EliteTechNews

Microsoft Bids $44.6B for Yahoo; Targets Google

2008-02-01T22:58:00.000-05:00

The unsolicited offer to buy online search-engine giant Yahoo for $44.6 billion would let Microsoft challenge Google for advertising revenues. Microsoft sees profitable synergies from acquiring Yahoo and says the deal would benefit both Microsoft and Yahoo shareholders and accelerate online innovation. Google is currently dominant in online advertising.

The rumors are reality.

On Friday, Microsoft Relevant Products/Services revealed it has made a $44.6 billion offer for Yahoo. Microsoft's offer equals $31 a share, a 62 percent premium to Yahoo's closing stock price on Thursday, with half cash and half Microsoft common stock.

The acquisition would be Microsoft's largest, would offer relief to Yahoo shareholders who have watched the search-engine giant's stock struggle, and would give Google a fierce competitor for advertising. Yahoo officials could not immediately be reached for comment on the offer, which came in the form of a letter to Yahoo's board of directors.

"We have great respect for Yahoo, and together we can offer an increasingly exciting set of solutions for consumers, publishers and advertisers while becoming better positioned to compete in the online services market," Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer said. "We believe our combination will deliver superior value to our respective shareholders and better choice and innovation to our customers and industry partners."

The Advertising Game

The online advertising market is growing fast, from more than $40 billion in 2007 to nearly $80 billion projected by 2010. Today this market is increasingly dominated by one player: Google.

"The combination of these two great teams would enable us to jointly deliver a broad range of new experiences to our customers that neither of us would have achieved on our own," said Ray Ozzie, chief software architect at Microsoft. This combination has been rumored for some time, and Microsoft talked with Yahoo last year about alliances or a merger. But Yahoo declined to be acquired. This year, the response may be different.

As Microsoft sees it, the merger would create a more efficient company with synergies in four areas: scale economics driven by audience size and increased value for advertisers; combined engineering talent to accelerate innovation; operational efficiencies by eliminating redundant costs; and innovation in emerging user experiences such as video and mobile. Microsoft believes these four areas could be worth at least $1 billion a year.

"The combined assets and strong services focus of these two companies will enable us to achieve scale economics while reaching R&D critical mass to deliver innovation breakthroughs," said Kevin Johnson, president of the Platforms & Services Division of Microsoft. "The industry will be well served by having more than one strong player, offering more value and real choice to advertisers, publishers and consumers."

A Brand New Yahoo

Yahoo's stock jumped nearly 60 percent in pre-market trading Friday morning, reflecting investors' positive reaction to the proposed acquisition. Even though Yahoo's stock has been battered in recent quarters, Microsoft's offer is a statement of the Internet brand's inherent value, according to Greg Sterling, principal analyst at Sterling Market Intelligence.

"Yahoo is still one of the largest sites on the Internet and Microsoft is recognizing that acquiring the company would accelerate its Internet business in a way that it could not do on its own without this acquisition," Sterling said, noting that Microsoft's offer could flush out other bidders, including Google, AT&T or News Corp.

Even if Yahoo declines Microsoft's offer, Sterling said, Yahoo is not going to be the same company after today.

"A process has started that will change the company forever," Sterling noted. "We're either going to see a Microsoft acquisition, an acquisition by some other company, or a strategic relationship that Yahoo enters into. But we won't see the exact same Yahoo going forward that we saw yesterday."

Source: http://www.toptechnews.com/story.xhtml?story_id=00100014IQ05

Sweden Charges Operators of Pirate Bay

2008-02-01T22:50:00.000-05:00

The infamous Pirate Bay file-sharing Web site decentralized with BitTorrent, so Sweden is charging its four operators with conspiracy rather than copyright infringement. But a poster to the Pirate Bay blog remained defiant. Any fine for the Pirate Bay operators will depend on what profit, if any, they made. One Pirate Bay operator says expenses ate up all revenues.

After more than a year of investigation into the operation of the infamous Pirate Bay BitTorrent tracking site, Swedish authorities have formally charged its operators -- Fredrik Neij, Gottfrid Svartholm, Peter Sunde and Carl Lundström -- with conspiracy to break Swedish and international copyright laws.

The charges stem from an infamous raid of Pirate Bay in May 2006, during which authorities seized the company's servers. The site resumed operation just three days later, and since that time the Pirate Bay owners have aggressively decentralized the service.

In the meantime, Swedish authorities devoted tremendous resources to the case, producing more than 4,500 pages of documents. According to a recent post on the Pirate Bay blog, interested individuals can purchase a paper copy of those records for approximately $1,000.

The four men face fines of up to $200,000 each, confiscation of all hardware used to operate the site, and up to two years in prison. But that possibility was scoffed at by an anonymous poster to the Pirate Bay blog:

"In case we lose the pending trial (yeah, right) there will still not be any changes to the site," the defiant writer said. "The Pirate Bay will keep operating just as always. We've been here for years and we will be here many more."

Meta-Copyright Violations?

The charges against the four Pirate Bay operators are the latest salvo by content creators against web sites and technologies that make it easier for Internet users to download unauthorized copies of movies, television shows and music. The fact that the Pirate Bay operators were charged with conspiracy rather than actual copyright infringement stems from the unique nature of the service offered.

Rather than offer actual downloads of content, Pirate Bay lists only BitTorrent files -- a metadata file that contains information about where a BitTorrent client can find the content referenced in the file. In essence, a BitTorrent file is a directory listing of where content can be downloaded from participating computers across the Internet.

Pirate Bay pays for bandwidth, hardware and other costs by selling advertising for its site. Advertisers during a recent visit included a human pheromone retailer, online dating services, and Orbitz.

The amount of the fine faced by the Pirate Bay operators depends in part on the amount of profit generated by the site. In various interviews, Peter Sunde has denied that Pirate Bay is profitable, saying its expenses absorb whatever advertising revenues it generates.

Copyright Holders Applaud

IFPI, a group representing the global recording industry, praised the conspiracy charges.

"The Pirate Bay operation has caused massive financial damage to rights holders," said Ludvig Werner, chairman of IFPI Sweden. "The profiteers behind The Pirate Bay have no interest in free speech, and they are not running The Pirate Bay because they love music and films. They are totally mercenary and are driven by the desire for personal wealth."

Source: http://www.toptechnews.com/story.xhtml?story_id=0010003B3XV2

Intel and Micron Offer High-Speed NAND

2008-02-01T22:49:00.001-05:00

Up to 5 times faster than conventional NAND flash memory, the new high-speed NAND chips are being jointly developed by Intel and Micron. The new NAND flash memory supports the ONFI 2.0 specification and Intel and Micron expect it to propel development of solid-state storage. Intel and Micron said the technology is compatible with older NAND designs.

A new, high-speed NAND flash-memory technology, released today by Intel and Micron Technology, could propel the use of solid-state storage in video cameras, PCs and other devices.

The technology enables data transfer as much as five times faster than conventional NAND. It was developed jointly by the companies, and is being manufactured by their joint venture, IM Flash Technologies. The announced speeds are up to 200 megabytes per second for reading data, and 100 megabytes per second for writing.

Regular NAND offers speeds of up to 40 megabytes per second for reading and up to 20 megabytes for writing. Micron said the new speeds are "the fastest read and write throughputs ever for a NAND flash device."

Supports New ONFI 2.0 Spec

According to the companies, the technology accomplishes these speeds through a four-plane architecture with higher clock speeds. It is designed for use with the new Open NAND Flash Interface Working Group (ONFI) 2.0 specification, as well as the previous 1.0 spec. Intel and Micron said this allows both backward compatibility and forward-looking designs. The recently released 2.0 spec provides for a high-speed, standard NAND flash-memory interface with higher performance and shorter development cycles.

"Think of a NAND chip as a football field," advised Gartner analyst Martin Reynolds. The companies are now cutting the field into four sections, he said, which reduces travel distance and increases speed. The speed improvement, he added, will help NAND memory be competitive with hard drives if the user only needs relatively small capacities.

Pete Hazen, marketing director of the Intel NAND Product Group, said the technology "will enable new embedded solutions and removable solutions that take advantage of high-performance system interfaces," such as USB 3.0. The USB 3.0 specification provides for as much as 10 times the bandwidth of current USB 2.0, at about 4.8 gigabits per second.

New Applications

The companies envision a variety of new applications for high-speed NAND. The new memory chips, they said, can increase the performance of a hybrid hard drive, enabling between two and four times the speed of conventional drives. For video, high-speed NAND can allow a high-definition movie to be transferred from a digital video camera or from video-on-demand services up to five times faster than conventional NAND.

On the PC, the companies noted that the Non-Volatile Memory Host Controller (NVMHCI) can achieve better system performance with Intel Turbo Memory using high-speed NAND. NVMHCI is a software programming interface for operating-system drivers to access NAND flash-memory storage in hard-drive caching and solid-state drives.

NAND flash is nonvolatile, solid-state memory that can retain data even when power is turned off. It uses a large array of transistors to store data, and its lack of moving parts makes it particularly valuable as a memory solution for portable devices, such as MP3 players and USB drives.

Source: http://www.toptechnews.com/story.xhtml?story_id=001000433BAF

Yahoo Plans 1,000 Layoffs, Sees Growth as Profits Fall

2008-01-30T15:15:00.001-05:00

Yahoo indicated the job cuts will allow it to make investments for growth in the future. Yahoo's profits declined 23 percent even as revenues rose. CEO Jerry Yang said this is a pivotal time for Yahoo and Yahoo needs to make investments for the future. The job cuts will be made in February.

Yahoo said it will cut 1,000 jobs in February as it announced profits fell 23 percent in its fiscal fourth quarter.

It said Tuesday that net income for the quarter ended Dec. 31 fell to $206 million, or 15 cents a share, from $269 million, or 19 cents a share, for the year-ago period. Stock-based compensation and other expenses contributed to the decline. Operating income for the quarter fell 38 percent to $191 million from $308 million a year ago.

Revenues climbed 8 percent to $1.8 billion from $1.7 billion a year ago. Marketing services, which includes online advertising revenue, climbed 7 percent to $1.6 billion from $1.5 billion. And revenue from Web sites owned by Yahoo grew 23 percent as sales on affiliate sites rose 13 percent.

Yang Points to Future

Yahoo co-founder and CEO Jerry Yang said this is a pivotal time for the business, and the company has an opportunity to make investments that will help it capture a significant piece of the growing ad market and create long-term value for its shareholders.

"We are executing aggressively against Yahoo's three big strategic priorities and that hard work is starting to bear fruit, as evidenced by the 20 percent year-over-year growth in O&O marketing services we achieved in the fourth quarter," Yang said. "While we will continue to face headwinds this year, we believe that the moves we are making will help us exit 2008 stronger and more competitive and return to higher levels of operating cash flow growth in 2009."

Yahoo President Sue Drucker said the steps Yahoo has taken over the the past year represent fundamental changes to virtually every aspect of Yahoo's business. She expressed confidence that they will drive Yahoo's growth.

"Even as we increase investment in key areas of our business, we're making tough but necessary decisions to streamline our organization and redeploy assets to our most promising technology and marketing initiatives," Drucker said. "We still have a tremendous amount of work to do, but we're confident we can substantially improve our users' experiences and achieve meaningful incremental monetization opportunities for Yahoo's own ad inventory and that of our partners."

More Changes in Yahoo's Future?

Greg Sterling, principal analyst at Sterling Market Intelligence, questioned whether Yahoo's goals are clear enough. Those goals are becoming the starting point for Internet consumers, becoming a central ad platform, and becoming an open platform for third-party publishers and developers.

"Those are broad strategic ambitions, but the question is, how does Yahoo do those things? Can Yahoo put itself on a strong course toward achieving those objectives?" Sterling asked.

Analysts are speculating that if Yahoo can't find its path to growth, it will face enormous pressure to lay off more employees or make a dramatic move, such as an acquisition or merger.

"Yahoo won't be able to ignore pressure from institutional investors who are frustrated with what seems to be the absence of bold initiatives," Sterling said. "Yang is trying to buy the company some time and manage expectations."

Source: http://www.toptechnews.com/story.xhtml?story_id=13200C4QFZNO

Skyfire Shows iPhone-Like Browsing for Windows Mobile

2008-01-30T15:08:00.001-05:00

Skyfire says its mobile browser makes the Web experience like on Apple's iPhone -- on Windows Mobile smartphones. Unveiled at DEMO 08, Skyfire says its mobile browser can even use Flash, Ajax or Java technologies thanks to pages reformatted by Skyfire's servers. Skyfire says the technology for Windows Mobile provides "real Web" support.

In a development that makes clear the revolutionary impact of Apple's iPhone, a start-up company unveiled at the DEMO 08 conference a new mobile Web browser that may bring iPhone-like browsing to phones running Windows Mobile 5 and 6.

Skyfire, currently in private beta, makes mobile browing "just like" using the Web on a PC, the company said, even if sites are built with Flash, Ajax or Java technologies. What's more, the company said, smartphone browsing isn't any slower than browsing on a computer.

And just like on the iPhone, users can watch YouTube movies, interact with social networks and listen to streaming music, the company added.

'Real Web' Support

"For too long consumers have been promised the 'real Web' on their phone, only to be disappointed by slow rendering, error messages, no Flash support, watered-down WAP pages or second-rate mobile versions of their favorite site," Skyfire CEO Nitin Bhandari said. He added that Skyfire eliminates all those frustrations "at a speed not seen before." The Skyfire browser, he said, will "fundamentally change" how people use smartphones.

Chris Shipley, executive producer of DEMO, called Skyfire a "simple and elegant" product that addresses "one of the biggest pain points in the mobile experience today."

Skyfire's ability to let smartphones handle video could be a milestone in the growth of rich media on the mobile platform, currently at only 18 percent, said Seamus McAteer, senior analyst for M:Metrics. "Technologies that improve the user experience of mobile applications will bolster the adoption of mobile media as it becomes increasingly mainstream," he said.

iPhone-Like Browsing on 3G

Apple developed a special version of its Safari browser for the iPhone. While major handset makers like have rushed out iPhone copycats with touch screens and MP3 players, they have so far failed to match the iPhone's seamless Web browsing.

Coupled with a data plan from AT&T, Apple's exclusive carrier partner, iPhone buyers can browse the same Web sites they view on computers, not dumbed-down versions tweaked for mobile browsing with such technologies as Wireless Application Protocol (WAP).

But one of the major gripes of iPhone owners is that they are locked in to AT&T's poky Edge network. Buyers of Windows Mobile smartphones, on the other hand, can use the carrier of their choice, and many of those phones work on speedy 3G networks.

Protocol is Key

How does Skyfire do it? In press interviews, Bhandari said Skyfire spent the past 18 months developing an efficient protocol that Skyfire servers transcode every web page into. By having the servers recode the pages into a format the phones can handle, users experience fast, rich Web browsing.

"The delay added by the server Relevant Products/Services is actually such a small percentage of the time we're actually saving ... that it's actually a huge benefit in the end-user experience," Bhandari said.

Skyfire plans to release a version for Nokia's Symbian platform within several months and support for other platforms is in the works. Bhandari said the company may develop versions for Google's Android platform and the iPhone as software development kits become available. As always, search and advertising are potential revenue models.

Source: http://www.toptechnews.com/story.xhtml?story_id=13200CZAOZUO

Oracle, Sun Deals Muddle Middleware Market

2008-01-30T15:00:00.001-05:00

Oracle's deal for BEA could be more important over time for Oracle in the middleware and enterprise arenas, according to Charles King, principal analyst at Pund-IT. By comparison, Sun's agreement with MySQL looks like small potatoes but could be equally transformative by enhancing Sun's software offerings.

The tech world is still buzzing about announcements by Sun Microsystems that it will acquire MySQL AB and by Oracle that it will acquire BEA Systems. The deals muddle the middleware market, according to some analysts.

Sun's acquisition is front and center, and Sun believes it has two strategic advantages. First, it accelerates the company's position in enterprise IT to now include the $15 billion database Relevant Products/Services market. Second, it gives Sun a stake in the popular LAMP (Linux Apache MySQL Perl/Python/PHP) open-source software stack.

"MySQL's employees and culture, along with its near ubiquity across the Web, make it an ideal fit with Sun's open approach to network innovation," said Jonathan Schwartz, Sun CEO and president. "And most importantly, this announcement boosts our investments into the communities at the heart of innovation on the Internet and of enterprises that rely on technology as a competitive weapon."

Everybody's SQL?

With millions of global deployments, including Facebook, Google, Nokia, Baidu and China Mobile, Sun is confident MySQL will bring synergies that will change the software industry by driving new adoptions of MySQL's open-source database in more traditional applications and enterprises. Sun is betting that integrating MySQL into its offerings will extend the commercial appeal of the open-source database.

MySQL is already widely deployed across all major computer operating systems, hardware vendors, geographies, industries and applications. More than 100 million copies of MySQL's high-performance database have been downloaded, and an additional 50,000 copies are downloaded daily.

According to Oracle, the addition of BEA's products and technology will significantly enhance Oracle's Fusion middleware software suite. By acquiring BEA assets, including its WebLogic application server Relevant Products/Services products, Oracle looks to enhance its position as a provider of unified Relevant Products/Services middleware solutions for enterprise data centers.

The IBM Factor

Anyone who thought 2007 was the high-water mark in IT acquisitions and industry consolidation Relevant Products/Services may want to buy a wet suit, according to Charles King, principal analyst at Pund-IT. Although BEA does not qualify as Oracle's biggest-ever purchase, he said, the deal could prove to be more important for the company over time.

By comparison, King continued, Sun's agreement with MySQL looks like small potatoes but could be equally transformative. The motives for the acquisitions are different. Oracle is enhancing its position; Sun is seeking to establish one.

"Since the ascension of Jonathan Schwartz to CEO, the company has deliberately moved forward on two separate yet parallel tracks: toward strengthened positions in software and open-source development. The results have been mixed, at best," King said. "Sun is a major contributor to a number of open-source efforts, but has also suffered the bile of critics who reviled its cautious approach to open-sourcing proprietary company assets like Solaris and Java."

Perhaps the most important factor in both of these deals is one not mentioned in either -- IBM. The fact is that just as IBM has come to represent the gold standard in IT services, its highly integrated middleware strategy and development efforts have enabled the company to compete head-to-head with and regularly beat specialists such as Oracle, and to entirely surpass the efforts of traditional systems competitors like Sun, King said.

"If imitation truly is the sincerest form of flattery," he concluded, "in the case of both Oracle's purchase of BEA and Sun's MySQL deal, IBM should feel very flattered, indeed."

Source: http://www.toptechnews.com/story.xhtml?story_id=132007RJZR2O

AMD's ATI Claims Lead with Dual-Chip Graphics Card

2008-01-30T14:36:00.000-05:00

ATI's success may have a halo effect for AMD as a whole, said Roger Kay of Endpoint Technologies. AMD's new ATI Radeon HD 3870 X2 with two processors is aimed at the gaming world and is the first graphics chipset to support Microsoft's DirectX 10.1 specification for Windows Vista.

AMD announced Monday that it has put two processors on a single graphics board, a development it says leapfrogs technology from Nvidia, its chief competitor in the graphics space.

The new ATI Radeon HD 3870 X2 combines two Radeon HD 3870 processors connected by the company's CrossFire technology, delivering more than a teraflop -- one trillion floating-point operations per second -- of performance. The X2 also breaks a price barrier at $449 -- significantly less than Nvidia's GeForce 8800 Ultra, which costs as much as $699.

AMD entered the graphics-processing market in 2006 with its purchase of ATI for $5.4 billion.

'Kick-Ass Card'

The X2 "sets the standard by which all should be compared in this segment" in terms of performance and scalability, said Rick Bergman, senior vice president and general manager of AMD's graphics product group. He called it "the new gold standard of the PC gaming world."

The X2 uses a 55-nanometer process, which delivers a twofold increase in performance per watt over previous versions, the company said.

"It's a kick-ass card," agreed Roger Kay, president of market intelligence firm Endpoint Technologies. "It probably gives them high-end bragging rights," he added in a telephone interview. While Nvidia still has a commanding lead in sales volume, "it's important for the whole company for ATI to take the performance crown -- at least temporarily."

Competition Good for Consumers

Kay said that in his 10 years of watching this sector, he's seen ATI and Nvidia trade places at least three times. Nvidia has stumbled with "a lot of driver issues" related to the release of Windows Vista, he said, while "ATI has managed to execute reasonably well."

While this is "ATI's moment from a performance perspective," the good news for consumers is that the two are "nearly equal competitors vying for dominance. That's the best kind of choice for buyers, hardware OEMs as well as end users," he said.

The X2 is a "stake in the ground for now for Nvidia to show what it can do," Kay added.

AMD said the X2 is the first graphics chipset to support Microsoft Relevant Products/Services's DirectX 10.1 specification, a series of application programming interfaces for game programming and video. DirectX 10 is compatible only with Windows Vista. Microsoft unveiled a preview version of DirectX 10.1 in December.

AMD's new product "delivers on the promise of DirectX 10 gaming with significantly improved visuals and enhanced performance," said Kevin Unangst, Microsoft's senior global director of Windows gaming.

Halo effect for AMD

Success with the X2 may have a halo effect for AMD as a whole, Kay added. "AMD has been having execution issues on the processor side with quad-core and 45-nanometer processes," he noted. "It's helpful that one of its divisions is performing pretty well."

At the time of AMD's acquisition of ATI, many observers expected Intel to snatch up Nvidia in response. But that hasn't happened. With ATI starting to show some technology superiority, will Nvidia start looking for a buyer? It's unlikely to be Intel, Kay said, since the companies are apparently on "hostile terms."

One likely suitor might be Samsung, a chip manufacturer with plenty of money looking to extend its reach. But with its high valuation, Nvidia would be an even bigger bite than ATI -- "and AMD almost choked on ATI," Kay said. Still, he added, "I would expect to see some strategic relationships announced."

Source: http://www.toptechnews.com/story.xhtml?story_id=13200AB8RC4O

Vista Goes Nagware To Fight Piracy

2007-12-05T17:46:00.000-05:00

There has been some speculation that Microsoft's announcement that Windows Vista SP1 will replace the "kill switch" with "nagware" is an effort to slow the loss of customers to other operating systems, and in particular to Linux. But IDC analyst Al Gillen dismissed that argument. "Linux is just not a huge threat to Microsoft," he said.

The surprise announcement by software behemoth Microsoft Relevant Products/Services that its first Service Pack for Vista will eliminate the widely loathed "kill switch" that restricts the software's functionality if not successfully authenticated within 30 days represents a partial victory for consumers and another blow to the tottering edifice of digital rights management.

In an interview posted on the Microsoft Web site, Michael Sievert, corporate vice president for Windows Product Marketing, said that instead of losing functionality, unauthorized Vista users "will be presented with clear and recurring notices about the status of their system and how to get genuine. They won't lose access to functionality or features, but it will be very clear to them that their copy of Window Vista is not genuine and they need to take action."

IDC analyst Al Gillen, like many other industry watchers, said he was surprised by Microsoft's announcement. "This does represent a step backward for Microsoft," Gillen said. "It's always been pretty aggressive about trying to reduce piracy, so this is a significant move."

WGA Irritates Customers

Vista's "kill switch" (not surprisingly, Microsoft prefers the phrase "reduced functionality mode") is part of the company's Windows Genuine Advantage antipiracy initiative. Microsoft says that WGA has been a success; the company reports that the counterfeit rates for Vista are roughly half that for Windows XP.

But there have been widespread reports from consumers that WGA either failed to authenticate their copy of Vista properly, or reduced Vista functionality even after a successful registration. In last August, a Microsoft server erroneously identified nearly 12,000 copies of Vista as counterfeit, leading WGA senior product manager Alex Koch to apologize in a WGA blog post.

"I want everyone to know that I am personally very disappointed that this event occurred," Koch wrote. "As an organization, we've come a long way since this program began and it's difficult knowing that this event confused, inconvenienced, and upset our customers."

Gillen agreed that last summer's WGA server problem was a significant PR problem. "Microsoft is clearly worried about going too far in its efforts to combat the piracy threat," Gillen said. "They're obviously taking a close look at which measures could cause a negative backlash, and WGA is at the top of the list."

Shifting Software Model?

There has been some speculation that Microsoft's announcement that Vista SP1 will replace the "kill switch" with "nagware" is an effort to slow the loss of customers to other operating systems, and in particular to Linux. But Gillen dismissed that argument.

"Linux is just not a huge threat to Microsoft," he said. "Yes, in some underdeveloped geographies, Linux has made a little progress, but in more mature geographies, it hasn't been much of a factor. I doubt that was part of Microsoft's reasoning."

Instead, Gillen suggested, Microsoft either believes that a recurring pop-up will be more annoying than reduced functionality ("which may well be true," he laughed) or Microsoft simply sees the approach as a unique opportunity to get the current users of unauthorized Vista installations to purchase a licensed copy of SP1.

"In either case," Gillen said, "Microsoft will know to several decimal places just how effective this change has been."

Source: www.toptechnews.com

Teen's Suicide Spurs Anti-Cyberbullying Law

2007-11-24T16:50:00.000-05:00

A Missouri town has passed a law to prevent cyberbulling in response to last year's suicide of 13-year-old school girl Megan Meier after receiving intentionally hurtful messages on MySpace. The new law passed for Megan is prompting awareness of the need for stronger state and federal laws to stop cyberbullying and online harassment.

More than a year ago, in October 2006, a 13-year-old school girl named Megan Meier hanged herself in her home in Dardenne Prairie, Missouri. An investigation initially revealed that Meier, who had long battled depression, committed suicide after receiving some cruel messages on the MySpace.com social networking site. The messages were supposedly from a 16-year-old acquaintance named Josh Evans.

The two teens had been exchanging messages for about six weeks, but Evans's messages had grown steadily more hostile. According to reports, his last message to Meier was that she was "cruel" and a "bad person."

Dramatic Turn of Events

But then the case took a dramatic twist. It turned out that "Josh Evans" did not exist -- he was allegedly the invention of a woman named Lori Drew, the mother of another girl with whom Meier had been fighting. Law enforcement authorities contend that Drew created the online profile to communicate with and harass Meier online.

After discovering that "Josh Evans" was a fake profile, state and federal prosecutors searched for a law under which to charge Drew, but were unable to find one that fit the circumstances of the case.

Outraged by the absence of a law to punish the harassment of Meier, some Dardenne Prairie residents have meted out their own justice. According to reports from the Los Angeles Times, a wide range of personal information about the Drew family -- including photos, their home and e-mail addresses, and their home phone number -- has been posted on the Internet.

Some residents have even held protests on the sidewalk in front of the Drew home. In response, the Drews have installed surveillance equipment on their property.

New Law Adopted

Just last week, however, the community's Board of Alderman passed a new law that makes cyberbullying a crime. It is now a misdemeanor, punishable by a fine of up to $500 and 90 days in jail, to harass someone over the Internet.

Harassment is defined under the law as causing a reasonable person to suffer "substantial emotional distress." It also covers communications by an adult to a child under the age of 18 that would cause a reasonable parent to fear for the child's well-being. The law applies to many different types of electronic communications, including e-mail, instant messaging Relevant Products/Services, and texting between mobile phones.

Around the country, many other communities and states have either adopted similar laws or are considering them. A Vermont law requiring school districts to adopt policies prohibiting cyberbullying, for instance, was passed after a 13-year-old boy also committed suicide in the wake of harassing instant messages. The boy's father, John Halligan, has become an advocate for the passage of cyberbullying laws across the nation.

Online services like MySpace and Facebook typically have explicit prohibitions against electronic harassment and encourage their users to report instances of cyberbullying. States have been slow to adopt the proposed legislation, however, largely due to concerns over the impact of free speech.

Source: www.toptechnews.com

Mozilla Releases First Beta of Firefox 3

2007-11-23T17:22:00.001-05:00

Mozilla's Firefox 3 Beta 1 is based on the new Gecko 1.9 platform, which includes nearly two million lines of code changes designed to fix some 11,000 issues and offer Firefox 3 add-on developers a lot to work with. "No doubt, once Firefox 3 gets released it will pick up some mainstream usage," said Jupiter Research analyst Michael Gartenberg.

Mozilla launched a new beta of Firefox this week, essentially a developer preview of the features and functions promised in the third major point release of the popular open-source browser. Firefox 3 Beta 1 is available for testing so Mozilla can gain feedback before the software advances to the next stage in the release process.

"Much of the work leading up to this first beta has been around developing the infrastructure Relevant Products/Services to support a bunch of exciting new features," Mozilla noted. "With this first beta, you'll get a taste of what's coming in Firefox 3, but there's still more to come, and much of what you'll see is still a bit rough around the edges."

Rough edges include the fact that Firefox add-ons don't work properly with the beta version. Those add-ons include applications such as ad blockers, search engines, and dictionaries in other languages. Mozilla did not offer a final release date, noting only that the final version will be launched "when we qualify the product as fully ready for our users."

What's New in Firefox 3?

Firefox 3 Beta 1 is based on the new Gecko 1.9 Web rendering platform. The platform includes nearly two million lines of code changes designed to fix some 11,000 issues. Gecko 1.9 includes some major changes to enhance performance, stability, and code simplification and sustainability.

Mozilla said Gecko 1.9 makes for a more secure, easier to use, more personal product with a lot under the hood to offer Web site and Firefox add-on developers.

New security Relevant Products/Services features include malware Relevant Products/Services protection, more informative SSL information, and a one-click function to identify who owns a site. In addition, Firefox 3 automatically checks add-ons and will disable older, insecure versions. The browser even will inform antivirus software when downloading executables, and it respects the Windows Vista parental control setting for disabling file downloads.

The User Interface

In terms of the user interface, Firefox 3 offers a slew of updates. The new browser is designed to make it easier to manage passwords with an information bar that replaces the old password dialog. That means you can now save passwords after a successful login. What's more, the add-ons whitelist has been removed so you can install extensions from third-party sites in fewer clicks.

Mozilla also set out to make the browser more personal, with a star button that lets you add bookmarks from the location bar with a single click. A "smart places" folder lets you access recently bookmarked and tagged pages, as well as more frequently visited pages.

Performance-wise, Mozilla is promising greater reliability with bookmarks, history, cookies, and preferences now stored in a secure database Relevant Products/Services format designed to prevent data loss even if the system crashes. The new version also plugs more than 300 individual memory leaks.

Evolutionary Steps

At this stage in browser development, most of what the market sees will be evolutionary, according to Michael Gartenberg, an analyst at Jupiter Research. Although there still is plenty of room for improvement, he explained, most of the improvements won't be as dramatic as in past years.

"No doubt, once Firefox 3 gets released it will pick up some mainstream usage," Gartenberg said. "There's a lot of nice features in there. But in terms of browsing, it's probably not going to blow people away the way the first releases did."

Source: www.toptechnews.com

Chip Design Flaw Could Subvert Encryption

2007-11-23T17:17:00.001-05:00

Following news that RSA's Adi Shamir said that a processor design flaw could lead to millions of PCs being attacked simultaneously, Andrew Storms, director of security operations for nCircle Network Security, downplayed the threat. The cryptographic attack that Adi Shamir postulated is "still in a theoretical stage," he said.

Adi Shamir, a leading expert on computer cryptography, has posited that a new security Relevant Products/Services risk might be dawning as computer chips get more and more complex. Shamir is a professor at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel and is the "S" is RSA.

The New York Times reported recently that Shamir circulated a research note to colleagues hypothesizing that a subtle math error in advanced computer chips could be recognized and exploited in a way that would break public-key cryptography systems, including RSA security.

Shamir said that if an intelligence organization discovered such a flaw, security software on a computer with a compromised chip could be "trivially broken with a single chosen message." The attacker would send a "poisoned" encrypted message to a protected computer, he wrote. It would then be possible to compute the value of the secret key used by the targeted system.

Trouble with Design Secrets

"Millions of PCs can be attacked simultaneously, without having to manipulate the operating environment of each one of them individually," Shamir wrote.

One problem, Shamir said, is that due to the top-secret nature of chip design, it would be impossible to verify that a manufacturer's chip was not flawed. "Even if we assume that Intel had learned its lesson and meticulously verified the correctness of its multipliers," he said, "there are many smaller manufacturers of microprocessors who may be less careful with their design."

Andrew Storms, director of security operations for nCircle Network Security, emphasized that Shamir's work is hypothetical and intended for discussion among his peers.

"It's important to note that Shamir had not intended for his notes to be dispersed among large crowds," Storms wrote in an e-mail. "This was more of the case of him sending an interesting note among trusted colleagues." Times reporter John Markoff made the issue one for public discussion by reporting on it.

Still in a Theoretical Stage

"This is a hypothetical thought process at this time and if it hadn't come from Shamir, one of the co-inventors of RSA, then it would not be receiving so much attention," Storms said. "My guess is that Shamir is also reticent that this is now open to public discourse at this time."

The attack that Shamir postulated is "still in a theoretical stage," Storms said. This is why we have innovators like Shamir, who can help to invent a method to secure data and years later discover potential flaws with that method, he added. Storms said that, for the time being, there is no imminent threat and the fact that Shamir has done this research provides awareness to microchip producers to ensure new products are free of potential problems.

Jean-Jacques Quisquater, a cryptographic researcher at Louvain University in Belgium was quoted by the Times as saying that the remarkable thing about Shamir's note is that "Adi Shamir is saying that RSA is potentially vulnerable."

Source: www.toptechnews.com

Apple iPhone Available Sans Contract

2007-11-23T17:13:00.000-05:00

Apple's iPhone made its German debut on November 9 -- available only with the two-year contract from T-Mobile -- but the German unit of rival Vodafone protested at a state court, which later issued an injunction barring T-Mobile from offering Apple's iPhone exclusively with the minimum 24-month contract.

Deutsche Telekom AG's mobile unit said Wednesday it would offer Apple's iPhone without a contract to comply with a court injunction, but consumers that opt out of a two-year contract will pay more than twice as much for it.

T-Mobile will start selling the phone for 999 euros ($1,477) immediately as well as continuing to offer it for the discounted 399 euros ($590) in combination with a two-year contract, the company said in a press release.

The iPhone made its German debut on Nov. 9 -- available only with the two-year contract from T-Mobile. The German unit of rival Vodafone protested that practice at a state court in Hamburg.

The court issued an injunction, dated Nov. 12, barring T-Mobile from offering Apple Inc.'s iPhone exclusively with the minimum 24-month contract, and also from selling it only with a so-called SIM lock that prevents users from switching the device to any other operator's network.

T-Mobile said any customer can now also have the SIM lock on their phone removed -- including those who have already purchased the iPhone.

The company released statement saying it would abide by the conditions "until the legal situation is resolved." The company could not immediately be reached for comment.

Companies routinely offer phone discounts to customers who sign up for lengthy contracts.

T-Mobile's popular Nokia N95 sells for as little as 199.95 euros ($295.63) with a two-year contract, or 619.95 euros ($916.60) without one.

On Tuesday, T-Mobile said it would appeal the injunction and it also said it reserves the right to consider seeking damages.

Vodafone said it wanted the issue settled.

"What matters is for all these questions to be resolved soon by the state court in Hamburg," Vodafone spokeswoman Marion Stolzenwald said.

The new phone is not operating on Europe's fastest, so-called 3G networks, but is relying on a different technology called EDGE. T-Mobile argued that it is the only carrier to offer EDGE across Germany.

The iPhone is a combined cell phone and iPod media player that also can access the Internet wirelessly.

Source: www.toptechnews.com

Kindle Sells Out Despite Skepticism

2007-11-23T17:11:00.001-05:00

Plenty of buyers are keen on Kindle, Amazon's new e-book reader launched earlier this week. While the Kindle sold out within a matter of days since its launch, skeptics wonder whether the Kindle's price is still too high to make the e-book reader a mass market success. "The Kindle is still too expensive for a mainstream audience at $399," says at least one industry expert.

The question over demand for a new e-book reader has been answered. Amazon.com's Kindle reader, just announced November 19, has sold out in the face of critics, skeptics and other nay sayers.

Amazon.com's Web site indicates "due to heavy customer demand, Kindle is temporarily sold out. Because we ship Kindles on a first-come, first-served basis, order now to reserve your place in line." The Web page indicates the Kindle will be back in stock on December 5, at a retail price of $399 with free two-day shipping.

It's a promising start for what Amazon hopes will spark a Book 2.0 revolution. But what will it take to bring the Kindle from the early adopter phase to the mainstream mass market. In other words, what factors will lead to a true Book 2.0 revolution in which the Kindle is the superstar?

Keen on Kindle

Kindle's features include paperback-size dimensions, being able to change font size into an instant large-type edition, and the ability to hold several shelves' worth of books, plus hundreds more on a memory card and a limitless amount in virtual library stacks maintained by Amazon. The device is not just for books: Users can subscribe to newspapers, including the New York Times, and magazines as well.

Amazon.com worked on developing the Kindle for three years before introducing its attempt to usher in the next era of book publishing to the masses. The Kindle is a perpetually connected Internet device that comes automatically configured to connect to the Kindle Store through Sprint's EVDO network. That means users do not need to be near a Wi-Fi hotspot to gain access. And there is no monthly fee for access to the wireless Relevant Products/Services service.

THe Kindle Store offers the same shopping experience that Amazon.com customers are accustomed to, including customer reviews, personalized recommendations, and 1-Click purchasing. Additionally, Kindle customers can download and read the first chapter of most Kindle books for free.

Kindle has built-in access to The New Oxford American Dictionary, which contains over 250,000 entries and definitions, so readers can look up the definitions of words as they read. Kindle customers also have seamless access to Wikipedia and its collection of more than two million articles.

Mainstreaming Kindle

The technology is strong enough for the mainstream, but the Kindle needs to overcome a couple of key hurdles before it becomes a mass market superstar, according to Michael Gartenberg, an industry analyst at JupiterResearch

"The price points have to come down. The Kindle is still too expensive for a mainstream audience at $399," Gartenberg said. "But, there's still an opportunity for Amazon to get the price point down through subsidies or though users joining a book club."

The Kindle Store currently offers more than 90,000 books, including 101 of the 112 current titles on the New York Times best-seller list. The device also offers access to hundreds of newspapers, magazines, and blogs. Customers can search, browse, buy, and download from this wide selection wirelessly using their Kindle reader.

While 90,000 may sound like a lot of choices, Gartenberg said that the catalog size needs to swell. Even though Amazon's initial catalog dwarfs Sony's collection of 20,000 titles for its competing e-book reader, Gartenberg said Amazon needs to move quickly to make more content available for the device.

All the talk about Kindle reminds Gartenberg of the iPod launch. People felt the price point was too high and the content selection was too limited. "Right now, the Kindle is going to appeal to people who like to read; to travelers who would prefer to carry one 10-ounce device rather than books weighing 20 or 30 pounds," he predicted. "Over time, this has the potential to become a mainstream mass market item."

Source: www.toptechnews.com

IBM Introduces 'Blue Cloud' Computing

2007-11-20T17:00:00.001-05:00

The first results of IBM's Blue Cloud effort are expected to be available in the spring of 2008 for Power and x86 processors. More than 200 IBM researchers worldwide are supporting Blue Cloud development, concentrating on breakthroughs that I.T. will need to ensure security, reliability, high use, and efficiency in a distributed environment.

"Blue Cloud" might sound like the overhanging precipitation that follows a forlorn cartoon character, but if IBM's new initiative of that name is successful, it could brighten the outlook of data center administrators.

On Thursday, the Armonk, N.Y.-based company announced the initiative, which it described as "a series of cloud-computing offerings that will allow corporate data centers to operate more like the Internet" through the use of a "distributed, globally accessible fabric of resources."

Instead of using local machines or even remote server farms, I.T. centers would use these globally available resources via linked pools of systems on an as-needed basis. The company said that cloud computing and applications can be integrated with existing I.T. infrastructures through Web services based on a service-oriented architecture (SOA) model.

Coming Spring of 2008

More than 200 IBM researchers worldwide are supporting Blue Cloud development, concentrating on breakthroughs that I.T. will need to ensure security Relevant Products/Services, reliability, high use, and efficiency Relevant Products/Services in a distributed environment.

The first results of the Blue Cloud effort are expected to be available in the spring of next year, for Power and x86 processors. Also, IBM said it would offer in 2008 a cloud environment for a System z mainframe, using a "very large number of virtual machines," and, at some point, a cloud environment based on highly dense rack clusters.

The announcement included a demo of how IBM Power- and x86-based BladeCenters running Tivoli service management software can dynamically allocate workloads and resources, providing performance that is keyed to demand. Blue Cloud includes Xen and PowerVM virtualized Linux operating system images and Hadoop parallel workload scheduling.

Currently, one of the first tests will be a pilot program for the Vietnamese Ministry of Science and Technology. The program, called The Vietnam Information for Science and Technology Advance Innovation Portal, will run on a cloud-computing infrastructure Relevant Products/Services and will be made available to communities and researchers.

Massive-Scale Computing

The effort is being driven by the availability of additional processing power over high-speed connections, as well as by an increase in the scale of I.T. environments and in infrastructures whose resource needs fluctuate. IBM Senior Vice President Rod Adkins said in a statement that cloud computing could help I.T. managers "dramatically" reduce their complexities and costs.

IBM also said cloud computing is being driven by the growth in connected devices, real-time data streams, SOAs, and Web 2.0 applications such as mashups, open collaboration, social networking, and mobile commerce.

The newest research initiative, the company said, grows out of its experience in massive-scale computing. One earlier project, the Technology Adoption Program, allowed IBM researchers to request computing resources via software to test and conduct trials. Another project, IBM's Parallel Sysplex, allowed System z mainframes to work together as a single system image.

Source: www.toptechnews.com

Analyst: AMD's Spider Launch 'Disappointing'

2007-11-20T16:52:00.000-05:00

While AMD plans to release faster versions of the Phenom chips that power the new Spider platform, Spider's introduction didn't have the splash it might have had, said analyst Roger Kay, who noted that the clock frequencies of the current Phenom chips are "a little disappointing" and below what AMD hoped to bring to market.

AMD on Monday announced its Spider platform, which consists of the Phenom quad-core chip, the ATI Radeon HD 3800 graphics processor, and the AMD 7-Series chipset. But at least one analyst said he was was not impressed.

Spider is the "first real instance of the marriage" between AMD and ATI, the graphics chipmaker it acquired last year for roughly $5 billion, Roger Kay, principal analyst with Endpoint Technologies, said in a telephone interview. "It's a step on the way toward further integration Relevant Products/Services we expect to see" between the companies, Kay said.

From AMD's perspective, the Spider platform is designed to deliver "a highly advanced, feature-rich enthusiast computing experience," With Spider, said Dirk Meyer, AMD president and COO, high-end gaming machines are "in reach for more users than ever before."

But to Kay, Monday's launch was not a slam-dunk win for AMD. "The clock frequencies are a little disappointing," Kay said. "They're below what AMD hoped to bring to market."

'Not Noticeably Better'

Along with introducing the Spider platform, AMD highlighted two Phenom chips, which are based on the Barcelona architecture and aimed at high-end gaming. The Phenom 9500 runs as 2.2 GHz, while the 9600 runs at 2.6 GHz.

In the first quarter of next year, AMD will release two chips running at faster speeds, the Phenom X4 9700, running at 2.4 GHz, and the X4 9900, clocked at 2.6 GHz. The big iron, a Phenom chip running at 3.0 GHz, is not expected until the second quarter.

While AMD "talks about higher clock rates later on, the intro didn't have the splash it might have had," Kay said. He said that testers of the new chips were reporting "comparable performance" with Intel chips. "They're not noticeably better but they're not noticeably worse than Intel. It's not a clear winner but it's not a loser."

Much Riding on Year Ahead

Kay emphasized that AMD needs "to bring out the higher frequencies sooner rather than later." AMD is a favorite of the gaming community "not only because they offer good performance, but also because they're quite flexible in terms of their architecture," he said. "They've been a favorite of the white-box community."

The gamer and modder community is inclined to support AMD, but AMD has to "deliver the goods," Kay said. Toward that end, AMD emphasized the scalability of the platform, saying it will easily scale to three or four graphics processors for a "gaming supercomputer." That scalability is built on ATI's CrossFire X technology.

Analysts are looking forward to what the marriage of ATI and AMD might produce in 2008 and especially in 2009, with the Fusion platform, in which all the basic computer components are on one chip.

"A lot rides on what happens in 2008 and on the Fusion platform in 2009," Kay said.

Source: www.toptechnews.com

Enterprise Still Weighing Vista Options

2007-11-16T21:25:00.001-05:00

Sticking with Windows XP until Windows 7 rolls out -- and bypassing Windows Vista altogether -- has its disadvantages. "Even if Windows 7 does ship in late 2009 as now planned, enterprises won't be able to deploy it until mid 2011," Gartner's Michael Silver observed. "By then, Windows XP will be pretty old," he explained.

Vista deployments in the enterprise space continue to lag far behind the new operating system's adoption rates among consumers. According to a new report from Forrester Research, enterprise adoptions hovered at just 2 percent during the first six to eight months of Vista's initial release.

Enterprises seem to be nine to 12 months behind where they said they'd be right now, noted Gartner Client Computing research vice president Michael Silver. "Our clients are saying they will have 20 percent of their users on Windows Vista by year-end 2008, and usually they don't get quite as much done in a year as they predict," Silver said.

By contrast, standardization on Windows XP has gone from 67 percent of all PCs last year to 84 percent of PCs so far this year, according to Forrester Research analyst Benjamin Gray. Microsoft Relevant Products/Services recently extended the shelf life of Vista's predecessor, which is the only OS rival of major significance that Vista faces today, Grey noted in a new report.

Skipping Vista?

An organization that has just replaced all its PCs -- or is just about to replace all its PCs -- with ones intended to last for three to four years might be able to skip Vista, Silver explained. "Organizations that replace 25 to 33 percent of their PCs each year should plan on bringing Vista in on new PCs they buy in late 2008 or early 2009, but should think twice about upgrading existing PCs," Silver advised.

Still, sticking with XP until Windows 7 rolls out has its disadvantages. "Even if Windows 7 does ship in late 2009 as now planned, enterprises won't be able to deploy it until mid 2011," Silver observed. "If it slips into 2010 or beyond, so does the 12 to 18 months they'll spend on planning and testing; and by then, Windows XP will be pretty old," he explained.

Although Microsoft has confirmed that Service Pack 3 for Windows XP is slated to be released in the first half of 2008, "those hoping for new features will be disappointed," Gray observed. "Like a typical service pack, it includes mostly just the incremental patches and updates released over the course of roughly three and a half years bundled into one larger file," he noted.

Comprehensive Pass

Although Vista Service Pack 1 is now in major beta test mode in advance of its anticipated release in the first quarter of 2008, Microsoft corporate vice president Mike Nash has been downplaying the need for current XP users to wait for Vista SP1 before updating to the new OS.

It is important to note, Nash said, that if one looks back in time, the use of the Windows online update service has changed dramatically. "We have an infrastructure Relevant Products/Services that is being used on a large number of consumer systems, and in the enterprise space we are seeing that a lot of enterprise customers are using Windows Server update service to provide the same level of automation," Nash explained. "So the old wisdom that said you need to wait for a service pack is kind of not true anymore."

On the other hand, Nash did say that Vista SP1 basically amounts to a test of a new version of Windows. "Focusing all those updates together in one holistic package allows us to run a much more comprehensive pass on how all those things run together because they define that new version of Windows," he explained.

Source: www.toptechnews.com

New Day Dawning for Desktop Linux?

2007-11-16T21:21:00.000-05:00

With Wal-Mart reporting that it is sold out of the Everex gPC -- a $200 Linux-based desktop -- some are suggesting that a new day for Linux is dawning. But, said analyst Greg Sterling, if initial gPC buyers find that not being able to run Microsoft Office is problematic, the excitement around the $200 Everex computer could soon dissipate.

Has the time for desktop Linux finally arrived? One relevant data point is that Wal-Mart has sold out of the Everex gPC, a Google-friendly, Linux-based PC priced at $199.

Wal-Mart says more units are on the way for the holiday season, but right now the retailer's Web site indicates the machines are sold out. The gPC has been one of the top performing desktop computers on Wal-Mart.com over the last few weeks, a company spokesperson said, but Wal-Mart did not release actual sales numbers.

The gPC runs a version of Linux called gOS, and uses a 1.5-GHz processor from Via Technologies, an 80-GB hard drive, and 512 MB of RAM.

Cloud Computing, Branded Google

The gOS is actually a customized version of Ubuntu, a Linux distribution that is considered a breakthrough for Linux on the desktop. "Ubuntu really seems to be rising as the user-friendly Linux OS of choice," Charles King, principal analyst with Pund-IT, said in a recent telephone interview. With the success of the gPC, that prediction could be coming true.

Built on the newly released Ubuntu 7.10, which might be the first Linux distribution to offer Mac-like 3D graphics meant to appeal to consumers, the gPC comes with standard open-source software such as Firefox and OpenOffice. But one interesting twist is that the computing experience is not desktop-oriented but rather focused on the "cloud," the universe of applications available online.

And for gPC users, that cloud is branded "Google."

"We recommend Google for just about everything ... Gmail, Gtalk, Calendar, Maps, Docs and Spreadsheets, and more. We'd like to welcome you to the idea that Google already is your 'operating system,'" said Paul Kim, Everex's director of marketing. "Our dream is to combine Linux with Google and put it into the mass market."

Wedge for Linux

The combination of Google applications and storage in the cloud with a consumer-friendly Linux OS has produced one of the first successful Microsoft Relevant Products/Services-free desktop experiences for consumers.

It's hard to tell whether the apparent success of the gPC means a new day is dawning for Linux desktops, Greg Sterling, principal analyst with Sterling Market Intelligence, said in a telephone interview. "I think people are responding to the price. At $200, its almost disposable," he said. "If it works, it's a great buy; if not, it's not a big loss."

But, Sterling said, "it's too early to say if it's going to be a wedge into Windows sales." Proof of that will only come with sustained sales data, he said. If initial buyers are dissatisfied with the experience, or find that not being able to run Microsoft Office is problematic, or don't realize that they're not buying a Windows machine, the initial excitement around a $200 computer could soon dissipate.

As long as the machines prove to be reliable, "the only real issue is the software people are accustomed to running, meaning Office," Sterling said. Actually, meaning Word. "Most people don't use Excel or PowerPoint," he added.

Buyers have two options for a Word alternative on the Everex desktop: OpenOffice for a more full-featured desktop word processor and Google Apps for a simple, online-only experience. "If most of your activities are online, Google Apps is probably good enough," Sterling said. "It obviously falls quite a bit short of desktop word processors."

In some ways, the gPC moves computing toward the thin-client vision of Sun's Scott McNealy and Oracle's Larry Ellison. "It's an amazing thing," Sterling said. "Today, you can't work on a PC without an Internet connection. To some degree that's what's going on with cloud computing. We're in the middle of some sort of shift."

Source: www.toptechnews.com

Red Hat Taps Amazon Compute Cloud

2007-11-10T20:17:00.001-05:00

Following news that Red Hat would release a beta of Red Hat Enterprise Linux on Amazon's Elastic Compute Cloud, analyst Dana Gardner said the pact makes development and deployment to Red Hat Enterprise Linux "much more of a deploy-once, run-anywhere value." Red Hat Enterprise Linux on Amazon EC2 is available as a private beta.

On Wednesday, Red Hat announced that Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) is available on Amazon. Red Hat is releasing a beta version of its OS on Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2), a Web service that hosts business software applications.

The companies described the move as a way to change the economics of computing by allowing customers to pay only for the infrastructure Relevant Products/Services software services and capacity they actually use. RHEL on EC2 allows customers to increase or decrease capacity within minutes, eliminating the need to overbuy software and hardware to handle spikes in demand.

"This offering will be appealing to developers, customers looking to quickly and cost-effectively deploy Web-scale services, and businesses that require rapidly scaled compute resources," Donald Fischer, vice president of Online Services at Red Hat, said in a statement. "The marriage of Red Hat Enterprise Linux with Amazon's EC2 service makes the promise of professional Web scale computing a reality."

Deploy Once, Run Anywhere

RHEL, with integrated virtualization, promises to be a seamless deployment solution that bridges cloud and on-premise computing. Red Hat is offering a set of management and automation tools across on-premise and EC2 deployments, and will provide technical support and maintenance of RHEL on Amazon EC2, making it the first commercially supported software on the service.

Dana Gardner, principal analyst at Interarbor Solutions, said the agreement gives Amazon a wider developer and ISV community channel and offers Red Hat the opportunity to give developers and ISVs more options.

"Now, developers don't have to come up with up-front capital expenses to create data centers. They can place these applications up on the EC2 cloud, pay for them on a per-use basis, get the revenue from the subscription and the use of the applications, and very easily be able to predict the margin and create an ongoing recurring revenue business model," Gardner explained. "This also makes development and deployment to Red Hat Enterprise Linux much more of a deploy-once, run-anywhere value."

Red Hat Enterprise Linux on Amazon EC2 is available as a private beta, with public beta availability planned for the fourth calendar quarter of 2007. Base prices are $19 per month, per user and $0.21, $0.53, or $0.94 for every compute hour used on Amazon's EC2 service, depending on whether customers choose a small, large, or extralarge compute instance size, plus bandwidth and storage fees.

Automating Linux

In other Red Hat news, the company announced Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.1 with integrated virtualization. This release provides virtualization capabilities that complement Red Hat's newly announced Linux Automation strategy. Red Hat is promising up to twice the performance of proprietary virtualization products

"Our initial testing indicates that Red Hat Enterprise Linux virtualization delivers significant performance gains for our compute intensive applications and should provide an additional layer of abstraction that will help us manage multiple competing priorities," Derek Chan, head of Digital Operations for DreamWorks Animation, said in a statement.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux virtualization lets users perform live migration, allowing customers to move running applications from one server to another. Red Hat Enterprise Linux Advanced Platform includes high-availability clustering, storage virtualization, and failover software to provide enhanced levels of application availability, for both physical and virtual servers.

Red Hat also announced plans to enable independent software vendors to deliver appliance-based solutions to their customers. The Red Hat Appliance Operating System will allow applications that are certified on Red Hat Enterprise Linux to be deployed as software appliances, including those running Red Hat Enterprise Linux, VMware ESX, and Microsoft Relevant Products/Services Windows Viridian.

Source: www.toptechnews.com

Steve Ballmer Downplays Google Threat

2007-11-10T20:12:00.000-05:00

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer said it was difficult to comment on Google's mobile plans because they were still "just words on paper" that had yet to begin. But Ballmer acknowledged Microsoft expects to continue to lose money in its global online business for some time. Microsoft is still "in an investment mode" online, he said.

Microsoft Relevant Products/Services Chief Executive Steve Ballmer, in Tokyo to launch the new Windows Live services, played down the threat of Google Thursday, denying the rival was ahead in any way but in online searches.

"Google is not ahead of us," he told reporters at a Tokyo hotel. "In the area of search specifically, Google would lead."

Microsoft Corp. on Thursday began offering its Windows Live programming package for e-mail, instant messaging, blogging and photo-sharing in Japan. The product was announced in the U.S. Tuesday.

On Monday, Google Inc., which already offers similar services online for personal computers, said it will offer a new free software package for mobile devices called Android, scheduled to hit the market during the second half of next year.

Google is offering its technology to handset manufacturers so consumers will be able to use Google's search engine, e-mail and maps on mobile devices as easily as on personal computers.

Ballmer said it was difficult to comment on Google's mobile plans because they were still "just words on paper" that had yet to begin.

Ballmer expressed hopes for Microsoft's business in Japan, noting that Japanese consumers were ahead of the rest of the world in accessing the Internet on cell phones because of the popularity of the "i-mode" Net-linking mobile service that NTT DoCoMo launched in February 1999.

But Ballmer acknowledged Microsoft expects to continue to lose money in its global online business for some time. Although online advertising revenue is growing, Microsoft is still "in an investment mode" in online businesses, he said.

A Microsoft Japan official demonstrated some Windows Live features, including how 20 digital photos of a waterfall taken from various angles could be edited into a seamless panoramic photo, and then uploaded on a blog -- all for free.

More than a dozen Japanese companies have signed on as partners for Windows Live, including top telecommunications company Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corp., mobile and Internet services company Softbank Corp. and electronics maker NEC Corp., according to Redmond, Washington-based Microsoft.

Source: www.toptechnews.com

Europeans Stand in Line for iPhone Debut

2007-11-09T21:25:00.000-05:00

Some question whether Europeans will take to the iPhone, which is, in some ways, less capable and more expensive than other smartphones, but analyst Michael Gartenberg said he expects European consumers to embrace the iPhone. "Apple is delivering a holistic experience that's different from what consumers have seen before," he said.

Apple's iPhone debuted in the United Kingdom and Germany on Friday, offering Europeans their first official glimpse at the multimedia device with its famed multitouch interface that lets users control the phone with their fingertips. News agencies are reporting that hundreds of consumers are waiting in line to buy an iPhone, much as they were for the U.S. launch.

Ron Johnson, Apple's senior vice president of retail, said that every Apple store will offer support for the iPhone through free workshops and personal training sessions through Apple's One-to-One program. O2, one of the mobile carriers that is selling the iPhone, said it has hired and trained hundreds of new iPhone specialists who will be giving live demos and showing customers how to get the most out of their iPhone.

The phones are selling in the United Kingdom for £269 ($568) with 8 GB of storage. Consumers are allowed to purchase two iPhones per person on a first come, first served basis. The iPhone's European debut in the UK and Germany will be followed by availability in France at the end of the month.

Hundreds of Thousands Sold

Apple has sold over one million iPhones in the United States since it debuted on June 29. O2 reportedly expects to sell about 10,000 phones on Friday. Some analysts have predicted as many as 350,000 iPhones could sell in the UK in the first two months.

The European market is more than familiar with Apple's products. If the Mac computer line didn't pave the way for the iPhone, the iPod music player certainly did. Still, it's too early to tell how well Europe will take to the new device, according to Michael Gartenberg, a wireless Relevant Products/Services analyst at Jupiter Research.

The storylines about consumers waiting in line show a definite anticipation and serve as an indication that Europeans are as enamored with the device as their U.S. counterparts are, he said, but it's only day one.

Too Little, Too Late?

Some analysts question whether Europeans will take to a phone that is, in some ways, less capable and more expensive than other smartphones on the market, but Gartenberg said he expects European consumers to embrace the new device.

"When it comes to the iPhone, even in the U.S. there are phones that do things that the iPhone can't do -- and many smartphones that cost a lot less -- and that hasn't stopped consumers from being enamored by the whole experience," Gartenberg said. "Apple is delivering a holistic experience that's different from what consumers have seen before, even those in Europe."

The European market reception to the iPhone is important, Gartenberg added. If the device plays well in Europe, he concluded, it will bode well for Apple going forward with new products overseas.

Source: www.toptechnews.com

EA Donates SimCity to OLPC Laptops

2007-11-09T21:22:00.000-05:00

The donation of SimCity to for OLPC laptops comes on the heels of several partnerships with OLPC, including T-Mobile's donation of a year of hotspot use for XO owners and Hosting.com's donation of an XO for every server it sells. OLPCNews editor Wayan Vota called the SimCity donation another great achievement of Negroponte's dream.

With the launch of a limited-time "Give 1, Get 1" sales effort for the groundbreaking XO computer slated for Monday, Electronic Arts added to the momentum behind the green machine by announcing it is donating the original SimCity game to the One Laptop Per Child project.

"By gifting SimCity onto each OLPC laptop, EA is providing users with an entertaining way to engage with computers as well as help develop decision-making skills while honing creativity," the company said in a statement.

It's the first donation of a game to the effort.

Unintentionally Educational

"SimCity is entertainment that's unintentionally educational. Players learn to use limited resources to build and customize their cities. There are choices and consequences, but in the end, it's a creativity tool that's only limited by the player's imagination," said Steve Seabolt, vice president of global brand development, The Sims Label.

"The game should prove to be an incredibly effective way of making the laptop relevant, engaging, and fun, particularly for first time players. We are thrilled to be making this contribution to OLPC to help meet their goal of educating the children of the world."

The donation comes on the heels of several partnerships with OLPC, including T-Mobile's donation of a year of free hotspot use for XO owners and Hosting.com's donation of an XO machine for every server it sells in November and December.

Original Model Has Failed

OLPCNews editor Wayan Vota called the donation of SimCity "another great achievement of Nicholas Negroponte's dream."

Negroponte started the OLPC project in 2005 with the idea that developing countries would buy millions of the machines to distribute to children. That vision has not panned out as OLPC has only received one solid commitment to buy, from Uruguay. That has led Negroponte to switch largely to a philanthropic model.

Give 1, Get 1 (G1G1) is the first initiative under that model and it has a certain sector of technophiles fired up to get their hands on one. The program runs from November 12 to 26 and allows consumers in the U.S. and Canada to buy two machines, one to keep, one to donate to a child in the developing world.

Expanding Give 1, Get 1

Vota faults OLPC for limiting the G1G1 program to North America. "This has more to do with logistics, support, and other bureaucratic reasons that apply to international commerce of electronic equipment and not an arbitrary decision that forgot or ignored the rest of the world," an OLPC representative said on the project's Wiki.

But Vota said he wonders why OLPC can't just use a transatlantic courier to deliver the machines. Whatever the cost could be tacked on for purposes of the G1G1 program.

Vota has proposed a way for consumers outside of North America to route around OLPC's policy. They can simply set up a mail forwarding account so they can order the machines sent to a U.S. address and then have them shipped anywhere in the world. Vota has set up such an arrangement himself at a UPS store in Washington D.C.

Source: www.toptechnews.com

Phoenix Intros Instant-On Laptop Tech

2007-11-05T17:00:00.001-05:00

Pheonix Technologies' new platform, which promises instant boots for certain applications, is a BIOS-based virtualized environment powered by a Phoenix hypervisor called HyperCore. Phoenix is now in the process of collaborating with various OEMs to provide what the company described as a foundation for PC 3.0.

Perhaps you have better things to do than wait minutes -- and minutes -- while your Windows computer boots. If so, Phoenix Technologies' new Hyperspace, which can enable instant-on booting that bypasses Windows so you can quickly access frequently used applications, could be your cup of tea.

The Milpitas, California-based company that is best known as a maker of BIOS software Relevant Products/Services on Monday announced the release of Hyperspace, which it described in a statement as "an innovative platform that promises to ignite a PC revolution."

With "embedded simplicity," Hyperspace enables what the company described as "instant-on applications."

Self-Contained Appliances

Essentially, the applications become self-contained software appliances that can be embedded into new computers by system vendors. Applications can include such frequently used ones as instant-on instant messaging, e-mail, Web browsing, shopping, or video playback.

The company said that the approach, aside from reducing wait time, allows one-click remote system maintenance and repair, lower battery consumption, and embedded security Relevant Products/Services.

The platform itself is a virtualized environment, with a Phoenix hypervisor called HyperCore that is embedded in the BIOS. The company said that HyperCore is a virtual machine monitor that "runs specialized core services side-by-side with Windows." Phoenix is now in the process of collaborating with various OEMs to provide what it described as a foundation for PC 3.0.

Phoenix created its original BIOS product in 1983, which, in various incarnations, has shipped in over a billion computer systems.

Bypassing the Core OS

Samir Bhavnani, a research director with industry research firm Current Analysis West, said that various companies over the years have released instant-on programs. "What Phoenix is doing," he said, "is taking more of the things that are commonly used and bypassing the core OS."

He added that, because this virtualized, stripped-down OS bypasses Windows, it could offer a "huge increase in battery life."

When Windows boots up, several processes and programs are loaded, but Phoenix's approach avoids that, said Bhavnani. "You just boot up into this alternate universe," he noted, using some applications built just for that universe, such as e-mail, Web browsing, or DVD-watching. Obviously, he said, "Microsoft Relevant Products/Services is not going to be too happy about this."

Bhavnani suggested that Dell or a similar vendor might use Hyperspace to offer instant-on applications on their laptops for travelers. Additionally, Phoenix and some observers have noted that, as a virtualized, walled-off environment, HyperSpace applications might provide increased security.

Source: www.toptechnews.com

Dell Buys Storage Network Firm EqualLogic for $1.4B

2007-11-05T16:56:00.000-05:00

"While there are other virtualized iSCSI vendors out there, EqualLogic has been doing it for a while, its technology is well understood, and it has a solid customer base," said Pund-IT analyst Charles King. He added that the deal makes a "great deal of sense for Dell," which along with HP is one of two "preeminent SMB vendors out there."

Dell has acquired EqualLogic, which provides iSCSI storage network solutions and virtualization software Relevant Products/Services, for $1.4 billion, the companies announced on Monday.

"Our customers will be dealing with the largest increase in data we have seen in our history over the next few years. Leading the iSCSI revolution will help Dell accelerate I.T. simplification and virtualization and will drive the Dell value proposition into more areas of the enterprise storage business," CEO Michael Dell said in a statement.

EqualLogic had sales of $45 million last year and $91 million in three quarters this year. The deal comes as EqualLogic is preparing for an IPO in the red-hot virtualization market. Sector leader VMware conducted its IPO in August and now is market-capitalized at more than $42 billion.

Deal Makes 'Great Sense'

EqualLogic's focus on iSCSI is "a very hot part of the small business market right now," Charles King, principal analyst with Pund-IT Relevant Products/Services, a technology research firm, said in a telephone interview.

"While there are other virtualized iSCSI vendors out there, EqualLogic has been doing it for a while, its technology is well understood, and it has a solid customer base," King said. He added that the deal makes a "great deal of sense for Dell," which along with HP is one of two "preeminent SMB vendors out there."

EqualLogic "complements Dell's server lines," he said, "and allows them to continue their strategy of delivering highly integrated business storage solutions for small and medium businesses."

The deal is notable for being all-cash. It is the largest all-cash deal ever for a venture-based startup, said Christopher Baldwin, a partner in EquityVentures, which led some $50 million in venture capital investments in the company.

The price was largely set by the recent IPOs of Riverbed Technology and Data Domain, Baldwin said. "It was a very difficult decision not to go and become a public company," Baldwin was quoted by the Associated Press as saying.

Dell Buying Spree

The iSCSI protocol is a standard developed by the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF). It's an IP-based storage networking standard for linking data storage Relevant Products/Services facilities. By carrying SCSI commands over IP networks, iSCSI facilitates data transfer over LANs, WANs, and the Internet. It is a key enabling technology in the development of location-independent data storage and retrieval.

Just days ago, Michael Dell announced his intention to spend money. "I would not be surprised if the nature and pace of acquisitions increases somewhat in the future," Dell said at an October 29 press conference in Japan. Dell has embarked on a "Simplify I.T." campaign.

"We are trying to simplify I.T. and look at new ways to address the complexity of desktop computing," Rick Becker, vice president of solutions at Dell, said at the time.

"Whether it's streaming the OS or managing the complexity of a system or a unified communications solution Relevant Products/Services, Dell's commitment to its customers is to offer a complete set of hardware Relevant Products/Services, software, and services that allows them to purchase it, deploy it, and manage it," Becker said.

Source: www.toptechnews.com

IBM Invests $1.5 Billion in New Security Initiative

2007-11-02T18:11:00.001-04:00

IBM has established its deep knowledge of security in hardware and middleware partly through acquisitions. With the current security initiative, IBM seems to be putting a wrapper around those acquisitions to offer an integrated approach aimed at helping its large business customers, according to Charles King, principal analyst at Pund-IT.
On Thursday, IBM Relevant Products/Services launched new security Relevant Products/Services services, products, and research initiatives designed to help businesses manage operational and information technology risk more effectively. Big Blue said it plans to spend $1.5 billion on security product development and marketing in 2008.

With its latest security push, IBM is advocating a new approach to risk management that Big Blue is betting will limit the impact of threats, improve business resilience, and create an enterprise free of fear.

Instead of offering security technologies implemented in silos that don't address end-to-end risk, IBM's new initiative addresses security across several I.T. domains, from physical security to application security to identity and access management.

"For many enterprises, security is broken," Tom Noonan, general manager of IBM's Internet Security Systems, said in a statement. "The nature of evolving threats is such that installing point solutions to 'keep the bad guys out' is no longer a viable way to secure a business."

Advocating New Approaches

Fueled by recent security business acquisitions, IBM's company-wide initiative is entering the picture even as companies around the globe face increased regulation and scrutiny. The daily risk of security exposure and the cost to combat it are growing. In North America alone, companies are expected to spend almost $30 billion on governance, risk, and compliance this year, according to AMR Research.

The first wave of IBM's new security services and products will tackle security concerns from the enterprise to the edge of corporate networks. IBM's Internet Security Systems (ISS) unit is helping lead the way, teaming with IBM Research and integrating with IBM's Software and Systems businesses to deliver advanced risk-management capabilities.

Specifically, IBM announced data-inspection software Relevant Products/Services that aims to prevent the loss of data and related services. The company also introduced enhanced data-security software to track, report, and investigate possible security breaches on the corporate network. New risk-management tools help I.T. execs assess risks.

Taking a Holistic Approach

Security has been a key issue among I.T.-focused enterprises for many years. And IBM has established its deep knowledge of security in hardware Relevant Products/Services and middleware partly through acquisitions. With this security move, IBM seems to be putting a wrapper around those acquisitions to offer a highly integrated approach aimed at helping its large business customers, according to Charles King, principal analyst at Pund-IT Relevant Products/Services Research.

From King's point of view, IBM's mainframes provide levels of application security, data security, and hardware security that is unmatched by any other enterprise computing platform. According to King, Big Blue's new initiative strengthens its position in the market.

"Security is something most businesses have historically approached in a piecemeal fashion. If you are having problems with external threats, you get one set of software. If you are having concerns about the way data is being used internally, you get another solution Relevant Products/Services," King said.

The way businesses are evolving now -- increasingly dispersed across multiple locations, working with partners in many overseas locations, and driving more and more toward Web-based and Web-accessible applications -- many companies need to take a close look at the way they deal with security, King concluded. IBM's approach, he said, is correct for today's market risks.

Source: www.toptechnews.com

Hackers Unlock Violence in Manhunt 2

2007-11-02T11:24:00.001-04:00

In "Manhunt 2," the player takes the role of a man who escapes from an insane asylum and goes on a killing spree. Take-Two edited parts of the game, including blurring some of the most gruesome killing scenes, to get the less restrictive rating, but Hackers defeated that blurring on the version of the game for Sony's PlayStation Portable.

Hackers have unlocked violent content that was censored by the publisher of the game "Manhunt 2" to give it a marketable rating, the company confirmed Thursday.

The game, initially given an "Adults Only" rating by the Entertainment Software Rating Board, went on sale in the U.S. on Wednesday with a "Mature" rating, after being modified. Most stores refuse to carry "Adults Only" games; Mature means a game is intended for player 17 or older.

Game publisher Take-Two Interactive Software Inc. and the studio that designed the game, Rockstar Games, have long been at the center of the debate over video game violence and children.

Two years ago, a hacker uncovered a hidden sex scene in their game "Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas."

In "Manhunt 2," the player takes the role of a man who escapes from an insane asylum and goes on a killing spree.

Take-Two edited parts of the game, including blurring some of the most gruesome killing scenes, to get the less restrictive rating.

Hackers defeated that blurring on the version of the game for Sony Corp.'s PlayStation Portable. The game is also available for the PlayStation 2 and Nintendo Wii systems, and those versions do not appear to have been hacked.

The hack does not roll back all the changes that enabled the game to qualify for the "Mature" rating, and it requires some technical expertise and a PSP unit that is itself hacked to accept modified software.

But Common Sense Media, a San Francisco nonprofit that advises parents about entertainment that may be inappropriate for children, Thursday asked the Federal Trade Commission to look into the ratings process, now funded and governed by an industry association. The process lacks basic transparency, Common Sense Media CEO James Steyer said in a statement.

"We believe that families and all consumers should have an assurance from game publishers and the game ratings board that the content being advertised is the same as the content being sold," Steyer said.

In the Grand Theft Auto incident, the ratings board changed the game's rating from "Mature" to "Adults Only" and retailers pulled it off shelves.

Since then, the board has required that publishers submit even hidden content for review, and Take-Two spokesman Ed Nebb said the publisher had followed that requirement for "Manhunt 2."

It is unclear whether the private, nonprofit ratings board considered the hidden material in assigning the "M" rating to "Manhunt 2."

Board spokesman Eliot Mizrachi said only that it is aware of the hacking issue and is looking into it.

Both the revised and original versions of "Manhunt 2" were banned by the American ratings board's British counterpart.

"I stand behind the game and the ESRB ratings process," Take-Two Chairman Strauss Zelnick said in a statement. "It is unfortunately the case that no one in the entertainment software industry is immune from hacking. We hope that consumers will not engage in hacking or download illegally modified copies of our games."

Source: www.toptechnews.com

Mac OS X Leopard - Friendly or Fierce?

2007-11-02T11:21:00.000-04:00

Samir Bhavnani, a research director with Current Analysis West, said that the reaction to Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard has "generally been positive," and that of all the new features in Mac OS X 10.5, people seem to like Time Machine. Apple said on Tuesday that it sold over two million copies of Leopard since the update came out on Friday.

It's been a whole three days since Leopard was uncaged, and Mac fans have had a chance to examine many of the spots in Apple's new OS update. The general reaction to OS X 10.5 has been positive, although there have been some gripes.

Those who have joked about the dreaded "blue screen of death" that Windows users have dealt with should take note. Apple reported on its Web site that the feared blue screen can appear in Leopard. Apple laid the blame on third-party "enhancement" software that does not work with the new update, and posted two solutions.

Whatever the opinions, there are certainly a lot of them. Apple said on Tuesday that it sold over two million copies since the update came out on Friday.

Some Quibbles

One set of opinions came from Harry McCracken, writing in PC World. He first proclaimed that he likes Leopard and is "impressed" by much of it. He also noted that he would never touch several dozen of the 300-plus new features -- such as a Danish dictionary -- and then he set forth his 21 Quibbles.

He found Time Machine, Leopard's automatic backup feature, to be "picky" about hard disk formats. "The cool continuous backup utility wants to work with drives formatted with Apple's own HFS+ format," he wrote, "not FAT32, the Microsoft format which the rest of OSX can speak."

He found the additional interface transparency effects sometimes make items unreadable if the background wallpaper interferes visually. And he said that QuickLook, which lets a user get a preview of an unopened document by pressing the spacebar, doesn't work quickly with some Microsoft Office documents.

'Better Experience'

But Dwight Silverman of the Houston Chronicle didn't focus on quibbles. "There's no doubt that Leopard's combined advances make personal computing a better experience," he wrote. There's also no doubt, he said, that "the first release of a new operating system will have issues, and Leopard is no exception."

For instance, he noted Leopard doesn't fix an iMac screen-freezing problem, and that there are reports of problems with installation. But he also said that Spaces, a virtual desktop manager that lets the user have up to 16 active desktops, is his favorite new feature because it increases desktop real estate -- which can come in handy on laptops.

Samir Bhavnani, a research director with Current Analysis West, said that the reaction to Leopard has "generally been positive." There's always a vocal minority who blog about every issue, he said, and every modern operating system release or major update goes through that gauntlet.

Of all the new features, he said, people seem to particularly like Time Machine -- which Seagate and other hard drive manufacturers will also like because it drives sales.

Source: www.toptechnews.com

U.N., Google, Cisco Team To Track Poverty

2007-11-02T11:18:00.000-04:00

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon called Thursday's launch "crucial" because it makes all information on the U.N. goals available in one place for the first time with a few clicks of the mouse. "For the first time in history, the world has at its disposal the means to cut poverty in half in the span of a generation," the secretary-general said.

The United Nations teamed with technology giants Google Inc. and Cisco Systems Inc. to launch a new Web site Thursday that will provide data and a bird's eye view of global efforts to fight poverty and meet U.N. development goals by 2015.

The Millennium Development Goals, which world leaders approved at a U.N. summit in 2000, provide the latest statistics on health, education, malnutrition, women's equality and other measures that contribute to poverty.

On one portion of the new site, a Web surfer can also use Google Earth's map and satellite imagery to fly anywhere on the planet and "explore" the places where work is being done to achieve the goals.

"They can see successes and celebrate those, and observe failures or shortfalls ... and redouble their country's commitment to pursue those efforts. So it's very exciting for us," said Michael Jones, chief technologist for Google Earth and Maps.

The goals include cutting extreme poverty by half, ensuring universal primary school education, reducing child mortality by two-thirds, starting to reverse the HIV/AIDS pandemic and halving the proportion of people without access to safe drinking water.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon called Thursday's launch "crucial" because it makes all information on the U.N. goals available in one place for the first time "for all who seek it, with a few simple clicks of the mouse."

Ban lamented that -- midway between the goals' adoption in 2000 and the target completion date of 2015 -- almost 1 billion people live on less than one dollar a day; millions of children die every year before their fifth birthdays from causes associated with malnutrition; infectious diseases including AIDS and malaria take "their worst toll on countries that can least afford it" and millions of people live in slums.

"Clearly, we are facing a development emergency -- and we need emergency action," he said.

"For the first time in history, the world has at its disposal the means to cut poverty in half in the span of a generation," the secretary-general said.

He said achieving the goals "is a matter of political will.

"There is no silver bullet, but the resources, knowledge and tools for achieving the goals do exist," Ban said.

The new Web site is one of those tools because it will enable policymakers and development experts to learn from one another's successes and setbacks, and it will increase public access and attention to the U.N. goals, Ban said.

At the end of his speech, Ban put his hand on the mouse of a laptop computer together with Jones, of Google; Carlos Dominguez, a Cisco Senior Vice President; and Kemal Dervis, U.N. Development Program Administrator.

The U.N. Development Program, which is facilitating the new Web site, said the budget for the project was $200,000, and it received $150,000 from corporate donors.

UNDP's Dervis said the data on the MDG Monitor comes from a variety of U.N. agencies, the World Bank and governments around the world. But he noted that statistics are sometimes difficult to obtain and can conflict.

"We hope to gradually overcome these weaknesses and open the site to all organizations who gather statistics to offer their information," he said.

Source: www.toptechnews.com

Intel's QX9650 Marks Birth of 45-NM Era

2007-11-01T17:40:00.000-04:00

With Intel's first 45-nm processor, the QX9650, coming on November 12, analysts are weighing in on the new design that promises improvements in speed and efficiency. Software is key to determining the value of the QX9650, said IDC's Richard Shim. "It's now up to the software industry to pick up the baton from the hardware industry," he said.

Welcome to the age of 45-nanometer chips. Intel's first 45-nm processor, the quad-core Penryn QX9650 for the desktop, is being discussed by the press and industry in anticipation of its official November 12 launch. The initial response to the powerful new processor has been positive, although many are suggesting that it begs for innovation in software .

Intel is ramping up big-time for the 45-nm age. On Thursday, it began producing the chips in high volume at its $3 billion plant in Chandler, Arizona, and additional plants will be coming online soon in Israel and New Mexico.

The 45-nm process technology, according to Intel, "reinvents" certain areas of the transistors inside the processors to reduce energy leakage. The transistors use what is called a Hafnium-based high-k material. More than two million transistors made with the new technology could fit into the period ending this sentence.

Efficiency a Selling Point

Beginning with Penryn, a stream of 45-nm processors is planned, including 15 new ones by the end of this year and another 20 in the first quarter of next year.

Efficiency is a key selling point of the 45-nm chips. For example, Intel has said that the Penryn family of processors can provide up to a 20 percent performance increase while improving energy efficiency.

But the QX9650 "is more than just a die shrink," noted Firing Squad, a site for the "hardcore gamer." Intel has implemented several architectural enhancements, the site noted, that "are designed to deliver clock-for-clock performance enhancements over today's Core 2 CPUs at a given clock speed." Key items cited were a larger L2 cache, improved virtualization, and faster frontside bus speeds.

Another enthusiast site, Extreme Tech, said the advantages of the QX9650 include the purported 30 percent reduction in transistor switching power and a 20 percent improvement in transistor switching speed.

'Upheaval' in the Chip Market

CNET rated the new chip as excellent, calling it the "fastest high-end desktop chip on the market," although it cautioned that AMD is coming out with new chips as well. And there's a more complete Intel redesign of chip architecture due next year.

The key thing to keep in mind, noted the CNET review, is that we are entering what could be a great deal of upheaval in the chip market as performance and efficiency hurdles fall. This could result in much-improved performance -- if the right kind of software emerges.

Software is key to determining the value of the QX9650 and other 45-nm chips, said Richard Shim, an analyst with IDC. "It's now up to the software industry to pick up the baton from the hardware industry," he said, to show innovative uses for this much power and efficiency.

He noted that there was a fair amount of talk recently about "good enough computing," a descriptive term designed to indicate that, for most business and consumer users, there already is enough power on their desktop or their laptop to do everything they want.

After an extended emphasis on value, he noted, the pendulum in the chip industry has now swung back to an emphasis on performance and efficiency. Time will tell, he concluded, whether that means new applications and productivity for the user.

Source: www.toptechnews.com

Everex Releases $199 PC for Wal-Mart

2007-11-01T17:39:00.001-04:00

IDC analyst Doug Bell said that the $199, Ubuntu-powered Everex gPC available through Wal-Mart could point toward a new price point for desktop machines, even without the monitor. He said that an energy-efficient chip, free apps, and an open-source OS add up to "a lot of positives" -- and possibly show where Linux on the desktop is headed.

Everex has released a desktop PC through Wal-Mart that might set a new price floor for the computer industry -- $199. The machine is attracting attention not only because of its price, but also because of its use of the open-source Linux operating system and a truckload of free applications -- many of them from Google.

While the price of the Everex Green gPC TC2502 does not include a monitor, it does include nearly every software application that an ordinary consumer user might need.

These include links to Google Docs & Spreadsheet, Google Product Search, Blogger, YouTube, and Google Maps, plus desktop apps such as Gimp for image editing, Xing for playing movies, Skype for voice chats, OpenOffice.org 2.2 for document editing, and an iTunes-like RhythmBox for playing tunes.

'An Eye-Catcher'

A spokesperson for Everex told news media that the company can provide a savings for users of up to 95 percent through open-source software, and that it expects to have about 20,000 gPCs out this quarter. Although some observers might tag the new machine as a Google PC, Everex said that the product is independent of the search giant.

The "g" in gPC stands for green, not specifically for Google, because it is an energy-efficient device. But it also stands for gOS, an Ubuntu Linux 7.1 desktop that uses the Enlightenment window manger. gOS is a company that describes itself as "an alternative OS with Google Apps and other Web 2.0 apps for the masses."

The machine features a 1.5-GHz Via C7-D processor and chipsets, 512 MB of SDRAM (expandable to 2 GB), an 80-GB hard drive, a DVD/CD-RW drive, and built-in 10/100 Ethernet. It also comes with free phone support.

"It's definitely an eye-catcher," said Doug Bell, an analyst with industry research firm IDC. He said that it could grab the attention of consumers who are price-sensitive, such as the typical Wal-Mart shopper. Some other observers are suggesting it could attract technically inclined experimenters because it is inexpensive enough to be taken apart or adapted for a variety of uses.

Could Redefine Pricing?

For the cost-conscious consumer, Bell said, the challenge is whether the non-Windows interface will be a hurdle, even with Enlightenment. Senior citizens, for instance, are a key target market, and might already be familiar with a Windows environment. "But if the owner is only using a few apps," he said, the gPC might be a good fit.

According to news reports, the machine might also be intended for those unaccustomed to computer shopping. The reports indicated that the motherboard is actually quite small, but the gPC was put into a relatively large plastic case because shoppers at Wal-Mart equate size with capabilities.

But, regardless of its size, the gPC might indicate the future. Bell noted that the Everex machine could point toward a new price point for desktop machines, even without the monitor. He said that an energy-efficient chip, free apps, and an open-source OS add up to "a lot of positives" -- and possibly show where Linux on the desktop is headed.

Source: www.toptechnews.com

Mac Users Targeted with Nasty Malware

2007-11-01T17:37:00.001-04:00

The OSX/RSPlug.a Trojan is on a very short list of malware that's been specifically designed to target Mac OS X, according to Graham Cluley, senior technology consultant for Sophos. The motive of this particular Trojan could be for the purposes of phishing, identity theft, or simply to drive traffic to alternative Web sites, he said.

So much for Mac users avoiding bugs, worms, and other security nuisances. A Trojan targeting Macs is on the loose, and it's hanging out on porn sites, according to security researchers.

The incident was first reported by Intego, a Mac security software vendor. Sunbelt Software, the SANS Institute's Internet Storm Center (ISC), Sophos, and McAfee have confirmed the Trojan. Dubbed "OSX.RSPlug.a," the Trojan changes the Mac's Domain Name System (DNS) settings to redirect unsuspecting users to different sites.

"The whole Trojan is relatively simple and works almost exactly the same as its brother for Windows," said ISC analyst Bojan Zdrnja in a warning the center posted on Thursday. "The bad guys are taking Mac seriously now. This is a professional attempt at attacking Mac systems, and they could have been much more damaging."

Porn Opens the Door

The family of malware that is targeting Macs is called "Puper." It's been plaguing Windows users since 2005. One of the most notable cases of Puper attacks was exploits on infected MySpace pages.

In the Mac attack, people who are searching for porn on the Internet may find it. But they may also find a nasty payload when they encounter a popup window instructing them that QuickTime needs to install new software so they can view the videos. If the user tries to install the codec, a script then creates a scheduled task to change the Mac's DNS to point to a malicious server.

"In effect, instead of getting valid entries for Web sites like you would expect, you're now getting whatever this malicious site decides to point you to. That could be a phising site, that could be more malicious files, you can no longer trust that the URL you expected to get will be what is delivered to you," Allysa Myers, part of the computer search research team at McAfee Avert Labs, wrote on the company's blog.

Mac Malware Short List

The good news is the Trojan doesn't exploit a vulnerability in Leopard, Tiger, or any Apple code. This Trojan exploit depends on a user to take actions to open the door to the nasty payload.

"This is not a red alert, but it is a wake-up call to Mac users that they can be vulnerable to the same kind of social engineering tricks as their Windows cousins," Cluley said. "The truth is that there is very little Macintosh malware compared to Windows, but clearly criminal hacker gangs are no longer shy of targeting the platform."

Keeping It in Perspective

In February 2006, in the wake of the discovery of the first Mac OS X worm, Sophos released research that showed 79 percent of computer users believed Macs would be targeted more in the future. However, over half of those polled said they did not believe the problem would be as great as for Windows. Still, Sophos experts are urging Macintosh users to keep the threat in perspective.

Cluley said the latest version of Mac malware is making headlines because it is so rare. A Trojan like this for Windows would be unlikely to generate as many column inches because such Trojans are encountered every day. Nevertheless, he said, it obviously makes sense for Mac users to ensure that they are protected.

"People have been predicting that as soon as financially motivated malware came to the Mac neighborhood, its denizens could no longer be so smug about security issues," McAfee Avert Labs' Myers wrote. "This is a very simple piece of malware, and yet it works. Time will tell if this family will wreak as much havoc as it has on Windows."

Source: www.toptechnews.com

Windows XP Coming to OLPC Laptops

2007-11-01T17:35:00.001-04:00

Current Analysis analyst Samir Bhavnani said that Windows XP for the OLPC's XO laptops makes sense as Microsoft has a commercial motive to keep Windows prominent in developing nations. "Windows is the de facto world standard," he noted, adding that it would be useful for children in developing countries to learn how to use it.

The One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) computer, which uses a version of Linux, might soon be available with Windows. According to a Reuters report, a Microsoft corporate vice president has said that the software giant is working to adapt Windows XP for the low-cost XO laptop.

"We are spending a nontrivial amount of money" on the porting, Microsoft's Will Poole was quoted by Reuters as saying. He added that the company still has "significant work ahead" to finish, and that, "at the end of the day, there's no guarantee."

The OLPC project, headed by former MIT Media Lab Director Nicholas Negroponte, is expected to begin manufacturing the machines in China in November. The project originally promoted the laptops as costing $100 each, but they now will be offered for an expected $188 each in bulk quantities.

Give One Get One

News reports indicate that the cost of manufacturing is $175 each, and that as many as three million machines have been ordered already. The OLPC Foundation expects to sell millions annually to countries in Asia, Africa, and Latin America.

The possibility of running Windows on the XO is part of the project's open philosophy, according to Negroponte. He told news media that OLPC couldn't say it was open and then remain closed to Microsoft, and that it has a long-standing working relationship with the company.

In fact, he added, the XO's Secure Digital memory slot is part of the OLPC design to provide additional memory for such uses as running Windows, and said that some of the prototype models in any given build go to Microsoft.

As with the news of possible Windows availability on the XO laptops, OLPC is evolving. Originally, the laptop would be sold only in developing countries. But last month OLPC announced its Give One Get One campaign. Beginning on November 12, consumers in the U.S. can purchase two OLPC laptops for $399. One will be sent to the buyer, and one to a child in a developing nation.

Microsoft, Intel Turnabout

The advent of Windows on XO laptops would undoubtedly raise some eyebrows. The XO laptop's independence from Microsoft was one the rallying cries of the effort's supporters. In fact, at a Linux event in 2006, Negroponte was quoted by news media as saying that Intel was mad at him because AMD was its partner, and that "Bill Gates is not pleased either."

He told the audience that, "if I am annoying Microsoft and Intel then I figure I am doing something right."

Intel subsequently joined the OLPC effort following Negroponte's charges on CBS' 60 Minutes and other venues that the chipmaker was creating a cheap alternative laptop, the Classmate PC.

Samir Bhavnani, a research director with Current Analysis West, said that Windows XP for the XO makes sense and noted that Gates has been heavily involved in philanthropic ventures.

He also suggested that Microsoft has a commercial motive to keep Windows prominent in developing nations. "Windows is the de facto world standard," he noted, adding that, because of its stability and compatibility, it would be useful for children in developing countries to learn how to use it.

Source: www.toptechnews.com

Apple's Leopard Hacked, iPhone Rehacked

2007-10-30T18:14:00.000-04:00

The process of installing Mac OS X Leopard on non-Apple hardware is not for the timid, but even in its current state, the hack is incredibly popular, prompting questions about whether Apple will unbind the Mac OS from Apple hardware. Andrew Storms, director of security at nCircle, said the results could be the "demise of Apple's revenue numbers."

Two Apple hacks released last week show that as the company's products become more popular, CEO Steve Jobs might have to cede more control to users. Last week, a user who goes by the name of "BrazilMAC" posted detailed instructions online on how to create a boot disk of Leopard for installation on non-Mac hardware.

In a separate development, another team of hackers released a new program for iPhone and iPod Touch that allows users to run third-party applications. Apple's current firmware for the iPhone, version 1.1.1, disabled the ability to run third-party applications. The new software, AppSnapp 1.1.1, doesn't require a software download to a Mac or PC; it can be installed directly on the device.

AppSnapp Makes iPhone Safer?

When Apple upgraded the iPhone firmware to version 1.1.1, it not only disabled the unlocking software many users had installed to make the phones compatible with carriers other than AT&T, but also disabled third-party software. Developers had created hundreds of iPhone apps that ran directly on the iPhone, not merely through the phone's Safari browser. They all stopped working when users upgraded to 1.1.1.

The move caused such an uproar that Apple eventually relented and announced that it would release a software development kit (SDK) for third-party development in February. With the release of AppSnapp 1.1.1, however, iPhone and iPod touch users won't have to wait. The software allows devices running 1.1.1 to install the programs needed to add third-party applications.

Not only that, the AppSnapp team says, it "fixes Apple's TIFF bug, making your device MORE secure than it was without AppSnapp!" That's a reference to a vulnerability in the way Safari and several other programs handle TIFF images on the iPhone. The bug has been used as an exploit for unlocking software but it also could be used by malicious software to access data stored on the phone.

This ironic development shows that hackers such as HD Moore -- a member of the AppSnapp team who had earlier shown that the TIFF bug could be used to gain control of the phone -- "like the device and they want it to be useful and secure but they also want it unlocked," said Andrew Storms, director of operational security at nCircle, in a telephone interview.

"My sense is that Apple is going to give up on trying to lock the devices back up and focus on the SDK," Storms said. Once that's released in February, "the whole idea of an unlocked phone for third-party apps becomes moot."

Leopard on Non-Mac Hardware

The process for running Leopard on non-Mac hardware is not for the timid. It involves downloading patch files, entering commands in the Terminal program, creating partitions, and more. But, just as with the iPhone unlocking hacks, future developments could make the process easier and easier until users can download a simple program that will install the necessary patches with a double-click of the mouse. "It will become easier and more automated," Storms predicted.

Even in its current state, BrazilMAC's hack is incredibly popular. BrazilMAC told Computerworld that it was the top torrent on the Green Demon torrent site, with 2,100 peers running at one time. Sites such as OSx86 Scene Forums, Insanelymac, and Green Demon have hundreds of posts on the topic "with excited people querying the how-tos," he said.

If running Mac OS on non-Apple hardware became a widespread phenomenon, the result could be the "demise of Apple's revenue numbers," Storms said. "I imagine they will actively try to lock the OS to Apple hardware and it may be easier than it was with iPhone," he added.

Source: www.toptechnews.com

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2007-10-30T18:11:00.001-04:00

I am just a mere human who wants people to understand what's going on in the Tech world, I bring you the most updated Tech news ever. I hope you enjoy this site.

Apple Hits a Grand Slam for Quarter

2007-10-30T18:06:00.000-04:00

It's tough to say Windows Vista's troubles are helping Apple's Mac sales, according to IDC analyst Doug Bell. "Vista's still maturing," he noted, with its first service pack update coming soon. He attributed Apple's blowout quarter to the recent iMac launch in August and continued momentum from Apple's switch to Intel chips.

Apple announced financial results Monday that were the corporate equivalent of a grand slam. With the iPod, iPhone, and Mac computer on base, the company hit a home run in its fiscal fourth quarter.

Sales of iPods were up 17 percent compared to the same quarter a year ago, for a total of 10.2 million units. More than 2.1 million Mac computers shipped, a 34 percent increase over the same quarter last year, and sales for the iPhone -- launched in June -- were over 1.3 million.

The company's quarter, which ended September 29, showed $6.22 billion in revenue and a net profit of $904 million, compared to $4.84 billion and a profit of $542 million in the year-ago quarter. This represents a whopping 67 percent increase in net profit compared to the same quarter last year.

Mac Sales Surging

Mac sales for the quarter exceeded the previous quarter by 400,000 units. Chief Operating Officer Tim Cook was quoted in news reports as saying the Mac's sales were due to strong back-to-school and higher education sales, a new Mac design released in August, and sales to new customers at the retail stores. He said that over 50 percent of those retail sales were to customers who never before owned a Mac.

The Mac computer, which some observers had written off not that long ago when its market share had dropped to lower single digits, is surging. Two research firms are now placing Apple in third place for shipments, behind Hewlett-Packard and Dell. One research firm, IDC, said that Macs accounted for 6.3 percent of all PC sales in the third calendar quarter, up from 5.7 percent a year ago.

Apple projects revenue of $9.2 billion in the first quarter of fiscal 2008, which may be propelled by Friday's release of its major operating system update, Leopard, in addition to the holiday season.

Vista Connection?

One of the reasons behind the Mac's new popularity may be the reaction of some computer users to Microsoft's new operating system, Vista. In fact, the Wall Street Journal's Walter Mossberg, a closely followed veteran observer of the computer industry, wrote in his annual fall PC buyer's guide that Vista was a "disappointment" in that it starts more slowly than XP-based PCs and has compatibility problems.

But it's tough to say if Vista's troubles are helping Mac sales, according to Doug Bell, an analyst with IDC. "Vista's still maturing," he noted, with its first service pack update coming soon.

He attributed Apple's blowout quarter to the recent iMac launch in August and continued momentum from Apple's switch to Intel chips. Bell also said sales are being helped by Mac's ability to boot Windows as well as the Mac OS, via Boot Camp or third-party applications.

He added that sales of laptops were "certainly a big driver" in Mac sales, with a 37 percent increase over the same quarter last year. But the number that impressed him even more was the 31 percent increase for desktops, which he described as a "much tougher area" these days.

Source: www.toptechnews.com

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2007-10-30T17:22:00.001-04:00

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2007-10-28T16:26:00.001-04:00

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