Technology News

You Tube is Down

2007-01-12T10:12:00.000+02:00

Yes, YouTube is down! I did not see anything like this for google before. I dont know the reason yet but this must be first downtime of the giant company google.

Slingbox TV-over-Internet device lands in Europe

2006-05-30T21:48:00.000+03:00

An electronic gadget that promises to unshackle consumers from their TV sets became available in Europe for the first time on Tuesday, opening up new ways for users to watch television wherever they go.

The Slingbox plugs into a terrestrial, cable or satellite TV set-top box and then transmits the video over the Internet. Users can then tune in via a PC or a laptop. It is part of a new product category known as "placeshifting," similar to the "time-shifting" made popular by digital video recorders like Sky+ and
TiVo.

The Slingbox is available in Britain this week, ahead of a broader European launch later this year.

The device, which sells for 180 pounds ($338) could complicate the nascent efforts of broadcasters and mobile phone companies to sell TV downloads and other video services. Slingbox users in the United States can also use mobile phones to watch video, though that service is not yet available in Britain.

However, at least one mobile phone company sees the Slingbox not as a threat but as a possible opportunity to sell new services to subscribers.

An executive for U.S. mobile carrier Sprint Nextel told Reuters last week that his company is talking to Slingbox manufacturer Sling Media Inc and other companies about bulking up its multimedia capabilities.

Source

Gamespot: Apple Entering Gaming Market?

2006-05-30T21:45:00.000+03:00

According to Gamespot, there have been hints at a possibility that Apple may enter the games market through its popular iTunes Online Store. Gamespot speculates that the company may be readying games that will be playable on your iPod and available through iTunes. Here's the full post:

Of all the products on the market, few engender as much fanatical loyalty as the iPod. Sony was clearly hoping for something similar when it introduced the sleek PlayStation Portable in March of last year, touting that it played games and video, while the iPod didn't.

Last October, Apple removed one of those advantages when it launched the fifth-generation video iPods. Since then, speculation has swirled that the Silicon Valley company is readying an iPod that could play things other than Brick and Parachute, two of the rudimentary games that come with the ubiquitous handhelds.

This week, GameSpot learned that there may be more to the Apple-game rumors than mere Mac-mad daydreams. A tech-sector recruiter contacted the GS NewsDesk with an interesting story of a prospective hire that got away. Recently, when the recruiter made an offer to a software engineer, the engineer turned the offer down--saying he was being "heavily recruited by Apple."

According to the engineer, an Apple hiring manager named Mike Lampell is heading up a group inside Apple's storied iTunes division. The group is specifically hiring for "C/C++ coders with a 'gaming background.'" The engineer says the project in question was described to him as "super secret," and Apple would not even tell him the exact nature of it until he had been hired and signed a non-disclosure agreement.

Source

Nike shoes talk to Apple's iPod in new system

2006-05-24T00:42:00.000+03:00

LOS ANGELES/NEW YORK (Reuters) - Nike Inc. said on Tuesday that it is making running shoes that will be able to send data about the wearer's performance to an Apple Computer Inc.'s iPod using a new wireless system called Nike+iPod.

Shares of Nike rose over 2 percent as it capitalized on the popularity of the iPod line, which dominates portable digital music players. But one analyst said a relatively narrow section of Nike consumers would be interested in the running products.

Using a Nike+iPod Sports Kit, expected to retail for about $29, consumers will be able to access time, distance, pace and calories burned through the earphones of a nano version of the iPod via a sensor in the insole of special shoes that communicate with the digital music player.

Nike also launched a line of performance clothing, including jackets and shorts, that holds iPods and keeps wires untangled and out of sight.

"We share the same types of consumers," said Trevor Edwards, Nike's vice president of global brand management, who said more than half of nano users already use the device while running. "We know that these two brands work really well together."

A 2002 deal between Nike and the Netherlands' Philips Electronics NV that resulted in an mp3 player that tracked time and distance fizzled, Edwards said, because of differences in the two companies' target consumers.

SELLING MORE FOOTWEAR?

Analyst John Shanley of Susquehanna Financial Group said the Nike+iPod launch was innovative but would not appeal to the company's core base of teenage boys.

Source

New Trojan Targets Microsoft Word

2006-05-22T23:26:00.000+03:00

Now Microsoft Word users need to be extra careful while downloading files, as hackers have already targeted Microsoft Word 2003 exploiting zero-day vulnerabilities with a new Trojan horse named "Trojan.Mdropper.H".

Symantec, the leading desktop security vendor, has issued an alert on its home page regarding the vulnerability, asking users to be extra careful while opening any Word document received either by email or any other means. According to Symantec, opening an email attachment which appears to be a Word document actually opens the latest Trojan horse virus program, giving hackers access to users' PCs. When the document is opened by users, it triggers the vulnerability.

According to Symantec the attack originated in Asia, and now it appears that the attacks are targeted at large organizations but there could be a change in strategy.

Johannes Ullrish, chief technical officer, SANS Internet Storm Center, said that the attackers behind the latest Trojan horse might be operating out of China or Taiwan. The researchers have found Chinese characters in the malicious Word document, and the servers associated with the attack have been traced back to these countries.
The seriousness of the attack has been compounded by Microsoft's declaration that the company might require over three weeks to fix the vulnerability.

Source

Sony Ericsson builds a better Walkman phone

2006-05-22T00:41:00.000+03:00

Sony Ericsson has released two new cellphones with improved music functions: the W850, its first GSM/UMTS slider phone and the W710.
The W850 is claimed to feature a "unique combination" of a full horizontal mode camera and the latest Walkman player 2.0 which will position it against the expected Apple iPhone -a cellphone combined with the iPod music player.

According to Sony Ericsson, the Walkman player 2.0 simplifies navigation through music genres, play lists, individual songs or music albums and includes a TrackID feature powered by Gracenote Mobile MusicID.

This new service enables users to record a few seconds of a song and with one click send that clip to the Gracenote worldwide music database which will identify the track and relay the information back to the phone.

Jan Wäreby, corporate executive vice president, head of sales and marketing, Sony Ericsson, said: "The W850 allows users to identify and buy music in a new and spontaneous way – hearing tracks they like, identifying them with TrackID and downloading them to the phone."

Sony Ericsson also claims to have made the user interface more intuitive making it easy to search and play tracks as well as download them. "New graphics capabilities make the experience more visual and provide music metadata and album art. And the download service is integrated, so there's no need to come out of the music player and into the web browser to visit online music stores."

Source

The New Macbook

2006-05-17T21:09:00.000+03:00

Apple anounced their new notebook, Macbook. It has a great look and style, a very powerful Intel core duo CPU, a built in camera for chating, front row for networking, 13.3-inch widescreen and built-in wireless capability and more features.

Apple says:

What do you get when you put up to 2GHz of pure Intel Core Duo power, an iSight camera, Front Row, iLife ’06, and a 13-inch glossy widescreen display into a sleek case? More than you thought possible for less than you thought possible. Meet MacBook, starting at $1099.

Yahoo!'s New Home Page

2006-05-17T00:12:00.000+03:00

Yahoo announced its new home page design at their blog. You can reach it here. I personaly liked the new design. It is more simple and user friendly. There is a major color on the page , default is white but you can change it by "Page Options" button. You have 5 color options. You can also change width of the page by switching to the narrow layout.

New home page has 5 main areas. First one is search area. There is not much difference here but Yahoo! Answers is noticible. Second main part is left navigation bar. It contains major Yahoo! Services. If you can't find a service there there is a "All Yahoo! Services" button at the bottom of this bar. Third main part is news area,in the middle of the page. There are some topics like Featured, Sports and MOney there. Every option has different news topics in it. Forth and probably newest part is “personal assistant”. It involves recent emails, Yahoo Messenger,Radio and Weather. And one last part is Yahoo! Pulse which they explain as "a place to discover the most popular and interesting Yahoo! searches, as well as pop culture trends, music, videos, photos...".

Skype Goes to Free in USA and Canada

2006-05-16T22:47:00.000+03:00

Skype users who live in USA and Canada can now make free calls from personal computers that connected to internet to landline and wireless phones. Users outside of these two countries can still talk from computer-to-computer and must pay a fee of $ 0.023 (or something similar) to call landline phones. This shows that in the future we may just use our computers to comunucate, not any landline phones. Now skype has 40 million users and growing.

Official Press Release:

Skype, the global Internet communications company, announced that all US and Canadian-based Skype customers can now make free SkypeOut™ calls to traditional landline and mobile phones in the US and Canada. Previously, Skype users in both countries were required to pay for Skype calls from their PCs to traditional telephones. Free SkypeOut calls to the US or Canada will be available to US and Canadian-based Skype users until the end of the year.

Windows Media Player 11

2006-05-15T20:14:00.000+03:00

Apple has been amazingly successful at winning over PC users and infiltrating their machines via iTunes, but with Windows Media Player 11 (WMP 11), Microsoft says "No more."

The new release, launched today as a beta download, beats Apple iTunes in many aspects. It acts as a repository and player for all your music, video, and images, unlike Apple's popular player. And while WMP 11 doesn't integrate with the iTunes Music Store, it also doesn't lock you in to one purchasing source. In fact, it integrates numerous stores including Napster, audible.com, Movielink, and MTV's new Urge service.

This release represents a major departure from the feel and navigation styles of WMP 10 and iTunes. With many other media players, you scroll through a list of files; WMP 11 lets you browse your library by cover. Some other players, like Yahoo! Music include the capability, but none do it as well. Bringing art to navigation makes the process much more appealing visually—your music collection no longer looks like a spreadsheet.

You'll also find the Word Wheel search technology Microsoft has implemented with Vista. Its speed is stunning—start to enter the first few letters of a track, album, or artist into the search bar, and the appropriate music will be waiting for you before you stop typing. Although iTunes has the same basic feature, seeing album art pop up is much more compelling than getting a list of tracks.

Source

Kaspersky Internet Security 6

2006-05-15T20:13:00.000+03:00

Quick—think of three antivirus programs. Are they all from American companies? If so, you may want to broaden your horizons. This full-scale security suite from Moscow adds spyware protection, a spam filter, and a powerful firewall to the well-respected Kaspersky Anti-Virus (KAV)—a household name in Russia and Europe but less well known in the U.S.

Independent antivirus testing labs give KAV high marks. West Coast Labs awarded it Checkmark certification for virus detection and removal as well as for Trojan and spyware detection. ICSA Labs certifies it for virus detection, and Virus Bulletin has given it the VB100% award. You won't find the protection for private data or the parental control that many other suites offer, but all the essentials are there.

KAV includes features designed to block as yet unknown threats, commonly called zero-day attacks. Real-world tests by AVtest.org show that the antivirus really is effective against such assaults (and the company is quicker than most to boil a new threat down into an identifying signature).

KAV saves time by scanning only new files and those that have changed since the last scan. With previous versions, that could cause problems. The method used to mark files as having been scanned, Alternate Data Streams, caused some other detection tools to report that a malicious rootkit might be present. Though Kaspersky maintains there's no way that malware could have taken advantage of the technology, the company now uses a different approach. The speedup in scanning is impressive; I haven't seen anything quite like it in other security products.

Source

Microsoft Preps New Version of Windows CE

2006-05-09T22:50:00.000+03:00

While Microsoft Corp. has been beset by delays in its new operating system for personal computers, developers quietly have been working on a new version of another Windows, this one found in everything from sewing machines to sophisticated cell phones.

A beta version of the revamped Windows CE is due to be introduced to software developers at a conference Tuesday in Las Vegas. The update also will provide the basis for Windows Mobile, which is built for sophisticated cell phones but which even the company concedes can be clunky.

Users can expect to see products based on both systems in 2007, Microsoft says.

Microsoft is trying to conquer the growing market for high-end cell phones while keeping alive opportunities for Windows CE, a decade-old technology that the company has long pushed for small electronic devices. CE is used in such disparate devices as gas station pumps and TV recorders.

Analysts say the market has a lot of potential, although Microsoft has hard work ahead.

Source

Sega announces next Sonic game, exclusively for Wii

2006-05-09T22:48:00.000+03:00

Sega has announced details of the next Sonic game, Wild Fire, which will be released exclusively for Nintendo's Wii console in 2007.

The latest instalment in the series, which has been running since 1991, is set in the themed world of the Arabian Nights. The story is that the final chapters of the story have gone missing, and Sonic must recreate them (probably in faster form than originally intended.)

This shift in setting is intended to provide a fresh looking environment for players to whiz around in. And the whizzing in Wild Fire will not be your childhood whizzing either, with the game taking full advantage of the Wii controller - for example one can hold the controller horizontally with two hands and tilt left and right to steer, and continue to tilt and fling forward to dash-attack.

Source

Intel Introduce New Processor Family: Core 2 Duo

2006-05-09T01:08:00.000+03:00

Intel, one of the major microchip manufacturer company introduced it's new main CPU brand, named Core 2 Duo. Core 2 implies that this CPU brand will have two cores, as you can thing of two CPU placed in one. This means it can do two different tasks at same time, like listening music and surfing on net.

Intel combines two main product lines together, these are Desktop and Laptop. Desktop computers require more power, laptops require less heat and some power too. Intel says this new Core 2 Duo will be very powerfull and at same time very energy-efficient so they will be used on both Desktops and laptops. They achieve this by new 65-nanomete chip production technology. This allow them to install more transistors in a chip with less Energy requirements.

They also say that this new processors will have large caches, that is a small storage unit installed in the CPU. All things i mentioned above are shows that intel is in a new vagon. They are not focusing on to increase processor clock speed but they are adding new cores and large caches. They chose this new way because increasing clock speed is more difficult to achive at this level of clock speeds. Also adding more cores is more effective because it is very comman to use computers for various tasks nowadays. You listen music,same time surf the net, copy some songs to your mp3 player and speak with youe friend on skype!

I m curious to see what this new technology will bring to our digital life.

Intel News Release:

The Intel® Core™2 Duo processor is the new brand for Intel Corporation’s upcoming powerful and more energy-efficient processor families for desktop and laptop computers that will arrive in the third quarter, the company announced today.

Formerly codenamed Conroe and Merom, the Intel Core2 Duo processors for desktop and notebooks PCs respectively are based on the newly designed Intel® Core™ microarchitecture and will include two processing cores — or brains — per chip, hence the “Duo” addition. Intel will also call its highest performing processor for enthusiast and gamers the Intel® Core™2 Extreme processor.

Having a common microarchitecture for the consumer, gaming, notebook and business desktop market segments makes it easier for computer developers to create more efficient software applications and can share capabilities across all categories if necessary.

The dual-core processors will include the industry’s largest integrated cache or memory reservoir called Intel® Advanced Smart Cache that includes a unique design for faster performance on memory intensive applications. The products will also support such features as enhanced security, virtualization and manageability built right into the processors.

Consumers and businesses will also be able to purchase these processors as part of Intel’s market-focused platforms, a collection of Intel hardware and software technology innovation designed and tested together and tailored to specific computing needs.

Nokia, ATI to Collaborate on Mobile Multimedia Tech

2006-05-06T23:26:00.000+03:00

Nokia and ATI Technologies are partnering to try to simplify and drive the development of multimedia capabilities for Nokia phones, the companies said on Thursday.

ATI, a designer of graphics and digital-media processors for game consoles, computers and handheld devices, plans to offer a software development kit for mobile multimedia developers later this year. Together, ATI and Nokia will also host workshops to showcase the new environment to developers. The goal is to make the development of multimedia services easier by promoting open standards and also to inspire the development of mobile multimedia services such as 3-D gaming, mobile TV, video and music playback, they said.

"We want to make sure that with the Nseries devices, we’re pushing the multimedia experience," said Damian Stathonikos, a spokesman for Nokia. The company recently introduced new additions to the Nseries line of phones, highlighting multimedia capabilities such as video capture on some of the devices.

Nokia doesn’t use ATI processors in its phones and won’t say if it plans to in the future, Stathonikos said. Nokia commonly uses chips from Texas Instruments, among others. Products and capabilities developed using the environment that ATI and Nokia create can run on a variety of phones, not only handsets with ATI chips, Stathonikos said.

As part of their goal to simplify development, ATI and Nokia also want to enable developers to create content or services that can be accessed from a variety of devices without requiring developers to tweak the products for each device. Despite many historic efforts across the industry to simplify development this way, developers are still required to change their products to suit requirements of different handsets.

Source

McAfee bites into Apple security

2006-05-06T23:21:00.000+03:00

The antivirus vendor introduced McAfee VirusScan for Mactel on Friday. To back up its statement, McAfee cited the release in March of a patch that fixed 20 vulnerabilities in OS X. A proof-of-concept worm that targeted the OS X platform was also discovered earlier this year.

Many flaws have been discovered in Microsoft products over the same period.

McAfee admitted that Mac users were at "no significant risk" at the moment. But the security vendor also said that if the OS X user base expands, thanks to the popularity of iPod media player and its new range of Intel-powered Macs, then Apple's software will become a more tempting target for organized criminals.

"Historically, Microsoft has been targeted because it has had dominant market share. As there are more Apple users (in the future), more threats will appear," Sal Viveros, a security expert at McAfee, told ZDNet UK.

"At this point, there is very little research (into OS X vulnerabilities) and very few people trying to exploit the OS. You have a lot more people trying to find vulnerabilities in Windows at the moment, but we believe that as more people put the time into finding vulnerabilities in Apple OSes, they will become just as vulnerable as any other OS," Viveros added.

Some Apple users have reacted angrily in the past to suggestions that the Mac platform is becoming less secure, pointing out that Microsoft regularly releases critical patches.

But Secunia said that it also believes that hackers are likely to focus more resources on finding vulnerabilities in Mac OS X.

Source

AOL to Add Free Phone to Instant Messaging Feature

2006-05-06T23:16:00.000+03:00

AOL is preparing to offer the 41 million users of its instant messaging system a free phone number that will allow people to call them from regular phones while they are online.

The move is part of a broad effort by AOL — which has been buffeted by defections from its flagship dial-up Internet service — to capitalize on the continued popularity of its decade-old AIM instant message system.

In addition to expanded Internet calling features, AOL also plans to introduce AIM Pages, an effort to compete with MySpace.com, the rapidly growing social networking service. MySpace, which is owned by the News Corporation, gives its 70 million mostly young members a place to post their writings, photographs, favorite music and video clips.

"Our strategy is to protect and extend our instant messaging business," said James P. Bankoff, executive vice president for programming and products at AOL, a unit of Time Warner. "You have to play offense."

The free phone number is a new twist on services that allow calls between regular phones and PC's, an idea made popular by Skype, which is owned by eBay, and copied by others, like Yahoo through its instant message software. As with those services, the new AOL Phoneline service, to be introduced May 16, will allow users to call each other free if both are online, typically using headsets or microphones attached to their computers.

Other services charge about $30 to $40 a year for a telephone number to receive incoming calls, and about 2 cents a minute to place phone calls from a computer to an ordinary telephone line.

AOL will sell outgoing calls only as part of a flat-rate package that costs $14.90 a month for unlimited calling, or at an introductory price of $9.95 a month for people who subscribe when the service starts.

Skype has not taken off in the United States as it has in other countries because telephone rates are much lower here, said John McKinley, the president of AOL's digital services division. Free incoming calls, he said, are more appealing in this country, especially for people who mostly use cellphones but do not want to give their cell number to casual acquaintances.

These people can give the AOL number out freely. They can then receive notifications on their cellphones of new voice mail messages left at their AOL number.

AOL will make phone numbers available in 50 metropolitan areas. The company hopes to profit both from displaying advertisements to users and from the outbound calling charges and additional services, like ring tones and call forwarding.

AOL is joining a growing list of companies that are attacking the traditional telephone market with the aid of the Internet. There are now about five million subscribers to so-called Voice over Internet Protocol, or VoIP, communications services, according to International Data Corporation, a market research firm based in Framingham, Mass. Because cable and Internet companies are aggressively marketing the service, that is expected to increase to about 30 million subscribers by 2009.

"What's really intriguing about this is how cheap and easy some of this stuff is to use," said Will Stofega, research manager for VoIP services at International Data.

The other new piece of AOL's strategy for its AIM network, AIM Pages, hopes to match MySpace in giving users broad flexibility in designing their pages, but it is also meant to be easier to use. AOL has created a series of modules users can place on their pages, including photo albums, buddy lists and other information about themselves and their interests. It offers ways to add content from AOL and its sister Time Warner companies, like AOL music videos and CNN headlines.

Source

NASA's First Female Shuttle Commander Retires from Spaceflight

2006-05-03T23:05:00.000+03:00

NASA astronaut veteran Eileen Collins, the first woman to pilot and command a U.S. spacecraft, is hanging up her orbital wings to pursue more terrestrial exploits, the spaceflight veteran said Monday.

“It has been wonderful,” Collins told SPACE.com of her shuttle flight career. “The number one thing for me now is to spend time with my family.”

Collins, 49, commanded NASA’s first shuttle mission – STS-114 aboard Discovery – since the 2003 Columbia disaster, and is a veteran of four orbiter flights throughout a nearly 16-year astronaut career.

"Eileen Collins is a living, breathing example of the best that our nation has to offer," said NASA chief Michael Griffin, in a statement. "She is, of course, a brave, superb pilot and a magnificent crew commander.”

But the experienced shuttle astronaut will not plunge into a post-spaceflight career immediately. Collins said she’s reserved the entire upcoming summer to spend with her husband, Pat Youngs, daughter Bridget, 10, and son Luke, 5.

“They’ve put up with all of my training schedules and then I was gone for five weeks over last summer,” Collins said of her family, citing the three weeks of quarantine and two weeks in space during her last mission, not to mention the many national and international appearances that followed her return. “Now that it’s been eight or nine months, I’m just going to chill out and finish the remaining work to be done from STS-114, then it’s on to something new.”

Collins said she hopes her retirement will also allow newer astronauts an opportunity to fly before the shuttle fleet itself retires in 2010. Though a native of Elmira, New York, Collins said she will remain in Houston, Texas – home to NASA’s Johnson Space Center – for the time being.

“It’s important to me that these young people get a chance to fly,” Collins said. “It’s very important to the country to have more people that have flown in space because we take that spaceflight experience with us, which is a valuable thing to have when you go on to design future spacecraft and educate young people.”

Collins is a graduate of Syracuse University, where she studied mathematics and economics, and received two master degrees from Stanford University and Webster University, respectively. She completed her U.S. Air Force Undergraduate Pilot Training at Oklahoma’s Vance Air Force Base in 1979 and was teaching serving as a mathematics and flight instructor at Edwards Air Force Base when selected as an astronaut.

Source

Skype Intros 2.5 Beta and Skypcasting

2006-05-03T23:03:00.000+03:00

Skype (News - Alert), the global Internet calling provider, has released Skype 2.5 Beta, its latest software edition allowing users to make voice and video calls for free over the Internet.

Skype’s newest features and enhancements make it even easier to set up a Skype account and to stay in touch with friends, family, and colleagues for free.

The newest version of Skype simplifies registration and dialing, while improved conference calling and other improvements provide excellent voice quality. Simple prompts while Skyping allow users to adjust how they manage their Internet connection to ensure they have the best possible call quality. Localized payment options in more the 15 currencies have also been built in.

As with all Skype releases, Skype 2.5 beta customers can talk for as long as they like with over 100 million Skype customers across the world without worrying about the cost or the distance of the call.

Source

Microsoft looking to buy into Yahoo?

2006-05-03T23:02:00.000+03:00

Microsoft's share price has taken a beating lately, in part because of the company's increased spending on R&D. Microsoft may be preparing to write a much larger check, as the Wall Street Journal is reporting (subscription required) that the company and super-size Internet portal Yahoo! have been in talks over Microsoft's possibly purchasing an equity stake in the portal.

Here's the rationale.

Despite Microsoft's efforts over the past couple of years and a promising Windows Live beta, the company is still arguably far behind Google in search, advertising, and web services. In the meantime, Google is making moves that could be interpreted as positioning it to encroach on Microsoft's turf, such as buying Writely and launching the Google Page Creator. In addition, MSN/Windows Live is a distant third in search engine usage, according to Search Engine Watch.

Yahoo has a very strong portal presence and has made some smart acquisitions over the past couple of years, including Flickr and del.icio.us. Arguably, it is also the most popular web site in the US, with over 100 million unique visitors per month, according to the Journal.

Where Yahoo is lagging is the all-important search, to the point that despite its strong second place, the company made noises about giving up on passing Google. Those comments didn't sit well with the search team at Yahoo, which quickly rebutted the CFO's throw-in-the-towel comments. That said, Yahoo still trails Google by a wide margin when it comes to search, 42.7 percent to 28.0 percent (MSN comes in at 13.2 percent) for the month of March.

Over the past year, there have been senior-level talks between Microsoft and Yahoo over some sort of partnership, with the most likely scenario being the software maker buying an equity stake in the portal. This would be a big change for Microsoft, given its traditional reluctance to make big acquisitions. Ballmer & Company did make a play for a stake in AOL, briefly emerging as the front-runner before Google pulled the trigger on a 5 percent stake near the end of 2005. Much less likely is Microsoft selling off MSN to Yahoo.

Currently, there do not appear to be any active discussions between Microsoft and Yahoo. That doesn't rule out the possibility of a deal. The two parties may very well return to the negotiating table at some point if the principals at Microsoft and Yahoo think they can make a deal, or if the senior leadership in Redmond thinks its MSN/Windows Live group ultimately isn't up to the task of dethroning Google. It's even possible that Microsoft could make a play to acquire Yahoo outright, but that could do nasty things to its solid balance sheet depending on how such a deal was structured. Whatever route Microsoft and Yahoo take, one thing is for sure: all roads to online supremacy go through Mountain View, California.

Source

Deutsche Telekom and Cisco switch on IP TV

2006-05-01T23:26:00.000+03:00

T-Online, a division of Deutsche Telekom, is to team up with Cisco to deliver a converged data, voice and video, triple play service over its T-Com broadband network.

This "T-Home" network is based on Cisco Internet Protocol Next-Generation Network (IP NGN) architecture and the service is delivered with Cisco IP set-top boxes supporting the Microsoft TV IPTV Edition software platform.

T-Home will make the service available to customers in Germany, France and Spain in the second half of 2006.

"Our objective is to offer customers a convenient Plug and Play solution that can be set up and operated both quickly and easily," said Kai-Uwe Ricke, chairman of the board at Deutsche Telekom.

T-Com's video delivery network is based on the Cisco IP NGN architecture and incorporates Cisco 12000 Series routers at the provider edge, Cisco 10008 Series routers as Broadband Remote Access Server (BRAS) platforms and Cisco Catalyst 6509 Series switches.

T-Home is delivered through a Cisco set top box from the KiSS series called the T-Home X 300T Media Receiver which is one of the first in the world to support Microsoft IPTV Edition. Cisco acquired KiSS Technology in September 2005.

The T-Home X 300T Media Receiver enables high-definition (HD) IPTV and features personal video recorder (PVR) functionality. Its 80-gigabyte hard disk stores up to 70 hours of programming with "time shifting" capabilities that enable users to record preset programs, and even interrupt running programs and continue them later.

The T-Home X 300T supports the Digital Video Broadcasting-Terrestrial (DVB-T) standard and features a dual DVB-T tuner as well as and can be controlled remotely over the Internet. It is HD-capable via an HDMI interface and offers Ethernet and SCART ports for additional connectivity and functionality.

Source

Security Startup Targets Unpatched Windows Vulnerabilities

2006-05-01T23:23:00.000+03:00

A new security company says it has developed a novel approach to protecting PCs from software that exploits unpatched Windows vulnerabilities.

Exploit Prevention Labs, founded in 2005 by some of the same executives behind the PestPatrol antispyware product, has developed software that scans network traffic for known exploits--called zero-days or 0days--that take advantage of unpatched bugs in Windows software.

Called SocketShield, the software also acts as a Web site filter, preventing users from visiting sites that are known to distribute malicious code.

Unlike the major security products, SocketShield does not protect against a wide variety of known malware. Instead, it blocks against a select group of zero-day attacks known to be in circulation. Currently, that means the product blocks about 15 malicious exploits that take advantage of Internet Explorer and Firefox bugs, says Roger Thompson, the company's chief technology officer.

"We're not saying that we're all things to all people. We're just a nifty layer, but it's an important layer," he adds. "We know which exploits are important and we known which ones are in use, and we protect you until you can patch."

Other Protection

Though SocketShield is focused on browser exploits, it could also be used to protect against other types of attacks, Thompson says.

Some users are worried about these zero-day exploits. Last month security vendor eEye Digital Security released a workaround for an unpatched Internet Explorer vulnerability after hackers published code that could be used to exploit it. That patch was downloaded over 150,000 times before Microsoft finally patched the bug.

SocketShield's focus on scanning for network traffic and its ability to block known malware sites makes it a little different from other antivirus products, says Richard Stiennon, chief research analyst with IT-Harvest, a research firm in Birmingham, Michigan. "Vendors are not really good at finding the sites that are trying to infect you," he explains. "They're not good at searching the Web because there are hundreds of millions of Web sites to look at."

The first nonbeta version of SocketShield will ship in June and will cost $29.95 for a one-year subscription. Renewals will cost $19.95 per year.

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Skype Surpasses 100 Million Users

2006-04-29T23:50:00.000+03:00

Skype said Friday that it had hit 100 million registered users worldwide in its first two and a half years, which it claims is the fastest growth of any Internet program ever. According to the company, the 100 millionth name came at 1:12PM GMT Thursday. This compares with some 54 million in September 2005, when Skype was acquired by auction site eBay for $2.6 billion.

With 100 million users, Skype said a phonebook containing all the names would be some 57,000 pages long. However, the number of people using Skype on a regular basis may be far less than that 100 million number. A check by BetaNews Friday afternoon indicated 5.5 million individuals were logged into the Skype network.

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Google SketchUp Beta

2006-04-29T23:46:00.000+03:00

Google SketchUp Beta, the brand new, free 3D drawing tool isn't an obvious fit for the Google desktop application canon. However, this blend of vector-based 3D drawing and CAD-like control lets you rapidly build 3D models that can be exported to numerous bitmap and compressed file formats and, more importantly, geo-coded and shared on the company's Google Earth satellite imagery program, which is also free. So, it's a undeniably cool, oddball app that has the potential to turn one of Google's most popular services, Google Earth, into an even more powerful and personal tool.

If you've ever used a 3D or CAD application, SketchUp is remarkably easy to pick up. There are familiar-looking draw and extrude tools—though, as with virtually all the tools in this app, they have simpler names. Extrude, for example, which gives volume to otherwise flat 2D objects is called "Push/Pull." As in simple CAD tools, there's guidance as you draw lines, arcs, rectangles and circles. Guidance is key here since all your work is all done on a 3D plane, with three-point perspective. In practice, this means that as you draw, SketchUp helps you find the end and middle points of lines and squares—and end the spaces over these lines and squares—and tells you if the square you just drew is really a square. Virtually any plane you draw, on any surface, can be extruded. If you're designing a house, for example, you might push in windows, pull out overhanging roofs or run staircases up, down or around your structure.

The tutorials guide you through the creation of a simply house. SketchUp isn't for freehand drawing. No funny faces or splashes of painterly colors. Yes, you can draw simple figures and pour colors onto surfaces, but this is primarily a tool for making buildings and even neighborhoods that can live on Google Earth. In fact, Google Earth is your only export option if you want anything other than 2D bitmaps. —Continue Reading

Export/Import

If you already have Google Earth installed, you can download pre-made models directly into SketchUp. This is an early beta, so while there were some professionally built models from of the Rose Bowl Stadium and the White House, I found only a handful of user-generated models. To find more models, you'll need to install 3D Warehouse. This companion product (also from Google) lets you find other people's buildings, download them, and use them to start your own models. It's also the only way you can geo-code your own drawing and share it with the Google Earth Community. Other Google Earth users who download 3D Warehouse will be able to see the home-made structures on Google Earth. Google's goal is to build a 3D Google Earth with the help of end-users.

Learning Google SketchUp via the included tutorial is easy, but without that guidance most users may be a little lost. The opening screen shows a man standing at the intersection the X, Y and Z axis. This is to give newbies a sense of the 3D perspective they'll be using to draw. If you start with the rectangle and move it near the vertex (the x, y, z intersection) , an "origin" guidance point lights up and a dotted line guides you to the "Golden Section." This is SketchUp inferring where it thinks you want to end up. There's even a tape measure to help you create buildings, windows and doors that aren't too large or small and to build good-looking, realistic structures.

To draw a wall on your base, simply start at one point, drag the cursor to the adjacent corner and then drag "up." This creates a vertical wall. Again, for those unfamiliar with 3D or CAD drawing this will seem odd, but if you do it often enough, you'll get the hand of it. As you draw various walls, you may find yourself squeezed too close to the 3D object. Fortunately, you need only use the scroll wheel to zoom in and out on the drawing.

I don't think it could be easier to create, say, a window on your 3D house. I simply created a rectangle on one vertical wall, switched to the "Push/Pull" tool and pushed the window in. SketchUp automatically adjusts to the surface you're drawing so you don't have to figure out how to push a window into the 3D distance.

Not everything is a breeze, though. I stumbled when trying to create a chimney on my house. I added a rectangle to my roof and tried to "push/pull" it up, but the angel of the chimney ended up following the pitch of the roof. I figured it out eventually, but I could imagine users getting stuck here. Similarly, if you want to edit one side of a box, you need to select it first and then select, say, the move tool. You can right click after you select a wall, but move is still not one of your options.

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Internet calling firm Skype offers ringtones by renowned artists

2006-04-28T00:35:00.000+03:00

The internet calling firm Skype announced a broad set of agreements with recording firms and began offering ringtones of Madonna Wednesday.

The licensing deals are with Warner/Chappell Music, EMI Music Publishing, Sony/ATV Music, and the MCPS-PRS Alliance, which oversees song licensing and distribution of royalties in the U.K.

Skype, which was purchased by eBay last October will have more artists slated to follow Madonna.

Under the deal, users of Skype's popular VoIP (voice over Internet protocol) application can buy a greater selection of ringtones.

World-renowned recording artists from Warner Music Group can now be downloaded as ringtones to Skype users in the United States, United Kingdom, Ireland, France, The Netherlands, Belgium, and Poland and within weeks to the rest of Skype's more than 94.6 million registered users worldwide.

Skype is offering several Madonna songs, ranging from one of her first singles, 1983's "Lucky Star," to her newest, "Sorry," for 1.86 dollars, at personal.skype.com.

Eventually, the ringtone selection will broaden to include artists such as Green Day, the Red Hot Chili Peppers, and more from the publishers' catalogs, Skype said. Enditem

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Nintendo names new video game console "Wii"

2006-04-28T00:31:00.000+03:00

Nintendo Co. Ltd on Thursday said it has named its new video game console "Wii, which it said is pronounced "we" to emphasise that the console is for everyone.

The console up until now has been known by its code-name "Revolution."

"While the code-name Revolution expressed our direction, Wii represents the answer," spokeswoman Perrin Kaplan told Reuters.

Nintendo, best known for its Game Boy portable video players, aims to gain share in the $25 billion (18.9 billion pounds) global video game market now dominated by Sony Corp.

Microsoft Corp. launched its next-generation Xbox 360 console late last year and Sony's new PlayStation 3 is due in November. Wii also is expected to hit store shelves later this year.

While the new consoles from Microsoft and Sony boast more power and high-definition graphics, Nintendo's goal is to roll out a machine that appeals to a broader audience than the young males who make up the traditional console gaming market.

A key feature of the Wii is its one-handed controller that looks like a television remote control and uses motion-detection sensors that allow players to control the game by wielding it like a sword, waving it like a conductor's baton, or swinging it like a baseball bat.

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60mph green machine may be the answer to city traffic jams

2006-04-27T00:16:00.000+03:00

This three-wheeled vehicle, part-motorbike and part-car, is being hailed as the future of city driving. Called the Clever, it is half the width of a conventional car, can carry a passenger and, as it runs on gas, would be exempt from the congestion charge in London.

It does more than 100 miles (160km) per gallon, three times that of most cars, and emits a third less carbon dioxide. The EU-funded project involved a team from the University of Bath, where it was showcased yesterday. The Clever has a top speed of 60mph and will cost from £5,000 to £10,000 if it makes it into production.

Geraint Owen, a mechanical engineer from Bath university, said that the Clever had been successfully crash-tested. He added: “The next step is to get EU funding to create a batch of 100 of the vehicles for trial in European cities.” Jos Darling, a team member, said smaller vehicles were a solution to the “relentless increase in traffic”.

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Kodak Introduces New EASYSHARE V603 Digital Camera

2006-04-27T00:15:00.000+03:00

Building upon the tremendous success of its award-winning line of KODAK EASYSHARE V-series digital cameras, Kodak debuts the V603, a compact camera that is the perfect mixture of style, performance and simplicity that can slide into almost any pocket.

The KODAK EASYSHARE V603 Zoom Digital Camera is designed for people who want a small, stylish camera packed with innovative features to enhance the photography experience. It is the latest in the V-series line of cameras which features exciting digital advancements wrapped in sleek camera bodies while remaining true to Kodak’s signature ease-of-use.
The tiny, 6.1-megapixel V603 features a SCHNEIDER-KREUZNACH C-VARIOGON 3X optical zoom lens, a 2.5” high-resolution display, in-camera picture enhancing features such as KODAK PERFECT TOUCH technology and multiple color and scene modes including panorama stitch.

“Kodak continues to merge innovation with style in its V-series line of digital cameras,” said Francois Monnet, Regional Business General Manager of Kodak’s Digital & Film Imaging Systems Division, South Asia Region. “The combination of high tech, high style and high performance at an affordable price is something that people have come to expect from Kodak and the V603 delivers.”

The KODAK EASYSHARE V603 zoom digital camera records TV-quality video, up to 30 frames per second (fps) using advanced MPEG-4 compression with the ability to split video with a simple on-camera editing feature. Built-in image stabilization technology during video reduces on-screen shaking from unintentional hand and camera movement. The camera also offers zoom during video including auto focus with its professional-caliber 3X SCHNEIDER-KREUZNACH C-VARIOGON optical zoom lens. And it is simple to select any frame in a video, then save and print from video in just seconds. Then watch the videos on the camera’s big, bright 2.5-inch LCD screen.
The KODAK EASYSHARE V603 Zoom Digital Camera, which comes in black, is immediately available in April 2006 and retails for (S$549 RRP).

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Seagate Ships 750-GB Drives; Externals Due Next Week

2006-04-27T00:14:00.000+03:00

Seagate Technology officially brought its perpendicular-recording technology into the desktop drive market, announcing shipments of its first 750-Gbyte Barracuda internal drive Wednesday. A complementary external 750-Gbyte drive will be released this coming Monday.

According to Seagate spokesman Michael Hall, the suggested retail price of the 750-Gbyte Barracuda 7200.10 drive will be $590, while the 200-Gbyte model will sell for about $104. The drives began shipping last week to distributors, Hall said.

Somewhat surprisingly, the external 750-Gbyte Seagate External Hard Drive drive due next Monday will be priced at about $559; external drives are generally priced somewhat higher than their internal counterparts.

While it's relatively easy to add additional disk platters to a drive to increase its capacity, the new Barracuda 7200.10 drive contains four platters and eight heads, the same number of disks and heads used to design the prior-generation Barracuda, which used longitudinal-recording methods, Hall said.

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Can email ID beat the spammers?

2006-04-20T15:26:00.000+03:00

The promise of email authentication is too good to ignore but if it is implemented incorrectly it will break a company's mail system instead of fixing it, experts have cautioned.

Erik Johnson, a secure messaging executive at Bank of America, said in a presentation at the Authentication Summit in Chicago on Wednesday: "Deploy smart. Don't just do it. If you just do it, you may just break it."

For the past two years, the technology industry has been advocating the use of systems to guarantee the identity of email senders. It sees such authentication as key to the fight against spam and phishing, as it should help improve mail filters and make it harder for senders to forge their addresses. The industry also likes to advertise that these systems have practically no cost.

Organisations have been buying into the promise of restoring trust in email. The number of Fortune 500 companies that sent authenticated mail has increased, from seven per cent in July last year to 20 per cent at the end of March 2006, according to Microsoft. The software giant is the main backer of a caller ID-like system for email called Sender ID.

Johnson said: "Setting aside rewriting SMTP, email authentication is the best thing we have today," referring to the Simple Mail Transfer Protocol, the basic technology behind email. Yet adopting sender authentication and managing it is not simple, he said. It took Bank of America six months to deploy the technology.

He said: "It really is not easy to deploy sender authentication right. If you are in a large organisation, you really can't just push the easy button. This requires pretty much constant attention and activity... or else it will break and it will hurt you."

There are two main ways of authenticating email: Sender ID and DomainKeys Identified Mail, or DKIM. Backed by Cisco Systems and Yahoo!, DKIM relies on public key cryptography. It attaches a digital signature to outgoing email, so recipients can verify the message comes from its claimed source.

Sender ID is further along in adoption than DKIM. It requires ISPs, companies and other internet domain holders to publish SPF (Sender Policy Framework) records to identify their mail servers. This usually does not require new hardware or software; the most arduous part is doing an inventory of mail servers and the subsequent maintenance of that record.

David Crocker, the principal at Brandenburg InternetWorking and author of one of the early email standards, said: "The story is that [this type of sender authentication] is cheap to do. That is not true. The ongoing IT cost is huge."

The key problem for large companies is figuring out all the systems that send email on their behalf, said Paul Judge, chief technology officer at email security company CipherTrust. "If you are a large multinational organisation, you may have email gateways in 10 countries, you may have marketing companies that send email on your behalf," he said.

This was a challenge at Bank of America. Johnson said: "You need to really have a comprehensive, holistic look at your entire organisation and know exactly who is sending mail.

"As you move along with implementing authentication... you are going to find that things will break - if some business unit goes ahead and sets up some host to send email and they don't register the hosts with SPF records." The problem is especially acute if email service providers delete all the email that fails an authentication check, he said.

But not all adopters of email authentication face these problems. Dell, for example, did not see a major challenge. Erich Stokes, a systems engineer, said: "There was some housekeeping that needed to be done. Email and SMTP was this great open standard, we just have to be a bit more responsible now."

The challenge of making an inventory of email servers is apparent in the way SPF records are published. More than half of the companies that use SPF fail to tell recipients their list of servers is complete - that is, that there should be no mail coming from other servers, according to CipherTrust. This leaves open a door for spoofers, as email sent from an unidentified server can't just be deleted by filters.

Dean Drako, the CEO of Barracuda Networks, a maker of antispam appliances, said: "We're big proponents of SPF, and all our boxes support it. But we have to recommend to our customers that they do not do any filtering on it, because there are too many false positives." False positives are messages wrongly identified as spam.

The ultimate benefits really are in the future applications of email authentication, attendees at the authentication event agreed. Email security companies are working on accreditation and reputation services for email. These systems look at the email sending habits of a particular domain and include that in the decision as to whether messages should be junked.

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Samsung Shows 2GB Phone Memory Card

2006-04-20T15:23:00.000+03:00

Samsung Electronics said on Wednesday it has developed a tiny, 2GB memory card for use in mobile phones, just three months after it announced a card with half of that capacity.

The 2GB MMCmicro card is about the size and shape of one key on a standard computer keyboard and just .04 inches thick. It can store as much as 12 hours of "mobile video," Samsung said, without specifying a format.

It can also transmit data quickly. A user can download three hours of mobile video, for example, in less than two minutes, according to Samsung. The cards can read data at 10 megabits per second and write at 7 mbps, the Seoul-based company said.

Both the 2GB and 1GB cards are expected to become available later this year, Samsung said. There was no word yet on pricing.

Multimedia Format

The cards are based on MMCmicro, a format designed by Samsung that's based on the MMC (Multimedia Card) standard.

The MMC standard competes with SD (Secure Digital) cards. Many handset makers, including Samsung, make phones compatible with both card types.

Earlier this year, SanDisk announced a 1GB card based on its smallest memory card format, MicroSD.

Memory card developers are reducing the size of the cards and boosting their memory capabilities to accommodate for small cell phones and for the additional data services that cellular operators are offering.

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The Future Is Here...It's About Time

2006-04-20T15:20:00.000+03:00

Score the first round for HD DVD.
After months of jockeying between two rival camps to roll out high-definition DVDs, a handful of discs from Warner and Universal in the HD DVD format hit stores Tuesday.

Rival Blu-ray discs aren't expected on shelves for another month.

But even if it was HD DVD's day in the sun, there were still some first-day clouds.

While randomly visited stores in the L.A. area were carrying four or five copies each of the three movies that debuted--Warner Bros.' The Last Samurai and The Phantom of the Opera and Universal's lone entry Serenity--Warners' Million Dollar Baby has been delayed a few days, and Serenity was nowhere to be found at some L.A. Best Buy and Circuit City stores. Other retailers contacted by sister publication Video Business hadn't received their copies of Serenity Tuesday either.

Warner said problems with the Million Dollar Baby HD DVD master held back the title's shipment to retail. The studio is on track to send out discs Thursday and Friday.

The studio pushed back its original HD DVD launch from March 28 due to production issues. Universal had no explanation for the missing Serenity shipments, but such delays were not uncommon during the early days of standard DVD.

The first Toshiba HD DVD players went on sale Monday, with an estimated 10,000-15,000 units shipped. Warner and Universal are shipping about 10,000 copies of each of their initial releases. Users must have an HD TV and an HD DVD player to watch HD DVD movies. HD DVD players will also play standard DVDs, but standard DVD players won't play HD DVDs.

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Nokia launches four handsets for N.America

2006-04-06T00:07:00.000+03:00

The world's largest handset maker Nokia (NOK1V.HE: Quote, Profile, Research) unveiled four new phones aimed at the North American market on Wednesday, including three new CDMA models and a slim GSM/EDGE phone with a camera and music player.

The Finnish company, which sells one in three of all mobile phones around the world, has been trying to boost sales in the region, where it lags behind rival Motorola (MOT.N: Quote, Profile, Research) and the U.S.-based firm's iconic ultra-thin RAZR phone.

Nokia announced a slim, folding GSM/EDGE handset, the 6126, with a 1.3 megapixel camera and a digital music player. It can hold up to 1,000 songs on a memory card, the company said in a statement.

The phone will start shipping in the North American market in the second quarter.

It also announced three phones using CDMA (Code Division Multiple Access), the second most common mobile technology behind GSM, and which is popular in North America and parts of Asia.

The phones include the 2365i folding handset, to be priced at the lower end of the market, the 2865i monoblock phone with an FM radio, and the 6175i, a mid-price folding phone with a 1.3 megapixel camera and GPS receiver.

It said each of the new handsets includes Bluetooth short- range wireless technology, and they will start shipping during the second half of the year.

It did not give detailed pricing information.

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Sony rolls out new flash-based Walkmans in Europe

2006-04-06T00:03:00.000+03:00

Sony is announcing its new Flash memory-based Walkman for the European market, in the company's latest effort to re-energize the once venerable Walkman brand. Its new models, in any of six colors, come in 512 MB, 1 GB, and 2 GB capacities, and feature an optional FM tuner for the 512 MB and 1 GB versions.

One feature that may quickly differentiate the new Walkman from other MP3 players isn't so much size - though it weighs only 25 grams - but its reported three-minute quick charge, which yields three hours of playing time, or up to 28 hours on a regular charge. If its form factor resembles a USB keychain drive, that's not a coincidence: To transfer music, you simply pop off the cap and plug it into your computer's USB port - no cables needed. Customers may also appreciate the fact that there's no room left in one of these for much DRM: MP3, ATRAC, and unsecured WMA music files can be played back. A single-line OLED display shows player status and track details.

Expect availability throughout Europe at the end of April, though there is no word yet as to whether Sony will bring this particular player to the United States, where Sony Ericsson is recharging the brand through musical cell phones. Last September, Sony announced its revamping of the Walkman line in the US, in the form of the very original - though perhaps not particularly classy - Walkman Bean.

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Mac fans sign up for Boot Camp

2006-04-05T23:53:00.000+03:00

That could explain the Macintosh community's surprisingly upbeat reaction to Apple Computer's announcement of software enabling the running of Windows on Macs.

Normally, of course, Mac addicts are as likely to sneer at anything having to do with Microsoft's operating system as they are to breathe.

But when Apple announced Boot Camp on Wednesday--software currently in beta that will make it possible to run Windows XP on Intel-based Macs and that will be incorporated in the next major upgrade to Mac OS X--the Mac community went against type, filling Mac forums with optimistic praise for the new software.

"As a Macintosh user for more than two decades, the announcement about Boot Camp is reassuring," Ishan Bhattacharya, a doctor in Timonium, Md., told CNET News.com. "I do not like the Windows (graphical user interface), but there are applications available on that platform I would like to use at home without (having) to buy a dull beige box. Now I can do that, and so (I) have ordered an (Intel-based) iMac."

Others who already have Intel Macs want to wait no longer, particularly because they think that by bringing Windows video drivers to their Macs, they will be able to run graphics-intensive, Windows-only games on them.

"I love the way (Boot Camp) is so simple to use," Jamie Harris of London said. "I also like the idea of proper video drivers--as this opens up a whole catalog of games."

To Colin Cornaby, a Seattle student who develops OS X software, Boot Camp provides a bridge for people who have been scared to migrate to Macs after years of using Windows.

"Apple hasn't really provided much of a migration path to get from Mac OS X to Windows," Cornaby said. "Now they have provided a way to run existing software and work in a familiar environment while they get to know OS X."

Of course, not all Mac fans are so sure that Apple's move is smart. Some worry that Boot Camp might discourage makers of software like Adobe Systems' Photoshop from developing Mac-only software.

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Sony's New Flash-Based Music/Photo Player

2006-04-04T13:44:00.000+03:00

Sony Electronics of China announced today a new line of MP3/WMA/Photo players which use flash memory instead of hard drives or Hi-MD media. The new devices boast compatibility with MP3 and WMA audio formats, as well as BMP and JPEG viewing capabilities.

Sony has also been implementing recording features into their personal audio players recently and the CE-P line has not been left out in the cold. The CE-P line features an FM tuner which can be recorded from along with a mic for voice recording. A rough translation of some Chinese websites also hint at a calendar function which may bring some type of organizer functionality to it.

Visually, the CE-P series features a 1.5-inch 260,000 color OLED display with a resolution of 128x128 pixels. The player will also feature two languages, simplified Chinese and English which may hint at a greater target market. The CE-P has a USB 2.0 interface to connect to PCs for transferring media although there is no word of PlayForSure compatibility. The CE-P lines is only about 1.8-inches wide and about 3-inches tall which makes this one of Sony's smallest portable audio devices yet.

Because of the Chinese-only announcement, it may be a while before we see the CE-P line in the States or we may not see the devices at all as it so often happens. The CE-P line comes in 3 different flash memory capacities: the CE-P13 with 256MB at about $100, the CE-P15 with 512MB at about $125, and the CE-P17 with 1GB of flash memory at around $150.

Sony recently announced a new Hi-MD player which featured OLED and MP3 support, but many were skeptical that these updates would change the outlook for the MiniDisc format. Is Sony looking to drop the MiniDisc format or just offering a wider range of options?

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Apple sets new volume controls for iPods

2006-04-01T23:58:00.000+03:00

In a world where hearing problems are real, concerns are mounting and lawyers are looking to make gadget providers liable, Apple Computer Inc. -- the maker of the predominant iPod music player -- has created new volume controls.

Apple issued a software update Wednesday for its recent iPod models -- the Nano and the video-capable iPod -- allowing users to set how loud their digital music players can go.

Parents also can use the feature to impose a maximum volume on their child's iPod and lock it with a code.

Sandy Liao, a Fremont mother of two, welcomed the development, although she wants to see Apple eventually add the feature to the models she has, the Shuffle.

She had specifically avoided buying her children any kind of portable music or CD player out of concern they would damage their ears, but a friend gave a Shuffle to each of her children, ages 9 and 10, as gifts last year.

"It would be great if I could get the volume controls for them, too," she said.

Apple representatives said little about why they made the change, issuing only a statement.

"As the leading provider of digital music players, Apple continuously brings iPod customers innovative and easy-to-use solutions," said Greg Joswiak, Apple's vice president for iPod marketing. "With the increased attention in this area, we want to offer customers an easy-to-use option to set their own personal volume limit."

Whether or not Apple is responding to legal challenges or specific consumer requests, tech industry analyst Michael Gartenberg of JupiterResearch said the issue clearly is a concern, and "Apple is acting in a responsible way to address it."

Earlier this year, a Louisiana man filed a lawsuit against Apple, claiming that the iPod can cause hearing loss in people who use it.

The devices can produce sounds of more than 115 decibels, a volume that can damage the hearing of a person exposed to the sound for more than 28 seconds per day, according to the complaint filed in U.S. District Court in San Jose, Calif.

Although the iPod is more popular than other types of portable music players, its ability to cause hearing loss isn't any higher, experts said.

More than 25 million Americans, or about 10 percent of the U.S. population, suffers from hearing loss that adversely affects their lives, said Jennifer Weber, an audiology professor at the University of Northern Colorado.

"Any excessive sound level has the potential of causing hearing damage, whether it's an iPod or a Walkman, or a loud hairdryer," Weber said.

Apple ships a warning with each iPod that cautions "permanent hearing loss may occur if earphones or headphones are used at high volume."

The Cupertino-based company also has posted online a brief analysis about sound, advising users of iPods, computers and other devices to adopt common sense and "listen responsibly" when using headphones or earbuds.

The company isn't alone when it comes to such warnings.

Some cell phones, for instance, force users to acknowledge a warning of possible hearing damage each time they use the speakerphone.

"These product warnings are definitely on the increase," said James Dorr, a product liability defense attorney with Wildman Harrold LLP in Chicago. "Because of the litigious nature of today's marketplace, manufacturers are much more aware of liability issues and the need to protect themselves."

To avoid litigation costs, Dorr said companies are issuing warnings even though they're not mandated to do so for so-called open and obvious dangers.

And in France, regulators passed a law in 1996 -- five years before the iPod debuted -- imposing on devices a noise cap of 100 decibels. Apple said it was complying with that French law with a software update for iPod owners there, limiting the iPod sound to 100 decibels.

Apple has sold more than 42 million iPods since the original model debuted in October 2001. More than 30 million of those sales were posted last year after Apple introduced the iPod Shuffle and replaced its hot-selling iPod mini with the iPod Nano.

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World's First HD DVD Player Released

2006-04-01T23:56:00.000+03:00

Toshiba has initiated the Japanese rollout of the first commercially available HD DVD player, a next-generation device that promises to take home entertainment to a higher level with superior digital picture quality and sound. The device's launch ups the ante in the competition with the rival Blu-Ray high-definition DVD format backed by Sony.

The HD-XA1 player can play prerecorded HD DVD movies and other content, with support for next-generation surround-sound formats. In addition to being able to play new high-def movies, the drive can play standard DVDs with resolution scaled to HD TV displays.

The player's pop-up menu not only can display movie chapters with thumbnails while movies play, but also lets users navigate menus without having to pause playback.

In addition, the drive features a Picture in Picture (PIP) function that offers the ability to play supplementary video over the main program, allowing viewers to watch commentary about the making of a movie while it plays.

Video Product Portfolio

Toshiba reported that global sales of DVD players and recorders reached some 370 million units by the end of 2005. In Japan, the penetration ratio of DVD players and recorders reached 49 percent of households by the end of March.

In bringing the first HD DVD player to market, Toshiba is hoping to spur adoption of the next-generation DVD format and to stimulate the sale of content-creation software for developing movies based on the HD DVD specification.

The Japanese electronics giant also is poised to deliver notebook PCs with HD DVD players and recorders.

Last week, Toshiba announced that it has pushed back the launch date of HD DVD players in the U.S. until April, a month later than planned, in an effort to have the debut coincide with new movie releases from film studios.

New Format Delays

Both Sony and Toshiba have delayed the introduction of their high-definition DVD formats because of problems ironing out the final specs for their built-in digital-rights management technologies. The delay forced Sony to announce that it is postponing the launch of its Blu-Ray-enabled PlayStation 3 console.

Earlier this week, Matsushita Electric announced it will start selling its first Panasonic-branded Blu-Ray players in North America in September.

Sony Electronics already has introduced an array of Blu-Ray Disc (BD) products, taking the wraps off of a high-definition DVD player, a BD-enabled desktop computer, and an internal BD drive.

Sony's BDP-S1 disc player, priced at $1,000, will ship in July with an output feature that will let those who have first-generation HD TV sets play Blu-Ray video content.

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Japan Launches Digital TV for Cell Phones

2006-04-01T23:55:00.000+03:00

Digital TV broadcasts for mobile phones equipped with special receivers began in Japan's major urban areas Saturday, following several months of test broadcasts.

But finding new phones in stores proved hard as eager consumers have already snapped up the limited number of handsets on the market. Japan's major mobile carriers say sales are good, but have not disclosed numbers.

Japan's mobile TV service is not the world's first —
South Korea, Britain and several other nations offer a similar service, although with different technologies. Mobile users in some parts of the United States can also tap into digital broadcasts.

But the new service in Japan, which is free, will potentially reach the broadest market yet through the country's terrestrial digital broadcast system, which relays images through the air via TV towers, not satellites.

It also uses broadcasting air waves, rather than an Internet connection, to relay streaming video.

Japan's 90 million mobile phone users already play video games, download music files, exchange e-mail, read news, trade stocks, store digital photos and surf the Web — all on tiny handset screens half the size of a business card.

Source

World marvels at total eclipse

2006-04-01T23:51:00.000+03:00

The total eclipse of the Sun finished its journey across the globe at 1148 GMT (1248 BST), in sunset along Mongolia's northern border.

Skywatchers around the world marvelled as they caught a glimpse of the "ultimate astronomical show".

As the spectacle passed overhead, witnesses prayed, cheered and clapped.

The eclipse took just over three hours to sweep a narrow corridor across the Atlantic, through Africa, Turkey and Central Asia.

'Amazing sight'

The Moon's umbral shadow first touched down on Earth at 0836 GMT (0936 BST), at sunrise on the east coast of Brazil.

It then raced across the Atlantic Ocean before making African landfall in Ghana at 0908 GMT (1008 BST), where residents of the capital Accra filled the streets to view the event.

As the temperature dropped and the sky darkened, the crowd looked skywards and shouted and clapped as the eclipse swept above.

An eclipse watcher in the capital said it was "the most amazing sight" and "a must-see experience".

At 1011 GMT (1211 BST), the eclipse reached the desert of southern Libya where professional and amateur astronomers had gathered to witness the point of greatest eclipse; a sight which lasted a total of four minutes and seven seconds.

The Libyan government prepared for the tourist rush by erecting desert tent villages, with a total capacity for 7,000 people.

Continuing on a northeast course, the eclipse then crossed the southern Mediterranean coast at 1040 GMT (1140 BST).

British and US astronomers joined thousands of skywatchers to view the phenomenon from a Roman amphitheatre in Turkey.

"It's one of those experiences that makes you feel like you're part of the larger universe," said Nasa scientist Janet Luhman.

Other scientists viewed the eclipse from Kastellorizo Island in Greece.

"It was more fabulous even than we expected," said Jay Pasachoff, professor of astronomy at Williams College, Massachusetts, after he had observed his 42nd solar eclipse.

"All the technical equipment worked perfectly, the corona shone brightly, and sunspots on the eastern edge of the Sun provided an even more dramatic show than predicted."

The eclipse then moved across Russia through to Central Asia, where its journey finally ended at 1148 GMT (1248 BST) - sunset in the northern borders of Mongolia.

Source

Fastest view of molecular motion

2006-03-05T00:26:00.000+02:00

Scientists have made the fastest ever observations of motion in a molecule.

They "watched" parts of a molecule moving on an attosecond timescale - where one attosecond equals one billion-billionth of a second.

The researchers say the study gives a new in-depth understanding of chemical processes and could be used in future technologies like quantum computing.

The study, which relies on short pulses of light from a specially built laser, was published in the journal Science.

"Understanding how something changes in time means really understanding its essence, and we are now looking at changes on a very, very fast timescale," said team member Dr John Tisch, of Imperial College London, UK.

Ultra-fast process

The researchers devised a new technique to "see" the motion of protons, one of the building blocks of an atom, in molecules of hydrogen and methane.

The technique involves firing a very short but intense laser pulse at a molecule, which rips an electron away, leaving the molecule in an excited ionised state.

The electron is then drawn back to the molecule, and when it collides a very short burst of x-rays is released.

Source

Online amateurs crack Nazi codes

2006-03-05T00:17:00.000+02:00

Three German ciphers unsolved since World War II are finally being cracked, helped by thousands of home computers.

The codes resisted the best efforts of the celebrated Allied cryptographers based at Bletchley Park during the war.

Now one has been solved by running code-breaking software on a "grid" of internet-linked home computers.

The complex ciphers were encoded in 1942 by a new version of the German Enigma machine, and led to regular hits on Allied vessels by German U-boats.

Allied experts initially failed to deal with the German adoption in 1942 of a complex new cipher system, brought in at the same time as a newly upgraded Enigma machine.

The advancement in German encryption techniques led to significant Allied losses in the North Atlantic throughout 1942.

The three unsolved Enigma intercepts were published in a cryptography journal in 1995 and have intrigued enthusiasts ever since.

Although assumed to have little historical significance, they are thought to be among just a handful of German naval ciphers in existence still to be decoded.

Exponential growth

The latest attempt to crack the codes was kick-started by Stefan Krah, a German-born violinist with an interest in cryptography and open-source software.

Mr Krah told the BBC News website that "basic human curiosity" had motivated him to crack the codes, but stressed the debt he owed to veteran codebreaking enthusiasts who have spent years researching Enigma.

He wrote a code-breaking program and publicised his project on internet newsgroups, attracting the interest of about 45 users, who all allowed their machines to be used for the project.

Mr Krah named the project M4, in honour of the M4 Enigma machine that originally encoded the ciphers.

There are now some 2,500 separate terminals contributing to the project, Mr Krah said.

"The most amazing thing about the project is the exponential growth of participants. All I did myself was to announce it in two news groups and on one mailing list."

Nevertheless, in little over a month an apparently random combination of letters had been decoded into a real wartime communication.

In its encrypted form the cipher makes no sense at all, reading as follows:

"NCZW VUSX PNYM INHZ XMQX SFWX WLKJ AHSH NMCO CCAK UQPM KCSM HKSE INJU SBLK IOSX CKUB HMLL XCSJ USRR DVKO HULX WCCB GVLI YXEO AHXR HKKF VDRE WEZL XOBA FGYU JQUK GRTV UKAM EURB VEKS UHHV OYHA BCJW MAKL FKLM YFVN RIZR VVRT KOFD ANJM OLBG FFLE OPRG TFLV RHOW OPBE KVWM UQFM PWPA RMFH AGKX IIBG"

Unencrypted and translated into English, the message suddenly comes to life:

"Forced to submerge during attack. Depth charges. Last enemy position 0830h AJ 9863, [course] 220 degrees, [speed] 8 knots. [I am] following [the enemy]. [barometer] falls 14 mb, [wind] nor-nor-east, [force] 4, visibility 10 [nautical miles]."

A check against existing records confirmed that the message was sent by Kapitanleutnant Hartwig Looks, commander of the German navy's U264 submarine, on 25 November 1942.

Source

Details unfolding on Microsoft's Origami

2006-03-03T11:21:00.000+02:00

As rumors unfurl about a new gadget upcoming from Microsoft, the company's Origami Project is starting to take shape as a very small tablet computer, one perhaps affordable enough to appeal to mainstream consumers.

The concept, which Microsoft plans to detail next month, is built on top of the Windows XP operating system but aims to be a new kind of device, rather than a replacement for existing PCs, according to sources familiar with the effort. With a screen bigger than that of a handheld but smaller than a notebook PC screen, Origami devices won't fit in the pocket, but they'll make it into purses and even the smallest of backpacks, sources said.

Microsoft's goal is to create a blueprint for devices that could sell for $600 or less, although the actual prices will depend greatly on what manufacturers decide to include. Origami is capable of supporting features like GPS, Bluetooth, 3G cellular technology and Wi-Fi, though each of these adds to the cost of the device.

Rumors have been swirling about the device over the past week. The Origami Project Web site, which is owned by Microsoft, pledges that more information will come Thursday. However, sources say this is likely to be more buzz, with actual details not expected until later in March, likely at the CeBit show that takes place March 9 to 15 in Hannover, Germany.

In a somewhat uncharacteristic move, Microsoft has remained mum on Origami, while fanning the flames with its Web site.

However, Origami doesn't come out of the blue. Microsoft first showed off an Origami-like prototype at last year's Windows Hardware Engineering Conference in Seattle. At the time, Chairman Bill Gates flashed something with a 6-inch screen and said Microsoft hoped to have it sell for $800 or less, though the company said it didn't know when that would be commercially feasible.

Gates said at the time that significant hardware and software advances were still needed to make the Ultramobile 2007, as the prototype was dubbed, a reality. However, he said a 1-pound, 6-inch device that combines all the power of a PC, a phone and a camera for about $800 would be possible within a couple of years.

"We do believe this is achievable," Gates told the crowd of hardware makers.

Microsoft also reportedly talked about plans for an Origami-like device at a partner conference earlier this month.

A Microsoft representative on Monday declined to offer further details on Origami. Microsoft has confirmed that a video that's been making the rounds is indeed from the software maker, though a representative said it's nearly a year old and represents only the company's "initial exploration into this form factor."

Earlier this year, a small start-up called Dualcor Technologies did announce a mini tablet that seems similar to Origami, although it's aimed at businesses. That device, the cPC, uses a Via Technologies processor, has a 5-inch screen and runs Windows XP, though it also has a Windows Mobile 5 cell phone built-in.

Though Microsoft is enjoying considerable buzz about Origami, there's some concern that the hype could overshadow the product itself, a concern Microsoft blogger Robert Scoble voiced on his Web site.

Industry observers note that Microsoft appears to be breaking considerable pricing ground with Origami, but they note that it's still unclear what the specific use of Origami will be, or which, if any, existing devices it will replace. There is some thought that its initial incarnation might appeal primarily to gadget aficionados, rather than mainstream consumers.

Microsoft's Origami is completely distinct from a gadget that National Semiconductor showed at the 2001 Comdex trade show, which also resembled a mini-PC, was to perform several functions, and bore the code name Origami.

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Oracle releases enterprise search software

2006-03-03T11:20:00.000+02:00

Oracle has entered the standalone enterprise search market with Secure Enterprise Search 10g. The company hopes that the new product will do for corporate data what Google has done for public data on the web.

"We're very excited about this product," said Larry Ellison, Oracle's chief executive officer, speaking at the Oracle OpenWorld Tokyo 2006. "It's one of our biggest announcements for many, many years. It's the result of years of innovation and hard work."

Oracle Secure Enterprise Search 10g will support the searching of a company's databases, applications, file servers, repositories, portals and internal and external webites, according to Sandeepan Banerjee, director of product management for objects and extensibility with Oracle. The search engine is integrated with multiple user authentication systems so that a particular user will only be able to see search results tied to the information they are authorised to view, he said.

"Our search tool understands which information goes to which user," said Greg Crider, senior director for technology marketing with Oracle.

Ellison had indicated that this was a key difference from Google, which doesn't do well searching private data.

"There is a reason why public search is available and popular but no one yet has done a good job on secure search," he said. "No one has done a good job yet searching private data, even though the private data is the most valuable data you have."

"It's a separate database that indexes all of your data," he said. "There are crawlers, in a sense it is very similar to what Google does, but you're not crawling the public Internet. You're crawling and indexing all of your private databases, Microsoft Word files and all your data and building in a separate Oracle database all these indexes."

As different as Google and Oracle's new applications might be, there is one are where they are very similar: the interface. The Web interface to Oracle's Secure Enterprise Search shown during the keynote was very similar to the minimalist public Google search engine, with search types above a centrally placed text box and an "advanced search" link to the right of the box.

Oracle has 15 years of experience in full-text search technologies incorporating such capabilities into its databases, data warehouse software and business intelligence tools, according to Banerjee. However, the new software will be the company's first stab at a stand-alone enterprise product, he said. Previously, a customer wanting such stand-alone capabilities would need to do their own development work to build on top of the Oracle Text search technologies, Banerjee added.

Ellison encouraged users to download the application and take it for a test drive before deciding whether to buy it or not.

"Just go ahead and download it from our site, it's very easy to try," he said. "Normally you buy an Oracle database product, your engineers work for a while, it's really a pretty substantial project before you start returning value to your company. This is very unusual. Literally, within a day or two of installing this product you can start delivering this search capability to the people inside your organization."

Recently, application vendors have begun to wake up to the potential of the enterprise search market which has experienced double-digit growth over the last few years, according to Sue Feldman, research vice president with IDC.

IBM already has its OmniFind search engine, while Microsoft has its Index Server software. Oracle Secure Enterprise Search 10g is likely to shake up the enterprise search market still further, Feldman said. "They [Oracle] have such a great installed base, they can have a real effect," she added.

Oracle's main rival in the enterprise applications arena, SAP, has its Trex search technology, but has yet to release it as a standalone search engine, she added. Last month, SAP announced plans to extend its search capabilities with the next major release of its NetWeaver application development and integration software set to allow the searching of both structured and unstructured data.

Being able to find a particular piece of information is becoming more and more important to companies, with enterprise search becoming "their interface to life online," Feldman said.

Meanwhile, traditional lower-end Internet search companies like Google are working hard at scaling up their offerings and adding in security features to appeal to enterprise users. "One of the main pain points for consumer search is security," Feldman said. "That's why Google recently teamed up with [consultancy and systems integrator] BearingPoint Inc."

Oracle Secure Enterprise Search 10g will be available worldwide sometime between now and May, according to Oracle's Crider. User-based pricing is still being finalised and should be announced Monday, he said. The cost per central processing unit (CPU) will be US$30,000, Crider added.

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Software helps the illiterate find work

2006-03-03T10:53:00.000+02:00

Microsoft Corp.'s Office software and Windows operating system is typically associated with slick "information workers" on the go, using the latest technology to solve complex business problems.

At a company research and development lab in India, however, workers are grappling with a much different problem: How to use technology to help people who cannot read or write, let alone use a computer.

Working with a local advocacy group, Microsoft has developed a prototype of a system that would help connect illiterate domestic workers in India with families seeking their services. The goal is to help the women see how technology can make finding work more efficient, as the first step toward creating broader tools to allow illiterate people to benefit from technological advances.

The software was on display for Microsoft employees Wednesday, as part of Microsoft Research TechFest, an annual gathering of employees from the company's various research and development centers. The researchers, located in China, India, England and the United States, provide the company with a mix of far-flung technology and more practical applications.

Researchers on the Indian project say they have had to overcome their preconceptions about how the technology should work, and why people would want to use it.

The system uses pictures, video and voice commands to tell women what jobs are available, how much the jobs pay and where they are.

Kentaro Toyama, a researcher overseeing the project, said the first big hurdle was to understand what kind of computer images actually made sense to the domestic workers.

A photograph of dirty dishes, for example, was too realistic -- the women thought those were the actual dishes they were supposed to wash. But a realistic cartoon, with water running over dishes, worked well.

Also, the women associated neighborhoods with landmarks rather than addresses, so an interactive map and verbal directions had to be tweaked to represent that.

Even after extensive revisions, the researchers found that while the women understood how to use the technology, they had trouble seeing why a computerized system for finding work was better than traditional word-of-mouth.

The researchers eventually created a video -- with popular "Bollywood" movies in mind -- showing a woman complaining to her spouse that she needed another job, and using the computer to find it. That worked.

The researchers say they are now trying to figure out how to implement the system, since most women who do domestic work don't own computers. One option is to put up a kiosk in a community center, Toyama said.

Raj Reddy, a professor at Carnegie Mellon University who is also working on ways for illiterate people to best use computers, said his early research in rural Indian villages showed a disconnect between what people think rural residents need from technology, and what those people really want.

For example, Reddy said, if you give someone in a remote area a telephone, car or television, you'll get nothing but gratitude.

"But if you go to them and say, 'I'll give you a PC,' they have no clue what the hell you are talking about," he said. "That's the problem I am trying to solve. I am trying to say, 'This is not a PC. This is an appliance which can take on many forms."'

Reddy thinks people in rural India with little literacy skills will initially be most interested in using the computer to do familiar tasks. For example, they might want to talk to their family via computer-based videoconferencing or use the computer to watch a video.

From there, he hopes, researchers will be able to teach them that the computer can also help them order farming supplies or get medical care for a sick child.

For that reason, Reddy, who is also on Microsoft's technology advisory board, said he thinks Microsoft's approach of using cartoon-like images may be ahead of its time. But he supports the company's efforts in a field that, he says, isn't getting nearly as much attention as it should.

"There are many paths to Nirvana," he said. "There are many ways that one can attack these problems."

Source

A-250 wireless 2.1 speaker system by Saitek

2006-02-19T00:51:00.000+02:00

Have you ever wondered what it is like to have full speakers on everywhere in your home?

Saitek unveils the A-250 Wireless 2.1 Speaker System, a portable unit that enables users to listen to their favorite audio files regardless of where you are in the house.

The unit works by allowing the user to tap into their collection of audio files stored on a PC via Wi-Fi connectivity. Access to radio stations broadcasted over the Internet is also possible.

The company boasts of premium audio quality and bass capability through its Neodymium speaker innovation.
This technology, along with its active crossover, increases bass clearness and lessens noise. Its subwoofer and two tweeters provide true digital 2.1 stereo.

The unit can be operated remotely from a distance of 30 meters. The control panel’s centerpiece is an LCD display which shows the various functions and status of the speaker. Standard control functions are also available such as play, skip, pause, and stop. It has a 3.5mm audio jack where various media players could be plugged in.

There are some drawbacks on the new Saitek speaker system though. The user would not be able to check on his music files. And since the A-250 functions as a secondary sound card, it emits all sound coming from the PC which causes unwanted interruption.

The A-250 Wireless 2.1 Speaker System is available for (£90).

Source

World's Smallest External HDD

2006-02-19T00:43:00.000+02:00

Japanese peripherals specialist Elecom has introduced what it claims is the world's smallest external hard drive. Its MF-DU204G packs in 4GB of storage capacity yet is sufficiently small to warrant its own, integrated USB connector.

The secret? The use of a bus-powered 0.85in HDD, Elecom said. The drive is packed into a unit that measures 6.8 x 3 x 1.3cm and weighs just 44g. The company bundles a USB extender cable should the drive prove too large and obscure other USB ports. Elecom also bundles USB Disk Pro, a security utility that password-protects the drive.

Source

Nvidia's new graphics chip rings up 'Quake'

2006-02-14T01:11:00.000+02:00

Nvidia's latest graphics processor for high-end mobile phones, unveiled on Monday, can take 10-megapixel pictures and decode high-resolution video, thus marking another step toward turning mobile phones into powerful handheld entertainment devices.

The company touted the GoForce 5500 chip at the 3GSM World Congress in Barcelona. Nvidia is best-known for its powerful PC graphics processors, but over the last few years it has taken steps to recreate sharp graphics on mobile phones and handhelds. The company sells standalone graphics chips for mobile phones and also licenses its graphics technology for other chip makers to incorporate into their products, said Derek Perez, a company spokesman.

Handheld-device designers looking to cut costs tend to pick all-in-one chips that can handle basic applications such as processing, graphics, and voice calls. Chips like the GoForce 5500 are designed for expensive handsets that let users watch movies, play PC-style video games and even pick up digital television.

While phone makers and wireless carriers have expressed excitement about mobile gaming, believing it will help pay for the cost of maintaining high-bandwidth wireless networks, interest has so far been lukewarm. One high-profile attempt, Nokia's N-Gage, has not sold nearly as well as the company would have hoped, but game developers are releasing more and more titles as phones gain more processing power.

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Microsoft: Yes, there's a flaw in Windows wi-fi...

2006-01-20T02:10:00.000+02:00

Microsoft has admitted there is a security flaw in the way Windows handles wireless connections but the company has said it may not fix the problem until its next Service Pack is released.

The flaw, within a Windows feature that automatically searches for a wi-fi network to connect to, was made public last Saturday by security researcher Mark Loveless at hacker conference ShmooCon. It can be used by a hacker to gain access to files on a victim's laptop, Loveless claimed.

Microsoft said it had finished investigating this claim and had found there is scope for users to be compromised. However, it does not plan to rush out a fix.

Microsoft said in a statement: "Due to the design of this feature, the most appropriate method for adjusting the default behaviour is in a future Service Pack or update rollup."

On Tuesday, the software behemoth revealed it was not planning to release the next Service Pack for XP, called XP SP3, until the second half of 2007.

Microsoft recommended on Wednesday that customers enable a firewall, get software updates, and install antivirus software. Customers who believe they may have been affected can contact Microsoft Product Support Services via its website.

Source

FBI releases 2005 Computer Crime Survey

2006-01-20T02:08:00.000+02:00

The FBI has released its 2005 Computer Crime Survey, with nearly two thirds of respondents claiming security breaches had hit them where it hurt: the wallet. Losses averaged $24,000 for those targeted.

That figure may not be much if you're a Walmart or a General Motors, but of the 2,066 businesses surveyed, nearly three quarters (72 per cent) employed fewer than 100 staff and 45.8 per cent claimed sub $5m annual revenues.

That $24,000 a year suddenly means a lot more to them, especially when on the face of it, they have already deployed standard fayre security measures, such as antivirus (98.2 per cent) and firewalls (90.7 per cent). Yet this still means roughly one in ten is running without firewall protection.

Security deployments appear to be in waves. Beyond antivirus and firewalls, roughly three-quarters also used antispyware and antispam solutions, then around half said they had VPNs, access control lists, physical security and desktop management. Encryption, IDS and content filtering had been adopted by a quarter, while smartcard and biometric solutions counted for around one in 20.

Yet the threats continue to proliferate, with 87 per cent repondents suffering some kind of attack. In all the respondents tallied more than 5,000 incidents between them.

Four in five professed to have had to deal with incidents originating from viruses and spyware. Data or network sabotage was also high, at 22.7 per cent, and network instrusion at 14.2 per cent. This is worrying as only 23 per cent had actually deployed intrusion detection systems which would strengthen defences against these attacks.

It might appear that businesses these days are pinned down by external digital assaults, but in fact 44.4 per cent cited unauthorised access incidents originating from within the company.

Respondants said the vast majority of threats appear to come from the US and China - 26.1 and 23.9 per cent respectively said they had experienced intrusion attempts from these countries. Around one in 20 said they had been aware of such attempts from Nigeria, South Korea, Germany, Russia and Romania. Perhaps the anomaly here is the appearance of the Pitcairn Islands, with 12 or so respondents having been attacked from there.

Of course determining the original IP address of attacks is no easy task - attacks might be proxied through any geographical location. But China's strong presence here masks a troubling problem for the FBI. 'Difficulty tracking IP addresses and prosecution in China combined with other economic, military and political concerns make this an unusually troubling statistic' the report reads. 'especially when considering the potential impact of industrial espionage and state sponsored cyber warfare efforts.'

But the overall picture painted by the report is that businesses are only reporting what they are able to detect and that they are falling victim to a great deal more criminal activity than they are aware of.

Dr Eugene Spafford, Computer Security Professor at Purdue University and advisor to Presidents Bill Clinton and George Bush said: 'So long as we continue to apply patches and spot defenses to existing problems, the overall situation will continue to deteriorate. Without a significant increase in focus and funding for both long-term cyber security research and more effective law enforcement we can only expect more incidents and greater losses, year after year.'

Source

Gadget of the Week

2006-01-20T02:03:00.000+02:00

The first thing you notice about Apple's new iMac — running the Intel Core Duo chipset rather than an older PowerPC chip — is that it's almost identical to the iMac that the company introduced in October. The second thing you notice, though, is that it is noticeably faster. It only takes around 30 seconds to restart the entire system.

On the outside, the only feature that distinguishes this iMac from the last one is the video output. With the right adapter, you can now plug in one of Apple's 20-in. or 23-in. displays and extend your desktop into that space. (Previously, any external monitor simply mirrored what was on the iMac's own screen.) On the inside, of course, it's running a 2GHz dual-core processor that Apple says has been tested at roughly two times the speed of the old G4.

Perhaps you're thinking about upgrading to one of the new Intel Macs, either the iMac or the 15-in. MacBook Pro due out in February, but you're worried that your old software won't work well. Here's the deal: Apple has asked its software partners to compile programs in a "universal" format, which means they'll have two sets of execution code written side by side. Anything that isn't written for Intel will be handled in the computer's background. You won't have any kind of "Classic" environment popping up. The catch is that a few of Apple's higher-end programs won't work this way, including Final Cut Pro, Motion, Soundtrack Pro, DVD Studio Pro, Aperture, Logic Pro, Logic Express, Shake and Final Cut Express. If you run any of those on a regular basis and plan to get an Intel-based Mac, you'll have to "crossgrade" to the new editions, due by the end of March.

As you might have expected, the iLife suite of multimedia software has been recompiled for the Intel platforms. What you might not have known is that it has also been overhauled, in a brand new '06 edition. Highlights of the new iLife release include a faster, easier-to-manipulate iPhoto with a picture capacity of up to 250,000 shots; an iMovie with pre-produced themes so you can Hollywood up your home movies with opening credits and scene changes; Garageband with do-it-yourself podcasting tools; and a new application, called iWeb, that helps you build your own slick web pages. The only thing that's easy to complain about is a new feature in iTunes called MiniStore, a panel that tells you what other music you can buy based on what you're listening to at the moment. It's uncharacteristically tacky, but as Apple folks are quick to point out, you don't have to turn it on.

Apple's new product line, both hardware and software, offers a lot to digest but don't worry. We'll revisit it again soon when the MacBook Pro, a sort of iMac on wheels, ships next month.

Source

Is Apple Considering An IPod Phone?

2006-01-18T23:57:00.000+02:00

Apple Computer Inc.'s recent trademark applications have fans asking whether the computer maker is building a device that would combine the iPod portable media player with a mobile phone, but at least one expert on Tuesday gave such a device a "low probability."

In early January, the Cupertino, Calif., company filed four trademark applications for the term "Mobile Me." The applications covered areas such as computer services, providing music over a local or global communication network, portable digital electronic devices and software, and telecommunication services.

Apple was not immediately available for comment, but the filings sparked speculation that Apple was working on an iPod phone.

"Let the speculation begin!" said blogger W.Y. in Malaysia.

Apple entered the mobile phone market in September with the unveiling of the Rokr, manufactured by Motorola Inc. that plays music purchased through Apple's popular iTunes music store. Available through Cingular Wireless, experts were less than enthusiastic, given that the device could only hold as many as 100 songs. The iPod, on the other hand, can hold thousands of tunes.

"We haven't seen anything that looks and feel like an Apple product yet," Julie Ask, analyst for JupiterResearch said.

Michael Gartenberg, also an analyst with JupiterResearch, said it was a "low probability" that Apple would build an iPod phone. Apple currently holds about 75 percent of the market for digital media players, and it would make more sense for the company to continue focusing on features and services for the current product line.

"What they need to do is keep the product fresh, so it remains feature and price competitive with competing products," Gartenberg said.

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GPL 3 Released for Public Comment

2006-01-18T02:30:00.000+02:00

The Free Software Foundation (FSF) released the first public draft of the new version of the General Public License, marking the first major alterations in 15 years to the licensing guidelines used by the open-source community.

The GPL was originally intended for free software developed by the FSF, but the I.T. industry has experienced a sea change since then. Currently, there are some 50,000 developers using the GPL as a way of getting their software out to users.

According to the FSF, the GNU GPL is the most widely used free-software license worldwide, with almost three-quarters of all free software programs, including
Linux, distributed under it.

Use of software released under the GPL allows distributors to charge for distributing the software -- for example, for the cost of putting it on a CD-ROM -- but it prohibits charging for actual software usage.

Patent Protection

The new GPL 3 draft provides an explicit patent license that covers any patents held by the program's developers, replacing the implicit license on which GPL 2 relies.

Other provisions require some distributors to protect software users against patent-infringement claims, and prevent GPL-licensed applications from being used in digital-rights management (DRM) software.

"As a campaign to limit users' rights, the adoption of DRM is fundamentally at odds with the spirit of the free software movement," the document states. "Our aim is, and must be, the abolition of DRM as a social practice."

Source

Corel WordPerfect Office X3 Home Edition

2006-01-18T02:28:00.000+02:00

Corel has a winner in WordPerfect Office X3, a feature-packed productivity suite that's just as easy to use--and in many ways more innovative than--industry-goliath Microsoft Office 2003. Not only can X3's three core applications--WordPerfect, Quattro Pro, and Presentations--save files in the ubiquitous Adobe Acrobat (PDF) format, its WordPerfect word processor can import and edit PDFs, too. While this import feature needs work, it's convenient for editing long, text-based PDFs used by legal and government workers. The interface of X3 has updated icons and toolbars that match Windows XP themes, and its new Yahoo toolbar lets you conduct Web searches from within WordPerfect. A great new security feature is WordPerfect's ability to strip out the hidden metadata within documents. This helps prevent any comments, undo/redo changes, and other sensitive information from reaching an unwanted audience when you share files--a similar feature is expected to ship within Office 12 later this year.

Overall, WordPerfect Office X3 is a solid upgrade for longtime users, particularly those who manage a lot of PDFs. Die-hard Microsoft fans may want to wait to see what Redmond has up its sleeve with the radical changes expected within the upcoming Microsoft Office 12. At the same time, current users of Microsoft Office 2003 who don't want to deal with the potentially steep learning curve in store for Office 12 may prefer to try the more familiar interface and improved tools within Corel's suite.

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PlayStation 3 launch date in question

2006-01-18T02:24:00.000+02:00

What Sony Corp. Chief Executive Howard Stringer didn't say at the recent Consumer Electronics Show about Sony's PlayStation 3 video game console spoke volumes about the key product's timetable, analysts say.

Giving a keynote speech at the huge Las Vegas trade show earlier this month, Stringer provided no updates about the product's U.S. launch.

Although Sony had a prominent location on the showroom floor at the annual convention, the Japanese giant showcased televisions and portable music players, while the PlayStation 3 was tucked behind glass in the back of its booth. Sony offered only non-playable, demonstration versions of a limited number of games.

Industry watchers now expect the product's U.S. launch in the second half of 2006, although Sony may get a Japanese version out during the "Spring 2006" launch window that the technology giant first predicted last year.

Any delays could make it much harder for Sony next holiday season as it races to put out its own new product to take on Microsoft Corp.'s Xbox 360 in the market for video game players.

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European companies develop search engine to rival Google

2006-01-16T23:55:00.000+02:00

In his New Year's address outlining his administration's plans for 2006, French President Jacques Chirac focused on plans for a European search engine to rival US internet companies such as Yahoo and Google. Some of the top tech labs in France and Germany are reportedly working on the 'Quaero' (Latin for 'to search') search engine.

Those involved in the Quaero project, including Thomson, France Telecom and Deutsche Telekom, have said that it will be much more than a typical search engine. It will provide an array of multimedia tools for identifying and indexing images, sound and text. Quaero will also reportedly include a powerful translating tool which will be able to 'understand' audio as well as text. The developers plan to make Quaero available on all platforms, including PCs, mobile devices and digital TVs.

The ambitious project will probably not be available anytime in the near future. Quaero is still in the earliest stages of development, so early that none of the major players have yet ventured a guess as to how much the project might cost. When Quaero does launch, it will have a great deal of catching up to do. Google currently has a tight hold on its position as the world's leading search engine, and it shows no signs of loosening its grip. The company is coming off its busiest year yet, with new projects in software offerings, VoIP and library digitisation.

The Quaero project is by no means the first attempt to dethrone Google. Companies like Microsoft and Yahoo spend millions of dollars every year to compete with the search engine. But for the Quaero project, more may be at stake, namely Europe's cultural identity in the information age. As President Chirac said in his New Year's address, 'Today the new geography of knowledge and cultures is being drawn. Tomorrow, that which is not available online runs the risk of being invisible to the world.'

Other European projects are currently underway to compete with the US' and Japan's technological dominance. The EU recently launched the first satellite of the Galileo constellation, which will eventually provide a navigation system to rival the US' Global Positioning System (GPS). Also, French broadcasters hope to launch CFII this year, an international satellite TV news channel aimed at competing with CNN.

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Seagate claims largest laptop hard drive

2006-01-16T23:52:00.000+02:00

Seagate has produced a 160GB laptop drive - the highest capacity 2.5in drive on the market.

The Momentus 5400.3 drive is Seagate's first laptop drive to use perpendicular data recording - a technique fast being adopted by other disk makers. By the end of this year, it hopes to have all of its products will using the technology.

The drive, as its name suggests, runs at 5,400 rpm and is designed specifically for laptops. The version shipping now has an Ultra ATA/100 interface and a second version with a faster Serial ATA interface will be available later this year, said Seagate. No price was given for either drive.

Perpendicular data recording involves standing the magnetic fields that represent data bits upright. In most current drives these fields lay flat on the disk surface. Standing them upright means they take less space, enabling more to be packed on the disk and the storage capacity to be increased.

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Intel Outlines Software Programs for Apple Developers to Boost Multicore, Threaded Application Design

2006-01-15T02:09:00.000+02:00

Intel Corporation today announced new software development tools and resources through its Intel® Software Network. These tools and resources will help Apple developers take advantage of Intel® Core™ Duo processor technologies to maximize application performance on the new Intel–based Mac platforms.

The special beta versions of the Intel® Fortran Compiler, Intel® C++ Compiler, Intel® Math Kernel Library and Intel® Integrated Performance Primitives are available now. Intel will also provide other resources to assist with software optimization, dual core threading and migration information. More information on these programs is available at www.intel.com/software/apple.

“Intel is pleased to offer Apple developers a free trial of our products through a special beta program, and we look forward to developer feedback prior to introducing our products in the coming months,” said William Savage, general manager of Intel’s Software Products Division. “Our highly optimized compilers and libraries yield significant performance advantages for applications and take advantage of the opportunities made available through multi–core and multi–threaded environments.”

“High performance scientific and creative customers need to squeeze every last drop of performance out of their systems,” said Ron Okamoto, Apple’s vice president of Worldwide Developer Relations. “We’re thrilled that Intel has brought their respected suite of tools to help Apple developers maximize the performance of their applications on Intel–based Macs.”

These development tools are integrated into Apple’s Xcode development environment and offer an alternative to existing tools and compilers. The Intel Fortran compiler enables the scientific and technical community to bring the fastest versions of their applications to Mac OS X and Intel–based Mac platforms using industry–standard math libraries and language. The Intel C++ Compiler provides the ability for Xcode users to apply targeted optimizations to performance–sensitive areas of their applications, allowing them to get the most out of the Intel Core Duo processor.

Intel augments these compilers with advanced support for threading through OpenMP* and auto–parallelism capabilities. The Intel Math Kernel Library (Intel® MKL) is a set of highly optimized mathematical routines designed for engineering, science, and financial applications that require maximum performance on Intel processors. The Intel Integrated Performance Primitives (Intel® IPP) is a software library of highly optimized functions for multimedia, audio, video, speech, computer vision, image and signal processing.

Based on Intel’s proven suite of software development products for other platforms, each product has been transitioned to Mac OS X’s Xcode development environment to ensure complete fidelity with other Intel platforms, giving Mac OS X developers a familiar base to use Intel’s powerful development tools.

The suite of development tools from Intel will be available for purchase in the second quarter of 2006, and are now available for free trial in the special beta program.

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Oracle and Sun team up to provide .NET alternative

2006-01-15T01:44:00.000+02:00

Sun and Oracle have established a new strategic partnership in an attempt to challenge Microsoft with what Oracle CEO Larry Ellison calls "standards-based systems." According to Ellison and McNealy, their mutual goal is the production of a complete Java-centric enterprise datacenter architecture that leverages Solaris 10 and Oracle's Fusion middleware. Designed specifically as an alternative to Microsoft's .NET technology stack, the new platform is competitively priced and based on robust frameworks.

Both companies have lost a lot of relevance in the modern world, where cost-effective open source software and disposable commodity hardware reign supreme. These days, Oracle is adopting Java in a major way, because they feel that it will help them to modernize. Ellison criticized Oracle rival SAP, claiming that Oracle's extensive use of Java facilitates higher quality solutions:

"SAP believes that they can modernize their applications without changing them. They keep writing programs in a language called ABAP [Advanced Business Application Programming], which is a 25-year-old proprietary language not related to Java. It has the same number of letters in its name, but it really is an old-fashioned proprietary technology."

According to Ellison, this is all about providing users and developers with technology based on standards. But what standards is he talking about, and are those the standards that consumers care about? The availability of an open source .NET implementation based on ECMA standards certainly makes Java look more proprietary. Rather than emphasizing open standards — an area where both companies fall significantly short of competitors like Novell and IBM — Sun and Oracle should focus on the real benefits of their technology: extreme reliability and virtually incomparable scalability.

Solaris 10 and Fusion middleware are both relatively impressive technologies with a lot of value, but does that justify the cost and the interoperability limitations that afflict these somewhat isolated platforms? Fusion is an end-to-end solution for developing, deploying, and managing extensible service-oriented application architectures. It is virtually unbreakable, but the price is steep. Solaris 10 provides extreme reliability but it is still very expensive if you run it on Sun's hardware (which is necessary if you want to take advantage of the free Oracle licenses associated with the new partnership) and it doesn't perform as well on the commodity x86 hardware favored by the industry. Sun is actively working to improve support for other processors, particularly AMD's powerful Opteron line and Oracle is hoping that broader integration of Java technology will facilitate greater interoperability, but both companies are going to have to fight an uphill battle against Microsoft and open source industry leaders like IBM.

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Google unveils personalized homepage for mobile phone users

2006-01-15T01:36:00.000+02:00

Google Inc. announced Thursday that it has begun to offer personalized Google homepage to American mobile phone users.

The personalized hompage will allow users to perform web search, check Gmail, read news headlines, local weather forecast and stock price, all in one page.

The company has a plan to offer the personalized homepage to users in other countries within weeks or months, according to Deep Nishar, Director of Wireless Products at Google.

Giving users the ability to find certain type of information by setting their own mobile phones is paramount to the development of mobile Internet, said Charles Golvin, an analyst with Forrester Research.

The fewer clicks it takes to find the information one needs, the more possible the user does it on his mobile phone, said Charles Golvin.

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Frogs of South America Can't Take the Heat

2006-01-15T01:35:00.000+02:00

There aren’t a whole lot of global warming skeptics left, but those who still need some convincing should take a look at the frogs of Central and South America. According to a new study in the journal Nature, the little critters are dying fast, and climate change is to blame.

There are a number of reasons humans should care about frogs, not the least being that they’re so-called indicator species—particularly sensitive animals that are the first to die when climate goes awry. As such they can warn us of problems when there still might be time to fix things. Biologists know that since 1979, two-thirds of 110 species of frogs have vanished in the American tropics. J. Alan Pounds, a resident biologist at the Monte Verde Cloud Forest Preserve in Costa Rica, wanted to determine if climate is indeed to blame. To do so, he and his colleagues studied voluminous records of frog extinctions from 1979 to 1998 and compared them with records of atmospheric and ocean temperatures in the same period. The results: 80% of species deaths indeed occured after especially warm years, with the overheated 1987 claiming five species all by itself.

Pounds and his colleagues believe it’s not the heat specifically that’s causing the deaths, but rather a fungus that attacks frogs and thrives as the climate changes. Paradoxically, the fungus prefers things cooler rather than hotter, but planetary heating actually results in daytime cooling of the frogs’ and fungus’s habitat since it leads to more evaporation, which in turn produces shade-producing clouds. The best way to stabilize all of the thermometer fluctuations is dial back the greenhouse gasses. Frogs, after all, are only the beginning.

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Partners to develop ultra-thin chips

2006-01-15T01:24:00.000+02:00

The partnership among IBM, Sony and Toshiba that produced the vaunted Cell microprocessor is being extended for another five years to focus on advancing chip designs at extremely small scales.

The companies planned to announce on Thursday that their next joint research project will aim toward chips with features smaller than 32 nanometres - 32 billionths of a metre. (By comparison, the average strand of human hair strand is about 100,000 nanometres in diameter.)

Today's chips generally are built with components as small as 90 nanometres, though 65-nanometres-based chips are emerging.

It's part of the microprocessing industry's constant fight to wring performance improvements and cost efficiencies out of ever smaller chips.

Other efforts in the 30-nanometre range are already occurring, including a partnership between IBM and Advanced Micro Devices (Research into molecular computing is aiming even smaller, toward chips with features that might operate in the space of 2 to 3 nanometres.)

Lisa Su, a vice president in IBM's semiconductor research and development centre, said this partnership is different because of Sony's and Toshiba's expertise with the specific needs of chips for consumer devices.

The Cell chip already produced by the IBM-Sony-Toshiba pact packs eight processors and cost $US400 million to develop.

With its powerful graphics capabilities, Cell is the heart of Sony's upcoming PlayStation 3 video game system and next-generation Toshiba TVs, but it has yet to win much wider acceptance.

Charles King, an analyst with Pund-IT Research, said the companies appear to have concluded that costs and complexities of 32-nanometre technology would be so immense that "partnering is the best way to go".

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Microsoft Plans Launch of Search Ad System

2006-01-13T20:44:00.000+02:00

Microsoft Corp. plans to launch its system for selling advertising alongside regular search results by June in the United States, giving the company its next piece of ammunition in the battle with rivals including Google Inc. and Yahoo Inc.

Microsoft has been testing its ambitious new platform for selling all kinds of online advertising, called adCenter, since last spring. Right now, the company said about 25 percent of the sponsored links that accompany regular search results on its MSN Search site are from adCenter, but that will grow to 100 percent by the time the company's fiscal year ends in June.

Redmond-based Microsoft currently outsources the job of providing such sponsored links to a Yahoo Inc. subsidiary, Overture Services, although the contract between the two expires in June.

The move to bring that job in-house is important because competitors such as Google make most of their money selling ads placed next to search results.

The launch is also a major step toward Microsoft's broader adCenter ambitions, which executives say will eventually be a system for offering companies ways to buy online advertising space on multiple platforms, ranging from its blogging sites to its newly launched Office Live system for offering business software and services online.

For that broader effort, Microsoft's adCenter researchers and developers are finishing up a series of tools that aim to provide extremely detailed demographic information, so advertisers can more accurately target their ads to the right audience. Many of those tools are expected to be available in the next six to 12 months, said Tarek Najm, adCenter's general manager.

Much of the work is being done by Microsoft's adCenter Incubation Lab, or adLab, which was also announced Thursday.

AdLab is a joint effort between Microsoft's Redmond-based adCenter and experts in its Chinese research lab. Najm said it marks the first time that a Microsoft product group is working so closely with one of Microsoft's research labs, which are typically staffed by researchers who study far-flung, futuristic or just plain quirky technology.

Najm said his group wanted to partner with the Chinese researchers because of their expertise in fields that will provide the technical and computational backbone for getting advertising to the right viewers.

The Chinese and U.S. researchers on Thursday previewed a multitude of those tools at its Redmond campus.

Overall, they aim to give advertisers a better sense of the age, gender and other traits of people who are viewing certain information online. For example, the technology could give a car advertiser the best shot at reaching women over 45, or men under 25. A movie company, in turn, could be given a better chance of reaching people who are or have recently visited sites related to entertainment.

Microsoft said it is not using personally identifiable information to target the ads.

Forrester analyst Charlene Li said Microsoft's platform has definite potential to go head-to-head with competitors such as Google and Yahoo because of the detailed demographic information it can provide to advertisers — even though people might be more familiar with the other two brand names.

"The thing about search is that it's all about performance, not about the brand name," Li said. "As long as it performs, people are going to buy it."

Still, Li said that Microsoft and the companies who sell ads will have to be subtle in their advertising, so people don't start to feel like the advertising is so targeted that Big Brother must be watching.

"You can't bang people over the head," she said.

Microsoft has admitted that it originally missed the boat on the hot field of Internet search, preferring instead to outsource the job to others. The company, whose search engine is the third most popular after Google's and Yahoo's, is now rushing to catch up.

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Anti-Spyware Group Issues Final Guidelines

2006-01-13T20:39:00.000+02:00

The divide between adware companies and software removal vendors seems to have grown in the last year, with at least one major lawsuit, and increasingly inflammatory rhetoric on all sides.

Adware comps accuse anti-spyware vendors of defaming them, and wrongly classifying and removing software that users might want. Adware company 180solutions last November filed a suit against software removal company Zone Labs, which classified 180solutions as a high security risk; charges included "trade libel," unfair trade practices, and tortious interference with business expectancies.

Others say that software removal companies provide a valuable service to consumers who have inadvertently downloaded adware programs--or, worse, have been victims of programs that downloaded themselves through exploits.

Now, in an attempt to bridge the disconnect between adware companies and software removal vendors, the Anti-Spyware Coalition--a group convened by the Center for Democracy and Technology that includes anti-spyware vendors like Aluria, Lavasoft, and McAfee, as well as major Internet companies AOL Microsoft and Yahoo!-- has released a final draft of its "risk model description."

The model--touted by the Anti-Spyware Coalition as providing transparency to the rationale for classifying programs as potentially harmful--sets out a complicated matrix of factors used to categorize adware and other software. For instance, the model asks whether the software delivers ads. If so, the question then becomes whether the ads are attributed to their source program clearly (considered low-risk), indirectly via a pop-up with a label (considered medium-risk), or not at all (high-risk).

But these are only some of the criteria. The model also looks at other factors, including circumstances surrounding installation. For example, an installation originating at a site designed for children is considered medium-risk.

While the 16-page report details a variety of criteria, it stops short of recommending a formula to determine whether programs should be targeted for removal. For that reason, the document isn't likely to completely satisfy the concerns of adware companies.

Sean Sundwall, director of corporate communications at 180solutions, said that his company, for one, is concerned that the draft doesn't provide clear guideline for when software programs should be targeted for removal. "Overall, the risk factors document appears to address the most egregious behaviors and draws appropriate boundaries that clearly define what is and is not acceptable," said Sundwall in an e-mail to OnlineMediaDaily. But, he added: "Our biggest concern is that scanning applications still have enough latitude in implementing these standards to make them meaningless. The worth of these criteria will largely be determined by how closely the scanning applications actually follow them."

David McGuire, spokesman for the Center for Democracy and Technology, said the purpose of the document is to "bring clarity to the process that anti-spyware companies use to identify dangerous behaviors in software" rather than to tell companies how to decide which programs to remove. "We're not seeking to homogenize anti-spyware technology," he said. "We think diversity is a real value."

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Thunderbird gets upgraded

2006-01-13T20:24:00.000+02:00

Mozilla on Thursday released version 1.5 of its Thunderbird email client, touting a raft of new features aimed at both security and usability.

The new Thunderbird offering comes some six weeks after version 1.5 of Mozilla's Firefox browser debuted. Some of the new features made available in Thunderbird today are common to both new pieces of software.

Like Firefox, Thunderbird now features an automated update tool, where previously users had to download point upgrades manually. This may reduce the amount of data which needs to be downloaded for each update.

The email client can also now handle podcasts and has improved general support for RSS. Those with limited storage space will enjoy the new ability to delete attachments from stored email.

The increasing threat of email scams has provoked Mozilla to include a built-in detector to lower the threat posed by phishing attempts. Thunderbird users can also now set their client to spell-check their text as they type it.

Some of the more technical aspects of the new software include support for authenticating with the Kerberos protocol, integration with server-side spam filtering and automatic saving of draft messages during composition.

A more complete list of improvements can be found on the Mozilla site.

Despite all the work done by Mozilla on the email client in the approximately 13 months since version 1.0 was released, Thunderbird still lacks several key features found in alternative software like Microsoft's Outlook. For example, Thunderbird as yet has no calendaring functionality, despite the existence of a separate Mozilla project dubbed 'Lightning' designed to bridge this gulf.

Version 1.5 of Thunderbird does also not include some experimental work recently done on the email client to include tabbed browsing of email messages. That addition mimics one of the most popular features of the Opera and Firefox Web browsers.

According to Mozilla, Thunderbird has been downloaded more than 18 million times since its initial 1.0 release. The email client can be downloaded from Mozilla's Web site and distributed freely. It is is available for Windows, Linux and Mac OS X. It is generally available in more than 30 languages, although some language teams have not yet completed the translation process for the new version.

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Symantec comes clean on Norton rootkit

2006-01-12T18:09:00.000+02:00

Popular consumer security software vendor Symantec has come a cropper over use of 'rootkit' technology in its products.

The news couldn't have come at a worse time, in the shadow of the Sony rootkit fiasco, which ended in court settlements whereby the music giant offered replacements, refunds and free music in a bid to placate public outcry.

Symantec, for its part, has issued a fix for an element in its Norton SystemWorks and Premier range which recovers deleted data.

The NProtect directory temporarily stores copies of files that have been deleted or modified. If a user accidentally deletes a valuable file from the Recycle Bin in Windows, then Norton will be able to recover it from the NProtect folder.

But Symantec didn't want users to see the folders, in case they accidentally deleted the contents here too. So it made the folder invisible to Windows. And being invisible to Windows, it is also invisible to programs running on Windows. Like antivirus programs, for example. So any malicious files stored in the NProtect directory wouldn't be scanned.

Symantec has now decided that this is not necessarily a good thing. It has issued an update to the software to reveal it in Windows.

It says the program can be updated simply by running the update feature of the software, but adds that it will require a reboot.

It claims the risks associated with the hidden directory are low, as it can not be exploited remotely and an attacker would have to successfully authenticate themselves to gain access.

The company is not aware of any malicious code built to exploit the directory at the present time.

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Apple debuts Intel-powered Macs

2006-01-11T20:12:00.000+02:00

Apple has started selling the first iMac computers that are powered by Intel's dual processor chip.

The announcement about the availability of the Intel-powered computers was months ahead of the schedule Apple announced in 2005 for the new range.

Apple boss Steve Jobs also launched a newly branded laptop called the MacBook Pro which also uses an Intel processor.

The new generation of iMac would be two to three times faster than the current iMac G5, he said.

The MacBook Pro would be four to five times as fast as the current PowerBook G4, Mr Jobs told Macworld in San Francisco.

The new laptops will not ship until February but the iMacs are available immediately and the price - starting at $1,299 (£929) - will remain the same.

It was widely expected that Apple would use the Macworld platform to announce that Intel-based computers would ship.

The rest of the Mac family will shift to the Intel dual-core Duo chip during the course of the year. It represents the culmination of a fast-moving collaboration between Apple and Intel, and both Steve Jobs and Intel chief executive Paul Otellini were on stage to pat each other on the back.

The shift to Intel was first revealed last year. Previously, Apple machines were powered by PowerPC chips made by IBM and Freescale.

Slice of iLife

The keynote speech from Steve Jobs at Macworld concentrated, as expected, on computers rather than digital entertainment.

In fact, the only announcement of note for its growing family of iPods was a remote control with FM radio capabilities.

It will allow users to skip tracks and adjust the volume of their iPod without having to have it in their hand. It will also enable them to listen to FM radio stations.

It will be priced at $49 (£28).

The main slice of Mr Jobs' presentation was given over to updates that Apple has made to its suite of digital lifestyle applications, iLife.

iPhoto gains a new application to allow people to take part in what Mr Jobs described as photocasting - basically allowing people to subscribe to a feed of photos from someone else which will automatically update every time new photos are added.

There was a new application for iLife which will allow users to build websites to show off all their rich media.

"Everyone wants to share music, photos, blogs and podcasts over the web and there are applications out there that let you build websites," said Mr Jobs.

"But the easy-to-use ones often build ugly websites so we have created one that is easy to use and builds beautiful websites."

Dubbed iWeb, the application will ship with all new versions of iLife. The price of the package - at $79 (£55) - will remain unchanged.

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iPods to serve up FM radio

2006-01-11T20:07:00.000+02:00

While the iPod was the not the star of Apple's opening day, it was not entirely overlooked at the annual MacWorld technology fest.

The company unveiled a $79 iPod Radio Remote accessory that allows users of the iPod nano and iPod video to tune into to FM radio stations and remotely access some controls on their iPod.

The device enables iPod users to display station information on the iPod screen and will also display song titles and artists when tuned into a radio station that supports the Radio Data System (RDS) standard.

Weighing in at half an ounce, the remote also allows users to adjust the volume, control a slideshow, and skip forward or back within a selected music or video playlist.

The accessory is powered by the iPod so does not require extra batteries, however Apple said that using the FM radio would reduce iPod playback time.

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AMD Intros High-End Athlon For Gamers

2006-01-11T20:06:00.000+02:00

AMD topped off its AMD64 processor family Tuesday with its Athlon 64 FX-60 dual-core processor and aimed it at power-hungry gamers and heavy digital media users.

The firm said the processor is its highest performing dual-core processor and has "an average 34 percent improvement on overall digital media performance and an eye-popping 80 percent faster performance on certain benchmarks over similar single-core processors."

"Those who crave ultimate performance on 3D games and intense digital media applications can experience realistic physics and lighting, advanced artificial intelligence and amazing performance on digital media applications," said AMD's Bob Brewer in a statement. Brewer is corporate vice president, desktop division, AMD microprocessor solutions sector.

One firm, Velocity Micro, has used the processor in its Gamers' Edge DualX T1425 system. Graphics specialist NVIDIA said it is working with the new processor and noted that its performance exceeds high-end military simulators that were available just a few years ago.

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Sky to offer legal movie download via the internet

2006-01-11T20:04:00.000+02:00

Sky has launched two new services that will allow sky subscribers to watch sky movies away from their television. The two new services - Sky by broadband and Sky by mobile – will allow usersto download blockbuster or classic movies to enjoy when they want and access highlights of the weekend’s Barclays Premiership matches on their PC with Sky by broadband, or catch up with the latest news on the move with Sky by mobile.

The Sky by broadband and Sky by mobile services come in response to growing evidence of consumers’ desire to take control of their TV viewing and to access media content in different ways. Sky by broadband is a new service available exclusively to Sky digital customers that lets viewers legally download a wide range of movies and highlights from Sky Sports and watch them on their home PC at no extra cost.

More than 200 movies are available at launch including a mix of Hollywood blockbusters such as Spider-Man 2 and The Day After Tomorrow, and cult-classic Sky Movies titles from Alien: The Director's Cut to Dr Strangelove. The number of titles will increase over time to encompass over a thousand titles from the Sky Movies catalogue. The service offers a complete A-Z movie listing and search by genre function. Users can set their movie preferences and searches can be sorted by director, film name, and actor allowing viewers to create their own movie download library.

The service will also include over 1,000 Sky Sports video clips at any one time including highlights of every Barclays Premiership and UEFA Champions League match. In addition to the movies and sports on Sky by broadband, Sky One will also launch an online entertainment package in 2006. Sky by mobile gives Sky digital and Sky Bet customers access to Sky entertainment, sports, news and weather on the move. Broadband now accounts for 57.4% of all UK internet connections (source: National Statistics, September 2005) as consumers take advantage of faster connection speeds to watch video content or download music on their PC. Almost half (47%) of all Sky digital customers have broadband connected PCs, compared to a national average of 38%.

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Google opens online video store

2006-01-07T23:00:00.000+02:00

The web giant's co-founder Larry Page announced the service at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas. US network CBS is making shows like CSI and Star Trek available to buy online. Google is the latest company to explore the idea of selling video on the net, following Apple who led the way with its iTunes online store. Pay to view Competition in the burgeoning online video arena is shaping up to be fierce. Others like Microsoft and Yahoo are also getting involved in offering video via the web. Much of the talk at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas is about gadgets of all shapes and sizes that can connect via to the net to download video.

Google has been offering video for free over the internet for about a year. But this is the first time it will enable its users to pay for premium content. "It lets anyone sell video," said Mr Page announcing the Google Video Store. "The content producers can decide what to charge." Some 3,000 items will be available to rent or download and watch in Google's new desktop video player.

Blockbuster TV

As part of the service, the search giant has done a deal with CBS to offer some its big blockbuster hits such like CSI and Survivor for $1.99 in the US. CBS is also making available its archive of programs, among them Star Trek and I Love Lucy. Details about the service outside the US are sketchy. Mr Page said he expected different content to be available in different parts of the world, depending on rights issues. "The rights for video are really complicated so generally you are going to see video that is licensed for particular countries," he said.

The video will be available to download for Windows or Mac, as well as for the Sony PlayStation Portable and Apple iPod.

Beyond the browser

The move towards paid for video downloads was pioneered by Apple last year when it introduced an iPod video player and shows from ABC, NBC and others on its iTunes store.Web giants like Yahoo and Google are trying to break out of the PC browser to offer their software and services on a plethora of devices. At CES, Yahoo announced free software that would let viewers use the TV screen to search and watch the more than one million video clips in its video search service.Microsoft is also looking to expand to the TV. At the Vegas techfest, it revealed a deal with Sky to offer content from the British satellite broadcaster available through Windows software.

During his presentation, Mr Page also introduced a free service called Google Pack. This allows users to install software from a range of companies from a single download.Included are Google's desktop, instant messaging and Google Earth mapping programs as well as the Firefox browser, Adobe's PDF reader and Norton anti-virus software from Symantec. Mr Page used his platform at CES to make a plea for gadget makers to agree to common standards so that devices would just work with each other and use a standard power supply.

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First Look at the Palm Treo 700w Smartphone

2006-01-07T22:48:00.000+02:00

Palm's Treo 700w Smartphone--the first Windows Mobile-based Palm product--makes some very smart adjustments in melding the popular Treo hardware with Microsoft's operating system for handhelds. Is it a perfect hybrid? No, but it certainly should strike fear into the hearts of other Windows Mobile smartphone vendors.

Like its Palm OS-based predecessors, the 700w (which runs Windows Mobile 5) capably strikes a balance between personal digital assistant and cell phone. It's small enough (4.4 by 2.3 by 0.9 inches) and light enough (6.4 ounces) to fit in most pants pockets, but not so tiny that you can't read the display or type on the integrated QWERTY keyboard.

At $500 (or $400 if you purchase a two-year voice plan for at least $40 a month, plus the $50-a-month unlimited data plan), the price of the Treo 700w is not out of line for a full-featured PDA-phone hybrid.

In many ways the 700w is similar to the Treo 650; both use the same connectors, for example. The 700w is powered by a 312-MHz Intel XScale processor and has 128MB of memory, including 60MB of user-available memory.

At first glance the Treo 700w's button layout doesn't seem much different from that of the Treo 600 or 650 (both of which are based on the Palm OS). On closer inspection, however, you notice that the Calendar button immediately to the left of the central rocker button has been replaced by a Windows Mobile Start button that brings up the main Windows Mobile menu. Meanwhile, the e-mail button immediately to the right of the rocker is now an OK button, which you can use to shut down Windows or processes (instead of tapping an on-screen OK or X). This button is especially useful considering Windows Mobile's proclivity for keeping apps running and using up memory (you can even shut down a bunch of apps in a memory manager by simply pressing the OK button). But I missed the one-touch access to my e-mail and calendar.

The two buttons directly beneath the display, which in the 650 are smaller and bring up the main Palm menu and the current screen's drop-down menu, respectively, now simply activate right- and left-hand on-screen options (something you see on many cell phones).

Instead of the familiar icon-driven Palm home screen, the 240-by-240-resolution screen displays a variant of the Windows Mobile Today screen that adds two empty text boxes--one for typing in a contact's name or phone number (so that you can quickly initiate a phone call) and another where you can type in keywords for a Google Web search.

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Yahoo reaches out beyond browser

2006-01-06T22:07:00.000+02:00

Web giant Yahoo has taken the first steps towards moving beyond the browser.

It has announced plans to allow people to use Yahoo e-mail, messaging and other services on mobile phones and via the TV.

Yahoo joins a growing number of net firms that are looking to break out of the confines of the PC browser.

Details of the venture, dubbed Yahoo Go, were revealed at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas.

In the hand

Yahoo has set up camp in a large tent at CES to provide a taste of how people can access its services on different gadgets.

As mobiles become almost ubiquitous and offer increasingly powerful capabilities, they have attracted the attention of net-based companies.

Google, for example, recently introduced a version of its Gmail e-mail service customised for mobiles.

And internet calling company Skype has released a beta version of its software for Windows smartphones.

Yahoo is dipping its toes into the mobile arena by joining forces with Nokia, Motorola and US carrier Cingular to gain a foothold.

The Nokia handset offers one button to get access to Yahoo mail, contacts and more, mirroring what users get on a browser.

Motorola's Razr and Slivr handsets on Cingular come with a pre-loaded package of Yahoo services.

Big screen service

As well as targeting the small screen, Yahoo has set its sights on larger displays. It has created a version of its services specifically for the TV, running on Windows Media Center PCs.

It means that people would be able, for example, to look at their pictures on the photo-sharing site Flickr on the TV.

Yahoo's move to the living room has being prompted by the evolution of the TV set into the gateway for digital video, music and pictures.

Other big players in the industry such as Microsoft and Intel are also pushing to play a bigger role in the lounge.

CES, the world's largest consumer technology trade show, runs until Sunday.

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Motorola and Google Align for Mobile Search

2006-01-06T21:22:00.000+02:00

Motorola, Inc. , a global leader in wireless communications, and Google Inc. today announced a global alliance to enable users easy access to Google on Motorola handsets.

Motorola will integrate a Google icon onto select devices so that users can connect directly to Google anytime, anywhere at the click of a button. These mass-market, Internet-optimized handsets will be distributed from early 2006 to select Motorola customers worldwide.

"Many of our customers have been asking for mobile devices integrated with their consumers' favorite online search services. By featuring Google on Motorola handsets for those customers, we are making it easier for consumers to connect to the information they need when they need it," said Scott Durchslag, Corporate Vice President and General Manager of Global xProducts for Motorola's Mobile Device business. "Our relationship with Google provides an opportunity for us to offer a high quality mobile search experience – one familiar to and loved by millions of users across the globe."

"Access to information is imperative for people on-the-go. Whether checking the local weather or locating the restaurant of their choice, consumers today require personalized search services that are tailored to their needs," said Nikesh Arora, vice president, European Operations, Google Inc. "With immediate access to Google, millions of Motorola users worldwide will be able to quickly and easily find information that's important to them."

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Otellini Introduces Intel® Viiv™ Technology

2006-01-06T21:13:00.000+02:00

Intel Corporation President and CEO Paul Otellini today unveiled two platforms and several content alliances that provide the foundation for new experiences from digital entertainment and wireless laptops –– and include the new high–performance, low–power Intel® Core™ Duo processor.

Noting the transformation now underway in entertainment, Otellini introduced the company’s new home platform –– Intel® Viiv™ technology –– and several commitments from top U.S. and international entertainment companies including AOL, DIRECTV, NBC Universal, Turner Broadcasting’s GameTap, ESPN, Televisa and Eros. ClickStar announced its first feature film, “10 Items or Less,” with a plan for an Internet premiere within weeks of its theatrical release, an industry first. These and other developments will bring millions of songs, movies, programs and games to the PC in 2006.

Intel Viiv technology–based entertainment PCs will help make it easier for families to download, store, view, manage and share all kinds of digital entertainment and information on a choice of TV, PC, laptop and hand–held viewing screens.

Intel® Centrino® Duo mobile technology improves performance and battery life for the fast–growing wireless laptop market segment. Otellini also introduced the ground–breaking Intel® Core™ Duo processor – powerful dual core silicon supporting the Intel Centrino Duo and certain Intel Viiv technology models. The processor is well equipped to deliver performance–per–watt efficiency and sleek designs for entertainment PCs, notebooks and CE–like devices.

“With our new platforms, we’re not only boosting wireless computing, but also advancing digital entertainment a few steps closer to effortless,” said Otellini. “Just as we enabled exciting new norms with wireless broadband laptops, we’re working with computer, CE and entertainment companies to make home entertainment easier. Our unique processors, tailored platform features and joint work with these industries exemplify our push to advance on–demand delivery of movies, TV, music, games and photos to any home on virtually any screen.”

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Booming Demand For LCD TVs

2006-01-03T15:52:00.000+02:00

2005 will go down in history as the year of the big screen LCD TV. Large screen LCD TVs have recently come down in price to be very competitive with large (40”+) plasma TVs. People who have been searching for the perfect flat panel TV screen can finally get it at a price they want. One thing is for certain: home entertainment will never be the same again: it will be bigger and better.

“We've seen the price drop below $1000 for some LCD TVs,” Said Michael Crow in a recent interview. However, some of the really high end LCD TV prices still run in the thousands.

The home theater trend has swept the nation in recent years with some families even going to the extent of installing lighted aisles and popcorn machines in their homes. Home projectors, plasma TVs, and LCD TVs can make the difference between a mediocre cinema experience and an incredible one. Some technologies have fallen by the wayside, while others (like flat screens) have made substantial in roads in living rooms across the country.

While both LCD TVs and Plasma televisions can deliver large screen pictures, they use different technology to deliver a state of the art viewing experience. Shipments of both types of flat panel screens are expected to increase in years to come as they replace older CRT monitors.

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Samsung develops 'fast' phone

2006-01-03T15:28:00.000+02:00

Samsung Electronics Co said on Tuesday it had developed what it claims to be the world's fastest multimedia-downloading mobile handset.

The phone, equipped with an MSM6280 chip from the Qualcomm of the United States, enables users to download music or other multimedia content at a speed of 3.6 megabits per second, or approximately 10 MP3 music files a minute.

The mobile using "high-speed downlink packet access (HSDPA) technology," was unveiled at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, the company said.

"Samsung is proud to showcase HSDPA as the future of mobile broadband," said Kitae Lee, president of Samsungs Telecommunications Network Business.

The mobile, equipped with Qualcomms Mobile Station Modem, is a product of strategic collaboration between Samsung and the US company.

The new handset marks "an exceptionally important milestone in driving the commercialisation and deployment of this technology worldwide," said Sanjay K Jha, president of QUALCOMM CDMA Technologies.

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Videora Converter for Ipod

2006-01-03T00:45:00.000+02:00

The Videora Converter handles video conversion for your favorite hard-to-please device like the 5G iPod, PSP, TiVo, or Xbox360.
[Videora] allows you to convert your regular PC video files (avi, mpeg, etc) into the proper video format that your mobile or fixed video device understands. Each version is tailored specifically to the device in question.

I know that a lot of PSP and iPod owners are constantly looking for new and better ways to convert videos for their portable device - the Videora Converter looks like a really nice option.

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One digicam, two lenses: Kodak announces the EasyShare V570

2006-01-03T00:16:00.000+02:00

Ultrawide angle zoom lenses are tricky and expensive to make, not to mention bulky. Kodak sidesteps these limitations by combining an ordinary 3x zoom lens and a 23mm equivalent fixed focal length ultrawide optic in a single camera, making what's sure to be one of the more intriguing cameras of 2006.

Given the maturity of the digital camera market, it's pretty rare when something genuinely new comes along. It's even more rare to find something new that actually meets a real need in the marketplace. The newly-announced Kodak EasyShare V570 looks like it just might satisfy on both counts, offering both a fixed ultra-wide angle lens and a separate 3x optical zoom lens in a very small package.

Wide angle capability is rare, but desirable in consumer digital cameras, as indoor confines often make it hard to capture all you want to see in your photograph even if you back up against the wall. While most modern digital cameras have a "wide" end to their zoom lens, it's seldom really that wide, equalling about 33 to 39mm on most digital cameras. To get quality wide angle lenses at a low price, you really need a prime (non-zoom) lens. Selling a non-zoom camera into this modern market would be tough, though, because they make framing and composing your shots much easier.

Camera makers can design and build an ultra-wide angle lens, and zoom lens design and construction is a well-understood art. Combining the two is the tough part. A few cameras manage to cover a range from ultrawide to medium telephoto (notably the Kodak EasyShare P880 and the Sony DSC-R1), but the optics required to do so are relatively large and bulky, not to mention expensive to make and sell.

Rather than try to tweak the optics to go from 23mm to 117mm in a singe stroke, the engineers at Kodak decided to use two lenses to cover the range.

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LASERline Introduces Apple iPod Nano Accessory

2006-01-02T17:12:00.000+02:00

After increasing media reports about the Apple iPod nano’s susceptibility to scratches, LASERline introduced an iPod nano accessory that repels dust and scratches. LASERline’s Silicone Skins are made of light-weight, high-grade, waterproof silicone elastomer that won’t break, snap, tear, pill or split like rubber.

The LASERline silicone skins are translucent membranes that fit snugly around the Apple iPod nano. The shock-absorbing material protects against accidental bumps as well
as annoying fingerprints and scratches. The skins have an anti-static feature which repels the dust that can scratch and harm an iPod. Because the skins are waterproof, rain, snow or sweat are not problems, so users can take their music with them wherever they go in complete comfort and style.

Apple iPod nanos are so portable they can be slipped into a shirt pocket or the small coin pocket of a user’s jeans -- but left unprotected, they are subject to annoying scratches that can distort the screen and impact their sleek look. The LASERline Silicone Skins are the perfect iPod nano accessory.

LASERline Silicone skins for the Apple iPod nano are available in a variety of colors including: pale baby pink, icy blue, pearly white and not-so-basic black. Customers can also purchase the skins in convenient two-packs of white/black, pink/purple and blue/green. Five-packs of white, black, blue, green and pink are also available.

LASERline Silicone skins are available online at iPod nano accessory skins for $14.99 and come with a free neck lanyard and wrist strap.

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Educational Video Unveils Tricks Hackers Use

2006-01-02T15:26:00.000+02:00

Fiberlink Communications Corp, a leading innovator and trusted enterprise partner for secure mobile workforce solutions, developed an on-demand video demonstration to show CIOs and CSOs the ongoing risks that threaten mobile workers everyday. The "Anatomy of a Hack" illustrates how, without proper security protection, a hacker can take complete control of a mobile worker’s system and potentially infect a corporate network.

Security threats today go beyond idle hacking for recreation. A recent survey of the top vulnerabilities of 2005 by the SANS Institute reports that attacks are becoming less widespread, but more focused on quick financial gain. Today criminals are focusing their attacks on poorly protected applications such as Kazaa, Windows Media Player, Mozilla, Firefox, Apple Safari Browser and others with the intent to gain information that can be used in fraud.

Accompanying the video is a best practices guide that details how CIOs and CSOs can protect their networks against the most notorious types of threats including: network sniffing, malware and direct attacks. Participants will get a better understanding of:

- Common security risks and vulnerabilities that threaten today’s mobile workforce.

- Techniques, skills and tools used by hackers to exploit vulnerabilities on mobile endpoint systems.

- Best practices and essential tools necessary to help ensure mobile workers are compliant with corporate security policies.

Video

Practices Guide

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Significant 2006 Technology Trends

2006-01-02T14:48:00.000+02:00

Once again, Technology Futures, Inc. (TFI) provides important emerging technology trends for 2006 and beyond developed through our 27 years of forecasting, strategy, and analysis work. Popular futurist and technologist David Smith (Vice President, TFI) states "These trends are of great consequence to those involved with global business, technology business process, science and universities, government agencies, federal labs, corporate labs, and technology savvy consumers." He adds, "Comparing this year's trends to TFI's list of trends for 2005, we see the trends as being still on the mark, with continuing progress being made in all the areas outlined last year. Below we have outlined some of the developments and provide some new trends and enhancements."

SIGNIFICANT TECHNOLOGY TRENDS FOR 2006

1- Traditional media continues to change as the impact of the democratization of the Internet and the increased penetration of global broadband coverage expands the Internet even more.

2- The threat to security and privacy continues to grow and to expand to other devices besides the wired Internet such as . mobile devices and device-to-device networks.

3-The digital home is entering the next level of acceptance, with the expansion of the electronic gaming and MP3 marketplace being a major driver.

4- Public relations and marketing expenditures and projects continue their shift to the public networks.

5-The timeframe of the product life-cycle continues to decrease.

6- Globalization and outsourcing continue to be paradigms of success.

7- The age of bio enters a new stage of production as advances in the technology continue.

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DKMessenger - Video Communications Software

2006-01-02T14:16:00.000+02:00

DKware announced this week that it is offering free PC-to-PC videophone and messaging services to the general public with its new instant messaging application, DKMessenger. DKMessenger permits real-time communications via text, video and audio simultaneously.

Douglas Kadlecek, founder of DKware, suggests that existing communications systems are antiquated and overpriced. ‘We are happy to offer this free service to the general public. For years, phone companies have charged a premium to send voice and data using proprietary switched networks. We feel that the Internet introduces a new paradigm, where software-based communication systems will proliferate while the costs are reduced to near zero. As proof, we are offering DKMessenger for free.’

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CES 2006: Samsung's Fast-Data-Download Cell Phone

2005-12-30T23:42:00.000+02:00

At next week's 2006 International Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, Samsung Electronics plans to demonstrate its first cell phone compatible with a fast data download service that many wireless carriers plan to introduce beginning in 2006.

Vodaphone is developing the cell phone, which is still a prototype and will be compatible with High Speed Downlink Packet Access (HSDPA), the company said Wednesday. Services can apply HSDPA to third-generation Wideband Code Division Multiple Access (WCDMA) networks to offer significantly faster data downloads. (Go here for an explanation of high-speed wireless networks.)

Vodafone said in September that it planned to begin trials of HSDPA technology in early 2006.

Mega Download Speeds

The Vodaphone service will initially deliver a peak download speed of 1.6 megabits per second, far faster than the maximum of 384 kilobits per second its WCDMA network offers. In time, with future upgrades, the speed will increase to 7 mbps, the carrier said. For users this will translate into a rise in typical data download speed from today's 120 kbps or so to around 425 kbps over HSDPA, according to Vodafone.

The carrier is also considering High Speed Uplink Packet Access (HSUPA), which boosts the upload speed from the cell phone to the network, in 2007 or 2008.

Samsung will demonstrate a working prototype of its cell phone at CES, said company spokesperson Sophia Kim in Seoul.

Cingular Has the Service

Samsung has released few details of the handset as yet, though Kim said the company has completed hardware development and is now working on the phone's software. The phone should be available to Vodafone in the first half of 2006; its availability to users will depend on Vodafone's commercialization plans for HSDPA.

Already one carrier has launched an HSDPA service. Cingular Wireless's Broadband Connect service, which went into service in 52 markets across the United States in December, is based on the technology. Cingular's service provides download speeds of 400 kbps to 700 kbps and is accessible via a laptop modem card for a flat rate of $60 per month.

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Dressing up your iPod to suit your personality

2005-12-30T23:39:00.000+02:00

Within the rich ecosystem of iPod gizmos, the flora and fauna take exotic forms: glowing pink fish from Japan, scratchproof skins from Germany and snowball puffs of mohair from the United States that transform sleek gadgets into instant cuddle buddies.

It is the i-cology of Apple Computer's little white music players, which have spawned a flourishing colony of gear that can make over an iPod into everything from a floating lily pad to a pinpoint laser beam.

Some multimedia firms, like Buongiorno Vitaminic, an Italian company that sells mobile content, services and devices, liken this kind of personalization to retrofitting basic jeans.

These are "mass-produced products that are universal regardless of sex or age," according to a new Buongiorno study of the use of mobile services and digital accessories, "products that are lived and experienced by their users as an expression of their unique individuality long before they are considered as a fashion statement."

IPod mobile players have given instant life to companies like Artwizz, a Berlin start-up that offers high-style white accessories like headphones, scratch-stopper shields and its most popular, but unglamorous, item: USB power plugs for recharging.

"We started with one simple fan light, then headphones, and now we're coming out with more," said Frank Kroug, the company's director of marketing. "It's building up rapidly with the popularity of iPods, but also because Apple is no longer distributing all the accessories with the iPod."

Michael Eden, the product developer for Artwizz, totes around an iPod to study daily wear and tear. To test the company's scratch-stopper shields, he said he ground a key into one iPod that emerged unscathed. Now he's planning on introducing special polish cream - ordinarily used on BMW windows - that can be employed to grind away nicks on iPod nano screeens. More accessories are in development, and the company is counting on cresting for a few years with iPod popularity.

More than 30 million iPods have shipped since the device's introduction four years ago, according to Apple. The company sold 22.5 million iPods in the 12 months that ended in September, an increase of 409 percent from the 4.4 million sold in the previous 12 months.

Net sales of iPod-related products - which include Apple's own accessories and iTunes Music Store downloads - increased $621 million or 223 percent.

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Sites exploit Windows image flaw

2005-12-29T21:50:00.000+02:00

Computer users are being alerted to a new flaw in Microsoft Windows which can be used to attack a PC.

The US net watchdog, the Computer Emergency Response Center (Cert), and security firms have issued warnings about certain types of image files called Windows Metafiles.

Experts said numerous websites were taking advantage of the flaw to sneak into computers and install spyware.

Microsoft has said it is looking into the issue.

Spam bots

The flaw centres on the way Microsoft's operating system handles Windows Metafiles (.wmf). These are image files that can contain both vector and bitmap-based picture information.

The hole means that an attacker can hide malicious code on a webpage or an e-mail containing files with the wmf extension.

"Exploit code has been publicly posted and used to successfully attack fully-patched Windows XP SP2 systems," said Cert. "However, other versions of the Windows operating system may be at risk as well."

Security firm Websense said it had discovered numerous websites that were using the flaw to infect a PC with spyware.

It said the spyware tried to trick people into handing over their credit card details as well as installing software to send thousands of spam e-mails.

The appearance of the exploit on websites has led security firms to raise the level of alert, with Secunia describing the hole as extremely critical.

Experts say there is no patch available for the flaw, which affects computers running Windows XP, ME, 2000 and Windows Microsoft Windows Server 2003.

"Microsoft is investigating new public reports of a possible vulnerability in Windows," said a security advisory on its website.

"Upon completion of this investigation, Microsoft will take the appropriate action to help protect our customers.

"Microsoft encourages users to exercise caution when they open e-mail and links in e-mail from untrusted sources."

It has also provided details of a temporary way around the flaw which involves switching off the Windows Picture and Fax Viewer in Windows XP.

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Wi-Fi Reaches the Speed of Ethernet

2005-12-29T21:44:00.000+02:00

Wireless networks may be convenient to set up, but wired ethernet has always been faster. Now a new generation of Wi-Fi products is challenging ethernet's superiority for high-bandwidth apps. We sampled some of the first of these Wi-Fi products--Netgear's $180 RangeMax 240 Wireless Router and $100 Notebook Adapter--and found that at close range, even with encryption enabled, data speeds were only a little bit slower than on a standard 10/100 megabits-per-second ethernet network.

The RangeMax 240 line is based on Airgo Networks' new True MIMO Gen3 technology (also used in Linksys's new SRX240 line). Like Airgo's original True MIMO chip set (found in Belkin's Pre-N, Linksys's SRX, and other product lines), True MIMO Gen3 uses two transmitting and three receiving antennae to boost speed and range, while maintaining backward compatibility with standard 54-mbps 802.11g Wi-Fi products.

Ace Technology

But the real key to Gen3's performance is Airgo's new Adaptive Channel Expansion technology, which doubles bandwidth by using two of the three nonoverlapping channels in 802.11g's 2.4-MHz frequency. ACE instantly adapts to interference to find the fastest route for data. Netgear named the router for its theoretical maximum 240-mbps data rate, but Netgear and Airgo peg real-world Gen3 throughput at up to 120 mbps or more without encryption--and up to four times the range of standard 802.11g Wi-Fi.

Our informal tests with preproduction units generally backed up these claims. Without encryption, throughput matched that of 10/100 ethernet, and with WPA2 encryption, it was nearly as fast. (We would expect slower speeds with the software-based WPA-PSK encryption.)

Performance was between one-third and two-thirds faster than that of networks based on the original True MIMO chips, and, even more impressive, the RangeMax 240 network maintained both signal strength and performance over a much greater distance. We even noticed speed increases of about a third using legacy 802.11g adapters with the RangeMax 240 router.

This kind of speed is ideal for homes and offices that want to simultaneously run such bandwidth-gobbling applications as VoIP telephony, network gaming, and streaming audio and video. With RangeMax 240 gear, we streamed flawless DVD-format video from a desktop hard drive to a wireless laptop 100 feet away, while surfing the Net. When we attempted the same tasks using gear based on Airgo's first chips, however, the video broke down.

The technology would be even more useful if it were available for devices other than notebooks: No adapters yet exist for desktops, set-top boxes, or other consumer electronics. And the RangeMax 240 router costs more than twice as much as some of the newer budget Wi-Fi routers, which offer good range and performance if you're only accessing the Internet (broadband speeds typically top out at 1 to 1.5 mbps) or moving an occasional file between computers.

Still, if you want the optimum wireless performance--say, to back up over a network or to maintain good coverage in a large structure--these impressive new products are worth the investment.

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Mobile games pay off for Ubisoft

2005-12-28T23:06:00.000+02:00

Its mobile gaming subsidiary, Gameloft, has sold almost as many games as Ubisoft, said boss Yves Guillemot.

The French maker of titles such as Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell and King Kong is competing with other game giants for a slice of the mobile pie.

Mobile gaming is expected to explode, with analysts predicting that 220 million people will be playing games on mobile phones by 2009.

Small independent companies such as I-Play and In-Fusio, rather than the big publishers, have so far dominated the mobile gaming market.

But this is changing as the big games powerhouses start to push into mobile gaming.

New gamers

Ubisoft has Gameloft; and earlier this month, EA snapped up mobile games firm Jamdat for $680m (£390m).

Although EA makes some mobile titles, the deal boosted its presence in what is becoming a growing part of the gaming

The big games makers see mobile gaming as a way to attract more people into its more serious gaming titles on consoles.

Casual gamers include a large proportion of women, and the games industry is keen to tap into that potential market too.

"I really believe the mobile business is going to extend our business a lot in the future," Mr Guillemot told the BBC News website. "They will bring a lot more people to games."

"It took me a while to consider that it was a great business. But now what I see is that Gameloft almost sells as many games as we do."

At just a few dollars, the price of a mobile game is a fraction of its console equivalent, so revenue is far lower.

But Mr Guillemot said low prices meant Gameloft was able to reach gamers in developing nations.

"They are creating games that are accessible, more the arcade style that we had in the past," he said.

"They can take more risk in terms of design as games are not as expensive and the distribution is broad.

"In a sense, our brands are now known and played by people all over the world."

Retro gaming

Ubisoft games like the Tom Clancy Splinter Cell titles have done well, but not all console games translate well to the small screen.

Instead arcade games such as Tetris and Space Invaders routinely top the charts. Other classic games do well, such as pool and card games, as they are seen as appealing to casual gamers.

"Ubisoft's success with Gameloft and EA's recent purchase of Jamdat reinforces the credibility of what is already an incredibly exciting industry," said I-Play acting CEO David Gosen.

"On a more cautious note, however, traditional video games players and media companies alike trying to enter this space, should not underestimate the complexity in building and delivering quality games.

"Success in the video games business does not equal success in mobile."

Source

Camera Phones To Remain Hot: Study

2005-12-28T23:02:00.000+02:00

The camera-enabled cellular phone market is booming, as shipments are expected to reach nearly 1 billion units by the end of this decade, according to a new report.

In total, the market for camera-enabled cellular phones is expected to grow from 225 million units in 2004, to 365 million units in 2005, to 475 million in 2006, to 600 million in 2007, to 780 million by 2008, according to the report from IC Insights Inc. (Scottsdale, Ariz.).

Clearly, camera phones are becoming a bigger part of the overall handset market. In 2005, some 45 percent of all handsets shipped are expected to be camera-enabled products, up from 34 percent in 2004, according to the report.

In 2006, 54 percent of all handsets shipped will be camera-enabled phones, according to the report. In 2007, 62 percent of all handsets shipped will be camera-enabled phones, according to the report. And in 2008, some 68 percent of all handsets shipped will be camera-enabled products, according to the report.

By 2009, camera-equipped cellular phones are forecast to represent almost three-fourths of the total handset market. At that time, camera-enabled handset shipments are expected to reach 910 million units, according to the report.

There are other interesting patterns developing in the marketplace. Historically, Japanese cellular subscribers have been especially receptive to more features added to their handsets.

The cellular handset market in Japan is up 27 percent to 52 million units in 2005, as compared to 2002, according to the report. The Japanese digital-camera-equipped cell phone market has more than doubled, growing from 19 million units in 2002 to 47 million units in 2005, according to the report.

“Although the Japanese market was the ‘early adopter’ of the camera phone, it is estimated that the Japanese market will represent only about 13 percent of the total demand for camera-equipped handsets in 2005, down from 95 percent just three years earlier in 2002,” according to IC Insights. “One of the pleasant surprises in the cellular phone industry over the past couple of years has been the significant popularity of the camera phone outside of Japan.”

Moreover, the quality of the camera in the cellular handset is increasing dramatically. In early 2002, most camera phones offered 300,000-pixel images. Then, in 2004, Japan’s Casio introduced a camera-equipped cellular phone that offered 3.2 million pixel autofocus imaging capability.

Korea’s Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. began shipping its SCH-770, the world’s first 7.4 million-pixel camera-equipped cell phone in mid-2005. This handset was priced at over $900.

The high-resolution versions of camera phones are forecast to go from representing only about 4 percent of the 2004 camera phone market to almost 95 percent of the market by 2009, according to IC Insights.

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Indian Ocean tsunami warning system

2005-12-28T09:55:00.000+02:00

When the Indian Ocean tsunami struck, the only warning most people in the region had was the sight of a giant wave heading towards them.

Unlike the Pacific, the Indian Ocean did not have a system to alert residents of coastal areas that a tsunami was imminent.

In the aftermath of the disaster, scientists and governments, under the auspices of the UN, began working on an early warning system for the region.

One year on from the tsunami, this is a guide to what is planned and what is already in place.

DETECTING A TSUNAMI

Seismic gauges can detect the earthquakes or volcanic eruptions which may cause a tsunami.

But as only a small proportion of strong earthquakes produce a tsunami, a warning system based solely on seismic data is prone to producing false alarms.

Other sea-based instruments are needed to help scientists decide if a tsunami has been triggered.

These fall into two main types: pressure recorders in the deep ocean and tide gauges monitoring sea-level at the coast.

The Deep-ocean Assessment and Reporting of Tsunami (Dart) system uses buoys and sensors stationed far out to sea.

A pressure recorder on the sea bed measures the weight of the water above it - which varies according to wave height - and sends its findings to a buoy on the surface.

The buoy monitors the surface conditions and sends this, plus the data from the sea bed, to a satellite which relays it back to a receiving station.

Germany is working on a joint project with Indonesia to put in place 10 of these buoys, the first two of which were installed in November 2005.

India, Thailand and Australia are also planning to install Dart buoys along the Sunda Trench, the site of the earthquake that triggered the tsunami.

The advantage of the Dart system is that it can detect tsunami far out to sea and give enough time to warn countries in the region. However, the buoys are expensive to install and maintain.

Unesco's Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission (IOC) is also focusing on a network of tide or sea-level gauges.

Unlike Dart buoys, tide gauges in the Global Sea Level Observing System (GLOSS) are sited on land, either on mainland coasts or on islands out to sea.

The most basic form of gauges monitor the surface of the water with a system of tubes and floats (as shown right).

More modern versions "ping" the surface of the water from above with radar or sonar; or use sea-bed pressure sensors attached to the sea-level observing station with a cable.

There are almost 70 GLOSS stations in the Indian Ocean. Before the tsunami, they were used to measure the sea level for longterm climate change studies, and their data was transmitted only periodically.

Now, the stations are being upgraded so they can send real-time data via satellite to newly set up national tsunami centres.

They are also being fitted with solar panels so they can continue to operate even if the mains power supply is interrupted by severe weather.

Twenty-three stations should be fully upgraded by the end of June 2006, according to the IOC, and more will follow in the next few years (see pop up map).

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New era heralded for mobile TV

2005-12-28T07:47:00.000+02:00

TV on mobiles is being touted as the next big thing, with supporters predicting it will offer a new genre of programmes.

While some have expressed doubts about whether people will want to watch TV on their mobiles, handset giant Nokia and leading independent TV producer Endemol are convinced it will be a winner.

Initial signs, both say, are that mobile TV will be a huge hit with consumers, a big money-spinner for content providers and mobile operators as well as a means of transforming TV as it currently exists.

The next 12 months looks set to be the year mobile TV takes off. While the buzz around it is similar to the hype for 3G services, there is much greater optimism that TV will live up to its promise.

Endemol is an old-hand at offering services to mobile firms as TV via 3G networks is already well established.

It has been pleased with results so far. It sold six million Big Brother minutes since the show went on offer to mobile users in the UK, Italy and Australia.

Mobile quiz

For its part, Nokia is busy testing next-generation mobile TV technology at locations around the world and initial feedback from the trials is that consumers are receptive to the idea of small-screen video.

TV, unlike mobile web browsing, is an easy concept to sell to consumers, says Mark Selby, Nokia's vice president of multimedia sales.

His optimism is backed up by analysts. Technology consultancy Strategy Analytics predicts that mobile firms will have about 50 million users of mobile TV by 2009, generating an estimated £3.5bn in revenue.

Content that feeds off existing shows or offer extra behind-the-scene video is likely to be widely available initially but eventually there will be bespoke made-for-mobile shows.

"I can imagine an interactive quiz show just for mobile phones," said Peter Cowley, Endemol's head of interactive.

The company is concentrating its mobile effort on quizzes, comedy and reality shows.

Sport is also going to be a huge area for mobile technology and operators are keen for services to be rolled out in time for next year's football World Cup in Germany.

Alongside these more traditional areas, there will also be a whole new genre of made-for-mobile content, and glimpses of what will be possible are already in evidence.

Time and money

Operator 3 has already begun experimenting with user-generated content, offering subscribers of its 3G TV service the chance to upload their own shows and profit from them, albeit in a very small way with each download of a show earning the maker just one pence.

In Italy the firm is also offering full soap operas via mobile.

Endemol's UK chairman Peter Bazalgette sees exciting times ahead.

"This year is the first in a career of 27 years in television that I've been able to entertain people anywhere. A new era for those in the content business is starting," he said.

He identified two issues that would be crucial to solve if the brave new world of mobile TV is to get off to a good start - time and money.

"The duration of 3G usage is a maximum of three minutes and we have to increase that. Also people downloading video need to know what they are paying for and that it is offered at a fair price," he said.

TV "snacking" seems to be most popular at the moment.

Orange, which launched its 3G mobile TV service in May, found that 36% watching its service during lunch and other breaks.

Some 18% watched TV while travelling to and from work, 12% while queuing or waiting for friends and 10% watched it at home.

The idea of paying for content has been questioned by some but indications from trials which Nokia has been involved in suggest that people will be prepared to put their hands in their wallets.

Following a trial in Helsinki, 41% said they would be willing to purchase mobile TV services. Half thought that a monthly payment of around £7 was a reasonable pricing model.

Questions about money are not limited to consumers though and rows over media rights have dominated discussions about how to roll out mobile TV services.

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Hybrid cars race ahead in 2005

2005-12-28T04:43:00.000+02:00

Hybrid engines powered by electricity and petrol have been around for years. But it took a kick from rocketing gasoline prices to encourage large numbers of Americans to see their fuel-efficient appeal.

Toyota began selling the Prius in North America in 2000. It is now the best-selling hybrid in the United States, helped in no small part by the sight of Hollywood stars such as Brad Pitt and Cameron Diaz behind the wheel of one.

Up to the end of November, Toyota said it had sold 99,000 Prius cars this year compared to 47,700 over the same period of 2004.

According to research firm Global Insight, total US sales of hybrids are set to more than double to 200,000 this year and mushroom to 500,000 a year by 2010.

Toyota has led the way with the Prius and the four-by-four Highlander, designed to appeal to Americans' taste for sport utility vehicles (SUVs). Its Japanese rival Honda has three hybrid models and lies second in sales.

US giants General Motors and Ford are now ramping up their own hybrid production but came late to the game. The Ford Escape Hybrid made its debut in mid-2004 as the first US-made example of the genre.

GM and Ford remained wedded for too long to petrol SUVs and pick-up trucks, whose sales have slumped this year as Americans shun gas-guzzlers.

An average SUV consumes about 20 litres (five gallons) of petrol over a 100 kilometre (62 mile) trip, compared to a hybrid which will sip just four to five litres (1.1 to 1.3 gallons) of gasoline.

Ford's chairman blames Japanese government intervention for the sales advantage enjoyed by Toyota and Honda.

"Nearly a decade ago, the government offered subsidies to their domestic auto suppliers to build hybrid batteries, which are one of the most expensive components of today's hybrid vehicles," Bill Ford said in late November.

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Blu-ray Launch Set for January

2005-12-28T00:21:00.000+02:00

Pioneer Electronics said Tuesday it will unveil the Blu-ray DVD format in January—far ahead of expectations—dealing a blow to the rival HD-DVD format whose backers had once hoped for a head-start in the $40-billion market for next-generation DVD systems.

Pioneer will display a Blu-ray drive for personal computers at the International Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas, which starts January 5. The drive will start shipping in Japan by the end of January 2006, said the company. The North American launch will come in the first quarter of 2006.

Pioneer is one of the founders of the Blu-ray Disc Association (BDA), an organization of consumer electronics, entertainment, and computer companies engaged in the research and development of Blu-ray hardware and software. Sony is the leading supporter of the Blu-ray format.

HD-DVD has the backing of only three major consumer electronics companies—Toshiba, Sanyo, and NEC. However, two big tech giants, Intel and Microsoft, are siding with the HD-DVD format because of the inclusion of two important features: iHD and Mandatory Managed Copy (see Microsoft, Intel Vote HD-DVD).

The HD-DVD camp’s initial plan was to launch at the end of 2005, but the unveiling was later pushed back to spring 2006 (see HD-DVD Delayed Until 2006). Thus far, the HD-DVD camp has not yet shown any indication of launching products during CES, the largest consumer electronics trade show in North America.

Both standards are based on blue laser technology, which will replace the red laser used in the current generation of DVDs. Both new standards offer high-definition pictures, superior sound quality, more storage, and interactive features that current-generation DVDs do not offer.

The Pioneer drive will be able to write and read single-layer BD-R (Blu-ray Disc Recordable) and BD-RE (Blu-ray Disc Rewritable) discs without a cartridge, and read single-layer and double-layer ROM (Read-Only Memory) discs without a cartridge.

Pending Issues

The launch of Panasonic’s drive depends on two licensing issues.

Pioneer has to wait for the start date of the Blu-ray Disc format logo and copyright protection technology license before it can launch the drives. The Advanced Access Content System (AACS), which provides copy protection on next-generation DVDs to prevent piracy, has also delayed the launch of HD-DVD.

Blu-ray has a clear edge over the rival format in terms of the clout of its hardware and software supporters. Some of the world’s largest and most influential companies—including Samsung, Hitachi, Philips, Apple, and Dell, and movie studios such as Sony Pictures, 20th Century Fox, and Walt Disney—are giving their exclusive support to Blu-ray.

Computer giant Hewlett-Packard, which was an exclusive supporter of Blu-ray, recently said it would support both Blu-ray and HD-DVD (see HP Adds HD-DVD Format).

In a recent report, Forrester Research predicted Blu-ray will eventually emerge as the victorious format. The report noted that unless the HD-DVD group abandons the field, it will be another two years before consumers gain enough confidence in Blu-ray and think about buying a new-format DVD player.

“In the meantime, they will expand their video-on-demand, downloadable video, and Internet video habits,” said the report.

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Scientists Take Step Toward Faster Communication

2005-12-27T23:37:00.000+02:00

By using electromagnetic waves instead of electrical current for switching, researchers have operated an optical modulator at terahertz frequencies – an accomplishment that could one day facilitate data transmission rates in the trillions of bits per second.

The work represents a key step toward a new generation of optical communication systems that would be as much as 100 times faster than current technology, bringing closer such applications as real-time telemedicine and movies on demand. While operating their terahertz modulator, the research team observed an effect that is well known in atomic physics – but until now hadn’t been seen in the semiconductor materials that make up optical modulators.

“This is just one piece, but potentially a very important piece, of a very high bit-rate optical communication system for telecommunications and other applications,” said David Citrin, an associate professor in the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology. “The point of the experiment was to show that we can operate a modulator at terahertz frequencies, though we are still a long way from a practical device.”

Supported by the National Science Foundation, the research was reported in the October 28, 2005 issue of the journal Science.

Existing telecommunication systems depend on modulators to encode data onto beams of light that then can be carried long distances by optical fibers. Modulators work by rapidly changing their reflectivity, which varies the intensity of light beams passing through them. These variations correspond to the ones and zeroes that are the language of digital communication.

Modulators are also used as switches to reroute data streams by alternately reflecting light or allowing it to pass.

But most current modulators have a drawback – they cannot operate faster than the electronic circuitry used to control them. To boost data speeds, researchers have been seeking alternative control technologies.

“Conventional optical modulators use a voltage change to alter the properties of a material which changes the reflectivity,” Citrin explained. “Electrically switched systems are just too slow to go much beyond where we are now. But by using very high frequency electromagnetic energy to modulate the signal, the hope is that we can generate signals that have much higher data rates than what we can achieve with today’s electrical circuits.”

To gain those higher rates, Citrin and colleagues at the University of California, Santa Barbara and the NASA Ames Research Center used very high-frequency waves from a free-electron laser to control the modulator. These electromagnetic waves consist of an oscillating electric field and have the advantage of being able to move through free space without the need for circuitry.

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Novel anti-virus for handhelds from India

2005-12-27T23:34:00.000+02:00

It may sound too good to be true, but that's a new anti-virus product, an Indian software company based in Madras called Sanrasoft claims to have developed, which will hit the U.S. markets in 2006.

Sanrasoft, which announced last week a breakthrough anti-virus technology christened Rudra that right now is available only for Windows-based PCs, told UPI that a handheld version is already under development in its lab that will be launched in the United States a few months after Sanrasoft launches the PC version in April 2006.

"The R&D is already working on an application for handhelds and it will be so small that you wouldn't even know that it is there," said MS Bhaskar, the managing director of Sanrasoft and the inventor of this technology.

Rudra, according to Bhaskar, "is a breakthrough anti-virus technology based on the intention of malicious codes."

"This technology not only protects a device from known viruses but also from any unknown malicious codes (malware) which includes viruses, trojans, worms, spyware, keyloggers and hackers. Thus the technology offers a holistic solution."

The beauty of this technology, claims Bhaskar, is not only the fact that it is thin and that it can protect a handheld device from virus intrusions through any medium -- including Bluetooth -- "but since the technology protects a device even from future unknown viruses, the need for regular updates -- which increasingly encroaches on the limited memory space of handhelds -- as well as the need for yearly subscription, is removed."

"Current anti-virus products are based on older technologies, but virus writers are constantly inventing newer methods to transmit their malware," added Bhaskar. "Rudra protects a device from all methods that are unknown."

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Santa Worm Hits Messaging Networks

2005-12-23T01:16:00.000+02:00

With the holidays upon us, the name of Santa Claus is being used for evil rather than good by worm developers, who have targeted major instant-messaging systems with a holiday-themed virus.

The IM.GiftCom.All worm has made an appearance on several messaging networks, including America Online, Microsoft MSN, and Yahoo.

The worm attempts to dupe you into believing that a friend has sent you a link to a harmless file. If you click on the file, you see an image of Santa. While viewing it, the worm attempts to install a rootkit on your system.

Rootkits are frequently used to circumvent security software and give an attacker remote control of a machine. Once the attacker is inside your system, the worm harvests your instant-message contact lists for subsequent infections.

Not Surprising

The new worm is not surprising to many security researchers because holiday-themed threats often occur just as people are swapping online cards and forwarding holiday messages to each other.

The fact that the threat appears in instant-messaging systems also does not come as a shock, considering the phenomenal growth rate in the number of innovative new worms and viruses over the past year.

Since the start of 2005, messaging-related security threats have been growing each month, according to messaging-security firm IMlogic.

Track Down

"The difficulty is that worm developers are using tactics that have been successful in e-mail campaigns," said IMlogic chief technology officer Jon Sakoda. "They're able to mutate earlier worms and try different strategies, and that's giving them a level of sophistication."

Another problem is that users still are not fully aware that worms and viruses can move through messaging systems, Sakoda added.

In corporate environments, threats like the recent Santa Claus worm can be especially nasty because some employees use instant-messaging applications on the sly, without the knowledge of the I.T. staff.

"CIOs should definitely know what's on their network, and what users are doing," said Sakoda. "If they think employees aren't using instant messaging just because it's not allowed, then they better think again."

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ATI CrossFire to be available in Radeon X1000 PCIe GPU line

2005-12-23T01:15:00.000+02:00

ATI Technologies announced yesterday that all of the graphics processing units (GPUs) in its Radeon X1000 PCIe family will integrate its CrossFire dual-card graphics technology, according to Edward Chou, the marketing director of ATI’s Asia-Pacific division.

Besides ATI’s Radeon Xpress 200 chipset series, Intel’s high-end 975X series is the only other chipset that supports ATI’s CrossFire, Chou noted, adding that ATI presently has no plans to grant the dual-card graphics technology to other chipset makers.

In 2006, when markets for Microsoft’s Vista operating system (OS), HD-DVD, and Blu-ray discs kick off, demand for PCI Express (PCIe) graphics cards are expected to grow significantly, Chou stated. The shipment contribution of AGP8X graphics cards in the channel market will slide to 50% by the middle of next year, down from 65% at present, Chou believes. By year-end, the proportion will go down further to only 20%, according to Chou.

Taiwan motherboard makers indicated that the supply of ATI’s CrossFire GPUs will be limited in the channel market until the middle of the first quarter of 2006 because most supplies have been grabbed by OEM vendors, the makers said.

In response to rival Nvidia recently acquiring Taiwan-based ULi Electronics, the maker of southbridges that run with ATI’s northbridge chips, Chou noted that ATI is ramping up production of its own southbridge chips. ULi’s southbridge supply accounts for less than 10% of ATI’s total southbridge shipments, said Chou, adding that losing ULi’s contribution will not affect overall shipment performance.

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Japanese Government Looks To Develop Own Search Engine

2005-12-21T13:25:00.000+02:00

Japan will look into launching its own Internet search engine, a government official said Monday, signaling the country's interest in a market dominated by powerhouses Google Inc. and Yahoo Inc.

The Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry will kick off a study group consisting of about 20 Japanese electronics companies and universities on Internet search engines, said Fumihiro Kajikawa, a ministry official in charge of information policies.

The group will hold the first meeting Friday and plans to put together an interim report by March and a final report by July, he said.

Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., NTT Corp. and Tokyo University are among the participants, according to Kajikawa. Electronics makers Fujitsu, Hitachi, NEC will also join.

"The group will look into issues including whether Japan will start its own search engine," he said.

The group plans to look into developing a search engine for pictures, the official added.

The Nihon Keizai Shimbun newspaper reported Monday that the government plans to spend several billions of yen (tens of millions of dollars and euros) for a three-to-five year project to develop a search engine beginning in fiscal 2007. Japan's fiscal year starts in April.

The report said that Japan wants to come up with its own version of search engine to catch up with the American companies that receive high profits from online ad revenues.

Kajikawa could not confirm the report.

"It is not that we want to play against (Google and Yahoo). We are thinking of something that's unique to Japan," he said.

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Windows Vista December CTP

2005-12-20T22:38:00.000+02:00

It's always fascinating when the world's most popular (and unpopular) software company, along with the world's richest man, decide to let you peek into what they have planned for the future of personal computing. With the release of Windows Vista (beta 1)'s December CTP, we get another glimpse at what many of us will buy with our next computer, whether we want it or not.

Code-named Longhorn early in its infancy, Microsoft started out with plenty of lofty goals for its new OS. Since then many of those plans have been scrapped or scaled back. More recently, Windows Vista has appeared to be playing catch-up, touting features, such as 64-bit computing, that are already available in Mac OS 10.4 Tiger and Linux.

Vista promises better search that will hopefully match or exceed the search functionality already available through Mac OS Tiger's Spotlight and SUSE Linux's Beagle, not to mention the free Google Desktop Search utility that you can use with existing versions of Windows. In our earlier Vista coverage, we told you about the improved search functionality, 64-bit support and other features, such as the new version of Internet Explorer that Vista will include (which will boast tabbed browsing and RSS support -- features already available in Firefox and Safari).

December's CTP offers us a preview of a few features we haven't seen yet, such as Windows Defender, BitLocker, single-button on/off and Media Player 11.

Windows Defender

Formerly known as Microsoft AntiSpyware, Windows Defender is Microsoft's spyware and malware scanner and removal tool. The version of Windows Defender built into the December CTP of Vista is based on a new engine that Microsoft claims can detect and remove more 'potentially unwanted programs', or PUPs, than before. This version of Windows Defender also offers real-time protection that catches PUPs in the act, before they can be installed onto your computer.

BitLocker drive encryption

BitLocker is Vista's attempt to protect notebook users from having both their data and their computer stolen. In essence, BitLocker is a hardware-based encryption scheme capable of encrypting your entire hard drive or any volume in your computer. The trick with BitLocker is that the encryption key can be stored directly on the motherboard, in a chip called a TPM, or Trusted Platform Module. This gives IT professionals a valuable tool to lock down even lost or stolen computers. BitLocker is currently slated for the Enterprise edition of Vista only, and is best thought of as a power tool for IT pros.

Device-driver locking

Another power tool targeted at IT pros is Vista's ability to block the installation of removable storage devices based on group policy. Basically, this feature lets IT administrators control who is permitted to install storage devices on the computers and who is not. In certain circumstances, allowing a user to install a removable storage device could pose a security risk, since it creates a convenient means of moving sensitive data on or off the network. For more on this type of functionality, read our review of DeviceLock.

Internet Explorer 7

Microsoft released its beta version of Internet Explorer Vista in its last CTP, but since then the company has added support for international domain names. This should not only create a better user experience for those who frequently visit international Web sites, but it also will add a key component to the anti-phishing technology built into Internet Explorer 7, which detects spoofed URLs.

Parental controls

With recent concerns about the effect of in-game violence on children, it's not surprising that Microsoft would build parental controls into Windows Vista. Some of the features in December's CTP release allow parents to view reports of their children's computer usage, although of course it will be possible to use this feature to spy on spouses and employees, as well. You'll also be able to control the Web sites a user can visit and restrict access to games based on title and ratings issued by the Entertainment Software Rating Board, or ESRB.

Firewall filtering

In a rather surprising move, December's CTP release of Vista includes both inbound and outbound firewall filtering. We've long pointed out that the lack of outbound filtering in Windows XP's firewall gives users a false sense of security. Vista's new firewall may make it unnecessary for you to add a third-party firewall to your system. We'll let you know after we've had a chance to test the final version.

Single-button on and off control

As part of its effort to bridge the gap between PCs and TVs, Microsoft has built a single-button on and off control into its December CTP release of Windows Vista. The button will also be programmed for a new fast-off mode that will essentially cycle the computer through sleep and into hibernation automatically.

SuperFetch

SuperFetch is an algorithm that automatically loads your most commonly used programs into memory for a faster computing experience. In December's CTP release of Windows Vista, SuperFetch has added the ability to reach into external storage devices as part of its memory cache.

Windows Media Center and Media Player 11

Microsoft has included a new version of Windows Media Center in the December CTP of Windows Vista, as well as a new version of Windows Media Player. However, the company has chosen to shroud these topics in mystery, preferring instead to unveil the new operating system features and media-player functionality at CES during the first week of January.

It's easier to understand Vista's long development cycle when you look at the full range of change that Microsoft is targeting. Let's not forget that Microsoft is also a dominant force in server software and is probably designing Vista to take full advantage of its server offerings -- perhaps expanding browsing and messaging capabilities in ways we may not even see until well after Vista is officially launched in late 2006. With Microsoft's new push for hosted services, we expect the software giant's Live offerings, such as Live Meeting and Windows Live Local, to grow substantially, both in number and in functionality, over the next few years. Vista will play a key role in bringing these services to your desktop, including entertainment-related services through Vista's incarnation of Microsoft's Media Center OS.

One of the questions the long development cycle of Vista raises is whether it's smart for an operating system to be quite so smart. Given the fact that software applications already exist that can do most of what Microsoft is painstakingly building into Vista, might it not make more sense for Microsoft to focus on the operating system itself, and not weigh it down with such a barrage of applications and utilities?

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World of Warcraft Tops Five Million Players

2005-12-20T22:36:00.000+02:00

World of Warcraft, a multiplayer role-playing game, has reached a major milestone. According to game developer Blizzard Entertainment, the game now has over five million players worldwide.

The subscription-based offering launched about a year ago in North America, Australia, and New Zealand, and also has been introduced in Europe and Asia.

Building on the success of the first version, Blizzard is poised to deliver a World of Warcraft expansion called "World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade," designed to extend the boundaries of the game with more content and features, including new lands and creatures.

Well Built

World of Warcraft's popularity can be attributed in large part to the effort put into its development by Blizzard, said Jason Della Rocca, director of the International Game Developers Association. "They have a very good track record, and they spent three or four years creating this game, which is about twice as long as most developers put into their products," he said.

Della Rocca also noted that World of Warcraft has a relatively easy learning curve compared to other online multiplayer games. "Players can get involved quickly without experiencing frustration," he said. "And the graphics and audio are very high quality."

Yankee Group analyst Michael Goodman said World of Warcraft took the online gaming market by storm in a short time. "It has global appeal, unlike most games that do well in either Asia or the U.S. but typically not in both regions," he said.

Fun and Games

Interest in online gaming is strong, with an estimated 20 to 30 million players in Asia and about four million players in the U.S., said Goodman. It's a lucrative business as well, with each player paying $40 to $50 for the box set and a subscription fee of $5 to $10 per month.

"Some of these games also include free access to basic levels that are supported by advertisements that are integrated into the games themselves," said Goodman.

Demand for multiplayer online gaming should grow, the analyst said, citing new titles based on the popular Dungeons & Dragons role-playing game and the Lord of the Rings books.

Still, Della Rocca pointed out that the number of online players pales in comparison to those having their fun on gaming consoles such as Xbox, PlayStation, and Game Cube, which number in the tens of millions.

World of Warcraft defines customers as those who have paid a subscription fee or purchased a prepaid card to play the game, as well as those who have purchased the installation box bundled with one free month of access.

Players who have accessed the game in the past week also are counted as customers. To arrive at the five-million figure, Blizzard did not include players using free promotional subscriptions, expired or cancelled subscriptions, and expired prepaid cards.

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