Wellen Computer

IE8 gains market share at Microsoft's own expense

2009-03-24T10:39:00.000+07:00

Gains made by Internet Explorer 8 (IE8) since its launch last Thursday have come at the expense of the older IE7, according to data from Irish metrics firm StatCounter.

And while IE7's market share has fallen by 2.6 percentage points since last Wednesday, the day before Microsoft Corp. released IE8, most rival browsers showed significant gains, giving credence to the idea that Microsoft's newest venture has not pushed users of its competitors to switch.

As of Monday, IE8's market share stood at 2%, an increase of 0.7 of a percentage point since the final code was released. IE7, meanwhile, accounted for 36.9% of the browsers that reached the sites StatCounter monitors for its 2 million users, down from last Wednesday's 39.5%.

Mozilla Corp.'s Firefox 3.0, on the other hand, boosted its market share by 0.5 of a percentage point, to 25.7%, over the same period, while the older Firefox 2.0 grew by 0.05 of a percentage point. Apple Inc.'s Safari 3.2 increased its share by .05 of a percentage point as well since Wednesday, and Google Inc.'s Chrome grew by 0.03 of a percentage point.

Only Opera Software ASA's Opera 9.6 posted a decline in share: The Norwegian-made browser's market share fell by 0.01 percentage point since last Wednesday.

Ironically, it was Microsoft's now-ancient IE6 -- a browser first launched in 2001, prior to the release of Windows XP -- that increased its share the most in the last five days. Since Wednesday, IE6's share climbed 1%; as of today, it accounted for 23.5% of all browsers.

Numbers for IE8 from Aliso Viejo, Calif.-based Net Applications Inc. echo those of StatCounter. As of midday, IE8's market share was 2.1%, up from Friday's 1.9% but down from Saturday's 2.3% and Sunday's 2.5%, according to Net Applications' hourly tracking of the new release.

IE8's fall-off from the weekend is not unexpected. Net Applications has repeatedly noted that browsers not sanctioned in the workplace -- in other words, all but IE6 and IE7 -- typically posts gains on weekends, after work hours and on holidays. The theory is that users, freed from being told what browser they must use at work, turn in larger numbers to Firefox, Safari, Chrome and Opera at those times.

IE8, having just been released in final form, is unlikely to have been approved for use in many business environments.

StatCounter's browser data can be found on its Web site, as can Net Applications' tracking of IE8's market share.

Taken from Computer World

Posting by WELLEN COMPUTER

DC Tech Arrests Raise Security Issues

2009-03-16T11:11:00.003+07:00

After being arrested on bribery charges Thursday, the District of Columbia's top information security official is being held without bail, partly because of uncertainty about whether he still has the ability to access the district's IT systems.

That's just one of many potential security issues facing D.C. government officials after the FBI raided the district's IT offices and arrested Yusuf Acar, its acting chief security officer, and a second man in connection with an alleged bribery scheme.

For instance, Acar had access to personnel data and other confidential information in the district's systems as part of his job. Court documents submitted by the FBI claim that several other district employees were also involved in the bribery scheme. Security analysts warn that Acar and his alleged accomplices could have created backdoors into systems. And since the alleged scheme included misdoings on a purchase of security software, there may be questions about the quality of the district's security tools.

From an IT security standpoint, municipal officials in Washington have a nightmare on their hands, said Johannes Ullrich, chief technology officer at the SANS Institute's Internet Storm Center in Bethesda, Md.

As a security official in the IT department, Acar would have had widespread access to the district's networks and probably also its databases and password files, Ullrich said. In addition, he would have been privy to details about its user-access-control procedures. That level of access and knowledge could have enabled him to do a variety of things, virtually undetected, if he so chose, according to Ullrich.

Without a thorough forensics investigation, there's no telling whether anything nefarious was actually done to the district's systems, Ullrich noted. He said some of the classic rogue-insider actions that D.C. officials should look for include installing backdoors, stealing data and planting logic bombsdesigned to destroy data after a specified period of time has elapsed. Another is tricking other users into installing malware or compromised devices on their systems.

At Acar's arraignment in U.S. District Court Thursday, Assistant U.S. Attorney Thomas Hibarger cited a number of reasons why the IT worker should be held in jail pending a bond hearing scheduled for next Tuesday. First and foremost, Hibarger said there was a "serious risk" that Acar, who has relatives in Turkey, would try to flee the country. But Hibarger also pointed to Acar's broad system-access privileges and said prosecutors didn't know for sure that he would be blocked from accessing the district's network.

Federal investigators haven't said whether they think any of the data in the district's systems was compromised as part of the alleged bribery scheme. A spokesman for the U.S. attorney's office said Friday that he couldn't comment on the investigative steps being taken.

Besides ensuring that Acar is locked out of the network, D.C. officials should also review network and systems logs to check on his activities, Ullrich advised. He also said that passwords and other access-control mechanisms need to be reset and that the district's security tools should be evaluated in light of the FBI's claim that one of the alleged bribery incidents involved a purchase of software from security vendor McAfee Inc.

In that incident, according to the FBI, a Washington-based outsourcing and IT services vendor named Advanced Integrated Technologies Corp. (AITC) bought 500 licenses from McAfee on behalf of the district's IT department but then charged the government for 2,000 licenses. Sushil Bansal, AITC's CEO, was the second person arrested by the FBI in connection with the alleged scheme.

It's possible, Ullrich said, that some of the security technologies bought through AITC aren't best-in-class or the best fit for the district's needs. "There probably are questions about the quality of the [security] infrastructure," he said. "Who knows what they bought? Who knows if they took money for selling access to the network or the data?"

Gartner Inc. analyst John Pescatore called the situation a "huge mess" for D.C. officials. "So far, the major issues that have been raised publicly are financial shenanigans," Pescatore said. But like Ullrich, he said that a major computer forensics effort is going to be needed to find out what else, if anything, the alleged perpetrators may have been up to.

Because AITC also has done work for the district's Department of Motor Vehicles and its human resources office, there potentially was "a lot of opportunity for data snooping or selling of citizen and employee data," Pescatore added.

Alan Paller, the SANS Institute's director of research, said there's also the possibility of security problems resulting from acts of omission on the part of Acar and Bansal. "The main negative here might be that they weren't paying attention to the job but were more interested in lining their pockets," Paller said. But until an investigation is completed, it's impossible to know for sure, he added.

The alleged scheme was complex, according to the charging documents disclosed at the arraignment hearing. Acar submitted purchase orders for higher numbers of products than were actually delivered, resulting in the district being charged for goods it never received, the FBI said in an affidavit. He also added "ghost employees" to the district's payroll and created timesheets for the fictitious workers so payments could be made to them, the FBI claimed.

The bribery case is getting even more attention than it normally would because President Obama last week appointed Vivek Kundra, who until then was the district's chief technology officer, to be the federal government's first-ever CIO.

There were no indications in the court documents that Kundra had any knowledge of the alleged illegal activities. But the White House confirmed Friday that Kundra is taking a leave of absence from the CIO job following Thursday's arrests. That calls into question whether his vision of leading a "technology revolution" at the federal level will ever come to pass.

Taken From PC World

Posting By WELLEN COMPUTER

Sources confirm Apple laid off salespeople last week

2009-03-10T10:45:00.002+07:00

Despite public statements to the contrary, Apple did lay off around 50 enterprise salespeople last week, CNET News has learned.

Sources who wished to remain anonymous for fear of reprisal confirmed reports by Valleywag and 9to5Mac.com that roughly 50 salespeople were let go by the company for "business and economic reasons," according to one source. An entire sales group based in Austin, Texas, was let go as well as workers in Cupertino, Calif., where Apple is headquartered. Those affected were given severance packages and the opportunity to apply for other jobs inside Apple.

Apple spokesman Steve Dowling, when asked Tuesday about Valleywag's report regarding the layoffs in the sales group, declined to comment. An unnamed Apple spokesman then told Silicon Alley Insider on Wednesday that the Valleywag report was not true, the same language Dowling used on Friday in a brief interview with CNET News to describe another report that Apple had laid 50 people off in its Mac Hardware and Pro Applications groups as well as the original report involving the sales group.

Reached on Monday, Dowling declined to comment on the situation beyond the statements provided last week.

However, the layoffs in the sales group did happen, according to several sources who were brought into conference rooms in Austin and Cupertino last Tuesday and given white manila envelopes informing them that they had been laid off, amid plainclothes security officers. It's still not clear whether the Mac Hardware layoffs occurred on Friday.

The seeds for the layoffs began last year, when Apple began de-emphasizing its direct enterprise sales force in favor of a sales strategy that embraced resellers and channel partners as ways of getting its products into the hands of businesses. That shift, believed to come directly from Apple COO Tim Cook, started when former the Apple senior vice president of enterprise sales, Al Shipp, left the company. Shipp, now the CEO of software start-up 3VR, did not return a call seeking comment.

John Brandon, formerly the head of Apple's sales for the Americas resellers like Best Buy and Wal-Mart, assumed control of the group when Shipp left and began making changes. Under Brandon, Apple began to shift away from a sales strategy where representatives built personal relationships with business customers in favor of a channel business that will depend on resellers like Ingram Micro and possibly CompUSA to sell Apple products to business customers.

The decision does not seem to have been prompted by falling sales or poor performance within the group, rather a change in philosophy embraced by Brandon and Cook. But the enterprise group has never been the hot group inside Apple, famous for its consumer retail empire and led by Steve Jobs, a man who disdains much of the entrenched corporate IT mindset.

Apple's shift in its enterprise sales strategy isn't all that remarkable, but Apple's willingness to publicly deny that layoffs took place is another blow to its credibility, already having taken a hit this year over its handling of disclosures involving the health of its CEO, currently on a medical leave of absence until June.

Confirming that a few dozen enterprise salespeople had been laid off as part of a strategic shift--and not a downturn in business--probably would not have made that much of a ripple in the tech media, currently more interested in Apple-related topics such as Netbook rumors and Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak's debut on ABC's "Dancing With the Stars" later on Monday.

Although Apple has been considered one of the more resilient companies in tech after posting strong earnings in January, the continued economic decline is believed to be affecting Mac sales and has prompted some analysts to reduce their expectations for Apple's current quarter. Perhaps the company felt that anything that might be perceived as bad news could hurt its stock price, and since it didn't have to report the layoffs to the Securities and Exchange Commission because they made up a small fraction of Apple's workforce, it didn't have to acknowledge them, period.

Taken from news.cnet.com

Posting by WELLEN COMPUTER

Amazon's Kindle Secret is in the Software

2009-03-05T15:28:00.003+07:00

A year ago I wrote a column titled "E-Book Readers Can Do Better" that outlined what products like the Amazon Kindle and the Sony Reader series would need to add before they truly appealed to mainstream consumers. One year and one tremendous endorsement from Oprah later, Amazon's Kindle 2 incorporates a lot of my suggestions. Still, it isn't the latest Kindle that's cemented Amazon's leadership role in the e-book market. It was today's announcement of a free Kindle reader for the iPhone, because it shows that Amazon really understands what e-books are: software.

As a serious book lover, that's difficult for me to admit. My first edition copy of Ernest Hemingway's Winner Take Nothing is one of my most prized possessions. Seven Pillars of Wisdom, by T.E. Lawrence, complete with its fold-out maps of the Arabian Peninsula, is one of the best things I've read in my life. Carrying my entire book collection up to my fourth-floor walk-up apartment required a fair amount of sweat and even a few tears. Yet despite the vast potential energy of my hundreds of books, their contents would likely fit inside a single Kindle 2. It can, after all, hold 1,500 titles. Good or bad, this is the world we now live in. And Amazon gets it.

Amazon has been wildly successful in the e-book biz. Last year, Kindles literally sold out. But this hasn't kept the company from supplying Kindle for iPhone, a move that's guaranteed to cut into Kindle 2 sales. The thing is, it will also help Amazon sell a lot more e-book titles, and will go a long way toward making Kindle the de facto e-book publishing platform in the U.S. Amazon's not just selling razors, after all—they're also selling the blades.

The move also indicates that Apple has ceded the e-book market to Amazon. That is probably best, since the iTunes franchise is already stretched thin distributing songs, music videos, TV shows, movies, podcasts, and iPhone apps. "iTunes Store" has become a misnomer; it seems like a name change is overdue. Still, to see Kindle as merely an e-book platform is to miss the forest for the trees. Kindle doesn't just mean books. It is a secure content delivery platform that can be used by every blog, magazine, and newspaper on the Web.

Most of these companies already publish on the Web, but the Kindle platform offers several key advantages. The first, naturally, is DRM protection. Amazon says it is up to content providers to choose or refuse DRM, but so far almost all of the book publishers have chosen to lock up their books. Given what's happened with the music industry, can you blame them? I would love to see a more open format, like ePub, supported by the Kindle, but given Amazon's current success that won't likely happen anytime soon.

For newspapers, magazines, and blogs, the issue is less DRM than it is fulfillment and subscriber management. As many of you know, PCMag.com recently went 100 percent digital, ceasing to print a paper magazine to focus exclusively on the Web and Zinio digital edition. One of the reasons we partnered with Zinio was so we would have a company that could bill subscribers and manage their accounts. Not many people have managed to do that on the Web, but platforms like the Zinio and Kindle offer a way for readers to get service and for publishers to get paid.

Before I coronate Amazon as the king of cloud-based content distribution, I'll point out a few places where the company could run aground. One problem revolves around Amazon's dual role as hardware and software vendor. First of all, it could cling too tightly to its closed format. Open-minded publishers like Tim O'Reilly, founder and CEO of O'Reilly Media, have already balked at joining Amazon's single-source, single-file-format delivery system. As the market grows, so will the demand for alternatives. Even Apple supports multiple file formats on the iPod.

Hardware devices like the Kindle are also vulnerable on the price front. $359 is a tough sell in a miserable economy, especially when you can buy a netbook for around same price. A raft of more basic, less-expensive e-book readers are slated to hit the market this year. They won't likely be as easy to use as the Kindle 2 or feature its wireless content delivery, but they'll probably appeal to the cost-conscious consumer who wants to get into electronic books.

My advice for Amazon is to push the books over the devices—the blades over the razors. The Kindle's competitive advantage isn't in its e-ink display or plastic keyboard, but in the 230,000 titles available at the click of a button. Amazon has become a real software publisher in the truest sense of the phrase.

Taken from pcmag.com

Posting by WELLEN COMPUTER

Intel introduces Atom chips for new devices

2009-03-04T09:12:00.002+07:00

Intel on Monday detailed plans to push its Atom processors into devices beyond just netbooks and mobile Internet devices.

The company introduced four Atom chips that will go into devices such as entertainment systems for cars, videoconferencing devices, robots and interactive kiosks, said Doug Davis, vice president of Intel's digital enterprise group.

These ultra-low-power chips can offer the rich multimedia performance and high-bandwidth Internet connectivity demanded by those devices, Davis said. The Z500-series Atom processors are integrated chips the size of a penny that draw little power and do not require fans to operate. The chips draw 2.5 watts of power or less and run at speeds of between 1.10GHz and 1.6GHz. The chips offer integrated 2D and 3D graphics and will be manufactured using Intel's existing 45-nanometer process.

Atom chips to date have gone into low-cost laptops, also known as netbooks, and devices such as mobile Internet devices (MIDs) and smartphones. Intel has said it wants to integrate more capabilities into Atom processors that could help the company enter new markets.

With the new chips, Intel is ramping up efforts to dive into an embedded space dominated by chips made with Arm designs, said Nathan Brookwood, principal analyst at Insight64. "Now that they have their Atom processor in good shape, they are looking for new places where they can ship it," Brookwood said.

Some new markets being targeted by Intel with the new chips include entertainment systems in cars and desktop videophones. For example, the new Atom Z520PT powers an in-car infotainment system that can run video without compromising on performance, Davis said.

Intel and OpenPeak also provided a reference design for a touch-screen videoconferencing phone embedded with a low-power Atom chip. Resembling a blown-up mobile Internet device, the OpenFrame home IP (Internet Protocol) phone design from OpenPeak also runs Internet-based video and social-networking applications, Davis said.

As part of the announcement, Intel also said Microsoft automotive applications would work with Intel's embedded Atom chips. Microsoft's auto division provides a software toolkit for developers to write in-car applic

s that include navigation and hands-free calling.

The new chips will be available in commercial quantities in the second quarter of this year. Pricing information was not immediately available.

Intel has taken a number of steps to develop integrated chips that could fit into devices such as set-top boxes and TVs. The chip maker in February said it was hurrying up the move to the new 32-nanometer process technology to produce faster and more integrated chips. To that effect, the company said it would spend US$7 billion over two years to revamp manufa

cturing plants. The 32-nanometer process will also help Intel make more chips at lower costs and add efficiencies to the production process. Intel will begin producing chips with 32-nm circuitry starting in late 2009.

Intel may also be looking for outside help to develop custom Atom chips for embedded devices. Earlier on Monday, Intel entered a partnership to share the Atom chip designs with Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing. TSMC customers will have access to the Atom intellectual property to develop customized chips.

The partnership with TSMC could result in the development of customized chips for Intel to access new markets it can't reach alone, Brookwood said.

If you needed customised GPS (Global Positioning System) or graphics technology on the chip, for example, you couldn't do it, as Intel doesn't provide the building blocks to do so, Brookwood said. The deal with TSMC makes that level of Atom chip customisation possible, he said.

Taken from computernewsme.com

Posted by WELLEN COMPUTER

Sixty Percent of the World Uses Cell Phones

2009-03-03T15:11:00.002+07:00

Six in 10 people on the face of the globe have cell-phone subscriptions, and more than 60 percent of cell-phone users come from developing nations.

So says a United Nations report published Monday. The report's findings suggest that mobile phones are the communications tool of choice in poor countries.

The International Telecommunication Union (ITU) reports an estimated 4.1 billion cell-phone subscriptions at the end of 2008. That compares to about one billion just six years ago. Fixed-line subscriptions grew by only one billion since 2002.

Africa leads the way for developing nations' cell-phone use, with 25 percent of the population toting the devices.

"There has been a clear shift to mobile cellular technology," the ITU said in its report. It noted that less than half of mobile subscriptions around the world were in developing nations in 2002.

Faster Access

In other findings, Internet use has more than doubled. The ITU figures about 23 percent of people globally used the Internet in 2008. That's up 11 percent from 2002. However, despite the double-digit progress, poor countries are still behind on Internet access and adoption. Only one in 20 people in Africa logged onto the Internet in 2007, according to the most recent figures available.

While some citizens of the planet have yet to sign onto the Internet, more of those who do are using faster speeds. The ITU reports that fixed-broadband use increased to almost 20 percent in richer countries. Still, the statistics for poorer countries reflect the overall Internet usage trend. Broadband Internet access at home is available to only one in 20 people worldwide.

Mobile broadband subscriptions are climbing the fastest. Mobile broadband technology lets people all over the world log onto the Internet at high speeds. That service is available to three percent of the Earth's population, 14 percent in developed countries.

Moving Toward a Cashless Society

The global growth is a boon for handset manufacturers long-term. Although most consumers in developing nations like Africa are not going to invest in iPhones and BlackBerries, the cost of building phones is coming down, making it possible to offer feature phones in developing nations at a profit.

Some of these countries are starting to use mobile phones for micropayments, according to Mike Disabato, a senior analyst at the Burton Group. Rather than someone in a village in Africa carrying around coins and bills that are subject to theft, he says, they are carrying a mobile phone that transfers digital money back and forth.

"People in Africa can get paid for the goods that they are selling, they can buy goods this way, and it's actually one step closer to the cashless society. In many respects they are ahead of us in that regard," Disabato said. "If you don't have a vested interest in maintaining folded money or coins in your wallet, why would you want to start?"

Worldwide Mobile Implications

Beyond pushing mobile payments to the fore in Third World nations, analysts said these regions of the world may also see GSM coverage sooner rather than later. That could ring the death knell for CDMA networks. Verizon has already signaled that its fourth-generation network would be LTE, which is GSM. That leaves Sprint as the only major carrier running on CDMA.

"Over time you will end up with a true global handset. Probably by 2020, world-class global phones will be everywhere," Disabato said. "We are kicking out all the old proprietary operating systems, and you are either going to be Windows Mobile, Symbian, Android, Apple or maybe the Palm OS if they survive long enough."

Taken from mobile-tech-today.com

Posted by WELLEN COMPUTER

Phishers Target Facebook

2009-03-02T09:46:00.002+07:00

Facebook users are being urged to be wary of third-party apps after it was revealed hackers have launched another hoax program designed to steal social networker's login details.

Sophos says that the 'F a c e b o o k - closing down!!!' app sends bogus emails to users' contacts, claiming they've been reported "for violating our Terms of Service". The message continues: "This is your official warning! - Click here to find out why you were reported!".

Artwork: Chip Taylor
However, any web user clicking the link will give hackers access to their profile and personal information. Clicking the link also forwards the fake message each user's friends.

"Fans of Facebook will no doubt be aware that the site has been under scrutiny over its terms of service, and these latest attacks are designed to take full advantage of that," said Graham Cluley, senior technology consultant at Sophos.

The warning comes just days after it was reported that a number of users of the social network were downloading the 'Error Check System' program that sent messages to a user's friends claiming they had problems viewing their profile.

"One of the problems is that Facebook allows anybody to write an application, and third-party applications are not vetted before they are made available to the public. So, even as Facebook stamps out one malicious application, another can pop up like a poisoned mushroom with a different name."

Facebook has since removed the application, but there are reports that similar rogue applications with names such as 'My account' and 'Reported For Rule Breaking' are currently circulating on the popular social networking site.

Taken from pcworld.com

Hackers jump on newest IE7 bug

2009-02-18T15:50:00.002+07:00

Attackers are already exploiting a bug in Internet Explorer 7 that Microsoft Corp. patched just last week, security researchers warned today.

Although the attacks are currently in "very, very small numbers," they may be just the forerunner of a larger campaign, said Jamz Yaneza, threat research manager at Trend Micro Inc. "I see this as a proof-of-concept," said Yaneza, who noted that the exploit's payload is extremely straightforward and explained that there has been no attempt to mask it by, say, planting a root kit on the victimized PC at the same time.

"I wouldn't be surprised to see this [exploit] show up in one of those Chinese exploit kits," he added.

The new attack code, which Trend Micro dubbed "XML_Dloadr.a," arrives in a spam message as a malicious file masquerading as a Microsoft Word document. If the fake document is opened, the exploit hijacks PCs that have not been patched with the MS09-002 security update Microsoft issued last Tuesday as part of its eight-patch February batch of fixes.

That update, which plugged two holes in IE7, was rated "critical" by Microsoft at the time.

"We first saw this over the weekend," said Paul Ferguson, an advanced threat researcher at Trend Micro. "But we're not sure if it's just a targeted attack or they're staging for something larger. It's hard to tell at the moment."

It's not unusual for hackers to swing into action with a new exploit only days after Microsoft has patched a previously-unknown vulnerability. "They know it takes users a while to patch," Ferguson added. "Even months after Microsoft patched, the Conficker worm was still able to infect millions of PCs because of lousy patching. That's not lost on the bad guys."

The "Conficker" worm, also known as "Downadup," continues to compromise millions of machines daily, even though, as Ferguson noted, Microsoft patched the vulnerability exploited by the worm nearly four months ago.

Yaneza and Ferguson speculated that the current attacks are precursors to a much larger assault that will revive a campaign that tempted users with news about Tibet. Those attacks, which Trend Micro reported in January 2008, share some characteristics with the newest exploits, including malware disguised as Word documents. Yaneza also said that it appears as though the hacker's command-and-control server is based in China, lending more credence to their theory.

"This is the 50th anniversary of the Tibetan freedom movement," said Ferguson, who said it's likely that a large-scale attack based on this exploit would use that news as bait. In 1959, when the People's Republic of China took full control of Tibet, the Dali Lama fled to India, where he is the head of a Tibetan government-in-exile.

One security expert has called on Microsoft to sever the links between IE and Windows to better protect users from attack. According to Wolfgang Kandek, the chief technology officer at Qualys Inc., people plug IE holes no faster than other critical Microsoft vulnerabilities, something that might change if Microsoft split the browser from the operating system and increased the frequency of its IE patches.

Taken from computerworld.com

Microsoft unveils Windows Mobile 6.5 OS

2009-02-17T11:34:00.006+07:00

Don't call them Windows Mobile phones anymore. In announcing the latest revision of Microsoft's OS for handsets at Mobile World Congress today, MIcrosoft CEO Steve Ballmer said that henceforth, the devices will be known as Windows phones.

"It's a mouthful to say, 'You want a Windows Mobile phone?'" Ballmer said when asked about the decision to once again re-brand the OS, which has over the years been known as Windows CE and Pocket PC.

Ballmer's three main announcements to a crowd of journalists in Barcelona, Spain, had been widely leaked beforehand: Windows Mobile 6.5, a new version of the handset OS with a revamped, touch-optimized user interface; My Phone, an online backup and sync service for Windows phones, and the Windows Marketplace for Mobile app store.

My Phone and the Windows Marketplace will be accessible to Windows phones running Windows Mobile 6.5; Ballmer said support will be available via download, at the discretion of the vendor, to Windows Mobile 6.1 devices, but not to handsets running earlier versions of the OS.

Windows Mobile 6.5, which in addition to the new user interface sports an improved, more desktop-like browser, will make its debut later this year on handsets also announced on Monday, including the HTC Touch Diamond2 and the LG-GM730.

Interestingly, however, neither handset presents the new user interface unadulterated: Both HTC and LG have made changes they believe make the UI more user friendly. In fact, fiddling with the Windows Mobile UI is not uncommon, and Ballmer squirmed when asked how bothersome this was to Microsoft.

"It's not the area where I would have aspired to see the first add-ons," he admitted. But he said that with the new UI, Microsoft hopes to get more vendors on board without significant changes.

Taken From www.pcworld.com

Sun 'terrible' place to work

2008-10-10T11:19:00.004+07:00

David Axmark, co-founder of MySQL, has quit Sun allegedly because the place is too big.

In his resignation letter, Axmark said he quit Sun Microsystems because he hates all the rules and hates having to break them to come up with anything interesting.

"I have thought about my role at Sun and decided that I am better off in smaller organisations," he wrote.

The letter ended up in Sun watcher Kaj Arnö's blog. Axmark added it would be far better for him to ‘retire’ from employment and work with MySQL and Sun on a less formal basis.

Axmark found himself behind a desk at Sun when the outfit bought MySQL in January for US$1bn.

The other founder of MySQL, Monty Widenius, who was the primary architect of the original database, has also said he wants to walk.

Longtime head of MySQL's Japan business, Larry Stefonic, cleaned out his desk after five years with the outfit.

All up it looks like Sun is about to lose shedloads of MySQL experience because it does not want its workers to use colours that are not on the official list and allow creative people to draw outside the lines.

Taken from www.itnews.com.au

System upgrade caused Blackberry blackout

2008-02-17T11:46:00.000+07:00

A disruption of BlackBerry cellphones in North America for several hours Monday was caused by the failure of one of its recently upgraded systems, Research in Motion said Tuesday.

The Canadian maker of the hugely popular mobile devices that combine telephone, email and Internet capabilities said its preliminary analysis "points to a problem with an internal data routing system within the BlackBerry service infrastructure that had been recently upgraded."
The upgrade was part of RIM's routine and ongoing efforts to increase overall capacity to meet long-term growth in demand, the company said in a statement, noting similar upgrades in the past were problem-free.

"RIM apologizes to its customers for any inconvenience," the company said, adding that no messages were lost during the outage and the system was back up and running normally Monday evening.

Disruption of BlackBerry service is a major bane for business and government employees who rely on the devices to get work done while on the move.

Reliance on BlackBerry "smart phones" is so fierce that they have been jokingly dubbed "CrackBerries" in a reference to a tendency for their owners to compulsively check email as if it were an addiction.

(From Taken www.tech.yahoo.com)

XO Laptops Go Next to Haiti

2008-02-17T11:34:00.001+07:00

The One Laptop Per Child Foundation (OLPC) has teamed up with the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) to launch a pilot project in Haiti, the first time the group will be able to comprehensively evaluate the idea of giving laptops directly to students as a learning tool.

OLPC, which makes the US$188 XO laptop aimed at kids in developing nations, will contribute $2 million to the project, while IDB will provide a $3 million grant. The project aims to distribute XO laptops to 13,200 students and 500 teachers in 60 Haitian primary schools, the groups said in a statement.

The organizations are financing the project to test whether the use of laptops in schools on a one-to-one basis can improve teaching and learning in Haiti, one of the poorest countries in the world.

"We have studies about the impact of computer labs and shared computers in the classroom, but there's never been a comprehensive evaluation of the learning model based on giving each child a laptop," said Emma Näslund-Hadley, the IDB's project team leader. "This is crucial to determine the effectiveness of this model under conditions of extreme poverty and as a tool for accelerating learning."

Education Aim
One aim of the project is to determine how the laptops can be used to help solve problems such as a shortage of qualified teachers, as well as educating children of different ages and grades in the same classroom. The Haitian government hopes the laptops can help speed up the learning process for students who enter school late or have to repeat grades, according to the release.
Teachers and students will be trained how to use the laptops and carry out basic maintenance and trouble shooting. Some students will receive vocational training to handle more complex laptop repairs.

The project will be evaluated by UNESCO's Regional Office on Education in Latin America and the Caribbean, which will conduct standardized math and language tests before and after the pilot project to determine performance improvements. Observers will also gauge whether the laptops affect attitudes and behaviors regarding school management, the value families place on education, the use of laptops at home, and the perceived educational progress of the students.
Low-Cost Laptops Planned

The OLPC project started as an attempt to build a US$100 laptop and work with governments to pass them out to kids in poor nations, but the XO, will likely end up costing nearly double that amount at first. The organizers of the effort, led by academics and researchers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), hope high-volume sales of the device will drive down costs.

The goal of OLPC is to make sure nobody misses out on the benefits of computing. The fear is that the price of a PC is keeping too many people in developing countries from learning how software, the Internet and communications via computing can improve their economies, job prospects and lives, or that poor countries will fall further behind the modern world due to their inability to access computers.

(Taken From www.tech.yahoo.com)

Lost Laptop Exposes Nashville Voters to Identity Theft

2008-01-22T11:50:00.000+07:00

The theft of a laptop containing Social Security numbers of Nashville, Tennessee, area voters is expected to cost local officials about US$1 million as they roll out identity-theft protection to those affected.

County officials say that thieves broke into Davidson County Election Commission offices on the weekend before Christmas, smashing a window with a rock and then making off with a $3,000 router, a digital camera and a pair of Dell Latitude laptops containing names and Social Security numbers of all 337,000 registered voters in the county.

County election officials began notifying residents of the breach on Jan. 2, and the local government is offering victims one year of free identity theft protection from Debix Identity Protection Network.

Debix says that 25 percent to 35 percent of victims of this type of breach typically request this service. With the city paying Debix just under $10 per account, the price tag for the laptop theft is expected to be in the $1 million range.

Since state data breach disclosure laws went into effect a few years ago, the theft of an unencrypted laptop computer can become a major problem for any organization that stores sensitive data.

"It is a very bad information-handling practice to keep sensitive information about individuals including their Social Security numbers on an unencrypted laptop or any other device that is removable," said Paul Stephens director of policy and advocacy with Privacy Rights Clearinghouse, a privacy advocacy group that has tracked the exposure of 217 million records in the U.S. over the past three years.

Laptop thefts have been the source of privacy breaches at AT&T, The Gap, and the Chicago Public School system recently.

The Metropolitan Government of Nashville and Davidson County's IT services department is now working with the Commission to make changes to protect residents from this type of incident and has already come up with 19 recommendations, said Janel Lacy, a spokeswoman for Nashville Mayor Karl Dean.

(Taken from www.tech.yahoo.com)

Macworld ranks swell as Apple's 'cool factor' spreads

2008-01-17T16:04:00.000+07:00

They come sporting mohawks, full-body tattoos, multiple piercings, and hair in brilliant colors -- the ever-growing congregation of the "Mac-faithful" -- basking in hip technology and declaring love for their iPods, iPhones and everything else from Apple on show at the annual MacWorld Expo.

This year a record more than 50,000 veteran fans and new converts are expected to jam into San Francisco's Moscone Center, on pilgrimages to check out the newest products from Apple Inc.

MacWorld this year is again delivering on Apple's "cool factor," its ability to merge geeky gadgets with youth culture. Apple chief executive Steve Jobs unveiled the company's new iTunes movie rental service and the market's thinnest notebook computer.

And all around the show, which continues through Friday, are the paraphernalia of the Mac cult, books, software and hardware add-ons to take advantage of the dedication of the legions of Apple acolytes.

Their numbers are growing fast: sales of Macintosh computers have outpaced the market due to what analysts refer to as a "halo effect" from Apple's iPod MP3 players and iPhones that combine telephone, Internet, music and video.

"It is pretty much impossible to quantify the halo effect, but we are seeing Apple continue to grow faster than the market, so they are taking market share," NPD analyst Stephen Baker told AFP.

"Clearly, more people are buying Macs and more people are using Macs," he said, noting that people are creating "mixed home environments": running both Windows-based personal computers and Macintosh machines.

On the Macworld floor, Mark Lawrence bought an autographed copy of the book "Switching to a Mac" for his wife to coax her into using her Macintosh instead of her Windows-based personal computer at home.

Lawrence, chief engineer at the Stanford University radio station, is shifting his team to Macintosh computers as well.

"I think the iPod is what got it into people's consciousness that Macs are cool," said Lawrence, a Macintosh devotee for 20 years.

"Apple is doing a great job marketing the cool factor. For me, it has been that they are easy to use and stable."

"I have a friend who got a Mac recently and he actually used the word 'love'," said Philip Goward, founder of the firm Smile On My Mac.

"That's the first time I ever heard someone use that word concerning a computer. I think suddenly we've become cool."

Macworld offerings range from stylishly frivolous to technologically serious.

El Gato hawks an EyeTV device for watching television shows on Macintosh computers, while another company offers its Supacam for streaming video onto the Internet.

Gelaskins offers art print covers for laptops and iPhones, while Otterbox has shock and waterproof containers for iPhones and iPods.

Smithmicro sells a "Poser" program for Macintosh users to make 3-D animated proxies for online virtual worlds, as well as software to create one's own manga or anime characters.

"We look for things that appeal to the Mac market," said Linda Petrucci, head of e-commerce at Smithmicro.

"They are loyal, they stick with us. PC users tend to want something free or at very low cost and then go away."

At Macworld Vestalife launched its Ladybug iPod stereo docking system, designed in collaboration with Element Skateboards, for "teens and 'tweens," children 11 to adult.

"We want to reach a slightly edgy, hip crowd and that fit with Apple," said Vestalife co-founder Wayne Ludlum.

There are even product lines for the Mac-cool hopefuls still nervous about leaving their Microsoft Windows products behind.

VMware is showcasing a Fusion program that enables machines to seamlessly run programs regardless of which operating system they are written for, according to group manager Pat Lee.

"Fusion is a security blanket for those people worried that they will switch to Mac and need that one Windows application they left behind," Lee told AFP. "We are seeing good adoption."

Even Microsoft is at Macworld, the arch-rival launching a Macintosh version of its Office program.

"We blend the best of both worlds: Microsoft technology with Apple's look and feel," said Microsoft's Han-Yi Shaw.

"You get an efficient but esthetically pleasing result we are proud of. We are working very closely with Apple. We succeed together."

(Taken from www.tech.yahoo.com)

IBM to add software for Apple devices

2008-01-16T15:28:00.000+07:00

E-mail software from IBM Corp. will be available on Apple Inc. iPhones and iPod Touch devices under a new partnership that brings together two big rivals of Microsoft Corp.

IBM plans a formal announcement of the Lotus Notes e-mail package for Apple's portable devices at its Lotusphere conference in Orlando, Fla., next week. The software, which requires use of IBM's Domino e-mail server program, will be free for users who already have a Lotus Web-access license and start at $39 per year for new users.

IBM also plans to release Lotus Notes and the free Lotus Symphony "productivity" package — which includes documents, spreadsheets and other Microsoft Office-like software — for Apple's Macintosh computers.

With these moves, IBM is trying to find more avenues for its software and take advantage of Apple's natural affinity for Microsoft alternatives.

The iPhone already can connect users to Web-based e-mail services and to corporate e-mail sent over Microsoft's Exchange e-mail platform, though businesses rarely enable the setting that makes it possible.

If IBM, which counts 135 million Lotus users worldwide, can get companies to let their employees check Lotus e-mail on iPhones, the partnership could make Apple's gadget more competitive with Research in Motion Ltd.'s BlackBerry and other business-targeted smart phones.

IBM and Apple, competitors in the early years of the PC market, traditionally have not worked closely together in software, though Apple used IBM chips in some Macs for several years until ditching them in favor of Intel Corp. processors in 2005. But now the sides appreciate that "we have a lot in common," IBM spokesman Mike Azzi said. "We're going to cross-pollinate."

One reason for the distance between the two companies is the small overlap between Mac users and the big corporate customers that commonly buy products from IBM.

Now, Apple hardware has become a broader platform with the popularity of the iPhone and Web-enabled iPod Touch devices. However, Apple has delayed fully opening the devices to third-party applications; a "software developers' kit" to enable that isn't due until next month. Apple and IBM have been working together on their own.

(Taken from www.tech.yahoo.com)

Toshiba slashes HD DVD prices after setback

2008-01-15T11:10:00.000+07:00

More than a week after being dealt a potentially mortal blow by the defection of Warner Home Video to the Blu-ray Disc camp, HD DVD developer Toshiba is striking back.

The company, left with just two major studios supporting its vision of next-generation technology, said Monday that it is stepping up its marketing campaign to boost the HD DVD format.

But with the centerpiece of this campaign consisting of across-the-board player price cuts -- prices for the two cheapest players are being halved, to $150 and $200 -- observers wonder if Toshiba isn't merely engaging in a fire sale, blowing out its HD DVD machines and pitching them to consumers as a way to get their existing DVD libraries to look better.

Furthering these sentiments are Toshiba's stated goal to spotlight not just the superior benefits of HD DVD but also "the benefits HD DVD brings to a consumer's current DVD library by upconverting standard DVDs via the HDMI (high-definition multimedia interface) output to near-high-definition picture quality."

"It seems like a smart strategy to note that there's value in an HD DVD player even though there is a reduced amount of content available for it," said analyst Tom Adams, president of Adams Media Research. "That's smart both for existing buyers, with whom they have a potential problem, and for purposes of continuing to sell players, where for $150 it's a heck of a DVD player."

Toshiba is slashing the suggested retail price of its entry-level HD-A3 player from $299.99 to $149.99. (This is the same player that was widely available at Wal-Mart and other discount chains just before the holidays for less than $100.)

The midrange HD-A30, with true HD (1080p) output, now retails for $199.99, down from $399.99. And the high-end HD-A35 goes from $499.99 to $299.99.

Yoshi Uchiyama, group vp at Toshiba's digital A/V group, said the company is aiming for the mass market, which he feels is put off by the higher prices for Blu-ray Disc machines ($300 and up).

"While price is one of the consideration elements for the early adopter, it is a deal-breaker for the mainstream consumer," Uchiyama said. "Consumer sales this holiday season have proven that consumer awareness of the HD DVD format has been elevated, and pricing is the most critical determinant in consumer purchase decisions of the next-generation HD DVD technology."

Toshiba also plans an extended advertising campaign involving television, print and online media channels. Also in the works are joint marketing and promotional initiatives with retailers and studios. One such initiative already in play is "The Perfect HD Offer," in which consumers who buy any Toshiba HD DVD player get five free HD DVD movies from a selection of 15.

(Taken from www.tech.yahoo.com)

Softbank eyes free mobile-IP phone calls: sources

2008-01-15T11:07:00.000+07:00

Japan's Softbank Corp (9984.T) is considering offering free calls between its mobile phone and Web-based fixed line phone users to boost its subscriber base, sources close to the matter said on Tuesday.

Softbank has already been offering a similar service on a trial basis in three prefectures in Japan including the northern island of Hokkaido, but nothing has been decided on making it a nationwide service, a company spokesman said.

Softbank is Japan's third-largest cellphone operator behind NTT DoCoMo Inc (9437.T) and KDDI Corp (9433.T). It also offers Internet Protocol (IP) phones as part of its high-speed Internet access service.

The Nikkei business daily said in its Tuesday morning edition the free cellphone-IP phone calls may lower Softbank's per-user revenue, but that the company aims to boost total sales by attracting more customers.

Softbank, which bought Vodafone's (VOD.L) Japan unit in 2006, has outpaced its competitors in netting new users with low-cost price plans and a marketing blitz.

Shares in Softbank were unchanged at 2,070 yen by midday, underperforming the Nikkei average (.N225), which rose 0.5 percent.

(Taken From www.tech.yahoo.com)

Sprint shows off WiMax devices

2008-01-09T10:14:00.000+07:00

With just a few months to go before the launch of its next-generation wireless network, Sprint Nextel Corp. has a distinctly modest lineup of compatible devices.

At the International Consumer Electronics Show here this week, Sprint showed only two computer modems that will definitely be available in April, when its WiMax network becomes available outside current trials in Chicago, Baltimore and Washington.

One of the promises of WiMax, a service Sprint will be providing under the Xohm brand, is that receivers for it can be built into a variety of devices like cameras and Web tablets that usually don't have a built-in Internet connection or rely on Wi-Fi, a short-range technology.

"We fully expect an explosion of consumer devices," said Antone Porter, a product manager at Sprint.

The relative dearth of early WiMax gadgets isn't necessarily a sign of trouble for Sprint. Gemma Tedesco, an analyst at In-Stat, said the coverage area will be relatively small this year anyway, and Sprint's main task will be to build out the network.

"Unlike Wi-Fi, users' satisfaction will be dependent on the network coverage, and so Sprint really needs to have their metro areas well covered, to get users motivated; even this may take time, going into 2009 and beyond," she said.

Unlike Wi-Fi, WiMax signals reach for miles, and unlike cellular broadband, it's designed from the ground up for data. That could make WiMax cheaper than current cellular broadband, or 3G, which often costs around $60 a month for laptops.

Sprint hasn't disclosed pricing plans, but Atish Gude, senior vice president of mobile broadband operations at the company, said he suspects "it will be more affordable than 3G."

At launch, the two devices that will be able to connect to the network are a modem for homes or small-offices from ZyXEL Communications Corp. and a laptop modem from ZTE Corp.

The home modem resembles a huge coffee mug, with two antennas that look like handles. It's intended to make WiMax an alternative to wired broadband provided by phone and cable companies. In addition to providing Internet connectivity, it will have jacks for phone service to be provided over WiMax.

The first gadget to come with built-in WiMax capability may be a new model of the EeePC, a diminutive laptop from ASUSTek Computer. The Taiwanese company started selling a version of the cheap computer without WiMax in the fourth quarter of last year and has sold 350,000 globally, Chief Executive Jonney Shih said.

An Eee with built-in WiMax will be available in the second quarter, Shih said. A price has not been decided. The current Eee uses Linux, a free operating system, but it will be possible to use Microsoft Corp.'s Windows XP on future models, Shih said.

ASUS is also planning to build WiMax into full-size laptops, to be available in the second half of the year, with prices starting at $999.

San Francisco-based OQO Inc. demonstrated at the show a WiMax-equipped prototype of its small handheld Windows computer with slide-out keyboard. But the company did not say when or even if it would be commercially available. OQO already has models compatible with competing cellular broadband networks.

Finland's Nokia Corp., which is supplying Sprint with WiMax network equipment, has said it will build Intel Corp.'s WiMax chips into a Web tablet model in 2008 but hasn't said when.

The backing of Intel means several big-name laptop makers, like Toshiba Corp. and Lenovo, have committed to making WiMax-equipped models, but no details have emerged.

"A lot of times the first year of a technology's rollout is kind of experimental and bumpy — even with the various flavors of Wi-Fi this has happened, and WiMax is much more complicated," said Tedesco, the In-Stat analyst.

Tedesco said the fact that ZyXEL, a "high-volume, low-end networking equipment vendor," is entering the market will push other companies like D-Link, Belkin and Netgear to also make WiMax gear.

(Taken from www.tech.yahoo.com)

Economic worries mar tech show's glitz

2008-01-08T10:32:00.000+07:00

The world's major technology companies are trying to convince consumers they need an expensive, digitally connected home with the latest high-tech gadgets.

But there's a problem: an increasing number of consumers are having trouble just paying for the roof over the heads, much less a 150-inch television.

Few company executives at the annual Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas this week can avoid questions about the state of the economy, and the combination of a surge in the U.S. jobless rate, oil around $100 and a worsening credit and housing crisis has many on edge.

"The fourth quarter is full of strange, unanswerable situations related to unemployment, related to GDP, related to everything else," Sony Corp (6758.T) Chief Executive Howard Stringer said on Monday after a briefing at the show. "So it's too soon for us to be pessimistic, but I read the papers."

Electronics retailer Circuit City Stores Inc (CC.N) on Monday became the latest company to undermine the view of some analysts going into the holiday season that U.S. consumers would keep spending on computers, TVs, digital cameras and music players even as the value of their homes declined and foreclosures mounted.

Circuit City, hurt by a costly restructuring, said December sales at stores open at least a year fell more than 11 percent, and it expects to post a fourth-quarter loss.

More critical may be the report of December sales coming Friday from Best Buy Co Inc (BBY.N), the leading U.S. electronics retailer. It is expected to have done significantly better than its rival.

Executives at the show and analysts watching the industry's largest U.S. gathering said they feel confident about the current state of the industry. But they're uncertain about the rest of the year, when some economists expect the United States to slip into recession as the housing crisis worsens.

"We watch very carefully these kinds of general economy issues, and we do feel more and more concerned about the subprime issue and the impact on consumer spending and corporate spending," Jonney Shih, chief executive of Taiwan's Asustek Computer Inc (2357.TW), the largest maker of personal computer motherboards, said in an interview.

"Consumers are under intense pressure," added David Daoud, a personal-computer analyst at market researcher IDC.

"With the price of energy continuing to increase and a lot of people seeing the value of their houses dwindle, it will certainly lead to an amount of tension among consumers," he said. "The question now is, are manufacturers responding to that?"

SLOWING SALES GROWTH

An estimated 140,000 people are expected to descend on Las Vegas this week to check out the latest in consumer electronics. These include wireless Internet devices, a 150-inch plasma TV said to be the world's largest, leather-bound laptop computers and even a robot that cleans gutters.

Before the holidays, technology had been viewed as a safe haven for investors fleeing housing, banking and consumer-discretionary stocks. The Standard & Poor's information-technology index has added 5.6 percent in the past 12 months, beating the S&P 500's 0.5 percent decline and the Dow Jones Industrial's 2.6 percent gain.

But investor sentiment has changed in the past week, after British retailer DSG International Plc (DSGI.L) sent European retail stocks diving when it warned that full-year pretax profit would miss analysts' estimates because of falling desktop computer sales and weaker-than-expected laptop PC demand.

"The market dynamics will definitely change," Oh Dong-jin, president of South Korea's Samsung Electronics Co Ltd (005930.KS), told Reuters in an interview on Monday.

A series of recent analyst downgrades of technology stocks including No. 1 semiconductor maker Intel Corp (INTC.O) contributed to declining confidence in the sector.

The S&P technology index is down 7.7 percent in the past five trading days, making it the S&P's worst performing sector.

While many products at the Las Vegas show may never reach store shelves, collectively they serve to generate consumer enthusiasm for an industry that the show's organizer, the Consumer Electronics Association, expects will generate $171 billion in sales this year.

The amount is a 6.1 percent increase from 2007's total but less than last year's 8.2 percent surge, the group said on Monday.

Besides the technology, "the other overriding issue of focus is the state of the global economy, as CES serves as a crossroads for large companies from multiple geographies," Bear Stearns analyst Andrew Neff wrote in a note to investors. "Visibility remains limited."

Fears of a deteriorating U.S. economy and falling DVD sales helped drive Warner Bros' decision on Friday to exclusively back Sony Corp's (6758.T) Blu-ray next-generation DVD format, in a blow to Toshiba Corp's(6502.T) rival HD DVD format, a top studio executive told Reuters on Monday.

"We've typically been recession-proof," Warner Bros Entertainment Group President Kevin Tsujihara said at the Las Vegas show. "But the thing we saw in the fourth quarter ... was gas prices beginning to affect sales. And since we're considered an impulse purchase, it's beginning to impact us."

(Taken from www.tech.yahoo.com)

Intel banks on another wireless gadget

2008-01-08T10:30:00.000+07:00

Intel Corp. is betting on a big expansion of "ultra-mobile" computing, an idea that could hinge on how many gadgets people are willing to tote around.

In an interview Monday at the International Consumer Electronics Show, Intel CEO Paul Otellini said energy-efficient, Web-connected computers with full keyboards and screens in the 4-inch neighborhood can give people more of what they want from the Internet than cell phones can.

To help stimulate the technology, Intel plans in the next few months to begin shipping processors and associated "chipsets" that demand relatively little power and are smaller than standard PC processors, allowing them to be crammed into tinier devices, which would be built by other companies.

Eyeing a similar market, wireless chip maker Qualcomm Inc. also has built prototypes of little Web devices. Its chief operating officer, Sanjay Jha, said he expects manufacturers to take up the blueprints and begin selling what he calls "pocketable computers" by the end of this year.

So far, so-called ultra-mobile computers, smaller than average laptops but bigger and more fully featured than most cell phones, have gotten a tepid response.

With the devices' prices often beyond $1,000, many potential buyers have found little reason to scale down from their notebook computers or up from cell phones that have been improving their Web browsing experience.

"How do you make people realize that this is something advantageous to them and different from the notebook experience?" said Richard Shim, an analyst with IDC, a market research firm. "That's the trick. Nobody's been very good at that yet. ... It's not as widely compelling as it needs to be if they want it to compete on the level of a phone or a PC."

But Otellini said such distinctions will cease to matter, especially since small Web devices can incorporate cell phone functions. And he said Apple Inc.'s iPhone showed that combination devices can be elegant.

"You're projecting an end stage on an early technology," he said. "That's a risky thing to do."

To be sure, even with cell phones in nearly every pocket or purse, another gadget could be appealing if it does something particularly compelling. For example, more and more cell phones play music, but plenty of people also carry MP3 players that do the job better.

In a keynote speech Monday at CES, Otellini tried to show that ultra-mobile PCs — he prefers the name "mobile Internet devices" to better distinguish them from laptops — offer a new kind of information-on-the-go bliss.

He demonstrated how an American traveler to Beijing might use a pocket computer to get real-time navigation tips and instant translations of signs, menus and conversation from Chinese.

Otellini acknowledged that this vision for ultra-mobile computing might not be fully realized for a few years.

For one thing, little PCs need longer battery lives so people can tote them around and use them all day.

Intel also expects that wireless broadband networks based on the WiMax standard will develop much further to enable connectivity on the devices. But Otellini said the computers could also make use of cellular networks.

That is the connectivity route favored by Qualcomm, which is a major supplier to the wireless industry. Jha, the Qualcomm executive, said wireless carriers first will need to come up with more enticing data pricing plans.

Proof that wireless carriers will be crucial is in the weak reception for Sony Corp.'s Mylo handheld messaging device. Though it has a full keyboard and sells for around $300, it can go online only in Wi-Fi hot spots, which have limited range.

This is far from the first time Intel has ranged beyond its specialty in PC and server chips in an attempt to diversify — and take the edge off the up-and-down cycles common in the chip business. Past forays that hit dead ends include chips for music players, TVs and cell phones. Intel once even tried selling toy microscopes.

These days, some analysts fear Intel's inventory for PC chips is backing up because of slowing orders from the industry. Intel's shares fell 15 percent last week, vaporizing about $24 billion in shareholder wealth.

Intel also is eyeing home entertainment devices. Otellini introduced a computing-and-graphics-microprocessor combo that can run TVs and set-top boxes.

The company's goal with that product, called Canmore and due out late this year, is to make it easier for people to move Internet content to high-definition TVs.

Otellini said neither that nor the mobile Internet device venture is a mere side project.

"We don't make small bets on anything," he said.

(Taken from www.tech.yahoo.com)

Toshiba says HD DVD "has not lost" despite Warner move (Reuters)

2008-01-07T09:36:00.000+07:00

Toshiba Corp insisted on Sunday that its HD DVD high-definition video format is far from dead despite being dealt a major setback by Warner Bros studio's decision to exclusively back Sony Corp's rival Blu-ray technology.

Akiyo Ozaka, president of Toshiba America Consumer Products, told a briefing at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas that HD DVD "has not lost."

But Ozaka was at a loss to say what Toshiba planned to do next after the decision by Time Warner Inc's Warner Bros, one of the world's largest film studios, to embrace Blu-ray, an optical disk format for storing high-definition video that is backed by Toshiba rival Sony.

Toshiba's defiant remarks were the latest salvo in a long-running battle over which format will dominate the next generation of technology for delivering high-definition movies to consumers.
The winner is expected to inherit a multibillion-dollar industry, although consumers so far have been confused by the standards war. Some analysts say that they have also failed to see the attraction of high-definition.

The rivalry has been compared to the video-cassette-recorder format war of the late 1970s and early 1980s which ultimately Sony's Betamax lost and JVC's VHS won.

Toshiba, the main backer of the HD DVD format, defended the technology on Sunday after the HD DVD consortium, a group of companies of which it is a part, canceled plans to hold its own press conference at the Las Vegas trade show, the industry's largest U.S. gathering.

"We were very disappointed with Warner Brothers' announcement," Ozaka said. "Sales of HD DVD were very good last year, especially in October to December."

Ozaka said Toshiba sold about 1 million HD DVD players in North America in the last year as more consumers downloaded high-definition video onto personal computers equipped with the technology.

The technology debuted broadly in the United States in 2006 but has not become a big hit with consumers yet.

Ozaka declined to comment on Toshiba's next steps, which he said Toshiba's HD DVD partners would have to discuss.

Toshiba marketing executive Jodi Sally told the audience that HD DVD remained the best technology, but acknowledged that the Warner Bros announcement on Friday took her by surprise.

"It's difficult for me to believe when all the pundits declare that HD DVD is dead," Sally said. "Clearly, the events of the last few days have led many of you to that conclusion. We have been declared dead before. The reality is we ended 2007 with a majority of the year-to-date market share."

(Taken from www.tech.yahoo.com)

Samsung TVs to have built-in games

2008-01-07T09:33:00.000+07:00

Samsung Electronics Co. will introduce high-definition TV sets with computer-like features, letting users read news from USA Today, play games or look up recipes, the company said Sunday.

A button on the remote of Samsung's new Series 6 and Series 7 LCD and plasma HDTVs displays news, weather, sports and stocks information supplied by USA Today as a picture within the picture. The TV set needs to be connected to the home Internet connection through an Ethernet port for this feature.

Furthermore, some LCD flat-panel sets will come with content preloaded into flash memory, Samsung said. The content will range from artwork that can be displayed as a screensaver, to fitness programs, food recipes and simple games like Sudoku, said Tim Baxter, executive vice president of sales and marketing for the consumer electronics division of Samsung Electronics America.

"If you think about the TV experience, it has historically been a lean-back experience," Baxter said, contrasting it to the more active "lean-forward experience" of using a personal computer.
"We think there are opportunities to bring very relevant parts of that experience into the living room," Baxter said.

Users will be able to update the preloaded content by downloading artwork or games onto flash drives, which can be plugged into the sets.

Samsung plans to launch the interactive sets this spring. Prices were not immediately available

(Taken from www.tech.yahoo.com)

3.2Gbps FireWire to Challenge USB Again

2008-01-04T10:34:00.000+07:00

Previously I've discussed the development of USB 3.0, a 4.8Gbps technology in the works for 2009. Naturally, competition is also in the works: FireWire, the oft-maligned and seldom-used connector, will offer its third incarnation, called S3200, a roughly 3.2Gbps system.

Unless you're a Mac owner, you may not even realize that a second version of FireWire exists. Standard FireWire, or FireWire 400 (which uses that arch-shaped connector on almost every desktop and an M-shaped mini-plug on virtually every laptop), was just the first round of this technology, running at 400Mbps, comparable to USB 2.0. An 800Mbps version of FireWire, called FireWire 800, followed shortly after, but adoption was minimal at best. To date, very few computers or peripherals offer FireWire 800 connections, in large part because the connector is completely different than FireWire 400. (It looks something like a fat USB connector; see the above photo for a picture.)

FireWire S3200 could be approved as early as February of next year, giving it a big jump on USB 3.0... but will people install add-in cards to handle the incompatible connectors? Historically, uptake on products requiring new connectors has been slow, waiting until computer manufacturers began putting the connectors right on the motherboard to pick up steam.

Also expect the "which is better?" debate to rear up once again. USB and FireWire enthusiasts have long argued over how meaningful those theoretical transfer rates are, and sure enough, 480Mbps USB generally underperforms vs. 400Mbps FireWire in the real world, due to architectural overhead. Will 4.8Gbps USB be faster than 3.2Gbps FireWire? We'll have to see, when both are represented by finished, shipping products.

(Taken from www.tech.yahoo.com)

Cheap PCs: Number of $400 Notebook PCs Is Rising

2008-01-04T10:29:00.000+07:00

Can you trust a PC that costs less than $400? Yes, you can, provided you understand what you're getting and what you're not. It's becoming clear that 2008 will bring a flood of new notebook PCs that cost less than $300. (Amazing to think you can buy a PC or a nice dinner for two in NYC.)

Let's look at a few that are available now:

Everex and Zonbu

Everex, a maker of PCs, and Zonbu, creator of open source applications, partnered to create a low-cost ($279) notebook that runs GOS, a version of Ubuntu Linux.

Last summer I used the Zonbu applications on a stand-alone Zonbu Linux box that the company sells. I loved the software applications, but the Zonbu overheated and crashed quite often. The Everex notebook combined with the Zonbu apps makes more sense.

The notebook is energy efficient and has reasonable storage and memory: 512MB of RAM and an 80GB hard drive. It's got an energy-efficient processor, Wi-Fi, and a CD/DVD player. I got to play with the notebook a few weeks ago and found it to be a mixture of impressive and not-so-impressive. It looks old and clunky, a generation behind the new sleek designs. But the same great applications—everything from document processing to photo management—were all very usable, and the word processor can now work offline as well. The Zonbu service, which includes storage of your documents on their servers, is an additional $14.95 per month, so factor that in to the equation.

One of Zonbu's competitors is the Asus Eee ($399) that's included in The Last Gadget Standing roundup at CES. It's another Linux-based PC; Dory Devlin highlights the features in a recent post. Chris Null loves the 7-inch screen (if you can work in that small an area), and commends the 4GB flash and 802.11 connectivity as wise choices. The machine ships with OpenOffice.org 2.0's work apps, including documents, spreadsheets, and presentations. All can be saved on a USB drive and worked with on a Windows PC. There's also a file-manager utility, a PDF reader, a Notes app, and a Thunderbird email client.

The Intel Classmate is a PC designed to deliver computer power to kids in developing countries. In that vein, the case is ruggedized, but lightweight. It relies on an Intel processor and has a 7-inch LCD screen, like the Asus, but small in the hands of children seems more appropriate. It comes with 1GB of RAM if you're running Linux or with 2GB if you opt to run Windows XP. Cost is $200.

Finally, there's the OLPC, the laptop created for kids in developing countries who desperately need access to the information age. When last I looked, the OLPC was being offered in a two-for-one configuration at a cost of $399. It uses an interesting double technology that lets you set the display for black and white (good in bright sunlight) or in full color mode. The 802.11 connectivity offers an added pinch of social networking for OLPC users. OLPC also runs a selection of Linux applications.

What do these four machines have in common? They all cost under $400 (with $400, you can buy two OLPCs). They all use free and open source software. The cost of open source software is minimal, and using Linux instead of relying on an expensive Windows license lowers the price, too. They all use flash memory, which is now affordable.

Finally, OLPC may not have been the perfect computer, but it was the perfect price. Just knowing it could be done spawned this movement.

I would not count on these machines as my only PC. Even kids will find limitations, as you can't play Windows video games or listen to your iPod on most of them. If you do simple word processing, web surfing, and even multimedia viewing, you're in the right space.

If anyone has experience with any of these and wants to share, we're all ears.

(Taken from www.tech.yahoo.com)

Rivalry over wireless high-def TVs (AP)

2008-01-03T13:48:00.000+07:00

Flat-panel TVs look lovely on a wall — the cords hanging from them, less so. After a few years of false starts, the industry finally seems close to tackling that problem. At least three dueling wireless technologies for high-definition TVs will be on display at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, which starts Monday. Manufacturers promise that sets incorporating these technologies will be in stores before the next holiday season.

The heavyweight entry in the field is WirelessHD, a consortium that includes the biggest Asian names in electronics, including Sony Corp. and Toshiba Corp.

It's an unusual group, in that the home entertainment industry hasn't generally been a leader in wireless technologies — most of them have been pioneered by makers of cell phones or computer networking gear.

But the consortium is set to announce Thursday that Intel Corp. is joining the group, which could broaden the reach of the technology from home entertainment applications to computers. Intel has been a champion of wireless technologies including Wi-Fi, and more recently, WiMax, a longer-range cousin.

The WirelessHD group is also announcing that it has completed the blueprints for chips that can beam HD audio and video from set-top boxes, DVD players and digital cameras to TV sets. The chips can be made small, and the intention is to have them built into devices, rather than be supplied in add-on adapters.

The technology uses a virgin band of the radio spectrum, around 60 gigahertz. That lets it avoid interference from other wireless networking gear and allows for extremely high data transfer rates, according to John Marshall, chairman of WirelessHD. Unlike other wireless TV solutions, WirelessHD won't need to compress the signal, which can result in a loss of quality.

To satisfy concerns by the Motion Picture Association of America, the organization of Hollywood studios, WirelessHD has intentionally limited the range of the technology.

"What WirelessHD has done is that we've made sure that the technology can cover a whole room — even a large room, up to 10 meters (30 feet) — but we've used techniques that make sure that it can't leak into the apartment next door," Marshall said.

That also means the signal won't reach from the living room into other rooms in the same home.

Jim Williams, chief technology officer of the MPAA, said in a statement that the group was "encouraged by WirelessHD's commitment to foster content protection in the wireless, digital age."

The chipmaker that is best positioned to take advantage of the specification and supply transmitting and receiving chips is SiBEAM Inc., a privately held Sunnyvale, Calif. startup that has been part of the WirelessHD group since its founding in 2006.

The other big electronics companies in the group are Matsushita Electric Industrial Co. (known for its Panasonic brand), NEC Corp., LG Electronics Inc. and Samsung Electronics Co.

Wireless streaming of HD video has been talked about for years, and several companies have announced products that have failed to show up, sunk by technical problems. At last year's show, Philips Electronics NV revealed a kit consisting of two antennas for streaming video, saying it would be on sale in 2007. It hasn't been heard of since.

Chip designer Pulse-Link Inc. is another past victim of optimism: it said in 2004 that it would be shipping chips that send HD signals wirelessly in 2005.

"It's just not that easy. And it took us a whole lot longer than we thought it would," Pulse-Link's president and chief operating officer, said Wednesday.

This year, Pulse-Link is ready. At CES, Westinghouse Digital Electronics will be showing an LCD TV with a built-in Pulse-Link receiver chip.

The 47-inch LCD flat panel won't be aimed at the home market, but at retail and public displays. It will go on sale in the second quarter and will come with a transmitter box that takes a standard HDMI, or High-Definition Multimedia Interface, signal and beams it up to 40 feet.

The price has not been set, but John Araki, a vice president at Westinghouse Digital, said each end of the wireless link adds about $100 to the cost. Consumer models could show up later this year if all goes well.

Pulse-Link's wireless technology is so-called ultra-wideband, or UWB. It allows for fast transfer speeds at short ranges, but not as fast as the 60 GHz WirelessHD technology, so some compression of images is necessary, but Watkins said it won't be noticeable.

Other companies, like Tzero Technologies Inc., are also creating chips that send video signals over UWB.

Lastly, LG Electronics of Korea will be at CES demonstrating LCD and plasma sets that will use run-of-the-mill Wi-Fi as the wireless link. Wi-Fi is a tried and true technology for data networking, but is less than ideal for streaming video. It's the slowest of the three wireless alternatives, and requires the most compression when used for HD video.

Hewlett-Packard Co. already makes two models of Wi-Fi enabled HDTVs, but the wireless link only connects them to home PCs, not with set-top boxes or the rest of the entertainment center.

Starting early this year, LG will be selling two Wi-Fi enabled LCD models, at 47 inches and 52 inches, and two plasma models, at 50 inches and 60 inches. The LCD models will include a wireless transmitter with a 50-foot range. The transmitter will be optional for the plasma models.

Prices have not been announced.

Of course, none of these technologies will let an HDTV go completely wireless: there's still the power cord. People are working on wireless power as well, but we'll have to wait much longer for that.

(Taken from www.tech.yahoo.com)

Hitachi to debut 500GB drive for laptops (AP)

2008-01-03T13:44:00.000+07:00

Notebook computers can be as powerful as desktops these days, especially as hard-disk makers like Hitachi Ltd. grab industry bragging rights by unveiling a 500-gigabyte drive for laptops.

The 500 GB drive is the beefiest one yet for laptops — enough to hold up to 500 hours of digital video, 178 standard-definition, feature-length movies, 250 games or 125,000 four-minute songs, Hitachi said. Currently, the largest laptop drive on the market is a 320 GB model by Western Digital Corp.

Hitachi said Thursday that its 500 GB drive would be available to computer manufacturers in February. Asustek Computer, based in Taiwan, said it would use two of the drives to create the world's first laptops with a monster capacity of 1 terabyte.

It was just last year when desktop PCs or external storage devices began to feature 1 TB drives.

The Asus M50 and M70 laptops will be available in February and March, respectively. Prices were not immediately available.

(Taken from www.tech.yahoo.com)

Ultra-Thin Blu-ray Drive Released (TechWeb)

2007-12-28T13:55:00.000+07:00

Panasonic has started shipping samples of an ultra-thin Blu-ray disc drive for lightweight notebooks.

The consumer electronics maker said in a statement released Wednesday in Japan that the built-in optical drive, which is 0.37 of an inch thick, will be shown Jan. 7 at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. Previously, Panasonic's thinnest Blu-ray disc drive was a half-inch thick.

The new drive is capable of reading and burning high-definition DVDs in the Blu-ray format. It also supports reading and writing standard DVDs and CDs, and can store 50 Gbytes of content.
Panasonic has slimmed down a standard DVD disc drive to 0.28 of an inch thick. Toshiba has said that it plans to release an equally thin drive for reading and writing DVDs in the HD DVD format, which competes with Blu-ray.

Ultra-thin disk drives make it possible for notebook makers to build even lighter and slimmer products. The drives could also find a place in even small ultra-mobile PCs.
Panasonic has other Blu-ray disc drives. Last summer, the company became one of the first to introduce a drive with a 4x writing speed. The latest drive is 2x.

Toshiba this month released the first notebook with a rewritable HD DVD drive, which could be used to transfer recorded TV shows or video taken with a high-definition camera onto a DVD for archiving. The Qosmio Series 2 comes in 17- and 15.4-inch models, and is capable of receiving two TV channels simultaneously, so people can watch one show while recording the other. Pricing for the notebooks starts at about $2,600.

HD DVD, supported by Microsoft and Toshiba, competes with Blu-ray, a format whose major supporters include Sony. The latter company ships a Blu-ray disc player in the PlayStation 3 video game console.

(Taken from www.tech.yahoo.com)

Apple trades at $200 for first time (AP)

2007-12-27T10:01:00.000+07:00

Shares of Apple Inc। hit the $200 mark for the first time Wednesday, as investor confidence in the company continued rising near the end of what has been a strong year for the iPod and computer maker.

Shares rose 15 cents to close at $198।95। They earlier peaked at $200.

Apple shares have traded between $76।77 and $199.33 in the past year, rising steadily since January as investors anticipated and then cheered the release of the company's hybrid cell phone, multimedia player and wireless Internet device, the iPhone. The product went on sale at the end of June.

Apple released a refreshed line of iPods during the year, updating its flash-based Nano model to one that can play videos, and introducing a device called the iPod Touch which is much like an iPhone without cellular calling capabilities।

The company also refreshed its notebook computers during the year.
In a phone interview Wednesday, Caris & Co। analyst Shebly Seyrafi said he wasn't surprised that Apple hit the $200 mark.

"Apple has a lot of momentum right now," he said, noting the company is riding several new product cycles.
Seyrafi, who rates the stock "Buy" with a $225 price target, said sales of the iPod Touch and video-enabled Nanos are helping Apple's margins. Apple's component costs are benefiting from declines in NAND flash memory prices, he added.
"Looks like their business is strong even though retail sales growth in general appears to be weaker than in prior years," Seyrafi said।

(Taken from http://www.tech.yahoo.com/)

Yahoo China slammed again for piracy

2007-12-24T13:02:00.000+07:00

Yahoo China lost another round in a legal battle as a court in Beijing upheld a ruling that the company is infringing on copyright laws by allowing pirated music to be downloaded, according to the industry group suing Yahoo China.

"The ruling against Yahoo China is extremely significant in clarifying copyright rules for Internet music services in China," John Kennedy, chairman and CEO of the International Federation of Phonographic Industries, or IFPI, said in a statement Thursday. "By confirming that Yahoo China's service violates copyright under new Chinese laws, the Beijing court has effectively set the standard for Internet companies throughout the country."

Yahoo owns a 44 percent stake in Yahoo China, and the controlling stake is owned by Chinese Internet company Alibaba.com, which essentially runs the site. Representatives from Alibaba could not be reached Friday for comment on this story.

The International Federation of Phonographic Industries, which represents the music industry, filed the lawsuit in January 2007 on behalf of several recording studios, including Warner Music Group, Sony BMG, and Universal Vivendi.

In the suit, IFPI accused China Yahoo of violating copyrights because it allows links between its search engine and Web sites that have illegally copied songs from artists such as U2 and Destiny's Child.

In April, a lower court in Beijing had ruled that Yahoo China facilitated infringement of copyrights. Yahoo China appealed the decision, arguing that it should not be liable for content found outside its Web site. Now that appeal has been rejected by a higher court in Beijing, according to the IFPI.

Separately, the court also upheld a ruling on a similar case against Internet company Baidu. A lower court in November 2006 had found that Baidu had facilitated copyright infringement. But because this case was filed under older Chinese copyright laws in 2005, the company was not liable for copyright infringement, the IFPI said.

"We are disappointed that the court did not find Baidu liable," Kennedy said in a statement. "But that judgment was about Baidu's actions in the past, under an old law that is no longer in force. Baidu should now prepare to have its actions judged under the new law. We are confident a court would hold Baidu liable as it has Yahoo China."

China is viewed as one of the biggest sources of pirated music and movies, as well as counterfeit goods. And the IFPI, along with other companies and trade organizations, has been taking legal action to stem the flow of this content out of China. Recent reforms in Chinese law have helped, but experts say piracy still runs rampant.

The IFPI said search services from sites such as Yahoo China and Baidu, which connect users to hundreds of thousands of pirated music tracks, are "a huge drain on efforts to develop a legitimate music market in China." The group claims that more than 99 percent of all music downloading in China violates copyright. Despite the large population and potential of the Chinese market, the IFPI said that in 2006, music sales in China only amounted to $76 million, or less than 1 percent of the entire global recorded-music market.

Still, music labels see huge potential in China, and they have been willing to work with Chinese companies to ensure that music can be distributed legally and without violating copyrights.
In April, Sony BMG Music Entertainment struck a deal with content aggregator Global Music International to distribute its music videos, full-track songs and ringtones to mobile subscribers in China. The deal calls for Global Music to distribute Sony content through wireless-phone operator China Unicom.

(Taken from www.news.com)

Popular Apple rumor Web site to shut down (Reuters)

2007-12-21T10:26:00.000+07:00

Apple Inc (AAPL.O) and a popular Web site that published company secrets about the maker of the Mac computer, the iPhone and the iPod have reached a settlement that calls for the site to shut down.

Apple and the site, ThinkSecret.com, settled the suit, which Apple filed in January 2005, and no sources were revealed, Apple and ThinkSecret said in statements.

College student Nick Ciarelli, ThinkSecret's publisher, said he plans to move on. He started the site at 13.

"I'm pleased to have reached this amicable settlement, and will now be able to move forward with my college studies and broader journalistic pursuits," he said in his statement.

Cupertino, California-based Apple filed its suit after ThinkSecret published details of a stripped-down Macintosh computer called the Mac mini two weeks before the product was launched formally.

"We are pleased to have reached this amicable settlement and happy to have this behind us," an Apple spokesman said.

(Taken from www.tech.yahoo.com)

Open-source Samba gets inside look at Microsoft specs

2007-12-21T09:47:00.000+07:00

A complicated third-party arrangement means that the open-source Samba project will be able to make use of proprietary documents describing Microsoft file-sharing software.

Samba, governed by the General Public License (GPL), lets Unix or Linux servers behave like Windows machines used to share files over a network and control networked printers. But the effort has been difficult: Microsoft doesn't go out of its way to share the details of the protocols; patent infringement concerns also have appeared more than once.

On Thursday, though, the Samba team announced a deal that gets around the previous barriers. The increasingly influential Software Freedom Law Center, led by open-source legal guru Eben Moglen, established a nonprofit group called the Protocol Freedom Information Foundation. The PFIF is paying Microsoft 10,000 euros (about $14,400) for documentation that will be shared under a nondisclosure agreement (click here for a PDF of the NDA or read this Samba explanation for further details) with Samba programmers.

Those programmers are free to write code based on the documentation, though not to share the documentation itself, Samba said. And Microsoft must keep the documentation up to date.

The move is interesting for a number of reasons. For one thing, it's a concrete outcome after years of antitrust efforts that had left many Microsoft foes bitter. For another, the technological repercussions very likely will strengthen a direct Microsoft competitor. And perhaps most interesting, it illustrates the growing legal sophistication and clout of the free and open-source programming movement.

Samba leader Jeremy Allison is champing at the bit with the technical possibilities the agreement opens up for the software project.

"If you'll pardon me breaking into song: it's beginning to look a lot like Christmas," Allison said.

Among the features he expects will be added as a result of the agreement are full support for Microsoft's Active Directory, encrypted files, a better search interface, and support for "SMB2," a new version of Microsoft's Server Message Block protocol after which the Samba project took its name. SMB2 is built into Longhorn Server, which when released in 2008 will be called Windows Server 2008.

I asked Allison whether open-source code in fact reveals information in the proprietary documentation. "It does to those who can understand it. It's not revealing the actual documents, though, and that's the main thing," he said.

Why was Microsoft so willing to share the specifications now? In short, the antitrust case the European Union brought against Microsoft required the company to release interoperability information. Most recently, Microsoft agreed to share the information for a one-time fee rather than requiring a share of revenues from products--a pricing scheme that doesn't jibe well with open-source methods.

The roundabout way of getting proprietary information to an open-source project may sound abstruse, but it's actually relatively common. Companies provide information to open-source programmers under nondisclosure terms, knowing full well the coders will release open-source code that reveals at least in part how hardware works.

Indeed, one purpose of the Linux Foundation is to make sure there's an organization in place to handle NDAs. Novell programmer Greg Kroah-Hartman now runs a program that regularly does so in order to write software drivers that let Linux computers communicate with various hardware devices.

One specific case in point: Red Hat programmer David Miller has worked with Sun Microsystems to bring Linux support to its Sparc processors. "I signed an NDA with Sun that got me the documentation and allowed me to write GPL code using it, but I'm not allowed to pass on those documents to others."

What's notable about the Samba case is that it involves Microsoft, which at times has been outspoken about free and open-source software. Although the company tried to tone down earlier rhetoric that called the programming movement "un-American" and a "cancer," the company resumed the offensive this year, declaring in May that Linux and other open-source projects infringe 235 Microsoft patents. Microsoft didn't say which specific patents it believed were infringed.

The Samba agreement also specifically addresses the patent issue. Microsoft is required to make a current list of patents involved in the protocols, Samba said, letting programmers work around them.

"The patent list provides us with a bounded set of work needed to ensure non-infringement of Samba and other free-software projects that implement the protocols documented by Microsoft under this agreement," Samba said Thursday. "Any patents outside this list cannot be asserted by Microsoft against any implementation developed using the supplied documentation."

For a blow-by-blow history of Samba's attempts to get access to the Microsoft documentation, another Samba leader, Andrew Tridgell, has posted a long account at the Samba Web site.

(Taken from www.news.com)

HDTVs Growing to Epic Size This Season

2007-12-19T13:46:00.000+07:00

If you went shopping this weekend, you might have noticed that deep discounts were comparably lacking on new flat-panel TVs, at least compared to 2006. Instead, they've simply gotten bigger, part of manufacturers' strategies to avoid getting sucked into the huge discounts that siphoned away virtually all profits for the sets during last year's cost-obsessed holiday season.

Jumbo sets are flooding the market this year. Sony has 20 models measuring 40 inches or larger in LCD alone, now making up 68 percent of the company's TV lineup, according to the Wall Street Journal. And Sony, like everyone else, is hoping you'll go big: At $1,273, the average 40-inch TV offers substantially better profit margin than a $763 32-inch set (in part because there is less competition in bigger sets from budget brands like Olevia and Westinghouse). The goal is obviously that you'll get sucked into jumping up a size or two when you see the difference in the stores.

Still, prices are dropping, just not as much: 12 percent on average this year for LCD sets. As well, technology continues to improve, with focus on deeper blacks, faster response times, and even lighter and thinner screens. Interestingly, Sharp says it can now fit a 42-inch screen into its old 40-inch frame because there's less wasted space around the edges.

So... are you TV shopping this season? If so, what's the magic number (in inches, I mean) that's tickling your fancy?

(Taken from www.tech.yahoo.com)

Numerous Airlines Rolling Out Domestic Wi-Fi

2007-12-19T13:32:00.000+07:00

It's been a long time coming, and it's not going to happen tomorrow, but Wi-Fi is finally arriving on domestic airlines. Depending on what you want to do and the luck of the draw of getting the right plane, you could be answering email at 30,000 feet as early as next week.

The flurry of announcements began with JetBlue, which is rolling out a free Wi-Fi option starting December 11... but that service only covers Yahoo! Mail, Yahoo! Messenger, and BlackBerry email access (in other words, no web browsing). Still, a step in the right direction, and one that leads to...

Virgin, Alaska, and American Airlines, which are bringing the full Internet experience to travelers, though none has committed to an actual launch date. The expectation: By the second quarter of 2008, all three will have at least one Wi-Fi-enabled plane in the skies as a pilot project. Alaska says if its test plane is successful, it will have its entire fleet equipped with wireless by the end of 2009.

Unlike JetBlue, you'll have to pay extra for this Wi-Fly access. Again, no pricing has been announced, but the expectation is that it will run about $10 extra. Also being worked out: Whether VOIP services like Skype will be blocked and, if so, how best to block them.

(Taken from www.tech.yahoo.com)

Apple launch of Leopard system its best ever-group

2007-12-19T10:51:00.000+07:00

The launch of Apple Inc's (AAPL.O: Quote, Profile, Research) latest operating system, Leopard, was its best ever, a research group said on Monday.

When comparing the first full month of sales of Apple Mac OS 10.5 "Leopard" (November 2007) to the first full month of sales for Mac OS 10.4 "Tiger" (May 2005), dollar volume for Leopard was up 32.8 percent and unit volume up 20.5 percent, NPD Group Inc said in a statement.

Apple, maker of the Macintosh computer, the iPod digital music player and the iPhone smartphone, started selling Leopard on October 25, after a four-month delay due to the company's work on the iPhone.

The new version of Apple's OS X software costs $129 for a single user and $199 for a "family pack" that can be installed on as many as five computers in a single household.

New features include a file back-up feature called "Time Machine," improvements to e-mail and instant messaging, and the ability to preview documents or files without starting up a separate program, as well as quick access to other computers on a home or an office network.

While the increases in dollar and unit volume can partially be attributed to going on sale during November -- a key month for consumer shopping -- and the growth in the number of Apple retail stores, NPD said the figures show that Apple has found the right formula for rolling out new versions of Mac operating systems.

Leopard is the sixth version in as many years, a fact the Cupertino, California-based concern is quick to contrast with Microsoft Corp (MSFT.O: Quote, Profile, Research), which went more than five years between new versions of its Windows operating system.

Microsoft's Windows Vista became broadly available early this year and comes in several versions that cost between $100 and $260, according to the company's Web site.

(Taken from www.reuters.com)

USB 3.0 -- 10 Times Faster -- In the Works for 2009

2007-12-19T09:34:00.001+07:00

USB, that little rectangular plug that can be found on just about every computer peripheral cable you come across, is one of the biggest success stories in the history of computing. Ditching the slow serial and parallel cables of yore and replacing them with a fast, universal standard that could draw power and allowed connecting of dozens of peripherals without rebooting... well, it was genius. When USB 2.0 arrived, with much faster performance, it got even better. It's not hyperbole to say that USB, despite its humble status as a mere connector, is one of the most important computer technologies to ever be invented.

Well, USB fans, things are going to get even more interesting and soon. USB 2.0 may be fast enough right now, but with more high-definition video products arriving and bigger and bigger files being transferred, that won't be the case forever. Enter USB 3.0, which moves the bandwidth needle from 480Mbps to roughly 4.8Gbps, 10 times faster than the current version.
The new standard, which was recently demonstrated using a new optical cable (but the same connector), will be backward compatible with older USB formats and promises better power efficiency, too, in order to decrease the load on portable devices. Possibly in the works: Better ability to charge devices over USB, some of which still require an A/C adapter or two USB connections to draw enough juice.

Specs are planned to be delivered early next year with commercial availability for 2009. Just do us a favor and clearly label USB 3.0 products with an appropriate logo this time! (USB 2.0 got caught up in a mini scandal when vendors started labeling USB 1.1 products as "USB 2.0 capable," with vendors later claiming they only meant the products worked with USB 2.0 connections. Fail!)

(Taken from http://www.tech.yahoo.com/)

Apple Patches Keep Coming: Mac OS, Safari Beta Fixed

2007-12-19T09:30:00.000+07:00

Apple kept its rush of year-end security patches coming Monday, issuing a flurry of fixes for its Mac OS X operating system and the test version of its Safari browser.

Monday's patches included a whopping 31 updates for the Apple operating system. The Mac OS X patches fix components ranging from the Address Book and iChat software to under-the-covers operating system components such as ColorSync, the IO Storage Family, and the Perl, Python and Ruby programming languages.

Most of these flaws theoretically could be exploited by attackers to run unauthorized software on the Mac, although some of them had other security implications, such as allowing an attacker to gain access to sensitive information or download files to the computer without authorization.
These updates are for the Mac OS X 10.4 and 10.5 operating systems, known as Tiger and Leopard, respectively.

(Taken from www.pcworld.com)

Apple also released a minor update to its Safari 3 beta code, which runs on Windows as well as Mac OS X, fixing a cross-site scripting security problem that affects Windows users.
The patches come just days after Apple released a major update to its QuickTime media player and a Java security fix for the Mac OS X 10.4 operating system, code-named Tiger. The QuickTime flaw was particularly serious, as it had been exploited by online criminals since early December.

With hackers and security researchers now paying more attention to Apple's products, the company's security team has been working overtime on bug fixes this year. Monday's patches were Apple's 35th and 36th security updates this year. In 2006, the company released just 22 sets of patches for its products.

Leopard takes Mac OS launch prize

2007-12-18T11:08:00.000+07:00

Apple Inc.'s late-October launch of Leopard generated the best first-month results for an operating system upgrade in the company's history, a market research firm said today.
Just days before Leopard's Oct. 26 debut, Chris Swenson, an analyst at NPD Group Inc., wondered whether it could beat the extraordinary performance of Tiger. "It's going to be really hard to top the Tiger launch," he said then. "It was such a successful launch."

Today, however, Swenson said that Leopard bested Tiger in almost every sales category.
According to NPD's data, unit sales of Leopard, formally known as Mac OS X 10.5, were up 20.5% over predecessor Tiger's, when both versions' first-month numbers were compared. Leopard's revenue was up even more: 32.8% higher than Tiger's.

NPD, which pulls its numbers primarily from brick-and-mortar retailers but also from a smattering of online sellers -- including Apple's online store and Amazon.com -- separated the boxed copies of Leopard from any sold preinstalled on new Macs, just as it did with Tiger and the edition before that, dubbed Panther. Apple, on the other hand, included every possible copy of Leopard when it touted sales of 2 million during the operating system's first weekend.

As Swenson predicted in October, the biggest contributing factor to Leopard's success was the larger number of Apple-owned retail stores selling the product. Apple now has about double the number of stores compared with its lineup in May 2005, when Tiger launched. The time of year also played a part. "They're moving a lot of volume through their stores," said Swenson. "I guess there's something to be said for pushy sales reps talking up the operating system."
Other factors, however, helped Leopard's sales, including the month. November, Swenson said, is a "key month for consumer shopping," unlike May, Tiger's first month of sales.
But additional stores and the season can't explain all of Leopard's success. "It's clear that Apple has hit upon the right strategy for rolling out new versions of its OS," Swenson said.

The boost in revenue, on the other hand, has different parents.

Some of the increase can be attributed to the bigger slice of total sales that Apple's Family Pack took. Nearly a third (32.8%) of all Leopard units tracked by NPD were the five-license Family Pack, a major bump from the 20.4% of Tiger's sales. Not surprisingly, that drove up the average sales price of Leopard to $144.30 in its first month, compared with Tiger's first-month average of $128.50. (The two upgrades were priced identically: $129 for a single license, and $199 for the Family Pack.)

"That's one that I was bearish on," Swenson admitted. "I wondered [before Leopard's launch], 'How many more can they sell?' Well, Apple was obviously able to continue to grow that."
Also contributing to the growth in average sales price was the apparently smaller number of retailers offering substantial rebates or discounts on the operating system during the launch, said Swenson. "Amazon, for example, was doing some crazy sales with Tiger, but there really weren't any fire sale prices or big rebates for Leopard," he noted.

The only Tiger record that Leopard didn't break was the former's mark for the biggest percentage increase from one release to the next. Tiger, for example, sold approximately 30% more units in its first month than its immediate predecessor, 10.3, a.k.a. Panther.

"Personally, I thought these numbers were surprising," concluded Swenson, who also contrasted Leopard's opening with Microsoft Corp.'s first month selling Windows Vista earlier in 2007. "Vista was a much more radical jump [than Leopard] on its hardware requirements, which meant smaller percentages of users upgrading old machines.
"Microsoft has experienced launches like this before," he said. "Windows ME is a good example. But Apple has yet to stumble. It's really stunning to see Apple have one blowout OS launch after another."

Apple won't report on the quarter from which NPD drew its numbers until late January; the current quarter will close Dec. 31.

(Taken from www.computerworld.com)

RIM, Yahoo, JetBlue to offer in-flight WiFi

2007-12-17T11:42:00.000+07:00

JetBlue plans to introduce limited in-flight e-mail and instant messaging access on one airplane on Tuesday.

Customers on the equipped plane will be able to use their laptops and Wi-Fi-enabled phones to access a customized version of Yahoo Mail and Yahoo Messenger. BlackBerry users will also be able to check e-mail and use BlackBerry’s IM client on their phones. The service is being launched in partnership with Yahoo and BlackBerry.

In the future, JetBlue hopes to offer additional services beyond e-mail and instant messaging.

JetBlue is in a unique position among airlines because it has licensed spectrum from the FCC that allows it to transmit from planes to the ground. Use of the spectrum isn’t limited to JetBlue, which means the airline could sell a similar service to other carriers.

JetBlue will be one of the first to offer onboard Wi-Fi in the U.S., though others are making similar plans. Virgin America recently said it had signed a deal with Aircell to offer Wi-Fi Internet access on its entire fleet of planes. The service is expected to go live in 2008. Aircell is also signed up to test a Wi-Fi Internet service on American Airlines planes next year.

The idea of Wi-Fi in the sky became popular with a service launched by Boeing, called Connexion, several years ago. While some international airlines including Singapore Airlines and Lufthansa eagerly picked up the service, the U.S. airlines that initially pledged their support pulled out after the terrorist attacks in the U.S. in 2001. Connexion shut down its service last year.

While mile-high Internet services have a spotty track record, they are highly coveted by the technology industry elite. In fact, Trolltech Chief Technology Officer Benoit Schilling puts it at the top of his Christmas wish list. “I want to get Wi-Fi back on airplanes,” he said. “That’s something I’m really lusting for.”

(Taken From www.macworld.com)

Opera Seeks Tougher Remedy in Microsoft Case

2007-12-16T15:43:00.000+07:00

Microsoft was considered to have escaped lightly after the European Commission found it guilty in 2004 of bundling its media player software with Windows to the detriment of competition. It was ordered to sell a second version of Windows in Europe without its media player, but the new version was priced the same, few PC makers stocked it and the product effectively bombed in the market.

People continued to buy the original version of Windows, complete with the media player, and the remedy did little to help Microsoft's rivals.
With its fresh antitrust suit filed with the Commission this week, browser maker Opera Software is hoping for a tougher penalty to rein in what it sees as Microsoft's illegal bundling of its Internet Explorer (IE) browser with Windows. One legal expert said that this time around, Microsoft might not be so lucky.

"The landscape has changed quite a bit between Microsoft and the European Commission since the last ruling. If there's a replay of what led up to the 2004 ruling, and Microsoft takes similar positions regarding bundling, then I wouldn't be surprised if the Commission comes down harder now," said Chris Norall, a partner in the Brussels office of the law firm Morrison & Foerster.
Opera argues that because each version of Windows comes with only IE preinstalled, Microsoft has an unfair advantage against rivals like Opera and Firefox. That has helped it maintain a consistent market share on Windows PCs of around 80 percent, Opera contends.

The Norwegian company now wants the Commission to come up with a tougher remedy to overcome Microsoft's advantage. If the Commission agrees that the bundling of IE is just as illegal as the bundling of Windows Media Player was in 2004, its remedy this time "will be tougher, it will have teeth," said Norall, whose law firm is not involved in the Microsoft case.
One possible outcome would be to make Microsoft offer a second version of Windows without Windows Media Player, and to sell it at a lower price than the "complete" version of Windows.

That may give PC makers more incentive to offer it. Opera's preferred solution, however, is simply to force Microsoft to pre-load other browsers with Windows when it ships.
"In our minds, the best solution would be one version of Windows with a must-carry type of provision," said Jason Hoida, Opera's deputy general counsel.
Microsoft is likely to fight that remedy fiercely. It says it will cooperate with the Commission's investigation, but argues, as it has before, that consumers benefit from bundling its browser with Windows. What's more, it notes, PC makers and consumers are free to install any other browser if they wish.

Microsoft's position my be strengthened by the popularity of rival browsers in Europe, notably Firefox, which has reached a market share of close to 40 percent in some key markets, such as Germany, studies have shown. If Microsoft can argue that rivals to IE are gaining market share, it could help it persuade the Commission that antitrust intervention is not necessary.
Opera responds that the growth of other browsers has been levelling out. "Firefox has attracted a lot of users, especially in the open-source world, but it has not been climbing consistently," said Hakon Wium Lie, Opera's chief technology officer.

In addition, he said, Opera's complaint is focussed on Windows PCs, where IE's share is higher, and not that of Linux or Macintosh computers. However, it is uncertain that the Commission will exclude Linux and Macintosh computers when it considers the relevant market in this case.
Opera's position may be helped by the previous antitrust judgment against Microsoft. Three months ago the Court of First Instance endorsed the legality of the Commission's 2004 ruling when it threw out Microsoft's appeal. The Commission will examine the new complaint "in light of the case law set in the Court of First Instance judgement," Commission spokesman Jonathan Todd said Thursday.

Opera expects the case to move along faster than the seven years it took to reach the 2004 decision, since the Commission has already deemed Microsoft to be a monopolist, and because Microsoft opted against a further appeal against that decision. "There is an unappealed judgment, so we hope this will go faster," Hoida said.

Thomas Vinje, a partner in the Brussels office of the law firm Clifford Chance, which is representing Opera in this case, said: "The complaint is very short. It doesn't have far to look for a relevant legal precedent."
In addition to the bundling charge, Opera also complains that Microsoft does not follow Web standards, putting rival browsers at a disadvantage. The issue is significant because if all Web browsers do not use the same standards, Web site developers are likely to design their Web sites to work with the most widely used browser, which is Internet Explorer. That gives people a disincentive to use other browsers.

Microsoft often takes part in debates over Web standards, and says it will implement them, but ultimately does not, Opera's Lie said. He pointed to CSS, XHTML and DOM as areas where Microsoft does not comply with or is inconsistent.
The Opera complaint is the second against Microsoft filed to the Commission since the 2004 ruling. In February 2006, the European Committee for Interoperable Systems (ECIS) complained that Microsoft is foreclosing the market for productivity software with its Office package. Some expect more complaints to follow.
"The bundling issue is going to come up each time Microsoft adds a new feature to Windows. Will there be more complaints? Yes," said Norall.

(Taken from www.pcworld.com)

Google tests Wikipedia-like knowledge pages on Web

2007-12-15T23:50:00.000+07:00

Web search leader Google Inc (GOOGLE: Quote, Profile, Research) is testing an Internet site for sharing knowledge about any subject under the sun, one that could eventually compete with the popular user-edited encyclopedia Wikipedia.

Google's "knol" project started earlier this week and is working with a group of writers by invitation only, Google vice president of engineering Udi Manber wrote in a company blog post.
"There are millions of people who possess useful knowledge that they would love to share, and there are billions of people who can benefit from it," Manber said in the post.
"The goal is for knols to cover all topics, from scientific concepts, to medical information to how-to-fix-it instructions."

The word "knol" is used to refer to the project and to an entry on the shared Web site. Google's site will identify the authors posting the information. It will not serve as an editor of the information or endorse what is written on the site.

The site will eventually be opened to the general public and allow users to submit comments, questions or edits, as well as rate posts. Knol writers will be able to include ads in their posts, sharing the revenue with Google.

Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales is working on a community- developed Web search service that would compete with search engines such as Google and Yahoo Inc (YAHOO: Quote, Profile, Research).

(Copied By www.reuters.com)

Windows Vista SP1 Includes More Than 300 Hot Fixes

2007-12-13T16:33:00.000+07:00

Microsoft (NSDQ: MSFT) has released a detailed roster of the contents of its forthcoming service pack for Windows Vista, and the list includes more than 300 hot fixes covering everything from data protection to video performance.

The list, recently posted on Microsoft's Web site, can be downloaded as a 47-page document that the company says is not exhaustive. Microsoft plans to add more fixes and patches to Windows Vista SP1 before a final version is released to the public early next year.

For now, Vista users can entertain themselves by poring over the hundreds of updates that Microsoft says will be part of SP1.

Among them: a fix for a problem in which optical disks turn blank after being formatted with Vista's Live File System; a patch for a glitch that generates an error message when large files are copied from one Vista-based computer to another over a network; and an update designed to improve Vista's speed when its operating on a computer linked to a virtual private network.

Other updates are meant to improve Internet Explorer's streaming video performance and prevent data loss in USB devices connected to Vista PCs. There's also a fix that adds a Venezuelan time zone.

Microsoft said some of the fixes detailed in the list are already available to the public as individual downloads, while others will only be released as part of the final version of Vista SP1.

Unfortunately for some Vista users especially those running custom business apps -- the service pack will not fix some application compatibility problems that affect the current version of Vista.

The Vista SP1 lengthy documentation runs counter to earlier statements by Microsoft officials that the company was not planning to release a "big bang" service pack for the operating system, which debuted in January.

Microsoft marketing VP Michael Sievert told InformationWeek in March that Vista was "high quality right out of the gate" and that the company would likely dribble out small updates as required via its Windows Update service.

Since then, however, users have apparently reported enough problems with Vista to force a change in Microsoft's thinking.

(Copied by www.informationweek.com)

Microsoft Opens Office Live Workspace Beta

2007-12-11T10:35:00.000+07:00

With Google Docs, Zoho, and others beating them to the punch, Microsoft has finally made online office document-sharing available to all. Office Live Workspace was released today as public open beta available to anyone with a Windows Live ID. As part of what Bill Gates calls the company's "software plus services" approach, Live Workspace is less about editing online than about sharing and saving documents to the web.

Microsoft approaches the document collaboration project from the opposite side of Zoho and Google, adding choices in installed office applications for saving documents to the web, rather than starting on the web and letting you move the document to a local hard drive. Though it doesn't let you edit documents from a web-based interface, as the Google and Zoho alternatives do, Live Workspace lets users save Office documents directly to the web from the installed Microsoft Office apps—Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Outlook. It also gives them the ability to preview the document online.

You start by setting up an account using a Windows Live ID, and can then create multiple Workspaces for any groups you want to collaborate with. After that, sharing documents with members is just a matter of sending invitation emails. Collaborators can be designated as either Editors or Viewers. File locking works the same way it does in multiuser Office situations, with the usual choices of "Open as read only," notify when the file is available, and save as another filename. An Office Live toolbar installed in Office applications gives participants the choice to save documents to or open them from any shared Workspace.

Microsoft says users will be able to store a thousand or more documents online (the available space limit is 500MB), based on average file sizes. Security stems from the Windows Live ID requirement for all collaborators, and you get the same virus protection afforded by Microsoft Forefront Security for SharePoint&8212;courtesy of the service's being built on top of SharePoint. The service works in Internet Explorer 6.0 or later on Windows XP, Windows Server 2003, and Windows Vista; Firefox 2.0 on Windows XP, Windows Server 2003, and Windows Vista; or Firefox 2.0 on Mac OS X 10.2.x and later.

(Copied by http://www.pcmag.com/)

Apple Store opening, 14th Street, New York

2007-12-10T12:51:00.000+07:00

Apple has the amazing ability to turn the mundane—opening a new branch of a store in this case—into an event. I experienced this first hand with the opening of the 5th Avenue store in New York over a year ago. That gave me a few expectations heading into yesterday's grand opening of their new store on 14th street on the far West Side. But I thought there might be a number of key differences this time around that might thin the crowds somewhat.

For starters, the new store is now the third in Manhattan; the other two appear to be constantly packed (although I haven't visited the 24 hour one at four in the morning), so opening a third seems to be a no-brainer. Apple chose to put it in an area called the Meatpacking district (formerly home to slaughterhouses). This is an area that has recently become home to trendy clubs and restaurants, with a smattering of galleries and upscale boutiques.

So there was nothing like the first store's flagship status, nor the second's fantastic location and architectural distinction. There was simply no way that the third store was worth the same sort of attention. The timing of its opening wasn't brilliant, either, it being a Friday evening with the holidays closing in. Freezing temperatures and an afternoon dusting of snow should have intimidated people. I was all set for a far shorter line than the one I encountered at the 5th Avenue store opening. Man, was I ever mistaken.

I arrived a bit before 5pm, and the line was already huge. It looped around barricades down 14th Street at the store's entrance, turned north, and then headed halfway down the block on 15th street. I settled in at the end of the line, and people continued to stream in behind me. Eventually, Paul Kim of Noodlesoft joined me in line and held my place as I searched for its end. I caught sight of New Jersey before I finally came across the end of the line, which was now somewhere near where 14th ran into the West Side Highway. In between, police were busy trying to make sure cars could enter one of the few gas stations in Manhattan without running someone over; the owner appeared to be busy thanking them personally.

Aside from the area near the gas station, the back end of the line was largely self-organized and operated smoothly without any police or security involvement. Unfortunately, it all went to hell right near the store entrance, which had the largest concentration of security and police anywhere. Nobody bothered to put up barricades to separate the line from the intersection, and people simply piled in while the police and security announced that cutters were the other's responsibility.

Last opening, I published a picture of the lone line cutter I saw and was accused of racism; this time around, I'm pleased to report that the cutters belonged to nearly every ethnicity available. Pretty much the entire left third of the line in this photo has cut, and that included a woman who appeared to be a retiree. Probably the worst aspect of the cutters is that, after they squeezed into place, you were stuck standing next to someone who had just seriously pissed you off for an hour. The experience of waiting in these lines is largely based on who you are waiting with, especially when it's so cold that you're losing the feeling in your fingers. Therefore, standing next to someone you detest doesn't help matters.

Fortunately, my other neighbors in line (including Paul) had been excellent companions. When asked, most of them claimed they were whiling through several hours in the cold for the free stuff but—amazingly—they were mostly looking for t-shirts for other people. It was enough to raise my general opinion of humanity. A social worker that helps recovering addicts was there to nab one for her husband. Another, Melinda, was there because a friend, "the sortof close friend that you can't say no to," as she put it, had asked her to grab one. She'd dragged along a coworker in what was the first (and, quite possibly, the last) time they had decided to socialize outside the office.

I didn't have the heart to tell any of them that i suspected we were probably too far back in line to grab one (in part because I would have hated being wrong). Neither did a few of the other neighbors that had enough Apple Store experience to know as well. One man, an army brat who was from too many places to count, had been at 5th Ave. opening and iPhone day. Another couple, whose jobs had dragged them around the country, had hit opening days at local stores in about four different cities.

They made up a nice group to chat with as the line snaked towards the front of the store, where the cutters piled in and it became apparent that the line made a large loop down 14th St. Paul Kim reasonably decided that it was time for dinner, and the social worker started weighing the merits of grabbing a t-shirt on eBay. I started contemplating whether seeing the inside of the store in detail was really essential to this report.

Fortunately, at this point, conversation drifted in a way that brought up the fact that the multi-opening couple (the female half of which was warning the rest of us against succumbing to weakness and leaving) were scientists. One was now an administrator in the CUNY system, and we chatted a bit about alternate career paths for scientists. The other worked in the American Museum of Natural History on the phylogeny of the carnivores—we discussed whether I could stop by and see the working side of the museum.

Let that sink in for a second: I'm arranging possible science content for Ars while waiting in line at the Apple Store opening. I'm sure there's a message there somewhere, but what it is (beyond "don't send the Science Editor to cover Apple events") hasn't become clear to me yet.

That, plus the fact that my digits had gone numb, helped the remainder of the wait go quickly. Suddenly, we were rushing into the store. The women on my left, who had earlier convinced a pizza delivery guy to skip the actual delivery and sell it to them, were especially energetic. Unfortunately, they lost their footing during the rush, resulting in a multibody pile up. T-shirts were in fact gone, but Apple was still handing out posters in tubes with prize tokens inside, most of them $10 iTunes gift cards. This being one of those nights, I wound up with the iTunes card and a poster that had been ripped and crumpled a bit while being put in the tube. I'm very happy to report, though, that Melinda won an iPod Shuffle for her troubles.

While he was still around, Paul had indicated that the story would need a celebrity sighting. As time passed without one, he began suggesting that I could make one up; nobody would be able to say for sure that I was lying. I'm happy to report that Steven Colbert was in the store, and I have photos (above) to demonstrate it. Celebrity sighting—tick. Had I not been getting really hungry, I might have stopped and argued in favor of bears for a bit, but I decided not to interrupt his visit.

The store itself is nothing all that exceptional. It's got a corner location and large windows on the walls facing the street, giving it a much brighter, airier feel than the other two New York locations. Still, the building isn't architecturally distinguished, and there wasn't a lot Apple could do about that without replacing it. The interior has the same clean, uncluttered look of the rest of the stores.

The now-mandatory glass spiral staircase was impressive at two stories, but nothing out of the ordinary in Apple Store terms. If anything, it looks like Apple, compelled by its gradually rising market share, might have devoted a bit more space to computers in this store—there were two floors of computers to one devoted to iPods, and that's without any towers in sight. The new professional tutoring section was closed for the night, but indicated with signs. Possibly the most notable thing about the store, however, is how little I can find to say about it.

The only other thing worth mentioning is the location. The neighborhood is mostly notable for its nightlife, and it seems pretty unlikely that clubgoers are going to mean big business for an electronics store that closes at midnight. There are some galleries and clothing shops in the immediate area, too, but they appeared likely to be catering to an exclusive and small clientele. In short, it doesn't look like

So, the store is going to have to pull shoppers in on its own merits. Right now, nearly any retail location in New York will be doing well thanks to the incredibly weak dollar. Still, there are no other tourist attractions nearby, so I expect that the out-of-country shopping crowd will mostly give this branch a miss. That is a disappointment, since I was hoping it might reduce the crowds at the 5th Avenue location, which is easiest for me to reach.

The last factor that argues against a large audience for the new location is the fact that it's a long walk west from most of the subway lines, something that was driven home as I slogged across town to Union Square to catch the train that would get me closest to my apartment. On the platform, I saw someone walking my way carrying one of the boxes that had the elusive t-shirts, and I half-contemplated pleading with him on behalf of the social worker (I had her husband's phone number from when I loaned her my cell phone to call him). At that moment, I was distracted by a rat scurrying past on the tracks below; my attention lingered as it scampered past a $10 iTunes gift card that someone else had decided wasn't worth the effort and thrown onto the tracks. By the time I looked back up, the t-shirt and its new owner were gone.

(Copied By www.arstechnica.com)

Dell: Not the PC company you used to know

2007-12-07T10:16:00.000+07:00

Dell's high-profile marketing push this summer showcased its new line of pink, green, and red notebooks. But the most important color for the PC maker right now is Best Buy blue.

Dell has officially signed up Best Buy as a retail partner, the companies said Thursday. Several models of Dell's XPS and Inspiron PCs will be available at 900 Best Buy locations beginning after Christmas, including the very consumer-friendly XPS M1330 notebook, Inspiron 1420 notebook, and the XPS One desktop.

For a company that built its fortune and reputation on selling its products directly to consumers for more than two decades, the Best Buy deal marks a major historical shift.
"That's like going from being committed to one religion to being pagan," said Richard Shim, PC industry analyst at IDC. "They needed distribution, particularly to consumer retail, and Best Buy, that's center stage."

The move makes sense for Dell as, more and more, consumer retail sales are driving the growth in the PC industry. At some point Dell was forced to choose strict adherence to its historical business model or go where the money is. Being in front of consumers so they can see and touch a notebook or desktop before they commit to the purchase is important in a technology world where, increasingly, image is everything.

Plus, most people buying computers aren't as focused on the specific graphics card or processor their computer has. Rather, they want to see what colors it comes in and how durable and heavy a notebook will be.

Dell appears to recognize this. "We think people's shopping habits will mandate we have a presence at retail. People really want to see (the products)," Michael Tatelman, Dell vice president of consumer sales and marketing, said in an interview Thursday with CNET News.com.

While it's not the first retailer Dell has partnered with, Best Buy is decidedly different. It's the largest consumer electronics retailer in the U.S., and it epitomizes Dell's new commitment to putting its products directly in front of consumers, rather than just on a computer screen or in a catalog. Now Dell, which pioneered the model that cut out the PC retailer, will be just one of the other names on the shelf as consumers stroll the aisles--right next to Apple, Hewlett-Packard, Gateway, Acer, and Toshiba.

There are many reasons why this is a huge cultural shift for Dell. Among them, it's a whole different way of dealing with customers and selling them products, and most of the people in the company grew up on the direct model, with less experience in the PC retail market.
But it's also a necessary move.

"It's a big step for them. It's risky, but it's a gamble they had to make," said Shim. Dell has been ceding market share to HP for several quarters. As of the third quarter of this year, Dell shipped 27.8 percent of PCs sold in the U.S. HP is right behind with 24.1 percent of PCs shipped. And now it has to fend off an assault from Acer in the notebook category.

What it has going for itHaving Best Buy as a retail partner gives Dell deep coverage of all its target markets in the U.S.: Wal-Mart for the value-oriented customer, Staples for the small or medium business customer, and now Best Buy for mainstream retail customers.

While it's tough to compete with companies like HP and the fast-rising Acer that prove they understand the retail market, particularly in regard to notebooks, Dell does have a few things going its way: brand-name cachet and a renewed focus on industrial design that will make customers--used to seeing boring black or gray notebooks--give products like the XPS M1330 a second look.

An ambitious turnaround plan has been in the works since company founder Michael Dell returned to the chief executive's office in January. In April, he told employees that the company's direct model "has been a revolution, but is not a religion."
"Emotionally, the company was ready for it," Tatelman said. "The message was loud and clear that we were going to go and execute a multichannel strategy."

Since then, there have been deliberate changes to get a new consumer-focused business off the ground, including hiring high-level people with experience selling products in a retail environment.

The new retail strategy was first unveiled in May, when the company announced that some lower-end desktops and notebooks would be available in Wal-Mart and Sam's Club stores. In the past six months, they've continued to add to the list of retail locations worldwide, including Carphone Warehouse in the United Kingdom, Bic Camera in Japan, Gome in China, and Staples.
Michael Dell said last week during the company's earnings call with investors that more retail partners would be announced in some of the largest countries in the world. Best Buy is certainly not the end of this. The Best Buy deal brings the number of retail locations that sell Dell PCs to more than 10,000 worldwide. Dell's Tatelman said there will be another announcement regarding the retail availability of the XPS One before the Christmas holiday and it won't be a consumer electronics outlet. He declined to provide further details.

Though Dell did try retail back in the early '90s, the experiment didn't last long, chiefly because the consumer PC market was nowhere near as robust as today. So having to compete for consumer attention on the same shelves as its top competitors is new territory for Dell.
"It's going to be hard for them to make this change," said Shim of IDC. Dell is "used to having a very intimate relationship with customers."

Part of that relationship is having the exclusive attention of its customers buying a PC to upsell them on additional Dell items when they come to the company Web site. "Now it's no longer Dell saying, 'Hey, buy our printer.' Now it's a retail sales guy saying that if you buy a Dell system you can buy any one of these (other) printers," Shim said.

Other questions remain too. Like, how much will this cannibalize Dell's current direct customers? Dell says it expects a "pretty broad mix of folks" shopping both in retail partner stores and on its own Web site, but declined to say what kind of overlap there will be.
Because Dell has only been selling through the retail channel in volume for a couple months, there's not enough data to tell if retail sales are affecting its direct sales, observed Stephen Baker, vice president of industry analysis for The NPD Group. The cannibalization "will happen, but the level of it is really undetermined," he said.

Also, the timetable may be off for Dell to truly cash in on PCs sold at retail. HP has been enjoying the spike in consumer retail sales for two years now, and growth does appear to be slowing. So did Dell miss the boat?

"There's plenty of growth left in (the) consumer (retail market), however I do think that the biggest growth is by the boards already," said Baker. "So to some extent they're a little late...There was a huge demand for notebooks for a whole bunch of reasons and Dell missed a big chunk of that."

(Copied by http://www.news.com/)

Inflight E-Mail Takes Off With JetBlue

2007-12-07T09:32:00.000+07:00

The first free U.S. inflight e-mail and instant messaging service will launch next Tuesday aboard a JetBlue flight leaving Kennedy Airport in New York.

JetBlue Airways is working with Yahoo Inc. and Research In Motion Ltd. on the "BetaBlue" flight that will also carry passengers to San Francisco, according to The Wall Street Journal.
A JetBlue spokeswoman would only say that the carrier will release information on the "innovative onboard product" on Tuesday. Spokesmen for Yahoo and RIM could not be reached immediately for comment.

After several months of trial flights on the A320 aircraft, JetBlue will decide whether to install the system fleetwide. Wi-Fi-equipped laptops with Yahoo Mail or Yahoo Messenger clients will be able to send and receive e-mail and messages to people on the ground, while Wi-Fi-ready BlackBerry smart phones, including the 8820 and the Curve 8320, will be able to access BlackBerry e-mail and instant messages.

JetBlue conducted a test flight yesterday on the East Coast, in which a JetBlue spokesman was able to send an e-mail to a Journal reporter and receive a reply. Several airlines have discussed pilots of similar services and what to charge for them, but JetBlue's system is the first to take off with passengers.

(Copied by www.pcworld.com)

Lenovo Puts Power and Performance at Center Court with New ThinkStation Brand

2007-11-26T14:14:00.000+07:00

Lenovo today showcased its powerful new entry into the workstation PC market with the launch of the ThinkStation brand. Unveiled in cooperation with the NBA at the NBA Store, ThinkStation marks more than ten years since a major PC vendor has entered the workstation market¹.

As the first new Think brand introduced in five years, the ThinkStation S10 and D10 workstations are designed to offer Lenovo's highest performance and reliability for professionals in the most demanding data and graphics-intensive environments, such as computer-aided design/engineering, digital content creation, oil and gas exploration and electronic design automation.

The workstations are based on the upcoming Quad-Core Intel® Xeon® processor 5400 series and Intel® Core™2 Extreme processors, the first processors based on new 45-nanometer technology that nearly doubles the density of transistors on the chips for new levels of energy-efficient performance.

Two organizations highly dependent upon using the latest technologies, the AT&T Williams Formula One team and the NBA, are evaluating the workstations for possible integration into their operations.

"Since October 2006, we've depended on Lenovo technology to run NBA operations on and off the court, including the real time collection and transmission of NBA statistics at arenas across the country," said Steve Hellmuth, executive vice president, Operations and Technology, NBA. "Lenovo technology has worked flawlessly, exceeding our expectations in delivering the quality and performance our business demands. This workstation performs at a professional level and we look forward to exploring how ThinkStation can further enhance the game."

Workstation Designed for Maximum Performance and Usability
The dual processor ThinkStation D10 workstation will offer the Quad-Core Intel® Xeon® processor 5400 series, while the single processor ThinkStation S10 workstation will offer the latest Intel® Core 2 processors including the Intel® Core™2 Extreme processor QX9650 along with the latest graphics solutions from NVIDIA. They also come equipped with dual Gigabit Ethernet and multiple slots, bays and USB ports for expandability.

"For professional users of graphically and computationally-intensive applications who require a level of performance unattainable with a standard desktop PC, ThinkStation is Lenovo's best engineering at work," said Tom Tobul, executive director, Emerging Products Marketing, Lenovo. "In addition to offering Lenovo's highest performance and quality with leading-edge acoustics, the workstations also have an environmentally-responsible, user-centric design that further drives productivity."

Lenovo is collaborating with leading independent software vendors to obtain the certifications that ensure seamless hardware and software interaction. Lenovo will offer a variety of storage, graphics adapters, memory and rail kits for the workstations.

"Both Lenovo and Intel understand the challenges customers face, particularly the increased performance to handle evermore complex computational problems and visualization applications," said Pat Gelsinger, senior vice president and general manager, Digital Enterprise Group, Intel. "Lenovo and Intel combined their engineering expertise, Intel's groundbreaking processor technology and Lenovo's understanding of the client experience. The results are systems with greater efficiency, speed, memory and throughput to meet customers' needs."

Beyond the high-performance focus, Lenovo designed the workstations with the environment in mind by offering models complying with the Environmental Protection Agency's Energy Star® 4.0 requirements to help users manage energy usage and costs. The workstations feature 80 percent efficient power supplies. Additionally, they contain more than 50 percent recycled plastics content.

The workstations also incorporate usability along with their cutting-edge performance. Lenovo's user-centric design includes a removable top handle for moving the workstation easily in a variety of work environments as well as a side cover latch for easy access to the system. The workstations also include illuminated front I/O ports to help users work in multiple system and low light conditions. For a cool and quiet experience, Lenovo's unique thermal design provides workstation performance with the acoustics of a standard Lenovo desktop PC.

To help increase user productivity and reduce system downtime, the workstations come equipped with a range of ThinkVantage Technologies including Rescue and Recovery, Client Security System and Image Ultra Builder. These unique productivity tools help reduce the total cost of system ownership.

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New IBM Security Scanning Software Protects Businesses From Hackers

2007-11-19T11:30:00.000+07:00

IBM (NYSE: IBM) today introduced new software to help customers protect their business from today's most advanced and complex web application security attacks. The first release of IBM Rational AppScan, a market leading web application security technology acquired by IBM from Watchfire in July 2007, is a key-part of IBM's software portfolio that helps ensures high quality applications are delivered to the marketplace.

Web applications are high value targets for hackers, yet many organizations have a difficult time tackling security due, in part, to a lack of application security knowledge and the size and complexity of today's websites that incorporate the latest in Web 2.0 technology. Businesses need automated solutions capable of identifying and protecting applications from these weaknesses. IBM Rational AppScan identifies, validates and reports on application security vulnerabilities and with this new version, introduces new features and reporting methods for security auditors while enabling a broader pool of IT roles to participate in and drive critical web application security testing.

Traditionally, testers, developers, and IT professionals have lacked the specific security knowledge needed to effectively run scans. New capabilities in IBM Rational AppScan, such as Scan Expert and State Inducer, broaden the availability of this critical function so IT personnel, software developers and testers are capable of running successful scans while at the same time also add new features to assist security professionals.

Scan Expert packages the best practices of an expert such as automatically profiling an application and providing the best test configuration for a successful scan. This enables more successful scanning for users with little IBM Rational AppScan or web application security experience, while improving efficiency for more knowledgeable security experts.
Furthering its leadership in support of complex Web 2.0 technologies that includes support for Ajax and Flash, the new State Inducer feature introduces accurate assessment of multi-step processes within applications. These include adding to a shopping cart and checking out, filling multiple forms while applying for a loan, or booking an airline reservation. Until now, users would have to manually test each of these areas of the application. With State Inducer, IBM Rational AppScan can learn these sequences, ensuring they are accurately assessed for security issues, further automating, saving time and simplifying the testing process.
Cross site request forgery is a malicious Web site exploit in which an attacker can fake a request to a site gaining access to sensitive information. IBM Rational AppScan identifies areas in a Web site where businesses would be susceptible to cross-site forgery requests.

IBM Rational AppScan now includes educational material to help users build more secure applications. The product adds recorded web-based training (WBT) advisories that incorporate the industry's first application security training directly into the solution. WBT is an ideal way to educate non-security professionals on application security fundamentals and product best practices. With the rapid emergence of new compliance legislation, IBM Rational AppScan helps organizations comply with dozens of industry standards and has been updated to include a leading 44 out-of-the-box compliance reports including the Family Education Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA), and payment application best practices (PABP) as suggested by the credit card industry.

"With IBM Rational AppScan, Standard Chartered Bank is educating its developers and IT staff on the importance of web application security incorporated throughout the development lifecycle," said John Meakin, group head of information security, Standard Chartered Bank. "IBM Rational AppScan lets us establish best practice in our coding and testing processes, thereby ensuring the security and compliance of our web applications. This is reducing costs, enhancing the security of our products, and improving our security testing productivity."

Businesses today have hundreds of critical applications that need to be tested in a timely manner. Integrating security with quality management testing tools simplifies security testing and remediation throughout the software lifecycle. IBM has also introduced new enhancements to its IBM Rational software delivery portfolio to make it even easier for customers to deliver higher quality, scalable applications.

For example, telecommunications companies can now take advantage of IBM Rational Performance Tester's support for VoIP systems, internet telephony and instant messaging via SIP (session initiation protocol) -- a key standard in the telecommunications industry. New data-driven keyword testing capabilities in IBM Rational Manual testers now allows business users and manual testers to easily automate and reuse test assets without incurring excessive automation overhead and investment.

Best of breed security and quality testing solutions integrated from one vendor enables IBM customers to more effectively build security into their application delivery process.

"Traditionally, Web application security testing has been owned by security experts, but that is not enough to stay in synch with the requirements of processes within companies today," said Dr. Danny Sabbah, general manager, IBM Rational Software. "The addition of IBM Rational AppScan will help users save time and money by incorporating web application testing much earlier in the software lifecycle process."

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OLPC laptop production started

2007-11-17T13:37:00.000+07:00

A nonprofit group said on Tuesday production of a new laptop computer for children in developing countries had begun, a milestone that could shake up the PC industry by ushering in a new era of low-cost computing.

The One Laptop Per Child Foundation (OLPC), started in 2005 by MIT professor Nicholas Negroponte, said Taiwan's Quanta Computer Inc. had started mass production of its first product, the lime-green-and-white XO laptop computer, at a factory in Changshu, China.
The group has already announced orders for children in Uruguay and Mongolia. It also plans to offer the laptops to Americans and Canadians through a $399 holiday charity program that covers the cost of providing a second machine to a child overseas.

The device, which runs on free Linux software, has already had a significant impact on the industry. Negroponte has traveled the globe meeting world leaders and talking to the public about speeding introduction of computers to children in the developing world. The XO is designed for elementary school students who are given the machines to take to and from school, like textbooks.

Analysts said the publicity he generated, along with concern that his foundation's laptop might take business from commercial products, prompted companies, including chip maker Intel Corp. and software maker Microsoft Corp., to boost investment in developing countries.
It has also spurred the launch of a new class of low-cost computers for a market broader than schoolchildren.

Intel has developed the Classmate PC for the education market in developing countries, a laptop that it said costs $200 to build. So far, its biggest customer is Pakistan's Allama Iqbal Open University, which ordered 700,000.

Taiwan's Asustek Computer Inc. recently introduced a line of notebook computers, the Eee PCs, that retail for as little as $245 in some countries and are targeted at children and women.
On Friday, Wal-Mart Stores Inc. offered a limited number of laptops from Acer Inc. for $348. It is possible that Wal-Mart might repeat the promotion or that other retailers will offer similar deals during the holiday shopping season.

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CCTV - More Recent Developments

2007-11-16T10:33:00.000+07:00

The first CCTV (Closed-Circuit Television) cameras used in public spaces were crude, conspicuous, low definition black and white systems without the ability to zoom or pan. Modern CCTV cameras use small high definition colour cameras that can not only focus to resolve minute detail, but by linking the control of the cameras to a computer, objects can be tracked semi-automatically. For example, they can track movement across a scene where there should be no movement, or they can lock onto a single object in a busy environment and follow it. Being computerised, this tracking process can also work between cameras.

The implementation of automatic number plate recognition produces a potential source of information on the location of persons or groups.

There is no technological limitation preventing a network of such cameras from tracking the movement of individuals. Reports have also been made of plate recognition misreading numbers leading to the billing of the entirely wrong people.[18]

CCTV critics see the most disturbing extension to this technology as the recognition of faces from high-definition CCTV images. This could determine a persons identity without alerting him that his identity is being checked and logged. The systems can check many thousands of faces in a database in under a second. The combination of CCTV and facial recognition has been tried as a form of mass surveillance, but has been ineffective because of the low discriminating power of facial recognition technology and the very high number of false positives generated. This type of system has been proposed to compare faces at airports and seaports with those of suspected terrorists or other undesirable entrants.

Computerized monitoring of CCTV images is under development, so that a human CCTV operator does not have to endlessly look at all the screens, allowing an operator to observe many more CCTV cameras. These systems do not observe people directly. Instead they track their behaviour by looking for particular types of body movement behavior, or particular types of clothing or baggage. The theory behind this is that in public spaces people behave in predictable ways. People who are not part of the 'crowd', for example car thieves, do not behave in the same way. The computer can identify their movements, and alert the operator that they are acting out of the ordinary. Recently in the latter part of 2006, news reports on UK television brought to light new technology developed which uses microphones in conjunction with CCTV. If a person is observed to be shouting in an aggressive manner (i.e., provoking a fight), the camera can automatically zoom in and pinpoint the individual and alert a camera operator. Of course this then lead to the discussion that the technology can also be used to eavesdrop and record private conversations from a reasonable distance (e.g., 100 metres or about 330 feet).

The same type of system can track an identified individual as they move through the area covered by CCTV. This is being developed in the USA as part of the project co-funded by the US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. With software tools, the system will be able to develop three-dimensional models of an area and track/monitor the movement of objects within it.

To many, the development of CCTV in public areas, linked to computer databases of people's pictures and identity, presents a serious breach of civil liberties. Critics fear the possibility that one would not be able to meet anonymously in a public place or drive and walk anonymously around a city. Demonstrations or assemblies in public places could be affected as the state would be able to collate lists of those leading them, taking part, or even just talking with protesters in the street

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More Than 4,000 Products Wi-Fi CERTIFIED™ by the Wi-Fi Alliance®

2007-11-15T13:41:00.000+07:00

Austin, Texas - November 12, 2007 - The Wi-Fi Alliance today announced that more than 4,000 products have been Wi-Fi CERTIFED™ since the testing program began in March of 2000. Growth in the diversity of Wi-Fi-enabled product types, including consumer electronics and dual-mode mobile phones, as well as next-generation 802.11n draft 2.0 products, have led to the certification of more than 1,000 Wi-Fi®products over the last 15 months.

Wi-Fi CERTIFIED testing has grown at a rapid rate as manufacturers of networking and consumer Wi-Fi enabled products seek the Wi-Fi Alliance's "seal of approval" for industry-wide product interoperability and security. Contributing to this growth is the launch of the Wi-Fi CERTIFIED 802.11n draft 2.0 program in June of this year. The Wi-Fi Alliance has certified 140 products for 802.11n draft 2.0 since the program began. This is nearly three times the number of products certified for 802.11a/b/g in the first three months of their respective testing programs.

ABI Research predicts that by 2012, 90% of Wi-Fi chipsets shipped will support 802.11n. The increasing market adoption of this next-generation Wi-Fi technology is helping drive the 802.11n draft 2.0 certification rate.

"Wi-Fi has become a ubiquitous technology that is part of our daily lives, whether we are connecting at home, at work, at an airport, at a park, or at a local coffee shop. Wi-Fi CERTIFIED brings more confidence that Wi-Fi products will work together and have the latest security protections on board," said Karen Hanley, senior director of the Wi-Fi Alliance. "By offering Wi-Fi CERTIFIED products, manufacturers and telecom carriers help ensure higher customer satisfaction, which ultimately improves their bottom lines."

Market forecasts indicate rapid growth of Wi-Fi technology is set to continue into the future. ABI Research predicts as many as 1.2 billion Wi-Fi chipsets will ship in 2012. Of those shipments, more than 500 million are estimated to be in mobile handset devices and 326 million in consumer electronics. The research firm also predicts that in 2012, the Wi-Fi industry will generate more than $19 billion in Wi-Fi products in services.

"The 4,000 Wi-Fi CERTIFIED products milestone illustrates the growing awareness and value of the Wi-Fi CERTIFIED brand as well as manufacturers' commitment to provide users a positive experience with Wi-Fi-enabled products," said Stan Schatt, vice president and research director, Networking, ABI Research.

Consumers and enterprise users of Wi-Fi products can find a comprehensive list of the more than 4,000 Wi-Fi CERTIFIED products -- phones, gaming devices, cameras, laptops, access points and more

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VoIP

2007-11-15T10:54:00.000+07:00

Voice over Internet Protocol, also called VoIP (pronounced voyp), IP Telephony, Internet telephony, Broadband telephony, Broadband Phone and Voice over Broadband is the routing of voice conversations over the Internet or through any other IP-based network.

Companies providing VoIP service are commonly referred to as providers, and protocols which are used to carry voice signals over the IP network are commonly referred to as Voice over IP or VoIP protocols. They may be viewed as commercial realizations of the experimental Network Voice Protocol (1973) invented for the ARPANET providers. Some cost savings are due to utilizing a single network to carry voice and data, especially where users have existing underutilized network capacity that can carry VoIP at no additional cost. VoIP to VoIP phone calls are sometimes free, while VoIP to public switched telephone networks, PSTN, may have a cost that is borne by the VoIP user.

Voice over IP protocols carry telephony signals as digital audio, typically reduced in data rate using speech data compression techniques, encapsulated in a data packet stream over IP.

There are two types of PSTN to VoIP services: Direct Inward Dialing (DID) and access numbers. DID will connect the caller directly to the VoIP user while access numbers require the caller to input the extension

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iPhoto '08

2007-11-15T10:33:00.000+07:00

The new version of iPhoto ditches the old idea of "film rolls" for "events," collections of photos themed by day or time. Events are automatically generated by date, with some flexibility as to where to draw the lines; you can then merge or split events to make them more accurate. Think of them as the raw material for albums. Once you have, say, 176 photos in your "Miami Trip" event, you can flick your mouse over the event's thumbnail to "skim" through the included pics, or expand the event to full screen to pick out the photos you want. The date-focused events also take the place of a timeline. Skimming through and merging events was speedy, even in my 20,000-photo library. I ran into only one problem: iPhoto relies heavily on EXIF data from your digital camera, and if the camera put the wrong dates on your photos, pictures will be spewed all over your timeline; fortunately, it's possible to batch-change dates by hand. Still, I'd recommend making sure the date is right in your camera if you're going to be upgrading to iLife '08.

iPhoto '08 keeps iPhoto's basic, easy-to-use editing tools (including a blemish remover and flexible sharpness and noise-reduction filters) and adds a new one: a "straighten" command that lets you rotate a photo freely until it's right.

The '08 version expands iPhoto's printing and sharing options, too. New printed book options include a spiral-bound softcover, there are new greeting-card styles, and there's a one-touch button to publish to a slick AJAX-enabled gallery on your .Mac account or to autogenerate iWeb pages.

On the Windows side, Sharpcast and Phanfare do similar tricks, and Sharpcast is free. But no other program brings together all the pieces of management, printing and sharing in something quite so fun and easy to use. For Mac users, there's no better option than the new iPhoto

(Copied by : www.pcmag.com)

AMD Phenom X4 Retail Prices Surface

2007-11-14T12:35:00.000+07:00

Chicago (IL) – If we ever had some doubt that AMD would be able to deliver its desktop quad-core processors in time for Christmas, there are now signs that a release of the CPUs may be closer than we previously thought: Several online stores have published retail prices of AMD’s new processors, indicating how AMD’s new CPUs will be competing with Intel’s Penryn processors.

Curious minds anticipating the launch of the new processors can check Google’s Product Search as well as the usual suspects such as it4profit.com to see in which price range AMD’s Phenom CPU may land. At this time, three CPUs are being published. The 2.2 GHz Phenom X4 9500, the 2.3 GHz 9600 and the 2.4 GHz 9700. While we always have to take these pre-launch prices with a grain of salt, it is already clear that AMD will be aggressive in its pricing and is unlikely to be able to attack Intel in the $500+ segment.

The 9500 is currently indicated to hit the retail market in the $260-$270 range; the 9600 could be available for prices between $290 and $300 and the 9700 is listed for prices between $310 and $330. These numbers would put the new Phenoms squarely against Intel’s new Penryn quad-core desktop processors, which are scheduled to debut with the high-end QX9650 next Monday.

According to sources, Intel will not deviate from the pricing strategy that has been in place since the introduction of the Core architecture in July of last year. Its high-end enthusiast chip (QX9650, 3.0 GHz, 12 MB L2 cache) will launch at $999, the high-end mainstream-processor (in this case the Q9550, 2.83 GHz, 12 MB L2 cache) at $530 and the mainstream versions below at $316 (Q9450, 2.66 GHz, 12 MB L2 cache) and $266 (Q9300, 2.50 GHz, 6 MB L2 cache). History tells us that retail prices of these new processors will be substantially higher for at least several weeks after launch.

If AMD follows through with its strategy, then the new dual-core (Phenom X2) will be positioned below the $260 mark to compete with Intel’s Penryn-based dual-cores E8500 (3.16 GHz, 6 MB L2 cache, $266), E8400 (3.0 GHz, $183), E8300 (2.83 GHz, $174) and E8200 (2.66 GHz, $163).

While quad-core pricing is now nearing mainstream levels and quad-core PCs may become more affordable for more consumers, dual-core systems will continue to dominate the desktop market for the foreseeable time. In that view, it will be interesting to see how AMD will position its triple-core Phenom X3 against Intel’s dual-core CPUs – and between its own X2 and X4 processors.

The company will have to shift pricing of either the dual-cores or the quad-cores and, from today’s view, there appears to be virtual no chance for AMD to increase pricing of its X4 CPUs. It is more likely that the company will drop the prices of its X2 chips to protect its higher-margin X4 processors, which in turn, could put some pressure on Intel’s dual-core processors and ring in a new round of the price war between the two companies.

(Copied by : www.tgdaily.com)

Apple Patches Security Hole With iPhone Update

2007-11-13T12:57:00.000+07:00

Apple has pushed out its iPhone 1.1.2 firmware update to users of its popular mobile phone, fixing a widely publicized bug in the iPhone's browser.

Apple made the software available for download last Thursday, but on Monday it began pushing it out automatically to users via its iTunes updating mechanism.The iPhone uses iTunes to scan for security updates once per week, so users will gradually be offered this new firmware over the next seven days.

The update fixes a bug in the way that the iPhone renders TIFF (Tagged Image File Format) images.

The bug patch is a bit of a mixed blessing for iPhone enthusiasts. While it fixes a critical security vulnerability, that flaw had been used by iPhone developers in the unauthorized Jailbreak software that is used to run third-party applications. The update makes it difficult for users of brand-new iPhones to install Jailbreak.

Apple has been in a tug of war with some developers who have had to circumvent Apple's security measures in order to get their software to run on the iPhone. Apple initially wanted to prevent all third-party code from running directly on its mobile device, but in recent months the company has reversed course and promised to give developers a way to run their code on the iPhone. This software development kit (SDK) will become available in February 2008.

Apple's unauthorized developers have already found a way to stay ahead of Apple's latest software update.

Users with Jailbreak on their iPhone 1.1.1 systems are being advised to first install an application called OktoPrep, according to a post on the Unofficial Apple Weblog. This allows them to update to 1.1.2 without compromising their ability to run unauthorized software on the device.

(Copied by : www.computerworld.com)

Oracle Aims For The Simple Life

2007-11-13T10:58:00.000+07:00

SAN FRANCISCO—Gone, for the moment, at least, is the pulse and presentation of glitz and glam that was so prevalent in past years at Oracle OpenWorld. This year's conference at Moscone Center seems to be more about calm reassurance than pumping up the future.

While questions surrounding Fusion Middleware – and Oracle's potentially pending acquisition of BEA – remain unanswered, Oracle President Charles Phillips focused on helping customers simplify complexity.

"The biggest problem in the industry is the complexity of environments. It's a complex problem and the way to attack it is to break it up into chunks, solve one problem at a time. You had no other choice – the size of the problem was so big. The result is a fragmented tech stack with boundaries between processes," said Phillips during his Monday address here.

Phillips said the Application Integration Architecture [AIA], a process integration framework that was announced some months ago, will help customers integrate best-of-breed applications without the customary pain associated with this type of integration.

A lot of that pain could be said to being caused by Oracle itself, given that it has acquired many of the best of breed applications companies out there.

"We've done 41 acquisitions in 45 months," Phillips admitted. "My head is spinning. And you might be asking, 'what is the purpose behind all this.' Let me summarize why, what's changed and what our strategy is."

Phillips said that Oracle now has the infrastructure, applications and integration technology needed to handle customers' integration quagmires. "Now that we are at scale – we had the resources, the capital and hopefully the vision – let us step back and do that for you," said Phillips. "Let us take integration off your shoulders. We're good at it. We're going to do integration differently than in the past."

Phillips also said customers should lean on Oracle's Application Integration Architecture [AIA], a process integration framework announced some months ago, that allows customers to integrate application components based on industry-specific configurations or packaged process integrations put together by Oracle.

To this end, the company on Monday announced another significant aspect to that architecture in the form of its AIA Foundation Pack.

Developed for Oracle's Fusion Middleware stack, the Foundation Pack provides access to Oracle objects, services, methodologies and infrastructure components to develop their own end-to-end process integrations, officials said.

PointerTo read about Oracle getting competant, click here.

The idea is that by providing customers with a reference architecture and reusable Web services and objects, users have a common model approach to integrate applications – and create composite applications based on those application (or component) integrations.

While Phillips didn't mention the Foundation Pack at all during his keynote address – odd given the focus on AIA during a half dozen or so demos of the integration framework based on different departmental and industry scenarios – the ability for users to create composite applications using AIA is really quite a big step.

eWEEK.com Special Report: Oracle's Security Woes

But it leads to several fundamental questions: What about Fusion Middleware? The impetus for Fusion Middleware is to integrate Oracle applications with third-party applications and, through its BPEL [Business Process Execution Language] engine, to orchestrate and integrate processes. While AIA is clearly defined as using Fusion Middleware as its underlying infrastructure, it's not clear why Oracle felt the need to develop AIA on top of Fusion Middleware.

And why did the company feel the need to acquire BEA Systems last month?

"I don't understand the whole BEA thing," said one Oracle customer, Steve Canter, CIO of Berlin Packaging, in an October interview with eWeek. "If Fusion Middleware were as great as Oracle is saying, why yet another middleware [company]?"

Indeed, while Phillips was urging customers to let Oracle reduce the complexity, left unanswered is why Oracle was adding the complexity to begin with.

(Copied by: www.eweek.com)

What is Computer?

2007-11-13T09:41:00.000+07:00

A programmable machine. The two principal characteristics of a computer are:

It responds to a specific set of instructions in a well-defined manner.

It can execute a prerecorded list of instructions (a program).

Modern computers are electronic and digital. The actual machinery -- wires, transistors, and circuits -- is called hardware; the instructions and data are called software.

All general-purpose computers require the following hardware components:

memory : Enables a computer to store, at least temporarily, data and programs.
mass storage device : Allows a computer to permanently retain large amounts of data. Common mass storage devices include disk drives and tape drives.
input device : Usually a keyboard and mouse, the input device is the conduit through which data and instructions enter a computer.
output device : A display screen, printer, or other device that lets you see what the computer has accomplished.
central processing unit (CPU): The heart of the computer, this is the component that actually executes instructions.

In addition to these components, many others make it possible for the basic components to work together efficiently. For example, every computer requires a bus that transmits data from one part of the computer to another.

Computers can be generally classified by size and power as follows, though there is considerable overlap:

personal computer : A small, single-user computer based on a microprocessor. In addition to the microprocessor, a personal computer has a keyboard for entering data, a monitor for displaying information, and a storage device for saving data.
workstation : A powerful, single-user computer. A workstation is like a personal computer, but it has a more powerful microprocessor and a higher-quality monitor.
minicomputer : A multi-user computer capable of supporting from 10 to hundreds of users simultaneously.
mainframe : A powerful multi-user computer capable of supporting many hundreds or thousands of users simultaneously.
supercomputer : An extremely fast computer that can perform hundreds of millions of instructions per second.

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About The Computer Society

2007-11-13T09:27:00.000+07:00

With nearly 90,000 members, the IEEE Computer Society is the world's leading organization of computer professionals. Founded in 1946, it is the largest of the 39 societies of the IEEE.

The IEEE Computer Society's vision is to be the leading provider of technical information, community services, and personalized services to the world's computing professionals.

The Society is dedicated to advancing the theory, practice, and application of computer and information processing technology. Through its conferences, applications-related and research-oriented journals, local and student chapters, e-learning campus, technical committees, and standards working groups, the Society promotes an active exchange of information, ideas, and technological innovation among its members. In addition, the Society maintains close ties with the US Computing Sciences Accreditation Board and Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology, monitoring and evaluating curriculum accreditation guidelines.

With about 40 percent of our members living and working outside the United States, the Computer Society fosters international communication, cooperation, and information exchange. To meet the needs of our members conveniently and efficiently, the Society maintains a service center office in Tokyo, Japan; a publications office in Los Alamitos, California; and its headquarters in Washington, DC.

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