The large-scale attack is based on the multiexploit hacker kit dubbed 'Mpack'
Attackers armed with an exploit tool kit have launched massive attacks in Europe from a network of at least 10,000 hacked Web sites, with infections spreading worldwide, several security companies warned today.
As early as last Friday, analysts reported the opening salvos of a large-scale attack based on the multiexploit hacker kit dubbed "Mpack." The mechanics of the attacks are complex, but essentially attackers taint each compromised site with code that then redirects visitors to a server hosting the Mpack kit -- a professional, Russian-made collection of exploits that comes complete with a management console to detail which exploits are working and against what countries' domains.
Infected computers are fed a diet of malicious code, largely keyloggers that spy out usernames and passwords for valuable accounts such as online banking sites.
"The gang behind the attack has successfully compromised the homepages of hundreds of legitimate Italian Web sites," said Symantec Corp. researcher Elia Florio in a posting to the vendor's security response blog on Friday. "The list of compromised sites is huge and from Mpack statistics this attack is working efficiently."
Florio said that Symantec is uncertain how the sites were originally hacked but that she suspects a common vulnerability or configuration problem at the hosting level.
Paul Ferguson, a network architect at Trend Micro Inc., would only guess at how sites were hijacked but said that "how" is mostly a moot question. What's important, he said, is that "the hackers seem to be able to find a lot of sites to compromise no matter where they look."
By Friday night, Symantec had pegged the number of compromised sites feeding Mpack exploits at 6,000; by today, Websense Inc., a San Diego-based Web security company, said it had tracked more than 10,000. "That's a phenomenal number," argued Ferguson, who said that previous compromised-site attacks using hacker kits could be counted as "several hundred here, a couple hundred there."
Screenshots of the Mpack management console posted by Websense on Monday and Symantec on Friday illustrate the large numbers of computers that have surfed to the compromised sites and the high success rate of the Mpack-delivered exploits. Although the bulk of the victim PCs use Italian IP addresses, U.S.-based machines are not immune.
"The lion's share of the sites we're seeing are in Italy still," said Ferguson, "but we're seeing sites all over the world as well." For instance, Trend Micro has identified hacker-controlled sites hosted in California and Illinois. The California site is hosted by a company Ferguson called "notorious," but he wouldn't divulge the hosting vendor's name.
"The usual advice we give, 'Avoid the bad neighborhoods of the Web,' just doesn't hold water anymore," when legitimate sites have been hacked and are serving up exploits left and right, Ferguson said. "Everywhere could be a bad neighborhood now."
Monday, June 18, 2007
ComputerWorld's summer gadget guide
Whether your summer plans involve hiking, lounging by the pool, hitting the road or doing absolutely nothing, ComputerWorld has yet a list of gadgets to help your summer be as "cool" as possible.
Some of my person favorites include:
EGO Waterproof iPod Case
IPod speaker docks and accessories abound. But how many let you take your iPod safely into the pool? Atlantic's EGO Waterproof Sound Case for iPod ($150) protects your iPod from water -- or even shock damage -- while blasting your tunes all over the backyard or boat through its built-in, waterproof speakers.
Hands-free digital recording options and several different mounting options allow the videographer to place, mount or strap on the half-pound ATC2K anywhere (within reason). It works seamlessly with most video-editing software suites, including Windows Movie Maker, iLife and Final Cut. What's best, however, is the price: At $130, it's an outright steal.
Some of my person favorites include:
EGO Waterproof iPod Case
IPod speaker docks and accessories abound. But how many let you take your iPod safely into the pool? Atlantic's EGO Waterproof Sound Case for iPod ($150) protects your iPod from water -- or even shock damage -- while blasting your tunes all over the backyard or boat through its built-in, waterproof speakers.
ATC2K Waterproof Action Camera
Oregon Scientific's underwater video camera is a perfect fit for today's record-everything society. Waterproof to a depth of 10 feet, the ATC2K captures moving images at 30 frames per second in VGA (640 by 480) resolution.
  ATC2K Waterproof Action Camera |
Throw this gadget into the swimming pool with your kids and they'll be occupied all summer. At the very least, it could give you some great blackmail material for later in life.
Friday, June 15, 2007
Sony to cut PS3 prices?
The chairman and chief executive of Sony, Sir Howard Stringer, has said the company was attempting to "refine" how much it could afford to reduce the price of the PS3 console by. Stringer has also been quoted as saying there was "no question" consumers wanted the price to be lower.
In an interview with the Financial Times, Stringer admitted rival console the Nintendo Wii -- which is far outselling the PS3 -- was based on a good business model.
Sony fell short of its PS3 target in the 12 months to 31 March 2007 by 500,000 units. Market analysts are predicting the games division to incur a loss of around $488 million in the current year, despite Sony's claim it has sold more than a million units in Europe and Australasia since the PS3's late March launch there.
Stringer said: "[Price cuts are] what we are studying at the moment. That's what we are trying to refine." He went on to say that he expected "energy [in PS3 sales] by Christmas, and then you will begin to see break-out games".
PS3 sales have been slow -- to be honest, the world over -- owing to its high price and slow, drip-feed supply of games, most of which have been PC game re-writes anyway. Apparently, the Japanese electronics giant has a target of shipping 11 million consoles this year, and with production costs falling many believe Sony will cut prices by USD100 before the crucial Christmas sales period.
In an interview with the Financial Times, Stringer admitted rival console the Nintendo Wii -- which is far outselling the PS3 -- was based on a good business model.
Sony fell short of its PS3 target in the 12 months to 31 March 2007 by 500,000 units. Market analysts are predicting the games division to incur a loss of around $488 million in the current year, despite Sony's claim it has sold more than a million units in Europe and Australasia since the PS3's late March launch there.
Stringer said: "[Price cuts are] what we are studying at the moment. That's what we are trying to refine." He went on to say that he expected "energy [in PS3 sales] by Christmas, and then you will begin to see break-out games".
PS3 sales have been slow -- to be honest, the world over -- owing to its high price and slow, drip-feed supply of games, most of which have been PC game re-writes anyway. Apparently, the Japanese electronics giant has a target of shipping 11 million consoles this year, and with production costs falling many believe Sony will cut prices by USD100 before the crucial Christmas sales period.
Wireless network admins wising up
But drive-by surveys in New York, London and Paris still spot lots of unsecured hot spots
Owners of wireless hot spots are doing better at securing their networks, but about a fifth of corporate access points in London, Paris, and New York remain open to all comers, RSA Security Inc. reported Thursday.
Reprising past surveys, RSA personnel drove or walked through swaths of each city, logging each wireless access point detected by a specially-equipped laptop, and recording data including the service set identifier (SSID), security protocol, signal strength, and operational mode. In New York, for example, the team covered Manhattan's Midtown and Downtown, and parts of Uptown as far north as 125th Street.
On average, survey results were encouraging, said Toffer Winslow, a vice president of product management at RSA. "Folks are securing their access points more, and more with advanced encryption such as WPA rather than plain old WEP," he said.
Wired Equivalent Privacy (WEP) is a 1999-era data encryption standard now considered inadequate, and has been supplanted by WPA, or Wi-Fi Protected Access, which requires stronger passwords and uses a 128-bit key rather than WEP's 40-bit key. However, WEP is still offered as the default security technique by most wireless hardware.
In all three cities, the percentage of hot spots that were secured by some kind of encryption was higher than last year. In London, the numbers improved from 76% to 81%, while New York climbed from 75% to 76%, and Paris moved from 78% to 80%. WPA use also grew, Winslow said, with 49% of the business wireless networks in New York locked down with tighter security. London and Paris came in second and third, with 48% and 41% WPA usage, respectively.
But a substantial percentage of business wireless networks still run without security. Eighteen percent of the detected corporate hot spots in both Paris and London were unsecured, while New York topped that at 21%. "This strikes me as very foolish," said Winslow.
Living almost as dangerously were significant minorities of hot spots that used default SSIDs and media access control (MAC) addresses. In London, 30% of the wireless networks relied on the manufacturer's SSID -- usually the name of the hardware maker, such as Linksys -- or preset MAC address. New York ranked slightly better, at 24%, but Paris beat both by a wide margin: Only 13% of the wireless access points sniffed by RSA in the city of light used defaults.
"Change the default network settings, that's No. 1," said Winslow when asked to list recommendations for wireless users. "Use [encryption] protocols stronger than WEP, and when you're at a public hot spot, VPN is essential.
"I wouldn't even call these 'best practices' anymore" he said. "They're just the reasonable practices."
Owners of wireless hot spots are doing better at securing their networks, but about a fifth of corporate access points in London, Paris, and New York remain open to all comers, RSA Security Inc. reported Thursday.
Reprising past surveys, RSA personnel drove or walked through swaths of each city, logging each wireless access point detected by a specially-equipped laptop, and recording data including the service set identifier (SSID), security protocol, signal strength, and operational mode. In New York, for example, the team covered Manhattan's Midtown and Downtown, and parts of Uptown as far north as 125th Street.
On average, survey results were encouraging, said Toffer Winslow, a vice president of product management at RSA. "Folks are securing their access points more, and more with advanced encryption such as WPA rather than plain old WEP," he said.
Wired Equivalent Privacy (WEP) is a 1999-era data encryption standard now considered inadequate, and has been supplanted by WPA, or Wi-Fi Protected Access, which requires stronger passwords and uses a 128-bit key rather than WEP's 40-bit key. However, WEP is still offered as the default security technique by most wireless hardware.
In all three cities, the percentage of hot spots that were secured by some kind of encryption was higher than last year. In London, the numbers improved from 76% to 81%, while New York climbed from 75% to 76%, and Paris moved from 78% to 80%. WPA use also grew, Winslow said, with 49% of the business wireless networks in New York locked down with tighter security. London and Paris came in second and third, with 48% and 41% WPA usage, respectively.
But a substantial percentage of business wireless networks still run without security. Eighteen percent of the detected corporate hot spots in both Paris and London were unsecured, while New York topped that at 21%. "This strikes me as very foolish," said Winslow.
Living almost as dangerously were significant minorities of hot spots that used default SSIDs and media access control (MAC) addresses. In London, 30% of the wireless networks relied on the manufacturer's SSID -- usually the name of the hardware maker, such as Linksys -- or preset MAC address. New York ranked slightly better, at 24%, but Paris beat both by a wide margin: Only 13% of the wireless access points sniffed by RSA in the city of light used defaults.
"Change the default network settings, that's No. 1," said Winslow when asked to list recommendations for wireless users. "Use [encryption] protocols stronger than WEP, and when you're at a public hot spot, VPN is essential.
"I wouldn't even call these 'best practices' anymore" he said. "They're just the reasonable practices."
Wednesday, June 06, 2007
14 Great Multimedia Utilities from PcWorld.com
Need to record and clean up music, edit video or sound, burn DVDs, and handle other multimedia tasks? PcWorld has assembled some free and try-before-you-buy tools that you won't want to live without.
Your PC is an entertainment powerhouse, just waiting to be unleashed. Its talents include recording and playing music, supporting editing of audio and video files, and burning DVDs and CDs. Unfortunately, the software that came with your PC probably won't handle these tasks with maximum effectiveness. So to help you unlock your system's multimedia power, we've gathered a group of 15 downloads--most of them free, some of them try-before-you-buy--that all do great jobs.
We've chosen software in three categories: media players and burners, video software, and audio software. For working with media players, you'll find everything from Foxy Tunes (which lets you play media from within Firefox) to several superb players to Online Radio Tuner (which tunes in to Internet radio stations) to Express Burn (the best media burner you'll find anywhere).
Our video software selections include programs for saving YouTube videos to your local hard drive, for uploading YouTube videos, for editing video, for converting video to an iPod-friendly format, and for getting TV shows into your Zune.
Finally, our audio downloads offer unique tools for performing such tasks as recording music from vinyl and cassettes to your PC, and eliminating pops, hisses, and clicks.
So if you want to unlock the entertainment power of your PC, it's time to start downloading.
Next page:Media Players and Burners
Your PC is an entertainment powerhouse, just waiting to be unleashed. Its talents include recording and playing music, supporting editing of audio and video files, and burning DVDs and CDs. Unfortunately, the software that came with your PC probably won't handle these tasks with maximum effectiveness. So to help you unlock your system's multimedia power, we've gathered a group of 15 downloads--most of them free, some of them try-before-you-buy--that all do great jobs.
We've chosen software in three categories: media players and burners, video software, and audio software. For working with media players, you'll find everything from Foxy Tunes (which lets you play media from within Firefox) to several superb players to Online Radio Tuner (which tunes in to Internet radio stations) to Express Burn (the best media burner you'll find anywhere).
Our video software selections include programs for saving YouTube videos to your local hard drive, for uploading YouTube videos, for editing video, for converting video to an iPod-friendly format, and for getting TV shows into your Zune.
Finally, our audio downloads offer unique tools for performing such tasks as recording music from vinyl and cassettes to your PC, and eliminating pops, hisses, and clicks.
So if you want to unlock the entertainment power of your PC, it's time to start downloading.
Next page:Media Players and Burners
Tuesday, June 05, 2007
PcWorlds 100 Best Products of 2007
Each year the editors of PcWorld rank the best PCs, HDTVs, components, sites, and services. Plus: the products they are looking forward to next year, and give insights as to which technologies are rising and falling.
Innovative Web applications, powerful processors, spectacular HDTVs, and creative game consoles--we asked you for your favorites and added lots of our own for our annual roundup of the best hardware, software, and services. Then we looked at each product, rating and debating its design, impact, performance, and value to create our ranking of the best tech products available, from 1 to 100.
Of course, no matter when we plan our best-products story, a few hot contenders--we're looking at you, iPhone--will end up just around the corner. So this year we took time out to run down our five most anticipated products, as well as several hot and not-so-hot technologies. Read on for all that plus slide shows, video, and more.
More on the Best Products of 2007
The Number 1 Product of the Year
Google Apps
1. Google Apps Premier Edition
(Web applications; $50 per user per year) Google is much more than just a search engine, and with its invaluable Google Apps suite, the company is well on its way to challenging Microsoft for productivity-suite supremacy. Google's Docs & Spreadsheets (soon to be joined by a PowerPoint-esque presentation application) already makes for an interesting alternative to Microsoft Office. Combine it with Gmail, Google Talk, and Google Calendar, and suddenly nearly all of your basic productivity programs and data can be available online.
For small businesses that need more than the free versions offer, Google Apps Premier Edition adds capacity, support services, and tools for integrating existing infrastructure so that all your employees can use Google's powerful Web apps--no matter where they are. Printouts may never die, but if Google has its way, the office-less office may become a reality long before the paperless one does.
Next page:The Top 100 Products, Numbers 2 to 10
Innovative Web applications, powerful processors, spectacular HDTVs, and creative game consoles--we asked you for your favorites and added lots of our own for our annual roundup of the best hardware, software, and services. Then we looked at each product, rating and debating its design, impact, performance, and value to create our ranking of the best tech products available, from 1 to 100.
Of course, no matter when we plan our best-products story, a few hot contenders--we're looking at you, iPhone--will end up just around the corner. So this year we took time out to run down our five most anticipated products, as well as several hot and not-so-hot technologies. Read on for all that plus slide shows, video, and more.
More on the Best Products of 2007
- The Top 100 Products, in Ranked Order
- The Top 100 Products, in Alphabetical Order
- In Pictures: The Top 20 Products of the Year
- In Pictures: Readers' Picks for Best Products of the Year
- In Pictures: Most Anticipated Products of the Year
- Video: The Best Products of 2007
The Number 1 Product of the Year
Google Apps
1. Google Apps Premier Edition
(Web applications; $50 per user per year) Google is much more than just a search engine, and with its invaluable Google Apps suite, the company is well on its way to challenging Microsoft for productivity-suite supremacy. Google's Docs & Spreadsheets (soon to be joined by a PowerPoint-esque presentation application) already makes for an interesting alternative to Microsoft Office. Combine it with Gmail, Google Talk, and Google Calendar, and suddenly nearly all of your basic productivity programs and data can be available online.
For small businesses that need more than the free versions offer, Google Apps Premier Edition adds capacity, support services, and tools for integrating existing infrastructure so that all your employees can use Google's powerful Web apps--no matter where they are. Printouts may never die, but if Google has its way, the office-less office may become a reality long before the paperless one does.
Next page:The Top 100 Products, Numbers 2 to 10
Thursday, May 31, 2007
FireFox add-ons may open doors to hackers
The majority of Firefox extensions are hosted and updated from Mozilla's own SSL-secured site and are not vulnerable to this attack. However a number of broadly used third-party extensions, including Google Toolbar, Yahoo Toolbar, Del.icio.us Extension, Facebook Toolbar, AOL Toolbar, Ask.com Toolbar, Netcraft Anti-Phishing Toolbar and PhishTank SiteChecker are among the at-risk add-ons that update from their own unsecured servers.
Christopher Soghoian, a Ph.D. student at Indiana University, outlined how "man in the middle" attackers, especially in public wireless networks, could disguise malware as a Firefox extension and surreptitiously plant their code in lieu of a normal update to one of the vulnerable extensions.
"It's sort of a compounding of errors," Soghoian said. "Mozilla didn't tell developers that they should update from a secure link; they erred in assuming everyone would know to do that. But the add-on developers are at fault for not using a secure server."
"It was really frustrating. Firefox was fantastic, but some of the other firms, they either ignored my e-mails or didn't reply," Soghoian said. He fingered Google Inc. as especially uncooperative. Between April 16 and May 24, he sent Google's security team five e-mails but received only one reply, on May 25, that said the group was working on a fix that was to be deployed before today. As of today, however, Google Toolbar was being served from an unsecured URL.
"This was really eye-opening," said Soghoian, who interned with Google's Application Security Team last summer.
"Vendors should be doing everything possible to encourage researchers," he said. "They should be encouraging us to come to them rather than sell the vulnerabilities to iDefense or Tipping Point. Ignoring researchers isn't the best way to encourage an open dialog."
Soghoian recommended that until affected extension vendors release secure updates, users should either remove or disable all Firefox extensions and toolbars that have not been downloaded from the official Mozilla Add-Ons site.
In an e-mail today, Mozilla's director of ecosystem development, Mike Shaver, acknowledged the danger that insecurely hosted and updated add-ons pose, and he urged extension developers to fix the problem.
"We strongly encourage the providers of such add-ons to remedy their hosting situation promptly to minimize the exposure to the users of their software," Shaver said. "Users of add-ons hosted on AMO, including all of the ones we've been working on, are not at risk here."
On another note Mozilla released 6 new patches for FireFox today. The updates bring the current browser to Version 2.0.0.4, and the 2005 edition to 1.5.0.12. Firefox 2.0.0.4 can be downloaded from the Mozilla Web site for Windows, Mac OS X and Linux; Firefox 1.5.0.12, meanwhile, is available from a different page. Current users can also update using the Check for Updates command in the help menu.
Christopher Soghoian, a Ph.D. student at Indiana University, outlined how "man in the middle" attackers, especially in public wireless networks, could disguise malware as a Firefox extension and surreptitiously plant their code in lieu of a normal update to one of the vulnerable extensions.
"It's sort of a compounding of errors," Soghoian said. "Mozilla didn't tell developers that they should update from a secure link; they erred in assuming everyone would know to do that. But the add-on developers are at fault for not using a secure server."
"It was really frustrating. Firefox was fantastic, but some of the other firms, they either ignored my e-mails or didn't reply," Soghoian said. He fingered Google Inc. as especially uncooperative. Between April 16 and May 24, he sent Google's security team five e-mails but received only one reply, on May 25, that said the group was working on a fix that was to be deployed before today. As of today, however, Google Toolbar was being served from an unsecured URL.
"This was really eye-opening," said Soghoian, who interned with Google's Application Security Team last summer.
"Vendors should be doing everything possible to encourage researchers," he said. "They should be encouraging us to come to them rather than sell the vulnerabilities to iDefense or Tipping Point. Ignoring researchers isn't the best way to encourage an open dialog."
Soghoian recommended that until affected extension vendors release secure updates, users should either remove or disable all Firefox extensions and toolbars that have not been downloaded from the official Mozilla Add-Ons site.
In an e-mail today, Mozilla's director of ecosystem development, Mike Shaver, acknowledged the danger that insecurely hosted and updated add-ons pose, and he urged extension developers to fix the problem.
"We strongly encourage the providers of such add-ons to remedy their hosting situation promptly to minimize the exposure to the users of their software," Shaver said. "Users of add-ons hosted on AMO, including all of the ones we've been working on, are not at risk here."
On another note Mozilla released 6 new patches for FireFox today. The updates bring the current browser to Version 2.0.0.4, and the 2005 edition to 1.5.0.12. Firefox 2.0.0.4 can be downloaded from the Mozilla Web site for Windows, Mac OS X and Linux; Firefox 1.5.0.12, meanwhile, is available from a different page. Current users can also update using the Check for Updates command in the help menu.
Tuesday, May 29, 2007
Google Adds Street-Level Pictures to Google Maps
Initially, Street View images are available in Denver, Las Vegas, Miami, New York, and San Francisco. Additional cities will be covered in the future.
Google today launched Google Maps Street View, a new Google Maps feature that shows a 360-degree view from the streets of select cities.
Initially, Street View images are available in Denver, Las Vegas, Miami, New York, and San Francisco. Additional cities will be covered in the future.
At some point, these images may include live video feeds. While Google has other engineering priorities right now, Alan Eustace, senior VP of engineering & research, expressed interest in live video feeds while speaking with reporters at Google's recent Searchology event and noted that company co-founder Larry Page felt similarly.
Amazon's A9.com search engine pioneered the use of street images in its local search service back in January 2005. The company spent eight months compiling a database of 35 million images in 22 cities by sending drivers around the streets of major cities in vehicles equipped with GPS devices, cameras, and computers. Former A9.com CEO Udi Manber now works at Google as a VP of engineering.
Google today launched Google Maps Street View, a new Google Maps feature that shows a 360-degree view from the streets of select cities.
"With Street View, you can virtually explore city neighborhoods by viewing and navigating within 360-degree scenes of street-level imagery," said Stephen Chau, product manager for Google Maps, in a blog post. "It feels as if you're walking down the street!"
Initially, Street View images are available in Denver, Las Vegas, Miami, New York, and San Francisco. Additional cities will be covered in the future.
At some point, these images may include live video feeds. While Google has other engineering priorities right now, Alan Eustace, senior VP of engineering & research, expressed interest in live video feeds while speaking with reporters at Google's recent Searchology event and noted that company co-founder Larry Page felt similarly.
Amazon's A9.com search engine pioneered the use of street images in its local search service back in January 2005. The company spent eight months compiling a database of 35 million images in 22 cities by sending drivers around the streets of major cities in vehicles equipped with GPS devices, cameras, and computers. Former A9.com CEO Udi Manber now works at Google as a VP of engineering.
Sony, Philips Unveil Flexible OLED Displays
Two of the world's biggest flat-panel display makers unveiled flexible full-color displays this week.
Two of the world's biggest flat-panel display makers, Sony Corp. and LG.Philips LCD Co. Ltd., unveiled flexible full-color displays at a display industry show in California this week.
Sony took the wraps off its prototype on Thursday and released an impressive video showing the display being bent to form a semi-circle while still displaying a moving video image. The 2.5-inch display has a resolution of 160 pixels by 120 pixels making it a little larger than the typical cell phone screen and a little lower resolution.
The screen from LG.Philips LCD is larger at 4 inches in diagonal width and has a higher resolution of 320 pixels by 240 pixels. In contrast to Sony's video, LG.Philips LCD released only a photo that showed the display curved at a slight angle.
Typically flat-panel displays are built onto thin sheets of glass but the Sony and LG.Philips screens are made on thin sheets of plastic and metal respectively. That allows them to be bent but also introduces a range of other problems such as keeping everything aligned and working while the panel is flexed. Indeed the video of Sony's prototype showed several bad pixels and other problems.
Neither company has said when it thinks the displays will be ready to go on sale but early customers might be attracted to them for reasons other than their flexibility, said Paul Semenza, an analyst with iSuppli Corp., who attended the Society for Information Display conference where they were announced.
"What tends to get forgotten is that these displays are also rugged and lightweight," he said. "Those are valuable properties."
Sony sees OLED technology as important for its future products and is putting a lot of research and development resources behind screens like that unveiled this week.
The screens are different from today's LCD (liquid crystal display) and PDP (plasma display panel) screens in that OLED pixels use an organic material that emits its own light, so no backlight is needed. That means the screens consume less power and can be made thinner. OLEDs also handle fast-moving images better and offer good color reproduction.
At the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas in January the company showed off prototype televisions based on larger, non-flexible 11-inch and 27-inch OLED panels. Thanks to the lack of a backlight the 11-inch prototype was just 11 millimeters thick but displayed a vibrant, colorful image. Sony plans to have its first OLED TVs on sale in Japan this year.
Last week in Tokyo Sony unveiled its latest OLED TV prototypes, which appeared to be close to commercialization. The sets had an integrated digital TV tuner and could also accept a high-definition input via an HDMI (high definition multimedia interface) connector.
Two of the world's biggest flat-panel display makers, Sony Corp. and LG.Philips LCD Co. Ltd., unveiled flexible full-color displays at a display industry show in California this week.
Sony took the wraps off its prototype on Thursday and released an impressive video showing the display being bent to form a semi-circle while still displaying a moving video image. The 2.5-inch display has a resolution of 160 pixels by 120 pixels making it a little larger than the typical cell phone screen and a little lower resolution.
The screen from LG.Philips LCD is larger at 4 inches in diagonal width and has a higher resolution of 320 pixels by 240 pixels. In contrast to Sony's video, LG.Philips LCD released only a photo that showed the display curved at a slight angle.
Typically flat-panel displays are built onto thin sheets of glass but the Sony and LG.Philips screens are made on thin sheets of plastic and metal respectively. That allows them to be bent but also introduces a range of other problems such as keeping everything aligned and working while the panel is flexed. Indeed the video of Sony's prototype showed several bad pixels and other problems.
Neither company has said when it thinks the displays will be ready to go on sale but early customers might be attracted to them for reasons other than their flexibility, said Paul Semenza, an analyst with iSuppli Corp., who attended the Society for Information Display conference where they were announced.
"What tends to get forgotten is that these displays are also rugged and lightweight," he said. "Those are valuable properties."
Sony sees OLED technology as important for its future products and is putting a lot of research and development resources behind screens like that unveiled this week.
The screens are different from today's LCD (liquid crystal display) and PDP (plasma display panel) screens in that OLED pixels use an organic material that emits its own light, so no backlight is needed. That means the screens consume less power and can be made thinner. OLEDs also handle fast-moving images better and offer good color reproduction.
At the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas in January the company showed off prototype televisions based on larger, non-flexible 11-inch and 27-inch OLED panels. Thanks to the lack of a backlight the 11-inch prototype was just 11 millimeters thick but displayed a vibrant, colorful image. Sony plans to have its first OLED TVs on sale in Japan this year.
Last week in Tokyo Sony unveiled its latest OLED TV prototypes, which appeared to be close to commercialization. The sets had an integrated digital TV tuner and could also accept a high-definition input via an HDMI (high definition multimedia interface) connector.
Michigan man dodges prison in theft of Wi-Fi
A Michigan man who used a coffee shop's unsecured Wi-Fi to check his e-mail from his car could have faced up to five years in prison, according to local TV station WOOD. But it seems few in the village of Sparta, Mich., were aware that using an unsecured Wi-Fi connection without the owner's permission--a practice known as piggybacking--was a felony.
Each day around lunch time, Sam Peterson would drive to the Union Street Cafe, park his car and--without actually entering the coffee shop--check his e-mail and surf the Net. His ritual raised the suspicions of Police Chief Andrew Milanowski, who approached him and asked what he was doing. Peterson, probably not realizing that his actions constituted a crime, freely admitted what he was doing.
"I knew that the Union Street had Wi-Fi. I just went down and checked my e-mail and didn't see a problem with that," Peterson told a WOOD reporter.
Milanowski didn't immediately cite or arrest Peterson, mostly because he wasn't certain a crime had been committed. "I had a feeling a law was being broken," the chief said. Milanowski did some research and found Michigan's "Fraudulent access to computers, computer systems, and computer networks" law, a felony punishable by five years in prison and a $10,000 fine.
Milanowski, who eventually swore out a warrant for Peterson, doesn't believe Milanowski knew he was breaking the law. "In my opinion, probably not. Most people probably don't."
Indeed, neither did Donna May, the owner of the Union Street Cafe. "I didn't know it was really illegal, either," she told the TV station. "If he would have come in (to the coffee shop), it would have been fine."
But apparently prosecutors were more than aware of the 1979 law, which was revised in 2000 to include protections for Wi-Fi networks.
"This is the first time that we've actually charged it," Kent County Assistant Prosecutor Lynn Hopkins said, adding that "we'd been hoping to dodge this bullet for a while."
However, Peterson won't be going to prison for piggybacking. Because he has no prior record, Peterson will have to pay a $400 fine, do 40 hours of community service and enroll in the county's diversion program.
Each day around lunch time, Sam Peterson would drive to the Union Street Cafe, park his car and--without actually entering the coffee shop--check his e-mail and surf the Net. His ritual raised the suspicions of Police Chief Andrew Milanowski, who approached him and asked what he was doing. Peterson, probably not realizing that his actions constituted a crime, freely admitted what he was doing.
"I knew that the Union Street had Wi-Fi. I just went down and checked my e-mail and didn't see a problem with that," Peterson told a WOOD reporter.
Milanowski didn't immediately cite or arrest Peterson, mostly because he wasn't certain a crime had been committed. "I had a feeling a law was being broken," the chief said. Milanowski did some research and found Michigan's "Fraudulent access to computers, computer systems, and computer networks" law, a felony punishable by five years in prison and a $10,000 fine.
Milanowski, who eventually swore out a warrant for Peterson, doesn't believe Milanowski knew he was breaking the law. "In my opinion, probably not. Most people probably don't."
Indeed, neither did Donna May, the owner of the Union Street Cafe. "I didn't know it was really illegal, either," she told the TV station. "If he would have come in (to the coffee shop), it would have been fine."
But apparently prosecutors were more than aware of the 1979 law, which was revised in 2000 to include protections for Wi-Fi networks.
"This is the first time that we've actually charged it," Kent County Assistant Prosecutor Lynn Hopkins said, adding that "we'd been hoping to dodge this bullet for a while."
However, Peterson won't be going to prison for piggybacking. Because he has no prior record, Peterson will have to pay a $400 fine, do 40 hours of community service and enroll in the county's diversion program.
Tuesday, May 22, 2007
Software pirate to pay $205,000 fine for illegal eBay sales
The defendant also agreed to help authorities ID others involved in the scheme
May 22, 2007 (Computerworld) -- A software pirate who sold illegal copies of Symantec Corp. software on the online auction site eBay Inc. has agreed to pay a $205,000 fine.
In an announcement today, the Software & Information Industry Association (SIIA) trade group, which filed suit in the case on behalf of Symantec -- a SIIA member -- said the defendant has also agreed to assist authorities in identifying the parties who actually made and distributed the illegal software that was sold.
Keith Kupferschmid, senior vice president of intellectual property for the Washington-based SIIA, said the name and location of the defendant is being kept secret under the terms of the settlement.
"We give a certain level of confidentiality in order for us to get additional information," Kupferschmid said. The lawsuit, Symantec et al. v. Chan (a pseudonym) et al., was one of several civil cases brought by the SIIA. Several cases are still pending, as are several criminal cases being brought by the FBI, he said.
The case was originally filed in U.S. District Court in the Central District of California as part of the SIIA's Auction Litigation Program, which was started to monitor online auction sites for illegal software sales and file related lawsuits on behalf of member vendors.
Some 90% of the software sold on auction sites such as eBay is counterfeit, according to studies, Kupferschmid said.
The $205,000 settlement is in excess of the amount the unnamed software pirate made through the sales of the software.
In the lawsuit, the SIIA charged the defendant with infringing on Symantec's copyrights and trademarks in such titles as Norton PartitionMagic, Norton AntiVirus, pcAnywhere and Norton SystemWorks, as well as illegally reselling OEM, unbundled and counterfeit software.
The SIIA says it represents more than 800 members, including software and information companies.
May 22, 2007 (Computerworld) -- A software pirate who sold illegal copies of Symantec Corp. software on the online auction site eBay Inc. has agreed to pay a $205,000 fine.
In an announcement today, the Software & Information Industry Association (SIIA) trade group, which filed suit in the case on behalf of Symantec -- a SIIA member -- said the defendant has also agreed to assist authorities in identifying the parties who actually made and distributed the illegal software that was sold.
Keith Kupferschmid, senior vice president of intellectual property for the Washington-based SIIA, said the name and location of the defendant is being kept secret under the terms of the settlement.
"We give a certain level of confidentiality in order for us to get additional information," Kupferschmid said. The lawsuit, Symantec et al. v. Chan (a pseudonym) et al., was one of several civil cases brought by the SIIA. Several cases are still pending, as are several criminal cases being brought by the FBI, he said.
The case was originally filed in U.S. District Court in the Central District of California as part of the SIIA's Auction Litigation Program, which was started to monitor online auction sites for illegal software sales and file related lawsuits on behalf of member vendors.
Some 90% of the software sold on auction sites such as eBay is counterfeit, according to studies, Kupferschmid said.
The $205,000 settlement is in excess of the amount the unnamed software pirate made through the sales of the software.
In the lawsuit, the SIIA charged the defendant with infringing on Symantec's copyrights and trademarks in such titles as Norton PartitionMagic, Norton AntiVirus, pcAnywhere and Norton SystemWorks, as well as illegally reselling OEM, unbundled and counterfeit software.
The SIIA says it represents more than 800 members, including software and information companies.
Monday, May 14, 2007
Top Threat: Windows Hacktivation
Symantec is reporting on a Trojan horse that mimics the Windows activation interface.
What they are calling Trojan.Kardphisher doesn't do most of the technical things that Trojan horses usually do; it's a pure social engineering attack, aimed at stealing credit card information. In a sense, it's a standalone phishing program.
Once you reboot your PC after running the program, the program asks you to activate your copy of Windows and, while it assures you that you will not be charged, it asks for credit card information. If you don't enter the credit card information it shuts down the PC. The Trojan also disables Task Manager, making it more difficult to shut down..
Running on the first reboot is clever. It inherently makes the process look more like it's coming from Windows itself, and it removes the temporal connection to running the Trojan horse. The program even runs on versions of Windows prior to XP, which did not require activation.
This is not an attack that will sneak by you. The executable is nearly 1MB large. But if you find yourself in this situation you should be able to disable it in Windows Safe mode by removing the registry keys described in the Symantec writeup and deleting the program it points to. Updated antivirus software should also be able to remove it.
What they are calling Trojan.Kardphisher doesn't do most of the technical things that Trojan horses usually do; it's a pure social engineering attack, aimed at stealing credit card information. In a sense, it's a standalone phishing program.
Once you reboot your PC after running the program, the program asks you to activate your copy of Windows and, while it assures you that you will not be charged, it asks for credit card information. If you don't enter the credit card information it shuts down the PC. The Trojan also disables Task Manager, making it more difficult to shut down..
Running on the first reboot is clever. It inherently makes the process look more like it's coming from Windows itself, and it removes the temporal connection to running the Trojan horse. The program even runs on versions of Windows prior to XP, which did not require activation.
This is not an attack that will sneak by you. The executable is nearly 1MB large. But if you find yourself in this situation you should be able to disable it in Windows Safe mode by removing the registry keys described in the Symantec writeup and deleting the program it points to. Updated antivirus software should also be able to remove it.
Wednesday, May 09, 2007
Yahoo shuting down popular services
Yahoo Inc. has told users it will shut down its North American Web auction site. Just last week they announced plans to shut down Yahoo Photos in June, asking users to move to Yahoo's Web 2.0 photo sharing site, Flickr.
According to a message posted on the Yahoo Auctions site at auctions.yahoo.com, the service will no longer accept new auction lists from June 3. The last day to bid or buy goods and services on the auction site is June 16.
The latest closure applies to Yahoo's U.S. and Canadian auction sites. Yahoo auction sites in three Asian markets—Hong Kong, Singapore and Taiwan will remain open.
"After careful consideration, we have decided to close down our Yahoo US and Canada Auction sites to better serve our valued customers through other Yahoo properties," the U.S. auctions site told visitors on Tuesday.
Yahoo continues to offering a range of U.S. e-commerce sites, including ones for shopping, auto sales, classified advertising and small business.
On Friday, Jeff Weiner, executive vice president of Yahoo's Network Division, said in a company statement: "We are making great strides in our ongoing efforts to align Yahoo's resources and focus on core strategic priorities."
According to audience measurement firm comScore Inc., online auction leader eBay Inc. accounted for more than 94 percent of online auctions activity among U.S. Web users last week. Online retail giant Amazon.com Inc.'s U.S. auction site accounted for one-third of a percentage point, while Yahoo's auctions held only an 0.2 percent share.
"It comes with little surprise given Yahoo's advertising relationship with eBay, and eBay's massive dominance of the auction category," Hitwise research director LeeAnn Prescott wrote in a blog post.
A year ago, eBay and Yahoo announced a strategic alliance to cooperate on a range of services in their core U.S markets.
As of Friday, May 4, 2007 certain Yahoo auction features were discontinued. A limited set of customer service features and account tools will be available through October 29.
According to a message posted on the Yahoo Auctions site at auctions.yahoo.com, the service will no longer accept new auction lists from June 3. The last day to bid or buy goods and services on the auction site is June 16.
The latest closure applies to Yahoo's U.S. and Canadian auction sites. Yahoo auction sites in three Asian markets—Hong Kong, Singapore and Taiwan will remain open.
"After careful consideration, we have decided to close down our Yahoo US and Canada Auction sites to better serve our valued customers through other Yahoo properties," the U.S. auctions site told visitors on Tuesday.
Yahoo continues to offering a range of U.S. e-commerce sites, including ones for shopping, auto sales, classified advertising and small business.
On Friday, Jeff Weiner, executive vice president of Yahoo's Network Division, said in a company statement: "We are making great strides in our ongoing efforts to align Yahoo's resources and focus on core strategic priorities."
According to audience measurement firm comScore Inc., online auction leader eBay Inc. accounted for more than 94 percent of online auctions activity among U.S. Web users last week. Online retail giant Amazon.com Inc.'s U.S. auction site accounted for one-third of a percentage point, while Yahoo's auctions held only an 0.2 percent share.
"It comes with little surprise given Yahoo's advertising relationship with eBay, and eBay's massive dominance of the auction category," Hitwise research director LeeAnn Prescott wrote in a blog post.
A year ago, eBay and Yahoo announced a strategic alliance to cooperate on a range of services in their core U.S markets.
As of Friday, May 4, 2007 certain Yahoo auction features were discontinued. A limited set of customer service features and account tools will be available through October 29.
Memory prices drop again analyst expect good eals through June.
DRAM prices drop again; deals likely through June
A glut in the memory market is keeping prices down
Users looking to add more dynamic RAM to their PCs are likely to see bargains throughout May and June as prices of memory chips continue to crash.
The contract price of the most widely used DRAM -- 512Mbit, 667-MHz double data rate, second generation (DDR2) chips -- slid below $2 for the first time in the first half of May. The chips dropped 8.8% from mid-April to $1.94 per chip, according to DRAMeXchange Technology Inc., a Taiwan-based company that runs an online DRAM market.
That's great news for users. Falling DRAM rates can help offset recent increases in prices for LCD panels and keep PC prices in check. Users wanting to boost their systems' speed can also add more DRAM at a low cost. These prices aren't likely to last longer than the next few months. At $1.94 each, the chips are well below the $2.50 to $3 cost of production for chip makers, which will likely shift their production strategies in order to reverse the decline.
The second half of the year is also the strongest for PC sales, another factor that could stop the current downward trend.
DRAMeXchange said the DRAM market appears to be weaker than expected in May and June, and many companies in the supply chain, including module makers and PC vendors, have already built up inventories. Prices won't rebound until these inventories are drawn down.
The fall below $2 was also significant because of its relative ease, noted Gartner Inc. There was less resistance at that psychologically important level than expected, the industry researcher said.
Even though chip makers are producing DRAM at a loss, prices may not rebound quickly. The companies have to continue selling the chips to bring in cash so they can pay for their expensive DRAM factories. They could try shifting some production to other products, such as NAND flash memory and image sensors, where prices are firmer, but it takes months to tweak production lines for such a change. BY making that kind of shift, they could miss an uptick in the DRAM market.
Around three-fourths of all DRAM chips are bought and sold through contracts between DRAM makers and major PC vendors such as Dell Inc. Prices are renegotiated twice per month. The remaining one-fourth is sold on open spot markets, like commodities such as oil and gold.
Contract prices of the chips have fallen 67% since the start of the year, when they were fetching $5.95 each. Although many analysts watch DRAM prices as an indication that PC shipments might be slowing down, that's not likely the case this time.
DRAMeXchange said the decline was caused by chip makers switching some production lines to DRAM from NAND flash memory, which had seen prices fall for nearly six months before recently stabilizing. The change has caused an oversupply in DRAM, while the glut in NAND flash memory has eased. There does not appear to be any problem with the PC market, analysts said.
A glut in the memory market is keeping prices down
Users looking to add more dynamic RAM to their PCs are likely to see bargains throughout May and June as prices of memory chips continue to crash.
The contract price of the most widely used DRAM -- 512Mbit, 667-MHz double data rate, second generation (DDR2) chips -- slid below $2 for the first time in the first half of May. The chips dropped 8.8% from mid-April to $1.94 per chip, according to DRAMeXchange Technology Inc., a Taiwan-based company that runs an online DRAM market.
That's great news for users. Falling DRAM rates can help offset recent increases in prices for LCD panels and keep PC prices in check. Users wanting to boost their systems' speed can also add more DRAM at a low cost. These prices aren't likely to last longer than the next few months. At $1.94 each, the chips are well below the $2.50 to $3 cost of production for chip makers, which will likely shift their production strategies in order to reverse the decline.
The second half of the year is also the strongest for PC sales, another factor that could stop the current downward trend.
DRAMeXchange said the DRAM market appears to be weaker than expected in May and June, and many companies in the supply chain, including module makers and PC vendors, have already built up inventories. Prices won't rebound until these inventories are drawn down.
The fall below $2 was also significant because of its relative ease, noted Gartner Inc. There was less resistance at that psychologically important level than expected, the industry researcher said.
Even though chip makers are producing DRAM at a loss, prices may not rebound quickly. The companies have to continue selling the chips to bring in cash so they can pay for their expensive DRAM factories. They could try shifting some production to other products, such as NAND flash memory and image sensors, where prices are firmer, but it takes months to tweak production lines for such a change. BY making that kind of shift, they could miss an uptick in the DRAM market.
Around three-fourths of all DRAM chips are bought and sold through contracts between DRAM makers and major PC vendors such as Dell Inc. Prices are renegotiated twice per month. The remaining one-fourth is sold on open spot markets, like commodities such as oil and gold.
Contract prices of the chips have fallen 67% since the start of the year, when they were fetching $5.95 each. Although many analysts watch DRAM prices as an indication that PC shipments might be slowing down, that's not likely the case this time.
DRAMeXchange said the decline was caused by chip makers switching some production lines to DRAM from NAND flash memory, which had seen prices fall for nearly six months before recently stabilizing. The change has caused an oversupply in DRAM, while the glut in NAND flash memory has eased. There does not appear to be any problem with the PC market, analysts said.
Monday, May 07, 2007
Joost gone wild!
Everywhere you turn these days Joost is all the buzz. From forum to forum, friend to friend invites or requests for invites seem to be spreading everywhere. Well why not spread it to my section of the world. Ive recently become a beta tester and now have a few Joost invites available. For more information on the Joost phenomena read my previous post "Joost ready to go live".
So far from my limited testing I'd have to say I can see a lot of potential here. However there seem to be a few things in the interface that I find lacking. The speed of the streaming video seems to be adequate, however on 384k-1.5mb AT&T dsl its nowhere near functional.
As it is still in beta mode and I've only been able to test it for a short period of time I'll limit my skepticism and say that I am optimistically hopeful that it not just a bunch of hype!
So far from my limited testing I'd have to say I can see a lot of potential here. However there seem to be a few things in the interface that I find lacking. The speed of the streaming video seems to be adequate, however on 384k-1.5mb AT&T dsl its nowhere near functional.
As it is still in beta mode and I've only been able to test it for a short period of time I'll limit my skepticism and say that I am optimistically hopeful that it not just a bunch of hype!
Wednesday, May 02, 2007
Top 15 geek blog sites
Lifehacker took our top spot because of its great time-saving tips
Computerworld staff
May 01, 2007 (Computerworld) -- Some blogs educate, help people collaborate, spark ideas and just plain expand our thought universe. Others stir emotions and anger us or make us laugh. The editors of Computerworld got together and offered up a list of their favorite blog sites. We pared down more than 50 submissions to the top 15 technology blog sites based on breadth of information, newsworthiness, design, frequency of updates and entertainment value.
Sure, the list is subjective, but we think this is one of the best catalogs of blogs that has ever been published. The entries ran the gamut, from serious technology news and reviews to commentary on games and the latest tech gadgets. We included some honorable mentions at the end because the competition was so close.
Of course, not everyone will agree with our selection. If you think a blog site that's not on our list deserved a top 15 spot, share it with us in the comments section.
1) Lifehacker
www.lifehacker.com
Lifehackers' motto says it all: "Don't live to geek, geek to live." This blog offers timesavers of just about every stripe, from Firefox shortcuts to tips from the "Getting things done" faithful.
2) IT Toolbox Blogs
http://blogs.ittoolbox.com
IT Toolbox has a number of "in the trenches" IT pros who talk about technology and management issues. There are specialist blogs dealing with security, databases and project management, among other subjects. It's a versatile site.
3) Valleywag
http://valleywag.com
Bring in the noise, bring in the snark. Valleywag is for those who believe that the tech industry lives or dies by the scuttlebutt pinging around Silicon Valley. And it's amusing for those of us who prefer that the lotus-eaters of Northern California stick with the dishing and tongue-wagging, leaving the rest of us to get the real work done.
4) Kotaku
http://kotaku.com
Kotaku is the snarky, gamer uber-blog. It has everything from reviews and gossip to cheat tips. Just about anything you'll ever need, including which game to buy and how to play it.
5) Danger Room
http://blog.wired.com/defense
Wired's military and defense blog writes about some of the coolest and scariest military technologies -- not to mention scandals, debates and other military news. Lots of video and imagery are included.
Next page
Computerworld staff
May 01, 2007 (Computerworld) -- Some blogs educate, help people collaborate, spark ideas and just plain expand our thought universe. Others stir emotions and anger us or make us laugh. The editors of Computerworld got together and offered up a list of their favorite blog sites. We pared down more than 50 submissions to the top 15 technology blog sites based on breadth of information, newsworthiness, design, frequency of updates and entertainment value.
Sure, the list is subjective, but we think this is one of the best catalogs of blogs that has ever been published. The entries ran the gamut, from serious technology news and reviews to commentary on games and the latest tech gadgets. We included some honorable mentions at the end because the competition was so close.
Of course, not everyone will agree with our selection. If you think a blog site that's not on our list deserved a top 15 spot, share it with us in the comments section.
1) Lifehacker
www.lifehacker.com
Lifehackers' motto says it all: "Don't live to geek, geek to live." This blog offers timesavers of just about every stripe, from Firefox shortcuts to tips from the "Getting things done" faithful.
2) IT Toolbox Blogs
http://blogs.ittoolbox.com
IT Toolbox has a number of "in the trenches" IT pros who talk about technology and management issues. There are specialist blogs dealing with security, databases and project management, among other subjects. It's a versatile site.
3) Valleywag
http://valleywag.com
Bring in the noise, bring in the snark. Valleywag is for those who believe that the tech industry lives or dies by the scuttlebutt pinging around Silicon Valley. And it's amusing for those of us who prefer that the lotus-eaters of Northern California stick with the dishing and tongue-wagging, leaving the rest of us to get the real work done.
4) Kotaku
http://kotaku.com
Kotaku is the snarky, gamer uber-blog. It has everything from reviews and gossip to cheat tips. Just about anything you'll ever need, including which game to buy and how to play it.
5) Danger Room
http://blog.wired.com/defense
Wired's military and defense blog writes about some of the coolest and scariest military technologies -- not to mention scandals, debates and other military news. Lots of video and imagery are included.
Next page
Sunday, April 22, 2007
Tired of that big bulky computer? Buy one the size of your wallet!
Via details credit-card-size motherboard
Taiwan's Via Technologies Inc. on Thursday released details of its upcoming Pico-ITX motherboard, which is roughly the same size as a credit card and opens the door to very small PC designs.
Measuring just 10 centimeters (cm) by 7.2 cm -- or about 4 in. by 3 in. -- the Pico-ITX is designed for Via's C-7 and Eden microprocessor families. It uses chip sets like Via's VX700, which packs the memory controller, integrated graphics and I/O hub into a single chip instead of two. The motherboard has a single memory slot that can hold up to 1GB of DDR2 (double data rate 2) memory.
Via hasn't announced precisely when the new boards will be available but said it plans to release its first Pico-ITX product "shortly."
In the meantime, Via has published a detailed overview of the motherboard's specifications (download PDF), hoping to win device makers over to the new motherboard form factor.
Via is the third-largest supplier of x86 processors, trailing far behind Intel Corp. and Advanced Micro Devices Inc. But the Taiwanese chip company has blazed a trail to PCs that are smaller and consume less power than anything seen before.
Five years ago, Via began shipping the first Mini-ITX motherboards, designed for embedded applications, which caught on with enthusiasts interested in making smaller PCs. Measuring 17 cm by 17 cm, or roughly 6.5 in. square, the Mini-ITX is significantly larger than the Pico-ITX.
Taiwan's Via Technologies Inc. on Thursday released details of its upcoming Pico-ITX motherboard, which is roughly the same size as a credit card and opens the door to very small PC designs.
Measuring just 10 centimeters (cm) by 7.2 cm -- or about 4 in. by 3 in. -- the Pico-ITX is designed for Via's C-7 and Eden microprocessor families. It uses chip sets like Via's VX700, which packs the memory controller, integrated graphics and I/O hub into a single chip instead of two. The motherboard has a single memory slot that can hold up to 1GB of DDR2 (double data rate 2) memory.
Via hasn't announced precisely when the new boards will be available but said it plans to release its first Pico-ITX product "shortly."
In the meantime, Via has published a detailed overview of the motherboard's specifications (download PDF), hoping to win device makers over to the new motherboard form factor.
Via is the third-largest supplier of x86 processors, trailing far behind Intel Corp. and Advanced Micro Devices Inc. But the Taiwanese chip company has blazed a trail to PCs that are smaller and consume less power than anything seen before.
Five years ago, Via began shipping the first Mini-ITX motherboards, designed for embedded applications, which caught on with enthusiasts interested in making smaller PCs. Measuring 17 cm by 17 cm, or roughly 6.5 in. square, the Mini-ITX is significantly larger than the Pico-ITX.
Thursday, April 19, 2007
How to Speed Up Movie Downloads
Researchers have designed a new way to get the most out of peer-to-peer file-sharing networks, decreasing the time it takes to download movies and music.
By Brendan Borrell TechReview.com
Let's face it: peer-to-peer file transfers on the Internet are slow. More than half of all downloads fail, and the average transfer time for a 100-megabyte file is more than 24 hours. But now, a team of computer scientists led by Himabindu Pucha at Purdue University, in Indiana, say that they can double the speed of these transfers by taking advantage of overlap in data chunks contained within nonidentical multimedia files posted on peer-to-peer distribution networks. This would improve the likelihood of success of these transfers.
Peer-to-peer distribution networks such as BitTorrent and Kazaa allow people to download individual files from others' computers. These systems first locate the copies of the requested file in the network's global lookup table using its "hash"--a unique identifier computed from the file's data sequence. Then, the file is divided into chunks so that each user's computer only has to upload a small piece of it. This technique speeds up file transfers because home users typically have greater bandwidth allocated to downloads compared with uploads. Of course, the overall speed of the transfer will depend on the number of file sources and how much spare upload capacity they have. The more popular a file is, the faster it is to download and the greater the chance of success.
Computer scientist David Andersen, a professor of computer science at Carnegie Mellon University, worked with the Purdue group to develop a way to increase the size of the pool of uploaders called similarity-enhanced transfer (SET). The approach takes advantage of multiple variants of the same music files, video clips, and software, which are often floating around file-distribution networks. "We hope that SET gives you access to a larger pool of people to download from," says Andersen. "And by doing so, we think you're more likely to find one of these people who have more spare capacity."
Before Andersen and his colleagues conducted their study, it was not at all clear how much redundancy existed in file-sharing networks and whether it could be exploited, says Cornell University computer scientist Emin Gün Sirer, who was not involved in the study. The SET team analyzed almost two terabytes of music and video files from file-sharing networks, and it discovered that similar files typically shared anywhere between 20 and 99 percent of their content. With music files, even misspellings in user-defined header labels that identify artist and song titles are enough to throw off BitTorrent, despite the fact that 99 percent of the file is the same. Similarly, multiple versions of the same video are often available with different language tracks.
Next Page
By Brendan Borrell TechReview.com
Let's face it: peer-to-peer file transfers on the Internet are slow. More than half of all downloads fail, and the average transfer time for a 100-megabyte file is more than 24 hours. But now, a team of computer scientists led by Himabindu Pucha at Purdue University, in Indiana, say that they can double the speed of these transfers by taking advantage of overlap in data chunks contained within nonidentical multimedia files posted on peer-to-peer distribution networks. This would improve the likelihood of success of these transfers.
Locating that file with just 10 percent similarity could speed up downloads by 8 percent. For music files with greater than 90 percent similarity, a five-minute download on BitTorrent would take just over two minutes with SET.
Peer-to-peer distribution networks such as BitTorrent and Kazaa allow people to download individual files from others' computers. These systems first locate the copies of the requested file in the network's global lookup table using its "hash"--a unique identifier computed from the file's data sequence. Then, the file is divided into chunks so that each user's computer only has to upload a small piece of it. This technique speeds up file transfers because home users typically have greater bandwidth allocated to downloads compared with uploads. Of course, the overall speed of the transfer will depend on the number of file sources and how much spare upload capacity they have. The more popular a file is, the faster it is to download and the greater the chance of success.
Computer scientist David Andersen, a professor of computer science at Carnegie Mellon University, worked with the Purdue group to develop a way to increase the size of the pool of uploaders called similarity-enhanced transfer (SET). The approach takes advantage of multiple variants of the same music files, video clips, and software, which are often floating around file-distribution networks. "We hope that SET gives you access to a larger pool of people to download from," says Andersen. "And by doing so, we think you're more likely to find one of these people who have more spare capacity."
Before Andersen and his colleagues conducted their study, it was not at all clear how much redundancy existed in file-sharing networks and whether it could be exploited, says Cornell University computer scientist Emin Gün Sirer, who was not involved in the study. The SET team analyzed almost two terabytes of music and video files from file-sharing networks, and it discovered that similar files typically shared anywhere between 20 and 99 percent of their content. With music files, even misspellings in user-defined header labels that identify artist and song titles are enough to throw off BitTorrent, despite the fact that 99 percent of the file is the same. Similarly, multiple versions of the same video are often available with different language tracks.
Next Page
Wednesday, April 11, 2007
Windows Xp and Vista Tips for Everyone
Whether you've jumped to Vista or are sticking with XP, our tips will make your computing faster and safer--and even a little more stylish.
Preston Gralla, PC World
Right out of the box, Windows is just a so-so operating system. It doesn't really reach its potential until you've cracked it, hacked it, and otherwise bent it to your will.
Whether you want to speed up XP, customize Vista's Aero interface, manage your disk partitions, or do quick-and-dirty photo editing, our Windows projects will show you how. We start off with some performance boosters, and then move on to cover file management, interface tweaks, network and browser options, and Windows Media Player.
The work isn't done until you plug Windows' many holes, which we cover in "Tweak Security Settings in XP and Vista." If you're switching over to the new OS, see our tips in "Make the Move to Vista," and then try our Vista alterations in "Change Vista's Defaults."
Continued at pcworld.com
Preston Gralla, PC World
Right out of the box, Windows is just a so-so operating system. It doesn't really reach its potential until you've cracked it, hacked it, and otherwise bent it to your will.
Whether you want to speed up XP, customize Vista's Aero interface, manage your disk partitions, or do quick-and-dirty photo editing, our Windows projects will show you how. We start off with some performance boosters, and then move on to cover file management, interface tweaks, network and browser options, and Windows Media Player.
The work isn't done until you plug Windows' many holes, which we cover in "Tweak Security Settings in XP and Vista." If you're switching over to the new OS, see our tips in "Make the Move to Vista," and then try our Vista alterations in "Change Vista's Defaults."
Continued at pcworld.com
Tuesday, April 10, 2007
AMD lowers desktop-chip prices
Monday April 9th AMD announced further price reductions on some of its best desktop processors, a sign there is still no end in sight to its price war with rival Intel Corp. With Intel slated to lower prices at the end of April this ss great news for users. We have been treated to improved microprocessor technology and better deals over the past year as the two giants slug it out.
AMD slashed prices on its top-of-the-line desktop PC microprocessors to US$799 per pair for the 3GHz version and US$599 for a pair for the 2.8GHz version, from US$999 and US$799, respectively, in its previous price list issued on Jan. 22. The company also reduced the price of some of its best dual-core processors, the Athlon 64 X2 5600+, which runs at 2.8GHz, to $241 each, from $505, and the Athlon 64 X2 5200+, to $188 from $295.
In addition, AMD lowered three of its dual-core offerings for the desktop to below $100 each. The new price list shows AMD isn't about to back down in this price war despite the obvious impact on its finances.
With Intel slated to make a 20-40% cut in prices of the popular core 2 duo core 2 extreme and core 2 quad processors as well as the recent fall in Memory prices May looks to be a great month for upgrading your current rig to something top notch.
AMD slashed prices on its top-of-the-line desktop PC microprocessors to US$799 per pair for the 3GHz version and US$599 for a pair for the 2.8GHz version, from US$999 and US$799, respectively, in its previous price list issued on Jan. 22. The company also reduced the price of some of its best dual-core processors, the Athlon 64 X2 5600+, which runs at 2.8GHz, to $241 each, from $505, and the Athlon 64 X2 5200+, to $188 from $295.
In addition, AMD lowered three of its dual-core offerings for the desktop to below $100 each. The new price list shows AMD isn't about to back down in this price war despite the obvious impact on its finances.
With Intel slated to make a 20-40% cut in prices of the popular core 2 duo core 2 extreme and core 2 quad processors as well as the recent fall in Memory prices May looks to be a great month for upgrading your current rig to something top notch.
Friday, April 06, 2007
Joost Is Ready To Go Live
TV, the way you want it
The magic of television, with the power of the internet built right in. Joost puts you in control, and TV will never be the same again. Currently, the software is in beta-testing stage. A beta invite is required to join the Joost community however it should be available to the public soon.
Joost (pronounced 'juiced') is an interactive software for distributing TV shows and other forms of video over the Web using peer-to-peer tv technology, created by Niklas Zennström and Janus Friis (founders of Skype and Kazaa).
Joost began development in 2006. Working under the code name "The Venice Project," Zennstrom and Friis have assembled teams of some 150 software developers in about a half-dozen cities around the world, including New York, London, Leiden and Toulouse. Joost's CTO is Dirk-Willem van Gulik.[1]
The teams are currently in negotiations with TV networks. It has signed up with Warner Music, Ministry of Sound TV and production company Endemol for the beta.[2] In February 2007, Viacom entered into a deal with the company to distribute content from its media properties, including MTV Networks, BET and film studio Paramount Pictures.
Company representatives have gone on record as saying the name should be pronounced as "juiced"[3]. This differs from the pronunciation of the Dutch first name Joost, which is pronounced 'Yohst.'
The program is based on P2PTV technology and is expected to deliver near-TV resolution images. It turns a PC into an instant on-demand TV without any need for additional set top box. News updates, discussion forums, show ratings, and multi-user chat sessions (often linked to the active stream/channel) are made possible through the use of semi-transparent widget overlays.
The current version of the software is based on XULRunner and the audio management re-uses the ZAP Media Kit. The peer to peer layer comes from the Joltid company, which also provided the peer to peer layer of Skype. The video playback utilizes the CoreCodec, CoreAVC H.264 video decoder.
Operating system support
Currently, Joost beta/alpha software supports:
* Windows XP Home/Professional with SP2
* Windows Vista
* Mac OS X 10.4.6 and above
This support is limited to computers running with x86 processors (Intel, AMD, etc.).
A PowerPC version is planned to open support for Mac users without Intel processors. Linux versions are also reportedly in development, and the port to "Linux and PowerPC" is in the midst of development.
As opposed to streaming technology in which all clients get the feed from the server, P2P TV technology differs in the sense that the servers serve only a handful of clients; each of the clients in turn propagate the stream to more downstream clients and so on. This moves the distribution costs from the channel owner to the internet service providers.
The Joost service will be ad-supported, with advertising analogous to that shown on traditional TV, according to CEO Fredrik de Wahl.
For more information and great reviews visit cybersurge.org
The magic of television, with the power of the internet built right in. Joost puts you in control, and TV will never be the same again. Currently, the software is in beta-testing stage. A beta invite is required to join the Joost community however it should be available to the public soon.
Joost (pronounced 'juiced') is an interactive software for distributing TV shows and other forms of video over the Web using peer-to-peer tv technology, created by Niklas Zennström and Janus Friis (founders of Skype and Kazaa).
Joost began development in 2006. Working under the code name "The Venice Project," Zennstrom and Friis have assembled teams of some 150 software developers in about a half-dozen cities around the world, including New York, London, Leiden and Toulouse. Joost's CTO is Dirk-Willem van Gulik.[1]
The teams are currently in negotiations with TV networks. It has signed up with Warner Music, Ministry of Sound TV and production company Endemol for the beta.[2] In February 2007, Viacom entered into a deal with the company to distribute content from its media properties, including MTV Networks, BET and film studio Paramount Pictures.
Company representatives have gone on record as saying the name should be pronounced as "juiced"[3]. This differs from the pronunciation of the Dutch first name Joost, which is pronounced 'Yohst.'
The program is based on P2PTV technology and is expected to deliver near-TV resolution images. It turns a PC into an instant on-demand TV without any need for additional set top box. News updates, discussion forums, show ratings, and multi-user chat sessions (often linked to the active stream/channel) are made possible through the use of semi-transparent widget overlays.
The current version of the software is based on XULRunner and the audio management re-uses the ZAP Media Kit. The peer to peer layer comes from the Joltid company, which also provided the peer to peer layer of Skype. The video playback utilizes the CoreCodec, CoreAVC H.264 video decoder.
Operating system support
Currently, Joost beta/alpha software supports:
* Windows XP Home/Professional with SP2
* Windows Vista
* Mac OS X 10.4.6 and above
This support is limited to computers running with x86 processors (Intel, AMD, etc.).
A PowerPC version is planned to open support for Mac users without Intel processors. Linux versions are also reportedly in development, and the port to "Linux and PowerPC" is in the midst of development.
As opposed to streaming technology in which all clients get the feed from the server, P2P TV technology differs in the sense that the servers serve only a handful of clients; each of the clients in turn propagate the stream to more downstream clients and so on. This moves the distribution costs from the channel owner to the internet service providers.
The Joost service will be ad-supported, with advertising analogous to that shown on traditional TV, according to CEO Fredrik de Wahl.
For more information and great reviews visit cybersurge.org
Tuesday, March 27, 2007
'Do I have to be online to get to the Internet?' (and other crazy help desk questions)
Readers provide their own 'you can't make this stuff up' stories
David Ramel (Computerworld)
Readers really enjoyed our last compilation of "Crazy questions that stump the help desk," and many sent in stories of their own bizarre experiences with users for everyone to enjoy.
One reader recommended that we start a regular column of these things. Hmm....
So let's keep this train a-rollin'! Send your own wacky, unbelievable, twisted or just plain kooky stories to david_ramel@computerworld.com
But right now, sit back, relax and have a chuckle.
(Note: Where we didn't get permission to use full names, we have used initials.)
Yes, it was a real question
I work at an IT help desk, and I once got a call from a student at our university that baffled me to no end.
I answered the phone, "Computer services help desk, how may I help you?"
The student responded, "Yeah, I have a question. Do I have to be online to get to the Internet?"
-- M.H.
The wrong ruler
We work on a storage team and frequently allocate storage for projects. One work order requested storage space for a document imaging system that could scan documents and store them digitally.
After receiving the work order, I contacted the lead engineer to ask how large each digital doc would be on average, to which the engineer replied: "8-1/2 by 11!"
-- D.S.
You don't want a mouse with a broken leg, do you?
I had a user who called the help desk complaining that her mouse wasn't working properly. She couldn't really explain the problem and asked me to dial into her PC so she could show me.
I used NetMeeting to access her PC remotely and asked her to demonstrate the problem. She did so and I saw the mouse cursor move to almost be able to click on an icon and then stop.
I asked her what the problem was and she said she couldn't move the mouse any farther ... or it would fall off the mouse pad!
-- Jeff Wingate
You didn't say whose tech you supported
Once a "customer" called tech support and immediately showed his disgust and demanded to talk to engineering. Since I am the software support engineer, the call was forwarded to me, and I let the "customer" vent for several minutes, wondering what he might be talking about.
After he was done bashing the product, I asked him which piece of software he was using. He replied with the name of a competitor's product -- he apparently dialed the wrong support number.
Continued
David Ramel (Computerworld)
Readers really enjoyed our last compilation of "Crazy questions that stump the help desk," and many sent in stories of their own bizarre experiences with users for everyone to enjoy.
One reader recommended that we start a regular column of these things. Hmm....
So let's keep this train a-rollin'! Send your own wacky, unbelievable, twisted or just plain kooky stories to david_ramel@computerworld.com
But right now, sit back, relax and have a chuckle.
(Note: Where we didn't get permission to use full names, we have used initials.)
Yes, it was a real question
I work at an IT help desk, and I once got a call from a student at our university that baffled me to no end.
I answered the phone, "Computer services help desk, how may I help you?"
The student responded, "Yeah, I have a question. Do I have to be online to get to the Internet?"
-- M.H.
The wrong ruler
We work on a storage team and frequently allocate storage for projects. One work order requested storage space for a document imaging system that could scan documents and store them digitally.
After receiving the work order, I contacted the lead engineer to ask how large each digital doc would be on average, to which the engineer replied: "8-1/2 by 11!"
-- D.S.
You don't want a mouse with a broken leg, do you?
I had a user who called the help desk complaining that her mouse wasn't working properly. She couldn't really explain the problem and asked me to dial into her PC so she could show me.
I used NetMeeting to access her PC remotely and asked her to demonstrate the problem. She did so and I saw the mouse cursor move to almost be able to click on an icon and then stop.
I asked her what the problem was and she said she couldn't move the mouse any farther ... or it would fall off the mouse pad!
-- Jeff Wingate
You didn't say whose tech you supported
Once a "customer" called tech support and immediately showed his disgust and demanded to talk to engineering. Since I am the software support engineer, the call was forwarded to me, and I let the "customer" vent for several minutes, wondering what he might be talking about.
After he was done bashing the product, I asked him which piece of software he was using. He replied with the name of a competitor's product -- he apparently dialed the wrong support number.
Continued
The Google phone revealed
It's real, it's spectacular, but it's not what you think
Mike Elgan
You've heard that Google is working on a cell phone everyone is calling the Google Phone. And you've also heard that they're not working on one. Well, which is it?
The "evidence" is compelling in both cases:
* A pervasive rumor suggests that Google operates a secret lab staffed with 100 engineers and led by former Apple executive, Andy Rubin, the designer of the Sidekick mobile gadget who now works for Google.
* The U.K.'s Guardian reported late last year that Google held talks with Orange, the giant European carrier owned by France Telecom, on a "multibillion-dollar" deal involving a co-branded cell phone made by Taiwan's HTC.
* Recently, someone claimed in an online post to have taken part in a market research survey in which he was asked questions about a possible Google phone made by Samsung. The poster says the phone bill for this device would be subsidized by advertising.
* Google's top executive in Spain, Isabel Aguilera, told Noticias.com that "some of our engineers' time is dedicated to the development of a mobile phone," according to a translation on the Ars Technica Web site.
* Venture capitalist Simeon Simeonov of Polaris Venture Partners blogged recently that Google is working on a "BlackBerry-like device" code-named Switch, powered by an operating system and optimized Java that supports voice over IP.
* Nomura analyst Richard Windsor reportedly told clients last week that Google confirmed at CeBIT that it's working on a phone designed to "bringing Google to users who don't have a PC."
All that sounds pretty convincing. But other facts suggest that Google is not working on a handset:
continued
Mike Elgan
You've heard that Google is working on a cell phone everyone is calling the Google Phone. And you've also heard that they're not working on one. Well, which is it?
The "evidence" is compelling in both cases:
* A pervasive rumor suggests that Google operates a secret lab staffed with 100 engineers and led by former Apple executive, Andy Rubin, the designer of the Sidekick mobile gadget who now works for Google.
* The U.K.'s Guardian reported late last year that Google held talks with Orange, the giant European carrier owned by France Telecom, on a "multibillion-dollar" deal involving a co-branded cell phone made by Taiwan's HTC.
* Recently, someone claimed in an online post to have taken part in a market research survey in which he was asked questions about a possible Google phone made by Samsung. The poster says the phone bill for this device would be subsidized by advertising.
* Google's top executive in Spain, Isabel Aguilera, told Noticias.com that "some of our engineers' time is dedicated to the development of a mobile phone," according to a translation on the Ars Technica Web site.
* Venture capitalist Simeon Simeonov of Polaris Venture Partners blogged recently that Google is working on a "BlackBerry-like device" code-named Switch, powered by an operating system and optimized Java that supports voice over IP.
* Nomura analyst Richard Windsor reportedly told clients last week that Google confirmed at CeBIT that it's working on a phone designed to "bringing Google to users who don't have a PC."
All that sounds pretty convincing. But other facts suggest that Google is not working on a handset:
continued
Sunday, March 04, 2007
Connecticut Investigating Best Buy's Intrastore Web Site
By Evan Schuman, Ziff Davis Internet
Best Buy is getting into some hot water because of an intrastore version of its Web site.
The Connecticut Attorney General's Office has launched a probe into the chain's use of an internal version of its Web site that looks and acts virtually identical to the public Web version except that it sometimes offers higher prices, according to Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal.
Blumenthal, in a telephone interview with eWEEK.com on March 3, said his office began the probe after a column published by The Hartford Courant raised questions about the site.
Although the probe began on Feb. 9, Best Buy officials have yet to formally talk with the attorney general's investigators, instead opting to send "a written communication," Blumenthal said. That communication was less than explicit, he said. In an interview with the Courant, Blumenthal said, "Their responses seem to raise as many questions as they answer. Their answers are less than crystal clear."
What Best Buy is accused of doing is misleading consumers. The original reports had store associates disputing special offers announced on the Web site and making their case by calling up a copy of the Web site right there and then, in the store.
The initial question raised by the reports were whether this was simply a matter of having Web site prices for Web purchases—requiring the delay of shipments for the consumer and the lack of brick-and-mortar costs for the retailer—being different from in-store prices. But the initial defenses offered by Best Buy—both to local media and to the Connecticut Attorney General's Office—make no mention of this. If that were the case here, one would think it would be the first defense offered.
The Courant columnist, George Gombossy, told eWEEK.com that employees described to him their ability to access either the public Web site or the intrastore version, depending on what they wanted to do.
He published an account of his attempts to replicate the problems of one of his readers, in which he was indeed able to reproduce the apparent dual Web site bait-and-switch scheme, he said. He wrote that one "long-time employee" showed him both versions of the site.
"The salesman told me it was a site that only employees could access because it contained confidential information as well as item prices. Sometimes, as in the case of [a product that had been purchased by the reader who complained], the clerk said, the intranet site would not show the discount. In rare cases, the intranet site will show an even lower price than the Internet site."
Best Buy officials did not immediately return calls seeking comment, but they apparently did issue a statement to the Courant that said, in part: "Although we have an intra-store web site in place to support store operations—including products and pricing—we are reminding our employees how to access the external BestBuy.com web site to ensure customers are receiving the best possible product price."
That line prompted Gombossy to try to put that education process into context. "That last sentence seems to indicate that Best Buy, which is supposed to be staffed by tech-savvy employees, is putting the blame on memory lapses: that employees have somehow forgotten how to access BestBuy.com from the store. Having been to many Best Buy stores where some helpful employees showed me how they access the intranet and Internet, I can assure Best Buy officials that the re-education process will probably not be lengthy," he said. "After making sure the computer is turned on, employees should click twice on the Yahoo Internet icon and then type in BestBuy.com."
The initial reports of the incident suggested the possibility that Best Buy was simply displaying a local version of the Web site, so that consumers could peruse their Web content but be unable to surf over to a competitor's site or a price-comparison site or even to a publication such as Consumer Reports.
If that had been the case, then the pricing disconnects might have been nothing sinister, but merely a result of the fact that the external Web site is updated much more frequently than a static version in the stores.
But some of our own conversations with Best Buy employees March 3 cast doubt on that theory, with employees saying that they are only aware of the public version. (Gombossy's reporting also found many Best Buy employees who were unaware of two sites.)
Another scenario is that the dual-site effort might be regionally localized, as opposed to being a national corporate effort. But that also seems unlikely, as such a site would likely be sanctioned by corporate. Why would such a site be created and then only offered to isolated areas? Is this some sort of a pilot program? This is one story eWEEK.com will be watching closely.
Retail Center Editor Evan Schuman has tracked high-tech issues since 1987, has been opinionated long before that and doesn't plan to stop any time soon. He can be reached at Evan_Schuman@ziffdavis.com.
Best Buy is getting into some hot water because of an intrastore version of its Web site.
The Connecticut Attorney General's Office has launched a probe into the chain's use of an internal version of its Web site that looks and acts virtually identical to the public Web version except that it sometimes offers higher prices, according to Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal.
Blumenthal, in a telephone interview with eWEEK.com on March 3, said his office began the probe after a column published by The Hartford Courant raised questions about the site.
Although the probe began on Feb. 9, Best Buy officials have yet to formally talk with the attorney general's investigators, instead opting to send "a written communication," Blumenthal said. That communication was less than explicit, he said. In an interview with the Courant, Blumenthal said, "Their responses seem to raise as many questions as they answer. Their answers are less than crystal clear."
What Best Buy is accused of doing is misleading consumers. The original reports had store associates disputing special offers announced on the Web site and making their case by calling up a copy of the Web site right there and then, in the store.
The initial question raised by the reports were whether this was simply a matter of having Web site prices for Web purchases—requiring the delay of shipments for the consumer and the lack of brick-and-mortar costs for the retailer—being different from in-store prices. But the initial defenses offered by Best Buy—both to local media and to the Connecticut Attorney General's Office—make no mention of this. If that were the case here, one would think it would be the first defense offered.
The Courant columnist, George Gombossy, told eWEEK.com that employees described to him their ability to access either the public Web site or the intrastore version, depending on what they wanted to do.
He published an account of his attempts to replicate the problems of one of his readers, in which he was indeed able to reproduce the apparent dual Web site bait-and-switch scheme, he said. He wrote that one "long-time employee" showed him both versions of the site.
"The salesman told me it was a site that only employees could access because it contained confidential information as well as item prices. Sometimes, as in the case of [a product that had been purchased by the reader who complained], the clerk said, the intranet site would not show the discount. In rare cases, the intranet site will show an even lower price than the Internet site."
Best Buy officials did not immediately return calls seeking comment, but they apparently did issue a statement to the Courant that said, in part: "Although we have an intra-store web site in place to support store operations—including products and pricing—we are reminding our employees how to access the external BestBuy.com web site to ensure customers are receiving the best possible product price."
That line prompted Gombossy to try to put that education process into context. "That last sentence seems to indicate that Best Buy, which is supposed to be staffed by tech-savvy employees, is putting the blame on memory lapses: that employees have somehow forgotten how to access BestBuy.com from the store. Having been to many Best Buy stores where some helpful employees showed me how they access the intranet and Internet, I can assure Best Buy officials that the re-education process will probably not be lengthy," he said. "After making sure the computer is turned on, employees should click twice on the Yahoo Internet icon and then type in BestBuy.com."
The initial reports of the incident suggested the possibility that Best Buy was simply displaying a local version of the Web site, so that consumers could peruse their Web content but be unable to surf over to a competitor's site or a price-comparison site or even to a publication such as Consumer Reports.
If that had been the case, then the pricing disconnects might have been nothing sinister, but merely a result of the fact that the external Web site is updated much more frequently than a static version in the stores.
But some of our own conversations with Best Buy employees March 3 cast doubt on that theory, with employees saying that they are only aware of the public version. (Gombossy's reporting also found many Best Buy employees who were unaware of two sites.)
Another scenario is that the dual-site effort might be regionally localized, as opposed to being a national corporate effort. But that also seems unlikely, as such a site would likely be sanctioned by corporate. Why would such a site be created and then only offered to isolated areas? Is this some sort of a pilot program? This is one story eWEEK.com will be watching closely.
Retail Center Editor Evan Schuman has tracked high-tech issues since 1987, has been opinionated long before that and doesn't plan to stop any time soon. He can be reached at Evan_Schuman@ziffdavis.com.
Wednesday, February 28, 2007
RIAA Opposes New Fair Use Bill
New bill would let customers make limited numbers of copies of copyrighted works
By Grant Gross, IDG News Service
A new bill in the U.S. Congress aimed at protecting the fair use rights for consumers of copyright material would "legalize hacking," the Recording Industry Association of America said.
The Freedom and Innovation Revitalizing U.S. Entrepreneurship (FAIR USE) Act, introduced Tuesday by U.S. Representatives Rick Boucher, a Virginia Democrat, and John Doolittle, a California Republican, would allow customers to circumvent digital copy restrictions in six limited areas when copyright owners' business models are not threatened, Boucher said in a press release. So-called fair use doctrine allows customers of copyright works to make limited numbers of copies, particularly for reviews, news reporting, teaching and research.
The bill would allow exemptions to the anticircumvention restrictions in the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), passed by Congress in 1998. The bill is revamped from similar bills introduced in the last two sessions of Congress, Boucher said.
"The fair use doctrine is threatened today as never before," Boucher said in a statement. "Historically, the nation's copyright laws have reflected a carefully calibrated balanced between the rights of copyright owners and the rights of the users of copyrighted material. The Digital Millennium Copyright Act dramatically tilted the copyright balance toward complete copyright protection at the expense of the public's right to fair use."
But the RIAA said the bill would effectively repeal the DMCA. The bill would "allow electronics companies to induce others to break the law for their own profit," it said in a statement. Advances such digital music sales, online games, on-demand movies and e-books can be traced to DMCA protects, the RIAA said.
"The difference between hacking done for non-infringing purposes and hacking done to steal is impossible to determine and enforce," the RIAA said in its statement.
The Boucher bill would limit the availability of statutory damages against individuals and firms who may be found to have engaged in contributory infringement, inducement of infringement, or other indirect infringement. The bill would allow libraries to circumvent digital locks or secure copies of works that have been damaged, lost or stolen.
The Consumer Electronics Association applauded the bill, saying it would give protections to consumers, educators, and libraries. Without fair use protections, consumers couldn't use devices such as VCRs and digital TV recorders, the trade group said.
By Grant Gross, IDG News Service
A new bill in the U.S. Congress aimed at protecting the fair use rights for consumers of copyright material would "legalize hacking," the Recording Industry Association of America said.
The Freedom and Innovation Revitalizing U.S. Entrepreneurship (FAIR USE) Act, introduced Tuesday by U.S. Representatives Rick Boucher, a Virginia Democrat, and John Doolittle, a California Republican, would allow customers to circumvent digital copy restrictions in six limited areas when copyright owners' business models are not threatened, Boucher said in a press release. So-called fair use doctrine allows customers of copyright works to make limited numbers of copies, particularly for reviews, news reporting, teaching and research.
The bill would allow exemptions to the anticircumvention restrictions in the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), passed by Congress in 1998. The bill is revamped from similar bills introduced in the last two sessions of Congress, Boucher said.
"The fair use doctrine is threatened today as never before," Boucher said in a statement. "Historically, the nation's copyright laws have reflected a carefully calibrated balanced between the rights of copyright owners and the rights of the users of copyrighted material. The Digital Millennium Copyright Act dramatically tilted the copyright balance toward complete copyright protection at the expense of the public's right to fair use."
But the RIAA said the bill would effectively repeal the DMCA. The bill would "allow electronics companies to induce others to break the law for their own profit," it said in a statement. Advances such digital music sales, online games, on-demand movies and e-books can be traced to DMCA protects, the RIAA said.
"The difference between hacking done for non-infringing purposes and hacking done to steal is impossible to determine and enforce," the RIAA said in its statement.
The Boucher bill would limit the availability of statutory damages against individuals and firms who may be found to have engaged in contributory infringement, inducement of infringement, or other indirect infringement. The bill would allow libraries to circumvent digital locks or secure copies of works that have been damaged, lost or stolen.
The Consumer Electronics Association applauded the bill, saying it would give protections to consumers, educators, and libraries. Without fair use protections, consumers couldn't use devices such as VCRs and digital TV recorders, the trade group said.
Monday, February 26, 2007
BitTorrent, Joost Put Download Tech to Legal Use
By Reuters
SAN FRANCISCO—There was a time when the phrase "peer-to-peer" (P2P) was practically a curse word in the music industry.
But in the past month, two new services have emerged to utilize the technology for the legal, protected distribution of content—specifically video.
One of them is BitTorrent, which developed the technology that at one point was used for one-third of all P2P traffic on the Internet. The other is Joost—formerly known as the Venice Project—which was founded by the same developers who created the notorious Kazaa music-swapping community and later the Skype Internet telephone service.
Both BitTorrent and Joost rely on P2P technology to enhance the user experience. The more popular a file is on either network, the easier and faster it will be to download. Whereas the iTunes store shut down last Christmas because of overwhelming demand, services like BitTorrent and Joost are designed to improve as demand increases.
Despite their history with unauthorized digital content distribution, both services are setting themselves up to provide some of the better digital entertainment services available today. The question is: Will their technology credibility be sufficient to lure into a more legitimate environment the millions of downloaders who previously have used their technology to steal content?
BitTorrent
More than 135 million people have downloaded the BitTorrent technology worldwide. It basically lets people publish content to the Internet in a way that enables multiple users to quickly download large files by sharing the distribution load. While it has several legitimate uses—game publishers use it to distribute software updates—it also is used by such sites as Pirate Bay to allow illegal downloads of Hollywood movies.
The company hopes to convert these users into legitimate customers through the BitTorrent Entertainment Network, which launches Feb. 26. The new service has compiled the rights to more than 3,000 movies, 1,000 games and 1,000 music videos from 34 participating content providers.
The move makes BitTorrent a distributor—connecting content owners to the technology's users in an attempt to monetize their interest in digital entertainment. Like any authorized digital music service, the challenge is to entice consumers away from a free, pirated environment into a paid, legal one. The strategy aims to offer a better experience than the chaotic pirate sites.
"You never saw an ad that says, 'Use iTunes because it's legal,'" BitTorrent COO Ashwin Navin says. "What users care about is getting their favorite content in a digital format. Only a very small percentage of our users are pirating content because they are anti-establishment or want to fight the man."
Users can rent movies at $4 each, download-to-own TV shows and music videos for $2 and get user-generated content free. The company also plans to add a digital-rights-management-free music download service in the near future.
Joost
While BitTorrent works a rental download model, Joost is an ad-supported streaming video service currently in beta testing. Of the many sources providing video at this time, Warner Music Group (WMG), Nettwerk, MusicNation, Voy and now Viacom are all contributing music videos and other music-themed programming.
Joost takes streaming video to a new level, with TiVo-like user controls and a high-quality full-screen display that captured the attention of content partners. Like BitTorrent, it uses P2P technology to optimize the streaming process.
But what really sets Joost apart is its ability to add widgets, or plug-ins—small applications that run atop the streaming video screen, enabling a degree of interactivity.
For instance, a chat tool allows users viewing the same video to discuss it with one another in real time. Joost not only allows but encourages content providers to create their own plug-ins customized for their video.
MusicNation is one such provider. The company conducts an online battle-of-the-bands competition on its Web site and will be providing exclusive content to Joost. It plans to create a live voting plug-in as part of that process.
"It wasn't just about the display," MusicNation founder and chief marketing officer Lucas Mann says, "it was about building a dynamic experience."
SAN FRANCISCO—There was a time when the phrase "peer-to-peer" (P2P) was practically a curse word in the music industry.
But in the past month, two new services have emerged to utilize the technology for the legal, protected distribution of content—specifically video.
One of them is BitTorrent, which developed the technology that at one point was used for one-third of all P2P traffic on the Internet. The other is Joost—formerly known as the Venice Project—which was founded by the same developers who created the notorious Kazaa music-swapping community and later the Skype Internet telephone service.
Both BitTorrent and Joost rely on P2P technology to enhance the user experience. The more popular a file is on either network, the easier and faster it will be to download. Whereas the iTunes store shut down last Christmas because of overwhelming demand, services like BitTorrent and Joost are designed to improve as demand increases.
Despite their history with unauthorized digital content distribution, both services are setting themselves up to provide some of the better digital entertainment services available today. The question is: Will their technology credibility be sufficient to lure into a more legitimate environment the millions of downloaders who previously have used their technology to steal content?
BitTorrent
More than 135 million people have downloaded the BitTorrent technology worldwide. It basically lets people publish content to the Internet in a way that enables multiple users to quickly download large files by sharing the distribution load. While it has several legitimate uses—game publishers use it to distribute software updates—it also is used by such sites as Pirate Bay to allow illegal downloads of Hollywood movies.
The company hopes to convert these users into legitimate customers through the BitTorrent Entertainment Network, which launches Feb. 26. The new service has compiled the rights to more than 3,000 movies, 1,000 games and 1,000 music videos from 34 participating content providers.
The move makes BitTorrent a distributor—connecting content owners to the technology's users in an attempt to monetize their interest in digital entertainment. Like any authorized digital music service, the challenge is to entice consumers away from a free, pirated environment into a paid, legal one. The strategy aims to offer a better experience than the chaotic pirate sites.
"You never saw an ad that says, 'Use iTunes because it's legal,'" BitTorrent COO Ashwin Navin says. "What users care about is getting their favorite content in a digital format. Only a very small percentage of our users are pirating content because they are anti-establishment or want to fight the man."
Users can rent movies at $4 each, download-to-own TV shows and music videos for $2 and get user-generated content free. The company also plans to add a digital-rights-management-free music download service in the near future.
Joost
While BitTorrent works a rental download model, Joost is an ad-supported streaming video service currently in beta testing. Of the many sources providing video at this time, Warner Music Group (WMG), Nettwerk, MusicNation, Voy and now Viacom are all contributing music videos and other music-themed programming.
Joost takes streaming video to a new level, with TiVo-like user controls and a high-quality full-screen display that captured the attention of content partners. Like BitTorrent, it uses P2P technology to optimize the streaming process.
But what really sets Joost apart is its ability to add widgets, or plug-ins—small applications that run atop the streaming video screen, enabling a degree of interactivity.
For instance, a chat tool allows users viewing the same video to discuss it with one another in real time. Joost not only allows but encourages content providers to create their own plug-ins customized for their video.
MusicNation is one such provider. The company conducts an online battle-of-the-bands competition on its Web site and will be providing exclusive content to Joost. It plans to create a live voting plug-in as part of that process.
"It wasn't just about the display," MusicNation founder and chief marketing officer Lucas Mann says, "it was about building a dynamic experience."
Thursday, February 22, 2007
Microsoft releases list of verified Vista applications
But some notable apps are conspicuously missing
Eric Lai (Computerworld)
Microsoft Corp. on Wednesday released a list of 800 applications it has officially verified so far to run bug-free on Windows Vista.
The list is notable for both its brevity and the absence of many applications popular on Windows XP, although Microsoft and analysts said that the majority of XP software can run, albeit with hiccups, on Vista.
Popular Windows software that is conspicuously missing from Microsoft's list includes Adobe Systems Inc.'s entire line of graphics and multimedia software, Symantec Corp.'s security products, as well as the Mozilla Foundation's open-source Firefox Web browser, Skype Ltd.'s free voice-over-IP software and the OpenOffice.org alternative to Microsoft Office.
Software that has been tested as part of Microsoft's Vista certification program to run on all 32- and 64-bit versions of Vista include CorelDraw and WordPerfect from Corel Corp., PowerDVD from Cyberlink, Nero 7 Premium, Trend Micro AntiVirus and PC-Cillin, AutoCad 2008, QuickBooks 2007 from Intuit Inc., Microsoft Office 2007 and many other Microsoft applications.
In addition, Google Inc.'s Desktop Search and its Toolbar for Internet Explorer have earned Microsoft's approval.
Windows' extensive software ecosystem has long been one of the operating system's chief attractions. But Vista's long beta program last year allowed users to start compiling their own lists of applications that they claimed were broken or problematic on Vista.
Many of those were graphics-intensive games, which was the result of a new rendering engine, DirectX 10, introduced for Vista. But there are also a number of business and utility applications that have not been updated to ensure Vista compatibility. For instance, the latest version of Skype doesn't work on Vista. Firefox does work, though Mozilla has documented known issues
Next
Eric Lai (Computerworld)
Microsoft Corp. on Wednesday released a list of 800 applications it has officially verified so far to run bug-free on Windows Vista.
The list is notable for both its brevity and the absence of many applications popular on Windows XP, although Microsoft and analysts said that the majority of XP software can run, albeit with hiccups, on Vista.
Popular Windows software that is conspicuously missing from Microsoft's list includes Adobe Systems Inc.'s entire line of graphics and multimedia software, Symantec Corp.'s security products, as well as the Mozilla Foundation's open-source Firefox Web browser, Skype Ltd.'s free voice-over-IP software and the OpenOffice.org alternative to Microsoft Office.
Software that has been tested as part of Microsoft's Vista certification program to run on all 32- and 64-bit versions of Vista include CorelDraw and WordPerfect from Corel Corp., PowerDVD from Cyberlink, Nero 7 Premium, Trend Micro AntiVirus and PC-Cillin, AutoCad 2008, QuickBooks 2007 from Intuit Inc., Microsoft Office 2007 and many other Microsoft applications.
In addition, Google Inc.'s Desktop Search and its Toolbar for Internet Explorer have earned Microsoft's approval.
Windows' extensive software ecosystem has long been one of the operating system's chief attractions. But Vista's long beta program last year allowed users to start compiling their own lists of applications that they claimed were broken or problematic on Vista.
Many of those were graphics-intensive games, which was the result of a new rendering engine, DirectX 10, introduced for Vista. But there are also a number of business and utility applications that have not been updated to ensure Vista compatibility. For instance, the latest version of Skype doesn't work on Vista. Firefox does work, though Mozilla has documented known issues
Next
Wednesday, February 14, 2007
A More Personalized Internet?
Yahoo Pipes lets people make highly customized feeds that combine information from multiple sources and weed out the junk.
By Kate Greene
Last week, Yahoo announced the release of an early version of a tool designed to help users personalize the Internet. The tool, called Pipes, lets people combine all sorts of oft-updated Internet information, known as feeds. Pipes could, for instance, enable a feed that includes New York Times articles featuring the phrase "plasma TV," Flickr-posted pictures taken in a specific neighborhood, and traffic updates along a commute. So, instead of drowning in headlines from standard feed aggregators, the user gets information that is winnowed down and personal.
There are some early examples of Pipes on Yahoo's site. One allows a person to search for an apartment near "something," such as a park, library, or school. Another Pipe extracts keywords, such as "snow," from the New York Times news feed and displays Flickr photos that have a matching tag.
The basic idea behind Pipes, says Yahoo, is to give software developers and motivated nondevelopers a simple programming tool to mix and match collections of data on the Web, says Pasha Sadri, principal software engineer at Yahoo and developer of Pipes. "The goal of Pipes," he says, "is to significantly lower the barrier to writing simple applications by eliminating the need to write code and by hosting the application for you."
In fact, no knowledge of a programming language such as C++ or Java is needed to build a Pipe. When you begin to build a new Pipe, you select a set of programming instructions that are premade and packaged as an icon, called a module. A Pipe is made by dragging and dropping these modules, stringing them together, and adding a few extra instructions. A similar approach is employed to program Lego Mindstorm robots. "This simplifies the process and means that more people will be able to write programs for very specific tasks," says Sadri.
The tool consists of two major components: an interface, called an editor, where a Pipe is put together; and an execution engine that runs the Pipe instructions. Once a project is saved in the editor, the instructions are saved as a special kind of document on the engine. To run the Pipe, the engine reads the document and then accesses anywhere from dozens to hundreds of Web services--from feeds supplied by Craigslist to geography data on Yahoo Maps. To optimize the response time, says Sadri, the engine parallelizes as much of the execution as possible, breaking up the instructions into chunks that run simultaneously.
Almost immediately after its release, Pipes garnered a lot of attention from bloggers, software developers, and experts on Web-based applications. Perhaps the most glowing endorsement it received was from Tim O'Reilly, founder of O'Reilly Media, a computer-book, magazine, and online publisher. On his blog O'Reilly wrote that the tool is a "milestone in the history of the Internet." He added that while it's still a bit "rough around the edges," Pipes has "enormous potential to turn the Web into a programmable environment for everyone."
Next »
By Kate Greene
Last week, Yahoo announced the release of an early version of a tool designed to help users personalize the Internet. The tool, called Pipes, lets people combine all sorts of oft-updated Internet information, known as feeds. Pipes could, for instance, enable a feed that includes New York Times articles featuring the phrase "plasma TV," Flickr-posted pictures taken in a specific neighborhood, and traffic updates along a commute. So, instead of drowning in headlines from standard feed aggregators, the user gets information that is winnowed down and personal.
There are some early examples of Pipes on Yahoo's site. One allows a person to search for an apartment near "something," such as a park, library, or school. Another Pipe extracts keywords, such as "snow," from the New York Times news feed and displays Flickr photos that have a matching tag.
The basic idea behind Pipes, says Yahoo, is to give software developers and motivated nondevelopers a simple programming tool to mix and match collections of data on the Web, says Pasha Sadri, principal software engineer at Yahoo and developer of Pipes. "The goal of Pipes," he says, "is to significantly lower the barrier to writing simple applications by eliminating the need to write code and by hosting the application for you."
In fact, no knowledge of a programming language such as C++ or Java is needed to build a Pipe. When you begin to build a new Pipe, you select a set of programming instructions that are premade and packaged as an icon, called a module. A Pipe is made by dragging and dropping these modules, stringing them together, and adding a few extra instructions. A similar approach is employed to program Lego Mindstorm robots. "This simplifies the process and means that more people will be able to write programs for very specific tasks," says Sadri.
The tool consists of two major components: an interface, called an editor, where a Pipe is put together; and an execution engine that runs the Pipe instructions. Once a project is saved in the editor, the instructions are saved as a special kind of document on the engine. To run the Pipe, the engine reads the document and then accesses anywhere from dozens to hundreds of Web services--from feeds supplied by Craigslist to geography data on Yahoo Maps. To optimize the response time, says Sadri, the engine parallelizes as much of the execution as possible, breaking up the instructions into chunks that run simultaneously.
Almost immediately after its release, Pipes garnered a lot of attention from bloggers, software developers, and experts on Web-based applications. Perhaps the most glowing endorsement it received was from Tim O'Reilly, founder of O'Reilly Media, a computer-book, magazine, and online publisher. On his blog O'Reilly wrote that the tool is a "milestone in the history of the Internet." He added that while it's still a bit "rough around the edges," Pipes has "enormous potential to turn the Web into a programmable environment for everyone."
Next »
Thursday, February 08, 2007
Mozilla updates Firefox 3.0 preview
It's looking to get the browser into users' hands by year's end
Gregg Keizer Computerworld.com
Mozilla Corp. yesterday released the second alpha version of what will become its Firefox 3.0 Web browser. The release is the latest milestone in a plan to put the open-source browser in users' hands during the second half of the year.
Dubbed "Gran Paradiso," the preview is still geared toward "Web application developers and our testing community," according to release notes on the Mozilla site. The company warned general users to steer clear and stick with the 2.0.x and 1.5.x production versions.
Among the changes to the second alpha are enhancements in the way Web pages render incrementally -- while images load or dynamic changes are made to a page, for example. Other changes include improvements in the browser's interaction with Mac OS X widgets and the addition of full support for ACID2 test compliance.
Firefox 3.0, which is based on the new Gecko 1.9 layout engine, will be the first Mozilla browser to drop support for Windows 95, 98 and Millennium, as well as for Mac OS X 10.2 and earlier.
Alpha 2 can be downloaded in Windows, Mac OS X and Linux versions from the Mozilla Web site.
Gregg Keizer Computerworld.com
Mozilla Corp. yesterday released the second alpha version of what will become its Firefox 3.0 Web browser. The release is the latest milestone in a plan to put the open-source browser in users' hands during the second half of the year.
Dubbed "Gran Paradiso," the preview is still geared toward "Web application developers and our testing community," according to release notes on the Mozilla site. The company warned general users to steer clear and stick with the 2.0.x and 1.5.x production versions.
Among the changes to the second alpha are enhancements in the way Web pages render incrementally -- while images load or dynamic changes are made to a page, for example. Other changes include improvements in the browser's interaction with Mac OS X widgets and the addition of full support for ACID2 test compliance.
Firefox 3.0, which is based on the new Gecko 1.9 layout engine, will be the first Mozilla browser to drop support for Windows 95, 98 and Millennium, as well as for Mac OS X 10.2 and earlier.
Alpha 2 can be downloaded in Windows, Mac OS X and Linux versions from the Mozilla Web site.
Sunday, February 04, 2007
Windows Vista: The 'Huh?' starts now
Microsoft is confusing everyone with its new OS; here's what you need to know
Mike Elgan
Microsoft is losing consumer operating system market share to Apple for many reasons, but most of those reasons can be oversimplified thus: Mac OS is simple, and Windows is complicated.
That's why it may be such a costly error for Microsoft to make the Vista upgrade such a confusing mess.
Until today, even experts couldn't tell you off the top of their heads the differences between each of the many Vista versions -- or even how many versions there are -- or what the basic requirements are for the Upgrade versions. Ordinary consumers are baffled to the point of paralysis.
I'm going to clear all this up in a minute. First, however, let's recall the fiasco that is the Windows Vista launch.
The Upgrade version mess
News organizations have been writing about Vista for years. In the past few months, the media addressed Upgrade versions (less expensive versions of the operating system available to users who already have a recent version of Windows), and the process Microsoft would impose for proving that you own a legitimate copy of Windows XP or 2000.
At first, some news outlets reported that Upgrade versions of Vista would require the user to enter an XP key -- the long combination of letters and numbers you need to install XP in the first place. Then, we were told you didn't need the key, but instead would be required to insert an XP disk during the Vista install. Earlier this week, some sites reported that the requirement was that XP had to be installed on your PC, and that a clean install -- installing Vista only on a reformatted disk -- would be impossible.
Don't feel bad if you still don't know which of the Upgrade proof policies above is the real one -- few outside Microsoft do. (In fact, none of them is correct.)
Microsoft created this confusion by failing to tell anyone what the proof requirement would be for using an Upgrade version of Vista.
Meanwhile, the Upgrade versions are poison:
* Windows power users know that if you want Windows to work well over the long haul, it helps to reformat and perform a clean install once in a while. The Upgrade version requires you to install both XP/2000 and Vista every time, doubling the already massive amount of time it takes to do a reformat/reinstall.
* The Upgrade versions require you to keep track of your original Windows XP/2000 disks. Most people have these in the form of "recovery CDs" from the PC vendor, which can include multiple disks full of junk applications.
Continued...
Mike Elgan
I've said it before, and I'll say it again: Don't buy Vista yet. But if you really must, consider only two of the 10 versions: Nontechnical consumers should buy the full version of Windows Vista Home Premium, and power users should buy the full version of Windows Vista Ultimate.
Microsoft is losing consumer operating system market share to Apple for many reasons, but most of those reasons can be oversimplified thus: Mac OS is simple, and Windows is complicated.
That's why it may be such a costly error for Microsoft to make the Vista upgrade such a confusing mess.
Until today, even experts couldn't tell you off the top of their heads the differences between each of the many Vista versions -- or even how many versions there are -- or what the basic requirements are for the Upgrade versions. Ordinary consumers are baffled to the point of paralysis.
I'm going to clear all this up in a minute. First, however, let's recall the fiasco that is the Windows Vista launch.
The Upgrade version mess
News organizations have been writing about Vista for years. In the past few months, the media addressed Upgrade versions (less expensive versions of the operating system available to users who already have a recent version of Windows), and the process Microsoft would impose for proving that you own a legitimate copy of Windows XP or 2000.
At first, some news outlets reported that Upgrade versions of Vista would require the user to enter an XP key -- the long combination of letters and numbers you need to install XP in the first place. Then, we were told you didn't need the key, but instead would be required to insert an XP disk during the Vista install. Earlier this week, some sites reported that the requirement was that XP had to be installed on your PC, and that a clean install -- installing Vista only on a reformatted disk -- would be impossible.
Don't feel bad if you still don't know which of the Upgrade proof policies above is the real one -- few outside Microsoft do. (In fact, none of them is correct.)
Microsoft created this confusion by failing to tell anyone what the proof requirement would be for using an Upgrade version of Vista.
Meanwhile, the Upgrade versions are poison:
* Windows power users know that if you want Windows to work well over the long haul, it helps to reformat and perform a clean install once in a while. The Upgrade version requires you to install both XP/2000 and Vista every time, doubling the already massive amount of time it takes to do a reformat/reinstall.
* The Upgrade versions require you to keep track of your original Windows XP/2000 disks. Most people have these in the form of "recovery CDs" from the PC vendor, which can include multiple disks full of junk applications.
Continued...
Tuesday, January 30, 2007
Revealed: how eBay sellers fix auctions
Recorded excerpts of meetings with Paraskevaides:
Clip 1
Clip 2
CUSTOMERS of the internet auction site eBay are being defrauded by unscrupulous dealers who secretly bid up the price of items on sale to boost profits. An investigation by The Sunday Times has indicated that the practice of artificially driving up prices — known as shill bidding — is widespread across the site.
Last week one of the UK’s biggest eBay sellers admitted in a taped conversation with an undercover reporter that he was prepared to use business associates to bid on his goods for him.
Our inquiries found evidence that a number of businesses — ranging from overseas property agencies to car dealerships — have placed bids on their own items using fake identities.
The cases raise questions about whether eBay, the world’s biggest auction site, is doing enough to protect consumers.
Shill bidding is against eBay rules and is illegal under the 2006 Fraud Act. However, the resulting higher prices on the site boost the value of eBay’s share of the sales.
Last November eBay changed its rules to conceal bidders’ identity — making it even more difficult for customers to see whether sellers are bidding on their own lots. Since its launch seven years ago, eBay’s UK website has attracted more than 15m customers. It sells more than 10m items at any given time.
One of the beneficiaries of the boom is Eftis Paraskevaides, a former gynaecologist, from Cambridgeshire. He has become a “Titanium PowerSeller” — one of eBay’s handful of top earners — selling more than £1.4m worth of antiquities a year on the site.
In a conversation with an undercover reporter last week, Paraskevaides claimed shill bidding was commonplace on eBay.
When the reporter asked whether he arranged for associates to bid on his own items, he replied: “Well, if I put something really expensive (up for sale) and I was concerned that it was going for nothing, I would phone a friend of mine, even a client of mine who buys from me, and say: For Christ’s sake, I sell you 100 quids’ worth of items a week . . . just put two grand on it, will you?” The reporter was posing as a seller of valuable antiquities. He inquired whether Paraskevaides could sell them on eBay and guarantee a minimum price.
He replied: “Leave it to me (laughs). Don’t call it shill bidding. Then I won’t be accused of shill bidding. Yes. I mean — I’ve got people.
“I’ve got some of my big clients who buy big items off me, I look after them. So I can get on the phone to America and say: Mr XXXX . . . you’re a multi- millionaire. You buy a hundred grand’s worth off me a year. Do me a favour would you. Just put — yeah. Exactly.”
He claimed eBay would never follow up a complaint against him for shill bidding because he generated about £15,000 a month in commission for the company. “Are they going to ban somebody who’s making them the best part of 15 grand a month? No,” he said.
After being told that he had been talking to an undercover reporter, Paraskevaides denied that he had ever shill bidded on eBay and claimed he was talking about clients who sometimes bid on expensive items if they wished to protect the price.
However The Sunday Times discovered businesses that have been bidding on their own items. One leading dealer from London admitted last week that that he had shill bidded in the past.
A spokesman for eBay said he expected that the company would now launch an investigation into Paraskevaides. Anyone caught shill bidding risks a permanent ban.
The spokesman added: “The change to the way bidder IDs are shown has already resulted in a safer environment for users."
Clip 1
Clip 2
CUSTOMERS of the internet auction site eBay are being defrauded by unscrupulous dealers who secretly bid up the price of items on sale to boost profits. An investigation by The Sunday Times has indicated that the practice of artificially driving up prices — known as shill bidding — is widespread across the site.
Last week one of the UK’s biggest eBay sellers admitted in a taped conversation with an undercover reporter that he was prepared to use business associates to bid on his goods for him.
Our inquiries found evidence that a number of businesses — ranging from overseas property agencies to car dealerships — have placed bids on their own items using fake identities.
The cases raise questions about whether eBay, the world’s biggest auction site, is doing enough to protect consumers.
Shill bidding is against eBay rules and is illegal under the 2006 Fraud Act. However, the resulting higher prices on the site boost the value of eBay’s share of the sales.
Last November eBay changed its rules to conceal bidders’ identity — making it even more difficult for customers to see whether sellers are bidding on their own lots. Since its launch seven years ago, eBay’s UK website has attracted more than 15m customers. It sells more than 10m items at any given time.
One of the beneficiaries of the boom is Eftis Paraskevaides, a former gynaecologist, from Cambridgeshire. He has become a “Titanium PowerSeller” — one of eBay’s handful of top earners — selling more than £1.4m worth of antiquities a year on the site.
In a conversation with an undercover reporter last week, Paraskevaides claimed shill bidding was commonplace on eBay.
When the reporter asked whether he arranged for associates to bid on his own items, he replied: “Well, if I put something really expensive (up for sale) and I was concerned that it was going for nothing, I would phone a friend of mine, even a client of mine who buys from me, and say: For Christ’s sake, I sell you 100 quids’ worth of items a week . . . just put two grand on it, will you?” The reporter was posing as a seller of valuable antiquities. He inquired whether Paraskevaides could sell them on eBay and guarantee a minimum price.
He replied: “Leave it to me (laughs). Don’t call it shill bidding. Then I won’t be accused of shill bidding. Yes. I mean — I’ve got people.
“I’ve got some of my big clients who buy big items off me, I look after them. So I can get on the phone to America and say: Mr XXXX . . . you’re a multi- millionaire. You buy a hundred grand’s worth off me a year. Do me a favour would you. Just put — yeah. Exactly.”
He claimed eBay would never follow up a complaint against him for shill bidding because he generated about £15,000 a month in commission for the company. “Are they going to ban somebody who’s making them the best part of 15 grand a month? No,” he said.
After being told that he had been talking to an undercover reporter, Paraskevaides denied that he had ever shill bidded on eBay and claimed he was talking about clients who sometimes bid on expensive items if they wished to protect the price.
However The Sunday Times discovered businesses that have been bidding on their own items. One leading dealer from London admitted last week that that he had shill bidded in the past.
A spokesman for eBay said he expected that the company would now launch an investigation into Paraskevaides. Anyone caught shill bidding risks a permanent ban.
The spokesman added: “The change to the way bidder IDs are shown has already resulted in a safer environment for users."
YouTube to Share Some Ad Revenue with Users
NEW YORK—YouTube co-founder Chad Hurley said the leading online video service is mulling a plan to share advertising revenue with users who contribute to the site, according to a user clip and media reports from Davos, Switzerland.
"In terms of paying users revenue against the content that they are uploading, we definitely are going to be moving in that direction," Hurley said in video recorded in Davos, by a YouTube user and posted on the site.
"We feel we are at a scale now that we will be able to do that and still have a true community around video."
Hurley, who spoke during a session at the World Economic Forum gave no details on how much YouTube, the leading online video sharing site that was bought by Internet search leader Google Inc. last year, might pay users.
The annual meeting of the World Economic Forum takes place January 24-28 in the Alpine ski resort of Davos and is attended by top politicians, monetary policymakers and senior business executives
Sunday, January 28, 2007
Why pirated Vista has Microsoft champing at the BitTorrent
On the eve of launch, P2P networks unnerve the software giant
Eric Lai computerworld.comAs Microsoft Corp. gets ready to launch Windows Vista and Office 2007 to consumers, it claims a formidable new foe it lacked at its last major consumer software launch five years ago: the popular filesharing network known as BitTorrent.
This third-generation peer-to-peer (P2P) service, already used by tens of millions of Internet users to swap digital music and movies for free, is becoming a popular mechanism for those looking to obtain pirated software.
"Any software that is commercially available is available on BitTorrent," according to Mark Ishikawa, CEO of BayTSP Inc., a Los Gatos, Calif., antipiracy consulting firm.
Piracy and prerelease
Or in the case of Vista and Office 2007, before they were commercially available. Both products were released to corporations almost two months ago, but won’t be officially launched to consumers until Jan. 29.
But as early as mid-November, "cracked" copies of both products were available via BitTorrent. As of mid-January, more than 100 individual copies of Office 2007 and more than 350 individual copies of Windows Vista were available on the service, according to BigChampagne LLC, a Los Angeles-based online media-tracking firm.
The pirates that cracked early copies of Vista all sidestepped Microsoft’s latest antipiracy technology, the Software Protection Platform. SPP is supposed to shut down any copy of Vista not registered to Microsoft over the Internet with a legitimate, paid-up license key within the first 30 days.
Microsoft has quietly admitted that it has already found three different workarounds to SPP. It says it can defeat one, dubbed the Frankenbuild because of its cobbling together of code from beta and final versions of Vista. It hasn’t yet announced success against several other cracks, including one seemingly inspired by Y2k, which allows Vista to run unactivated until the year 2099 rather than for just 30 days.
"Pirates have unlimited time and resources," BayTSP’s Ishikawa says. "You can’t build an encryption that can’t be broken."
Sunday, January 21, 2007
iPhone: The mediocre phone that will change the world
A bad phone -- but just what is it, anyway?
David Haskin computerworld.com
More than a week after Steve Jobs' blockbuster iPhone announcement, longtime industry observers and analysts are still furiously debating iPhone's impact.
And the first issue the analysts are wrestling with is: Just what the heck is an iPhone, anyway? Before commenting on its potential success, four analysts I spoke with first struggled to define exactly what an iPhone is.
"If you take the telephone out of the equation, the effect of iPhone will be profound," noted David Chamberlain, principal analyst for wireless issues at market research firm In-Stat. That is to say, Chamberlain said, the iPhone isn't much of a phone but it is an awesome ... something else.
In an industry accustomed to slotting products into narrow categories and measuring success within those categories, the unclassifiable (so far) nature of the iPhone has created a Jobsian, Alice in Wonderland-like atmosphere where t's are being dotted and i's are being crossed.
Herewith, with the help of some highly regarded industry analysts, we'll try to throw a lasso around this galloping pony and understand just what the iPhone is and what its prospects are.
What is the iPhone, anyway?
Trying to figure out what the iPhone is can be a matter of addition by subtraction. One thing the analysts agree about is that it won't be much of a cell phone, let alone a smart phone.
"It does seem under-horsepowered as a phone," said Neil Strother, research director for wireless devices at NPD. "It doesn't have [3G], which I don't get. How can they expect people to spend that much money [$500 for the 4GB version] and it doesn't even have 3G?"
Among the reasons the iPhone isn't a smart phone like the Motorola Q or the Treo line is that it doesn't support corporate e-mail or viewing attachments in Word or other formats commonly used in the enterprise. Nor can it use third-party applications like smart phones, many plain-old, not-so-smart phones and even old-fashioned PDAs. Nor is it a plain iPod since media players don't have even mediocre voice capabilities.
"It's been billed as less a smart phone than a super-smart iPod with phone functionality," noted Miro Kazakoff, a senior associate for wireless technology at market research firm Compete Inc. "It comes from a place of being more of an entertainment device with phone functionality added on."
Added Ken Dulaney at Gartner, "It's either a weak phone or a hot device in the network media category."
Another thing that the iPhone isn't is just another mobile device. "The interface is absolutely breathtaking," In-Stat's Chamberlain said.
Got it. The iPhone is a lousy phone but a breathtaking media device that acts like a phone but isn't.
What does it compete against?
Continued...
1 | 2 | 3 | NEXT
David Haskin computerworld.com
More than a week after Steve Jobs' blockbuster iPhone announcement, longtime industry observers and analysts are still furiously debating iPhone's impact.
And the first issue the analysts are wrestling with is: Just what the heck is an iPhone, anyway? Before commenting on its potential success, four analysts I spoke with first struggled to define exactly what an iPhone is.
"If you take the telephone out of the equation, the effect of iPhone will be profound," noted David Chamberlain, principal analyst for wireless issues at market research firm In-Stat. That is to say, Chamberlain said, the iPhone isn't much of a phone but it is an awesome ... something else.
In an industry accustomed to slotting products into narrow categories and measuring success within those categories, the unclassifiable (so far) nature of the iPhone has created a Jobsian, Alice in Wonderland-like atmosphere where t's are being dotted and i's are being crossed.
Herewith, with the help of some highly regarded industry analysts, we'll try to throw a lasso around this galloping pony and understand just what the iPhone is and what its prospects are.
What is the iPhone, anyway?
Trying to figure out what the iPhone is can be a matter of addition by subtraction. One thing the analysts agree about is that it won't be much of a cell phone, let alone a smart phone.
"It does seem under-horsepowered as a phone," said Neil Strother, research director for wireless devices at NPD. "It doesn't have [3G], which I don't get. How can they expect people to spend that much money [$500 for the 4GB version] and it doesn't even have 3G?"
Among the reasons the iPhone isn't a smart phone like the Motorola Q or the Treo line is that it doesn't support corporate e-mail or viewing attachments in Word or other formats commonly used in the enterprise. Nor can it use third-party applications like smart phones, many plain-old, not-so-smart phones and even old-fashioned PDAs. Nor is it a plain iPod since media players don't have even mediocre voice capabilities.
"It's been billed as less a smart phone than a super-smart iPod with phone functionality," noted Miro Kazakoff, a senior associate for wireless technology at market research firm Compete Inc. "It comes from a place of being more of an entertainment device with phone functionality added on."
Added Ken Dulaney at Gartner, "It's either a weak phone or a hot device in the network media category."
Another thing that the iPhone isn't is just another mobile device. "The interface is absolutely breathtaking," In-Stat's Chamberlain said.
Got it. The iPhone is a lousy phone but a breathtaking media device that acts like a phone but isn't.
What does it compete against?
Continued...
1 | 2 | 3 | NEXT
Friday, January 19, 2007
SeaMonkey Group Updates Browser Suite
SeaMonkey 1.1 is the follow-on to the now-defunct Mozilla Suite, a collection of Internet applications that included browser, e-mail client, newsgroup reader, and HTML editor.
By Gregg Keizer
InformationWeek
The open-source group determined to keep alive the last Internet suite updated its SeaMonkey bundle Thursday with both security fixes and new code that brought its applications up to par with Mozilla's Firefox 2 and Thunderbird 2.
SeaMonkey 1.1, which was released in versions for Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux, is the follow-on to the now-defunct Mozilla Suite, a collection of Internet applications that included browser, e-mail client, newsgroup reader, and HTML editor. When Mozilla spiked its suite, a group of volunteer developers launched the SeaMonkey project. Mozilla still provides some support, including hosting the project's Web site.
The bundle's browser is based on Firefox 2.0, the newest edition of Mozilla's application, while the e-mailer takes its technology from Thunderbird 2.0. Other enhancements to v. 1.1 include a new version of the ChatZilla chat client, e-mail message tagging, and browser spell-check.
SeaMonkey 1.1 can be downloaded from the project's Web site.
By Gregg Keizer
InformationWeek
The open-source group determined to keep alive the last Internet suite updated its SeaMonkey bundle Thursday with both security fixes and new code that brought its applications up to par with Mozilla's Firefox 2 and Thunderbird 2.
SeaMonkey 1.1, which was released in versions for Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux, is the follow-on to the now-defunct Mozilla Suite, a collection of Internet applications that included browser, e-mail client, newsgroup reader, and HTML editor. When Mozilla spiked its suite, a group of volunteer developers launched the SeaMonkey project. Mozilla still provides some support, including hosting the project's Web site.
The bundle's browser is based on Firefox 2.0, the newest edition of Mozilla's application, while the e-mailer takes its technology from Thunderbird 2.0. Other enhancements to v. 1.1 include a new version of the ChatZilla chat client, e-mail message tagging, and browser spell-check.
SeaMonkey 1.1 can be downloaded from the project's Web site.
Thursday, January 11, 2007
CES 2007: Consumer Convergence
This year's Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas is an enormous spectacle of personal computing products showcasing lighter, thinner and more efficient form factors for laptops, desktops and mobile devices, with Windows Vista a major benefactor of a more converged mobile environment.
View the entire Eweek.com slideshow
View the entire Eweek.com slideshow
Wednesday, January 10, 2007
Buying a Computer for Vista ... and Beyond
With careful planning, you can buy PCs that will both support Windows Vista and last well beyond today's standard life span
Bill O'Brien Computerworld.com
Once upon a time, you could buy a computer that, despite being technically obsolete the minute you got it home, could still be useful for years and years to come. Lately, however, technology has been gaining speed on good judgment. Do the words "accelerated amortization" sound familiar?
Whether you're an individual buying your own PC or an IT manager outfitting business users, it pays to plan your purchases so that your systems, whether desktop or laptop, last longer than the norm. Selecting computer hardware that will stretch two years out is easy. Making decisions that will support a three-year hardware life span takes a little more thought. But with some real fine-tuning and a well-honed knowledge of how the system will be used, you can move the marker out to four years or -- if you're both wise and exceedingly lucky -- possibly even five years.
We're here to help you sort through the bewildering array of choices when purchasing new hardware. Our basic strategy, with a few exceptions, will be to opt for components that are just under the current state of the art. We're not thinking about resale; we're thinking about getting our money's worth and maximizing the system's life span.
The Vista Factor
When you stare into your crystal ball trying to divine what hardware to buy this year, you're likely to see something odd. That 800-pound gorilla staring back from inside the globe is nothing less than Microsoft's new Windows Vista operating system, and it can't help but affect your decision.
If most accounts are to be believed, Vista is a frightening monster that will place more demands on your hardware than any other operating system you've ever encountered. Some analysts have claimed that you'll be shelling out around $3,000 for equipment to meet the formidable burden Vista will impose. They claim that practically every piece of hardware you own must be dragged down to the recycling center and be replaced with the latest and greatest stuff from which computers are made, lest you find yourself overcome by the beast that is Vista.
Urban legends are great things, aren't they? Make no mistake, there is some semblance of truth wafting around inside all the hype. But, as with most legends, there's also a significant amount of fearmongering (not to mention the hope of sparking a round of high-end PC sales).
Vista is not King Kong. It is a handful of monkeys with a couple of great apes thrown in at the high end. There's nothing to fear when buying hardware this year -- it just requires a little planning, and that's nothing new.
Let's take a look at Microsoft's minimum supported hardware requirements for running Vista:
(We can revise one item immediately: Vista is supplied on a DVD disc, so you'll need a DVD-ROM drive to install or reinstall it. So much for accuracy.)
Look around you. Do you own anything that doesn't greatly exceed the majority of those specifications -- except maybe that four-year-old ThinkPad you've been using to even the coffee table legs or the desktop PC you "donated" to the kids in 2001 so they could shove peanut butter into the optical drive and not destroy your data?
If you ratchet up to what Microsoft calls a Vista Premium Ready PC, which can take advantage of advanced Vista features, including the Aero interface, you get this list:
Again, with the graphics specification excepted, most of that still isn't very attractive for a PC you'd like to hold on to for the next four or five years. Of course, marketing comes into play here. Microsoft wants you to purchase as many copies of Vista as you possibly can. There's nothing inherently wrong with that position; it's just business. Still, for it to happen, Microsoft wants its product shown in its most attractive light. Translation: It shouldn't look like it will cost you a fortune to own and use.
But there is truth in the nonthreatening system requirements Microsoft touts. Vista is self-acclimating. While everyone running Vista will benefit from its beefier security regimens, the operating system will tune its display characteristics to fit your hardware's profile. At worst, you'll end up running something akin to Windows XP protected by Smith & Wesson. At the upper end, you'll experience the full range of Vista's eye candy extraordinaire.
All of this leaves computer sellers with a great deal of room for interpretation, and that's never a good thing for computer buyers. The moral of the story is that if you're looking for longevity in a PC, don't simply accept what the computer seller offers by default, even if it has "Vista Premium Ready" stamped all over it or comes with Vista preinstalled.
Next
Bill O'Brien Computerworld.com
Once upon a time, you could buy a computer that, despite being technically obsolete the minute you got it home, could still be useful for years and years to come. Lately, however, technology has been gaining speed on good judgment. Do the words "accelerated amortization" sound familiar?
Whether you're an individual buying your own PC or an IT manager outfitting business users, it pays to plan your purchases so that your systems, whether desktop or laptop, last longer than the norm. Selecting computer hardware that will stretch two years out is easy. Making decisions that will support a three-year hardware life span takes a little more thought. But with some real fine-tuning and a well-honed knowledge of how the system will be used, you can move the marker out to four years or -- if you're both wise and exceedingly lucky -- possibly even five years.
We're here to help you sort through the bewildering array of choices when purchasing new hardware. Our basic strategy, with a few exceptions, will be to opt for components that are just under the current state of the art. We're not thinking about resale; we're thinking about getting our money's worth and maximizing the system's life span.
The Vista Factor
When you stare into your crystal ball trying to divine what hardware to buy this year, you're likely to see something odd. That 800-pound gorilla staring back from inside the globe is nothing less than Microsoft's new Windows Vista operating system, and it can't help but affect your decision.
If most accounts are to be believed, Vista is a frightening monster that will place more demands on your hardware than any other operating system you've ever encountered. Some analysts have claimed that you'll be shelling out around $3,000 for equipment to meet the formidable burden Vista will impose. They claim that practically every piece of hardware you own must be dragged down to the recycling center and be replaced with the latest and greatest stuff from which computers are made, lest you find yourself overcome by the beast that is Vista.
Urban legends are great things, aren't they? Make no mistake, there is some semblance of truth wafting around inside all the hype. But, as with most legends, there's also a significant amount of fearmongering (not to mention the hope of sparking a round of high-end PC sales).
Vista is not King Kong. It is a handful of monkeys with a couple of great apes thrown in at the high end. There's nothing to fear when buying hardware this year -- it just requires a little planning, and that's nothing new.
Let's take a look at Microsoft's minimum supported hardware requirements for running Vista:
An 800-MHz 32-bit (x86) or 64-bit (x64) processor 512MB of system memory An SVGA (800x600) graphics processor 64MB-256MB graphics memory with bandwidth of 1.6GB/sec. A 20GB hard drive with 15GB of free space A CD-ROM drive
(We can revise one item immediately: Vista is supplied on a DVD disc, so you'll need a DVD-ROM drive to install or reinstall it. So much for accuracy.)
Look around you. Do you own anything that doesn't greatly exceed the majority of those specifications -- except maybe that four-year-old ThinkPad you've been using to even the coffee table legs or the desktop PC you "donated" to the kids in 2001 so they could shove peanut butter into the optical drive and not destroy your data?
If you ratchet up to what Microsoft calls a Vista Premium Ready PC, which can take advantage of advanced Vista features, including the Aero interface, you get this list:
A 1-GHz 32-bit (x86) or 64-bit (x64) processor 1GB of system memory Support for DirectX 9 graphics with a WDDM driver, 128MB of graphics memory (minimum), Pixel Shader 2.0 and 32 bits per pixel A 40GB hard drive with 15GB of free space A DVD-ROM drive Audio output capability Internet access capability
Again, with the graphics specification excepted, most of that still isn't very attractive for a PC you'd like to hold on to for the next four or five years. Of course, marketing comes into play here. Microsoft wants you to purchase as many copies of Vista as you possibly can. There's nothing inherently wrong with that position; it's just business. Still, for it to happen, Microsoft wants its product shown in its most attractive light. Translation: It shouldn't look like it will cost you a fortune to own and use.
But there is truth in the nonthreatening system requirements Microsoft touts. Vista is self-acclimating. While everyone running Vista will benefit from its beefier security regimens, the operating system will tune its display characteristics to fit your hardware's profile. At worst, you'll end up running something akin to Windows XP protected by Smith & Wesson. At the upper end, you'll experience the full range of Vista's eye candy extraordinaire.
All of this leaves computer sellers with a great deal of room for interpretation, and that's never a good thing for computer buyers. The moral of the story is that if you're looking for longevity in a PC, don't simply accept what the computer seller offers by default, even if it has "Vista Premium Ready" stamped all over it or comes with Vista preinstalled.
Next
Tuesday, January 02, 2007
The new hotness: Personal tech in 2007
2007 will be an amazing year for personal technology. Call it "The Year of the Super Toy."
Mike Elgan Computerworld.com
As Moore's Law, or something like it, continues to drive down the cost and size of electronics, increasingly sophisticated technology will find its way this year into consumer electronics products of all kinds. If you're a gadget freak, fasten your seat belt and hang on. It's going to be one hell of a year.
The year of gadget Wi-Fi
Home PC users have become extremely comfortable with Wi-Fi in the last five years. Connecting at home through a Wi-Fi connection is old hat. The new game in town is Wi-Fi for gadgets, especially media players, cameras and TVs. Consumers will increasingly demand Wi-Fi in gadgets for the convenience, power and flexibility of being able to zap media around without hassles and without adding to cable bloat.
If nothing else, Microsoft's new Zune media player will drive demand for Wi-Fi in handheld gadgets. People already share music, videos and pictures, so why not do it in math class or at Starbucks rather than waiting until you get home? It's only a matter of time before the first Wi-Fi-enabled iPod hits. When that happens, Wi-Fi will become a must-have feature of media players for many users. New media players this year will not only connect peer-to-peer, as the Zune does, but also link to the Internet directly, like a PC.
Right now, only an exotic minority of digital cameras sport Wi-Fi connectivity, including the Nikon S7c, Nikon Coolpix P1 and P2, Nikon D2H, Kodak EasyShare One, Canon PowerShot SD430, Canon EOS-1Ds Mark II and others. Look for these cameras to become more popular and new cameras to emerge with Wi-Fi capability. Wi-Fi lets you offload pictures to a nearby PC -- or upload them to the Internet -- without hunting for a USB cable or risking the loss of your tiny media card by removing it from the camera.
Wi-Fi in media players and cameras? Absolutely. But TVs?
Three years ago, a smattering of Japanese companies came out with what they called "wireless TVs" -- small LCD displays that received their content from a base station connected to cable. Those products never went anywhere. At press time, however, Samsung planned to release its new HP-TS064 Plasma TV, which features Wi-Fi, at the Consumer Electronics Show in January.
The Samsung uses Wi-Fi in a totally different way from the old "wireless TVs." It doesn't get its regular TV signal over wireless, but it can connect to your PC over Wi-Fi, so you can watch YouTube videos or other Internet- or PC-based content, such as photo slideshows, on the TV.
The year of the mobile trackball
This year, the trackball will become the hot input device for mobile gadgets, especially smart phones. For a decade now, mobile devices have employed rocker dials, scroll wheels, thumbwheels and other input technologies for navigating menus, moving cursors and controlling various features.
Suddenly, however, two of the hottest brand-new devices -- the T-Mobile Sidekick 3 and the RIM BlackBerry Pearl -- are taking older devices to school with their super-fast mini-trackballs. The smart phones use them for everything from camera zoom to ripping through icons and menus.
In 2007, the trackballs on these gadgets will influence the entire industry. Look for trackballs to show up on a lot more phones, as well as media players and other devices.
continued
Mike Elgan Computerworld.com
As Moore's Law, or something like it, continues to drive down the cost and size of electronics, increasingly sophisticated technology will find its way this year into consumer electronics products of all kinds. If you're a gadget freak, fasten your seat belt and hang on. It's going to be one hell of a year.
The year of gadget Wi-Fi
Home PC users have become extremely comfortable with Wi-Fi in the last five years. Connecting at home through a Wi-Fi connection is old hat. The new game in town is Wi-Fi for gadgets, especially media players, cameras and TVs. Consumers will increasingly demand Wi-Fi in gadgets for the convenience, power and flexibility of being able to zap media around without hassles and without adding to cable bloat.
If nothing else, Microsoft's new Zune media player will drive demand for Wi-Fi in handheld gadgets. People already share music, videos and pictures, so why not do it in math class or at Starbucks rather than waiting until you get home? It's only a matter of time before the first Wi-Fi-enabled iPod hits. When that happens, Wi-Fi will become a must-have feature of media players for many users. New media players this year will not only connect peer-to-peer, as the Zune does, but also link to the Internet directly, like a PC.
Right now, only an exotic minority of digital cameras sport Wi-Fi connectivity, including the Nikon S7c, Nikon Coolpix P1 and P2, Nikon D2H, Kodak EasyShare One, Canon PowerShot SD430, Canon EOS-1Ds Mark II and others. Look for these cameras to become more popular and new cameras to emerge with Wi-Fi capability. Wi-Fi lets you offload pictures to a nearby PC -- or upload them to the Internet -- without hunting for a USB cable or risking the loss of your tiny media card by removing it from the camera.
Wi-Fi in media players and cameras? Absolutely. But TVs?
Three years ago, a smattering of Japanese companies came out with what they called "wireless TVs" -- small LCD displays that received their content from a base station connected to cable. Those products never went anywhere. At press time, however, Samsung planned to release its new HP-TS064 Plasma TV, which features Wi-Fi, at the Consumer Electronics Show in January.
The Samsung uses Wi-Fi in a totally different way from the old "wireless TVs." It doesn't get its regular TV signal over wireless, but it can connect to your PC over Wi-Fi, so you can watch YouTube videos or other Internet- or PC-based content, such as photo slideshows, on the TV.
The year of the mobile trackball
This year, the trackball will become the hot input device for mobile gadgets, especially smart phones. For a decade now, mobile devices have employed rocker dials, scroll wheels, thumbwheels and other input technologies for navigating menus, moving cursors and controlling various features.
Suddenly, however, two of the hottest brand-new devices -- the T-Mobile Sidekick 3 and the RIM BlackBerry Pearl -- are taking older devices to school with their super-fast mini-trackballs. The smart phones use them for everything from camera zoom to ripping through icons and menus.
In 2007, the trackballs on these gadgets will influence the entire industry. Look for trackballs to show up on a lot more phones, as well as media players and other devices.
continued
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