce an attack against the U.S. through the Internet."
Russia is well equipped, according to Nezario. Arbor Networks has tracked Russian criminal groups attacking Web sites, files and other groups, netting millions of dollars. And there have been Web posts teaching residents of Russia ways to support the cause by initiating their own attacks.
In fact, Nezario watched the attack of a media outlet in Georgia during our interview from his office in Michigan. Nezario said no one is immune to these types of attacks.
Nezario and his...
Sat, 16 Aug 08
Nintendo Continues To Lead Game-Console Sales
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=61368
U.S. sales of video-game consoles and software jumped 28 percent last month compared to last year, according to market researcher NPD Group. Nintendo's DS portable and Wii remained the most popular systems.
For hardware, that means nearly $450 million in July purchases, a 17 percent increase compared to the same time last year. The top-selling DS moved about 608,000 units, with the Wii second at about 555,000.
The next four places showed small differences, with third-place Sony's PlayStation 3 at 225,000, its PlayStation Portable in fourth with 222,000, and Microsoft's Xbox 360 fifth with 205,000. The PlayStation 2, now entering late middle age eight years after its release, still sold about 155,000 for sixth place.
In total sales, the Wii is in first place, with about 13.5 million sold in North America and about 31 million worldwide. The Xbox 360 is in second place, with 12 million U.S. sales and 20 million worldwide, and the PS3 takes third with 5.5 million U.S. and 15 million worldwide.
Game software sales in the U.S. totaled $591 million, an increase of 41 percent over last year. The top two games were Electronic Arts' NCAA Football 09 for the Xbox, with 397,000 sold, and Nintendo's Wii Fit, with about 370,000. Guitar Hero: On Tour for the DS sold 309,000 for third place, and Wii Play was fourth with 284,000.
The remaining games in the top 10 were, in order, NCAA Football for the PS3, Soulcalibur IV for the Xbox 360, Mario Kart for the Wii, Rock Band Special Edition Bundle for the Wii, Soulcalibur IV for the PS3, and Sid Meier's Civilization Revolution for the Xbox 360.
Mike Goodman, an analyst with industry research firm Yankee Group, said it is "pretty safe to assume that Nintendo will continue to lead the...
Sat, 16 Aug 08
iPhone 3G Problems Appear Centered on Big Cities
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=61367
Reports continue to flood in from U.S. iPhone 3G users about problems with 3G connections and speeds. The problems tend to come from large metropolitan areas, but one informal survey points to the San Francisco Bay Area and Los Angeles.
The problem, BusinessWeek reported Thursday, may be faulty firmware in a communications chip supplied by Munich-based Infineon. BusinessWeek said its confidential sources backed a report released earlier this week by Nomura Securities analyst Richard Windsor that pointed to the firmware.
An Infineon spokesperson declined to address the iPhone issue directly, but defended Infineon's technology, saying it works fine in other 3G phones. "Our 3G chips are, for example, used in Samsung handsets and we are not aware of such problems there," he said.
Apple is reportedly working on a firmware upgrade to fix the problem. USA Today reported that the fix could be available via iTunes as early as next week, but Apple has not commented.
Tim Bajarin, principal analyst with Creative Strategies, said in an e-mail, "Historically, Apple does not respond to something like this automatically just because there are reports of problems. If there is merit to the issue, they work overtime to fix it and usually, at the point of the fix, that is when they respond."
Bajarin expects Apple to eventually make things right with its 3G customers. "Apple prides itself on its customer-service reputation and I would be surprised if they don't go the extra mile to make sure anything that impacts that image will be corrected as fast as possible," he said.
Another theory is that Apple programmed the Infineon chip to require a stronger-than-needed 3G signal, so some users are being knocked down to slower networks even though there really is sufficient 3G bandwidth.
Alternatively, it may be that AT&T hasn't built out its 3G...
Sat, 16 Aug 08
First Android Smartphone May Come From T-Mobile
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=61366
T-Mobile will release this fall the first device using Google's Android software platform, according to a new report.
The New York Times said Thursday that the phone, being made by HTC, is expected to go on sale as early as October, in order to make the holiday season. It cited unnamed sources who had been briefed on T-Mobile's plans.
The new device using the open-source Android software stack will reportedly have smartphone capabilities that compare with the Apple iPhone and devices from Research in Motion, Nokia and others.
The HTC phone is expected to have a touchscreen that slides out to reveal a full keyboard. A video purportedly showing the Android device is now on YouTube. Even if development is completed, the phone must still be certified by the Federal Communications Commission before it can be released.
The expected launch of an Android-based phone is attracting a lot of attention for several reasons.
First, it is based on the Google-backed platform, and Google, like Apple, is a powerful brand name with a major following.
Second, Android offers the possibility of a mobile environment driven from the ground up, rather than the familiar top-down offerings of major phone companies. The Linux-based operating system is freely available and backed by an alliance of carriers and manufacturers. Android phones will be able to run applications developed by third-party developers, a potentially dynamic ecosystem like the iPhone's.
An Android-based phone would also arrive as open-device/open-software networks are emerging in the U.S. In the FCC auction of 700-MHz bandwidth earlier this year, Verizon Wireless won the licenses to the C block along with an obligation to allow any compatible device or non-malicious software to work on the frequencies. This, along with the possibility of other open networks, could mean that Android becomes a major part of a new...
Sat, 16 Aug 08
E-Mail Used To Help Iraq Doctors Treat Patients
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=61339
When a young Iraqi woman developed life-threatening complications during her pregnancy last year, the remedy came from an unusual source: e-mail.
Fearing they would have to abort the baby to save the mother, her doctors asked for help from the Swinfen Charitable Trust -- a British charity that links up doctors in wartorn or impoverished nations with Western specialists through the Internet.
The Iraqi doctors e-mailed details of their patient's condition to the charity, which forwarded them to an obstetrician in Britain and an anaesthetist in Spain who were part of the trust's network of volunteers.
"After two and a half weeks, we had a healthy mother and baby go home," said Lord Swinfen, who founded the charity with his wife. "It is amazing what a few e-mails and digital pictures were able to do."
Since 1998, the Swinfen Charitable Trust has worked worldwide, from Antarctica to the Solomon Islands. With a roster of more than 380 Western doctors, they provide a free, medical match-making service that helps doctors and patients with few options.
The charity uses a basic version of telemedicine. Doctors are given a digital camera, and e-mail photos, a patient history and any other relevant material, like X-rays, to the Swinfens. The couple then forwards those requests to one or more volunteer doctors, who usually respond within two days.
In the United States and other Western countries, telemedicine generally involves video links to examine patients or medical information in specialties such as dermatology, cardiology, and mental health.
In the last few years, nearly one-fifth of the Swinfen charity's cases have come from Iraq. Nearly 40 hospitals across the country are now linked to the network, and some doctors said the charity is more useful than traditional U.N. aid organizations.
Most U.N. agencies refuse to work permanently in Iraq, preferring to base their operations in neighboring...
Sat, 16 Aug 08
NBC Sees New Media Habits Form with Olympic Games
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=61337
About half of the people who are using mobile phones to pull down video or information about the Olympics have been trying out that technology for the first time, NBC said on Wednesday.
NBC Universal, a unit of General Electric Co., has been using the Olympics as something of a research lab to track the adoption of new media technology. Since the opening ceremony last Friday, the company has made content available online, through video on demand and via cell phones along with traditional TV.
The number of people requesting Olympic content over their phones is still relatively small -- 494,506 on Sunday and 476,062 on Monday -- but NBC executives say they're stunned at how many of those never used the phones for this purpose before.
"To some extent, the Olympics are beginning to influence how people use new technology," said Alan Wurtzel, research president for NBC Universal.
By far, however, television is still the preferred format. Of the estimated 107 million people to experience at least a few minutes of the Olympics on Sunday, 95 percent watched it on TV, NBC said.
Given the choice between a high-definition TV placed before a couch or a small, grainy picture on a computer screen, it's still a pretty obvious call, Wurtzel said.
NBC's prime-time ratings are running well ahead of the Athens games in 2004. Through five days, the average prime-time viewership for NBC is 31.3 million, the network said. Interest in Athens started slowly but heated up with gymnastics, while the Beijing games have been a draw from the start.
It has become a communal event that the country has enjoyed sharing, Wurtzel said, a rarity in the day of media fractionalization.
"I don't think you're going to see too much of this in the future," he said.
Americans downloaded some 1.7 million video streams of Monday's stunning...
Sat, 16 Aug 08
Internet Scams Growing Rapidly in United States
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=61336
U.S. state and federal officials are scrambling to deal with a rising tide of spam, according to data published on Wednesday.
In 2007, the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) reported 221, 226 Internet-related fraud complaints in the United States, or 16, 000 more than in 2006.
Even so, the numbers probably underestimate the total number of complaints, and in many cases consumers are not aware when they have been victimized, said authors of the report published by the San Jose Mercury News on Wednesday.
California collected 8,622 individual complaints of Internet-related fraud -- almost twice as many as New York, the second-ranking state, the report said.
Most complaints (5,629) focused on possible identity theft, service disputes, spam, spyware and "phishing," or e-mail scams that trick recipients into revealing personal information, said the report.
The other 2,993 dealt with equipment and software problems. Together these accounted for 14 percent of all consumer fraud complaints received by the state, according to the report.
The impact of Internet fraud on consumers and legitimate businesses is considerable. Last year, an estimated 7.1 billion dollars were lost to viruses, spyware and phishing, said the report, quoting data provided by Consumer Reports, a non-profit organization. "The states and the FTC have limited resources, but this problem is getting worse over time," said Reece Rushing, director of regulatory policy at the Center for American Progress. "It's a low priority in many states."
Sat, 16 Aug 08
Text the Vote! Web 2.0 Comes to Election Politics
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=61335
Sometime between now and the convention, Barack Obama, just like the cool kid in study hall, will surreptitiously send a text message announcing his pick for vice president. The ploy may seem silly -- the fad candidate adopts the latest tech fad -- but it's an important part of one of Obama's most under-recognized campaign efforts.
The Web has certainly made it harder to roll out a surprise running mate. Four years ago, even as The New York Post reported incorrectly that Dick Gephardt would be John Kerry's 2004 vice presidential pick, a message-board commenter on an aviation Web site broke the news that Kerry had actually chosen John Edwards. (In a hangar, the commenter had spotted decals with Edwards' name being added to Kerry's campaign plane.)
But announcing Obama's running mate by text message has little to do with proclaiming the selection and everything to do with getting out the vote on Election Day in November. The move should add thousands -- and more likely tens or hundreds of thousands -- of cell phone numbers to what is already one of the most detailed political databases ever created.
A study conducted during the 2006 elections showed that text-message reminders helped increase turnout among new voters by four percentage points, at a cost of only $1.56 per vote -- much cheaper than the $20 or $30 per vote that the offline work of door-to-door canvassing or phone banking costs.
For Obama, who is building his campaign around bringing in new young voters and registering minority voters, there's no more effective outreach than a text message. Cell phones, which legally can't be called by pollsters and can't be reached by campaign "robo-calls," are the most intimate form of communication technology today. Young voters of every race are more likely to use their cell phones...
Sat, 16 Aug 08
Atom Sales Help Intel Expand Beyond PC Market
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=61332
Sales of Intel's Atom processor, designed for consumer electronics gadgets and super-slim personal computers, are topping company targets as the largest chipmaker in the world seeks to expand beyond a slowing PC market.
"Atom is off to a very, very rapid start, far exceeding our expectations when we started the year," the company's chief financial officer, Stacy Smith, said in an interview on Tuesday. "It's the perfect recession product to have in the marketplace."
Atom is designed to go into notebook computers and low-cost gizmos that Intel calls mobile Internet devices, as well as other devices that may appeal to consumers tightening their belts in the face of a slackening economy.
"It plays very well in the mobile marketplace; it plays in emerging markets; it plays into people's desire to have a second PC, or one for the kids that's low-cost yet still capable," Smith said of Atom. "It's off to the races."
The market for Atom is still nascent, and it is unclear just how large the segments Atom is targeted at will become. Intel faces slowing growth in its mainstay PC business and needs to find new areas of sales growth.
"We'll know kind of in six months how much of this demand is real and how much is customers thinking they're going to win in the marketplace and double-ordering," Smith added. "It seems to be growing the market rather than cannibalizing existing PC sales."
He also stuck to his forecast for overall revenue in the current third quarter of $10.0 billion to $10.6 billion. "Of course I'm still comfortable with it. It's still my forecast."
Analysts currently expect the company to have third-quarter revenue of $10.3 billion, according to Reuters Estimates.
"It's a very uncertain macro environment," Smith said. "It's not true just in the United States; it's true in Europe in terms of slowing...
Fri, 15 Aug 08
Former Apple Exec Settles Backdating Suit for $2.2 Million
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=61348
Apple's former general counsel, Nancy Heinen, settled a year-old civil suit Thursday involving backdating of stock options for key executives. Heinen agreed to $2.2 million in restitution, interest and fines and stipulated she would take no job in a publicly traded company for five years.
The Securities and Exchange Commission also barred her from practicing security law for three years. Among the recipients of backdated options was Apple CEO Steve Jobs.
Options with an earlier date can vest more quickly and have greater value relative to a company's current stock price. The option price is the actual price of shares on the grant date. So backdated options were worth far more than if the price had been set after Apple's stock rose.
Some financial estimates place the loss to shareholders at close to $40 million. An Apple internal investigation and audit absolved most of the executive suite, except Heinen and former Chief Financial Officer Fred Anderson. SEC investigators agreed that no other Apple executives were at fault.
Anderson settled with the SEC shortly after the charges were filed in April 2007. In his defense, Anderson says he warned Jobs about the illegal backdating but was assured it had been approved by the board of directors.
Backdating is not illegal if it is publicly disclosed, properly documented in financial records, and approved by the board of directors. The SEC found that Heinen may have tampered with documents and created documents to make it appear that the board had approved the backdating.
The charges stem from Heinen allegedly backdating 4.8 million shares of stock to February 2001 for herself and other top executives and more than seven million shares for Steve Jobs to December 2001.
Heinen wasn't required to admit guilt in the settlement. Her attorney, Miles Ehrlich, said, "This isn't an admission -- it's...
Fri, 15 Aug 08
Apple Testing Firmware Fix for iPhone 3G Problems
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=61347
While the iPhone 3G consumer base continues to suffer with dropped calls, abrupt network switches, poor reception and service interruptions, there are reports that Apple may be getting closer to fixing the issue.
The glitches are reportedly related to a chip inside Apple's music-playing cell phone. Apple reportedly plans to remedy the woes through a software upgrade. That would mean avoiding a product recall that could be costly for both Apple and AT&T.
The news aligns with one financial analyst's suggestion that the iPhone issues could be a problem with the communications chip. Richard Windsor, a financial analyst at Nomura, wrote in a research paper about similar complaints with 3G phones launched in Europe five years ago.
"We believe that these issues are typical of an immature chipset and radio protocol stack where we are almost certain that Infineon is the 3G supplier," Windsor asserted. "This is not surprising, as the Infineon 3G chipset solution has never really been tested in the hands of users. Some people will not experience these problems, as it is only in areas where the radio signal weakens that the immaturity of the stack really shows."
Ny Teknik, a Swedish engineering magazine, claims it has a report on tests conducted by unnamed experts that proves some iPhone 3G handset sensitivity is below the 3G standard mandates.
According to the report, the most likely cause of the 3G problems is defective adjustments between the antenna and an amplifier to capture weak signals from that antenna. The result: poor 3G connectivity and slower data speeds.
Infineon could not immediately be reached for comment on the possibility that its chip could be the cause of 3G reception woes. Apple has not yet acknowledged any issues with its latest handset. AT&T issued a statement saying, "Overall, the new iPhone...
Fri, 15 Aug 08
New Intel Motherboard Wakes Up Tech Industry
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=61346
In a move to reduce consumer energy consumption, some high-tech companies are revealing plans to support a new capability Intel is adding to select versions of its motherboard products.
Dubbed Remote Wake, the technology does what it says -- it enables the home PC to "wake up" for incoming VoIP calls as well as remote-media access to photos, videos and music over the Internet.
"Businesses are increasingly utilizing VoIP," said Charles King, principal analyst at Pund-IT Research. "If you are using an application like Skype, the Intel motherboard technology will allow your PC to be alerted to phone calls coming in, to essentially wake up and create some sort of digital ringtone to alert the owner a call is coming in or to fall over to voice-mail mode."
JAJAH on Thursday unveiled a telephony application to utilize Intel's Remote Wake technology. With JAJAH's telephony support, the computer has direct access to JAJAH's IP-telephony network, enabling the PC to both make and receive low-cost phone calls.
"When the computer was first built, its inventors did not have telephony in mind, nor was it even on the horizon. As communications becomes more ubiquitous, JAJAH will continue to collaborate with Intel to improve how telecommunications software and hardware platforms can evolve to continue our leadership in the IP telephony market," said Trevor Healy, JAJAH CEO.
Pando Networks, a provider of commercial P2P content-delivery services, also announced a content-delivery service to make use of Intel's Remote Wake technology. The company said the combination of Pando Networks' content-delivery services and Intel's Remote Wake technology will offer content providers and consumers more choice in how they can access, purchase, and download digital media content to a home PC, even when they're not at home.
"The home computer is increasingly a media-delivery and playback device. We are very proud...
Fri, 15 Aug 08
Yahoo's Fire Eagle Draws Fire from Privacy Advocates
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=61345
Yahoo's recently launched Fire Eagle has privacy advocates burning up about the new open platform that allows users to show their location on the Web and also allows developers access to users' locations.
Yahoo officials insisted control is in the hands of the users. Users may decide how much they want to expose about their location, including the country, state, city and even street address.
"Location presents some unique challenges, and people inherently feel creepy when content is targeted to where they are and your actual physical location is being tracked," said Alissa Cooper, chief computer scientist at the Center for Democracy and Technology. "If people know this is being shared, then people will react more strongly and protect themselves."
While Fire Eagle users control information about their location, privacy advocates say privacy policies for third-party developers may differ from Yahoo's, leaving users confused and open to privacy breeches.
Ted Morgan, founder and CEO of Skyhook Wireless and the brain behind Loki, one of the 50 third-party developers using Fire Eagle, agrees that there is room for user confusion. But he said companies are adopting a general approach to privacy and offer similar policies.
If users opt out of Fire Eagle, previously collected information can be kept by the developers offering the service through their applications.
Morgan said Loki offers users a delete-history option and Fire Eagle users also have the option to hide their location and delete all their data from the databases.
"It's great that application providers are informing people and have robust controls, but its important for people to realize if they turn it off for one application, they are not turning off their whole device," Cooper said.
Companies, especially those that have spent decades building their brand, are not going to risk losing the trust of customers and risk hurting...
Fri, 15 Aug 08
Dell's New Latitude Line Offers Game-Changing Features
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=61344
Among the innovations in Dell's latest family of Latitude laptops is at least one "game-changing" feature, according to a technology analyst. Latitude ON is a new technology -- expected to be available by the end of the year -- that provides super-fast access to e-mail and Web browsing. It will be available on Dell's new ultramobile models, the E4200 and E4300.
"They're looking to find a way to marry the benefits of laptop performance with the instant-on access and radically extended battery life people expect from smartphones," said Charles King, principal analyst with Pund-IT, in a telephone interview.
Latitude ON leverages a separate subprocessor and subsystem that allows the user to turn on the laptop without having to boot the entire system, King said. "You'll push a button and the system will be on in a second or two. You can't run the full range of applications and multimedia, but you will have Outlook and basic browser functionality. It's a way for employees to simply turn on the machine and work."
In addition, if the system is run exclusively in ON mode, the ultramobile's battery life will be extended substantially, King added.
Battery life is another area where Dell's E line is impressive, King said. In combination with an additional battery pack, the mainstream E6400, with a 14.1-inch screen, can run on battery power for 19 hours, Dell says. "That's impressive by any metric," King said.
The new machines show the increased importance of mobility in the enterprise, King said. "Mobility as an issue is moving throughout enterprise, it's not just road-warrior types," he said. "Mobility is increasingly important to businesses of every kind," from employees working at home to contractors who drop into satellite offices to salespeople who are constantly on the road.
A key to advancing mobility is Dell's new...
Fri, 15 Aug 08
'Time Bomb' Takes Out Some VMWare Servers
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=61343
VMware warned customers this week that it had discovered what amounted to a virtual bomb ticking down within the latest builds of ESX. Its ESX is a "bare-metal" hypervisor for enterprise applications that partitions physical servers into multiple virtual machines, each of which represents a complete system containing processors, memory, networking, storage and BIOS.
VMware said the time bomb is from an errant snippet of code left over from test versions of the company's latest ESX update. It said the code's potential for disrupting IT systems only became evident when server clocks reached 12 AM on Tuesday.
"The released code causes the product license to expire," said CEO Paul Maritz. "We are doing everything in our power to make sure this doesn't happen again."
The code was designed to ensure that customers would be running on the supported version of Update 2, Maritz said. "We failed in two areas: not disabling the code in the final release of Update 2 and not catching it in our quality-assurance process," he added.
VMware said the code issue will not affect virtual machines already up and running. However, when an ESX or ESXi 3.5 server thinks its license has expired, any powered-off virtual machine cannot be turned back on and suspended virtual machines will be unable to leave suspend mode, the company said.
VMware promotes its VMotion technology as a "zero downtime" solution for the migration of running virtual machines from one physical server to another. So it was highly ironic that when the clock ticked down to zero on systems running the affected update, any virtual machines running at the time could not be moved.
"Running virtual machines must be VMotioned onto ESX servers which either do not carry the original affected ESX 3.5 Upgrade 2 or which have been patched with the express...
Fri, 15 Aug 08
Court Ruling Upholds Open-Source Copyrights
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=61342
Commercial software developers, listen up: If you think open source is a free toolkit from which you can borrow at will, look a good look at Wednesday's legal ruling. A U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in New York City, where many intellectual-property cases are heard, overturned a Northern California court decision in Jacobsen v. Katzer, a pivotal case in open-source and Creative Commons law.
The bottom line? Even if open-source or Creative Commons licensing agreements charge no cash, if you violate terms of the license you are infringing on copyrighted material.
The plaintiff in the case, Robert Jacobsen, developed code for interfacing and programming model railroad trains by remote control through a group called the Java Model Railroad Initiative (JMRI). The group posted the software under an open-source licensing agreement online at SourceForge. Matthew Katzer of KAM Industries took that code and developed a commercial product called Decoder Commander.
But it seems Katzer did not follow provisions in the license that included attribution of the source code or posting of modifications, among other violations. In the original Northern California ruling before Judge Jeffrey White, Katzer was absolved of copyright infringement because the judge deemed the open-source license too broad. The appeals court thought otherwise.
Many analysts consider this successful appeal to be an important milestone in the protection of open-source and Creative Commons agreements.
The appeals court found in favor of Jacobsen and listed five reasons why his open-source Artistic License was violated in the case of KAM Industries. District Judge Hochberg wrote in the decision: "Specifically, the Decoder Commander software did not include (1) the authors' names, (2) JMRI copyright notices, (3) references to the COPYING file, (4) an identification of SourceForge or JMRI as the original source of the definition files, and (5)...
Fri, 15 Aug 08
U.S. Internet Speeds Drop to 15th Worldwide
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=61328
The U.S. may be winning world speed records in swimming at the Olympics, but not in average Internet speeds. According to a new report, the country that invented the Internet has now sunk to 15th worldwide in the percentage of the population subscribing to broadband.
According to the recently released Second Annual Speed Matters report from the Communications Workers of America (CWA), the U.S. has "not made significant improvements in the speeds at which residents connect to the Internet" over the past year, and continues to fall behind other countries.
The report said about 230,000 people in all 50 states, plus the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico, went to the speedmatters.org site to take an Internet speed test, and those results were used to determine the average speeds overall. The results indicated that the median download speed in the U.S. was 2.3 megabits per second. Japan was 30 times faster, with a median download speed of 63 Mpbs.
Other countries ahead of the U.S. include South Korea at 49 Mbps, Finland at 21 Mbps, France at 17 Mbps, and Canada at 7.6 Mbps. The reports notes that the average Japanese can download an entire movie in about two minutes, but it can take two hours or more here. The access cost in both countries, according to the Speed Matters report, is the same.
But the speed issue affects more than just how fast you can download movies, the report says. Innovations in telemedicine, education, public safety, and home-based businesses can be hindered by the lack of widespread high-speed connections.
The U.S. median upload speed was only 435 kilobits per second, the CWA said, "far too slow for patient monitoring or to transmit large files such as medical records."
The growth rate of average download speeds is slow, the report...
Fri, 15 Aug 08
Kwiry Service Lets Users Text To Remember Tidbits
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=61324
It happens to everyone: A friend recommends a good book or movie, but by the time you get around to Googling it -- assuming you get that far -- you can't remember what it's called.
A San Francisco-based startup called kwiry (pronounced "query") aims to help you remember such snippets of information with a free service that lets you text these tidbits from your cell phone to its site.
"What we want to do is make the experience of remembering as simple as possible," said kwiry Chief Executive and co-founder Ron Feldman.
After signing up on kwiry's Web site, you can start sending text messages to "kwiry," or "59479" on a phone's keypad. The messages can be about anything you want to follow up on. Feldman said he has seen users send reminders about books, products they want to buy and varieties of wine.
When you're back at a computer, you can visit kwiry's Web site to see items displayed as links that can be clicked for related search results. Kwiry can also automatically send that information to your e-mail address.
Kwiry isn't making money yet, but Feldman said the company will explore advertising, revenue-sharing partnerships and other fee-based services.
The site has several shortcuts intended to make remembering even simpler, including two added this week letting users more easily add items to their wish lists at retailer Amazon.com Inc. or DVD queues at Netflix Inc.
Just type "Netflix" followed by the name of a movie you want to see, for instance, and watch that item get added to Netflix queue.
Kwiry didn't work with Netflix or Amazon to come up with these shortcuts. With the Amazon shortcut, for example, kwiry is basically running a product search on Amazon.com based on a user's kwiry post and adding the first result to that person's wish list.
Kwiry is exploring other...
Fri, 15 Aug 08
Yahoo Spends $36M on Advisers in Microsoft Dance
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=61323
Yahoo Inc. shelled out $36 million in the first half of 2008 to the outside advisers that helped the company navigate stormy buyout talks with Microsoft Corp. and the ensuing proxy threat from activist investor Carl Icahn.
Yahoo leaned on investment banks Goldman Sachs Group Inc., Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. and Moelis & Co., and the law firm Skadden Arps Slate Meagher & Flom, after Microsoft made its initial $44.6 billion offer, which was made public in February.
The negotiations collapsed in early May when Yahoo rejected an even richer $47.5 billion offer, but Microsoft came back later that month with an offer to buy Yahoo's search operations a la carte. As that failed, Icahn, who has a long history of challenging corporate boards, threatened to replace all of Yahoo's directors with his own hand-picked slate so he could negotiate a sale.
Yahoo's $36 million tab, disclosed in a regulatory filing, amounts to about 5 percent of the $673 million in profit Yahoo reported in the first six months of the year.
That total doesn't cover what the company spent in July, when Icahn and Microsoft joined forces to pitch another partial sale scheme, which the Sunnyvale, Calif.-based company rejected. Later in July, Yahoo struck a deal that gives board seats to Icahn and two of his picks.
Yahoo's spending on outside advisers did include litigation defense costs related to the Microsoft saga, according to the recent Securities and Exchange Commission filing.
Yahoo's SEC filing detailed several shareholder lawsuits claiming that Yahoo executives and board members breached fiduciary duties during the buyout negotiations. The lawsuits claim that Yahoo's search advertising partnership with Google Inc. and its updated severance plans for employees were designed to dampen Microsoft's interest in acquiring the Silicon Valley pioneer, according to the filing.
Fri, 15 Aug 08
A Second Life for Networking Hardware
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=61315
The secondary market reduces e-waste, increases the useful life of equipment and stretches budgets. From the IT manufacturers' perspective, the push to "go green" is good for business, because advances in technology means replacing network equipment. Manufacturers are producing a plethora of power-saving products, encouraging customers to buy new hardware, even if existing equipment still works, in order to save money in energy costs, which does not seem like an Earth-friendly definition of green if you consider what happens to most end-of-life products.
The rapid obsolescence of network and telecommunications equipment is the biggest contributor to the growing supply of electronic waste (e-waste). The life span of today's IT equipment is growing increasingly shorter as manufacturers offer -- and customers buy -- new equipment to take advantage of the latest innovations, retiring tons of still-functioning gear.
"With e-waste being the fastest growing of all waste segments, it is critical we do everything possible to keep electronic waste out of the landfills," says Chip Slack, CEO of Intechra, an electronics recycling company. Most IT equipment retains value and utility far longer than the manufacturer-determined life cycle, so decommissioned assets need not end up in the landfill or recycling bin.
"Reuse can play a crucial part in solving the disposal challenge. It's always better to reuse and extend the life of equipment than to recycle and have to manufacture new equipment," Slack says.
"Manufacturers are moving much quicker than the needs of many customers," says Frank Kobuszewski, vice president of technology solutions at CXtec, provider of new and preowned networking, voice and cabling equipment.
There is an expanding market for used networking and telecommunications equipment, Kobuszewski says. "Equipment that is obsolete for one customer is not necessarily obsolete for others."
A growing number of electronic equipment resellers buy, sell or trade preowned networking gear, creating a viable secondary...
Fri, 15 Aug 08
Gates Says Technology Will Transform Computer Use
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=61311
Microsoft Corp. Chairman Bill Gates said Tuesday that the dramatic growth of the Internet would eventually help eliminate "the last constraints we have" and spark a software-writing revolution.
Gates, speaking at a forum to mark the 10th anniversary of the software giant's Asian research arm, added that technology currently being developed would transform the way people use computers, expanding their ability to interact with the machines.
Increasing Internet connectivity will greatly broaden services for users, allowing them remote access to a wide range of software and information, he said.
"People often talk about this as the Internet service revolution," Gates told a gathering of 1,600 researchers and academics in Hong Kong. "That will eventually lead to machines that have lots of server capacity, lots of low-cost computing, low-cost storage. And that will let us write software in an even more ambitious way, eliminating the last constraints we have."
The way people use computers will expand "to encompass all interactive techniques: the touch, the speech, the vision," said Gates, who stepped down in June from his full-time role at Microsoft, which he co-founded.
Gates said major developments in Internet services and computer interface, "because they're fairly developed in the labs, I can say that in 10 years will be widespread."
As for the following decade, he predicted: "You might get artificial intelligence or robotics, but those are still so undeveloped, at least in terms of widespread impact."
Gates was visiting China for the Olympic Games, attending last week's opening ceremony in Beijing, cheering on the U.S. swim team with his family and taking in other events.
The 52-year-old praised the games for being "fantastically managed."
"It really is a milestone I think, and shows the world this opportunity to all work together, and how places like Hong Kong and China will be such an important part of the future," said...
Fri, 15 Aug 08
EU Regulators Examine Cell-Phone Costs Abroad
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=61307
Europe's mobile phone operators regularly charge users for more time than they actually use when it comes to expensive calls made away from home, European regulators said Wednesday.
Users are billed more "by a significant margin" for calls they make abroad because many operators charge for each minute of a call instead of by the second, the European group of national telecoms agencies said in a report.
That means people are paying for 24 percent more minutes than they make, and 19 percent more than they receive.
The EU last year capped the costs of cellphone calls made and received abroad; costs then dropped by 60 percent.
Regulators said operators are not dropping prices beyond that, with average retail prices at or just below the maximum limit in two-thirds of EU nations.
Prices for sending or receiving text messages abroad have barely moved, it said, even though the high cost of using the mobile Internet outside a user's home nation appears to be falling but still varies widely from country to country.
Cheered by the success of slashing call costs for travelers, the European Commission is now threatening to impose a cap on roaming fees for text messages in October, saying it wants prices to crash by up to 70 percent.
It is also warning that it may take action on "heavily overpriced" mobile Internet fees if companies don't do more to reduce these in the next few months.
EU residents traveling outside their home nations send some 2.5 billion text messages every year, paying 10 times more than they do at home. The EU's telecom chief said some 97 percent of the price of each message is "pure revenue for the operator" wrung out of the three-quarters of the young people who text when abroad.
The report looked at data from 140 operators across Europe from October 2007...
Thu, 14 Aug 08
Dell Gives Latitude Laptop Line New Attitude
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=61327
Dell has announced a refresh of its popular Latitude notebook line, including options for customization and the ability to check e-mail without completely booting up the machine. Models range from what the company calls "ultra portable" to "semi-rugged."
The new "E"-series laptops are clearly targeted to corporate users, where Dell has an especially strong installed base of customers. Dell claims to have solicited input from more than 4,000 IT professionals and business users in the production of the new line, and product management says it invested more than one million hours in the engineering process.
In the announcement, CEO Michael Dell said the company has shipped more business laptops since 1995 than any other computer manufacturer. Dell is number one in the U.S. market, according to analysts, but trails HP in world sales.
The ultra-light Latitude E4200 weighs in at a mere 2.2 pounds with a 12.1-inch screen. The Latitude E4300, with a larger 13.3-inch screen, weighs 3.3 pounds. Both ultra-portables will be available in a few weeks. Pricing was not released on these models.
The Latitude E6400 and E6500 models, available now, are targeted as desktop replacements, and sport 14.1-inch and 15.4-inch screens. They start at $1,139 and $1,169, respectively. According to Dell, the Latitude E6400 ATG with a 14.1-inch screen is a "semi-rugged" laptop that meets the military 810F specifications for durability against dust, vibrations and humidity. The unit will be available next week for $2,399.
Additional models round out the launch in the mid-tier, with a balance of weight and performance. In all, Dell unveiled 10 new models.
The company claims to have made a breakthrough in battery technology that enables the new Latitude series to perform for up to 19 hours on a single charge....
Thu, 14 Aug 08
MIT Students Still Gagged as Defcon Convention Ends
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=61326
Defcon 16, which drew an audience of 9,000 people to Las Vegas over three days, is over -- but the focus remains on a trio of Massachusetts Institute of Technology students who stole the spotlight at the world's largest hacker conference.
MIT students Zack Anderson, Alessandro Chiesa, and R.J. Ryan are still blocked from revealing how they found a way to ride the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority's subways free. They used weaknesses in the MBTA's Charlie Card and Charlie Ticket Fare system.
A restraining order stopped the trio from discussing the MBTA vulnerabilities at Defcon.
The students, who first offered to help the MBTA fix the problems, obeyed the restraining order. But printed materials for their presentation were distributed to conference attendees and slides of the presentation are on the Internet.
In court filings, security consultants said the materials and slides are not enough for hackers to tap into the MBTA's system.
Even though Defcon is over, Massachusetts officials still want to block the students and plan to ask the court to keep the restraining order in place.
Marcia Hofmann, an attorney for the students provided by the Electronic Frontier Foundation, said the restraining order violates her clients' First Amendment rights. EFF, based in Washington, D.C., wants the judge to lift what it calls an "unconstitutional gag order."
"What we decided to do was to file a brief to lift the gag order on the MIT students," said Rebecca Jeschke, an EFF spokesperson. "We certainly hope that the students are going to be able to talk about this research, and we believe this is an improper restraint on free speech."
Computer scientists and academics from Carnegie Mellon University, Columbia University and UCAL Berkeley signed a letter objecting to the court's action. The letter says such restraining orders could have a "devastating...
Thu, 14 Aug 08
Keep Track of Yourself with Yahoo's Fire Eagle
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=61325
Yahoo officially announced its geo-social network, Fire Eagle, late Tuesday. The system has been in private beta since March with selected developers, and already hosts a raft of third-party applications.
Fire Eagle allows users to store their location data on the Web for access by any network service. For example, wireless users can upload their location and share it with family, friends or colleagues. It could make short work of finding someone in a crowded venue.
Yahoo calls Fire Eagle a "geo-aware" platform.
Users must sign up for the free service at fireeagle.yahoo.net to use applications. Once logged in they can choose varying levels of privacy -- from exact location to none, and customize who can access that location. Users can update information automatically through Web, mobile or desktop applications, or set the service to manual update only.
Yahoo seems adamant about keeping privacy and permission sacrosanct, perhaps in response to recent testimony before Congress about the use of private data by networking companies. Yahoo has testified before the subcommittee that oversees Web business.
Applications on the platform include Ekit Travel Journal, which lets users share their travel itinerary, travel notes, and photos. If you're ever called on to testify about your whereabouts, dipity might help -- the service tracks your locations and makes a timeline of your comings and goings.
Dash updates your Fire Eagle location data by using in-car GPS systems. Perhaps this might be useful on long solo road trips to reassure the folks back home.
Brightkite is advertised as a social network, allowing you to log in and check who in your network is where and what's happening at your favorite places. Perhaps the most useful Fire Eagle application is Lightpole, which signals items of interest in your vicinity such as restaurants, clubs, theaters and the like. Metosphere does similar duty on...
Thu, 14 Aug 08
Light-Bending Materials Could Slow Light, Speed Up Net
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=61321
Use light-bending materials to slow and separate light signals, and thus speed up the Internet. That's the advice of some scientists, who are saying that new materials that can potentially render objects invisible could also help the Net overcome its most persistent bottlenecks.
Long-distance traffic over the Internet travels via fiber-optic cables, which relay streams of information in different channels as different frequencies of light. But, as they get routed to the last legs of their journey, the signals are converted back into electrical impulses and separated, and then are often converted back into light for the final haul.
That separation is currently the slowest part of the long-distance journey, with time being lost in the conversion to and from electrical signals.
It's as if a letter were sent cross-country by jet, and then had to be hand-delivered to a local post office before being put on another jet to complete its journey to another country. The total journey is governed by the slowest component, which, in this case, is electronic.
But keeping the transmission entirely as light could have a profound effect on the total transmission speed. Dr. Chris Stevens of the University of Oxford told the BBC News that light-based transmission "can quite cheerfully sustain a couple of terahertz, but your electronics can't do more than a few gigahertz."
Enter metamaterials.
Metamaterials have been in the news recently as the possible building blocks, someday, for invisibility cloaks and other such fantastical products. They are designed to deliberately slow down light and bend it. Bending light around an object could, theoretically, render it invisible.
But this ability to control light also makes metamaterials attractive for speeding up optical networks. The materials can bend light backward in a process known as negative refraction, and, if used in a network, could split light...
Thu, 14 Aug 08
Smoky Fire Damages Apple Research Facility
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=61320
A building housing research and development projects for Apple's Cupertino campus almost went up in flames Tuesday as more than 60 firefighters from neighboring fire departments battled fire and black smoke.
Santa Clara Deputy Fire Chief Hal Rooney said he suspects the fire started in the Valley Green Six building's second floor under an air-conditioning unit around 10 p.m. The unit was serviced by maintenance workers earlier in the day. Firefighters from the San Jose Fire Department were among those on the scene.
At least 100 Apple research employees were evacuated from the burning building and others visited the scene and reportedly took photos of the fire -- with iPhones, of course.
The fire was contained to the building's second floor and roof and extinguished by 1 a.m. Wednesday, according to the fire department. Although the three-alarm event was not considered a big fire, firefighters said the scorched building sustained a lot of smoke damage.
Fire investigators were on the scene Wednesday, but Santa Clara Captain Dan Pisciota said the fire is being treated as accidental. The veteran firefighter said this was the first fire at Apple he could recall. He added that Apple employees are in the campus buildings at all hours, but it wasn't clear how many were in the building at the time of the fire.
A former Apple security officer said in a Web post that Valley Green Six houses engineers, contract employees, and iTunes Store employees. The iTunes Store employees, however, are housed on the opposite side of the building from the fire.
The 120,000-square-foot building, which was built in the late 1970s to early 1980s, was difficult to fight, according to Battalion Chief Kendall Pearson.
Calls to Apple and the Santa Clara County Fire Department were not returned in time for publication. Fire dispatchers referred...
Thu, 14 Aug 08
iPhone 3G Problems Could Be From Flawed Chipset
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=61319
Apple's iPhone 3G reception issues could be more than a network problem -- or even a firmware problem. The issue could run as deep as the hardware, which could cause the handset maker millions in product repairs or replacements.
iPhone 3G users have been complaining about dropped calls, abrupt network switches, poor reception and service interruptions.
One financial analyst recalls similar complaints with 3G phones launched in Europe five years ago and speculates that the culprit could be the chipset inside the iPhone 3G. The new handset runs on an Infineon 3G chipset.
"We believe that these issues are typical of an immature chipset and radio protocol stack where we are almost certain that Infineon is the 3G supplier," Richard Windsor, a financial analyst at Nomura, wrote in a research paper. "This is not surprising as the Infineon 3G chipset solution has never really been tested in the hands of users. Some people will not experience these problems, as it is only in areas where the radio signal weakens that the immaturity of the stack really shows."
Infineon could not immediately be reached for comment on the possibility that its chip could be the cause of 3G reception woes. Apple has not yet acknowledged any issues with its latest handset.
Although some commentators have made strong arguments that Apples 3G issues are due to a hardware issue rather than a network or firmware problem, at this point it's impossible to know exactly where the problem lies, according to Charles King, principal analyst at Pund-IT Research.
"If it is an underlying problem with the processor, that makes repairing it either difficult or impossible. If that is the case, that could be a disaster for Apple," King said. "In any case, the 3G performance is obviously a problem."
King figures both Apple and AT&T are...
Thu, 14 Aug 08
Attacks on Georgia Web Sites May Not Be 'Cyberwar'
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=61318
Security researchers are still trying to work out exactly who is responsible for the cyberwar tactics that have knocked many Georgian government Web sites offline. While Georgian officials blamed Russia, many security experts have pointed the finger at the Russian Business Network (RBN), a shadowy outfit -- that may no longer even exist -- which has previously provided network services for Russian criminal gangs.
But Gadi Evron, a prominent Internet security researcher and the founder of Israel's Computer Emergency Response Team, posited that the attackers are more likely nationalistic "enthusiasts" than organized criminals or Russian government operatives.
Pointing out that in the current environment almost any distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack is likely to be deemed "cyberwar," Evron wrote on his blog, "Not every fighting is warfare. While Georgia is obviously under a DDoS attack, and it is political in nature, it doesn't so far seem different than any other online aftermath by fans. Political tensions are always followed by online attacks by sympathizers."
Since Russia is already using real bombs in Georgia, it could have "eliminated the infrastructure kinetically," if that were its aim, Evron said.
"Coulda, shoulda. . . the nature of what's going on isn't clear, but until we are certain anything state-sponsored is happening on the Internet, it is my official opinion this is not warfare, but just some unaffiliated attacks by Russian hackers and/or some rioting by enthusiastic Russian supporters," Evron concluded.
Regardless of who is responsible or even the nature of the attacks, "What matters is that the Internet is being used as a tool in warfare," said Andrew Storms, director of security operations for nCircle Network Security.
DDoS attacks are serious business, Storms added. "Let's not put a diminutive feel on these cyberattacks. A DDoS attack is still a serious event, and according to...
Thu, 14 Aug 08
Facebook Still Tops Worldwide, with 153 Percent Growth
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=61317
Facebook remains the number-one social-networking site in the world, according to a new study released Tuesday by comScore -- and it has undergone 153 percent growth in the past year.
The Reston, Va.-based research firm said most of the growth for social-networking sites is outside North America. On this continent, the social-networking audience grew nine percent, but the growth was much higher elsewhere -- 66 percent in the Middle East-Africa region, 35 percent in Europe, and 33 percent in Latin America. Social-networking sites for the world at large grew about 25 percent.
Jack Flanagan, comScore executive vice president, said the social-networking trend is reaching maturity in the region where it began, North America. "However, the phenomenon is still growing rapidly in other regions around the world," he added, "especially as the established American brands turn their focus to developing markets."
Facebook is a key driver of that global growth. In North America, it grew about 38 percent, but in every other region comScore found its audience has more than quadrupled. In Europe, for instance, its growth was a whopping 303 percent.
Facebook took the global lead in April, and comScore said its growth has been driven by its "concerted effort" to become culturally relevant outside the U.S., through such techniques as its introduction of natural-language interfaces in several markets.
Flanagan noted that Facebook has taken the lead, or at least is competing strongly, in several markets where, a year ago, its presence was minor. In fact, nearly 63 percent of Facebook's total users are now outside the U.S. and Canada.
Hi5.com also experienced phenomenal growth, doubling its visitor base to more than 56 million through the use of its own localization strategy. But Facebook and Hi5 aren't the only ones growing in leaps and bounds. Global growth rates...
Thu, 14 Aug 08
Patch Tuesday Fixes a Record 26 Vulnerabilities
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=61305
This month Microsoft issued 11 bulletins that address a record 26 vulnerabilities, 17 of them rated as critical. The 26 vulnerabilities are the most Microsoft has addressed since it had 25 in August 2006, which also had 17 rated as critical.
The patch for the vulnerability in the Snapshot Viewer for Microsoft Access ActiveX control is important because shortly after the issue became public on July 7 there was evidence of it actively being exploited, according to Ben Greenbaum, senior research manager for Symantec security response.
"Since then, attackers have fine-tuned their exploits, resulting in even more widespread attacks," Greenbaum said. "The Snapshot Viewer issue impacts any Internet Explorer 7 users that have the ActiveX control installed and any Internet Explorer 6 users regardless if they have the control installed or not. The nature of the control allows the attacker to install [malicious code] and exploit the vulnerability without any user interaction."
Summer vacation may be over a little early for network security professionals. All seven critical patches are identified as fixing "remote code execution" vulnerabilities that can in many cases give criminals control of a computer and access to its resources.
To make things even busier, IT teams need to ensure that they have addressed two recent and important Microsoft Security Advisories, said Don Leatham, director of solutions and strategy at Lumension Security. Those advisories are MS-954960 and MS-956187.
"Once exploit code for the DNS vulnerability announced in July became available, Microsoft took the unusual step to issue this security advisory that encouraged customers to update their DNS servers ASAP, even though the original bulletin rating was an Important and not as Critical," Leatham said. "Given the publicly available exploit code and the possible compromise of critical DNS services, IT teams that have not deployed this...
Thu, 14 Aug 08
Obama Backers To Get VP Decision B4 NE1 Else Via Text
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=61293
Who could resist a message headlined "Barack's VP: Be the First to Know"?
Hundreds of thousands of Barack Obama supporters received that tantalizing pitch Sunday night in text messages and e-mails. It's one of several ways the presumptive Democratic nominee is staying in the news even as he vacations and visits relatives in Hawaii.
"Barack wants you to be the first to know his choice" of running mate, campaign manager David Plouffe told people on Obama's e-mail and cell phone lists. "Sign up today to be the first to know. You will receive an email the moment Barack makes his decision, or you can receive a text message on your mobile phone."
Republican John McCain is aiming to take advantage of a week in which Obama is off the campaign trail. He plans to emphasize energy and jobs this week, though Russia's invasion of Georgia could change his focus.
McCain is spending three days in Pennsylvania and Michigan, states that have gone Democratic in four consecutive presidential elections. He'll also visit Colorado, which has gone Republican the past three elections but is now high on Obama's target list.
On Monday, McCain visited a General Electric locomotive plant in Erie, Pa. He told about 120 workers that he was proud of labor-management cooperation that has produced new technology and jobs. "That's what America should be doing," he said, "sitting down together, labor and management, Republican and Democrat."
Micah Sifry, co-founder of the blog Techpresident.com, says the Obama campaign is "charting new ground" in using cell phones to keep supporters interested and engaged. The offer to text the vice presidential news is "a big carrot to hand people," he says.
Beyond that, like other candidates this year, Obama is in a constant quest to get more e-mail addresses and cell phone numbers. People who attend his rallies are asked...
Thu, 14 Aug 08
Review: Online Olympics Is Ambitious, But Not TV
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=61289
NBC Universal is running an unprecedented 3,600 hours of Olympics coverage on television and the Internet, most of it live online, letting fans track their favorite sports in a way not possible even if they'd gone to Beijing.
Excited by the prospects, I set my alarm for 4:45 a.m. on Sunday to catch cycling, handball, archery and rowing events on NBCOlympics.com as they happen half a world away in China -- 12 hours ahead of New York.
Of course, I ended up hitting the snooze button on my alarm clock for another two hours. Fortunately, some of the events I missed were available later on-demand. And NBC's enhanced video player brings up to four simultaneous feeds -- live, on-demand or a combination -- allowing me to keep up.
Although NBC is saving popular sports like gymnastics, swimming and track and field for its prime-time TV coverage, NBC's online ambition is valiant, one the network has largely pulled off well thus far.
The video isn't full-screen, but it is crisp, with little stuttering, even during Monday's workday when Internet traffic tends to rise. You can even see the sweat soaking one of the tennis players.
But the Internet won't be replacing television anytime soon. At most, it's good for sneaking in some tennis at work or watching events that are not likely to get more than highlights on TV.
(Disclosure: The Associated Press has an agreement with NBC to distribute video links to the network's content online.)
The Internet video is free. I have to watch a 30-second ad before the event, usually for NBC owner General Electric Co. I also need Microsoft Corp.'s Silverlight technology -- also free and relatively simple to install, even on my Mac.
Most of the video is restricted to U.S. subscribers of an NBC broadband partner. Cablevision Systems Corp. is the only major...
Thu, 14 Aug 08
An Online Privacy Presumption Is Wrong Assumption
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=61279
In a case that could redefine -- or, some might argue, "debunk the myth of" -- online privacy, a federal appeals court in California is reviewing a lower court's definition of "interception" in the digital age.
The case, Bunnell v. Motion Picture Association of America, involves a hacker who in 2005 broke into a file-sharing company's server and obtained copies of company e-mails as they were being transmitted. He then e-mailed 34 pages of those documents to an MPAA executive, who paid the hacker $15,000 for the job, according to court documents.
The issue boils down to the judicial definition of "intercept" in the electronic age, in which packets of data move from server to server, alighting for milliseconds before speeding onward.
In August 2007, U.S. District Judge Florence-Marie Cooper, in the Central District of California, ruled that the alleged hacker, Rob Anderson, had not intercepted the e-mails in violation of the 1968 Wiretap Act because the e-mails were technically in storage -- if only for an instant -- instead of in transmission.
"Anderson did not stop or seize any of the messages that were forwarded to him," Cooper ruled. "Anderson's actions did not halt the transmission of the messages to their intended recipients. As such, under well-settled case law, as well as a reading of the statute and the ordinary meaning of the word 'intercept,' Anderson's acquisitions of the e-mails did not violate the Wiretap Act."
In other words -- as users are often warned, but as many refuse to believe -- sending an unencrypted e-mail is the equivalent of writing a message on the back of a postcard. Anyone through whose hands it passes -- or anyone nosy enough to crane their neck and look -- can read such a message without violating the presumed right to privacy of either the sender or...
Thu, 14 Aug 08
Trail in Global Theft Ring Leads to Suspect in Miami
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=61278
Investigators looking into a vast international credit card theft ring extending from Ukraine and Belarus to China and victimizing nine of the largest U.S. retailers faced a central mystery: Who was orchestrating the crimes on the ground in the United States?
It turned out, investigators now say, that he was right under their noses. And it was a reference to a character in the popular U.S. comedy "Seinfeld" -- the Soup Nazi -- that helped break the case.
Albert Gonzalez, 27, a second-generation Cuban-American from Miami, was a seemingly reformed hacker turned U.S. Secret Service informant, helping agents identify his former cohorts in the shady online underworld where stolen credit and debit card numbers are bought and sold.
But using of variety of online handles, including "soupnazi," Gonzalez remained a significant player in that underworld, investigators say.
U.S. government officials allege that Gonzalez played a central role in a loosely organized online crime syndicate that fraudulently obtained the credit and debit card numbers of tens of millions of American consumers.
"This case shows that there are no more boundaries," said Craig Magaw, special agent in charge of the Secret Service's criminal investigative division.
The Miami lawyer for Gonzalez, Rene Palomino Jr., disputes the charges. Palomino said the indictment represented "serious and substantial legal and factual challenges for the government to prove at trial."
But the Secret Service agents who worked on the sprawling case present a different story: of a prolonged, multipart investigation that finally uncovered the critical links between Gonzalez's various Web nicknames and his international co-conspirators.
The story begins five years ago in Miami, along the stretch of U.S. Route 1 called the South Dixie Highway. Starting in 2003, national retailers with outlets there, including The Sports Authority, OfficeMax and Barnes & Noble began falling victim to "war- drivers" -- drive-by hackers who searched for holes...
Wed, 13 Aug 08
Georgian Sites Were Scouted Before Mass Attack
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=61304
Russia is not only attacking Georgia by land and by air, but hackers are attacking Georgia's computer systems. Cyber attackers began launching virtual missiles at Georgian servers on Aug. 8.
A group calling itself South Ossetia Hack Crew claimed responsibility for an attack that defaced the Web site of the Georgian Parliament. The group posted images that compare Adolf Hitler with Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili. Saakashvili's Web site also came under attack on Monday.
"We definitely see hactivism taking place from people who have a political ideology and jump on the bandwagon with bots to help promote their opinions and viewpoints, whether that be for war or against war or for or against certain countries," said Ken Dunham, director of global response for iSIGHT Partners. (Hactivism is using digital tools for political ends.)
But Dunham and his colleagues at iSIGHT report a deeper issue. The security company has found in its analysis of network traffic that there was a lightweight denial-of-service attack July 18 against the Georgian president's Web site.
"This appears to be more of an intelligence-gathering effort rather than a distributed denial-of-service attack," Dunham said. "The lightweight attacks that took place well over a month prior to this incident indicates other actors with motives different than hactivism are likely involved by the incident."
Once an issue becomes public and people start to get upset and begin discussing it, hactivism becomes a very large-scale public concern. That is a factor in the Georgian server attacks, Dunham said. But the larger question is, who was talking the Georgia-Russia conflict this July? Why would a lightweight attack take place a month before the issues we are seeing?
"Someone performed lightweight DDoS against a site that later became the target of significant attacks," Dunham said. "It appears that someone was sizing up what...
Wed, 13 Aug 08
Web Firms Backpedal on Behavioral Ad Targeting
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=61303
Internet service providers engaged in the tracking of user behavioral patterns are backpedaling in the wake of a new Congressional inquiry into the privacy issues surrounding such practices.
In a letter addressing questions from members of the House Subcommittee on Telecommunications and the Internet, David Hantman, Yahoo's vice president of global policy, said his company realizes that some Web surfers would prefer not to receive customized online ads. As a result, the search engine giant will allow consumers to decline ads based on the tracking of their online behavior at Yahoo.com.
"We want to offer them transparency and choice about the options that are available to them," Hantman explained. "This is in addition to our existing opt-out when Yahoo serves customized advertising on third-party networks."
When Yahoo serves up ads for partners such as eBay or a consortium of nearly 800 newspapers, users can choose to opt-out of receiving customized ads, either by clicking on a link posted on the ad itself or at the partner site, Hantman noted. "We believe this is particularly important, since it is not always obvious to all users that ads are served by different entities among Web sites."
Three broadband providers have informed the Subcommittee that they had recently run trials of a new technology known as deep-packet inspection, which tracks and stores information about the online behavior of individual Web users. CenturyTel and Knology said their respective trials of NebuAd's controversial tracking software came to an end about the same time that Congress began to scrutinize such practices.
For its part, Cable One claimed that the trials it ran late last year were conducted in a manner "consistent with the terms of the provider's existing customer notices and Acceptable Use Policy, which our customers must expressly accept to activate their broadband Internet access service."
Charter Communications,...
Wed, 13 Aug 08
Original iPhone Owners Have Options To Upgrade
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=61302
Early adopters waited in lines overnight to buy Apple's first-generation iPhone when it became available. And now they're looking for ways to swap it for Apple's latest iPhone 3G with GPS capability.
David Chen, founder of NextWorth Solutions in Massachusetts, is ready to buy the old iPhones for as much as the new iPhone 3G costs while also helping the environment. "There is a huge demand for the first-generation iPhones because the battery for the older iPhones is stronger," Chen told us.
And for those who aren't comfortable selling their iPhones online, NextWorth has partnered with retailers, including Circuit City, to take old iPhones in exchange for store credit. Other retailers include Tweeter, J&R Music, and Computer World.
"We are in 51 Circuit City stores and are trying to roll it out nationally," Chen said. "We are giving anywhere from $200 to $300 in instant credit."
There is more to his business model than just collecting used iPhones, according to Chen.
"The base line of our concept is how do we encourage reuse and keep things out of the landfill?" he said. "We hold on to it and it sits in our desk drawer and it depreciates and in the end it ends up in the landfill."
By buying old iPhones, Chen's company is able to recycle and reuse the parts in other devices and dispose of broken parts using environmentally safe avenues.
A better option for owners of old iPhones who want to upgrade is to give it or sell it to a family member or friend, according to Aaron Vronko, service manager at Rapid Repair. Recipients will still need to pay iPhone data fees, which in the U.S. are $30 for the 3G and $20 for the first-generation iPhone.
Rapid Repair, based in Michigan and formerly known as ipodmods.com, also...
Wed, 13 Aug 08
Parents Fear Video Games More than Porn, Alcohol
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=61301
Parents are more concerned about their children's exposure to video games than alcohol, violence and pornography, according to recent polls.
Conducted by What They Play, a parent's guide to video games, nearly 3,000 respondents in two separate polls concluded that drinking beer and watching pornography were less objectionable activities for children than playing certain video games. Further, viewing violence was more acceptable than seeing content involving sex and sexuality within games.
"These poll results demonstrate that parents are as apprehensive about their children's media diets as they are about traditional social issues such as alcohol, drugs, violence and sex," said John Davison, president of What They Like, the San Francisco company that runs What They Play. "When it comes to video games, parents should know that What They Play is a resource that helps demystify one of the most popular -- and challenging -- forms of entertainment their kids are into."
The results of the initial What They Play online poll, conducted April 4-10, 2008, found that the 1,266 participants were most offended by the following in a video game: a man and woman having sex (37 percent); two men kissing (27 percent); a graphically severed head (25 percent); and multiple use of the F-word (9 percent).
The second poll, which ran August 1-6, 2008, queried parents on what they'd be most concerned about their 17-year-old child indulging in while at a sleepover. More than 1,600 respondents revealed they're more apprehensive about their child smoking marijuana (49 percent) and playing the video game Grand Theft Auto (19 percent), than watching pornography (16 percent) and drinking beer (14 percent).
Although these findings seem surprising at first, they hint at fears parents have about video games, according to Cheryl K. Olson, Sc.D., co-author of Grand Theft Childhood.
"To some parents, video games are full...
Wed, 13 Aug 08
AMD Announces 'World's Fastest' GPU for Gaming
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=61297
Advanced Micro Devices announced Tuesday what it called "the world's fastest graphics chip." Its ATI Radeon HD 4870 X2 delivers 2.4 teraFLOPS of graphics processing on a single card. Available Sept. 1., the HD 4870 is reported to consume less power at greater performance than competing single- or even some dual-card solutions, such as NVIDIA's 9800 series.
"We have an advantage in terms of fabrication," said Chris Hook, spokesperson for AMD's ATI division. "The competitor's best chip is a 65nm die cast, while ours is only 55. That's like comparing a quarter to a dime. Because we're smaller, we're more energy-efficient and keep the fabrication costs lower."
As a result, Hook said, AMD can continue to deliver lower-priced GPUs with less power consumption.
Benchmark tests by independent technical publications have confirmed the HD 4870 is the current GPU speed demon. With its CrossFireX multiprocessor support, the HD 4870 gives gamers the fastest rendering on the market, with markedly improved rates of anti-aliasing (eliminating artifacts which cause jagged edges), ATI says. Older games can be run at the new maximum of 24 times anti-aliasing, while new game developers now have the option of programming to such performance.
"Not only is the HD 4870 X2 faster, it is the only card on the market to support Direct X 10.1," Hook said. "This gives character movement a much more lifelike, fluid representation."
Microsoft revealed on Aug. 8 that Direct X 10.1 would require new hardware while retaining backward compatibility with Direct X 10.0 cards and software. Other new features of the DirectX 10.1 spec include mandatory coding requirements that may make software more dependable on 10.1 cards. There was no word on what features will be included in the next gaming driver spec for Vista, DirectX 11, and ATI would not comment on its support...
Wed, 13 Aug 08
Lenovo Launches Powerhouse Quad-Core ThinkPad
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=61296
Lenovo has launched its 17-inch ThinkPad W700, which it described as "the PC industry's highest-performance mobile workstation." The laptop has a built-in graphics tablet and will support the upcoming Intel mobile quad-core processor.
The W700 offers what Lenovo called the industry's first built-in digitizer and color calibrator in a mobile workstation, as well as NVIDIA Quadro FX mobile graphics, dual hard drives in a RAID configuration, up to 8GB of memory, a variety of wireless connectivity choices, and an optional Blu-ray DVD player. There are also five USB ports, a 7-in-1 multicard reader, and a fingerprint reader.
Up to 2GB of its memory can be configured to support Intel Turbo Memory, and the dual hard drives can be configured so that one is a solid-state drive. Some W700 models will offer Intel vPro technology for IT management. Connectivity options include WLAN 802.11n, WWAN 2, or WiMax, as well as Bluetooth and ultra-wideband.
The W700 is targeted at professionals in the areas of digital content, computer-assisted design and manufacturing, photography, and scientific fields such as oil and gas exploration.
Peter Hortensius, senior vice president of the notebook business unit, said "no other PC manufacturer delivers the sheer quality, power and performance, and cutting-edge innovation packed into this mobile workstation." With the ThinkPad W700, he added, Lenovo "has engineered a new breed of mobile workstations."
According to industry reports, mobile workstations have become nearly a quarter of the worldwide workstation market in the last five years, and are expected to grow another five percent next year.
The color calibrator on the W700 automatically adjusts, up to four times monthly, the color of the optional WUXGA display. The calibrator is built in as part of a palm rest, as is the digitizer, which helps digital-content users configure and image by mapping to the...
Wed, 13 Aug 08
iPhone Customers Reporting 3G Connectivity Problems
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=61275
The arrival of Apple's 3G iPhone was breathlessly awaited by the device's many fans, but now that it's here, many of those fans are reporting spotty 3G reception.
Comments on various blogs complain about difficulties in getting or staying connected, and there are reports that the Apple and AT&T switchboards are receiving many calls about these issues. In the U.S., the connectivity problem appears to be only for iPhones on the AT&T network, and not for any other 3G products on that network. There are also complaints from 3G iPhone customers in the United Kingdom, Australia and other countries, where other networks are used.
Apple and AT&T are telling users that the problem lies with the other company. AT&T spokesperson Mark Siegel told news media that, while he wouldn't deny there were issues, they could be resolved on a case-by-case basis.
But there could be many cases to solve. On Apple's own forum, a thread called "iPhone 3G Reception Problems? You're Not Alone" has hundreds of postings.
A 3G iPhone user named "FloridaFlash" posted on the forum that, while "in Washington, D.C., all calls were dropped after a second or two." But when 3G was turned off, FloridaFlash said, there were "no problems."
A user called "local branch" wrote that in Los Angeles, 3G coverage is "unreliable." In Australia, "iMacRich" said 3G network coverage is generally "excellent" and that the problem lies with Apple. "Pecos Bill" in Denver says both companies share the blame, since his signal strength ranges from zero to five bars around the city.
A Syracuse, N.Y., user named "gerard143" similarly reported problems with 3G reception, in that he cannot get his device to automatically connect to 3G. It only connects when he manually turns the 3G off and on, he wrote.
Denver's Pecos Bill...
Wed, 13 Aug 08
Gmail Outage Raises Doubts About Cloud Computing
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=61274
Google's Gmail service suffered a major outage Monday afternoon, with many users locked out of their e-mail for several hours. The company confirmed the outage in an unusual apology on its Gmail blog. Titled "We feel your pain and we're sorry," the blog post said the problem was caused by a "temporary outage in our contacts system that was preventing Gmail from loading properly."
"We heard loud and clear today how much people care about their Gmail accounts," Gmail product manager Todd Jackson wrote. "We followed all the e-mails to our support team and user group, we fielded phone calls from Google Apps customers and friends, and we saw the many Twitter posts. (We also heard from plenty of Googlers, who use Gmail for company e-mail.) We never take for granted the commitment we've made to running an e-mail service that you can count on."
In addition to fixing the contacts system, Google is "conducting a full review of what went wrong and moving quickly to update our internal systems and procedures accordingly," Jackson wrote. He conceded that it's unusual for the company to discuss quality-of-service issues publicly, "but we wanted to make an exception in this case since so many people were impacted."
"Again, we're sorry," the post concluded.
The outage comes as Google hopes to ramp up its Google Apps offering to small and midsize businesses and calls into question whether the promise of cloud computing is being oversold. For instance, Google and SADA Systems, a technology consultancy, are planning a series of sales presentations titled "Google Apps and The Big Switch: Don't Worry About I.T."
Google reacted swiftly to the outage, restoring service within a few hours, which should give potential customers a certain level of confidence in Google as a service provider, said Tim Bajarin, president...
Wed, 13 Aug 08
Coming Soon to an iPhone Near You: VoIP
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=61273
Instant-messaging chat or dissing your Texas Hold 'em opponents on the iPhone just got one step closer. Global IP Solutions (GIPS) has announced the release of its near-ubiquitous voice-over IP (VoIP) developer software for the iPhone engineering crowd. GIPS VoiceEngine Mobile is a development toolkit for iPhone software developers who want to add voice and streaming video to iPhone applications.
"The popularity of the iPhone makes it an ideal platform for developing applications that incorporate quality real-time VoIP, giving consumers real-world communication experiences like in-game, multi-person chat," said Emerick Woods, GIPS' CEO. According to Steve Rust, vice president of business development for GIPS, "A limited number of development companies are already using the software, but we can't divulge who is developing what, but we anticipate great gaming, chat and multi-party voice applications to hit the market soon." Rust indicated that the software was available now.
Customers who now enjoy the voice features of Facebook and MySpace may soon be able to communicate in the same way when accessing the sites on their iPhones -- once a motivated software developer creates the app for iPhone customers. Similar applications that bring voice to instant-messenger software running on the iPhone will also be possible. Also of interest is the possibility that using stable VoIP software on the iPhone would allow users to bypass the AT&T voice network entirely -- all that is required would be a VoIP engine and interface. Users could make calls directly over the Wi-Fi network and avoid the tollgate of a cellular provider.
Apple acknowledged that it would allow Wi-Fi VoIP, but not over other networks, as that would violate its exclusivity contract with AT&T. Numerous blogs already detail ways in which users can enable Skype applications, for example, to place and receive phone calls over Wi-Fi and...
Wed, 13 Aug 08
Flash Faces Competition for Rich Internet Applications
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=61269
The old debate over HTML versus Flash has become stale. A new debate, however, has surfaced.
Rich Internet Applications (RIAs) like Adobe Flash are feeling the heat as competitors move in and are expected to gain wide adoption among developers.
Adobe Flash, initially developed by Macromedia, has had widespread adoption and can be used by developers to stream audio and video and create rich-media advertisements, presentations, games and a slew of other functions.
It is considered a popular software platform and is used by more than two million people, reaching 99 percent of Internet-enabled systems and devices, including Windows, Mac OS X, Pocket PC, Palm OS, and Solaris, according to a June 2008 survey by Millward Brown, a research company. Nearly 99 percent of U.S. Web users and 99.3 percent of all Internet desktop users have Flash Player installed, with 45 to 56 percent having the latest version, according to NPD Group.
Adobe keeps pressing on with Flash and has included 3-D graphics, special effects, hardware-accelerated graphics, and text control in its Flash Player Version 10, currently in beta version 2.
Calls made to Adobe were not returned in time for publication.
All that is great for Adobe, but can Flash continue to press forward amid the heat from new competitors?
Microsoft is a major competitor. Earlier this year the software behemoth released Silverlight, a cross-platform, cross-browser and cross-device plug-in. Silverlight supports rich applications, including vector graphics, animation and audio-video playback.
Others, however, describe it as an alternative to Flash. Already it is being used by early adopters, including NBC Sports, which is currently using Silverlight to stream the Olympics, and Cirque de Soleil. Similar to Flash, Silverlight has had 1.5 million downloads a day, according to Microsoft.
Another challenger in the RIA arena is AJAX (asynchronous JavaScript and XML). With AJAX,...
Wed, 13 Aug 08
Hackers Mull Physical Attacks on a Networked World
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=61262
Want to break into the computer network in an ultra-secure building? Ship a hacked iPhone there to a nonexistent employee and hope the device sits in the mailroom, scanning for nearby wireless connections.
How about stealing someone's computer passwords? Forget trying to fool the person into downloading a malicious program that logs keystrokes. A tiny microphone hidden near the keyboard could do the same thing, since each keystroke emits slightly different sounds that can be used to reconstruct the words the target is typing.
Hackers at the DefCon conference here were demonstrating these and other novel techniques for infiltrating facilities Friday.
Their talks served as a reminder of the danger of physical attacks as a way to breach hard-to-crack computer networks. It's an area once defined by Dumpster diving and crude social-engineering ruses, like phony phone calls, that are probably easier to detect or avoid.
As technology gets cheaper and more powerful, from cell phones that act as personal computers to minuscule digital bugging devices, it's enabling a new wave of clever attacks that, if pulled off properly, can be as effective and less risky for thieves than traditional computer-intrusion tactics.
Consider Apple Inc.'s iPhone, a gadget whose processing horsepower and cellular and wireless Internet connections make it an ideal double agent.
Robert Graham and David Maynor, co-founders of Atlanta-based Errata Security, showed off an experiment in which they modified an iPhone and sent it to a client company that wanted to test the security of its internal wireless network.
Graham and Maynor programmed the phone to check in with their computers over the cellular network. Once inside the target company and connected, a program they had written scanned the wireless network for security holes.
They didn't find any, but the exercise demonstrated an inexpensive way to perform penetration testing and the danger of unexpected devices being used...
Wed, 13 Aug 08
Why Passwords Are a Weak Cyber-Defense
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=61259
The best password is a long, nonsensical string of letters and numbers and punctuation marks, a combination never put together before. Some admirable people actually do memorize random strings of characters for their passwords -- and replace them with other random strings every couple of months.
Then there's the rest of us, selecting the short, the familiar and the easiest to remember. And holding on to it forever.
I once felt ashamed about failing to follow best practices for password selection, but no more. Experts in computer security say that choosing hard-to-guess passwords ultimately brings little security protection. Passwords won't keep us safe from identity theft, no matter how clever we are in choosing them.
That would be the case even if we had done a better job of listening to instructions. Surveys show that we remain stubbornly fond of perennial favorites like "password," "123456" and "LetMeIn." The underlying problem, however, isn't their simplicity. It's the log-on procedure itself, in which we land on a Web page, which may or may not be what it says it is, and type in a string of characters to authenticate our identity, or have our password manager insert the string on our behalf.
This procedure -- which now seems perfectly natural because we've been trained to repeat it so much -- is a bad idea, one that no security expert whom I reached would defend.
Password-based log-ons are susceptible to being compromised in any number of ways. Consider a single threat, that posed by phishers who trick us into clicking to a site designed to mimic a legitimate one to harvest our log-on information. Once we have been suckered at one site and our password purloined, it can be tried at other sites.
The fundamental solution urged by the experts is to abandon passwords -- and to move...
Wed, 13 Aug 08
Media Firms Skeptical of Google's Knol Intentions
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=61258
Type "buttermilk pancakes" into Google, and among the top three or four search results you will find a link to a recipe, complete with a photo of a scrumptious stack, from a site called Knol, which is owned by Google.
Google created Knol as a place where experts could share their knowledge on a variety of topics. It hopes to create an encyclopedia built from the contributions of scores of individuals. But while Wikipedia is collectively edited and ad-free, Knol contributors sign their articles and retain editorial control over the content. They can choose to place ads, sold by Google, on their pages.
While Knol is only three weeks old, it has already spurred fears among some media companies that Google is increasingly becoming a competitor. They foresee Google becoming a powerful rival that not only owns a growing number of content properties, including YouTube, the top online video site, and Blogger, a leading blogging service, but also holds the keys to directing users around the Web.
"If in fact a Google property is taking money away from Google's partners, that is a real problem," said Wenda Harris Millard, the co- chief executive of Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia.
Money, of course, is very much at issue. The lower a site ranks in search results, the less traffic it receives from search engines. With a smaller audience, the site earns less money from advertising.
Although Martha Stewart's buttermilk pancake recipe appears lower than the Knol recipe in Google's rankings, Millard does not believe that Google unfairly favors pages from Knol. But she said that Google's dual role as search engine and content site raises an issue of perception. "The question in people's minds is, how unbiased can Google be as it grows and grows and grows," Millard said.
Google said it would never compromise the objectivity of...
Sat, 9 Aug 08
IBM Ready To Connect and Secure Mobile Devices
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=61243
IBM announced new software and services for mobile workers Friday, including applications for the iPhone and Blackberry devices. The Armonk, N.Y.-based company cited a surge in mobile devices as an important new market for traditional desktop, storage and server vendors.
IBM's internal research by its Institute for Business Value estimates that more than one billion people will be connected to the Internet this year -- a 191 percent jump from 2006. This makes mobile computing one of the fastest-growing markets in the world.
IBM's focus is on consulting and implementation services for businesses called Mobility@Work. Spokesperson Jan Walbridge said, "The program has been under wraps for six months. But with the attention to mobile-device security, new mobile devices, and considering how companies are trying to save money on energy lately, we felt it was time to announce the initiative."
Enterprises can call in the Mobility@Work team to analyze their systems, ERP and current devices, and get suggestions for a productive mobility strategy.
"Companies need to ask: Will it be productive, does it really add value to our bottom line?" Walbridge said. The Mobility@Work team then helps companies implement a final strategy and provide a post-implementation analysis measuring the return on investment.
For example, mobile workers with the right applications can work with backend systems such as real-time inventory, pricing and order placement.
Many companies are currently going mobile whether they officially approve it or not as employees are hooking in iPhones, Blackberries and Windows Mobile devices. Whether the mobility is providing a real value is a concern.
These companies need to ensure that the applications are secure and efficient. In fact, a feature at the Black Hat Security Conference was a Wall of Sheep -- the most vulnerable devices and environments on the market today -- and to no one's surprise,...
Sat, 9 Aug 08
Hackers Use Facebook for Malware Attack
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=61242
Popular social-networking Web site Facebook is fighting back against hackers.
Users of the social-networking site recently bit a dangling carrot that hackers used to lure them to other Web sites, only to learn that they were victims of a malicious hacker attack.
Hackers, impersonating members' friends, attacked Facebook by convincing users on Facebook's Wall to view a video link that they said was hosted by Google. The Wall is a place were members post messages for friends.
The link did not take members to Google, which owns Facebook; instead, it took the unsuspecting members to a Web page where they were asked to download a version of Adobe's Flash Player and view the movie. Once users downloaded the fake version of Flash, the site installed a Trojan horse that channeled code into their PCs.
Nearly 1,000 to 2,000 users followed the link, according to Sophos senior technology consultant Graham Cluely, but it is unclear to Sophos and Facebook just how many of those users downloaded the Trojan horse.
Users were still unaware that their machines had been compromised, even when they were greeted by a court jester sticking out his tongue with a note reading, "Hello! Wassup with ya," because they assumed it was a friendly joke by friends.
Sophos, the Boston-based security company that discovered the attack, said by the time the members realized it wasn't a joke, their PC was under the control of a hacker sending spam and other malicious malware.
Facebook has placed a block to protect its Web site and has contacted members who were victims of the attack, giving them instructions on how to fix the problem.
In a post on Facebook's Web site by Max Kelly, head of security at Facebook, members were advised to report any spam messages they see. Kelly also warned members never to share...
Sat, 9 Aug 08
Facebook Lawsuit: Righteous Anger or Sour Grapes?
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=61241
When the executives of social-networking Web site Facebook sued a German-based business that had launched a copycat site, it was accepted as a good move -- but was Facebook just sour over an offer gone bad?
Facebook officials filed suit against StudiVZ, a Germany-based social-networking Web site that is a near clone of Facebook, in a California court, saying the German site infringed on Facebook's look, feel, design and services.
StudiVZ (short for Studentenverzeichnis, which means "student directory") is offered in German, French, Polish and Italian. The social network was launched in October 2005 by three students from Berlin, but was purchased by one of its investors, German publishing giant Verlagsgruppe Georg von Holtzbrinck. The price tag was more than $100 million.
As of last month, the Web site, dubbed "Fakebook," reportedly had 10 million active users in Germany, Austria and Switzerland.
StudiVZ, reportedly one of the most popular and profitable Facebook-copycat sites, is denying Facebook's claims, adding that Facebook is just sour because it has not gained popularity in Germany since it launched a German version.
StudiVZ filed a motion in a German court saying the lawsuit is without merit.
Marcus Riecke, chief executive of StudiVZ, accused Facebook of trying to form an international monopoly.
"Now that Facebook, despite trying hard, has not been successful in the German market, the company seeks to obstruct StudiVZ through court action. Their strategy appears to be, 'If you can't beat them, sue them.'"
Some company insiders are adding to the StudiVZ sour-grapes theory by leaking information of an attempted buyout of StudiVZ by Facebook.
Executives at StudiVZ and additional unnamed sources, who spoke to The New York Times International Herald Tribune, said there were ongoing talks between the two companies for months on a buyout, but the two businesses could not come to...
Sat, 9 Aug 08
Search-Engine Use Skyrockets, Nears E-Mail Levels
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=61240
Search engine use is on the rise, according to a new report from the Pew Internet & American Life Project.
The percentage of Internet users who use search engines on a typical day has been steadily rising from about one-third of all users in 2002, to a new high of just under one-half (49 percent).
"With this increase, the number of those using a search engine on a typical day is pulling ever closer to the 60 percent of Internet users who use e-mail, arguably the Internet's all-time killer app, on a typical day," wrote Deborah Fallows, a Pew senior research fellow.
Underscoring the dramatic increase over time, the percentage of Internet users who search on a typical day grew 69 percent from January 2002, when the Pew Internet & American Life Project first tracked this activity, to May 2008, when the current data were collected. During the same six-year time period, the use of e-mail on a typical day rose from 52 percent to 60 percent, for a growth rate of just 15 percent.
These new figures propel search further out of the pack, well ahead of other popular Internet activities, such as checking the news, which 39 percent of Internet users do on a typical day, or checking the weather, which 30 percent do on a typical day, Pew reported.
"Those who are using search engines on an average day are more likely to be socially upscale, with at least some college education and incomes over $50,000 per year," Fallows said. "They are more likely to be Internet users with at least six years of online experience and to have their homes wired for fast Internet connections."
Younger Internet users are more likely than older users to search on a typical day, and men are more...
Sat, 9 Aug 08
HTC Android Phones May Be Delayed Until 2009
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=61239
According to a Web report, there may be some problems with integrating the Google-led open-source mobile platform Android into devices, delaying the release of an Android phone until early next year.
The Barron's Tech Trader Daily Web site published a report Thursday that said the so-called "GPhone" cell phones, which are being manufactured by a variety of makers, could be delayed beyond the current expected release in late 2008. The site raises this possibility because one analyst, Trip Chowdhry of Global Equities Research, is quoted as saying that handset maker High Tech Computer (HTC) is having "structural problems" incorporating Google's feature set.
The report follows recent assurances from HTC that its Android phones are on track.
Chowdhry also said that not enough developers are being drawn to Android, because new software toolkits from Microsoft, Apple, Research in Motion and Nokia have lured developers to those established platforms. He also told Barron's that HTC is "demanding a guaranteed minimum revenue surety from Google, because it does not expect there will be enough demand for [the] GPhone."
However, a Google spokesperson told news media that "we remain on schedule to deliver the first Android-based handset this year, and we're very excited to see the momentum continuing to build [for] the Android platform among carriers, handset manufacturers, developers and consumers."
Michael Gartenberg, an analyst with industry research firm JupiterResearch, downplayed the report of a delay. "It's one rumor, based on speculation, relating to one manufacturer," he said, noting that HTC itself is saying that the device remains on schedule.
Last year, Google announced the open-source mobile platform, as well as dozens of companies who had joined in a new Open Handset Alliance. The alliance members include HTC, Motorola, T-Mobile and Qualcomm.
Android is a Linux-based software stack with an operating system, middleware, interface and applications....
Sat, 9 Aug 08
JaJah Service Translates Languages Via Phone
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=61238
Your cell phone might become your personal translator if one of the new services from Internet telephone company JaJah catches on -- a free, real-time, machine translation service.
The JaJah Babel service, offered in conjunction with IBM, is initially intended to translate between Mandarin and English, just in time for the Summer Olympics. The first Olympic team to have the service is the small contingent from Ireland, home of JaJah CEO Trevor Healey.
The companies say they expect to offer other languages later this year, and eventually to charge for the service.
The service allows a user in China to call a local number from any phone, speak in English, and hear the words returned in Chinese Mandarin. Similarly, a Chinese speaker can have a statement translated into English. Babel also works with local access numbers in the U.S., the United Kingdom, and Australia.
With this service, for instance, a user could order dinner in Chinese by speaking into the phone, then handing the phone to the waiter or putting it on speakerphone.
Offering, testing, and monetizing new, free services are a key part of JaJah's business model. "We offer customer alpha and beta products to help us determine how to monetize services," Healey told news media, adding that, once proven, the technologies move into partnerships with telephony companies.
In addition to the Babel translation service, JaJah has also announced it will offer another service, called Concierge, that utilizes a voice-enabled IP telephony platform from Mobivox. JaJah pointed out that hands-free voice commands to dial numbers, send text messages, or set up conference calls will keep users legal for laws requiring hands-free operation for phone calls while driving. Like Babel, Concierge can be accessed by calling a local number.
Healey said Concierge and the partnership with MobiVox puts the...
Sat, 9 Aug 08
Black Hat Hears Security Details as Reporters Booted
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=61237
Day one of the Black Hat Security Conference in Las Vegas got off to a hot start with details about DNS and e-mail flaws, Google gaffes, and Cisco vulnerabilities. And some French reporters were kicked out for trying to hack the pressroom facilities.
The Black Hat conference is the premiere conference for the latest in security news and tools. Nearly 7,000 attendees are listening to presentations on phishing, hacking and malware, and many are taking comprehensive training on the latest security tools and techniques to protect their networks.
Dan Kaminsky gave an in-depth briefing of the much-reported DNS flaw he discovered, with some startling new wrinkles.
First and foremost, Kaminsky estimated that only 70 percent of Fortune 500 servers have rolled out a DNS patch. Despite the fact that many servers are still exposed, Kaminsky ran through a detailed laundry list of ways to exploit the flaw before a standing-room only crowd. He may have been pushing laggards to fix the problem by releasing details.
By listening to his presentation, a hacker would have a road map to develop multiple exploits. Kaminsky also spoke in detail on how patches prevent such attacks.
Next up for security woes was Google's Gadgets. According to conference presenters Tom Stracener and Robert "RSnake" Hansen, Google's popular desktop gizmos are a gaping security hole waiting to be exploited. Gadgets run a variety of small tasks, such as a desktop calendar, news-feed windows, or the latest crossword puzzle.
Stracener and Hansen highlighted some scenarios.
First, a malicious Google gadget could be added to users' desktops without their knowledge, monitoring activities and collecting sensitive information.
A malicious gadget could also be used to collect account information, trigger other malicious gadgets and send users to bogus sites to fill out forms with sensitive information.
They also demonstrated JavaScript hacks of Google...
Sat, 9 Aug 08
Eight People Bought Rich iPhone App Before Crackdown
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=61236
At least eight people have a blinged-out iPhone, but they may be the only ones.
Apple has removed the "I Am Rich" application from its App Store. The program cost $999 and its sole purpose is to show people the owner has money. The program creates a red icon that sits on the iPhone deck with a the words "I Am Rich" underneath. After the user activates the application, it glows on the handset like a ruby.
Apple initially approved the application, which bumps up against the pricing limit for applications sold on its App Store. The company was not immediately available for comment on why it decided to pull the plug on the application.
Six people from the U.S., one from Germany, and another from France are sporting red-gemmed iPhones, according to developer Armin Heinrich. Heinrich claims the gem includes a "secret mantra."
"The application really does nothing. It's about teaching you, in theory, how to become rich through a mantra of some sort. It really was a functionless, useless application that served no one other than the developer. Unsuspecting people bought it for $1,000 maybe hoping to get something in return," asserted Michael Gartenberg, an analyst at Forrester Research.
Gartenberg doesn't think many people would spend $1,000 on an application for the iPhone anyway, but there were some complaints that it was easy to purchase it by mistake through the App Store's one-click system. At least one App Store visitor thought the "I Am Rich" application was merely a joke and clicked on the "Buy App" button for a surprise.
"Apple has said from day one that it was going to, in some sense, police the App Store in terms of questionable content that might be violating other people's content and trademarks and services," Gartenberg said. "In this case, this...
Sat, 9 Aug 08
Dell Says Its Operations Are Now Carbon-Neutral
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Computers are far from being truly clean machines, but Dell Inc. and other PC makers are trying to make their own business operations greener.
Dell said Wednesday its facilities worldwide are now carbon neutral, a goal the Round Rock, Texas-based company had set to achieve by the end of 2008.
Dane Parker, its director for environment, health and safety, said Dell buys renewable energy -- including wind, solar and methane gas -- directly from utilities to fulfill one-fifth of its energy needs.
There is not enough green energy available for all of Dell's requirements, so for the other 80 percent, Dell buys regular "brown" power, Parker said, plus enough renewable energy credits to offset that power's carbon emissions. Those credits subsidize purchases of renewable energy by other organizations, in places where more green power is available.
Dell's preference for renewable energy isn't just about global warming or public relations. Buying green power at a predictable cost can serve as a hedge against rising oil prices.
The company also said it has cut its energy use with more efficient lighting, modern climate control systems and software that shuts off idle office computers after hours, for a savings of $3 million a year, or about 5 percent of its annual energy bill.
Dell isn't the first company to declare its operations carbon neutral, but it's the first global high-tech player to do so, said Stephen Stokes, a climate change and business analyst for AMR Research. "They do deserve some congratulations," Stokes said, noting that the company took steps beyond just buying energy credits.
"Even if you were the worst carbon emitter in the world, if you wrote a huge check ... you could claim to be carbon neutral," he said.
Dell, the world's second-largest computer company, also is ahead of No. 1 PC maker Hewlett-Packard Co. on this matter.
HP said...
Sat, 9 Aug 08
Review: With 10-Inch Screen, Eee PC Grows Up
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=61210
When Taiwan's Asustek Computer Inc. brought out the Eee PC last year, it created a whole new category of tiny, cheap laptops. Despite its success, the computer had one confounding element: Its keyboard was really small -- good for kids, maybe, but not for adults.
Now, Asus has expanded its line with laptops that are just big enough for a full-size touch-typist, and at least one of the models hits a sweet spot, keeping weight and price low while providing great features and battery life. It compares well with laptops that are three or four times the price.
I tested two models with 10-inch screens, the $550 Eee PC 1000H and the $700 Eee PC 1000. The first Eee PC models had 7-inch screens and went for $400, now down to $300.
While these new models are substantially bigger and more like "real" laptops, they're still terrifically portable, weighing in at 3 pounds. That's the same weight as the vaunted MacBook Air, which Apple Inc. calls the thinnest laptop ever. While the Air has a bigger, 13-inch screen, the new Eee PCs blow the Air away in couple of other dimensions, beginning with price, since the Air starts at $1,799.
Each of Asus' "little PCs that could" also has a built-in slot for SD memory cards, commonly used in digital cameras, a monitor output jack and an Ethernet port. The Air requires add-on dongles for all of those functions. An Eee PC has three USB ports, while the Air has one. It's the price of being thin.
Like bigger laptops, the Eee PCs have built-in Webcams and microphones, for on-the-fly Internet videoconferencing. The Wi-Fi chip is the latest and greatest "draft-n" variety, for maximum speed. There's also a Bluetooth chip for wireless peripherals like mice, or for transferring pictures from cell phones.
The Eee PCs have...
Sat, 9 Aug 08
NFL's Online Ticket Exchange Kicks Off
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=61208
NFL.com and TicketMaster.com will push the start button today on the new "NFL Ticket Exchange," the league's first official online ticket exchange.
Starting today, fans will be able to buy and sell tickets to all games for the 2008 season, NFL executive vice president Eric Grubman says. They'll range from the preseason contests many season ticketholders don't want to more valuable regular-season, playoff and Super Bowl tickets.
Fans and season ticketholders will be able to set their own prices. While conforming to various state laws, the league and its 32 teams won't limit how much fans can resell their tickets for over face value. Fans will still be free to resell their tickets through sites such as StubHub and RazorGator without running the risk of losing their season tickets.
Last season, the NFL sold more than 22million tickets to its preseason, regular-season and playoff games, plus the Super Bowl. While the league doesn't have hard numbers, senior vice president Neil Glat estimates 5-10% of those tickets moved on the secondary ticket resale market.
"Over the last 5-10 years, the secondary ticket market has gotten to the point where this is an important amenity for our fans," Grubman says. "It's really become an essential way a fair number of fans choose to buy tickets or sell excess tickets."
The NFL boasts the highest average ticket prices of the major pro sports. Last season's average ticket price rose 6.9% to $67.11, according to the Team Marketing Report (TMR) newsletter. The AFC champion New England Patriots had the highest average price at $90.89; the Buffalo Bills had the lowest at $46.26.
The NFL's entrance into this market could be bad news for scalpers and online brokers. The league will push its official exchange as a safer alternative to these sellers. "We can authenticate the tickets and guarantee delivery," Glat...
Sat, 9 Aug 08
Russian Gang Suspected of Hijacking PCs
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=61196
A criminal gang is using software tools normally reserved for computer network administrators to infect thousands of PCs in corporate and government networks with programs that steal passwords and other information, a security researcher has found.
The new form of attack indicates that little progress has been made in defusing the threat of botnets, networks of infected computers that criminals use to send spam, steal passwords and do other forms of damage, according to computer security investigators.
Several security experts say that although attacks against network administrators are not new, the systematic use of administrative software to spread malicious software has not been widely seen until now.
The gang was identified publicly in May by Joe Stewart, director of malware research at SecureWorks, a computer security firm in Atlanta.
Stewart, who has determined that the gang is based in Russia, was able to locate a central program controlling as many as 100,000 infected computers across the Internet. The program was running at a commercial Internet hosting computer center in Wisconsin.
Stewart alerted a U.S. law enforcement agency that he declined to identify, and he said that it was investigating the matter.
Although the original command program was shut down, the gang immediately reconstituted the system, he said, moving the control program to another computer in the Ukraine, beyond the reach of law enforcement in the United States.
The system infects PCs with a program known as Coreflood that records keystrokes and steals other information. The network of infected computers collected as much as 500 gigabytes of data in a little more than a year and sent it back to the Wisconsin computer center, Stewart said.
One of the unique aspects of the malicious software is that it captures screen information in addition to passwords, according to Mark Seiden, a veteran computer security engineer. That makes it possible for...
Fri, 8 Aug 08
New Camera Mimics Design of Human Eye
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=61221
Researchers at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and Northwestern University have announced the development of a camera based on the biological design of the human eye. While it won't make a 10-megapixel digital camera obsolete, it may be a huge breakthrough in bioengineering.
U of I Prof. John Rogers, the team's head researcher, said, "This approach allows us to put electronics in places where we couldn't before." Researchers at Northwestern University and other academic institutions helped in the design and fabrication processes.
subhead>Artificial Sight
The development could herald an era of artificial sight. Current optical technology relies on rigid-surface, fixed electronics. While this is more than serviceable in a camera, human eyes must pivot, scan and collect a wide view of information with a flexible retina.
Such a natural design requires flexible components and nonrigid properties previously impossible to engineer. The challenge for researchers hinged on embedding light and image sensors in elastic material without breaking electronic connections or distorting images. It appears the discovery by Rogers and his team has succeeded.
To implant the electronics, the researchers first developed a rubber membrane in the hemispheric shape of an eye. The membrane was then stretched to form a drumhead. A prefabricated array of sensors embedded in silicon was then transferred using planar processing -- much like current chip manufacturing. When the membrane comes off the drumhead, it returns to its original shape and compresses the embedded focal array.
The key point is that specially designed interconnects delaminate from the membrane yet maintain contact with detector pixels. The array is then transfer-printed to a glass substrate identical to the original shape. The artificial retina is then attached to an external connection and a lens is set into the assembly.
The result is the world's first imaging device modeled on the eye. The resolution of the device...
Fri, 8 Aug 08
IOActive's Kaminsky Warns: DNS Danger Still Exists
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=61220
IOActive security researcher Dan Kaminsky offered his much-anticipated speech on the DNS vulnerability at the Black Hat conference on Wednesday. His message: Patching your systems is urgent because the risk of cache poisoning is great.
Kaminsky discovered the bug in early July. The attack code was released several weeks later by developers of the Metasploit hacking toolkit, headed by the infamous HD Moore.
By exploiting this vulnerability, an attacker can redirect an ISP's users to a malicious phishing server every time they try to visit a legitimate Web site. The patches released through various vendors should protect from the threat. Security vendors continue to rush to market with DNS vulnerability patches, checks, protection and other tools. But everyone is not yet protected.
The threat emerges from two different issues with the DNS protocol. DNS primarily uses UDP packets to send questions and receive answers.
The client will accept any packet as an answer to its question on three conditions: the packet is coming from the DNS server, the source and destination ports match the destination and source ports of the question packet and, most importantly, the transaction ID and question match its question. Combining the answer-packet spoof with the additional information makes exploitation easier.
Applying the DNS patches is the best solution, according to Wolfgang Kandek, CTO of patching vendor Qualys. The patches, he said, will buy the Internet enough time to restart the dialog for a stable, long-term solution, where DNSSEC (Domain Name System Security Extensions) comes into play.
"Using OpenDNS or other DNS services is a good immediate workaround, as it lowers one's exposure instantly, but does not fix it completely," Kandek said. "Dan's presentation convinced all of its attendants of the reality of the problem and showed the ease and breadth of exploitation possibilities. Personally, I think it is...
Fri, 8 Aug 08
Verdiem's Edison Helps Green-Computing Trend
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=61219
Verdiem has just launched a new monitoring application for enabling eco-conscious consumers around the world to proactively control PC energy consumption as well as cut down on household emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2).
Called Edison, the free software for Windows-compatible machines is designed to enhance the power settings of computing devices in a consumer-friendly way that is easy to set up and manage. The goal is "to empower consumers to do something about climate change," said Kevin Klustner, Verdiem's CEO.
PCs are the hidden energy hogs of the home, and most users have no idea that they are needlessly throwing away 80 percent of their PC's energy, Klustner explained. "By finding ways to embed offsets in our daily life -- even something as simple as downloading software -- we will create permanent reductions in energy use and have a huge impact on our environment and resource sustainability."
According to Klustner, the energy consumption of the one billion-plus PCs currently installed around the world collectively produces a staggering amount of CO2 that is roughly equivalent to having an additional 70 million cars on the road.
"We have the ability, and in fact the responsibility, to bring PC power management to a much broader audience," Klustner said. "If just one percent of all PCs used Edison, we could potentially reduce environmental impacts by seven billion pounds of CO2, which is equal to taking more than a half million cars off the road."
Microsoft has joined Verdiem in asking Windows PC users everywhere to enhance their control over their current power settings by downloading Edison. To spread the word, both companies are working closely with the Climate Savers Computing Initiative (CSCI) -- a nonprofit group recently formed by eco-conscious consumers, businesses and conservation organizations.
Various studies predict that PC ownership will quadruple to...
Fri, 8 Aug 08
iPhone 'Blacklist' Noted as 'I Am Rich' App Disappears
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=61218
After some snooping into the core of an iPhone 3G, a hacker has reported finding a blacklist of sorts that could allow Apple to remove malicious or unauthorized applications from iPhones.
Jonathan Zdziarski, author of the books iPhone Open Application Development and iPhone Forensics Manual, found a URL buried in Apple's firmware that links to a file dubbed "unauthorizedApps" where malicious or simply bad apps might go once they disappear from the App Store.
"This suggests that the iPhone calls home once in a while to find out what applications it should turn off," Zdziarski wrote in a Web posting. "At the moment, no apps have been blacklisted, but by all appearances this had been added to disable applications that the user has already downloaded and paid for, if Apple so chooses to shut them down."
A particular iPhone app that received huge attention was created by coder Armin Heinrich. He posted an app called "I Am Rich" to Apple's App Store and tagged it with a $1,000 price tag. The app, which displays a red ruby to indicate to others that you can afford it, has not had a great response and has been described by observers as stupid.
As of Wednesday, Heinrich's app was not available for sale in the U.S., according to a pop-up message. Since then it has mysteriously disappeared, leaving users wondering if "I Am Rich" made its way to the blacklist or if Heinrich himself pulled the plug.
Other apps that have disappeared include BoxOffice (renamed to Now Playing) and NullRiver's NetShare. BoxOffice gave users movie show times, movie descriptions, and images from RottenTomatoes.com, while NetShare allowed people to use a wireless device to tap into an iPhone's Wi-Fi connection. NetShare broke AT&T's service agreement for connectivity.
Developers of both apps have said they never received any...
Fri, 8 Aug 08
Apple Finds, Ousts MobileMe Scapegoat
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=61217
Apple CEO Steve Jobs is taking the MobileMe mix-up seriously. So seriously, in fact, that he's given the job of heading the division to a new executive.
Apple Senior Vice President Eddy Cue -- the leader of Apple's Internet services, including iTunes -- will replace Rob Schoeben as MobileMe's captain. Apple was not immediately available for comment on Schoeben's fate.
MobileMe is a service that delivers push e-mail, push contacts and push calendars into the "cloud" of native applications for the iPhone, iPod touch, Macs and PCs. MobileMe saw major outages and even lost customer e-mails, leaving many consumers angry. Now, the wrath of Jobs has come down on MobileMe's leader.
According to Ars Technica, Jobs sent an e-mail to employees admitting mistakes in the planning and launching of the MobileMe service. Jobs reportedly told employees the service was "not up to Apple's standards" and acknowledged a mistake in introducing it in combination with the iPhone 3G.
"It was a mistake to launch MobileMe at the same time as iPhone 3G, iPhone 2.0 software and the App Store," Jobs said in the message. "We all had more than enough to do, and MobileMe could have been delayed without consequence."
A renamed version of the .Mac online service, MobileMe was supposed to help Apple compete with the BlackBerry. But problems were evident from the beginning, as a transition from .Mac to MobileMe that should have taken hours took nearly all day. Customers also complained about slow synchronization.
Next, Apple encountered a mail outage affecting one percent of MobileMe members. On July 18, a serious problem with one of Apple's mail servers blocked those members' access to their MobileMe mail accounts.
Apple reports that it has since added server capacity and tuned its software to scale better. The team has also fixed more than 70...
Fri, 8 Aug 08
Google Integrates DoubleClick Through Ad Features
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=61216
Google announced enhancements to its network Thursday that the search giant hopes will offer enhanced experiences for users and better value for advertisers and publishers. The changes include partner sites for which Google provides advertising.
According to Rajas Moonka, Google senior business product manager, the additions reflect the integration of DoubleClick, which Google bought last year. DoubleClick specializes in managing online advertising for Web publishers.
DoubleClick was founded in 1996 and The New York Times reported its revenues topped $300 million a year when Google acquired the company for $3.1 billion. The acquisition sparked a bidding war with Microsoft and gave Google access to DoubleClick's advertising software and, perhaps more importantly, its customers and network.
"When we purchased DoubleClick, we talked about how we would empower agencies, advertisers and publishers to collaborate more efficiently and effectively, and provide a better experience for our users," Moonka said. "We are happy that we have been able to deliver on this promise already, like support for third-party vendors on the Google content network."
On The Official Google Blog, Moonka detailed the enhancements to the Google advertising platform.
Frequency capping will allow advertisers to control the number of times a user sees an ad so they are not hit with the same ad every time they visit a particular Web site. Google will also provide frequency reporting to tell advertisers how many people have seen their ad campaign and the average number of people who view their ads. The company is also promising better ad performance and tracking "view-through conversions" to report how many people actually visited a Web site because of its ad.
The changes are designed to help advertisers determine the best places to advertise so users see more relevant ads.
The changes will be enabled through a DoubleClick ad-serving cookie across the...
Fri, 8 Aug 08
Apple Expected To Redesign MacBooks, Revamp iPods
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=61215
If you trust the chatter from the techies' sewing circle, Apple is poised to make several new product announcements next month. According to industry insiders and analysts, Mac fans can expect a redesigned MacBook and MacBook Pro, along with revamped iPods.
The Mac laptop line has not had many significant changes in roughly six years, and there is also a good chance that the price point may finally drop to around $999, keeping Mac competitive with PCs. iPod nanos and shuffles may see increased storage and perhaps a reshaping of the iPod touch, and also another price drop.
Early adopters, however, will have to wait a little longer before queuing up for a MacBook touch. The technology is still a bit out of reach, but could arrive in less than two years.
Apple fans know that company announcements, such as new product launches and revamps, have been made in September for the last three years. And according to reports, Apple's sales and marketing teams released a statement to retailers advising them to replenish MacBook and MacBook Pro stocks, which usually signifies that Apple is preparing for changes. Stir this is in with the spicy earnings call last month by Apple CFO Peter Oppenheimer hinting at a future "product transition," and you've got the ingredients of a tasty product launch.
Gene Munster, an analyst at investment firm Piper Jaffray, has confirmed the speculation, writing, "We expect redesigned MacBooks and MacBook Pros, and a new iPod touch." He noted that an event has yet to be announced, but he fully expects Apple to re-enter the under-$1,000 market where Mac iBooks once started. He also speculated about redesigned MacBook Pros and pointed out that there hasn't been a major design change since the first PowerBook G4 was released 5.5 years ago.
Regarding the iPod,...
Fri, 8 Aug 08
Microsoft Releases SQL Server 2008 To Manufacturing
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=61214
Microsoft announced Wednesday that the 2008 version of SQL Server, its data-management and business-intelligence platform, has been released to manufacturing.
The company said new capabilities have been added, such as support for policy-based management, auditing, large-scale data warehousing, geospatial data, and advanced reporting and analysis. Microsoft is also touting its support for aggregation, summarization, search engines, dashboards, transactions across distributed data sources, and long-running transactions.
Ted Kummert, corporate vice president of the Microsoft Data and Storage Platform Division, said the 2008 version "is the only major database that includes comprehensive, tightly integrated functionality for data management as well as advanced business intelligence out of the box."
A preview version of the new SQL Server is already in use, following more than 450,000 downloads. Microsoft said more than 75 large-scale applications are in development, and more than 1,000 independent software vendors are creating about 1,300 applications using the new platform.
According to the software giant, enterprise customers already working with SQL Server 2008 include Clear Channel Communications, Fidelity Investments, Hilton Hotels, Simon & Schuster and Siemens AG.
Microsoft is pointing to SQL Server's record of benchmarks, such as being the "first and only database-management system to be capable of delivering scalable results" on the Transaction Processing Performance Council's (TPC) new online transaction-processing benchmark, for which it has received 13 published benchmarks so far.
The company also cited benchmarks from hardware vendors, such as IBM's No. 1 performance result using SQL Server 2008 on a 64-core System x3950 M2 server. In addition, Unisys and Microsoft said SQL Server 2008 set a new record for ETL (extract, transform and load) performance. Testers were able to load one terabyte of data in less than 30 minutes. For large-scale data warehousing, the new platform achieved a recent 10-terabyte TPC-H benchmark.
The new version is available in a variety of...
Fri, 8 Aug 08
Logitech Launches New diNovo Edge Keyboard for Macs
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=61213
Mac keyboard aficionados, take note. Leading peripherals vendor Logitech has released its cordless diNovo Edge -- the first diNovo designed specifically for the Mac.
Denis Pavillard, Logitech vice president of product marketing for keyboards and desktops, said Thursday that, "from the piano-black finish to its built-in TouchDisc touchpad," the new keyboard "can make it a pleasure for you to type, control music or launch your favorite applications."
The distinctive diNovo Media Desktop keyboards were originally launched by Logitech in 2004, and the company said they have received many awards for design and performance.
In keeping with the "thin is in" theme now popular among many computer makers, the new diNovo is only a half-inch thick. It has a high-gloss, semitranslucent Plexiglas frame, sharp angles, soft-orange backlighting, and an aluminum palm rest with anodized-silver finish.
But in keyboards as in life, looks aren't everything. Optimized Mac keys provide one-touch access to Mail, Safari, iTunes and other Mac applications, as well as a power button for the Mac. If you want to really lean back, the Bluetooth wireless technology provides a range of up to 30 feet.
A TouchDisc allows the user to scroll and navigate from the keyboard. By moving a finger up and down, or across, the cursor correspondingly moves on the screen. Moving a finger in a circular motion around the edge of the TouchDisc allows horizontal and vertical scrolling through documents.
And then, of course, there's typing. Logitech describes this experience, as with other diNovos, as "comfortable, fluid and silent."
The keyboard has Logitech's PerfectStroke system, which, among other niceties, has what the company calls "longer key travel." This means the distance fingers have to travel in order to complete a keystroke -- 3.2mm compared to the 2.2mm of typical notebook keyboards -- is optimized for normal...
Fri, 8 Aug 08
IBM Urges Better Linux Design, More Business Focus
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=61190
Years ago, the Linux open-source operating system seemed ready to offer a nonproprietary alternative to Microsoft Windows. But "Linux on the desktop" never took off.
Despite the technical merits of the distributions, Linux remained hard to configure and rough around the edges. And what did a user get if she conquered the hurdles? An operating system that looked like Windows, only worse.
Keynoting at the LinuxWorld conference in San Francisco, Bob Sutor, IBM's vice president of open source and standards, suggested Linux developers can improve desktop Linux by taking a page from Apple's playbook.
What desktop Linux needs is "some really good designers," Sutor said. "Stop copying 2001 Windows. That's not where the usability action is."
Toward that end, IBM is making a new stab at selling "Windows-free" PCs to the enterprise. It joined with Canonical/Ubuntu, Novell and Red Hat to offer Linux desktop PCs to businesses, featuring IBM's Lotus Notes software.
Ubuntu has received rave reviews for delivering a much more attractive and slick interface to Linux than previous offerings, but it's IBM's heft that may give the effort the best chance yet of making enterprise inroads.
Sutor also challenged Linux developers to make computers more energy-efficient. The operating system already features server virtualization, load balancing, and better resource management, but "there's got to be more. ... I've got this lingering feeling that open source has not done enough," he said.
Deeper thinking about how to maximize efficiency and cut the cost of operating a data center is needed, Sutor said. "We're doing the obvious things," he said.
While enterprises will look at the cost benefits of running Linux instead of Windows and won't shy away from technical challenges, small and midsize businesses need turnkey solutions, Sutor said. That will mean some combination of open source and proprietary solutions. "We want to...
Fri, 8 Aug 08
Greenpeace Cites Rising E-Waste in Africa
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=61175
Greenpeace called on the world's electronics companies Tuesday to eliminate hazardous chemicals from their products, saying toxic waste from wealthy nations' gadgets ends up being dumped in poor countries despite laws prohibiting it.
The environmental watchdog made the appeal in a new report on the electronic waste trade, which it said was spreading from Asia to West Africa -- particularly Ghana, where discarded TVs and computers that contain toxic materials are being dismantled by children as young as 5.
"Unless companies eliminate all hazardous chemicals from their electronic products and take responsibility for the entire life cycle of their products, this poisonous dumping will continue," said Martin Hojsik, a Greenpeace campaigner. "Electronics companies must not allow their products to end up poisoning the poor around the world."
Many of the old computers, monitors and television sets that end up in Ghana come from the European Union, despite laws there prohibiting the export of such hazardous materials, Greenpeace said. In particular, the report cited shipments from Germany, Switzerland and the Netherlands -- as well as Korea.
The materials are exported as "second hand goods" and purportedly meant to be reusable. But the report, citing a EU official, said most of these goods imported into Africa are broken and cannot be used again.
In Ghana, the discarded waste is dismantled at scrap yards, where it is crushed or burned to separate plastics from more valuable metals like aluminum or copper, a process that pollutes the environment and exposes workers to toxic fumes.
A Greenpeace team visited two main waste sites in Ghana -- one in the capital and another in the smaller city of Korforidua. Soil samples analyzed at Britain's University of Exeter contained phthalates, which are suspected of causing reproductive problems, and lead.
The report noted that while the EU officially prohibits such exports, the United States does...
Fri, 8 Aug 08
Missing Airport Security Laptop Turns Up a Week Later
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=61170
The company trying to speed travelers through airport security lines said it found its laptop containing the personal information of 33,000 people about a week after reporting it stolen.
But the Transportation Security Administration suspended any new enrollments in the fast-growing program because of the failure of Verified Identity Pass to encrypt customer data stored on its computers.
The New York-based company said a software fix will take a matter of days and it sought to ensure customers the missing computer didn't contain any data such as credit card or Social Security numbers.
"We apologize for the confusion, but in an abundance of caution, we treated this unaccounted for laptop as a serious potential breach," said Verified Identity Pass CEO Steven Brill. "A preliminary investigation shows no personal information was compromised."
Denver has represented a rapidly growing market for the company, whose Clear program charges members a yearly $128 fee to use separate security lanes to get through airport checkpoints faster. It so far has about 20,000 enrollees in the Denver area.
The roughly 200,000 travelers who already use the Clear service at airports nationwide have not been affected by the incident, which is still under investigation.
The company laptop went missing July 26 from a locked office at San Francisco International Airport. It showed up again a week later in the same office, according to a company spokeswoman.
The New York-based company began notifying all of the online applicants whose preliminary data were on the allegedly stolen laptop. The laptop did not contain the encrypted iris photos, fingerprints and other background data applicants submit in person later in the process, the company said.
The company said the data on the recovered laptop had already been secured by "two levels of password protection." But the company said it is working on security changes that will encrypt all personal...
Fri, 8 Aug 08
At Doggyspace, Social Networking Goes to the Dogs
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=61169
Cici confesses on her Web page that she likes to greet everyone by licking their feet. Dolce admits to being a mamma's boy. And Jake and Tycho posted a video that chronicles their adventures of rolling around on their backs. It's not on Facebook or MySpace, but the canine equivalent -- Doggyspace.com.
A crossbreed between MySpace and YouTube, Doggyspace allows dog owners from all over the world to come together, create profiles, and share photos and videos of their pups.
The Virginia-based site is part of a growing trend of niche, or content-focused, social networking sites that target interest groups looking to connect with like-minded people.
"It's not so much social networking, it's having a social experience around things that we care about, so pets are just such a great example of that," said Fred Stutzman, an Internet researcher at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Stutzman said many people are using more general social networking sites but also signing up for sites like Doggyspace that offer a more focused experience that can provide help and support on specific issues and go beyond traditional message boards.
"Social networks like Facebook and MySpace are sort of about you and your friends and these very direct connections, but there's all sorts of other types of connections," Stutzman said.
Since launching in mid-July, Doggyspace has logged more than 700 registered, active user profiles -- 73 percent of them created by females, said Levi Thornton, founder of the site and president of web development firm Mad Frog Productions in Fredericksburg, Va. He projects that Doggyspace will have more than two million accounts by the end of the year.
"There's a lot of people out there with their dogs and we're busy and we're all working in the office all day long and this is a way for us to...
Thu, 7 Aug 08
Google Offers Free Music Downloads in China
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=61189
Google announced Tuesday it will begin offering free music downloads to Chinese customers. The Chinese Google site will allow searches by song, artist or entire album, then download DRM-free songs.
Music is hosted on China's Top100.cn, a Chinese-based music site. The downloads will be financed by advertising, with revenue split between Google, the music companies, and Top100.cn.
It's estimated that 90 percent of Internet users in China download pirated music with the help of search engines. Some worldwide record labels such as Vivendi have significant stakes in Chinese recording artists, and many see the new Google service as a way to help protect that intellectual property. Pirated music is costing labels millions of dollars in lost revenue in China, where piracy is most rampant.
Apple's iTunes Store is open and doing business in China, but it has little market share compared to the number of pirated music files on the Chinese Internet. In addition, the Top 100.cn site may initially carry just a small fraction of current popular Chinese music files, crippling its chances of becoming a number-one destination for Chinese music lovers.
It's unclear how many artists and labels are part of the Google-Top100.cn music rollout. Reports confirm that Universal is onboard, but there has been no word from Sony, EMI or Vivendi. Google could not be reached for comment. If the selection is not deep enough, some critics suspect it will have little chance of preventing illegal music downloads.
Some observers are speculating that Google's move into the China music scene is more about gaining search-engine market share than MP3 downloads. While Google may dominate the search-engine field in the U.S. and Western Europe, its Chinese rival Baidu has captured 60 percent of China's market, according to a Beijing analyst group. Google has an estimated 25...
Thu, 7 Aug 08
Security Geeks, Hackers Convene in Vegas
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=61188
Thousands of network security professionals are in Las Vegas for the annual Black Hat Briefings computer security conference, which will be immediately followed by the DEFCON hacker convention. Both events focus on network and Internet security issues. The Black Hat conference is held at Caesars Palace Las Vegas Hotel & Casino, while DEFCON is at the Riviera Hotel & Casino August 8-16.
Black Hat is targeted to more mainstream professionals; for example, security experts from the Department of Homeland Security are scheduled to speak. Meanwhile, DEFCON has a looser, more underground reputation: Its schedule is peppered with hacker challenges and hacking contests. Paid delegates to the Black Hat conference can attend DEFCON for free. Conference organizers expect between 5,000-7,000 attendees this year.
At Black Hat, the keynote speaker this year is Ian Angell, a professor of information systems for the London School of Economics. His topic: the mix of computer and human activity on the network spawns not only computer security but also institutional security issues. Also slated to appear in a keynote event is Rod Beckstrom, director of the National Cyber Security Center for the Office of Homeland Security.
The most anticipated presentation at the show, however, will be IOActive's Dan Kaminsky when he unveils details of the flaw he discovered in Domain Name Service software. The flaw had been kept under wraps in an attempt to proactively convince major network suppliers and operators to patch the flaw before information about it was made public. Unfortunately, the flaw was leaked to the public on a blog site, and the race was on to patch servers before hackers could exploit the vulnerability.
Kaminsky is expected to detail the flaw, its discovery, and what measures have been taken to patch the vulnerability. Weeks after the public disclosure of...
Thu, 7 Aug 08
Airlines Add Wi-Fi as They Battle for Customer Revenue
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=61187
The fiercely competitive airline business is turning to technology in the battle for customers.
Since American Airlines began testing Wi-Fi service on live flights in August 2007 and JetBlue Airways began its BetaBlue project in December 2007, other airlines are following suit, including Delta Air Lines and Virgin Atlantic Airways.
On Tuesday, Delta said it would roll out Wi-Fi access to passengers on its entire fleet for a fee. JetBlue, which has been collecting customer feedback, also plans to expand the service throughout its fleet.
"We are still interviewing customers and surveying them to find out what matters most to them," said Alison Eshelman, a spokesperson for JetBlue. "In June we expanded connectivity services to allow for AOL Mail, Gmail, Windows Live Mail, and Microsoft Exchange e-mail accounts."
A major difference between Delta's offering and JetBlue is price. Delta passengers with wireless-enabled laptops, PDAs and smartphones can access the Internet, personal e-mail, and virtual private networks at $9.95 for three hours or less, or $12.95 on flights longer than three hours. JetBlue, however, said its service is currently free.
Aircell, the company equipping Delta with its Gogo Inflight Internet service, said these services are taking off.
"It is no longer, is this something we should be thinking about? It's in the mode of who has the right solution, who has proven or is in the process of proving they can bring this product to market," said John Happ, Aircell's executive vice president.
Currently, Aircell is testing its Gogo service on 15 American Boeing 767-200s that are mostly transcontinental flights over the three-hour mark. "That fleet is done and ready to go and are prepared for launch, which is eminent," Happ added. "They are the first contract and first airline that will be in commercial service."
Aircell officials said the service will also...
Thu, 7 Aug 08
MobileMe Snafu Hasn't Tarnished Apple's Shine -- Yet
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=61186
Apple CEO Steve Jobs conceded on Monday what Apple's customers have been saying for a few weeks now: The company's MobileMe service, launched in conjunction with the iPhone 3G, was a failure. In an e-mail to employees, Jobs said the service, intended to allow users to sync e-mail and other apps with their new iPhones, was "not our finest hour."
While Jobs was "right to acknowledge the problem," the reports of outages and other failures were so widespread, "He didn't really have much of a choice," noted Greg Sterling, principal analyst with Sterling Market Research.
From the launch, MobileMe suffered a number of problems, including long initial downtimes, an e-mail outage that caused the loss of users' messages, an inability to contact the service to sync, data corruption, and time delays in syncing.
In his e-mail, Jobs identified several things that "could have been done better." For starters, he said, the service was "not up to our standards." MobileMe "clearly needed more time and testing."
Jobs has concluded that Apple made two key mistakes with the system, both related to chewing off more than it could chew. "Rather than launch MobileMe as a monolithic service, we could have launched over-the-air syncing with iPhone to begin with, followed by the Web applications one by one -- Mail first, followed 30 days later (if things went well with Mail) by Calendar, then 30 days later by Contacts," he said.
In addition, Apple should have simply delayed MobileMe until after the iPhone 3G launch, which already included the launch of iPhone 2.0 software and the App Store. "We all had more than enough to do, and MobileMe could have been delayed without consequence," Jobs said.
Intriguingly, Jobs concluded that the company has "more to learn about Internet services. And...
Thu, 7 Aug 08
New Google Tool Offers 'Insight' To Brand Marketers
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=61185
Google is catering to advertising agencies with a new product called Google Insights for Search. The search giant introduced the new product on Wednesday.
Insights for Search is a free tool that taps Google's database of search results to unearth information advertisers covet. Google said the product was designed with marketers in mind.
"It provides more flexibility and functionality for advertisers and marketers to understand search behavior, and adds some cool new features like a world heat map to graphically display search volume and regional interest," Elan Dekel and Niv Efron wrote on the Google blog.
Google is on an analytics roll. In June, the company updated Google Trends with numbers and the ability to download results to a spreadsheet. Google said it received good feedback from agencies and advertisers on how they're using the new version, from identifying new growth markets to optimizing Google AdWords campaigns.
Like Google Trends, Insights for Search lets advertisers and agencies type in a search term to see search volume patterns over time, as well as the top related and rising searches. Users also have the ability to compare search-volume trends across multiple search terms, categories (commonly referred to as verticals), geographic regions, or specific time ranges.
Google offered the example of entering the term "apple." Perhaps not surprisingly, the majority of the top searches are associated with Apple, Inc. rather than the fruit.
Google Insights for Search allows users to filter this query with the "Food & Drink" category, resulting in a dramatically different view of search-volume trends and related searches for the fruit. Users can also use the filter to compare search terms within the category.
"If you love Trends, we hope you'll fall in love all over again with Google Insights for Search," Dekel and Efron said. Users need a Google account to...
Thu, 7 Aug 08
IBM Touts 'Microsoft-Free' Alliance with Linux Vendors
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=61180
IBM is joining forces with Linux OS vendors Novell, Red Hat and Canonical, the distributor of Ubuntu, in a global effort to deliver what they tout as a "Microsoft-free" computing experience.
The four allies note that Linux is better equipped to work with lower-cost PC hardware than Windows Vista and the latest version of Microsoft Office. Worsening economic conditions are also fueling demand for more economical software alternatives, they said.
"The slow adoption of Vista among businesses and budget-conscious CIOs -- coupled with the proven success of a new type of Microsoft-free PC in every region -- provides an extraordinary window of opportunity for Linux," said Kevin Cavanaugh, vice president for IBM Lotus Software.
The partners say they intend to work together to build and distribute preloaded Linux-driven PC offerings in markets around the world. In addition to Linux, IBM's Open Collaboration Client Solution (OCCS) will integrate Lotus Notes, Lotus Symphony and Lotus Sametime, together with market-specific applications and installation services from local partners.
IBM also is formulating different OCCS iterations that will be targeted at the specific needs and preferences of individual customer groups, such as banks, government organizations, and schools. Government organizations such as Russia's postal service have already piloted and phased in the new desktops, saving 30 to 35 percent of the cost of the Microsoft equivalents, noted IBM spokesperson Mike Azzi.
"This specific OCCS/Linux desktop is far more profitable than Microsoft preloads because it contains two free technologies, the Linux OS and Lotus Symphony, instead of MS Windows and Office," Azzi wrote in an e-mail.
However, IBM and its partners have been down this road before, noted Michael Silver, a research vice president at Gartner Client Computing. "Same plan, same problems as in prior years," he said.
In the more developed markets, things are not all that...
Thu, 7 Aug 08
Google Updates Its Enterprise Search Appliance
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=61179
Google on Wednesday began offering an upgraded version of its Search Appliance. The hardware targets enterprises and government agencies that want a Google-like Web search for office documents.
The upgraded Google Search Appliance searches up to 10 million documents. That's the same document storage capacity as the previous version that was offered in a five-box rack. A larger, 12-box version can store, manage and search up to 30 million documents.
The latest appliance lets employees subscribe to e-mail alerts for topics and documents of interest, choosing an hourly, daily or weekly schedule. It offers a spell checker in six new languages: French, Italian, German, Spanish, Portuguese and Dutch. Administrators can adjust search results for different user groups, based on department or function.
The upgrade offers native support for Kerberos, enabling a silent authentication experience for end users. Administrators can bias results based on metadata, in addition to biasing based on source, URL or date.
Administrators can also view and export daily and hourly result sets, top queries, and special feature usage, and generate a report for every query, including reports on which queries receive no clicks by a user and how often users are clicking on sponsored links in comparison to search results or OneBox modules.
Google said its Search Appliance delivers fast, relevant and secure access to information by tapping into Google's core search technology and optimizing it for business use. Once administrators install the appliance on the network, it lets staff search documents in a variety of document types, including IBM's FileNet, Microsoft's SharePoint, EMC's Documentum, and Open Text's LiveLink.
"The Google Search Appliance provides universal search across a variety of internal and external sources -- including file shares, intranets, databases, applications, hosted services and content-management systems," the company said. "The Google Search Appliance makes all...
Thu, 7 Aug 08
Mozilla's Aurora Shows Concepts for Future Browsers
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=61178
Like cars, buildings and airplanes, browsers can have concept models. That's the idea behind Aurora, a new "concept browser" from the Mozilla Foundation.
Emanating from the Mozilla Labs initiative, where users are encouraged to offer new browser ideas, the concept is available in video visualizations. In the videos, Aurora envisions a variety of new interaction models that push the concepts of collaboration, real-world interaction, and context.
For instance, weather data can be collected as a user-controllable object, dropped onto a screen where it displays a graph, and then dragged to a desktop. The basic thrust of this video is that two people are finding, exchanging and examining data as they might do with physical materials.
Another clip demonstrates a futuristic bookmark system. Folders of bookmarks are represented by small page images in a row at the top of the page, and all the bookmarks within that folder descend in a column of small images when you click on the folder. Typing in a word allows the browser to suggest some related bookmarks. When you bookmark a page, the browser suggests the appropriate folder.
But the browser also has the intelligence to find a page according to its work-flow context, so the user can type the day and time, and the browser will find the page the user was on at that moment.
For mobile browsers, the idea is to more fully utilize zoomable space. For instance, panning with your finger on a touch screen can go to the edge of the browser. The entire screen is taken up with content, but by panning over, the user can see browser controls that might otherwise be hidden. This maximizes screen space for content.
The plus sign calls up a new tab. When you zoom out, you can see all browser tabbed...
Thu, 7 Aug 08
11 Charged in Connection with Credit Card Fraud
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=61157
The Department of Justice announced Tuesday that it had charged 11 people in connection with the hacking of nine major U.S. retailers and the theft and sale of more than 40 million credit and debit card numbers.
It is believed to be the largest hacking and identity theft case ever prosecuted by the Department of Justice. The charges include conspiracy, computer intrusion, fraud and identity theft.
The indictment returned Tuesday by a federal grand jury in Boston alleges that the people charged hacked into the wireless computer networks of retailers including TJX Cos, BJ's Wholesale Club, OfficeMax, Boston Market, Barnes & Noble, Sports Authority, Forever 21 and DSW.
"While technology has made our lives much easier it has also created new vulnerabilities," U.S. Attorney Michael J. Sullivan said in a statement. "This case clearly shows how strokes on a keyboard with a criminal purpose can have costly results."
The indictment alleges that the hackers installed programs to capture card numbers, passwords and account information, and then concealed the data in computer servers that they controlled in the U.S. and Eastern Europe.
"They used sophisticated computer hacking techniques, breaching security systems and installing programs that gathered enormous quantities of personal financial data, which they then allegedly sold to others or used themselves," said Attorney General Michael Mukasey in prepared remarks. "And in total, they caused widespread loses by banks, retailers, and consumers."
The heist was a black eye for retailers like TJX. The company, which initially disclosed the data breach in January 2007, said a few months later that at least 45.7 million cards were exposed to possible fraud in a breach of its computer systems that began in July 2005. Court filings by some banks that sued TJX put the number of cards affected at more than 100 million, based on estimates by officials with Visa...
Thu, 7 Aug 08
Bloggers Pick Apart Microsoft Vista Test
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=61143
Deserved or not, the Windows Vista operating system gets a bad rap. But Microsoft's recent effort to repair Vista's reputation did not win any rave reviews, either.
Last week Microsoft posted videos at MojaveExperiment.com of a test involving about 140 randomly chosen computer users who had low opinions of Vista. These users had no experience with it, so they were shown what was said to be the company's new operating system, called Mojave. In nearly all the cases, they liked what they saw.
At the end, they were told that Mojave was really Vista.
The videos show the shocked reaction. "Wow, really?" many of them said.
On the Web, however, many technology bloggers had a different reaction. "Microsoft thinks you're stupid" was the heading of a blog entry on the site of the Canadian magazine Maclean's. The blogger, Colin Campbell, wrote that "Microsoft seems to be shifting blame for its bad PR problems over to their customers."
Like a blind taste test for coffee or soft drinks, the Mojave Experiment is "a clever test that demonstrates nothing," said Bob Garfield, a columnist for Advertising Age magazine and host of "On the Media" on National Public Radio.
If a product has a bad reputation, it is not because of faulty perceptions, Garfield said. It is because of a faulty product. Vista, halfway through its planned three-year life cycle, has drawn more scorn than most major software products do. People have found it hard to set up. Users have complained that it saps memory and that installing drivers or applications is too difficult.
Microsoft executives have been telling reporters in recent weeks how much Vista has improved. The company says that with 140 million copies sold, it is Microsoft's fastest-selling operating system.
According to Microsoft's internal research, 89 percent of users say they are "very satisfied"...
Thu, 7 Aug 08
New Intel Graphics Chips Could Have Wider Uses
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=61142
Intel on Monday was releasing the first technical details of a new family of chips intended to soup up computer graphics and, eventually, a broad range of computing tasks.
The new microprocessor family, code-named Larrabee, will be available in late 2009 or early 2010. Intel is releasing the details of its plans before the Siggraph industry conference starts in Los Angeles next Monday.
The company said it would initially aim Larrabee at the personal-computer graphics market, where its "many-core" design, with more than a dozen and eventually hundreds of processing units on a single silicon chip, would be especially useful.
But Anwar Ghuloum, an Intel parallel computing engineer, said that over the next half-decade Intel planned to make the chip design available to an increasingly broad spectrum of the computing world, from Windows and Macintosh desktop personal computers to handhelds and even supercomputers.
The market for add-on graphics accelerators, prized by PC game players, is now dominated by Nvidia and the ATI division of AMD. Intel's approach will be distinguished by its reliance on the industry standard x86 instruction set, which will allow the chips to take advantage of a huge library of existing software.
In 2004, after finding that it could not make its chips faster because they were overheating, Intel adopted a strategy it referred to as a "right-hand turn."
Intel switched to improving performance by increasing the number of processing elements, or cores, on each chip. That led first to dual-core and now quad-core chips.
Analysts said the first generation of Larrabee may have 16 to 48 cores, depending on the performance goal.
Intel has tried several approaches to chip design, but none of them have had the impact of its x86 family, which was originally introduced three decades ago. Architectures that have been less successful include the Itanium and the 432, neither of...
Thu, 7 Aug 08
Spam Masks Itself as News To Evade Filters
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=61102
"Cheap Viagra online"? That's got to be spam.
"Your account is about to expire"? That might make some pause for a moment, but nowadays most people know it's spam.
But an e-mail titled "Oil drops to $100 per barrel"? That'll get people clicking.
Spam e-mails continue to evolve as filters get better and people get more savvy with technology. The latest pitch for clicks is to disguise the subject line as news, the Poynter Institute for Media Studies said in a recent report.
Gavin Manes, the founder of Digital Forensics Professionals Inc., said that although the subject line may be different, the e-mails themselves are the same old spam that have hassled people for years.
"They're playing on the need and the want for news, but the delivery method is identical," he said.
The e-mails can carry a wide variety of headlines, usually something sensationalistic. Examples include "Negotiations between USA and Iran end in war," "Dog digs grave for owner" and "Will Smith found dead in bathtub."
But the contents are either an advertisement, a link to pornography, or a link trying to trick people into downloading spyware or a malicious computer worm, Manes said.
"The e-mail asks you to download a viewer to see the news," he said.
Robert Ashworth, a senior solutions architect with Peak UpTime, said the new spams likely aren't having a major impact on larger businesses because of security measures most of them have.
"More and more companies are instituting firewalls and spam-blocking software, so often these mails are blocked before people can even see them," he said.
But Manes said that smaller businesses and individuals who don't have basic security could be at risk if they aren't using a basic spam filter...
Wed, 6 Aug 08
Micron Prepares To Ship 256GB Solid-State Drive
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=61162
Micron announced Tuesday that it will soon begin delivering 256GB solid-state drives for notebooks and servers. SSDs have quicker access times and consume less power than standard SATA or SCSI hard drives.
The 256GB drives could begin showing up in laptops and notebooks this winter along with 32GB and 128GB versions. But Micron spokesperson Beth Gregg said that due to demand, "The next crop of sample drives will not be available for seven to eight weeks."
Micron's RealSSD 256GB drive is 2.5 inches, while the 32GB and 128GB drives are 1.8 inches. Mass production is scheduled for late 2008.
Micron said the SSD drives are specifically targeted for notebooks, subnotebooks, enterprise servers and disk arrays and will reduce weight and power consumption while boosting performance. It added that the drives are nearly twice as fast as traditional SATA or SCSI drives.
The company also said the drive is 10 times faster than traditional drives when accessing transactional processing data, since traditional drives have a long latency period when they "spin up" to retrieve data. And Micron said the drive delivers more than 250MBps in sequential read/write speeds, making it possibly the fastest commercial SSD available.
SSD technology has been around since the 1990s, but reliability and especially prices have held it back. Even today, SSD drives cost nearly 10 times as much as traditional disks, but reliability has improved significantly, Micron said. Traditional drives have a mean rating of 1.7 to 2 million hours between failures, while SSD drives now approach 1.5 million hours.
Micron's SSD competitors include Seagate, Texas Memory Systems, and Samsung. Samsung announced its own 256GB SSD drive in June with a 200MBps access time -- similar to Micron's specs. Small-quantity prices for this capacity are between $500 and $600. Alienware, Dell, Sony and Hewlett-Packard offer Samsung's SSD.
Micron officials...
Wed, 6 Aug 08
Microsoft, Google and Yahoo Agree To Code of Conduct
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=61161
Senator Dick Durbin (D-Illinois) announced Monday that three U.S. Internet companies have agreed to an Internet code of conduct for doing business with repressive regimes like China. Microsoft, Google and Yahoo worked with human-rights organizations and other nongovernment groups to hammer out the framework.
The agreement, subject to final approval of the terms, comes after intense hearings in 2006 before the Senate Human Rights and the Law Subcommittee chaired by Durbin. On July 21 Durbin said the subcommittee would like to see progress, and the companies appear to have delivered.
"This code of conduct would be one important step toward our shared goals of promoting freedom of expression and protecting the privacy of Internet users around the world," Durbin said. "I look forward to learning more about the details of this agreement and whether it will adequately regulate American companies operating in Internet-restricting countries."
The 2006 hearings and subsequent pressure from organizations such as Amnesty International and the Electronic Frontier Foundation demanded that U.S. companies take a stand against online censorship, blocking access to information, and covert spying on Internet users. In the past, some U.S. companies have even provided technical equipment to help countries restrict access to the Internet.
The controversy accelerated last week after China attempted to limit Internet usage for Olympic visitors and amid concerns that activity on the Internet may be monitored by the Chinese government.
Initial reports are that the companies have agreed to protect identities, liberties and access to information. Provisions for the protection of data will also be a part of the final agreement.
How they intend to implement such measures on foreign soil may be tricky, but it beats the cooperation Google and Yahoo provided to the Chinese government. When news of U.S. companies capitulating to foreign censorship came to light...
Wed, 6 Aug 08
Delta Rolls Out Wi-Fi in the Sky -- for Everyone
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=61160
Airlines have hit fliers with a lot of extra charges these days. They charge for food, drinks and checking bags. JetBlue even said it would dispense with complimentary disposable pillows and start charging $7 for a take-home pillow-and-blanket set.
On Tuesday, however, Delta Airlines announced a service that few people should complain about paying for: Wi-Fi. While a number of other airlines have been trumpeting Internet availability, so far that's been a special service available only in business class and first class. Delta is the first airline to offer Wi-Fi in coach.
The cost will be $9.95 for a flight of three hours or less, or $12.95 for a longer flight. Service will be provided by Aircell, which is also working with American Airlines and Virgin America to provide wireless Internet access. The system, which will be available on all continental flights, will be rolled out by fall, Delta said.
Aircell's Gogo system will allow Wi-Fi-enabled devices -- smartphones and PDAs such as Apple's iPhone and iPod touch, as well as laptops -- to access the Internet and corporate virtual private networks, and perform SMS texting and instant messaging.
The deal signals Delta's commitment to "maximize the time our customers spend with us onboard by offering them even more productivity options," said Delta CEO Richard Anderson. "Our customers asked for in-flight connectivity, and we're responding by rolling out the most extensive Wi-Fi network in the sky."
The boom in Wi-Fi in the air is the result of air-to-ground technology, according to Jack Blumenstein, president and CEO of 17-year-old Aircell. The technology has "made broadband connectivity in the cabin economically viable for the first time for commercial airlines," Blumenstein said. "The game has changed."
Aircell's technology not only offers Wi-Fi throughout the cabin, but provides the infrastructure for advanced video, audio, television and other entertainment...
Wed, 6 Aug 08
iPhone 2.0.1 Update Fixes Bugs, Breaks Some Devices
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=61159
iPhone owners planning to add the newly available 2.0.1 software update need to be careful or they could end up with a dud.
When Apple launched its App Store and iPhone 2.0 software along with the iPhone 3G, users of both the 3G and upgraded first-generation iPhones with the 2.0 software faced several problems. Users reported slower synchronizations, dropped applications, unexpected reboots with both the iPhone software and downloaded applications, and problems with core GPS functions.
On Monday Apple responded with a 2.0.1 update that is expected to solve many of the performance-related issues the company described as bugs. Some changes included the ability to drag application icons across several pages in one motion, quicker keypad loads, and a better user interface.
But users are having problems installing the 249.2MB update and then connecting to services. And they are being warned to not put the iPhone in airplane mode, or they could lose more than connections.
Participants on Apple's support forum are complaining that they lost all wireless functionality, while others say the update bricked their handsets. Users who paid to have their iPhone 3Gs unlocked by Vodafone are also complaining that they are not able to reconnect to the service after the update.
Users having problems installing the 2.0.1 update are advised to attempt the install several times, as the iPhone may fail to update on the first try but should succeed on additional attempts.
The update was reportedly expected to do more than improve the user interface and increase sync times. According to some reports, one goal was to squash and make useless the jailbreaking Pwnage Tool, which opens up the iPhone's file system.
Calls to Apple for comment were not returned in time for publication.
To download and install the update, users need to connect their iPhone or iPod...
Wed, 6 Aug 08
Microsoft Partners Will Get Advance Patch Tuesday Info
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=61156
Microsoft plans to share early information about its monthly Patch Tuesday updates with security software providers, partners, customers and public organizations.
Announced at this week's Black Hat security conference in Las Vegas, Microsoft's push to thwart exploitation of its software bugs is intended to improve the security ecosystem, said Andrew Cushman, director of security response and outreach at Microsoft.
"In the race between exploit and protection, Microsoft is committed to shifting the advantage to the security industry," Cushman said. "The introduction of these new programs helps address evolving online threats and provides more practical guidance to assess and manage risk."
Microsoft admits its monthly security updates are often followed -- sometimes within hours -- by the release of targeted exploit code. This means many customers often don't have time to test and successfully deploy patches -- but that will change, the software giant said.
Under the new Microsoft Active Protections Program (MAPP), members will have advance access to information about the specific vulnerabilities that each security update is intended to address. "Think of it as community-based defense, where we commit our skills and strengths to defend beyond our boundaries to protect our common customers," Cushman said.
By receiving vulnerability information earlier, Cushman added, software security vendors will be able to give their customers quicker access to improved protection features, such as intrusion-prevention systems or security software signatures.
"The industry is reaching a point where delivering an acceptable level of security today is beyond what one company can do alone," Cushman said. "It's time that we approached this problem collectively."
Microsoft also intends to launch a new Exploitability Index that will provide the PC industry with additional guidance about the likelihood of code being developed to exploit the bugs addressed by Microsoft's monthly security update. Under the new index, the most attractive...
Wed, 6 Aug 08
AT&T Joins the Cloud Crowd with Synaptic Hosting
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=61155
On-demand data centers took another step toward becoming commonplace today, as AT&T announced the global launch of its Synaptic Hosting service.
Synaptic Hosting offers what the company called its "next-generation utility computing service with managed networking, security and storage for businesses." Customers will be able to purchase large-scale computing and applications on demand, through virtualized servers. Services to the user will be provided through AT&T's IDCs, or Internet data centers.
Ron Spears, group president of AT&T Global Business Services, said that Synaptic Hosting "is driving the convergence of networking and hosting services in ways that are allowing companies to deliver end-user applications whenever and wherever they are needed -- while paying only for the capacity used."
Such cloud-based, on-demand computing is becoming a regular offering of many major companies, including IBM, Amazon and Google. A target for such services are companies whose business has spikes, either because of changes in seasons or other reasons, such as retailers with holiday sales, game publishers running their own online applications, and others.
AT&T says that Synaptic Hosting can offer "greater flexibility, improved performance and cost savings" for customers. For instance, a company can potentially eliminate or reduce its need for an in-house data center. The downside is that the company becomes dependent on an outside provider, which, as in the case of Amazon's storage service last month, can suffer an outage that leaves the customer helpless.
Synaptic Hosting also offers a utility-computing platform through which customers can manage applications, resources and data. It also provides a single, end-to-end service-level agreement for each account, as well as personalized support and application monitoring and reporting.
Over time, the service will be extended to encompass other AT&T services, such as unified communication, content distribution, dynamic backup, and on-demand high-resolution images like X-rays and CT scans.
The service...
Wed, 6 Aug 08
Apple's Jobs Reportedly Criticizes MobileMe Launch
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=61154
Apple CEO Steve Jobs has reportedly admitted to the company's employees that its MobileMe launch was "not up to Apple's standards." His internal corporate e-mail reportedly acknowledged flaws in the performance and launch of the "simple way to keep everything in sync," as Apple describes MobileMe.
Jobs reportedly pointed out the need for more testing, and said the MobileMe services should have been rolled out slowly, such as over-the-air iPhone syncing first, then applications one at a time.
Jobs also reportedly wrote that it was a "mistake" to launch the MobileMe service in essentially the same time window as the iPhone 3G, the iPhone 2.0 software, and the App Store.
MobileMe is intended to update data on an iPhone, iPod touch, Mac or PC. A subscriber with a Mac at home, a PC at work, and traveling with an iPhone or iPod touch could keep e-mail, contacts and calendars coordinated across the devices.
It is supposed to work with the leading applications of each type, such as Microsoft Outlook on a PC or Mail, Address Book, and iCal on a Mac. When changes are made in these applications on one device, MobileMe is intended to send those changes to the other devices. A user could also access and manage e-mail, contacts, calendar, photos and files at me.com.
Since so many customers have multiple devices, coordination of frequently used information is also being offered by Google, Microsoft and others. The MobileMe service replaces the previous .Mac online service.
MobileMe has been plagued with problems. Apple has, for instance, acknowledged that a significant portion of users were not able to retrieve information and files, which it said stemmed from problems with the mail servers. Some users reported transferring e-mail addresses and previous e-mails from other accounts, only to have the e-mail lost. Others noted wrong time...
Wed, 6 Aug 08
Ex-Google Star To Head Friendster Growth Drive
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=61153
Asia's leading social network may be getting ready to give its U.S. competitors a run for the money. Friendster, the ninth largest Web site in the world based on traffic, has received $20 million in funding and hired a Google veteran as CEO.
On Tuesday, Friendster announced Robert Kimber as its new CEO to lead Friendster's global business and guide operations in Asia and the U.S.
Most recently, Kimber was the regional managing director for South Asia at Google, where he led business operations and strategic partnerships across the region. He helped increase Google's revenue in the Asia-Pacific region, opening offices in Singapore and Auckland, and rapidly growing Google's Australian and Korean businesses.
"Friendster is growing at an enormous rate in Asia-Pacific and is clearly leading the competition. I believe this is partly because the Internet is transforming the lives of everyone, and it will probably become one of the greatest liberators of our time," Kimber said. "With more than 75 million users, it is clear that Friendster has already made a dramatic impact. I look forward to growing our business further as we continue our global growth and strong focus on Asia."
Friendster has money to back up Kimber. The company raised $20 million in financing led by new investor IDG Ventures. Joining Friendster's board from IDG is Butch Reddy, a general partner.
"With the addition of Richard, Butch and the new funding, Friendster will continue to expand its worldwide footprint and take advantage of its leadership position in Asia-Pacific," said Russ Siegelman, a partner at Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, an investor in Friendster, and chairman of the board for Friendster.
Friendster plans to use the new funds to focus on user growth, user engagement, and monetization through new features, new offerings, localization and marketing, Siegelman said.
In the last two...
Wed, 6 Aug 08
Cablevision's TiVo-Like Service Wins in Appellate Court
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=61152
A U.S. appeals court on Monday ruled that Cablevision's DVR service does not infringe on the rights of content holders.
"We do not believe that an RS-DVR customer is sufficiently distinguishable from a VCR user to impose liability as a direct infringer on a different party for copies that are made automatically upon that customer's command," according to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit.
Cablevision offers a different type of DVR than the traditional TiVo. The company is pushing what's called RS-DVR, or remote storage digital video recorder, service. From the customer's end, the service works just like a TiVo. But the shows aren't stored on a hard drive within a set-top box. Rather, the shows are stored on Cablevision's servers and transmitted to customers when they decide to watch them.
Cablevision's approach to DVR came under fire by some heavy hitters in the entertainment world, who filed a lawsuit against the company. CNN, Twentieth Century Fox, Cartoon Network, Paramount, Universal, Disney and the major TV networks joined forces, alleging the RS-DVR service worked like a video-on-demand (VOD) offering. The companies wanted Cablevision to get licenses from each of the content holders before allowing customers to watch the programming. The appellate-court judge did not oblige.
"The content industry, in suing Cablevision, once again overreached in its goal to limit the personal uses of increasingly popular technology," said Gigi Sohn, president and CEO of Public Knowledge, a party to an amicus brief supporting Cablevision in the case. "We hope this case will be another signal to Hollywood to scale back its attacks on consumer-friendly technologies."
Cablevision lost the first round of its legal battle when a judge in the Southern District of New York agreed with the content holders. In March 2007, a judge ordered Cablevision to stop offering...
Wed, 6 Aug 08
How Cloud Computing Is Changing the World
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=61123
At first, just a handful of employees at Sanmina-SCI began using Google Apps for tasks like e-mail, document creation, and appointment scheduling. Now, just six months later, almost 1,000 employees of the electronics manufacturing company go online to use Google Apps in place of the comparable Microsoft tools. "We have project teams working on a global basis and to help them collaborate effectively, we use Google Apps," says Manesh Patel, chief information officer of Sanmina-SCI, a company with $10.7 billion in annual revenue. In the next three years, the number of Google Apps users may rise to 10,000, or about 25% of the total, Patel estimates.
San Jose [Calif.]-based Sanmina and Google are at the forefront of a fundamental shift in the way companies obtain software and computing capacity. A host of providers including Amazon, Salesforce.com, IBM, Oracle, and Microsoft are helping corporate clients use the Internet to tap into everything from extra server space to software that helps manage customer relationships. Assigning these computing tasks to some remote location -- rather than, say, a desktop computer, handheld machine, or a company's own servers -- is referred to collectively as cloud computing, and it's catching on across Corporate America.
The term "cloud computing" encompasses many areas of tech, including software as a service, a software distribution method pioneered by Salesforce.com about a decade ago. It also includes newer avenues such as hardware as a service, a way to order storage and server capacity on demand from Amazon and others. What all these cloud computing services have in common, though, is that they're all delivered over the Internet, on demand, from massive data centers.
Some analysts say cloud computing represents a sea change in the way computing is done in corporations. Merrill Lynch estimates that within the next five years,...
Wed, 6 Aug 08
With Automated Tagging, Web Links Can Surprise
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=61119
It wasn't what anyone expected to see while perusing a news article.
But there, in the final paragraph of an online story about the call girl involved in the Eliot Spitzer scandal, Yahoo's automated system was inviting readers to browse through photos of underage girls.
Yahoo Shortcuts, which more frequently offers to help readers search for news and Web sites on topics like "California" or "President Bush," had in this case highlighted the words "underage girls." Readers who passed their mouse over the phrase in The Associated Press story were shown a pop-up window filled with images from Flickr, Yahoo's photo-sharing Web site.
Some of the pictures showed nothing untoward, while several captions claimed that attached photos showed underage drinking. Clicking on the pop-up window yielded more-disturbing results: hundreds of images, including some of a girl or woman in pigtails, knee socks and lingerie. One photo showed a faceless female body, naked.
The misstep, which happened in early July, was noted on a technology blog. Editors at the AP contacted Yahoo Inc., where a spokeswoman said the company quickly removed the link. Several of the more provocative photos were apparently taken off of Flickr.
The phrase "underage girls," now added to a list of thousands of previously blocked terms, will never again generate a Yahoo Shortcut, the company said. But the incident highlights how difficult it can be for publishers to keep a tight rein on their sites in this age of user-generated content.
Internet publishers are increasingly relying on automated systems to tag phrases of interest and, in some cases, to provide links to other sites. With legions of YouTube users, Flickr photographers and anonymous bloggers posting floods of their own, largely unsupervised material, it's impossible for publishers using automation to exercise total control.
"No matter how sophisticated you make these automated systems, you're not going...
Wed, 6 Aug 08
Yahoo's Quiet Chief Confronts His Critics
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=61117
Jerry Yang, the soft-spoken chief executive of Yahoo, rarely becomes animated, at least in public. But ask him about his company's lackluster performance over the past year, and he pounds the table -- albeit ever so lightly -- punctuating his answer with a dose of impatience.
"We have a plan," Yang said during an interview at Yahoo's headquarters. "We want to grow the business over a three-to five-year period. We are executing against that plan. And we are still doing that despite all the stuff that's happened to us."
All the stuff that's happened, of course, refers to the turbulence since Jan. 31, when Microsoft made an unsolicited takeover bid. The conventional wisdom was that Microsoft and its hard-charging chief executive, Steven Ballmer, would quickly swallow the company.
But Yang has emerged as an unlikely survivor -- at least for now. He beat back Ballmer, whose offers to buy all or part of Yahoo were considered inadequate by Yang and his board. And he rebuffed Carl Icahn, the billionaire shareholder, who tried to seize control of Yahoo but settled for three seats on an expanded board.
Even so, the question remains whether Yang is the right man for the job. Many shareholders are furious with him. With the stock trading at about $20, far below the $33 a share Microsoft offered in May, the failed merger negotiations have cost Yahoo investors nearly $20 billion.
"I think they had an opportunity to get something done in the palm of their hand, and they bungled it," one investor, Eric Jackson, said after the company's annual shareholder meeting Friday.
On Friday, investors controlling about 15 percent of the shares represented at the meeting voted against Yang's re-election to the board -- signifying lingering concerns about his leadership.
Yang says he understands shareholders' frustrations. But he says Yahoo was willing...
Wed, 6 Aug 08
Xobni Can Make Good Old E-Mail Even More Useful
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=61115
For all the hype about social networking Web sites, the most popular and successful way to network over the Internet is still the oldest: e-mail. If it's organized properly, boring old e-mail can reveal as much or more information about the people you know and their relationships with you as hipper services such as MySpace or Facebook.
This is especially true if you are the kind of person who saves most of his or her e-mail. That mound of messages can be a treasure-trove of contact information and a history of your interactions with hundreds, or thousands, of personal and business acquaintances. It can tell you the phone numbers and job titles of people, and even whom you and your correspondents most often copy on e-mail. It's a sort of social network all its own.
The trouble is, it's hard to tease all that information out of the typical e-mail program. And that goes double for the most popular but most bloated and dense e-mail program of all: Microsoft Outlook.
Now, however, there's a new, free plug-in module for Outlook that adds a set of social-networking and data-mining features right inside the venerable program. This new plug-in for Outlook is called Xobni, which is "inbox" spelled backward and is pronounced "ZOB-
nee." It is completely contained in a colorful vertical panel that lives on the right side of your Outlook screen and doesn't block or intrude upon Outlook's own panes or functions.
I've been testing Xobni, and I like it. The product has some flaws and is still a work in progress, but I found that it made Outlook much faster and more useful. Xobni turned my Outlook experience from one that was organized by messages and dates into one that was organized by people, relationships and histories.
Xobni, available at www.xobni.com, works...
Tue, 5 Aug 08
The EFF Launches Net-Neutrality Test for ISPs
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=61134
Congress just whacked Comcast for throttling its users' broadband service when using BitTorrent. Now, the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) has announced a new tool to find out if other broadband providers are doing just that.
On Friday, the EFF posted Switzerland, a free software utility that users can run to determine whether their ISPs are fiddling with their bits behind the scenes. According to Fred von Lohmann, the EFF's senior intellectual property attorney, "Comcast isn't the first, and certainly won't be the last, ISP to meddle surreptitiously with its subscribers' Internet communications for its own benefit."
Switzerland, a command-line-driven utility, tests whether a user's IP packets have been tampered with, added to or rerouted. An open-source project, the Switzerland utility is but one part of the EFF's "Test Your ISP" project, designed to raise consumer awareness of ISP activities.
Switzerland can also detect whether an ISP is using various spy tools, such as Sandvine, AudibleMagic and Fair Eagle. Sandvine is an application that monitors P2P network activity and inserts forged packets into P2P streams that exceed thresholds set by the ISP. The forged packets cause a reset of the transmission, slowing speeds to below the setting.
AudibleMagic is a software tool that samples the actual content of P2P transferred files, capturing a representative sample of a suspected copyrighted audio file. It then compares the sample to a database of more than 3.7 million copyrighted works to see if there is a match. The software can then disrupt the transfer or log the transfer to a file.
Fair Eagle, a particularly invasive application used by some ISPs, inserts ads into Web views, regardless of destination.
The EFF hopes that use of Switzerland will not only give consumers an opportunity to check their broadband connections, but also to...
Tue, 5 Aug 08
Apple's DNS Patch Leaves a Sour Taste of Failure
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=61133
Once again, Apple users are being left with a sour taste. Last week, the company released a downloadable patch to correct a critical Domain Name System vulnerability that could redirect browsers to malicious sites.
Researchers have confirmed that attacks based on the glitch have begun. On a hacked system, users entering a normal URL can fall victim to phishing scams when they are led to a fake address. Known as cache poisoning, this level of attack allows hackers to corrupt the database a DNS server holds in memory. Some users have been able to spot bogus sites, but others haven't been as lucky.
If a user is duped, social-engineering tricks can be used to trick a visitor into entering sensitive information, or directly attack the infected machine through Web-browser vulnerabilities. Mac users are more likely to be redirected than suffer a direct attack, since there are currently no known public Mac OS X exploits that are launched by visiting a Web site.
According to a blog posting by Andrew Storms, nCircle's director of security operations, Apple appears to have left out critical coding that would make the patch viable.
"The current countermeasure to this DNS cache-poisoning vulnerability is to introduce increased entropy by forcing randomization of the query ID and the source port. Essentially, making it all the more difficult to spoof the DNS response," he wrote.
"Incident handler" Swa Frantzen of the SANS Institute, an independent provider of information-security training, certification and research, agreed with Storms and was also critical of the patch on his blog, writing that Apple might have fixed some of the more important parts for servers, but is far from done yet, as all the clients linked against a DNS client library still need to get the workaround.
ISPs have fallen victim...
Tue, 5 Aug 08
FCC's Spanking of Comcast Raises Jurisdiction Concerns
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=61132
While the Federal Communication Commission voted 3-2 to punish Comcast for its alleged poor network-management practices, concerns are being raised about the FCC's legal authority over the cable-TV and Internet services provider.
On Friday, the FCC ruled that Comcast had been monitoring and blocking subscribers' use of peer-to-peer file sharing, specifically with BitTorrent P2P software.
Two of the three commissioners, Republicans Robert McDowell and Deborah Taylor Tate, said the FCC's decision against Comcast was based on unclear rules and voted in favor of Comcast. McDowell said the FCC does not have any rules in place governing an ISP's network management.
But FCC Chairman Kevin Martin, who voted against Comcast, said the Supreme Court recognized the FCC's power to enforce its policies under its ancillary authority based on Internet policy adopted in 2005. The FCC policy says Internet users have the right to use legal Web applications, services and devices of their choice.
David Sohn, general policy counsel for the Center for Democracy and Technology, said what Comcast did is a significant problem, but added that the group is concerned about the FCC's broad jurisdiction. "Our position is that what Comcast was doing in the particular tactics they had chosen by singling one particular application -- that is a serious problem and poses real risks for innovation on the Internet," Sohn said. "We do have concerns of the scope of the FCC's authorization to step in and address this problem."
Comcast said it will comply with the FCC's ruling and provide the agency with an outlined plan of its network-managing practices. But Comcast added it does not believe the FCC has the legal right to control management of its network. "There were not formal rules in this area, so the basis for action they are taking may be questionable," said Sena FitzMaurice,...
Tue, 5 Aug 08
Congress Questions Network Data-Collection Methods
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=61131
Congress wants to know: How do search engines use your personal data? The House Committee on Energy and Commerce sent out letters on Friday to major network companies asking them, among other things, how they use personal tracking data to serve up those highly targeted ads.
According to a statement posted on the Committee's Web site, top cable, Internet and phone companies have been asked to come clean about how they collect Web-browsing details. The investigation was triggered by the Subcommittee on Telecommunications and the Internet hearing on July 17 that focused on deep-packet inspection techniques. The letter "respectfully requests" responses to the Committee's 11 question by Friday, August 8. "Online users have a right to explicitly know when their provider is tracking their activity and collecting potentially sensitive and personal information," said Rep. Edward Markey, a chairman of the Subcommittee.
Deep Packet Inspection (DPI) is an enterprise security technique for examining the Layer 2 through Layer 7 segments of IP data packets. This "packet snooping" was developed to better guard against malicious software, worms or erroneous data that may be embedded in IP packets by hackers or other unauthorized network users. But the same techniques applied for the good of network security can also be deployed to track an individual's Web activity.
Congress wants to know who is using DPI and how they are using it. The larger question is, of course, are individual rights being violated when DPI is used by networks?
Search engine companies in particular may depend heavily on DPI or variations thereof to provide more targeted ads to customers using their sites. In addition, large copyright holders such as Sony, EMI and Time Warner have sued Internet service providers that they believe have not done enough to halt the illicit trafficking of...
Tue, 5 Aug 08
Report: AT&T Extends iPhone Exclusivity Deal
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=61130
Randall Stephenson, the recently christened AT&T chairman and CEO, is the mastermind behind the $199 Apple iPhone 3G. He's also the architect behind an extended exclusivity deal with Apple.
USA Today is reporting that Stephenson, the man who agreed to pay Apple about $300 per device to help keep the retail price of the iPhone reasonable, has inked a deal that will give AT&T some breathing room to profit from the phones.
AT&T has reportedly extended its agreement with Apple to remain the exclusive retailer of the iPhone through 2010 to compensate for the diluted earnings in the initial years of the contract. Stephenson took a risk, and it looks like it might pay off for AT&T under the new deal.
"The iPhone has repositioned AT&T as the premier wireless brand in the world," Stephenson told USA Today. "We're all about wireless. We're not betting on handsets. We're betting on Jobs."
There's been plenty of talk on online job boards about AT&T's move. Some smartphone users are frustrated that the exclusivity deal has been extended because they want to use the phone with their carrier of choice.
Michael Gartenberg, an analyst at Forrester Research, said it wouldn't make much of a difference for U.S. consumers anyway.
"Because of technology challenges in the U.S., the only other carrier the iPhone is compatible with is T-Mobile," Gartenberg said. "The wireless technology is so radically different that Apple would have to come up with an entirely new phone in order to have a product that would work on Verizon or Sprint's network."
The issue goes even deeper. If Apple decided to offer an unlocked, open version of the iPhone that was unsubsidized tomorrow, consumers still wouldn't enjoy the maximum iPhone experience with any carrier besides AT&T. "T-Mobile's 3G network is very different than AT&T's," Gartenberg said....
Tue, 5 Aug 08
Intel Details Larrabee's Many-Core Graphics Architecture
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=61129
Intel revealed details Monday about its upcoming family of graphics processors with multiple cores, code-named Larrabee. The new processors are expected to compete with market leaders NVIDIA and AMD's ATI division.
Details unveiled in an Intel-authored paper include a new approach to rendering 3-D, a programming model and performance analysis for several applications, and multiple processor engines. Intel plans to present its plan at the SIGGRAPH conference in Los Angeles on Aug. 12.
The first Larrabee-based product will target the personal-computer graphics market and is expected in 2009 or 2010. Larrabee will be the industry's first many-core x86 Intel architecture, which means it will be based on an array of many processors. The individual processors are similar to the Intel processors that power the Internet, laptops, PCs and servers, the company said.
"Intel is not the first vendor to go down this road. IBM's Power-based Cell processor, and actually the multicore chips that IBM built for Microsoft's XBox and Nintendo, were the first," said Charles King, principal analyst at Pund-IT Research. "IBM's work in the multicore space effectively knocked Intel out of the computer game-console market."
First or not, Intel expects Larrabee to kick-start an industrywide effort to create and optimize software for the dozens, hundreds and thousands of cores expected to power future computers. Intel said it has a number of internal teams, projects and software-related efforts under way to speed the transition, but its Tera-Scale Computing research program has been its largest. Intel said it has partnered with more than 400 universities, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, and companies such as Microsoft and Hewlett-Packard.
"Over time, the consistency of Intel architecture and thus developer freedom afforded by the Larrabee architecture will bring about massive innovation in many areas and market segments," Intel said Monday.
As an example, Intel pointed to how...
Tue, 5 Aug 08
Microsoft: IM Revives '6 Degrees of Kevin Bacon' Theory
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=61128
If actor Kevin Bacon is reading this, he may want to urge people to expand the game bearing his name -- by playing it with Microsoft's Messenger.
A new study of Messenger's instant-messaging traffic by Microsoft researchers found that the minimum length connecting 180 billion different pairs of users was usually seven or less fellow users.
This supports a popular folk legend that says any two people in the world are connected by "six degrees of separation," which was the title of a popular 1990 play by John Guare and a 1993 film. Similarly, a trivia game known as Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon requires users to connect any film actor in history through the actor's personal connections or history to Kevin Bacon.
The play, movie, and Kevin Bacon game were based on the work of academic researchers Stanley Milgram and Jeffrey Travers in the 1960s. They asked people to pass on a letter to another person they knew by name, in order to get it to someone they did not know in another city. In their original research, about 300 people in Boston and Nebraska were asked to get the letter through their acquaintances to a Boston stockbroker.
The average number of people through which a letter passed when it was successfully delivered, Milgram and Travers found, was 6.2 people. Calling it "six degrees of separation" was added later in the play, movie and folklore. But only 64 of the original 296 letters successfully reached the stockbroker target, suggesting that a universal fabric structure for connecting people was not revealed. Additionally, all of the participants were in the United States.
However, Microsoft researcher Eric Horvitz told the Washington Post that his results indicate there may be "a social-connectivity constant for humanity." He added that, while many people have intuitions...
Tue, 5 Aug 08
Motorola Hires Jha To Jump-Start Phone Business
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=61127
Motorola's mobile-phone division has been bleeding money since the start of 2007, reporting losses of $1.9 billion and falling to third in global sales. The company moved to turn things around Monday with the announcement that it is hiring a top executive away from Qualcomm to run the mobile-phone business.
Sanjay Jha will become co-CEO along with Greg Brown -- an announcement that sent Motorola stock up for the first time in more than four years. Under Jha's leadership, Qualcomm became the world's top maker of chips for cell phones. Brown will be CEO of Motorola's healthier broadband business, which makes cable TV set-top boxes and wireless networking equipment. Brown had announced plans to split the company in March. The split division will occur in the third quarter of 2009.
Analysts hailed the move. "They needed someone high profile with engineering talent, and certainly this guy fits the bill," said Tavis McCourt, a Morgan Keegan & Co. analyst. "The only downside is that he doesn't necessarily have any consumer products expertise."
Jha's first order of business: developing a device to compete with Apple's best-selling iPhone. Motorola had a hit with the Razr, which sold more than 110 million units, but has been unable to come up with a follow-up product and has lost customers to Apple, Nokia and Samsung.
"In terms of actual products hitting the street, you're not going to see [Jha's] impact before 2010," McCourt said. "Probably his biggest impact will be the level and type of engineering talent he will attract to the company over time."
But Motorola will need more than just a winning phone, according to Tim Bajarin, principal analyst with Creative Strategies.
"Motorola will only be successful if this new team creates a complete solution that includes hardware, software and services similar to Apple," he...
Tue, 5 Aug 08
LiMo Adds New Members and Mobile Technologies
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=61126
The Linux Mobile Foundation has announced that 11 new companies have joined the global consortium for the open-source mobile platform.
In particular, new LiMo member Movial said it intends to open-source its Browser D-Bus Bridge technology, which translates standard HTML and JavaScript commands to Desktop Bus commands to facilitate inter-process communication (IPC) between Web 2.0 applications and services.
"Movial's open-source contribution should enable application developers and operators to innovate and create a new range of services and applications exploiting unique features of mobile devices," said Kerry McGuire, director of strategic alliances at longtime LiMo member ARM, which makes processor cores for mobile handsets.
Through the use of Movial's innovative technology, handset makers and Web developers will be able to create new user interfaces and Web 2.0 services for LiMo. Movial said it expects to deliver the code within 90 days.
Another new LiMo member, VirtualLogix, will begin extending the application of its VLX virtualization technology into the mobile-handset space.
VLX is designed to enable low-cost Linux phones based on a single-core processor (ARM, Intel XScale or Intel Atom) by eliminating the need for an extra application processor and associated hardware. VLX also features a standards-based security architecture for financial transactions, mobile commerce and the secure distribution of DRM-protected content.
"VirtualLogix is committed to providing developers the opportunity to complement the LiMo specification with enhanced features and security for deployment on low-cost platforms," said VirtualLogix Executive Vice President Michel Gien.
LiMo also announced the rollout of seven new LiMo-enabled devices from Motorola, NEC and Panasonic, boosting the total number of handset models available on the open-source platform to 21.
"With such a variety of industry players cost-effectively adopting the LiMo platform ... more development resources are being devoted to enhancing the consumer experience," said LiMo Foundation Chairman Kiyohito Nagata....
Tue, 5 Aug 08
Zscaler Offers Security Services in the Cloud
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=61125
A new company is offering a security filter in the cloud. Zscaler, a Santa Clara, Calif.-based company headed by a veteran security entrepreneur, unveiled its hosted filtering service on Monday.
With the Zscaler service, companies don't need to maintain their own Web filtering and security software on their servers. Instead, as with many other areas of business software, the filter is based "in the cloud" -- that is, on the Internet.
Zscaler said its service "will change the way businesses allow users to access the Internet by providing the right access to the right users, from any place and on any device."
As with a Web proxy, the globally-based infrastructure screens all HTTP traffic incoming and outgoing, looking for malicious software. It can also scan for activity that could run counter to a company's stated policies.
A company's IT department can use Zscaler's network controls to enforce its policies, such as limitations on the kinds of sites, the times when they can be visited, and the kinds of bandwidth-clogging things users might do. Web 2.0 applications, such as social networking, blogging, Webmail and IM, can be identified and managed.
The software-as-a-service approach also addresses what Zscaler said is the insufficient effort many companies have instituted to deal with user-initiated traffic, as well as the coverage problems offered by on-the-road service and sales people.
The Zscaler service redirects traffic to and from a company to one of its data centers, and Web pages are returned after they have been inspected by the software. The service provides protection against bots, malicious content, phishing and peer-to-peer networks.
Zscaler said its software performs inspections at 40 times the speed of most of its competitors, thus avoiding major delays. The company said each of its gateways can process 250,000 transactions per second, up to 100 times faster than other...
Tue, 5 Aug 08
Border Search Can Confiscate Any Laptops
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=61091
Federal agents may take a traveler's laptop or other electronic device to an off-site location for an unspecified period of time without any suspicion of wrongdoing, as part of border search policies, the Department of Homeland Security recently disclosed.
Also, officials may share copies of the laptop's contents with other agencies and private entities for language translation, data decryption or other reasons, according to the policies, dated July 16 and issued by two DHS agencies, U.S. Customs and Border Protection and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
"The policies ... are truly alarming," said Sen. Russell Feingold, D-Wis., who is probing the government's border search practices. He said he intends to introduce legislation soon that would require reasonable suspicion for border searches, and would prohibit profiling by race, religion or national origin.
DHS officials said that the newly disclosed policies -- which apply to anyone entering the country, including U.S. citizens -- are reasonable