What's New

Here Comes "Conroe"

2006-07-13T21:31:00.000-07:00

Without further ado: Intel Core 2 Duo

Intel is set to announce its long awaited Core 2 Duo and Core 2 Extreme processors tonight, July 14th, at 12:01AM EST. Initially announced at the Spring Intel Developer Forum 2006, Intel’s Conroe was demonstrated beating out AMD’s fastest processors from high end Athlon 64 X2’s to the gaming and enthusiast oriented Athlon 64 FX. Intel also previously launched the Core 2 architecture based Woodcrest Xeon 5110, 5120, 5130, 5140, 5150 and 5160 models. With the new Core 2 architecture Intel is moving away from the megahertz war and moving towards higher instructions-per-clock performance and improved power efficiency instead.

New Core 2 processors are based upon a new micro architecture that shares its roots with Intel’s Core mobile architecture. Intel will launch Core 2 Duo and Core 2 Extreme dual-core processors initially, though a single-core Conroe-L Core 2 Solo processor is expected in 2007. Core 2 Duo and Core 2 Extreme processors have a plethora of new features including Intel Wide Dynamic Execution, Intel Smart Memory Access, Intel Advanced Smart Cache and Intel Advanced Digital Media Boost. Intel’s Wide Dynamic Execution technology allows the 14-stage pipeline to have a 33% wider execution over previous Netburst based processors. Each core also has deeper buffers, 4 wide-decode to execute, 4 wide-micro-op execute, micro and macro fusion and enhanced ALUs too.

Intel Smart Memory Access has an improved branch prediction unit with new pre-fetch algorithms that accelerate execution of out-of-order instructions and improve data movement between the L2 cache and system memory. With Intel Smart Memory Access the pipeline is always kept full for more efficient memory access that can mask the latency associated with a north bridge-equipped memory controller. Intel Advanced Smart Cache allows both processor cores to share the same L2 cache -- though bear in mind this has already been done for some time on Conroe's mobile predecessor, Yonah. Lower-end Core 2 Duo processors will have 2MB of shared L2 while Core 2 Extreme processors and higher end Core 2 Duo processors will have 4MB of share L2 cache. Intel claims a shared L2 cache reduces access latency and improves performance.

Intel Advanced Digital Media Boost is a performance enhancement for previous SSE, SSE2 and SSE3 instructions. While SSE, SSE2 and SSE3 instructions require two clock cycles to execute a single 128-bit instruction on previous architectures, the new Core 2 architecture can execute the same instructions in a single cycle. This improves performance and improves power efficiency as the processor can accomplish the same task in half the time.

Previous features such as Intel Virtualization Technology, Intel Extended Memory 64 Technology and Execute Disable Bit are available on new Core 2 processors as well.

While the performance NDA lifts later tonight availability isn’t expected until July 23rd, 2006. On July 23rd, 2006 consumers should be able to purchase Core 2 Duo and Core 2 Extreme processors from most online retailers and stores. That being said, it's not unlikely that some merchants will start showing stock immediately to pre-empt shipments. Intel will officially announce availability on July 27, 2006.

Intel Desktop Performance Roadmap

Processor
Number

Frequency

FSB

L2
Cache

Price
July 23

C2D X6800

2.93GHz

1066MHz

4MB

$999

C2D E6700

2.67GHz

1066MHz

4MB

$530

C2D E6600

2.4GHz

1066MHz

4MB

$316

C2D E6400

2.13GHz

1066MHz

2MB

$224

C2D E6300

1.86GHz

1066MHz

2MB

$183

P4D 945

3.4GHz

800MHz

2x2MB

$163

P4D 915

2.8GHz

800MHz

2x2MB

$133

P4D 820

2.8GHz

800MHz

2x1MB

$113

P4D 805

2.66GHz

533MHz

2x1MB

$93

Intel has priced Core 2 Duo processors competitively with a traditional Pentium 4 processors on all price points. At the low end of the spectrum are the 2MB L2 cache equipped Core 2 Duo E6300 and E6400 priced at $183 and $224 respectively. For an extra few bucks consumers can pickup the Core 2 E6600 with 4MB of L2 cache. Topping off the Core 2 Duo lineup is the E6700 for $530. Core 2 Duo processors will be available with 1.86, 2.13, 2.4 and 2.67 GHz respectively.

Gamers and enthusiasts looking for more performance can pickup the Core 2 Extreme X6800 for $999. Unlike previous Pentium Extreme Edition processors which only added a faster front-side bus and Hyper Threading technology, the Core 2 Extreme is clocked at 2.93 GHz, a 263 MHz clock frequency advantage over the Core 2 Duo E6700. Hyper-Threading will not be available on any initial Core 2 based processors. Intel will launch a 3.2GHz Core 2 Extreme processor later this year, and a quad-core Kentsfield Core 2 Extreme processor early next year.

With the launch of Core 2 Duo Intel will aggressively cut prices on current Pentium D 945, 915, 820 and 805 processors. The 2x2MB of L2 cache equipped 3.4 GHz dual-core Pentium D 945 will drop to $163 while the 2.8 GHz Pentium D 915 will drop to $133. Pentium D 820 and 805 processors will drop to $113 and $93 respectively.

Core 2 Duo and Core 2 Extreme compatible motherboards are expected from Asus, Epox, Gigabyte, Intel and Universal abit with 975X, P965 and G965 chipsets.

Google Spreadsheets v.1.1.4d

2006-07-13T21:26:00.000-07:00

The version number for Google Spreadsheet has been updated from 1.1.4b to 1.1.4d today — with it comes some new features that will be useful for anybody actually using the service. In addition to new features, the loading time seems much faster to me, though I am unable to do benchmarks that confirm this.

There are now context menus that provide easier access to some basic functionality. You can right click in a cell to perform actions like cut/copy/paste or you can right click on a row to perform actions like inserting and deleting.

Cell formatting has been improved in this release as well. You can manage borders using the new toolbar item, and you can also use the copy/paste function to change only the formatting of a cell if you don't want to lose data.

Even though this is a minor update, it shows that they are continuing to improve the product. I have a feeling the Googlized version of Writely will be making an appearance soon too — the sub-sub domain has been created (writely.l.google.com) which is usually an indication that the sub domain (writely.google.com) shouldn't be far behind.

Google's antisocial downside

2006-07-13T21:23:00.001-07:00

news analysis In the social-networking party sweeping the Web, search titan Google is playing the wallflower. Is it being smart or just plain nerdy?

MySpace.com, Facebook.com and others have turned heads for their skyrocketing traffic and massive appeal among young people, who flock to the sites by the millions to bond via photos, videos, blogs, e-mail and instant messaging. Meanwhile, top portals MSN and Yahoo, threatened by the prospect of losing favored-site ranking to MySpace, have begun to organize their applications around social networking, as well.

But Google's 2-year-old social network Orkut--which connects friends and friends of friends around shared interests, but does not include blogging or video features--has lagged in the popularity contest. It's still not widely available and has yet to adopt the Google brand. "It proved to be a problem for Google so now they're watching it," said Stephen Arnold, author of "The Google Legacy," referring to accusations that Orkut members promoted gang-related violence in countries like Brazil.

"It will be interesting over time to see how close Google can come to understanding people through algorithms."

--Esther Dyson, editor, Release 1.0

But as Google takes time to tinker with another one of its many young services, competitors are fast encroaching on the company's other turf.

Blogger, for example, was the Web's top blog-publishing tool when Google bought it in February 2003. Although Google hasn't turned the service into a full-on social network, Nielsen/NetRatings considers blogging a social activity.

In the last year, MySpace, which lets members include blogs on their personal pages, surpassed Google's Blogger as the top social-networking site by Nielsen's measure in the United States. In May 2006, Blogger had 20 million unique visitors, up 67 percent from May 2005. In contrast, MySpace drew 42 million unique visitors in May, up 329 percent from the same period a year ago, according to Nielsen.

Orkut fell below Nielsen's reporting cutoff at roughly 300,000 unique visitors.

According to Google, which responded via e-mail, the company is "committed" to social networking through Blogger, Google Video and Orkut. "Where it makes sense, Google continues to integrate its products to provide the best user experience possible, as with Gmail and Google Talk, for example," according to an unnamed spokesperson.

Of course, some proponents say Google is savvy not to invest heavily in services that have questionable benefit to its search and advertising business, which is worth near $6 billion annually. What's more likely, they say, is that Google will invest in technologies that can improve Web search and its rate of return on advertising "clicks."

"Fundamentally, information, not people, is Google's forte," said Esther Dyson, editor of tech newsletter Release 1.0, which is owned by CNET Networks, publisher of CNET News.com. "It will be interesting over time to see how close Google can come to understanding people through algorithms," she added.

The rival advantage
Onlookers have doubted the staying power of social networks like MySpace, calling them fads. But efforts to get into social networking by portals Microsoft and Yahoo show that the social services can resonate with Web surfers and prove beneficial to display and search-related advertising.

Microsoft, for example, is leveraging social networking to gain a tactical advantage over rival Google.

Moz Hussain, Microsoft group product manager at MSN Spaces, said that by incorporating social features into its blog publishing tool MSN Spaces, the company is driving consumer loyalty and ad revenue.

MSN Spaces, which was launched in December 2004, has become the most popular social network on a global basis, according to ComScore Networks. That's a fact the software giant attributes to social-networking features inserted last year that alert people to changes within friends' blogs via MSN instant messenger.

"The obvious way you make money is by generating a large number of page views and (displaying) ads against those pages," Hussain said. But he added that "if people use two of our products, they become much more valuable and use all of our products more."

The result has meant more display and search-related advertising, he said.

In the next month or two, Hussain said the company will infuse more networking features into MSN Spaces and its social-network brand, Windows Live Spaces. With the tool, people will be able to see lists of friends on their blogs or IM windows, and then, via an upcoming product called "Friends Explorer," use the cursor to peruse friends of friends.

Arnold, the author, said social software is ultimately a shortcut for MSN in the search race because it provides the software giant with easy markers for spidering the Web and producing relevant results.

"Microsoft's looking...to do something Google's not doing aggressively," Arnold said.

"Google would be smart to start thinking of social networks as infrastructure for other applications on their network as Yahoo has done."

--David Hornik, venture capitalist

Google introduced Orkut in January 2004 as the sideline project of one of its engineers, Orkut Buyukkokten. Like most of the company's new products, Google's Orkut enjoyed enormous buzz early on, thanks to an invitation-only policy that included many Silicon Valley muckety-mucks as community members. But since then, Orkut hasn't grown significantly in the United States compared with the speedy trajectory of other social networks like MySpace.

Most of Orkut's following comes from Portuguese-speaking countries, and Google has encountered problems with the Brazilian government for member content promoting gang violence in that country.

In May, Orkut had 210,000 visitors in the United States, up 85 percent from the year earlier, according to ComScore.

Worldwide, Orkut enjoyed more popularity. It ranked fifth in May by ComScore's measure, more than doubling its visitors for the year to 33.7 million. In contrast, MSN Spaces doubled its visitors to 101 million, and MySpace grew 250 percent to 74 million, according to ComScore.

In contrast, Yahoo's 360 amassed nearly 5 million visitors in May since launching in March 2005. Microsoft's MSN Spaces drew 9.6 million visitors, up more than 200 percent in that same period. And MySpace attracted 51.4 million visitors, up 230 percent year over year.

Social networking demands attention not only for its expanding influence among Web surfers, but also because sites like MySpace are encroaching on the amount of search traffic on the Internet--a key driver of the $14 billion online advertising business.

In May, MySpace for the first time joined the ranks of top search sites counted by ComScore Media Metrix, a New York-based measurement firm. In June, it continued to hold the sixth slot, garnering about 53 million searches, behind No 1. Google, followed by, in order of ranking: Yahoo, MSN, AOL and Ask, according to ComScore. To be sure, it reaches only a small fraction of the market versus Google's 43 percent reach, but its newly held recognition could mean that social networks are the portal of the future, investors say.

This could indicate that Google needs to cultivate its own social aspirations quickly in order to protect its multibillion-dollar advertising business.

"Google was early to the pure-play social network party, which was certainly smart at the time," said David Hornik, a venture capitalist at August Capital. "But social networking has evolved into an important underpinning of other key experiences, such as photo sharing with Flickr or blogging with Vox," a new personal blogging service.

"Google would be smart to start thinking of social networks as infrastructure for other applications on their network as Yahoo has done," Hornik added.

Robert Goldberg, an early stage venture capitalist at Ridgelift Ventures, doubts Google will pay much attention to social networking, and will instead opt to focus on advertising technologies and services such as Google CheckOut, the company's recently launched payment service.

"There are a few things that Google's going to get deadly serious about," said Goldberg, "but social networking is not one of them."

CNET News.com's Elinor Mills contributed to this report.

New Virus Pretends to be WGA

2006-07-13T21:23:00.000-07:00

UPDATED: A virus posing as Microsoft's controversial anti-piracy software is spreading via AOL's popular Instant Messenger network, but it appears to be more of a jab at Microsoft than a real threat.

The message itself does not spoof someone in the user's Buddy list, it comes in from an unknown sender. The virus then comes via a link in the instant message, should the user be foolish enough to click on a link sent by someone they don't know.

Once infected, the virus registers itself as a new system driver service named "wgavn" and has the public display name of "Windows Genuine Advantage Validation Notification." If the user shuts it down, the user is informed that removing or stopping the service will cause system instability.

Unlike WGA, the virus poses a real danger because it disables the Windows firewall and opens a backdoor to the infected computer. It's not known at this point whether anyone has actually exploited such an opening caused by the new virus.

"If you get it, it's as bad as any of them," said Randy Abrams, director of technical education for Eset Software, developer of the NOD32 antivirus program. "Ok, it's not flashing your BIOS chip or grabbing specific banking info, but once you get a backdoor on a computer, it's trivial to download a bot or do much more."

ESET's anti-virus hunters first heard of the WGA impersonator, which it dubbed Win32/IRCBot.OO, on June 29 and got in a sample of the virus on July 1. But Abrams admits it hasn't been thoroughly examined because as far as threats go, this one is pretty far down the list. It ranked 1,400 on Eset's threat list.

"The choice of names makes it clear it's an attack on WGA. Its effect is not in harming users but in making bad publicity for Microsoft," said Abrams.

Windows Genuine Advantage is a controversial utility in Windows XP that verifies that the installation is not pirated. However, it has drawn user ire and two lawsuits over the fact that Microsoft did not disclose what it does. Also, users were forced to download WGA or forfeit receiving non-critical software updates from Microsoft.

At this point, Abrams notes there are probably more names for the virus than there are infections. It's a long-standing problem in the antivirus vendor world; every vendor gives a new virus its own choice of name. When a new-found virus comes in, the first concern is finding a fix, not worrying about naming conventions, Abrams pointed out.

According to the virus names list on AV-test.org, AVG calls the virus Worm/Opanki.IP; BitDefender calls it Backdoor.IRCBot.JV, F-Prot calls it a new variant of W32/Threat-HLLIM-based!Maximus, Kaspersky calls it Backdoor.Win32.IRCBot.st, McAfee calls it W32/Opanki.worm.gen and Sophos calls it W32/Cuebot-K.

Updates prior version to correct spelling of Abrams' name.

Microsoft drops its XP pirate checks

2006-07-03T19:34:00.000-07:00

MICROSOFT has dropped Big Brother-style plans to track down pirated copies of Windows XP, dumping elements of its Windows Genuine Advantage Notification after they ignited a firestorm of controversy.

The stealth application, introduced with auto updates in Australia in April as part of a pilot scheme, "phoned home" every time the computer was booted to confirm that the operating system was genuine.

If the software was pirated it triggered a series of irritating warnings. Now Microsoft has reacted to user anger by switching off the boot-up check.

The company has retained another tool, WGA Validation, which checks back periodically with Microsoft headquarters.

A Microsoft spokeswoman declined to speak to The Australian about the issue.

"No Microsoft spokespeople have spoken to the press regarding the update to the WGA Notifications program," she said.

US users have already filed a class action against Microsoft alleging that the tool is spyware, and Australians are fuming over the covert nature of the program.

Computer repair companies, frustrated that the changes were introduced with no advance warning, have been left to deal with angry customers who have inadvertently bought PCs with pirated operating systems.

"Most people say the validation procedures are probably fair enough, but if your software is legitimate and they come back and check it every day, well, that's why people are a bit reactive," said Ian Smith, a user angered by the WGA Notification pilot.

"I bought my software legitimately, I validated it, I go to Microsoft for updates, and if they want to check it then, that's okay. But coming back every day is too much."

The secrecy of the initiative, with the tool downloaded through the Windows auto-update feature, is what has angered users most of all. Mr Smith said the anti-piracy measure was "slipped under the radar", making it difficult to avoid and leaving most users completely unaware that their system was checking up on them.

"It ended up on my machine without me knowing about it," he said. "The fact that they didn't tell anyone was the worst part of it."

The notification scheme has caught plenty of people unaware, with computer service companies left to deal with clients who thought they had bought their software legitimately, only to find, sometimes years down the track, that it was pirated.

Mark Ahern, a specialist with Brisbane support firm computersbehavingbadly, said some of his clients who bought their hardware elsewhere had found they had been ripped off.

"Not many people realise that unless there's a sticker on the box, the chances are it's dodgy," he said. "I had three clients who had their systems flagged as non-genuine, and they had paid their money to the whitebox assembler and been stung."

Microsoft should have warned users before introducing the changes, he said. "Part of the issue has been that there was no form of warning," he said. "The end-user licence states that they can do that, but who reads it?"

Mr Ahern said the WGA program was part of a wider attempt by Microsoft to slowly but surely crack down on pirated operating systems and other software. Ultimately, even additional hardware may be locked out if the operating system was pirated.

"At the moment it's an annoying warning, but the machine still functions," he said. "My theory is that they'll gradually make it so you can't install software, and it will be necessary to have the genuine stuff."

San Diego lawyer Scott Kamber has filed a class action against Microsoft on behalf of millions of computer users, alleging the tool is spyware.

A Microsoft Australia spokeswoman refused to discuss the action. "WGA is not spyware," the company's statement says.

"It's installed with the consent of the user and seeks only to notify the user if a proper licence is not in place".

The Australian

The Top Ten Most Beautiful OS X Apps

2006-07-03T19:22:00.000-07:00

Top ten lists are a dime a dozen, but I haven’t seen one floating around yet on the most beautiful OS X apps out there. And as someone who’s hitting MacUpdate daily as a small part of my job, always on the hunt for what’s cool and new, I thought I’d share some of my insight, condensed down for mass consumption into a neat little list. Before you go on, remember that this is going to be controversial no matter what. I haven’t found a single top ten list that doesn’t get most people complaining. But honestly, after a lot of thought, I feel there are very few truly beautiful OS X apps left out if you include the honorable mentions. Oh, and before you begin, note that Apple apps (like Front Row and Aperture) have been knocked off the list. This one features independently developed freeware and shareware apps. So, without further ado, presenting the ten most beautiful OS X apps in the world:

The List

Starting off this list is the first of two extremely eye-pleasing P2P apps. (Coincidentally, the other one links to this from within its Help menu as the recommended BitTorrent client.) Transmission is an exercise in simplicity and Aqualicious UI design, with notable exception to its icon. (Look for a replacement icon coming soon on this blog by Tom.) For all of you Azureus and BitTorrent users out there, feast your eyes on this baby. And for an even appearance, download an alternate set of toolbar icons by artist Matt Ball.

The Potion Factory’s second release may not be quite as useful as Podcast Maker is for many podcasters (it’s also on this list), but the UI is just as lickable. Starting with the mouth-watering application icon (ok, I’ll stop with the food analogies there), the eye candy gets only better. (Doh.) You definitely have to try this one to experience it. For what is ultimately an extremely fun voice recording and filtering toy, there’s been a lot of love put into this app. You’ll notice some really cute icons for each filter effect by the excellent Mischa McLachlan of Zyotism, and the secondary windows for setting reminders and viewing alerts are just as gorgeous. If you have any kids, or never fully grew up, check this one out. Useful as a voice recorder, fun as a prank tool, and costs less than a Yakbak or Whoopee cushion.

I’m no podcaster, but Andy and Jin at the Potion Factory must be doing something right with their flagship app, Podcast Maker, because after one look at the demo, I actually fired up Garageband and tried to record a few shows, just to fiddle around with PCM. An hour or two later I realized I wasn’t cut out to be a celebrity podcaster, but regardless, the app’s UI was something I was glad to have experienced. For all experienced or novice podcasters out there, there is no better tool on the Mac to put your shows together. Just ask “The Office” creator Ricky Gervais, the band “They Might Be Giants”, Senator Debbie Stabenow, or any of the other celebrity podcasters and happy customers listed in the Podcast Maker gallery.

Ahh, finally, the much loved FTP application from Panic. Transmit, around since OS 9, made the UI jump to OS X with much grace (unlike some other competitors still figuring it out), and has since matured at a very consistent, comfortable pace. The single most impressive UI feature of Transmit is the remarkable amount of features and functionality it squeezes into its pretty, pitch-perfect Aqua window. Basically, you’re left with the feeling that if Apple had their own “iFTP”, it’d look something like this.

Just about every corner of thish app oozes with polish and works as you’d expect it to. Tabs and column view are reimplemented from scratch better than just about any other shareware app out there, and Transmit even comes with a pretty nice widget for customers to use in the Dashboard. (And hey, that’s coming from the guy selling a competing widget.) It’s an app I use nearly everyday, and use with utter pleasure.

The small shareware/freeware Mac game market doesn’t exactly offer a wealth of UI gems, so this is pretty much the exception. While the icon needs some work, Quinn’s interface looks more like a sleek skin for an expensive utility than, well, a tetris client. Pop open the drawer, and you get a slick animated radar type dealy while searching for servers, and just about every action in the game is smoothly animated, whether it’s the pane shifting around after joining a server, or typed chat messages quickly wiping in with a neat, subtle sci-fi sound. The score display looks extremely cool, and the blocks themselves look suitably clean, though I’d like to see some slicker skins. (Future “Pimp your App” feature on this blog perhaps?)

The coolest part perhaps is how far this freeware game has come along in the UI department. When I tried it a few weeks ago for the first time in over a year, my jaw dropped. I’ve never before seen an app’s looks improve this much. Oh, and the game itself is fun too.

By far the simplest in function and UI among the rest of these apps, AppZapper packs an incredible amount of tasteful visual punch per pixel into its tiny, efficient UI. Factor in the animated dropzone, the truly iconic application icon, the smooth sliding and fading between window views, the construction warning strip for “safe apps”, and the utter elegance of the package as a whole, and maybe this #1 spot will start to sound reasonable. And let’s not forget that beauty is not limited to what our eyes take in. I wouldn’t call it ‘beautiful’ necessarily, but there is something to be said about this magical combination of screen flashing and the “zap” noise that makes appzapping waaaay more fun than it should be. If this doesn’t snag this year’s Apple Design Award for Best OS X User Experience, I will honestly be very, very shocked.

David Watanabe’s extremely slick and polished P2P application Acquisition won’t win any Apple Design Awards for a pretty glaring reason (think Apple’s tenuous deals with the record companies), but if the “Best OS X User Experience” category was judged without politics, this would surely take it, or at least make runner-up. That not being the case, Dave can hopefully take some comfort with this spot on the list for a very well-deserving app. Sporting one of the most polished unified window apps out there, Acquisition manages to pack in a lot of features while maintaining what is ultimately a surprisingly spare and aesthetically pleasing UI. There is no single outstanding visual element here, unlike Delicious Library’s shelves, or CoverFlow’s 3D effects. It’s all about the presentation as a whole.

Props to the slick in-list progress bars, the visually contextual search button that animates while searching, the Mail rules style filtering UI, and even the use of the main pane for one of the most visually pleasing nags ever, and some discreet branding for registered users. Acquisition does a lot with its single window interface, and is so intensely polished and perfect, that you just know the app is in really, really talented hands. Which is true, because with three apps in this post (one as an honorable mention), Watanabe is a powerhouse dev with a perfect eye for masterful UI design.

This little app came out of nowhere last year, and has since managed to pretty much universally wow everyone who tries it with its unique 3D visual effects. CoverFlow attempts to fix one of the more glaring shortcomings of the modern music jukebox application’s user interface: its lack of visual navigation, and general lack of attention to album art. The solution the app’s UI offers is by far the most fun way to browse music since flipping through LP’s at the local record store. (The icon pictured is coming soon. For now you can download it and install it through artist Jasper Hauser’s blog by dropping in the icns file into CoverFlow’s resources folder.

Newsfire 0.1 debuted two summers ago to a very crowded RSS feed reader market which included the venerable NetNewsWire and of course the not yet out Safari RSS, announced at WWDC just months before. That hasn’t stopped this app from fast becoming one of the most popular RSS feed readers out there though, in large part due to its obsessively polished UI. Watanabe looked towards iChat’s buddy list for inspiration, and the result is a UI that contains a feed list in Newsfire that smoothly shifts around items when feeds are updated, displays unread items in familiar green badges, and perhaps most importantly, presents news and podcasts in an extremely slick fashion. Sure, even at version 1.3 Newsfire lacks some of its competitors’ features and customizability, but this is a case where you won’t have a problem with giving up UI control to developer Watanabe’s hands. He knows what he’s doing, and frankly, sometimes, it’s best not to mess with works of art.

With a reported $250,000 in sales in its first month of release, Delicious Library will go down in history as one of the most successful shareware application launches ever. With a price tag of $40, it’s also the most expensive shareware app on this list. So, why did masses of people pay a solid chunk of change for what is in its essence an app that helps you organize your media collection and borrow items out to your friends? Witness the power of UI design.

Clearly, Delicious Library’s most viscerally appealing feature is its ability to let users relive the joy of building their collection, this time for free and with little hassle on their Mac. What Delicious Library did to differentiate itself from the competition in this regard, in addition to its slick improvement of the “adding” process with iSight barcode scanning support, was represent your media collection about as realistically as it was technically possible to do. The super slick representation of CD album art and book covers downloaded from Amazon as jewel cases and real paperback and hardcover books in a virtual wooden bookshelf truly resonated with its users, and I feel, ultimately contributed hugely to its success. There’s more of course, but I’ll let you try this app out for yourself, in the unlikely event that you haven’t yet of course.

Honorable Mentions

Finally, there was of course a list just as long of apps that didn’t quite make the cut. If you found some gems in the top ten and want to explore further, I highly recommend trying these additional ten apps out: Inquisitor by David Watanabe, TextMate by Macromates, Pixadex by The IconFactory & Panic, Omniweb and OmniDazzle by The OmniGroup, RapidWeaver 3 by Realmac Software, CSSEdit by MacRabbit, Comic Life by Plasq, Adium 1.0 SVN, Quicksilver by BlackTree, Inc., and StickyBrain by Chronos.

These apps are all pleasures to behold, and definitely worth a spin.

Conclusion

My thoughts after compiling this list? I have to say that there are definitely a lot of clean, HIG complying freeware and shareware apps out there, but when you try to really narrow it down to the truly slick, beautiful, and eye-catching, there ultimately aren’t that many contenders. And, let me add, the shareware contenders listed in this post generally tend to do pretty well. Developers, listen up. UI matters, a lot more now than it did in OS 9, or does in Windows, and I’m not talking about just slapping in some nice toolbar icons and calling it a day, customers can respond amazingly well to what many programmers will write off as extraneous eye candy. (Delicious Library’s shelving? AppZapper’s screen flash?) Some of the most successful Macintosh shareware companies are represented on this list (Delicious Monster, Panic, and The OmniGroup among others) and I think you can get an early glimpse at the next generation of powerhouse companies as well, and it’s not a coincidence. Good UI sells, so give it the time it deserves. And for the rest of you, enjoy these apps! Hopefully you’ll find a few gems in here that you’ll be trying out for the first time.

Why Windows takes so long to shut down.

2006-07-03T19:16:00.000-07:00

We all have been there. It is 4:55 and you want to get out of work...But you want to make sure your system is shutdown for the night. You dutifully close all of your applications and start shutting down

5 minutes later it *finally* powers off

It happens to more machines that it should. I decided to see what the problem might be. I searched google, forums, and newsgroups for an answer. The biggest culprit is a problem unloading the current users profile.

This can happen when third party, or even Microsoft applications have not properly cleaned up when exiting. Windows will keep trying to unload the profile until Windows finally decides that it can't and should shutdown. Even if you find the application causing the problem - it may be impossible to do anything about it.

This is why Microsoft released the User Profile Hive Cleanup Service

This free utility automatically cleans up user profiles and prevents you from playing the timeout wait game.

Once you run the setup wizard it will look like the installer did nothing. If you open up your services list, you will see that a new service is running in the background:

The idea of this program is to reclaim resources when a task is finished (memory, handles, etc). It accomplishes this by monitoring for users to log off and verifying that unused resources are reclaimed. This approach is superior as it works for any known reason that profiles do not unload and also will keep working to address new unknown issues.

Now when you go to shutdown, logoff or restart it will happen within seconds. Instead of minutes.

The Anatomy of the Google Product Cycle

2006-07-03T18:59:00.000-07:00

BusinessWeek's hype-killing article on Google's product line has everyone buzzing about the company's product cycle. Guest writer Garry Bibb explains the process -- it all starts with a Battlestar Galactica marathon and some Mike's Hard Lemonade.

Friday Night
Two googletards meet for Battlestar Galactica marathon on UPN but end up calculating their worth as the weekend stock price hovers around $415; after two epicurean Mike's Hard Lemonades, a message is sent to an internal developer list with an idea for (a) Google Base or (b) an old Yahoo/Microsoft product with a new AJAX interface.

Saturday Night/Sunday Morning
Senior VP Marissa Mayer returns to her email client from a night of weeping in front of a vanity mirror, costumed in lingerie and stilettos no one knows she owns; realizes (a) Google Base or (b) an old Yahoo/Microsoft product with a new AJAX interface is exactly what the company needs.

Monday Morning
CEO Eric Schmidt receives idea at a weekly staff meeting; pretends to understand it; in a halfhearted attempt to save face, makes offhand remark about how processors are much faster than when he was in grad school at Berkeley.

Two Weeks Later
Upstart, 20-something business development and/or marketing Googlies learn about it at the Googleplex cafeteria; confuse it with a competitor for Oracle's database solution and/or a product that will take down Boeing. Spread it casually at Marina bars to all their other dotcom friends.

45 Days Later
Om Malik receives phone call; does investigation; dispells rumors that an aircraft is involved but still poses question: is this an Ebay-Killer??

46 Days Later
Michael Arrington publishes "exclusive" screenshots on TechCrunch; says it lacks features which his Web 2.0 company Edgeio has; provides an irrelevant recommendation for Zooomr or Skobee.

47 Days Later
Zawodny blogs; laments that Yahoo had this idea in 1999; considers quitting; instead posts excel spread sheets cataloging (a) his weight loss (b) his Cessna's mileage.

48 Days Later
Chaos ensues at Microsoft, Yahoo, and/or Ebay; Fox buys Myspace anyway; Steve Ballmer throws a chair.

49 Days Later
John Battelle's intern discovers rumor, "breaks" story; Schmidt denies rumors to the New York Times; says Google is not out to displace any other company.

2 Months Later
Google blog announces a product which will displace some other company; Google engineers realize this is actually (a) Google Base or (b) an old Yahoo/Microsoft product with a new AJAX interface. Lose heart; but add it to their del.icio.us pages anyway.

2 Months and 1 week Later
Wall Street clods doubt Google after much inquiry; stock drops to $385; panic at the plex.

2 Months and 2 weeks later
Mayer holds damage control press event; research director Peter Norvig shows pictures of caseless servers last used in 1999; claims computers without cases are much more efficient; "70/20/10" is bandied about along with shrimp cocktail.

2 Months and 3 weeks later
CFO Reyes figures out math to make Google meet quarterly expectations; considers the follical implant surgery but in a late, lonely night at the office, rediscovers appreciation for the Jean Luc-Picard look.

3 months later
The math works; on a Friday the stock balloons to $415 in after hours; coincindentally, two googletards meet for another Battlestar Galactica marathon on UPN...

HD-DVD clearly outshines Blu-ray

2006-07-03T18:58:00.000-07:00

Q: What are your thoughts regarding the new HD-DVD and Blu-ray high definition video discs?

Thaddeus Mark, Castle Shannon

A: HD-DVD and Blu-ray Disc are the two new formats competing to be the high-definition video disc of the future. Each promises to provide much better picture quality than standard DVD. The formats are not compatible. HD-DVD players will not play Blu-ray discs, and vice versa. (Think Beta vs. VHS again.) You can buy the Toshiba HD-A1 HD-DVD player for $500. The only Blu-ray player currently available, the Samsung BDP-1000, costs $1,000.

I recently saw demonstrations of both. The Blu-ray demo was at a top-notch home theater specialty shop. It used a front projection system and a prototype Sony player, and it was led by Sony executives using custom-made demo material. I saw a regular production HD-DVD player with a 50-inch plasma TV in a Best Buy store. Both looked great to my eyes. Obviously, the Blu-ray demo was bound to be more impressive given the environment and demo material.

Even taking this into account, I was very impressed and left with no reason to think Blu-ray would be anything but incredible in production form.

Given that the demonstrations used radically different equipment, software and surroundings, I did a little follow-up research online and was shocked at what those who own both formats have to say about their real-world experience.

Based on the first round of reports, the HD-DVD format is garnering praise, but Blu-ray is garnering almost universal scorn from reviewers and enthusiasts alike. Reviewer Evan Powell, of projectorcentral.com, commented of Blu-ray: "The image quality does not measure up to what we would expect from a high-definition source, and it certainly falls short of the hype."

At the AVS Forum, home-theater buffs had even harsher reactions. A sampling of their comments: "There's no getting around the fact that, at this time, BD is not as good as HD-DVD"; "I watched one and a half movies when I realized that they look horrible. ... needs to go to the scrap heap"; "This has to count as one of the greatest AV disappointments I can remember!"; "I took it back after two days. ... I just couldn't justify keeping the Samsung when I considered what I'm getting from the Toshiba at half the price"; and "Too much money, too little performance. It went back!" You can read these and more comments under the Blu-ray player and HD-DVD player forums at www.avsforum.com.

The bad launch does not mean Blu-ray is doomed, as more movies and players are to come, and they are likely to improve.

Industry politics and money will play a role in the format war, too. In two weeks, I will discuss more on HD-DVD, Blu-ray and DVD.

Don Lindich is the creator of the "Digital Made Easy" series of books. Submit your audio, video and digital photography questions to donlindich@yahoo.com.

Google's secret IPv6 plans

2006-06-25T05:11:00.000-07:00

Google Operating System reports on Alex Lightman's theory why Google is buying up "dark fiber" — to pursue IPv6 initiatives. According to Lightman, Google has a huge block of "slash 20" addresses — exactly what is needed to be a large scale service provider.

That got me wondering — what does it take to get a block of IPv6 addresses? I turn to ARIN to find the answer — the information I found seems to provide some confirmation to Lightman's speculation.

To qualify for an initial allocation of IPv6 address space, an organization must:
a) be an LIR;
b) not be an end site;
c) plan to provide IPv6 connectivity to organizations to which it will assign /48s, by advertising that connectivity through its single aggregated address allocation; and
d) be an existing, known ISP in the ARIN region or have a plan for making at least 200 /48 assignments to other organizations within five years.

If you take ARIN's policies at face value, these statements must be true:

a) Google is an LIR (Local Internet Registry). LIRs are generally an ISP whose customers are typically end users or other ISPs.

b) Google is not considered an "end site" (therefore must be a service provider)
c) Google has plans to provide IPv6 connectivity to organizations.
d) Within 5 years Google will provide connectivity to at least 200 organizations.

How do we know that Google falls under these policies? Well, if we look up "Google" on ARIN, we can see that in March 2005 they registered a block of IPv6 addresses. The parent of that block is ARIN.

Firefox 1.5 vs. Opera 9

2006-06-25T05:10:00.000-07:00

I’ve been a diehard Firefox user sense before Beta 1. I wrote my Firefox Guide earlier this year, once that page hit Slashdot there were several comments about how Opera does all of that and more, without the need of the extensions that Firefox has. I put a mental note that I should check this out. Well a few months later and Opera 9 has been released. Well I guess now is a good time to look at this Opera vs. Firefox talk that everyone flamed about. So the goal in this article is to see what is better under different environments. So let’s give it a go.

Both Firefox and Opera have many more features than Internet Explorer. This isn’t about tabbed browsing, having a search box on the right of the navigation bar, added support for extra features, or anything else we’ve come to expect in these browsers. My goal in this is to go into the features that Opera is showcasing and to see how well Firefox holds up.

Features

BitTorrent Client – Well I am honestly not sure what the point of this feature is, none the less it is a feature. I am usually not the type of person that goes for a once size fits all application. I like to have a different application for each use, web, email, irc, ftp, and more. I do tent to leave programs open for a century or two and I only reboot my box when it’s totally necessary. I am currently using uTorrent as my default torrent application so I went to grab a CentOS ISO file. I do not have the exact memory usage of both applications but I can say the memory usage jumped a bit on Opera and I think uTorrent was around 10-12MB. Well Opera has Firefox on this, 1 this feature is built in, and 2 there isn’t an extension that adds a BT client to Firefox.

IRC – Setting up IRC was very straight forward. I actually liked it a lot. I am not going to go into details on how to configure an IRC client, but it works great. For an IRC client in Firefox the extension ChatZilla works well, but I honestly have to say I like this much better, and would actually use it. I currently use mIRC.

IRC Screenshot

Add Favorite Search Engines – This is a very standard feature although I do like how they did the layout of the menu.

Content Blocker – This I thought was an awesome idea, just not implemented very well. An example I was on Digg and wanted to see if I could remove the ads on the homepage. I right clicked, and went down to the content blocker; well in short it said hit the shift key when clicking on the time. It didn’t work. Firefox doesn’t have a built in feature that does this, but the extension AdBlock/AdBlockPlus does this very well. You are able to block any element of the page.

Thumbnail Preview – When browsing with lots of tabs I often wonder what one tab is when I am trying to find a certain page. I often use the Ctrl-Tab shortcut in Firefox to browse through tabs. Well Opera has gone many steps above Firefox in solving this problem by showing a thumbnail of the webpage when you hold the mouse over the tab. Check out the screenshot below. There is an extension for Firefox, Viamatic foXpose that displayed thumbnails of all the pages on a separate tab. I used that a few times but found it to be slow and cumbersome and removed it very soon afterward. In writing this article I have already found this feature to be very useful.

Transfer Manager – This is very similar to the Download Manager in Firefox, except its in a tab. Very cool implementation and reduces the number of windows open.

Fast Forward – This is a very interesting item. I am not quite sure what to say about this, I haven’t found it very useful at all. Fast Forward will detect the most likely "next page" link and greatly simplify navigation in multi-page documents such as search results and image galleries. Although I must admit I haven’t been on forums, Digg, Slashdot, photo galleries, or Google much this afternoon. Maybe when I start browsing those sites I’ll fall in love with this feature.

Notes – Save text from web pages or write notes for later viewing. I’ve been looking for something like this forever. I’m in love.

Sessions – Saving sessions is very important to me. Incase you don’t know what it is, saving sessions basically allows the user to have for example 5 tabs open. Close Opera. Open it again and all your pages are where you left them. This is a wonderful tool, although right now I rarely close Firefox because it lacks this feature. I do use an extension, SessionSaver, but in some instances I have found it to be very unreliable. The only time I use it is when I need to restart Firefox after a few days to recover the memory lost in leaks.

Mouse Gestures – I personally haven’t ever been a fan of these features. There is a Firefox extension, Mouse Gestures that basically has the same features that Opera has out of the box. For the people that love this feature this probably kicks totally ass to have it built it. For me it’s cool but I don’t use it.

Trash Can – I know that whenever I close a tab I didn’t mean to a few words start coming to my memory. Well Opera has what they call the Trash Can. The extension in Firefox I use for this is TabMixPlus, I also use that to drag and drop tabs around. Opera has drag and drop support built in, as well as the feature to drag and drop tabs across different windows. I’ve even used that today a few times.

Speed / Memory Usage

When running Firefox I usually have at least 10-20 windows open at any given time. Therefore memory usage is a big deal to me. I have been using Opera for about 8-9 hours at this point so my experience is nothing like my experience with Firefox. When browsing I noticed the CPU usage was very minor compared to Firefox rendering the same page. RAM usage with 28 tabs in Firefox and 22 in Opera was 89MB and 69MB. Opera as you can tell was much better on ram usage, and over time seemed to stay lower even though I had more tabs open.

Screenshot of the 28 tabs I opened.

Innovations

There are a few innovations that I really found handy and useful. First off when clicking on the address bar this nice box drops down with Hope, Top 10, Bookmarks, Search Box, and Price Comparison. This saves a bit of time of having to move the mouse all over the place to find these items.

Using Ctrl-Tab to switch menus is very fast, but often I will fly right past the window I need or have to go through them all when searching for a window. Opera has a nice menu that drops down to display all the page titles for you to see and browse.

Disappointments

I often double click on a word to highlight it so I can copy the text or for some other usage that isn’t coming into my brain right now, but in Opera a menu pops up. For some reason I find this very annoying and unwanted.

I love the scroll wheel on my mouse. I often use it when trying to find something on a long webpage where scrolling is required. Duh. However in Opera whenever I click the scroll wheel on my mouse the cursor jumps the exact center of the page and then starts scrolling. Another annoyance is when I am middle clicking links to open then up into a new tab and I miss the link and the cursor jumps to the center of the page.

Safari, the web browser bundled with OS X and Opera both have the button to close the window on each tab. I personally love having it on the right side of the window, like Firefox has it, unless you use an extension to have it on each tab. I wish there was a way to change it to be like Firefox, but then again I guess it’s something that in time will grow on me.

I am sure there is a way to turn these annoyances off, I just haven’t found out how to, yet.

Widgets

Just like in MacOS X 10.4, Opera has the ability to have them to. I browsed around the Widgets page on Opera’s website and didn’t find anything (yet) that really struck me. I think widget support is needed, but not nearly as powerful as the extension support in Firefox.

Conclusion

I am sure many of the shortfalls in Firefox that have been fixed via extensions will be added in Firefox 2.0. Firefox 2.0 is currently in Alpha and Beta, but I am not including anything on because I want this base fully on finished products.

In short when I first opened Opera I expected another Firefox. After using Opera most of today, and going through all the features I can think of I am starting to like it more and more. Maybe it’s time I start an Opera Guide like the Firefox Guide.

I am officially torn on what browser to use; only time will tell. What I can see if Opera being a replacement to Firefox due to the amount of built in features, but Firefox has many powerful extensions that might take some time looking for replacements. Look for an addition to this article with widgets to replace some of my beloved Firefox

Microsoft: Vista Most Secure OS Ever

2006-06-16T01:40:00.000-07:00

Microsoft senior vice president Bob Muglia opened up TechEd 2006 in Boston Sunday evening by proclaiming that Windows Vista was the most secure operating system in the industry. But a bold statement can only go so far, and much of this week's conference has been spent reinforcing that point.

From the network perimeter to deep inside the Windows client, the significance of security has permeated into every facet of technology. Norman Mailer said that 20th century man's default status was anxiety. We have barely dipped our toes into the 21st, and our default status has already been elevated to outright fear.

Consumers are being plagued with spam, phishing attacks and spyware, while the corporate world fends off data and identity theft. Microsoft believes its new wave of software will be the panacea for such problems, thanks to the Security Development Lifecycle (SDL) and technologies such as BitLocker and smart cards.

Windows Vista is the first operating system from Microsoft to be built from the ground up using the SDL development model. Every bit of code is scrutinized for Common Criteria Certification and security compliance checkpoints must be met along the way.

Services are now run with reduced privileges that contain profiles specifying allowed file system, registry and network activities. Further below the surface, the Vista kernel makes it harder for rootkits to elude detection, while better protecting against unauthorized patches.

Spyware and malware threats, meanwhile, are contained by the operating system's built-in scanning engine that is based upon Windows Defender. In addition, the Vista firewall extends the functionality added in Windows XP Service Pack 2 to provide full directional filtering and application blocking.

Potentially malicious applications are also restricted with Vista's new User Account Control feature, which has spurred a great deal of complaints from beta testers. UAC forces programs to run in a specific Integrity Layer, with a default of medium, and request elevated privileges from the user when performing system commands or writing to sensitive directories.

Internet Explorer 7 in Vista runs in a low Integrity Level known as "Protected Mode" in order to prevent malicious Web sites from compromising an entire system. Features such as a phishing filter and security status bar add further safety checks for users.

UAC additionally enables file and registry virtualization for programs needing administrator access. This capability will ensure backwards compatibility without sacrificing the security of Windows Vista. For example, a program trying to write files to the root of the hard drive will actually be writing to a special folder called the virtual store.

On the hardware level, Microsoft has implemented BitLocker full disk encryption. Using a TPM chip located on the motherboard or USB stick, BitLocker literally encrypts data while it is being written to the disk. If a laptop were stolen, the hard drive would be inaccessible without a recovery key.

Microsoft says the 256-bit AES encryption technology only causes a single-digit slowdown when communicating with the disk, and the majority of users would never notice it was running.

Vista will also support smart cards with its user-based file and folder encryption technology known as EFS. Moreover, integrated rights management (RMS) enables organizations to enforce access policies for individual documents, which would prevent them from falling into the wrong hands.

But Microsoft acknowledges that nothing is infallible when it comes to computer security. In turn, the company has employed black hat hackers for what is called a penetration, or pen, test team. This group has only one duty: to break the security in Windows Vista and help the company develop fixes for the vulnerabilities.

Microsoft is also looking outside to shore up its defenses. The Redmond company at TechEd 2006 announced the formation of the Microsoft Security Response Alliance. MSRA builds upon five other alliances currently helping to organize security efforts, and will offer a portal for collaboration along with a communication framework for sharing security response information.

All of these security changes won't be easy on application compatibility, but Microsoft says it is doing its best to mitigate any problems by the time Windows Vista ships early next year. The company is working closely with developers to add custom "shims" that will ensure their programs are compatible with User Account Control.

Still, Microsoft admits that antivirus software, games and some applications will continue to have problems. Work to streamline the experience for consumers will not stop with the final release, however, as Microsoft already has compatibility improvements planned through Windows Vista Service Pack 1.

Linux Coming to Mobile Phones

2006-06-16T01:38:00.000-07:00

A group of the world's mobile operators and handset makers said today they are joining together to develop an open-source Linux-based operating system that could to be used in phones by the end of 2007.

Mobile network operators Vodafone and NTT DoCoMo and handset makers Motorola, Samsung, NEC and Panasonic, said they would form an independent not-for-profit group to share the costs and speed up mobile software and handsets and cut the number of operating platforms on the market.

A world-class Linux-based platform aims to provide key benefits for the mobile industry including lower development costs, increased flexibility, and a richer mobile ecosystem - all of which contribute to the group's ultimate objective of creating compelling, differentiated and enhanced consumer experiences.

To help guide these efforts, the companies are also announcing their intent to form an independent foundation. The founder companies' objective is to realize the development of the platform based on the contributions of all interested stakeholders through an open and transparent process. Focusing primarily on the joint development and marketing of an API specification, architecture, supporting source code-based reference implementation components and tools, the foundation intends to leverage the benefits of community-based and proprietary development.

Foundation members also intend to work on the following:

- Implementation of a fair, balanced, transparent contribution and participation process across the current and future membership
- Establishment of safeguards to minimize fragmentation
- Collaboration on a mobile Linux developer ecosystem
- Coordination with existing industry organizations
- Seeking participation from all interested companies across the value chain, including device manufacturers, operators, chipset manufacturers, independent software vendors, integrators and third-party developers

Once established, the foundation aims to provide an API specification, architecture, references to open source code, new source code-based reference implementation components (to be developed and committed by foundation members) and specifications for referenced third party software. The foundation also plans to provide a test suite to assess and demonstrate product conformance to the platform specification.

While the initial foundation members plan to be primarily responsible for delivering the development of the first reference implementation of the mobile operating platform, they will also actively encourage membership participation of other companies committed to its development. More information about how others can join the foundation will be made available at a later date.

Robot Hall of Fame inducts 5 new members

2006-06-16T01:35:00.000-07:00

Robots Made Their Marks in Film, Factories and Research

PITTSBURGH—A robotic pet, an industrial robot and three robot stars of classic movies will be inducted into Carnegie Mellon University's Robot Hall of Fame® in a June 21 ceremony at the Sheraton Station Square in Pittsburgh.

Actor Anthony Daniels, who played the robot C-3PO in all six "Star Wars" films, returns as master of ceremonies and Daniel H. Wilson, author of "How to Survive a Robot Uprising," published in 2005, will be the keynote speaker.

This year's class of inductees, announced in April, include Maria, the art deco star of the 1927 silent film classic "Metropolis"; Gort, the metallic giant sent to Earth to establish peace in the 1951 sci-fi thriller "The Day the Earth Stood Still"; David, the boy-like android who bonded with his adoptive mother in Steven Spielberg's "Artificial Intelligence: AI"; Sony's AIBO, a dog-like entertainment robot that became a research and education workhorse; and the Selective Compliance Assembly Robot Arm (SCARA), an industrial robot that helped make inexpensive consumer electronic devices commonplace.

Participants in the ceremony will include SCARA inventor Hiroshi Makino, an emeritus professor at the University of Yamanashi in Japan, and actor Billy Gray, who played actress Patricia Neal's young son in "The Day the Earth Stood Still" and later became a boomer icon as Bud in the hit '50s TV show "Father Knows Best."

The affair will cap the RoboBusiness Conference and Exposition, a two-day international business development event for mobile robotics and intelligent systems, produced by Robotic Trends Inc.

This is the third induction for the hall of fame, which was founded in 2003 by James H. Morris, dean of Carnegie Mellon West, the university's four-year-old campus in Silicon Valley. It highlights the contributions of robots to society by honoring robots that are technological landmarks, as well as fictional robots that captured the public imagination and inspired roboticists to make dreams reality. Inductees are chosen by an international panel of researchers, educators and enthusiasts.

"When C-3PO was inducted into the Robot Hall of Fame, he felt his existence had finally been given the validation it deserved, rather than the brush-off usually awarded him by characters like Han Solo," said Daniels, a veteran of stage and screen who served as emcee when the golden android was inducted in 2004. "Now, I've been asked to return to Carnegie Mellon to host this year's awards. I feel validated as a human."

Wilson, who earned a doctorate in robotics at Carnegie Mellon's famed Robotics Institute, will tell "The Truth About Robots" in his keynote address. A film version of his tongue-in-cheek guidebook, "How to Survive a Robot Uprising," starring comedian Mike Myers, is slated for release by Paramount Pictures next year.

The ceremony will feature video clips of each of the robots in action and commentary by people who have been involved in their creation or their nomination to the hall.

SCARA (Click on these images to download high resolution versions)

Matthew T. Mason, director of Carnegie Mellon's Robotics Institute, will join Makino in paying tribute to SCARA, a type of industrial robot arm that was introduced to commercial assembly lines in 1981. SCARA robots excel in picking up components from one place and placing them rapidly and precisely in a product.

AIBO

Katsumi Moto, vice president of corporate planning for Sony Supply Chain Solutions, Inc., will accept the induction on behalf of AIBO. Though Sony halted their commercial production earlier this year, the four-legged robots remain important tools for research and education.

Maria © copyright Kino International Film Distribution, 2006.

Anne Balsamo, professor of interactive media and gender studies at the University of Southern California, will welcome Maria of Fritz Lang's "Metropolis" to the hall of fame. The transformation of human to robot — in this case, making the robot resemble the film's human heroine — has been repeated often in science fiction and the influence of Maria's art deco design can be seen in robots such as C-3PO.

David © copyright Artificial Intelligence: AI, Dreamworks/Warner Brothers, 2001.

Hall of fame juror Sherry Turkle will induct David, an android played by actor Haley Joel Osment. Turkle, professor of social studies of science and technology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, contends the emotional bond between David and his adoptive mother raises questions of what relationships are appropriate between humans and machines.

Gort © copyright The Day The Earth Stood Still, Twentieth Century FOX, 1951.

Gort, one of the most memorable pop culture images from the Cold War era, will be celebrated by his co-star Gray and by Don Marinelli, director of Carnegie Mellon's Entertainment Technology Center. The eight-foot-tall robot — whose mission of destruction was halted by the famous command "Klaatu barada nikto!" — remains a symbol of the lethal consequences of human conflict.

Carnegie Mellon's Robot Hall of Fame® is a joint project of its Robotics Institute and its Entertainment Technology Center. For more information, visit

How to jam your neighbor's Wi-Fi legally

2006-06-16T01:33:00.000-07:00

Have you ever get frustrated with your neighbor hogging all the Internet bandwidth on the block? Tired of your neighbor using his Wi-Fi gear on channel 1, 6, or 11 (that's all the possible choices) on the 2.4 GHz spectrum? Well now's your chance to get even! Introducing Draft N and Pre-N Wi-Fi! They might not interoperate at high speeds with each other but they're FCC legal and they're guaranteed to shut your neighbor down or your money back!

While Airgo's third generation product achieves record breaking throughput, it annihilates any legacy 802.11 b/g product in the vicinity and effectively shuts them down. Ok that's not an actual advertisement, but it might as well be one. Our friend Tim Higgins has been at it again testing so called "Draft N" and "Pre N" Wi-Fi gear (implied compatibility with 802.11n) and he has some very interesting results about the interoperability and interference characteristics of these products. Earlier this month, Tim ran a battery of tests on these wannabe 802.11n Wi-Fi products to see if they lived up to the kind of throughput and range being promised by the Wi-Fi vendors.

What the first set of tests reveals is that Airgo's product still beats the "Draft N" competition from Broadcom and Marvell hands down with their third generation MIMO product in range and throughput. Note: The results showing the Cisco business-grade 802.11g gear performing so well on range may not be a good test of chipset efficiency since it can use 100 mW of transmit power which may be higher than the consumer gear tested. One could also easily quadruple the range on a Cisco Access Point with the right kind of high-powered antenna but that wouldn't be a fair measurement on how good the radio and chipset design is.

In the second set of tests examining interoperability and interference characteristics on neighboring 802.11g Access Points, the results are alarming. While the Draft N and Pre N products technically work with each other, it would seem that most of them don't interoperate at the higher speeds. Broadcom announced that their Draft N products will interoperate at high speeds with Atheros Draft N products, but the Atheros based products weren't available for testing yet at the time of the review. Broadcom and Atheros feeling the heat from relative newcomer Airgo have put their fiercely competitive past behind them though I'm not sure if this will help if they can't post good throughput versus range numbers against Airgo. When I asked Broadcom's representative if they were guaranteeing future compatibility with 802.11n in writing, I couldn't really get a straight answer and was told that their Draft G product was eventually compatible with 802.11g and that they are using a flexible design that can change if the 802.11n draft standard changes. I finally got them to admit that there are no such guarantees for actual 802.11n compatibility.

Airgo is a very interesting story by itself. I've praised them in the past for having the cleanest design in terms of staying in a single 20 MHz channel while retaining the speed crown. Airgo's competitors eventually pushed past the performance of Airgo's first and second generation products by hogging two radio channels and Airgo quickly answered with their third generation product that also used a 40 MHz wide signal and regained a massive lead in throughput which holds today. The problem is that Airgo when from being the nicest single-channel neighbor in town to being the absolute worst Wi-Fi neighbor in town.

While Airgo's third generation product achieves record breaking throughput, it annihilates any legacy 802.11 b/g product in the vicinity and effectively shuts them down. The other products from Broadcom and Marvel weren't quite as devastating to the neighbors, but the damage is still severe. What's crazy is that these products are FCC legal and are being sold on store shelves today. This is a serious problem in the city where town homes and condominiums are right next to each other and it's even a problem for businesses which primarily uses 802.11 b/g. While these products are aimed at the home market, they're also sometimes used in a small office environment and these radio jamming characteristics are intermittent (when data is being sent) and difficult to track down.

So who is to blame for all of this? Airgo to its credit pushed for spectrum efficiency among the 802.11n standards body as long as it could and tried to lead by example while everyone else was spectrum hogging. Once it was clear that the 802.11n draft standard wasn't going to be swayed on spectrum efficiency, Airgo turned to the dark side and became the biggest spectrum hog of all. The industry was moving the right direction with dual band 2.4/5 GHz products which mitigate interference issues until the arrival of the 802.11n MIMO type products because customers are easily seduced by higher speeds when what's really needed is less interference and better range.

The range issues could have been easily solved with higher gain antennas which ironically are frowned upon by the FCC but don't do nearly as much damage to the neighbors. Since larger antennas are optional, people won't resort to them unless they really needed the longer range in which case no one's nearby to begin with. With these N based products, they come off the factory floor ready to jam everything within its operating radius and this seems to be what the 802.11n standards body is encouraging with its decision to allow for wider channels. The fact that almost none of these new "N" products interoperate with each other and none of them guarantee future compatibility with 802.11n is sad. The best solution for anyone wishing to avoid the radio jam is to move to 802.11a and the 5 GHz band as soon as possible.

Social networks--future portal or fad?

2006-06-15T07:27:00.000-07:00

LAGUNA BEACH, Calif.--Social networks like MySpace and Facebook are the zeitgeist for online executives and investors, just as they are for millions of young people.

But attendees at the Piper Jaffray Global Internet Summit here still can't decide if these companies are next-generation portals, or merely flash-in-the-pan communities that will eventually fade from popularity like one-time high-fliers Geocities or AOL.

Telling evidence stacks up on both sides.

On the one hand, MySpace's scope of services and member traffic rivals that of many major portals. Since launching three years ago, MySpace, now owned by News Corp., has added e-mail, instant messaging and blog services, as well as jobs, video, book and music stores. According to founding MySpace member Colin Digiaro, who spoke here Tuesday, the company is talking to "all the usual suspects and unusual suspects" about licensing Web search technology to accommodate a growing demand among its 50 million members for that functionality. (It currently uses Yahoo search for internal site search and displays Overture ads for Web search results.)

"We're trying to find the best-of-breed search functionality," Digiaro said.

I used to be into MySpace and now I'm getting over it.

--Monica, 18, who will attend UCLA this fall

What's more, MySpace's monthly traffic figures have trumped those of MSN and AOL, according to ComScore Media, and they comprise about 75 percent of Yahoo's, the No. 1 site on the Web. Anecdotally, the time teens and college kids spend on MySpace is stealing time they would otherwise spend watching TV, according to an informal focus group of young and older teens interviewed at the conference.

MySpace's "goal was to become a next-generation portal," Digiaro said. "I think we're there."

Trouble ahead for MySpace?
On the other hand, these social communities could turn out to be fads among capricious Web surfers, skeptics say. After all, rudimentary social networks have always been around in communities like AOL and Geocities. And if comments made during the same focus group of young and older teens are any indication, MySpace could be headed into trouble with a thriving portion of its members. The aging kids talked about tiring of MySpace and moving on to other social networks or activities, much the way some kids have left AOL's instant-messaging service.

"I'm starting to get over it," said Juliana, a 21-year-old living in Orange County, who said she's now into Faceclick, another, newer social network for college kids.

Monica, an 18-year-old who's enrolled at UCLA in the fall, said she's further along with MySpace, opting to spend her more than eight hours a day online at sites like photo-sharing site Photobucket.com and Acidplanet.com, a music-hosting site. "I used to be into MySpace and now I'm getting over it."

Still, younger teens interviewed said that they were big users of MySpace, spending hours honing their member profiles. And 80 percent of MySpace's demographic skews over 18 years old.

Yet, Safa Rashtchy, a senior research analyst at Piper Jaffray, compared the social networks to the walled garden environments of AOL and eBay, two companies that have lost favor among investors. He asked whether people ultimately like to stay within these online walled gardens.

Also, it's unclear whether advertisers are spending enough with social networks to make their free services profitable. During a panel discussion of advertisers, ad executives said that many marketers don't want to associate their brands with the sometimes risque or inappropriate material that can surface on the social networks from their members.

When pressed by industry observers, executives at MySpace and Facebook declined to say whether they are profitable. As part of Newscorp., MySpace is not required to report its finances. Owen Van Natta, COO of college-focused social directory Facebook, which is privately held, joked that it's a "definite maybe."

In other news:

Some panelists still took this as a sign that these companies, despite hosting user-generated content that generally doesn't cost as much to support as staff editorial, were not profitable. The cost of advertising rates at these sites aren't typically at a premium, either, making it unclear how much MySpace and Facebook are benefiting from growing online ad sales.

In defense, Digiaro, MySpace senior vice president of sales and business development, said that the company works with all major advertisers in various vertical markets, including the Cokes and Ford Motors of the world. MySpace also commands ad premiums for such areas within its music and video stores, he said.

He said to retain teen surfers, which comprise about 20 percent of its total audience, MySpace has introduced new features faster than rivals and has developed a lasting social connection with members that increases as their history of blog posts and e-mail amasses. The company also plans to expand internationally, starting with the U.K. and Ireland, and get on mobile handsets across the United States.

He also suggested that MySpace could eventually introduce a transportable persona that members could take with them to other services.

"Social networks will continue to evolve," he said.

eBay Wiki released - world's largest commercial wiki

2006-06-15T06:38:00.000-07:00

As I wrote in my Read/WriteWeb blog, eBay and JotSpot have just released a new community wiki - making it almost certainly the world's largest wiki platform for a commercial website (Wikipedia is bigger, but it's non-commercial). eBay Wiki is described as "a collection of fact-based articles written and maintained by eBay Community members" and is powered by JotSpot's innovative wiki technology.

eBay Wiki "It's a kind of Wikipedia for eBay" is located at www.ebaywiki.com and the wiki topics are categorized and tagged. You must be logged in as an eBay member to edit a wiki page, which then presents you with an easy-to-use wysiwyg HTML editor. eBay Wiki also has article history and ratings, the editor's user details and seller/buyer ratings (i.e. their eBay reputation), RSS feeds and other easy-to-use social features.

So why did eBay choose to add a wiki? eBay has a buyer and seller community of more than 193 million members - a huge community that is thriving with conversations and activity. Their message boards get over 100,000 messages per week and eBay users are very knowledgeable on their topic niches. Having a Wiki on eBay will serve to refine and formalize the cream of the content in its user forums. It will also help eBay in the search engine rankings, as its user-generated content coffers will increase significantly over time!

I spoke to JotSpot co-founder and CEO Joe Kraus about the new eBay wiki yesterday. He described eBay Wiki to me as "a kind of Wikipedia for eBay and about eBay". He said its main focus is to give "tips and tricks on how to get the most out of eBay". The eBay Wiki will complement and build on the eBay forums, in that the wiki will be a "single point of reference" on topics.

Joe sees eBay Wiki as another step towards wikis coming of age and becoming mainstream. I agree, the use of wikis from one of the Internet's biggest consumer companies may be vital to the growth of wikis outside of tech and enterprise circles. Joe said eBay will promote the Wiki as part of their community hub and eBay CEO Meg Whitman is announcing it in her keynote address at the eBay Live! user conference in Las Vegas today.

Image Gallery of eBay Wiki

Google to Launch Government Search Site

2006-06-15T06:24:00.000-07:00

It's finally happening: The ever-expanding Google Inc. is making its move on the federal government.

Today the company plans to announce a new online product aimed at being a one-stop shop for searching federal government Web sites. The launch of Google U.S. Government Search, http://usgov.google.com , targets federal employees who often need to search across several government agencies.

The site is also designed to help citizens navigate convoluted pages of government-speak and tailors news feeds to their interests. Users can customize the layout of their page to remain updated on government-related news from official and commercial sources, including the White House, Department of Defense, The Washington Post and CNN. Google is also working with agencies to increase the frequency of news updates to keep content current.

"People are moving away from directory access to enter these sites," said Kevin Gough, product manager for Google U.S. Government Search. "They just want to type in a few words to pinpoint the information they need."

The product is an outgrowth of the company's flagship site, which has the largest share of the U.S. search market -- 50 percent in April, according to Nielsen-NetRatings. It aims to "unify disparate Web sites," Gough said, so people have a single source to find everything from Social Security policy to income tax forms.

The government search site joins similar engines that target the same audience. The five-year-old FirstGov.gov, a government-sponsored site powered by Microsoft Corp.'s MSN, is geared to help citizens locate federal, state and local information without sifting through individual agency sites.

Other similar search engines include http://govspot.com , http://searchgov.com and http://govengine.com .

Gough said he expects Google's product to "complement" FirstGov without directly competing with it.

But Google's name recognition, especially among first-time users, may give it an edge over FirstGov, said Larry Freed, president of ForeSee Results Inc., a Michigan firm that measures customer satisfaction of Internet sites.

The new site could actually drive traffic away from other government-related search engines that buy ads on Google's main search engine, he said.

"Google drives a fair amount of traffic to those sites," he said. Now that Google has its own portal that serves the same purpose, "they could potentially be creating competition for their customers."

Many government employees access documents and information through agencies' intranets, or inter-office Web sites, and through FirstGov, said Stephanie Zaiser, communications director for the National Association of Government Employees.

But they may switch to the new engine if it is easier to use, she said. Zaiser expects federal employees to use the Google site because of the company's "ubiquitous presence" in the search-engine market.

More than 87 million unique visitors used Google's search engine in May, compared with 443,000 that searched FirstGov, according to Nielsen-NetRatings.

In recent years, Google has launched several specialized search engines to help users narrow their results. In addition to heavily used sites geared specifically for news, directions and maps, newer sites search the contents of scholarly journals, books and blogs. Yesterday, Google Book Search launched a Web site geared toward searching Shakespearean plays.

"There is a trend toward developing more finite, category-specific searches," said Deborah Fallows, senior research fellow at the Pew Internet and American Life Project. "Government employees are among the heaviest users of government Web sites, so there's a market."

A November 2004 Pew survey found that 54 percent of Internet users have looked for information from government Web sites, and 10 percent of users will look for such information on any given day.

Robot soccer World Cup kicks off

2006-06-15T06:21:00.000-07:00

A football tournament played by teams of robots has kicked off in Germany.

The 10th annual RoboCup, being held in Bremen, will see more than 400 teams of robots dribbling, tackling and shooting in an effort to become world champions.

Machines compete in 11 leagues including those designed for humanoid and four-legged robots.

The organisers of the tournament hope that in 2050 the winners of the RoboCup will be able to beat the human World Cup champions.

"RoboCup 2006 is the first step towards a vision," said Minoru Asada, president of the RoboCup Federation.

"This vision includes the development of a humanoid robot team of eleven players, which can win against a human soccer world champion team."

Emotional game

Teams from 36 countries have flocked to Bremen to take part in the tournament.

As well as providing a visual spectacle on the pitch, some robots will be helping out in other ways.

Live commentary of a number of matches is provided by a pair of robots developed by scientists from Carnegie Mellon University in the US.

Sango and Ami, as the duo are known, will explain the rules of the game and dissect fouls for spectators using synthesized voices.

"They don't talk at the same time," said Manuela Veloso, the Herbert Simon Professor of Computer Science and head of Carnegie Mellon's RoboCup teams.

More than 400 teams will compete during the five day tournament

"But if one is explaining a rule and a nice goal is made, the other has the ability to interrupt."

Sango and Ami also have very different personalities. Sango provides a very sober account of the game while Ami provides a more emotional response to proceedings.

Both celebrate by pumping their arms when a team scores.

Future strategy

As well as having novelty value and, the RoboCup has a more serious side.

It is a chance for 2,500 experts in artificial intelligence and robot engineering to meet and trial their latest ideas.

Football is a useful test for robotics because it has so many different elements including movement, strategy and vision.

Researchers come to assess their sensors, artificial intelligence and software on the pitch.

"After 50 years within artificial intelligence, it has been determined that these things can be better researched using soccer than the game of chess," said Hans-Dieter Burkhard, the Vice President of the RoboCup Federation.

This year all eyes are on a team from Japan who are expected to do well in the humanoid category, while the current world champions from Germany are a force to be reckoned with in the four-legged tournament.

The championships run until 18 June and are then followed by a conference for two days where the teams can dissect their play and work on improvements before the big game in 2050.

Google Earth zooms in

2006-06-12T22:31:00.000-07:00

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif.--Google unveiled on Monday a new version of its Google Earth application, which features greater coverage and higher resolution, even showing people walking in some locations--detail you get with aerial photography and not usually satellites.

The downloadable Google Earth 4.0 runs on PCs, Macs and Linux-based machines and is available in localized versions in French, Italian, German and Spanish, according to Michael Jones, chief technology officer of Google Earth. Jones, speaking here at Google Geo Developer Day, said the improvements will eventually show up in the Web-based Google Maps site.

Developers can use Google's SketchUp 3D modeling software to make the images as lifelike as possible, such as adding texture to buildings. Users can also overlay different data on top of the same view. In a product demonstration, Jones showed a 3D view of San Francisco from 2005, and with a click, showed the same view of San Francisco in the 1940s.

"Developers can place images on top of (the map) that span the whole Earth," Jones said, half-jokingly calling it a "time travel" application. "I think people will use it to share ancient maps (and share) information about possible future developments."

Mark Limber, product manager for Google's SketchUp modeling software, demonstrated how to create a 3D building and insert it into a Google Earth map. Realtors can use SketchUp to build models of homes and put them into maps to show prospective buyers, he said. A repository of links to geographic- and nongeographic-referenced objects that can be used is located here.

Jones also showed off the Google Earth Community, which he described as "participatory mapping," in which individuals can add personal placemarks to information on the map.

More than 30,000 developers around world are using the Google Earth application programming interface, and there have been 100 million downloads of Google Earth, said John Hanke, Google Earth and Maps product director.

Google representatives also demonstrated how people can easily overlay geographic data on top of a Google map without hosting a map on a Web site to create a map "mashup." Google is adding geographic-coding support to Google maps so developers can easily get the coordinates for an street address.

The company also introduced Google Maps for Enterprise, which can be used by companies internally and includes service and support. Pricing starts at about $10,000 per year.

Greg Sterling of Sterling Market Intelligence said he was impressed with the improvements in resolution and coverage. "Google is trying to make all these tools more accessible to ordinary people and get them engaged in content," he said. "In addition, the idea of a geobrowser is fascinating, as is the eventual merger of gaming and mapping."

Top Microsoft blogger to resign

2006-06-12T22:30:00.000-07:00

The blog became a regular read for hi-tech industry watchers

A business blogger who changed the wider world view of Microsoft is leaving the software giant for a Silicon Valley start-up.

Robert Scoble's blog about his life and events inside and outside Microsoft became the unofficial corporate voice of the company.

Many turned to his blog to find out how the firm reacted to big news events.

His blog won praise for its neutrality and readiness to point out Microsoft's mistakes or praise its rivals.

Conversation piece

Mr Scoble's blog, called Scobleizer, is widely seen as helping to humanise Microsoft and shift its stance from arrogant and aloof to one that is more inclusive and accepting of criticism.

It also commented on broader changes in the net world and how they affected the company.

I love Microsoft and Microsoft did not lose me, at least as a supporter and friend

Robert Scoble

The blog was seen as a pioneer in the way that companies present themselves to the world by giving a human voice to what can be faceless corporations.

The success of Scobleizer kicked off a number of copycat blogs which aimed to expose the inner workings and opinions of other companies to more public scrutiny.

Within Microsoft, Mr Scoble helped to run the Channel 9 news site that aired video interviews with hundreds of employees to gain an insight into the projects they were working on.

Mr Scoble will stay at Microsoft until the end of June and then move to start-up PodTech.Net. He joins as vice-president of content and will help prepare video interviews with the great and good of the technology world.

In a fitting twist, the news about Mr Scoble's departure broke on another blog before he had chance to tell regular readers via his own journal.

In a posting on 10 June, Mr Scoble explained the reasons for his departure and said it has not arisen because he had fallen out with his employer.

"I love Microsoft and Microsoft did not lose me, at least as a supporter and friend," he wrote in the entry.

The Internet's Future

2006-06-12T22:28:00.000-07:00

Congress should stay out of cyberspace.

THE SENATE will hold hearings tomorrow on "net neutrality," the idea that the pipes and wires that form the Internet should treat all content equally. An alliance whose membership ranges from the Christian Coalition to MoveOn.org is demanding that Congress write this neutrality into law; the groups fear that the pipe owners -- cable companies, phone companies and so on -- might otherwise deliver corporate content at high speed for high fees, while consigning political Web sites and hobbyists to a slow information byway. These arguments are amplified by the big Internet firms -- Google, Microsoft, eBay -- that want their services delivered fast but don't want the pipe owners to extract fees from them. Although this coalition lost a House vote last week, its prospects are stronger in the Senate. (The Washington Post Co. owns broadband networks that might charge Web sites for fast delivery. It also produces Web content that might be subject to such fees, so it has interests on both sides of this issue.)

The advocates of neutrality suggest, absurdly, that a non-neutral Internet would resemble cable TV: a medium through which only corporate content is delivered. This analogy misses the fact that the market for Internet connections, unlike that for cable television, is competitive: More than 60 percent of Zip codes in the United States are served by four or more broadband providers that compete to give consumers what they want -- fast access to the full range of Web sites, including those of their kids' soccer league, their cousins' photos, MoveOn.org and the Christian Coalition. If one broadband provider slowed access to fringe bloggers, the blogosphere would rise up in protest -- and the provider would lose customers.

The cable TV analogy is doubly wrong because media culture reflects technology. Cable TV has been the province of Hollywood studios because making a sitcom is expensive and hard -- though, with cheap digital camcorders, this is changing. Equally, the Internet is the province of experimenters and hobbyists because creating your own Web site is cheap and easy. Thanks to technology, the Internet will always be a relatively democratic medium with low barriers to entry.

The serious argument for net neutrality has nothing to do with the cable TV boogeyman. It's that a non-neutral net will raise barriers to entry just slightly -- but enough to be alarming. To use a far better analogy: Competitive supermarkets aim to please customers by offering all kinds of goods, but the inventor of a new snack has to go through the hassle of negotiating for display space and may wind up on the bottom shelf, which dampens his incentives. Equally, if the owners of Internet pipes delivered the services of cyber-upstarts more slowly than those of cyber-incumbents, the incentive to innovate might suffer. Would instant messaging or Internet telephony have taken off if their inventors had had to plead with broadband firms to carry them?

This concern should not be exaggerated. Cyber-upstarts already face barriers: The incumbents have brand recognition and invest in tricks to make their sites load faster. The extra barrier created by a lack of net neutrality would probably be small because the pipe owners know that consumers want access to innovators.

Meanwhile, there are powerful arguments on the other side. If you want innovation on the Internet, you need better pipes: ones that are faster, less susceptible to hackers and spammers, or smarter in ways that nobody has yet thought of. The lack of incentives for pipe innovation is more pressing than the lack of incentives to create new Web services.

You can see this imbalance in Wall Street's low valuation of Internet infrastructure firms such as Verizon (price-to-earnings ratio: 12) and its infatuation with Internet service firms such as Google (price-to-earnings ratio: 69). You can see it, too, in the fact that U.S. broadband infrastructure lags behind that of East Asia and Europe. Allowing builders of Internet infrastructure to recoup their investment by charging the Googles and Amazons for use of their network would balance the incentives for innovation more closely. Ironically, a non-neutral net would accelerate the spread of zippy broadband that can deliver movies, allowing hobbyists with camcorders to take on Hollywood studios. The neutrality advocates who criticize corporatized cable TV should welcome that.

The weakest aspect of the neutrality case is that the dangers it alleges are speculative. It seems unlikely that broadband providers will degrade Web services that people want and far more likely that they will use non-neutrality to charge for upgrading services that depend on fast and reliable delivery, such as streaming high-definition video or relaying data from heart monitors. If this proves wrong, the government should step in. But it should not burden the Internet with preemptive regulation.

Yahoo e-mail under worm attack

2006-06-12T22:27:00.000-07:00

Symantec warns of mass-mail worm that exploits a vulnerability in Yahoo's Web e-mail

A mass-mail worm that exploits a vulnerability in Yahoo's Web e-mail is making the rounds but the impact appears to be low, security vendor Symantec said Monday.

The worm, which Symantec calls JS.Yamanner@m, is different from others in that a user merely has to open the e-mail to cause it to run, said Kevin Hogan, senior manager for Symantec Security Response. Mass-mail worms have usually been contained in an attachment with an e-mail note encouraging a user to open it.

The worm, written in JavaScript, takes advantage of a vulnerability that allows scripts embedded in HTML (Hypertext Markup Language) e-mail to run in the users' browsers. Yahoo users should be able to modify their settings to block the zero-day exploit, Hogan said.

Symantec rated the worm a Level 2 threat, one notch above its least harmful ranking. Hogan said the worm did not appear to be spreading widely, and he did not anticipate the threat level rising.

When activated, the worms then sends itself to other users in the victim's address book who also use Yahoo e-mail with the suffixes of @yahoo.com or @yahoogroups.com. The worm mimics a function within Yahoo's Web mail called "Quickbuilder," which allows a user to add contacts in an address book from received e-mail, Hogan said. The process, however, is transparent to the victim, he said.

The harvested e-mail addresses are sent to a remote server. Users of Yahoo Mail Beta do not appear to be affected, Symantec said.

The worm also opens a browser that displays a Web page that does not appear to contain malicious content.

Although Yahoo's Web e-mail has not been fixed, users are advised to update virus and firewall definitions and block any e-mail sent from av3@yahoo.com. The subject line of the e-mail with the worm says "New Graphic Site," and the body says "this is test."

Yahoo officials could not immediately be reached for comment.

Robot with the human touch feels just like us

2006-06-10T00:09:00.000-07:00

A TOUCH sensor developed to match the sensitivity of the human finger is set to herald the age of the robotic doctor.

Until now robots have been severely handicapped by their inability to feel objects with anything like the accuracy of their human creators. The very best are unable to beat the dexterity of the average six-year-old at tying a shoelace or building a house of cards.

But all that could change with the development by nanotechnologists of a device that can “feel” the shape of a coin down to the detail of the letters stamped on it.

The ability to feel with at least the same degree of sensitivity as a human finger is crucial to the development of robots that can take on complicated tasks such as open heart surgery.

Once the hurdle of touch is solved, robots have the potential vastly to increase their role in human society, whether as mechanical GPs, automated bomb disposal experts or astronauts who need not worry about getting back to Earth.

The touch device has been created by researchers in America who used nanoparticles to sense the contours of a coin. It is accurate enough to detect the outline of Abraham Lincoln’s face on a 1c coin and the letters TY in the word Liberty.

To make the sensor, the researchers built up a film consisting of alternate layers of gold and cadmium sulfide nanoparticles with a thin plastic sheet on top and glass below.

An object is placed on the plastic and an image sensor beneath the glass reads the changes in electrical current and electroluminescence caused within the nanoparticle layers.

The strength of the changes in electric charge and electroluminescence depends on how much pressure is being used. The more pronounced the shape on the coin, the stronger the signals emitted by the nanoparticles.

Analysis of the results, published in the journal Science, show that the sensitivity of the device is almost the same as that of a human finger.

Vivek Maheshwari and Ravi Saraf, of the University of Nebraska, say: “Variation in stress distribution caused by the embossing on a 1c coin leads to significant change in local current density.”

The ability to feel an object, whether a coin or a scalpel, would enable robots to improve their ability to grasp items. It would allow them to detect the texture of an item and judge whether it was slipping or being held so firmly that it was being squashed.

Richard Crowder, a senior lecturer at the School of Electronics and Computer Science at Southampton University, said the device could represent a breakthrough for robotics.

“Today’s state-of-the-art dextrous robotic hands cannot achieve tasks that most six-year-old children can do without thinking,” he said. “A key component needed for these new robots is the development of a sensor or set of sensors that can replicate the human sense of touch.”

He added: “The thin-film design permits the [researchers] to produce a single tactile sensor. The challenge is to extract the information efficiently — something the human nervous system does with supreme efficiency.”

One of the device’s big advantages over previous attempts at developing robotic touch, apart from the degree of sensitivity, is that it has the potential to be easy to use.

The nanoparticles are so thin, at 10 nanometres, that they can be brushed on to a surface such as a robotic finger without getting in the way.

They also have the potential for great durability because even if the film containing the particles gets torn, it can be quickly replaced with another.

Robots, once suitably dextrous, are widely regarded as having the potential for improving surgery because they would be more accurate. Nor would they sneeze during an operation.

Although a handful of basic “minimally invasive” medical procedures can be carried out by robots, their dexterity is too limited at present for them to be entrusted with more serious operations.

A robot that could feel the difference between healthy tissue and a cancerous tumour, however, would be an enormous step forward for medicine.

Google Video: Movers, Shakers and history

2006-06-10T00:07:00.000-07:00

Google Video was given a couple new features today (also spotted by users of the blogoscoped forum) — the addition of Movers & Shakers, recently uploaded videos, search history, and also the main page was rearranged once again.

Movers & Shakers is a section that breaks video popularity down by country. I'm not exactly certain what makes a video a "mover and shaker", or how they are ranked. I am guessing it's basically the top 100 for each country rather than for the entire collection of videos.

The "recently uploaded" section is a nice addition too — one that was only a matter of time since making their publishing speed comparable to YouTube. As the title implies, it shows you random videos that were uploaded recently (seems to be within the last week).

For those who are paranoid about Google keeping search history, one more Google service has added the ability to track your searches. Google now records your video search history and keeps it in the same location as Google search history. I guess now finding that video you watched a week ago is a bit easier.

The final change I noticed today was the rearrangement of the main page. "Featured" videos are all the way at the bottom now — a bit ironic isn't it? You would think featured videos should be the most visible, but I guess they have figured out people would rather see the popular and recent videos than the featured ones.

Google Minesweeper Launches

2006-06-10T00:00:00.000-07:00

Continuing it's attack against the entrenched Microsoft application monopolies, Google Labs today launched a new Ajax version of the venerable Minesweeper application. The application is not open to the public yet, but I was able to secure a screenshot which you can see below.

Coming on the heels of the Writely acquisition and launch of Google Spreadsheet, the addition of Minesweeper looks like it may finally end the MS monopoly on the desktop.

Larry Ellison of Oracle lauded the innovation, saying, "Finally, our employees have no more excuses for running Windows on their PC's! And I can work completely on my new Mac now when I'm at the office."

Google Minesweeper includes a number of impressive innovations including:

Online collaboration - cooperate with co-workers to uncover mines
Online game storage. Now you can finish that game at home.
Integrated GTalk for real-time trash talking.

Not everyone is so excited about this launch though. Sam Kinelson, CEO at the Sequoia-backed startup Minestrr, complained "This is just another example of Google quashing competition in a new market segment. They're just sweeping the field to keep out fast moving up-and-comers. What's next? Google Notepad?!?!" Google is already launching into a crowded field, with established startups including Minestrr, mine.sweep.er, 37mines.com, minetube, and technominer.com.

The launch is being covered over at Techcrunch ("Google changes the game") and by Om Malik ("Google sweeping up the competition").

Hollywood and the hackers

2006-06-09T23:58:00.000-07:00

Motion Picture Association President Dan Glickman locks horns with Electronic Frontier Foundation's John Perry Barlow over big media's war with the internet.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation campaigns for 'digital freedoms'

The biggest pirate movie site on the Internet was raided by police a few days ago. Within 48 hours it was up and running in a different country. It's just another week on the barricades of the information revolution.

Over and again we at geek central find ourselves reading about the latest skirmish between the copyright cops and the darknet without ever hearing that there might be a war going on.

The hackers want to break Hollywood on the wheel of their collective ingenuity and show the suits who is in charge.

Big media wants to make money from the internet like it does with every other outlet, or at the very least not have piracy forever draining away their profits.

And they have been hammering away at each other for years now.

Grateful Dead

But could there ever be peace between these two warring tribes? Have they got anything to teach one another, or will they spend yet another decade 'not getting' each other's point of view?

Copying and sharing films has never been easier

Newsnight decided to track down the two most powerful voices on either side of the divide and ask them about their own philosophies and what they thought of their opponent.

John Perry Barlow used to be the lyricist in the US supergroup 'The Grateful Dead.' He went on to co-found the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the pressure group that's placed itself front and centre in the fight to keep the tanks of government and corporation off the lawns of cyberspace.

Congressman Dan Glickman became US Secretary for Agriculture under Bill Clinton. Nowadays he's the President and CEO of the Motion Picture Association of America, the body that wields the collective political and legal muscle of the Hollywood studios.

Here's an edited highlight of what they have to say about one another:

John Perry Barlow: The entertainment industry is as it always has been. It's a rough bunch of people and a rough industry. I don't think that the movie industry is any more ready than any other part of the information industries to adapt itself to the information age. But it's going to go there one way or the other.

And whatever its cries of protest and growing pains, it'll make it eventually - it's just going to do everything it can, as the record industry has done, as the publishing industry has done, to stop progress in that direction until it gets its act together.

There are a lot of kids out there copying and distributing movies... because they want to stick it to the movie business

John Perry Barlow, Electronic Frontier Foundation

And I fear that it's done grave harm to itself and to the future in the process of trying to slow down progress, but it'll go there inevitably.

Dan Glickman: John Perry Barlow is the one who's doing a disservice to the consumers, because you see if you don't adequately compensate the artist, the director, the creator, the actor, they won't do it in the first place so people won't get movies.

So, yeah, we should be protecting our copyright but it doesn't mean that we shouldn't be looking for new ways to get that content to people in modern ways - particularly young people who [understand] computers and electronic equipment and the internet very well.

Barlow believes the studios will ultimately lose the digital battle

JPB: These are aging industries run by aging men, and they're up against 17-year-olds who have turned themselves into electronic Hezbollah because they resent the content industry for its proprietary practices. And I don't have a question about who's going to win that one eventually.

There are a lot of kids out there copying and distributing movies not because they care about seeing the movies or sharing them with their friends but because they want to stick it to the movie business. It's widely assumed that you can't compete with free and that seems like a reasonable thing to think. But this has not been my experience. I mean I've made a fair amount of money over the years writing songs for 'The Grateful Dead' who allowed their fans to tape their concerts.

We were at one point the biggest grossing performing act in the United States, and most of our records went platinum sooner or later.

It's an economic model that has worked in my experience and I think it does work. It's just that it seems like it wouldn't. It seems counter-intuitive.

DK: It is ridiculous to believe that you can give product away for free and be more successful. I mean it defies the laws of nature.

All of us kind of need to chill out

Dan Glickman, Motion Picture Association of America

Would a clothing store give all their clothes for free? Would a car dealership give all its cars for free? Of course not. If they don't make a profit in this world they're out of business. That's just the laws of human nature.

JPB: If I were to encounter Dan Glickman on the street and we were to have a civilised conversation about this subject, which would be a long shot, I'd tell him to relax.

I'd tell him to spend less of the resources of his industry on fighting the inevitable and more on learning about the conditions that they find themselves in and recognising the opportunities, which I think are vast and very encouraging. But they can't get to those opportunities until they quit trying to stop progress.

Dan Glickman says if consumers do not pay the product will not exist

DK: First of all I'd tell John Perry Barlow that I'm very relaxed and if we met each other we'd probably have a very good time. But all of us kind of need to chill out.

The fact of the matter is that people who create content for movies and television have to make a profit. If they don't you won't see all this wonderful stuff and listen to it.

But he is right to the extent that we need to be finding new and different ways to get our content to people, whether it's internet or whether it's iPod or whether it's remotely accessed in various parts of the world. If [we] don't the consumer will not be satisfied and in this business the consumer is king and queen. If you don't make them happy they won't buy your product.

JPB: I've got good news and bad news and good news. And the good news is that you guys have managed to buy every major legislative body on the planet, and the courts are even with you. So you've done a great job there and you should congratulate yourself.

But you know the problem is - the bad news is that you're up against a dedicated foe that is younger and smarter that you are and will be alive when you're dead. You're 55 years old and these kids are 17 and they're just smarter than you. So you're gonna lose that one.

But the good news is that you guys are mean sons of bitches and you've been figuring out ways of ripping off audiences and artists for centuries.....

Microsoft releases public download of Vista

2006-06-07T23:29:00.000-07:00

After months of limited testing, Microsoft late Wednesday made a beta version of Windows Vista publicly available for download.

The company kicked off what it called its "Customer Preview Program," a testing period in which the software maker hopes millions of tech enthusiasts will kick the tires on the new operating system.

"Microsoft today kicked off the Windows Vista Customer Preview Program (CPP), providing the broadest access yet to pre-release test versions of Windows Vista," the company said in a statement. Microsoft is aiming to wrap up testing and development of Vista later this year in hopes of a broad launch in January. The company released Beta 2 last month to a more limited group of testers and had promised the broader test would come shortly.

The software maker is still cautioning that Vista is not ready for the average consumer, pitching the CPP as suited for developers and tech workers, as well as hard-core enthusiasts who don't mind a few bugs and have a spare machine for testing. Microsoft also recommends those interested in the CPP run its recently released adviser tool, which helps detect how Vista-ready a PC is.

People can either download the software from Microsoft's Web site or pay a small fee to get it on DVD.

Although Microsoft is looking for millions of testers, it has said it may cap the test program at some point.

Survey: iPods more popular than beer

2006-06-07T23:04:00.000-07:00

SAN JOSE, Calif. - Move over Bud. College life isn't just about drinking beer. In a rare instance, Apple Computer Inc.'s iconic iPod music player surpassed beer drinking as the most "in" thing among undergraduate college students, according to the latest biannual market research study by Ridgewood, N.J.-based Student Monitor.

Nearly three quarters, or 73 percent, of 1,200 students surveyed said iPods were "in" — more than any other item in a list that also included text messaging, bar hopping and downloading music.

In the year-ago study, only 59 percent of students named the iPod as "in," putting the gadget well below alcohol-related activities.

This year, drinking beer and Facebook.com, a social networking Web site, were tied for second most popular, with 71 percent of the students identifying them as "in."

The only other time beer was temporarily dethroned in the 18 years of the survey was in 1997 — by the Internet, said Eric Weil, a managing partner at Student Monitor.

Though beer might soon regain its No. 1 spot, as it quickly did a decade ago, the iPod's popularity is still "a remarkable sign," Weil said. "For those who believe there's an excessive amount of drinking on campus, now there's something else that's common on campuses."

Student Monitor conducted the survey the week of March 6, interviewing full-time undergraduate students at 100 U.S. colleges. The margin of error is plus or minus 2.3 percentage points.

Google admits being compromised over China

2006-06-07T22:58:00.000-07:00

Google has admitted for the first time that it compromised its principles when it entered the Chinese market and agreed to toe Beijing’s strict line on censorship.

Speaking in Washington, Sergey Brin, Google’s billionaire co-founder, said the company, which operates under the motto "do no evil", had adopted "a set of rules that we weren’t comfortable with".

In a hint that Google could adjust its stance in China in the future, he added: "Perhaps now the principled approach makes more sense."

Google’s decision to launch its Chinese site, Google.cn, last year met with a barrage of criticism when it emerged that search results for politically sensitive topics such as the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre would be censored.

The pact made between Google and China’s leaders led to the internet company being branded "a megaphone for communist propaganda" at a US Congressional hearing called after the move.

Critics including Reporters Without Borders, the press freedom group, have called China "the world champion" of internet censorship. The country has invested heavily in a sophisticated filtering system, dubbed "The Great Firewall", which allows the authorities to search out dissidents and block their sites.

Mr Brin said: "We felt that perhaps we could compromise our principles but provide ultimately more information for the Chinese and be a more effective service and perhaps make more of a difference."

The lure of the massive Chinese market has also seen Google's arch-rivals Microsoft and Yahoo! dragged into the controversy. In particular, Yahoo! has been condemned for handing over e-mail details that led to several outspoken Chinese bloggers being jailed.

However, it is questionable whether Google could afford to turn its back on China's explosive economy.

Yesterday, Times Online revealed how the company has struggled to compete in businesses outside its core search service. Failures to break into fields such as news and financial information could up the pressure on Google to extend the reach of its search tool – already the world’s most popular – into new territories.

In April, Google rebranded itself as "Gu Ge" - or "Harvesting Song" - in China, a move it said demonstrated its commitment to its controversial entry there. Speaking in Beijing at the time, Eric Schmidt, Google's chief executive, said: "We believe that the decision that we made to follow the law in China was absolutely the right one."

Commenting on the massive growth of the Chinese online advertising, Mr Schmidt said: "I don’t know where [Chinese] revenue growth will be, but it will obviously be large."

The attraction of Chinese cyberspace and its massive pool of potential consumers for America's internet giants has long been clear.

Dr Charles Zhang, the chief executive of Sohu.com, China's largest web portal, said there are at least 150 million Chinese internet users, and there could be as many as 200 million. Those figures would place China neck-and-neck with the US in terms of internet users.

Mr Brin was in Washington to ask US senators to approve a plan that would safeguard "net neutrality" – the current online system which means all internet content is handled equally.

In meetings with Republican John McCain, a member of the Senate committee that oversees telecoms issues, he argued against a system that would allow telephone and cable companies to collect premium fees from companies such as Google, Microsoft and Yahoo! for faster delivery of their services

"The only way to have a fast lane that is useful – that people will pay a premium for – is if there are slow lanes," he said.

China 'blocks' main Google site

2006-06-07T22:56:00.000-07:00

More than 100 million people are online in China

Chinese authorities have blocked most domestic users from the main Google.com search engine, a media watchdog said.

Internet users in major Chinese cities faced difficulties accessing Google's international site in the past week, Reporters Without Borders said.

But Google.cn, the controversial Chinese language version launched in January, has not been affected.

The site blocks politically sensitive material to comply with government censorship rules.

"It was only to be expected that Google.com would be gradually sidelined after the censored version was launched in January," Reporters Without Borders said in a statement.

"Google has just definitively joined the club of Western companies that comply with online censorship in China," the organisation said.

Google.com, the search engine's uncensored international site, had previously been available to Chinese web users, but problems accessing the site had been reported across the country recently. It was blocked nationwide on 31 May, the statement said.

The blocking was also being extended to Google News and Google Mail, Reporters Without Borders said.

'Principled approach'

A spokeswoman for Goggle in Beijing said that the problem was under investigation.

The spokeswoman, Cui Jin, said she could not give any more information.

On Tuesday, Google co-founder Sergey Brin defended his company's decision to launch the censored Google.cn service, a move which drew heavy criticism.

"We felt that perhaps we could compromise our principles but provide ultimately more information for the Chinese and be a more effective service," he said.

"Perhaps now the principled approach makes more sense."

In addition to Google, US companies Microsoft, Yahoo and Cisco Systems have also been accused of accommodating China's demands on censorship in return for access to its huge internet market.

The Chinese government's internet filtering is some of the most sophisticated in the world.

Content considered to be a threat, including references to the Tiananmen Square massacre and notable dissidents, is blocked.

Chinese authorities have also stepped up measures against software designed to bypass internet censorship, the Reporters Without Borders statement said.

Google founder lobbies for net neutrality

2006-06-07T03:51:00.000-07:00

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Google Inc. co-founder and President Sergey Brin met with U.S. lawmakers on Tuesday to press for legislation that would prevent Internet access providers from charging Web sites more for faster content delivery.

"The only way you can have a fast lane that is useful -- that people will pay a premium for -- is if there are slow lanes," Brin told reporters after meeting with Republican John McCain, a member of the Senate committee that oversees telecommunications issues.

Google, Microsoft Corp. and other major Internet site operators have joined with small Web site owners to oppose broadband providers such as AT&T Inc. and Verizon Communications that want to offer faster network performance to companies that pay more. The issue has been dubbed "net neutrality" by those who oppose a two-tier system of access and pricing.

Brin acknowledged large companies such as Google would be able to cut deals with the network owners to get their content through. But he added that Google searches are only valuable if consumers can then quickly access the sites listed in the results.

"The thesis is that some content providers will pay for premium service. Why are they paying? Just because they feel charitable toward the telcos and ISPs?" Brin asked. "I assume they are paying because otherwise they would have worse performance, or maybe it won't really work."

The U.S House of Representatives may vote as early as this week on a telecommunications reform bill that does not include the net neutrality protection sought by Google.

But the bill would direct the Federal Communications Commission to enforce the agency's September 2005 broadband policy statement that says consumers are entitled to access the content and applications of their choice.

Critics like Brin say these provisions do not go far enough and they hope to get stronger language in the Senate's version of a telecoms reform bill. Brin said he "did not know where McCain will come out on the issue."

Clad in jeans and sneakers, the billionaire Silicon Valley executive said his company is new to Washington lobbying.

Nonetheless, the seven-year-old company has found itself at the center of several political storms in recent months. It successfully battled the Justice Department to avoid handing over search records and absorbed severe congressional criticism over its business practices in China.

"Our reputation certainly suffered" from reports that Google's Chinese site -- www.google.cn -- did not show search results on topics critical of the Chinese government, he said.

But he said only 1 percent of Chinese users use google.cn, while the majority uses the unfiltered www.google.com.

"We are not actually censoring in China," he added.

Google.com blocked in China: media watchdog

2006-06-07T03:43:00.000-07:00

BEIJING (AFP) - The Google.com search engine has been blocked in most parts of China, as Beijing steps up its efforts to restrict the public's access to information, a Paris-based media watchdog said.

Internet users in many major Chinese cities have had difficulty connecting to the uncensored international version of Google for the past week, Reporters Without Borders said in a statement received here Wednesday.

Aside from the Google.com search engine, Reporters Without Borders said the blocking was being gradually extended to the Google News and Google Mail services.

"Google has just definitively joined the club of western companies that comply with online censorship in China," Reporters Without Borders said.

"It is deplorable that Chinese Internet users are forced to wage a technological war against censorship in order to access banned content."

Random attempts to access Google.com in Beijing appeared to confirm that the international version of the search engine had indeed been made unavailable, while the censored Chinese-language version, Google.cn, was still accessible.

Google.cn was launched in January amid much controversy because the company agreed to censor its service according to the wishes of China's propaganda chiefs.

A Beijing-based Google spokeswoman said Wednesday the company was looking into the apparent effort to block its most widely used search engine, but declined any other comment.

"We launched an investigation last week," spokeswoman Cui Jin said. "As long as we don't have more certain information, it would be irresponsible for us to comment more."

Reporters Without Borders also said the Chinese authorities had largely managed to neutralize software designed to sidestep censorship since late May.

Software such as Dynapass, Ultrasurf, Freegate and Garden Networks is normally used to gain access to news and information that is blocked by the firewall isolating China from the rest of the worldwide web.

Bill Xia, the US-based exile who created Dynapass, said the jamming of these programs had reached "an unprecedented level" and he was convinced the authorities were deploying considerable resources to achieve it.

Adobe vs. Microsoft: The battle over the .pdf

2006-06-06T23:52:00.000-07:00

Adobe Systems and Microsoft have seemed to co-exist in a mutually beneficial ecosystem for years.

But their cause for common ground, a little piece of software millions have used but may have hardly noticed -- the Adobe PDF -- is now the reason the gloves are coming off.

At the core of the tension is Microsoft's move to create technology to compete with Adobe's PDF franchise, and difficult negotiations around incorporating Adobe's mostly open standard PDF software into the next generation of Office programs.

While Microsoft makes software such as Word and Excel that lets people create documents, Adobe can turn those documents you might print out on paper into digital, ready-to-be-e-mailed files through its Portable Document Format (.pdf).

Last week, behind-the-scenes friction between the two became public when Microsoft said it expected Adobe to file a lawsuit against the Redmond, Wash. company, possibly in the European Union, which recently has become more receptive to Microsoft antitrust concerns than U.S. regulators.

The dispute underscored the Silicon Valley axiom: Companies that cooperate often can end up trying to devour each other's business.

``Adobe is one of many long-time partners of Microsoft that have now turned into competitors of Microsoft,'' Jupiter Research analyst Joe Wilcox said.

Adobe makes money from its business-document processing software Adobe Acrobat, which is part of its Intelligent Document division and accounted for 36 percent of its revenue, or $708 million, in 2005. A person must own a copy of Adobe Acrobat to make a PDF, but only needs to download a free version of Acrobat Reader to view a PDF that has been sent to them.

The two sides failed to reach an agreement on how the PDF would be used in the new version of Microsoft Office. As a result, Microsoft announced it was canceling plans to include an automatic ``save to PDF'' feature in its new release of Office. So those who buy Office 2007 will have to download free software that will allow them to save PDF documents created in Office applications, such as Word, Excel and PowerPoint.

Microsoft indicated that negotiations broke down over fees Adobe wanted for licensing its software, which could make Office more expensive.

Observers say the larger issue is both companies view the other warily.

For Microsoft, the ubiquitous PDF format could indirectly result in fewer sales of its software updates because those who receive the digital documents can access Excel or Word without owning either. For example, a person making a resume in Word can turn that file into a PDF and send it to a colleague, who can then open and edit it in Adobe Acrobat -- without even owning Word.

``Adobe introduced very cool technology that extends PDF to other formats. You can now take documents from almost any source, mix them together, save them to a PDF, send them to your buddy. Just by using Adobe Reader, you can annotate that document and send it back,'' Wilcox said. ``If you are Microsoft, whose success was built on format dominance, that's a scary prospect.''

Adobe, on the other hand, sees Microsoft trying to move in on its turf in multiple areas: Microsoft is launching its own version of PDF software, code-named Metro, which the software giant will be offering as an optional bundle to computer makers. (All computer makers are sure to include the application.) Microsoft is also making a move to compete with Adobe's creative software, Photoshop, and is a competitor in Internet and mobile video-playing technology.

In the recent tussle, Adobe might be concerned that Microsoft, while including its PDF technology with Office, could make the PDF less appealing than its own document-sharing software.

Microsoft ``can create a preference for their version,'' said Howard University law professor Andrew Gavil. ``That's the argument Google has been making.'' (Google has complained an upcoming update of Microsoft's Internet Explorer Web browser contains a search box that in some cases defaults to the MSN search engine.)

Adobe has said little so far. In a statement, the San Jose company said it had not decided whether to take legal action against Microsoft.

``I'll never trivialize Microsoft. They are a $40 billion company with virtually unlimited resources and they are a monopoly,'' Adobe chief executive Bruce Chizen said in an interview last year.

Still, Adobe has successfully protected its PDF franchise against earlier incursions by Microsoft.

``They've defended themselves really well against Metro,'' said Pacific Crest Securities analyst Steve Lidberg. ``One of the reasons you have seen such good acceptance of PDF is the ubiquity of the Reader -- Adobe giving that away for free and the fact they have opened up the platform to other partners to build applications around it.''

The PDF, for instance, is now the standard digital document for federal agencies, from the IRS to the FDA.

``It would seem like they've pretty much won out,'' said Tony Henning, analyst at Future Image in San Mateo. ``There was a time, a decade-and-a-half-ago, when there were three or four contenders. They've won.''

Microsoft, though, may not believe the war is over.

``Even though PDF has become a de facto document standard, Microsoft has clearly made noises in recent months about how they'd like to change that,'' Jupiter Research analyst Michael Gartenberg said.

Google guns for Microsoft

2006-06-06T23:47:00.000-07:00

Google's launch of a Web-based spreadsheet on Tuesday is further proof that the company is eyeing Microsoft's Office stronghold. Now the question is: Should Microsoft be worried?

Google on Monday unveiled Google Spreadsheets, an addition to its roster of Web-based productivity applications that includes Google Calendar, launched in April, and Gmail, launched two years ago.

In March, Google acquired Writely, a collaborative word processor that runs in a browser. The company hasn't made clear its plans for that product and it remains in the beta stage of testing.

Still, as the pieces come together, there's little doubt that Google is quietly providing Web-based versions of the Office applications upon which Microsoft has built an empire.

"It does represent by Google a step onto Microsoft territory and yet another reason for Microsoft to try to cut off Google's ad-driven air supply," said Rob Helm, director of research at the analyst firm Directions on Microsoft.

Microsoft, meanwhile, is revamping its business to focus on Web services under the Windows Live and Office Live names, and retooling its advertising technology to target Google's bread-and-butter ad market.

Google Spreadsheets will appeal to consumers who have never used a spreadsheet program before, said Danny Sullivan, editor of Search Engine Watch.com.

"If you use this (Google's products) you may not have to use all the Microsoft products. Google has put together pieces of a whole suite," he said. "They are rudimentary tools. They're not going to immediately cause people to replace things, but for some people who don't want to pay for software and don't need to pay for extended features, this will be very attractive."

Advanced users will want to stay away from Google Spreadsheets because of its more limited features, other analysts agreed.

"Google has no clue about what enterprises want or need. Any success they have (with Google Spreadsheets) will come in the consumer market first and then be dragged into the enterprise that way," said Gartner analyst David Smith. "The real power-users are not going to be giving up their Excel spreadsheets anytime soon."

JupiterResearch analyst Michael Gartenberg questioned Google's strategy and said Microsoft shouldn't be worried.

"It's hard to imagine how either of these things (Spreadsheets or Writely) is strategic to their business. They have nothing to do with Google's core business of search," he said. "And it's hard to imagine how either one would have an impact on Microsoft or Office. There have been free alternatives to Office for years, and none have gained traction."

Microsoft does not have a hosted or Web-based version of Excel yet, but third parties already provide the online sharing capability that Google is touting with its Spreadsheets, said Microsoft.

"This is just an imitation of functionality that many other vendors already deliver, such as SimDesk, Wikicalc, and Salesforce.com," Alan Yates, general manager of Microsoft's information product-management group, said in an e-mail. "The reality is, customers are more demanding...about what they expect from their spreadsheet programs, and more than 400 million people around the world have chosen Microsoft Office because they benefit from our focus on helping them be more productive."

Helm, of Directions on Microsoft, agreed. "Google Spreadsheets is most plausibly an adjunct to Excel," he said. "If you have a spreadsheet you need to share, a service like this might make sense."

Google Spreadsheets will allow people to import Excel and other spreadsheet-type documents and export data to them, just like Intuit's QuickBase structured-data platform does. Meanwhile, Intuit will probably enable import and export compatibility with Google Spreadsheets, said Jana Eggers, general manager of Intuit's QuickBase division.

Google's next step?
Google has declined to lay out a full picture of its hosted productivity application strategy, and a Google representative said the company was not ready to discuss its plans for Writely and its strategy behind Google Spreadsheets. "Google Spreadsheets is not part of a suite of hosted productivity apps," the representative wrote in an e-mail. "Rather, it is a limited test that launched on Google Labs."

Many observers expect Google to use these applications to appeal to business customers, as Microsoft has done with Windows and Office.

Susquehanna Financial Group analyst Marianne Wolk said Google appears close to offering small businesses a suite for managing and storing files online. But the company still has to build its credibility with enterprise customers, analysts said.

"Clearly, Google could offer business customers free storage as an incentive to use its Web applications, but real demand is unlikely, in our view, until Google demonstrates strong security," Wolk wrote in a research note.

Directions on Microsoft's Helm said: "The next step is not the Google equivalent of PowerPoint, but a Web conferencing system. They already have voice and instant messaging. The next logical step would be the ability to work with presentations over the Web."

Whether or not big companies embrace Google Spreadsheets, enterprises are part of Google's long-term plans, said Forrester Research analyst Kyle McNabb. "The longer-term strategy at Google, I believe, is to let consumers influence the behavior of enterprises. They're starting to articulate a scheme around enterprises now."

Increasingly, consumers are affecting the buying decisions in corporations. And Web technology, from wikis to hosted applications, is being adopted inside businesses.

Google can use the attention it has among consumers to make inroads into the corporate world, McNabb said.

Right now, businesses are unlikely to uninstall Microsoft Office in favor of hosted applications, said Gartner analyst Michael Silver. The right combination of attributes could make a "Web office" more appealing over the next few years, he said.

"The value proposition of Web-based applications is that they are almost as compatible (as existing applications), almost as functional, at some point, and they're really easy to manage," Silver said.

"The question is, when do we see a breaking point (for) when it's acceptable?" he said.

Office incumbent Microsoft, meanwhile, is developing Office Live, part of a companywide effort to make money from advertising and online services.

Rather than an online Web edition of Excel or Word, Office Live is designed to complement an on-premise installation of Office.

Office Live services, still in beta testing, offer Web hosting, e-mail and Web collaboration to small businesses.

Because of its vast distribution network of retail outlets and PC manufacturers, Microsoft has a significant advantage over any Office challenger.

Google has, however, signed a distribution deal with Dell to pre-install Web and desktop search software on the PC maker's computers--something Google could expand over time with new offerings, McNabb noted.

"If Google does extremely well in the consumer market, IT managers will be hard-pressed to say 'Why shouldn't we?'" McNabb said. "That's the strategy that gives them an advantage over a lot of IT vendors."

"They have the advantage of having consumers' attention and they can use that in the enterprise," McNabb said.

Although it may appear an arcane matter, Google's choice of AJAX as its development strategy could play a significant role in its Excel compatibility, said Jonathan Crow, director of marketing at ThinkFree.

ThinkFree has written an offline desktop productivity suite using Java because that allows the company to provide strong compatibility with Microsoft Office formats, he said.

The company is also writing an online edition of its applications with AJAX, which will be less functional than the online version.

Google has been in the vanguard of AJAX usage. Its applications, including Google Maps and Gmail, helped set the bar for interactivity and features for Web applications.

How-To: Back-up your blog

2006-06-06T23:41:00.000-07:00

Bad things happen. If you've ever worried that the over caffeinated tech might spill his latte down your web server, then today's How-To will help you out. Forgetting to back up your blog (or your website) is something that isn't a big deal until you need it -- like backing up anything, really. But your blog's files and databased aren't really so simply accessible as the files on your PC, so today we're showing you how to automatically back up your blog (or website) with some freely available tools that will use a minimum amount of your precious bandwidth.

For today's How-To you'll need:

A webhost with SSH (secure shell) access
A machine to backup to (we prefer Linux or FreeBSD, but you can use Windows with cygwin if you must)
Internet/network access between the two machines
ssh, rsync and cron installed on the backup machine

For our example backup host, we're using a normal PC with Ubuntu Linux installed.

It's preferable to have the server push the backup data, but the destination machine must be accessible via SSH. If you want to backup your data to home, and can't get a static ip address, this isn't always an option. We don't like to push the data from the server because we'd have to leave an SSH key on a shared server. (Danger Will Robinson! Danger!)

If you can't get or allow SSH access to your backup machine, you can pull the data to your backup machine. This makes our robot companions happier, since we keep our SSH keys to ourselves.

On your backup machine, open up a terminal, type df and hit enter. Our (old) machine has 32GB of space available. Plenty for most websites, unless you're running Engadget or something.

Whip out SSH and login to your web server and change to the directory containing what you want to backup (home directory, www, etc). We want to backup our Wordsmith installation, so we run 'du -hs wordsmith' to get the total size of the directory in human readable form. This is a fresh install, so it's only 2.9 Megabytes.

It's preferable to have the server push the backups to your client machine. Running 'which crontab' and 'which rsync' is an easy way to check for the required software

Everything we need is probably installed, but it's better to check now. From the Ubuntu desktop, click System, then Administration and choose the Synaptic Package Manager.

Click the search button and type in ssh. We only need the client, but the server comes in handy for us.
If it's not installed, select the openssh client by clicking the check box next to it.

Next search for rsync. Select the checkbox if it's not installed.

Lastly, search for cron. Check it if it's not installed. If anything needed to be selected, click the Apply button and Synaptic will install everything you need along with any dependencies.

To write the backup script, we need a few file locations. SSH to your server, and change to the directory that you want to backup. Run the 'pwd' command to get the full directory location. Since we control the backup machine, we created a directory called /backup to keep our data in on the backup host.

Pick a good place for a backup script (like ~user/bin) and use your preferred editor to write it. We like vi but you're allowed to use emacs, pico, etc. if you must. The first line tells the machine that this is a 'sh' shell script. The next line runs rsync and tells it to use ssh. The '\' is a continuation, so these three lines are actually one command. The next line tells rsync that the files are on the remote host 'examplehost.com' and are under the directory '/server/willo/www/wordsmith'. The last line tells rsync to copy the files to '/backup/wordsmith' on the local machine. Once it's written, run 'chmod 755 backup.sh' to make the script executable.

Run the backup script by hand to make sure it works. If everything is good to go, the above is what you'll see. The first time it's run, it will take a while because it is copying every file from the web host to the local backup machine. After that, only files that have been changed since the last backup will be copied over to save bandwidth and network. To keep from entering passwords, you'll need to set up ssh keys if you haven't already. Linux Server Hacks has a quick how-to on that.

In order to run the backup script regularly, we place an entry into our personal 'crontab'. Run 'crontab -e' to edit it. The 30 * * * * tells cron to run the backup.sh script every 30 minutes. Write the file when you exit to enable it. As it's written, you'll get an email every time it's run. Adding a ' > /dev/null' to the end of the line will prevent that. To make sure your new crontab was written properly, run 'crontab -l' and the contents of the crontab will be echoed to the shell.

If you're using software like wordsmith that uses mysql, you'll probably want to write another script that dumps the contents of the database to a file. For security, it should be stored to a directory outside of your website directories. Because you'll be keeping a password in the script, you should create a special backup user that only has read access to the database you want to backup. Running 'chmod 500 mysql.sh' on the script will make it executable, but not readable by anyone else. (add -pmypasswd to the line when you put it in its own backup file).

To finish the job, add a line to the crontab on your server that runs the database dump at midnight every day. Then add a line to your backup hosts crontab to rsync that file to your backup machine at 30 minutes after midnight (the line would start with 0 30 * * *). That should allow plenty of time for the dump to complete. One warning, you should only do this once a day, or your hosting provider may get angry with you and perhaps deface your blog, leaving you ashamed and hostless. Database dumps are fairly expensive (cpu wise) and shouldn't be run too often, if you can help it.

If you've gone through all this and used our example crontab entries, your back up machine is grabbing any changes to your blog directory on your webhost every half an hour. The next time that floods, fire or excited techs with lattes strike, you'll know you're covered and you didn't even need your boomstick.

Warning over 'illegal' MP3 site

2006-06-06T23:40:00.000-07:00

Allofmp3.com sells tracks for as little as about 4p each

Britons using bargain music download website allofmp3.com have been warned that they are breaking the law.

Record industry trade association the BPI said consumers were breaking UK copyright law because allofmp3.com was not licensed to sell recordings.

The Russia-based site, which offers albums to download for as little as £1, claims to be licensed.

The BPI said it planned to sue allofmp3.com in the UK courts but that users would not be prosecuted.

Allofmp3.com is the second most popular download site in the UK, accounting for 14% of downloads, a survey has said.

BPI spokesman Matt Phillips said: "There is no doubt it is totally illegal.

"It is illegal for them to sell the recordings in Russia or anywhere else because they are not licensed, and UK consumers are infringing copyright law because they are making illegal copies from an unlicensed source."

BPI General Counsel Roz Groome on Tuesday told the House of Commons culture, media and sport select committee that allofmp3.com's claims to be legal were false.

"We are going to sue allofmp3.com in the UK courts - we are going to seek a judgement not against the users of the site, but against the site itself," she said.

Rock bottom

Allofmp3.com offers individual tracks for as little as about 4p, compared with about 80p on most sites.

"Because it is a professionally put together site it does look legitimate, although it should be obvious from the price that it isn't," Mr Phillips said.

"It is able to charge rock bottom prices as it doesn't pay the artists and record companies, whatever it claims."

The website says it is licensed by the Russian Multimedia and Internet Society (ROMS) and the Rightholders Federation for Collective Copyright Management of Works Used Interactively (FAIR).

But the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) said the ROMS licence was not legitimate and it would not cover consumers in other countries even if it was.

It said criminal proceedings were ongoing in Russia related to allofmp3.com.

Inside Google Spreadsheets

2006-06-06T23:38:00.000-07:00

Thanks to Sam Davyson, I was able to take a first look at the new Google Spreadsheets. At this time, Google is sending out invites to the first people who signed up for what must be the 15th or so product launch this year.*

See movie 1 [WMV], a general Spreadsheets overview showing the different editing features, and movie 2 [WMV], showing the multi-user editing capabilities, with Sam, Sidpac and me editing simultaneously.

As you can see, Google spreadsheets works quite smoothly. There were no noticeable lags in-between editing, and the multi-user editing is superb (and somewhat similar to Writely). The look and feel is that of Excel, but Google-branded and webified. There are less icons, less menu entries, and there is also only the most needed functionality. Your files can be exported into several formats (Excel, CSV, and HTML).

You’ll notice Google put a focus on sharing and multi-user editing. You can invite others to your document, you can chat with them, and edit along with them on the same document, at the same time. (When you’re used to Microsoft Excel showing weird messages like “the document is currently being edited” on your intranet, this is a refreshing change.)

Google Spreadsheet usability is quite good. As ever so often, this is a Google product with no ads so far (ads might be on the horizon, of course); it’s more a tool than a site, clearly fitting into the growing array of Google OS products. The only thing I really missed so far was right-clicking rows to apply formatting changes or to copy & paste text. (It’s not trivial working around the default browser context menu, which in certain contexts can’t be replaced at all by a web page.) That, and the ability to create graphs from your data (and the help file also needs to be completed yet). But that’s the good thing about web apps; they can be constantly updated by the developers in the background without any of us ever having to install a new version.

Also see the previous discussion...

More screenshots are available as gallery [ZIP] (feel free to share).

*The first half of 2006 saw the release of Google Writely, Google China, Google Trends, Google Co-op, Google Notebook, Google SketchUp, Google AJAX Search API, Google Related Links, Google Mars, Google Page Creator, Google Calendar, Google Chat, Google Web Toolkit and Google Pack.

AppleBerry might be the next big thing

2006-06-06T01:18:00.000-07:00

Is the day near when you will get music on your BlackBerry and e-mail on your iPod?

The idea of an “AppleBerry” partnership between Research In Motion Ltd. and Apple Computer Inc. was floated yesterday by Peter Misek, an analyst with Canaccord Capital Inc., who last year accurately predicted a partnership between RIM and Intel Corp.

Such a deal would have huge merit because each company lacks what the other provides. RIM wants a firm foothold in the consumer market and Apple doesn't have a presence in the booming wireless data sector, he said.

The two might jointly develop a new device: Apple could create a cellphone combining its iPod music device with RIM's wireless technology, or RIM might embed Apple's iTunes music into a future BlackBerry, he speculated.

Senior executives at Intel have recommended that Apple work with RIM, Mr. Misek said in a research note.

“Yeah, it could make sense. Technically it could work,” said Jean-Louis Gassée, a venture capitalist in Silicon Valley who once oversaw Apple's global products division and research and development. But he questioned whether the strong personalities leading the two companies could work together.

“I want to see the two CEOs of RIM and [Apple CEO Steve] Jobs working together,” he said. “The thought of this ménage à trois is absolutely hilarious.”

Both companies found success by controlling the hardware that runs their software, which could prove a point of contention during any negotiations.

Indeed, a partnership between Apple and Motorola Inc. announced last year has yielded little because of efforts by each to control the hardware, analysts say. The two worked together on Motorola's Rokr cellphone, which stores up to 100 songs from Apple's iTunes on-line music store. But so far sales have fallen short of expectations.

Both companies declined to comment on the speculation.

Google to Release Web-Based Spreadsheet

2006-06-05T18:38:00.000-07:00

SAN FRANCISCO, June 6 — Google plans to make available on Tuesday morning a test version of a Web-based spreadsheet program that is intended to make it simple to edit and share lists and numeric information online.

The company said that the free program, called Google Spreadsheets, was still in the experimental stage, and that while it can read and create files in the format used by Microsoft's Excel spreadsheet program, it is not compatible with many of that program's more powerful features.

At the same time, the Web search company appears to be moving ahead in its steady march toward creating its own computing universe that is an alternative to the desktop PC software business now dominated by Microsoft.

Google executives said today that the program would make it possible for Internet users to upload two common spreadsheet and data formats, Excel and C.S.V. Once the data is on Google's Web servers, it will be possible for two or more people to simultaneously edit spreadsheet documents and chat about them using Google's instant messaging program.

The new service will be able to handle several hundred formulas used to manipulate data in Excel, but it will not handle more complex functions like Excel macros, said Jonathan Rochelle, the Google Spreadsheets product manager.

"When people want to share and collaborate, we think this product fits in well," Mr. Rochelle said.

The service was developed by Google's research arm, Google Labs. The company stressed the experimental nature of the product and said the service would initially be offered only to a very limited number of users.

The introduction of Google Spreadsheets comes just months after the company bought a small Silicon Valley company called Upstart, the creator of a Web-based word-processing program called Writely.

Despite widespread speculation about whether that service would compete with Microsoft Word, Eric Schmidt, Google's chief executive, said during a recent news conference that the company had no intention of using Writely to enter the word-processing marketplace. Rather, he said, Google was hoping to integrate Web-based word-processing into many services that it was developing.

The Google spreadsheet is intended to be used by small groups of business users, or by people who now use spreadsheets as de facto database programs to keep simple lists, Mr. Rochelle said.

NVIDIA's GeForce 7950 GX2 graphics card

2006-06-05T18:24:00.000-07:00

NVIDIA HAS BEEN TALKING publicly about Quad SLI for half a year now, and Quad SLI configs have been shipping for a few months in a select number of ultra-high-end PCs. Today, at long last, NVIDIA is unveiling a consumer version of its Quad SLI component card, the GeForce 7950 GX2. A single GX2 plugs into one PCI Express slot, but it actually has a pair of printed circuit boards, two GPUs, and two sets of memory chips onboard. By itself, the GeForce 7950 GX2 is an SLI setup on a stick, a dual-GPU powerhouse that fits into the same space as any other high-end graphics card with a dual-slot cooler. Slide two of these puppies into a system side by side, and you have the potential for Quad SLI—but not the reality, apparently, if you're just a lowly DIYer.

Confused? So are we. But we do have a GeForce 7950 GX2 in our grubby little hands, and it's still a heckuva thing, quad SLI or no.

The card
What you see below is BFG Tech's version of the GeForce 7950 GX2.

Each of this SLI sandwich's two printed circuit boards carries a G71 graphics processor, 512MB of memory, and a low-profile cooler. That G71 GPU is the same chip that powers the rest of the GeForce 7900 series, and in this application, it's clocked at 500MHz. The memory chips run at 600MHz. That makes the GX2 roughly the equivalent of a pair of GeForce 7900 GT cards—but with slightly faster GPU clocks, slightly slower memory clocks, and double the RAM per GPU.

So, uh, yeah. Powerful.

This puppy is also revised quite a bit compared to the cards that shipped in early Quad SLI systems. At 9.5" inches, the GX2 is shorter than the earlier cards—and no longer than a Radeon X1900.

Protruding from the GX2's expansion slot cover is a pair of dual-link DVI ports and a TV-out port. These unassuming ports include something new: full HDCP support.

I know, breathtaking, hardware copy protection as a feature!

But you'll need it to plug into the latest HDTVs, so here it is. The board has a crypto ROM on it that works in concert with the GPU and an HDCP-ready playback application to make the magic happen. Then, all you have to do is plop down on the couch, rest your peg leg, and watch that new Blu-ray title with your one good eye. (Our BFG Tech review unit, however, did not ship with an HDMI plug adapter.)

NVIDIA says you can expect to cough up roughly $599 to $649 worth of pirate booty in order to purchase a GeForce 7950 GX2, and like many of its recent product introductions, this one should be followed by near-immediate availability of cards at online retailers. Read more...

Sun to slash thousands of jobs

2006-05-31T19:42:00.000-07:00

update Sun Microsystems announced Wednesday plans to cut up to 13 percent of its work force, in its first major restructuring effort under new CEO Jonathan Schwartz.

The struggling workstation and server maker said it will cut between 4,000 to 5,000 employees over the next six months, which represents an 11 to 13 percent cut in its global work force of 37,500. Sun said the bulk of the layoffs are expected to occur in the current quarter.

The Santa Clara, Calif., company anticipates that the cuts will save it $480 million to $590 million annually by the fourth fiscal quarter in 2007.

"We've worked hard to reinvent the entirety of Sun's product line, from software to systems, storage and services," Schwartz said in a statement. "It's on that rebuilt foundation that we are reinventing our business model on a far simpler base, and focusing our energies on the automation, energy efficiency and network innovation at the heart of our technology leadership."

Schwartz, who was named Sun's chief executive last month, has wasted no time in paring down the company's headcount since taking the reins. As a result, he may avoid the criticism encountered by company founder and CEO predecessor Scott McNealy, who was faulted by many industry observers and some former Sun executives as having moved too slowly in bringing Sun's costs in line with its falling revenue.

Sun cut more than 13,000 jobs between 2001 and 2005, but it wasn't enough to keep costs in line with slumping sales. Revenue dropped 39.3 percent from fiscal 2001 to 2005, while operating expenses dropped only 26.5 percent, according to analysts.

The layoffs, in part, may not come as a surprise, given that Sun's former chief financial officer, Michael Lehman, was pulled out of retirement three months ago to rejoin the company.

Sun said Lehman would take a "fresh look at everything" upon his return and assemble a "leaner and more efficient business model."

Lehman and Schwartz began extensive reviews of the company's global operations about a month ago, Sun said.

As part of its efforts to save costs via consolidating its real estate holdings, Sun will sell its Newark, Calif., campus and also give up leased facilities in Sunnyvale, Calif. The company noted, however, that it will continue operations at its two major Bay Area campuses in Menlo Park and Santa Clara, Calif.

Yahoo launches new video site

2006-05-31T19:40:00.000-07:00

Yahoo is set to launch a new video Web site in a bid to cash in on the popularity of viral video, which has pushed YouTube front and center.

"Our goal is to be the starting place for finding video on the Web," said Jason Zajac, general manager of social media at Yahoo. The new site is scheduled to go live at 9 p.m. PT Wednesday at video.yahoo.com.

The redesigned Yahoo Video page will include a search box at the top and editorially chosen feature videos that are topical, interesting or popular among viewers. Users can also browse for video by categories or user-generated tags.

The search results page offers more detail on the video content, including source and length, as well as a breakdown of video that either fits in predetermined channels created by Yahoo or by people who have uploaded content, based on a single source or by topic. Viewers will be able to read ratings and reviews and forward content and links to friends via Yahoo Mail or Yahoo Messenger.

If the video is hosted on an outside site, such as YouTube, clicking the "play" button takes the viewer to the other site. Yahoo-hosted video allows people to watch the video directly on the site through an embedded video player.

Users can also paste the video into their own blogs and other Web sites, as well as create pages of their favorite videos and make those available as public play lists, Zajac said.

The new Yahoo Studio allows people to upload their own video, create a profile, and keep track of how many people watched the video and what the ratings are. People who upload video own the content but give Yahoo the rights to play and display it on Yahoo and partner sites, he said.

Some Yahoo video pages will have banner ads, and eventually the site will display video ads. "As we go forward, Yahoo as all the systems, technology and sales people in place to run video ads as well," Zajac said.

The site competes with YouTube, AOL, Microsoft, Blinkx and Google Video, which provides access only to video that Google hosts and not from across the Web.

Microsoft Rumored To Be Planning eBay Buyout

2006-05-30T17:14:00.000-07:00

"[Microsoft] can either improve MSN to make it more of a real competitor to Google, or it can take a different approach, for example by buying eBay," said Martin Reynolds, an analyst at Gartner. "Google is quietly creeping up on Microsoft, and eBay would take Microsoft in a whole new direction."

The latest rumor to sweep the world of high tech claims that Microsoft has its eyes on eBay for a possible buyout. Last week, a report in the New York Post said that Microsoft has engaged in preliminary talks with eBay about acquiring the online auction company and merging it with MSN.

Microsoft and eBay declined to comment. "The information out in the public is speculation and the company does not comment on rumors," said an eBay spokesperson. A spokesperson for Microsoft said much the same thing.

But bloggers, industry analysts, and others have been speculating about what a move on Microsoft's part might mean.

Improving MSN

Reynolds also said that eBay's acquisition of Internet telephony firm Skype last year would be an added bonus for Microsoft. "But buying eBay would be an expensive acquisition for Microsoft," he warned.

Stacey Quandt, an analyst at Aberdeen Group, agreed with Reynolds that acquiring eBay would transform Microsoft.

"If Microsoft purchases eBay, it would certainly invigorate MSN and create a stronger community due to the growing use of Skype and PayPal," she said. "A dramatic gesture of this sort is needed to achieve the promise of MSN to be a leading content- and services-delivery model."

'No Natural Synergy'

Avivah Litan, an analyst at Gartner, warned of the possible downside. "I can understand MSN's motivation in potentially acquiring eBay, but it would be a major negative for eBay shareholder value," she said.

"Microsoft has no expertise in actual commerce and transactions, and there is no natural synergy between the two companies other than that they both have a major Internet presence," she said. "Surely, there are less painful ways to improve the stakes for MSN."

The eBay-Microsoft merger rumors follow last week's announcement that eBay has agreed to a wide-ranging partnership with Yahoo. Under the terms of that deal, Yahoo will become the exclusive provider of all graphical advertisements on eBay, and will deliver sponsored search listings for products on some eBay pages.

At the same time, Yahoo is putting eBay's PayPal platform in its online-wallet system so customers can pay for the Web portal's services through their PayPal accounts.

Microsoft's Wireless Laser Desktop for Mac

2006-05-30T17:05:00.000-07:00

Microsoft released a desktop especially created for Mac users: Microsoft Wireless Laser Desktop for Mac.

Microsoft's new Mac mouse enjoys Microsoft® High Definition Laser and Microsoft Intelligent Tracking System technology, making it much more accurate, responsive, and smooth. The built-in Tilt Wheel is meant for smarter document and web browsing.

Both the keyboard and mouse are wireless, preventing unnecessary cable scrambling and guaranteeing an entertaining and stress-free utilization from up to 6 feet.

Microsoft® Wireless Laser Desktop for Mac operates on the Macintosh, including the new Intel-based Mac machines, and uses a standard keyboard and mouse Universal Serial Bus (USB) connection.

The Comfort Curve Keyboard assures natural hand and wrist layout (enhanced finger grooves and thumb scoop ) as well as a cushioned palm rest, increasing comfort and productivity.

It features a glossy silver finish, Mac Modifier Keys, Zoom Slider, five Favorite Keys, Eject key, and user-set Hot Keys.

The Microsoft Wireless Laser Desktop for Mac will be available this summer for an estimated retail price of $99.95.

As another debut, it is the first Microsoft keyboard without the Windows Start button, since its introduction.

Microsoft's High Definition Laser technology guarantees 1,000 dots per inch (DPI) for more responsiveness and 6,000 frames per second (FPS) for better precision.

Microsoft's Macintosh Business Unit Director Scott Erickson:

"We are excited to see our colleagues on the Microsoft Hardware team provide this Mac-only keyboard and mouse to strengthen Microsoft's lineup of products for Mac users, which includes our productivity suite, Office 2004 for Mac. This launch further demonstrates Microsoft's commitment to enhancing the computing experience for Mac users. We were able to preview the product at Macworld this January and saw firsthand the very favorable response from Mac customers."

The Mac desktop from Microsoft requires Mac OS X version 10.4x (excluding 10.0), while those running Mac OS X v10.2.x must install enclosed IntelliType Pro and IntelliPoint software before connecting the hardware. Users of Mac OS X v10.3.x must upgrade to Mac OS X v10.3.9 before connecting hardware OR install the enclosed IntelliType Pro and IntelliPoint software before connecting the hardware.

A 30MB hard disk space, and an USB port are also necessary, while the 4 AA batteries will be included.

Internet Hot Keys are supported for use with: Browser support (only with software installed): Apple Safari 1.2, Microsoft® Internet Explorer 5.2.3, Netscape Navigator 7, Mozilla Firefox 1.0, and Opera 7.

Microsoft's Multimedia Hot Keys are supported for use with iTunes.

A smart receiver mounted on Microsoft Wireless Laser Desktop for Mac improves 27MHz wireless technology and cuts down on interference. The included smart receiver and intuitive software notify users when interference occurs from other wireless devices, such as a cordless phone, and offer ways to reduce it.

Earn Cellphone Minutes by Watching Ads

2006-05-30T17:00:00.000-07:00

With the cost of mobile phone calls already dropping sharply, Virgin Mobile USA plans to announce a way that people can talk for no money at all. They will, however, have to pay with a chunk of their attention.

The program, called SugarMama, lets people earn one minute of talking time by watching 30-second commercials on a computer or receiving text messages on their phones, then answering questions to prove they were, in fact, paying attention.

Virgin Mobile, a relatively small cellphone carrier with four million mostly young customers, is aiming the program at teenagers, who can earn up to 75 minutes of free talk time a month.

Howard Handler, chief marketing officer for Virgin Mobile USA, described SugarMama as "someone who shows up and gives you some extra gratification and gets you over the hump" when you are running low on talk time.

The company says that the program, scheduled to be available on June 14, is the first ad-supported cellphone service in the United States. Several companies are taking a similar approach to wireless Internet access, with proposals or plans for free services backed by advertising.

Virgin has signed up three advertisers: Pepsi, Microsoft's Xbox game console and a youth antismoking campaign called Truth.

Telecommunications industry analysts said SugarMama might not hit a sweet spot with consumers or advertisers. Roger Entner, an analyst with Ovum Research, a market research firm, said the kinds of consumers willing to swap their time for airtime were not likely to be big spenders.

"If you're too cheap to buy a minute of air time, how are you going to afford an Xbox?" Mr. Entner said. The people likely to earn minutes for free "are people who want to avoid costs at any cost."

Adding to Virgin Mobile's challenge is the fact that airtime is cheap and getting cheaper, said Ed Snyder, an analyst with Charter Equity Research. He said a minute of airtime typically cost from 3.5 cents to 10 cents, down from more than 25 cents a decade ago.

Mr. Handler said customers would get something besides free minutes: they would also get access to "funny and provocative" advertising. He declined to elaborate on the ads' content.

Young people "have been deluged with all forms of advertising from almost day one" of their lives, he said, adding that "they want it on their terms." This service "puts them in control," he said.

Virgin Mobile is what is known as a prepaid cellular provider, meaning subscribers pay an up-front fee for minutes, rather than signing a contract and paying a monthly subscription.

Customers who want to try SugarMama can visit the Virgin Web site to sign up. They must then agree to take part in one of three ways: by watching short video clips online, filling out questionnaires or receiving text messages on their phones.

In the case of the clips and the text messages, the subscribers would only receive a free minute if they sent in a response indicating that they had paid attention. For example, they might be asked to identify the main point of a commercial, Mr. Handler said.

Google's video replay

2006-05-30T16:51:00.000-07:00

news analysis Google appears to be in fast-forward mode with its new video ads.

The search giant may have bumbled with the January beta launch of the Google Video hosting service. But experts said the company will have better luck with a new computerized auction service that lets marketers place video ads on publisher Web sites.

"It will be successful. Brand advertisers have plenty of money to spend on the Google network," predicted Emily Riley, an analyst at market researcher JupiterResearch. "It's the next generation" of online advertising.

Google, of course, popularized search-related advertising and has used it to become a company with a $115 billion market cap. Google makes nearly all its revenue--more than $6 billion in 2005--by selling ads that appear on search results pages and on partner Web sites.

Up until last week, Google sold text-, flash- and image-based online ads. Google now offers click-to-play video ads that appear on the Web sites of its publisher network, but not on its own sites.

Under the new service, marketers provide Google with ready-to-show video and Google hosts it but is not charging so-called "serving fees" to marketers, said Gokul Rajaram, a director of product management for AdSense, Google's ad-selling network. Advertisers are eager, he said, to put ads on Google's network because of the dearth of Web sites willing or technologically able to show video ads, he said.

"If you buy video ads today, there is very little publisher space to buy," Rajaram said. "Most sell out months in advance."

Still, Google faces a learning curve when it comes to video, experts said.

"I don't think they're going to be as sophisticated out of the gate as, say Yahoo, who has been in the video ads business for some time," said Paul Palumbo, an analyst and consultant at AccuStream iMedia Research. "But Google has a history of innovation in ad models and can build on what's been done."

Safa Rashtchy of Piper Jaffray said the proof would be in the targeting. "The key will be to what degree Google can increase the efficiency of those ads by targeting them," he said. "Video ads are interesting and inviting and they add an attractiveness to the Web site itself. The key is that they be relevant to both the page and the users' interest."

There's no question video is becoming more popular on the Internet as the success of YouTube and viral videos illustrate.

Now video is increasingly gaining a share of the total online ad market. According to JupiterResearch figures from mid-2005, spending on streaming media in the U.S. rose from $140 million in 2004 to $251 million in 2005 and could hit $344 million in 2006. That compares with spending on conventional online ads, which is estimated to be $8.8 billion this year, JupiterResearch said.

eMarketer, which does research related to the online ad industry, predicts that by the end of the decade advertisers will spend at least $1.5 billion on video ads online.

However, not everyone is ready to jump into the video waters. While large marketers will have budgets to create video ads, that's not the case with smaller companies, who represent much of Google's bread and butter, said Allen Weiner, an analyst at market researcher Gartner.

"I don't believe you can take a 30-second ad from TV and put it on the Web," he added.

Then there's the oft-debated question of whether people really want to click on ads.

In a posting titled "Google PPC Video Ads--I'm betting against it," blogger Michael Arrington listed a number of reasons why he thinks the service will be unsuccessful, including lack of consumer interest.

"First, Google needs to eat its own dog food. It won't be placing these ads on (its) own sites for now," he wrote. "Why? Perhaps their early testing showed that consumers don't want to click on these nearly as often as significantly less intrusive text ads."

So what's Google doing that's different?

Unlike many video ads that automatically play when a user goes to a Web page, Google's ads will not start until the user clicks on them, said Rajaram. Viewers can advance the video, pause it, adjust the volume or click through to the advertiser's site.

Google also hopes it will be a cheap alternative to what's already out there. Via Google's automated auction system, advertisers can bid on a cost-per-click basis, where they pay when a user clicks an embedded link, or on a cost per thousand impressions (CPM) basis. Fees on a CPM basis are expected to range between $5 to the low double-digits, compared with the current online video prices, which can run as high as $100, Rajaram said.

Advertisers can choose which sites they want the ads to appear on, and they can target their ads based on keyword, content relevance, demographics and geography. Web site publishers can choose not to accept any video ads on their sites, although none have opted out so far, Rajaram said.

Google also will tell marketers how many people play a given video as well as what the average viewing duration is, he said.

The company had 12 beta testers for the service, including Paramount Pictures, Fox Home Entertainment and General Motors.

Rajaram said internal testing has shown that video ads outperformed text ads in most cases. Google may eventually show video ads on its Google Video site, he added.

Several studies seem to back up Rajaram's claim. A study released in March by the Online Publishers Association found that 66 percent of a sample of more than 1,200 U.S. Internet users who watch online videos have watched online video ads, and 44 percent of those have taken action on what they've seen, like visiting a Web site or making a purchase.

A May 2005 survey from Dynamic Logic and Viewpoint/Unicast found that more people were annoyed by pop-up ads and television ads than by online video ads.

"It's amazing how many people do click on video ads," said Gary Stein, strategy director at Ammo Marketing. "Video ads have been shown to be pretty powerful. They also have this good branding effect."

The ads viewers want to see are ones that are highly targeted and offer interactivity, experts also said.

"Do people want to click on video ads? It depends. If you make it fun, if it's a game, a contest..." said Weiner of Gartner. "Just taking a Zantac ad and moving it to the Web is boring."

Debate aside, Google faces formidable competition in the video arena. In addition to video ad veteran Yahoo, there's Microsoft and AOL "who have very sophisticated media players," AccuStream's Palumbo said.

AOL, in particular, has been charging full speed ahead with video. In January, the Time Warner division bought video search engine Truveo and just this month acquired Lightningcast, an online-advertising company that specializes in the placement of streaming video and audio content.

Google hopes that AOL--with whom it inked a multiyear search and marketing partnership late last year in exchange for an investment--will send some of its advertisers over to Google's video ad service, Google's Rajaram said.

Microsoft, meanwhile, said in April that it would buy Massive, a company that inserts ads in video games.

Google is moving beyond online ads, whether static or video. The company began experimenting last summer with print ads and with newspaper ads earlier this year. Google also announced plans in January to buy DMarc Broadcasting, which sells radio ads.

And it probably won't stop there.

"Google has made early forays into print and radio (with limited success)," a Merrill Lynch research note said. "However, we expect further innovation (targeting on traditional advertising mediums can improve) and we envision long-term opportunities for Google to develop partnerships to deliver targeted video advertising for on-demand TV viewing."

Symantec flaw a business risk

2006-05-29T17:57:00.000-07:00

VERSIONS of Symantec's anti-virus business security software contain a flaw that could put millions of computers at risk of a crippling worm attack, internet experts have warned.

Researchers at eEye Digital Security discovered the vulnerability, which they said could allow an attacker to create a worm able to take over a user's computer and destroy critical programs and files.

They rated the threat as high because a hacker could exploit the flaw to get on a machine and edit, remove and delete programs and files without a user doing anything, such as clicking on a link, eEye spokesman Mike Puterbaugh said.

"This could potentially result in an internet worm," he said. "It is a flaw that can be triggered from another location and provides the attacker with system-level access."

A worm is a computer virus that spreads by sending copies of itself over a network. Most viruses these days are worms, since almost all computers are now linked by networks.

Symantec, a leading maker of anti-virus software used by consumers and businesses, said in a statement it was investigating and that the issue does not affect its popular Norton consumer brand of products.

It confirmed eEye's finding that its Client Security 3.1 and AntiVirus Corporate Edition 10.1 offerings contained the flaw that Symantec said could allow a remote user to attack a machine.

"Fixes have been identified for all affected products and work on these fixes is ongoing," the company said in a statement. "To date, Symantec has not had any reports of any related exploits of this vulnerability."

The warning comes as internet security experts say cyber criminals are more interested in breaching systems for financial gain rather than simply to win notoriety by unleashing a devastating worm.

In fact, the number of headline-grabbing viruses has slowed since the Blaster worm outbreak in 2003, which targeted Microsoft software and devastated hundreds of thousands of computers worldwide.

Google Checkout - Answer to Yahoo Paypal?

2006-05-29T17:53:00.000-07:00

On the same day that Yahoo & eBay announced their PayPal and Yahoo Search Marketing oriented partnership, Google registered the domain GoogleCheckout.com, according to ZDNet’s Garett Rogers. Like any other Google domain registrations which make it to the top of the search engine blogs on a slow Memorial Day weekend, this domain registration is surrounded by mystery.

Garrett French (with an extra ‘r’) or Market Smart Interactive lends his detective work:

Is this more of a PayPal thing or a shopping cart add-on that will sync with Google Analytics?

date Yahoo + eBay went live: 2005-06-25
date DNStinations registered domain for Google: 2005-06-26

And back with Garett Rogers:

I think it will be a shopping cart system to help websites accept payment for their items online. The money site owners make will be deposited into a holding account at Google — just like AdSense works.

Isn’t this starting to sound a lot like PayPal? Who knows, they could even offer a Google branded Mastercard “debit card” like PayPal’s ATM/Debit Card — after all, the domain googlemastercard.com is registered to Google too.

If this is indeed what they are planning, it would make sense for Google Checkout to tie into Google Analytics so website owners can easily track with certainty how their AdWords campaign is directly affecting sales — right through the checkout process.

Rumors have been flying for years that Google would build a payment system which would be an alternative to PayPal, something they are testing with their Google Video Store and Google Base. Expansion into the webmaster cooridor would make perfect sense as a wrapped package with Analytics, AdWords, AdSense, Pages or Blogger (imagine the ability to launch a business blog with direct sales powered by Blogger/Google Checkout).

One aspect of the Yahoo eBay partnership which I feel is being overlooked is what the integration of PayPal means to the Yahoo Publisher Network. Under one umbrella, Yahoo may soon offer YPN Ads, Development Tools, Publisher Yahoo Maps & Y!Q, and Yahoo Stores powered by PayPal all under one roof. PayPal is the preferred online payment system among many online shoppers and site owners already, expanding to Yahoo’s Small Business and Yahoo Publisher Network is only going to build strength to both YPN & Paypal.

My opinion is that if Google does not introduce a checkout or payment system now, it might be too late. Not only would a Google Checkout ecommerce cart & payment system give publishers more reason to use Google Analytics, but Yahoo just might sweep the publisher rug directly from under Google’s feet with its own hosting. analytics, integrated PayPal payment systems, and a more relevant and publisher friendly contextual advertising system - which is something that Google cannot afford.

Big Plans, Unanswered Questions, For Microsoft

2006-05-29T17:08:00.000-07:00

Test versions of Windows Vista, Longhorn server, and Office 2007 are signs of progress, but .4 billion in additional spending has yet to be explained.

Microsoft reached development milestones for its three flagship products last week, releasing test versions of Windows Vista, Windows Longhorn server, and Office 2007. But a few big questions are unanswered, including whether the company can deliver those products when promised and just how it will use more than $2 billion in new spending.

The answers are important as Microsoft enters a new fiscal year, starting July 1. Last month, the company disclosed it would spend $2.4 billion more than previously revealed in fiscal 2007 and lowered its earnings forecast for the upcoming year, which pushed the price of its shares lower. In a memo to employees, CEO Steve Ballmer said Microsoft is spending more on marketing, manufacturing, hiring, and "investing heavily in our services strategy." CTO Ray Ozzie has said Microsoft could spend billions of dollars building data centers to support Internet-delivered software. Otherwise, however, company officials have been mum on details.

Microsoft's To--Do List

1.	Tell the world how it will spend an additional $2.4 billion
2.	Provide details on its software-as-a-service strategy
3.	Lay out plans for big data centers to support software services
4.	Deliver Vista in January 2007 (or delay it again)
5.	Keep selling software and talking it up

That could change soon. Ballmer is scheduled to speak this week at an investors conference in New York sponsored by Sanford C. Bernstein & Co., then again at Microsoft's annual meeting with financial analysts in late July. "Steve may have something up his sleeve," says Jim Allchin, co-president of Microsoft's platforms and services division. "There's more that needs to be explained."

Whether Vista will make it to market in January--Microsoft's target date after numerous delays--remains to be seen. Market research company Gartner recently warned the next version of the desktop operating system may not arrive until March. Ballmer, speaking in Tokyo last week, gave an inch: He said Vista could arrive preloaded on new PCs in January--or February. The next version of Windows Server, code-named Longhorn, is scheduled for release in the second half of next year.

Barry Crume, director of Advanced Micro Devices' partnership with Microsoft, doesn't see the launch of Vista as an inflection point for increased PC sales. "The hardware pickup on the consumer side happened last November," he says. Business demand for new machines will depend more on how compelling PC makers' new products are.

No Standing Still
Microsoft hopes to make desktop computing more compelling. During a speech at the company's Windows Hardware Engineering Conference last week, Bill Gates said Microsoft is changing Windows' boot-up routine, Internet software stack, and wireless technologies to improve performance. Vista also includes a new method of retrieving more data from RAM instead of disk, speeding up applications and reducing power consumption. "The PC is in no way standing still," Microsoft's chairman said.

Hardware and software companies need to "give performance back to the user" by making communications among PC components more efficient and designing software that takes advantage of new chips, Gates said.

The Windows interface also is changing. The beta 2 version of Vista includes new features such as Windows Meeting Space, which lets laptop and tablet users quickly share files over peer-to-peer networks, and Search Folders that can kick off saved search queries when they're opened (see story, "Windows Vista Beta 2 Features Great Search, Improved Security, Hardware Snags").

Gates has a new reason to get it right. Rival Google last week struck a three-year deal with Dell to include Google's desktop search software on millions of new PCs and make Google's home page the starting point for Web browsing on those machines.

Microsoft to buy eBay?

2006-05-29T00:25:00.000-07:00

The New York Post created some buzz among those who didn't cut out of town early this (U.S.) holiday weekend by reporting Friday that Microsoft, for several weeks, has been discussing the possible acquisition of online auction site eBay.

The Post cites multiple unnamed sources in its story claiming that Microsoft has considered buying eBay and merging it with its MSN portal in an effort to better take on Google.

"Sources indicate that the talks, while still active, have cooled somewhat in the last two weeks as executives considered antitrust issues," the story says, adding that it's unclear what impact news that Yahoo and eBay have joined forces will have on the talks.

Blog community response:

"It's a bold idea, certainly, one that illustrates Microsoft's seriousness about making MSN more than an also-ran. But eBay doesn't need a portal draped on top of it, especially the third-ranked portal, and owning eBay won't save MSN. The entity would have a fighting chance as a stand-alone company, but Microsoft seems determined to keep strangling its Internet division by keeping all its businesses all under the same roof...The most complementary assets Microsoft would gain in such a merger would be PayPal and Skype. Alas, unless the company intends to spin-off eBay's marketplace business, this seems an awfully expensive way to get them."
--Internet Outsider

"Great! Now everything will be properly integrated in an auction-enabled VoIP Desktop Operating System with built in advertising. Maybe Linux can buy Gizmo now."
--Webtown--Jan in Malaysia

"I can't begin to fathom what exactly it could mean to the industry if this were to ever go through. Of course, Skype would certainly be integrated into Windows. That might be alright for a while. I don't really see much integration with eBay except for the mentioned integration with the Live Search. Added exposure for certain. Could also make for interesting integration of both Skype and Ebay into MSN Spaces. One question that comes to mind is how much is eBay worth. They just paid a bucket load for Skype and that was a minor drop in their total value. This would almost certainly be a deal in the billions."

Airbus turns to robots for in-flight emergencies

2006-05-27T23:36:00.000-07:00

European jet maker Airbus is taking an unprecedented step to expand cockpit automation: onboard computers that will automatically maneuver jetliners to avoid midair collisions, without any pilot input.

Known for its pioneering use of computers and software to push the automation envelope, this time Airbus has decided to cross a new threshold in replacing pilot decisions with computer commands. For the first time, flight crews of Airbus planes will be instructed and trained to rely on autopilots in most cases to escape an impending crash with another airborne aircraft. Currently, all commercial pilots are required to instantly disconnect the autopilot when they get an alert of such an emergency, and manually put their plane into a climb or descent to avoid the other aircraft.

The change, which hasn't been announced yet, comes after lengthy internal Airbus debates and despite skepticism from pilot groups and even some aircraft-equipment suppliers.

In spite of significant pilot opposition, the proposed shift sets the stage for broader use of computerized safety systems down the road to protect commercial planes, business jets and other aircraft from other hazards, including flying into natural or man-made obstacles.

Airbus, a unit of European Aeronautic Defence & Space Co. and BAE Systems PLC, plans to start installing the computerized systems on its A380 superjumbo jets perhaps as soon as next year, pending regulatory approvals. It intends to gradually install them on all other Airbus aircraft, including retrofits for older models.

The proposed systems will ensure that all aircraft "respond correctly and quickly" to alerts with "less stress on the pilot [and] less potential for injury" to passengers, said Bill Bozin, a top Airbus safety official. He said some pilots now overreact to such cockpit alerts, making extreme maneuvers that can throw passengers around, and in congested airspace even end up putting the aircraft on a collision course with still other nearby planes. In rare circumstances, pilots would retain the option of turning off the autopilot and responding on their own.

The average passenger probably won't notice any difference in an emergency, but the concept already is prompting a fair bit of controversy in aviation circles. Larry Newman, a top safety official with the Air Line Pilots Association, said his group is wary because "this tends to lead to getting the pilot further and further away from the process" of responding to emergencies.

The design approach used by Airbus -- essentially trusting computers to react faster and more predictably than humans to midair alerts and then revert to normal flight -- is in stark contrast to Boeing Co.'s approach of relying on pilot judgment in all emergencies. Before Airbus publicly talked about its decision, Scott Pelton, Boeing's chief engineer for electronic systems on jetliners, said Boeing would remain "aligned with our fundamental philosophy," which "believes the captain is in charge."

MPAA accused of hiring a hacker

2006-05-27T21:51:00.000-07:00

A lawsuit filed Wednesday accuses the Motion Picture Association of America of hiring a hacker to steal information from a company that the MPAA has accused of helping copyright violators.

The lawsuit (click for PDF), filed in U.S. District Court for the Central District of California by Torrentspy.com parent Valence Media, doesn't identify the man the company says was approached by an MPAA executive. But the suit calls the man a former associate of one of the plaintiffs and alleges that he was asked to retrieve private information on Torrentspy.com, a search engine that directs people to download links.

Torrentspy's complaint includes claims that the man whom the MPAA allegedly paid $15,000 to steal e-mail correspondence and trade secrets has admitted his role in the plot and is cooperating with the company.

"It is a Hollywood drama, what happened here," Ira Rothken, Torrentspy's attorney, said in a telephone interview Wednesday evening.

The allegations come three months after the MPAA filed suit against Torrentspy and other directories for allegedly making it easier for pirates to distribute movies over the Internet.

"These claims (by Torrentspy) are false," Kori Bernards, the MPAA's vice president of corporate communications, said in an e-mail to CNET News.com. "Torrentspy is trying to obscure the facts to hide the fact that they are facilitating thievery. We are confident that our lawsuit against them will be successful because the law is on our side."

The suit filed by the MPAA was a departure from the organization's previous strategy of going after Web sites that were directly involved in aiding file sharing. By suing Torrentspy, as well as such companies as IsoHunt, BTHub.com, and TorrentBox.com, MPAA was declaring that it saw little difference between the file-swapping networks that the studios have aggressively taken to court and those companies that direct people to works that may be protected by copyright.

One MPAA executive is quoted in Torrentspy's lawsuit as saying: "We don't care how you get it," referring to the alleged assignment to dig up information on Torrentspy.

Some of the information that the man allegedly pilfered included a spreadsheet containing Torrentspy income and expenses from January to June 2005, copies of private e-mails between Torrentspy employees, detailed information on the company's servers, and billing information, according to the lawsuit.

Torrentspy alleges in the suit that the man, whom the company refers to as the "informant," has provided documents that prove the nature of his relationship with the MPAA, including a written agreement signed by the hacker and an MPAA executive, Rothken said.

"We have very significant proof of wrongdoing and the MPAA's involvement," Rothken said. "We think it's ironic for the MPAA to claim that they are protecting the rights of the movie studios and then go out and pirate other people's property."

Rothken said that the MPAA also paid the hacker to "gather nonpublic information" about other Torrentspy-related sites. Rothken declined to specify which sites.

Following all this, the "informant" had a change of heart and contacted Torrentspy.

"By doing that, he's mitigating the harm that he did," Rothken said. "He is also allowing us to get a remedy against the MPAA and to help us stop them from using the stolen data."

Torrentspy has asked the court for unspecified damages and a jury trial.

EU to tax e-mail, text messages?

2006-05-27T18:45:00.000-07:00

European Union lawmakers are investigating a proposed tax on e-mails and mobile phone text messages as a way to fund the 25-member bloc in the future.

A European Parliament working group is reviewing the idea, tabled by Alain Lamassoure, a prominent French MEP and member of the center-right European People's Party, the assembly's largest group.

Lamassoure, a member of Jacques Chirac's UMP party, is proposing to add a tax of about 1.5 cents on text or SMS messages and a 0.00001 cent levy on every e-mail sent.

"This is peanuts, but given the billions of transactions every day, this could still raise an immense income," he said.

Currently the EU budget is funded through a combination of import duties, value added tax revenues and direct contributions from member states--the so-called "Gross National Income resource," which is calculated according to wealth.

However, following a yearlong battle over the current seven-year budget, agreed on last December, it was decided that the way in which the EU is funded should be changed, with new proposals expected by 2008/2009.

A single "EU tax" has found support among many of the 25 EU governments, MEP's and the European Commission, the EU's executive arm. Other ideas include a tax on airline tickets and an extra levy on oil companies.

In Italy, the concept of a tax on texting was floated in the past, as a way to help offset the country's huge deficit, though it was flatly rejected by the outgoing government.

But Lamassoure argues that with billions of e-mails and texts sent around the world, it's a novel and simple way to raise funds from new technology.

"Exchanges between countries have ballooned, so everyone would understand that the money to finance the EU should come from the benefits engendered by the EU," he said.

Apple loses case against bloggers

2006-05-27T18:42:00.000-07:00

Applying traditional First Amendment protections to the exploding universe of online journalism, a state appeals court on Friday rejected Apple Computer's bid to unearth the identities of individuals who leaked inside information on a new company product to bloggers.

In a 69-page ruling, the San Jose-based 6th District Court of Appeal broke new ground by concluding that bloggers and Web masters enjoy the same protections against divulging confidential sources as established media organizations. Civil liberties groups and journalism organizations have argued that online journalists need to protect the confidentiality of sources just as much as traditional media, such as the New York Times and CNN.

Journalists covet the ability to protect the identity of sources as a key to gathering news. The appeals court's firm endorsement of journalistic shields for online media sets up what could be a crucial First Amendment showdown in the California Supreme Court if Apple continues to press its case.

Apple triggered the closely watched case two years ago when the company went to court to pry loose the identities of individuals who leaked internal company documents on a new product called ``Asteroid'' to three Web pages devoted to Apple-related news. Among other things, the plans for Asteroid, including an exact drawing of the yet-to-be released digital music device, were posted on a Web site called PowerPage, operated by Pennsylvania blogger Jason O'Grady.

Apple has argued that it is entitled to the identities of the bloggers' sources in order to protect its trade secrets and punish anybody who stole and distributed them. A Santa Clara County judge sided with Apple last year, but the appeals court overturned that decision Friday.

The 6th District, in a unanimous three-justice ruling, rejected Apple's argument that bloggers are not covered by California and federal laws protecting the confidentiality of journalists' sources and should not be afforded the same protections as traditional news organizations.

``We decline the implicit invitation to embroil ourselves in questions of what constitutes `legitimate journalism,' '' Justice Conrad Rushing wrote for the court. ``The shield law is intended to protect the gathering and dissemination of news, and that is what petitioners did here. We can think of no workable test or principle that would distinguish `legitimate' from `illegitimate' news.''

``Any attempt by the courts to draw such a distinction would imperil a fundamental purpose of the First Amendment,'' the justices added.

Apple lawyers referred questions to company spokesman Steve Dowling, who did not return phone calls seeking comment. Apple has repeatedly described the case as an important test of a company's ability to protect its trade secrets.

Civil liberties groups and other online media advocates lauded the court decision, saying it marked a legal breakthrough for the eclectic blend of new media operators devoted solely to the Web. The Electronic Frontier Foundation, which represented O'Grady in the case, called the ruling a ``huge win'' for online journalists.

Various legal blogs also supported the decision. Eugene Volokh, a University of California-Los Angeles law professor who runs a popular law blog, said the court ``got this absolutely right.''

``This means that if a journalist receives information from a source, it doesn't matter if they publish that on a Web site or in a newspaper or they are talking about it on the radio,'' added Lauren Gelman, assistant director of Stanford Law School's Center for Internet and Society.

Apple was backed in the case by a coalition of high-tech companies that warned there is no journalistic privilege when it comes to concealing corporate theft. And Apple, which investigated several dozen employees for the leak, has contended that the case is about theft, not the First Amendment.

Superior Court Judge James Kleinberg, who ruled in Apple's favor last year, agreed with that position, concluding that Apple had a right to find out who stole and leaked the information on Asteroid, a device designed to work with Apple's GarageBand music software.

The appeals court, however, found that Apple failed to thoroughly pursue other options before going after the bloggers' sources. The 6th District also ruled that a 20-year-old federal law designed to protect the privacy of electronic communications prohibits Apple from going through Internet service providers to obtain the bloggers' sources.

The appeals court also refused to accept Apple's argument that information related to the Asteroid product was not newsworthy and should not fall under the scope of laws protecting a journalist's confidential sources.

Motion Picture Association Accused of Hacking

2006-05-25T19:45:00.000-07:00

Valence Media, which operates the file-sharing portal site TorrentSpy, has accused the Motion Picture Association of America of hiring a computer hacker to help garner information for use in the industry group's patent infringement suit against the site.

In a lawsuit filed in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California, Valence and its owners have filed their own suit claiming that the MPAA, which represents the interests of the U.S. film industry, paid a known hacker to infiltrate the company's IT systems looking for potential evidence.

If brought to court, the suit will represent one of the most high-profile accusations of industrial espionage carried out via the use of paid hackers ever heard in the U.S. legal system.

According to the suit, filed specifically in the names of Valence executives Justin Bunnell, Forrest Parker and Wes Parker, contends that the MPAA "willfully and intentionally" purchased, procured, used and disclosed private information that it unlawfully obtained via a break into the company's computing systems.

The filing further claims that the MPAA paid its hacker $15,000 to steal e-mails and screen prints from Valence's servers, including client bills and the documents related to the firm's technology infrastructure.

MPAA representatives didn't immediately return calls seeking comment on the suit, for which Valence is seeking unspecified damages.

In February 2006, TorrentSpy was included in a lawsuit filed by the MPAA against companies providing links to the controversial BitTorrent file-sharing site. The MPAA claimed that TorrentSpy and other similar sites were guilty of facilitating copyright infringement by providing direct links into BitTorrent's hosted content.

In 2005, the U.S. Supreme Court ordered BitTorrent to block protected content from reaching its service as a result of an MPAA suit, and the company has since remade itself as a law-abiding venture.

In May 2006 the firm made the ultimate leap, signing a major distribution deal with Warner Brothers, one of the MPAA's largest members.

Named in the suit is Dean Garfield, the MPAA's director of legal affairs, who is accused of organizing the deal with the unnamed hacker and specifically telling the individual that when it came to getting Valence's information, "We don't care how you get it."

The lawsuit maintains that the involved person had gained previous knowledge of Valence's systems via a prior business arrangement.

It is widely held that the employment of hackers for the purpose of stealing industry trade secrets has long been a problem in the United States, but few cases have made it all the way to prosecution.

In one case decided earlier in May, the Los Angeles federal District Court sentenced a hacker to nearly five years in prison for loading a malicious program onto an estimated 400,000 computers, including some systems controlled by the U.S. Department of Defense, for the purpose of selling access to those machines to others.

Next-generation consoles finally in sight

2006-05-25T19:33:00.000-07:00

Video game makers can hardly wait for monthslong sales slump to end

LOS ANGELES — After years of promises and high expectations, consumers finally will be able to purchase next-generation video game consoles as the industry's painful transition to the latest technology comes to an end later this year.

In the fall, Sony Corp.'s PlayStation 3 and Nintendo Co.'s Wii systems are expected to join the Microsoft Xbox 360 on store shelves — a relief to game publishers who have seen sales plummet as consumers waited in recent months for the latest gear.

But as the hype is replaced by actual gaming systems, the latest "console wars" will enter a new phase, potentially shifting the balance of an industry whose sales top Hollywood's domestic box office receipts.

During this week's Electronic Entertainment Expo in Los Angeles, the big three console makers gave an important glimpse into the future, and further fueled questions about which maker will come out on top.

Will Sony's current dominance continue with its PlayStation 3 or will its high price tag send fans looking elsewhere? Will Microsoft's early release of its Xbox 360 snag it more market share? Or will the intuitive remote control that's offered with Nintendo's Wii prove to be the greatest draw? On the exhibition floor, at least, Nintendo's sprawling booth appeared to be the hit of the show. Throngs of attendees crowded in lines that snaked around the Los Angeles Convention Center in order to get a first try at Wii games.

But Colin Sebastian, an analyst with Lazard Capital Markets, said he was particularly impressed with the inroads Microsoft has made in an industry Sony dominated with its PlayStation 2. He predicted Microsoft and Sony will each grab 40 percent of the nextgeneration market, with Nintendo keeping a strong hold on the remaining 20 percent.

In the more distant future, the video game business will only improve, predicted Doug Lowenstein, president of the Entertainment Software Association, which organizes E3.

"The truth is, it's not terribly important how many units of hardware and software are sold in 2006," he said. "Don't get me wrong, it is important to individual companies, but it is less important for the industry collectively. The real issue is how this year positions the industry for the future. That is, after all, what transitions are all about."

And in that regard, most see a lot of opportunity.

Shane Kim, general manager for Microsoft Game Studios, also predicted strong growth in the coming years.

"I think the signs are all positive," he said. "With the competition now finally entering the market later this year, I think it will start to remove that uncertainly so customers will be able to make some better decisions, because some have been waiting, frankly, wondering 'What are my options going to be?'"

According to market research firm NPD Group, overall video game sales dropped 5 percent to $7 billion in the United States last year as gamers waited for the new systems. Top game publishers such as Electronic Arts Inc., Activision Inc. and THQ Inc. have lost millions recently due to slow sales.

But tough times might not go away so quickly.

Availability, which plagued Microsoft's Xbox 360 last fall, might turn out to be a continuing problem, particularly for Sony.

With only 4 million PS3 units expected to be available through the end of the year, analysts and industry insiders predict there will be shortages.

Consumers also could balk at the price tags, particularly on the PlayStation 3.

At its Nov. 17 launch, Sony will offer a $499 model that features a 20 gigabyte hard drive but not some important features such as a special output for highdefinition video, a memory card slot and built-in wireless. Buyers will have to cough up $599 to get those extras, plus a more spacious 60 gigabyte disk drive.

Though some critics say the console is too expensive, Sony has insisted the prices are suitable considering what's under the hood.

Each of the manufacturers announced a lineup of exclusive games that includes "Super Mario Galaxy" for the Wii, the shooter "Gears of War" for Xbox 360 and the frenetic action game "Heavenly Sword" for PS3.

Apple patents workout music matching

2006-05-25T19:32:00.000-07:00

Recently there seem to be a new category of cellphones emerging - Sport phones. First there was Nokia 5500 Sport, then a week later Sony Ericsson 710 Walkman sport phone. These mobile handsets have built in pedometer and specially programmed functions to monitor your activities, built-in GPS to measure your jogging distance, integrated text to voice capabilities so you don’t need to look at your phone to read SMS you just received and other cool functions.

It looks like Apple is thinking along the same lines with the development of the iPod music player. We have already described Apple’s Audio Navigation Patent for iPod, (filed Nov 24, 2004) that lets you access your music library following voice commands in the menu. As one of the possible applications, the patent specifically mentioned exercising. Now another patent form Apple (filed on Nov. 24, 2004) became public that describes “Music synchronization arrangement” for portable music player:

the invention pertains to a computing device that is capable of controlling the speed of the music so as to affect the mood and behavior of the user during an activity such as exercise. By way of example, the speed of the music can be controlled to match the pace of the activity (synching the speed of the music to the activity of the user) or alternatively it can be controlled to drive the pace of the activity (increasing or decreasing the speed of the music to encourage a greater or lower pace). One aspect of the invention relates to adjusting the tempo (or some other attribute) of the music being outputted from the computing device. By way of example, a songs tempo may be increased or decreased before or during playing. Another aspect of the invention relates to selecting music for outputting based on tempo (or some other attribute). For example, the computing device may only play songs having a particular tempo. Yet another aspect of the invention relates to both selecting music based on tempo and adjusting the tempo of the music.

Basically what it describes is a pre-programmed possibility for your iPod, with built-in accelerometer, to select and play music depending on the kind of exercise your are doing, or even play a faster music to make your run quicker.

Apple surely knows that very often people use iPods during their exercising. And now we have two patents, filed on Nov.24 2004 (18 months ago) showing Apple’s keen interest to enhance usefulness of iPods during exercising sessions. Then there is Apple-Nike partnership, that Business Week says was initiated by Apple 18 months ago.

Seems that all the chips are falling into place and we will see iPod Sport pretty soon.

Soldiers bond with battlefield robots

2006-05-25T19:25:00.000-07:00

SAN DIEGO - U.S. soldiers in Iraq are giving nicknames and forming emotional bonds with bomb-defusing robots they have come to regard as teammates, according to the founder of the company that invented the machines.

IRobot Chief Executive Colin Angle said one group of soldiers even named its robot “Scooby Doo” and grieved when it was blown up after completing 35 successful missions defusing improvised explosive devices.

“Please fix Scooby Doo because he saved my life,” a soldier told repair technicians, according to Angle’s account at last week’s Future in Review technology conference.

The company, which is best known for Roomba, the robotic vacuum cleaner, and Scooba, the floor-mopping robot, envisions a machine that would instill similar feelings in civilians.

Someday, Angle believes, these robots — which he calls ”physical avatars” — will help care for children and the elderly, giving parents and caregivers greater peace of mind as well as relief from mundane tasks.

But iRobot got its start as a military contractor, and its future also looks firmly wedded to the armed services.

Military contracts continue
The company was formed in 1990 and completed its initial public offering last November.

“There were no venture capitalists interested in funding robotics 15 years ago,” said Neena Buck, a Strategic Analytics vice president who specializes in emerging technologies. ”IRobot was funded by a lot military contracts and research grants that allowed them to do parallel research on consumer projects.”

Scooby Doo was one of about 300 PackBot Tactical Mobile Robots deployed in Iraq and Afghanistan to open doors in urban combat, lay fiber-optic cable, defuse bombs and perform other hazardous duties previously done by humans alone.

In March, iRobot won a $26 million U.S. Navy contract to provide an additional 213 PackBots for bomb-defusing duty, bringing the total value of Navy orders of its robots to more than $43 million.

The company has won another contract to supply its next-generation robots to the U.S. Army’s Future Combat Systems. IRobot is working with Boston University on a sniper detection robot that could sense where a bullet came from.

The Boeing Co., with employee-owned Science Applications International Inc., is the primary contractor for the $125 billion future combat program that will use advanced communications to link troops with a family of 18 manned and unmanned air and ground vehicles.

Civilian robots
IRobot has sold about 2 million Roombas, the company announced on Monday. It doubled its first-quarter revenue to $38.2 million from a year earlier.

But investors have punished the stock, driving its price to about $21 from the mid-$30s in recent months as the company failed to turn a profit due to a near tripling of marketing costs.

“I think they are in the early innings of this market opportunity,” said Jonathan Dorsheimer, director of research at capital management firm Canaccord Adams.

IRobot will use the defense market to develop technology that it can then use as the basis for lower-cost consumer applications, he said. For example, he suggested the company might develop a robotic lawn mower in this fashion.

And then there’s the avatar. Angle said a human being would remotely control this futuristic robot, which would be capable of carrying out complex tasks such as cooking meals and ensuring people take the prescribed dosages of medicines.

“The physical avatar has a screen, sound, and the ability to manipulate objects,” he said. “It provides a physical presence in a remote location.”

An iRobot partner has already produced an avatar that Angle says allows doctors to complete hospital rounds remotely. Angle’s goal is to make the commercial-grade avatar, which he says costs in the tens of thousands of dollars, cheap enough for consumers.

Leaner, meaner robots
While he does not know when these types of machines will be available in typical households, Angle is more immediately focused on the robots in Iraq, which are going out on 600 to 700 missions a day. IRobot employees who have been in Iraq have returned with ideas to improve weight, battery operation and other product requirements.

Angle did not hesitate when asked if he thinks the bond soldiers have formed with his robots is normal.

“I think it’s very rational,” he said. “(Scooby Doo) was someone, something, that was doing a great service for them and thus when they brought it back, it was viewed not just as a loss of a machine gun or a piece of body armor or a helmet. It was a loss of a contributing member of the team.”

Creating Secure Passwords

2006-05-24T21:46:00.000-07:00

Tips For Creating Strong Passwords You Can Remember

One of the problems with passwords is that users forget them. In an effort to not forget them, they use simple things like their dog’s name, their son’s first name and birthdate, the name of the current month- anything that will give them a clue to remember what their password is.

For the curious hacker who has somehow gained access to your computer system this is the equivalent of locking your door and leaving the key under the doormat. Without even resorting to any specialized tools a hacker can discover your basic personal information- name, children’s names, birthdates, pets names, etc. and try all of those out as potential passwords.

To create a secure password that is easy for you to remember, follow these simple steps:

Do not use personal information. You should never use personal information as a part of your password. It is very easy for someone to guess things like your last name, pet's name, child's birth date and other similar details.
Do not use real words. There are tools available to help attackers guess your password. With today's computing power, it doesn't take long to try every word in the dictionary and find your password, so it is best if you do not use real words for your password.
Mix different character types. You can make a password much more secure by mixing different types of characters. Use some uppercase letters along with lowercase letters, numbers and even special characters such as '&' or '%'.
Use a passphrase. Rather than trying to remember a password created using various character types which is also not a word from the dictionary, you can use a passphrase. Think up a sentence or a line from a song or poem that you like and create a password using the first letter from each word.
For example, rather than just having a password like 'yr$1Hes', you could take a sentence such as "I like to read the About.com Internet / Network Security web site" and convert it to a password like 'il2rtA!nsws". By substituting the number '2' for the word 'to' and using an exclamation point in place of the 'i' for 'Internet', you can use a variety of character types and create a secure password that is hard to crack, but much easier for you to remember.
Use a password management tool. Another way to store and remember passwords securely is to use some sort of password management tool. These tools maintain a list of usernames and passwords in encrypted form. Some will even automatically fill in the username and password information on sites and applications.

Using the tips above will help you create passwords that are more secure, but you should still also follow the following tips:

Use different passwords. You should usea different username and password for each login or application you are trying to protect. That way if one gets compromised the others are still safe. Another approach which is less secure, but provides a fair tradeoff between security and convenience, is to use one username and password for sites and applications that don't need the extra security, but use unique usernames and more secure passwords on sites such as your bank or credit card companies.
Change your passwords. You should change your password at least every 30 to 60 days. You should also not re-use a password for at least a year.
Enforce stronger passwords: Rather than relying on every user of the computer to understand and follow the instructions above, you can configure Microsot Windows password policies so that Windows will not accept passwords that don't meet the minimum requirements.

Password Recovery Speeds

2006-05-24T21:40:00.000-07:00

How long will your password stand up

This document shows the approximate amount of time required for a computer or a cluster of computers to guess various passwords. The figures shown are approximate and are the maximum time required to guess each password using a simple brute force "key-search" attack, it may (and probably will) be possible to guess correctly without trying all the combinations shown using other methods of attack or by having a "lucky guess".
See the bottom of the page for details about the classes of attack.

10 Characters

Just numbers. As you can see choosing a password from such a small range of characters is a bad idea.

Password		Class of Attack
Numerals	`0123456789`
Length	Combinations	Class A	Class B	Class C	Class D	Class E	Class F
2	100	Instant	Instant	Instant	Instant	Instant	Instant
3	1000	Instant	Instant	Instant	Instant	Instant	Instant
4	10,000	Instant	Instant	Instant	Instant	Instant	Instant
5	100,000	10 Secs	Instant	Instant	Instant	Instant	Instant
6	1 Million	1½ Mins	10 Seconds	Instant	Instant	Instant	Instant
7	10 Million	17 Mins	1½ Mins	1½ Mins	Instant	Instant	Instant
8	100 Million	2¾ Hours	17 Mins	1½ Mins	10 Seconds	Instant	Instant
9	1000 Million	28 Hours	2¾ Hours	17 Mins	1½ Mins	10 Seconds	Instant

26 Characters

The full alphabet, either upper or lower case (not both in this case).

Password		Class of Attack
Upper Case Alpha	ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ
Lower Case Alpha	abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz
Length	Combinations	Class A	Class B	Class C	Class D	Class E	Class F
2	676	Instant	Instant	Instant	Instant	Instant	Instant
3	17,576	<>	Instant	Instant	Instant	Instant	Instant
4	456,976	46 Secs	5 Secs	Instant	Instant	Instant	Instant
5	11.8 Million	20 Mins	2 Mins	12 Secs	Instant	Instant	Instant
6	308.9 Million	8½ Hours	51½ Mins	5 Mins	30 Secs	3 Secs	Instant
7	8 Billion	9 Days	22 Hours	2¼ Hours	13 Mins	1¼ Mins	8 Secs
8	200 Billion	242 Days	24 Days	2½ Days	348 Mins	35 Mins	3½ Mins
9	5.4 Trillion	17 Years	21 Months	63 Days	6¼ Days	15 Hours	1½ Hours
10	141 Trillion	447 Years	45 Years	4½ Years	163 Days	16 Days	39¼ Hours
12	95 Quadrillion	302,603 Years	30,260 Years	3,026 Years	302 Years	30 Years	3 Years
15	1.6 Sextillion	53 Trillion years	532 Million years	53 Million years	5 Million years	531,855 Years	53,185 Years
20	19.9 Octillion	63 Quadrillion years	6.3 Quadrillion years	631 Trillion years	63.1 Trillion years	6.3 Trillion years	631 Billion years

36 Characters

The full alphabet, either upper or lower case (not both in this case) plus numbers.

Password		Class of Attack
Upper Case Alpha	ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ
Lower Case Alpha	abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz
Numerals	`0123456789`
Length	Combinations	Class A	Class B	Class C	Class D	Class E	Class F
2	1,296	Instant	Instant	Instant	Instant	Instant	Instant
3	46,656	4 Secs	Instant	Instant	Instant	Instant	Instant
4	1.6 million
5	60.4 million

52 Characters

This time we're trying the full alphabet but using a mixture of upper and lower case letters, that effectively doubles the number of combinations when compared with just using a single case.

Password		Class of Attack
Mixed Alpha	`AaBbCcDdEeFfGgHhIiJjKkLlMmNnOoPpQqRrSsTtUuVvWwXxYyZz`
Length	Combinations	Class A	Class B	Class C	Class D	Class E	Class F
2	2,704	Instant	Instant	Instant	Instant	Instant	Instant
3	140,608	14 Secs	<>	Instant	Instant	Instant	Instant
4	7.3 Million	12½ Mins	1¼ Mins	8 Secs	Instant	Instant	Instant
5	380 Million	10½ Hours	1 Hour	6 Minutes	38 Secs	4 Secs	Instant
6	19 Billion	23 Days	2¼ Days	5½ Hours	33 Mins	3¼ Mins	19 Secs
7	1 Trillion	3¼ Years	119 Days	12 Days	28½ Hours	3 Hours	17 Mins
8	53 Trillion	169½ Years	17 Years	1½ Years	62 Days	6 Days	15 Hours
9	2.7 Quadrillion	8,815 Years	881 Years	88 Years	9 Years	322 Days	32 Days

62 Characters

Mixed upper and lower case alphabetic characters plus numbers.

Password		Class of Attack
Mixed Alpha and Numerals	`0123456789AaBbCcDdEeFfGgHhIiJjKkLlMmNnOoPpQqRrSsTtUuVvWwXxYyZz`
Length	Combinations	Class A	Class B	Class C	Class D	Class E	Class F
2	3,844	Instant	Instant	Instant	Instant	Instant	Instant
3	238,328	23 Secs	<>	Instant	Instant	Instant	Instant
4	15 Million	24½ Mins	2½ Mins	15 Secs	<>	Instant	Instant
5	916 Million	1 Day	2½ Hours	15¼ Mins	1½ Mins	9 Secs	Instant
6	57 Billion	66 Days	6½ Days	16 Hours	1½ Hours	9½ Mins	56 Secs
7	3.5 Trillion	11 Years	1 Year	41 Days	4 Days	10 Hours	58 Mins
8	218 Trillion	692 Years	69¼ Years	7 Years	253 Days	25¼ Days	60½ Hours

96 Characters

Mixed upper and lower case alphabet plus numbers and common symbols.

Password		Class of Attack
Mixed Alpha, Numerals & Symbols	0123456789AaBbCcDdEeFfGgHhIiJjKkLlMmNnOoPpQqRrSsTtUuVvWwXxYyZz !"#$%&'()*+,-./:;<=>?@[\]^_`{\|}~
Length	Combinations	Class A	Class B	Class C	Class D	Class E	Class F
2	9,216	Instant	Instant	Instant	Instant	Instant	Instant
3	884,736	88½ Secs	9 Secs	Instant	Instant	Instant	Instant
4	85 Million	2¼ Hours	14 Mins	1½ Mins	8½ Secs	Instant	Instant
5	8 Billion	9½ Days	22½ Hours	2¼ Hours	13½ Mins	1¼ Mins	8 Secs
6	782 Billion	2½ Years	90 Days	9 Days	22 Hours	2 Hours	13 Mins
7	75 Trillion	238 Years	24 Years	2½ Years	87 Days	8½ Days	20 Hours
8	7.2 Quadrillion	22,875 Years	2,287 Years	229 Years	23 Years	2¼ Years	83½ Days

Examples

These are just a couple of examples to show the resilience of certain types of password, using the information in the tables above you will be able to make your own examples.

Sample Passwords		Class of Attack
Pwd	Combinations	Class A	Class B	Class C	Class D	Class E	Class F
darren	308.9 Million	8½ Hours	51½ Mins	5 Mins	30 Secs	3 Secs	Instant
Land3rz	3.5 Trillion	11 Years	1 Year	41 Days	4 Days	10 Hours	58 Mins
B33r&Mug	7.2 Quadrillion	22,875 Years	2,287 Years	229 Years	23 Years	2¼ Years	83½ Days

Classes of Attack

These are just some example speeds, I'd be interested to hear from people with more information about the speed taken to crack various types of passwords with various hardware.

A. 10,000 Passwords/sec
Typical for recovery of Microsoft Office passwords on a Pentium 100

B. 100,000 Passwords/sec
Typical for recovery of Windows Password Cache (.PWL Files) passwords on a Pentium 100

C. 1,000,000 Passwords/sec
Typical for recovery of ZIP or ARJ passwords on a Pentium 100

D. 10,000,000 Passwords/sec

Fast PC, Dual Processor PC.

E. 100,000,000 Passwords/sec

Workstation, or multiple PC's working together.

F. 1,000,000,000 Passwords/sec
Typical for medium to large scale distributed computing, Supercomputers.

Distributed.net's Project Bovine RC5-64 possibly the fastest computer on earth has recently reached a speed of 76.1 Billion passwords per second!

Trojan targets World of Warcraft gamers

2006-05-24T20:42:00.000-07:00

According to Symantec, a new trojan called "Infostealer.Wowcraft" is making the rounds. Unlike many malicious programs, however, it makes no attempt to steal your credit card information. Instead, it goes after something much more personal—your World of Warcraft account.

The trojan, which is a modified version of a similar piece of nastyware that had already been detected in the wild, installs itself in the startup portion of the registry, disables any running anti-virus software it can find, and launches a keylogger process when it finds any windows labeled "wow.exe," "Launcher.exe," "signup.worldofwarcraft.com," or "www.wowchina.com," the latter being Blizzard's official Chinese web site.

Once the trojan has nabbed the unsuspecting user's World of Warcraft account information, it e-mails the name and password back to an address used by the author. Once the thief has this information, he can log on to the stolen account and use it with impunity, as the game does not check for a specific CD key or even geographic location when the user logs in.

What would be the purpose of such an action? Two words: gold farming. Blizzard has been fairly stringent about banning accounts that are suspected of being used simply for collecting in-game gold and selling it (for real money) to impatient gamers. This merely takes the idea to a new level, where "account farms" generate long lists of stolen accounts for the gold farmers, who don't need to worry if those accounts get banned because they can just pick up a new one.

The trojan is not the first one of its type. The W32.HLLW.Gotorm worm, first discovered in 2003, attempted to steal online game account information and CD keys for popular games, including Half Life, Warcraft III, Counterstrike, Starcraft, and Diablo 2, and then spread them over the Kazaa network.

The good news is that the Wowcraft trojan is currently exceedingly rare in the wild. According to Symantec, it exists as a payload on two or fewer web sites, and less than fifty total infections are known at this time. Because the trojan has no self-replicating properties, it will not spread even from "infected" machines, and this severely limits its chances for propagation. Nevertheless, it remains a good idea to make sure that you keep your operating system fully patched, and always make sure that you scan any suspicious downloaded files. After all, when you've spent that long getting your Mage to level 60, it would be a shame to lose the account to a gold farmer.

Bot herder pleads guilty to hospital hack

2006-05-24T20:39:00.000-07:00

A 20-year-old Californian pleaded guilty last week to causing damage to computers in Seattle's Northwest Hospital when his bot software compromised systems in the healthcare facility.

Christopher Maxwell of Vacaville, Calif., signed a plea agreement last week accepting blame for damaging a protected computer and involving himself in a three-person conspiracy for the same crime, according to a statement released by the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Western District of Washington. Maxwell admitted in the plea agreement that he and two unnamed co-conspirators caused damage to Seattle's Northwest Hospital as well as computers at military facilities in Germany and the U.S.

The group used the bot net created by the malicious software to install adware on the computers and earn more than $100,000 in affiliate advertising income, prosecutors stated. In searching for more computers to infect, the bot software used by the group caused trouble amongst some systems at Northwest Hospital: doors to the operating room failed to open, pagers did not work, and computers in the intensive care unit were disrupted, the statement said. The hospital used backup systems to continue to treat and care for patients.

The bot software also infected more than 400 systems at the Department of Defense's Fifth Signal Command in Mannheim, Germany, and the Directorate of Information Management in Fort Carson, Colo., causing more than $138,000 in damage.

Prosecutors and consumer advocates have focused increasingly on the problem of criminals known as bot herders, or bot masters. In January, another 20-year-old California man plead guilty to compromising PCs to create a bot network. Meanwhile, consumer advocates have attacked adware companies for giving bot herders an incentive by not checking rigorously enough that installations of adware are truly wanted by a system's user. Some bot herders have gone on the defensive, using peer-to-peer technology to make their tracks harder to follow.

Maxwell will be sentenced in August. Causing damage to a protected computer can result in up to a 10-year prison sentence and a $250,000 fine, while the conspiracy charge carries up to a 5-year prison sentence as well as a $250,000 fine. In his plea, Maxwell agreed to pay $252,000 in restitution to Northwest Hospital and the Department of Defense, according to the prosecutor's statement.

Ethics, Hacking, and Religion

2006-05-24T20:34:00.000-07:00

Last month I was approached with the idea of writing about ethical hacking. The reasoning behind this was to build up interest for a new book for the Certified Ethical Hacking exam. About the same time, Johnny Long (Google hacker extraordinaire) was interviewed by PaulDotCom.com and, among other things, had discussed Christianity and how it affects his work and life. The combined events led me to ponder the connection between ethics, hacking, and a person's faith. This section is the result.

Hackers

If you ask any stranger on the street what they think about hackers, you will probably get a surly look followed by a negative comment. The reason for this is simple — over 80% of computer users have been affected by a "hacking" incident. Whether it is a stolen credit card or virus attacks, the media has labeled the people behind such activity with the term "hacker." I am not going to bore you with the semantics of hacker, cracker, whitehat, and blackhat, because you can look those terms all over the internet. The point is that not all hackers are bad. In fact, most hackers stay on the legitimate side of the law and use their talents to create new technologies that you benefit from. For example, Steve Wozniak and Steve Jobs, the founders of Apple, are often labeled as hackers.

Ethics

According to Wikipedia, ethics are used to morally evaluate an object, action, or person and assign some form of judgment, such as good, bad, right, wrong, etc. For example, "People should not take something that is not theirs" is a moral statement that denotes a right and wrong — "People" "should not" "take."

The problem with setting a condition of morality is that it is defined by your external and internal environment. The following is a sort list of some of the influencers and how they might change your idea of right or wrong.

Religion — If you are Hindu, it is wrong to eat beef. If you are Jewish or Muslim, it is wrong to eat pork. However, a Christian will probably eat both.
Social — If you live in China, digital piracy is acceptable. If you live in the US, digital piracy is wrong.
Economic Extremes — If you are wealthy, stealing food is wrong. If you are starving, stealing food could be considered right.

The point is that ethics vary from person to person in many obvious and subtle ways. Because ethics are so subjective, it is very hard to determine with any assurance that a person is truly ethical by your standards.

Ethical Hacking

So, ethics are tied to morality, which is a definition of right or wrong. What then is ethical hacking?

According to the EC-Council (and I summarize), an ethical hacker is a security professional who possess a variety of technical skills, but first and foremost, must be trustworthy. The reason is that an "ethical hacker" holds the keys to the company, and often has access to sensitive information. In addition, an ethical hacker has to know when to stop, due to the risk of damaging systems.

While this might be EC-Councils definition, the fact is ethics are subjective. Johnny Long puts it very well:

"There could be, at least in theory, such a thing as a blackhat hacker who is ethical, at least in terms of his own ethical standards. Most hackers have their own kind of ethical and moral compass, even if they are termed a blackhat. There’s this line that most folks won’t cross, so the question becomes where is that line, and how specifically is it defined?"

In fact, most people I talked to discount the whole idea of ethical hacking. Lt. Richard Fogie, of the Lancaster (PA) police department, put it this way:

"Call it what you will – ’ethics’ are impossible to define. Therefore, ethical hacking is simply performing a job based on a contract (verbal or written). The concept of ethical is just another way of saying, permitted or legal."

Self described ethical hackers even find fault with the label. CEH holder Ryan Trost stated:

"The term 'hacking' in any phrase produces thoughts of malicious intent and this particular one [ethical hacking] is somewhat viewed as an oxymoron. If the phrase was replaced with 'Advanced Network Defense' would it be so taboo?"

However, Dr. David Heinaman (life long educator and database guru) simplifies the issue exists with this statement: "...without 'ethical hacking' there will be only 'unethical hacking' with dire consequences for all."

In other words, there are "good" hackers and "bad" hackers, but how can you really tell the difference?

Ethical Hacking and Certificates

Dr. Phil Hippensteel, a consultant and assistant professor at Penn State commented:

"In all of my recent study of laws related to hacking systems, I find nothing that indicates a difference between ’ethical’ and ’unethical.’ I think that concept is one that comes from the black/white hat community — maybe out of fear, guilt, or concern."

To provide some means of measurement, the security industry created certifications that require certificate holders to agree to a code of ethical conduct. For example, the CISSP (Certified Information Systems Security Profession) candidate must agree to the following "canons:"

Protect society, the commonwealth, and the infrastructure.
Act honorably, honestly, justly, responsibly, and legally.
Provide diligent and competent service to principals.
Advance and protect the profession.

But what does that really mean? Can a certificate keep a person ethical? Where is the accountability?

Johnny Long finds some value in certifications that include ethical questions "...if only for the fact that they provide an ethical baseline. Skills without ethics are suspect if you've got a history of making unethical decisions [i.e. ex-blackhat hacker]." Therefore, on the surface, there is some value in holding a certificate because it proves to the world that you know what you should and should not be doing with your talents.

However, one self described grey hat hacker who holds the CEH (Certified Ethical Hacker) certification admitted, "I work a security job during the day and at night try and expand my security knowledge by knocking on a few doors." According to the CEH requirements, a certificate holder "...agrees to abide by all legal laws of the land in the use of thus acquired knowledge." So, in this case, does the certificate really make the hacker 100% ethical? Apparently not. At least not by the certificate’s standards.

In fact, there are many security professionals that have an issue with an ethical certification. Jose Morales, a student virus researcher, stated:

"The title Certified Ethical Hacker is misleading. If you have a security certification of some kind, then you already have the tools and knowledge for ethical hacking. I don't think a certification specifically for ethical hacking is a good idea."

The problem is that a person's true ethics can not easily be measured or understood. There is a huge difference between answering a few questions on a test and applying those same ideals in real life. How then can an ethical certification ever expect to be of value?

Dr. Heineman suggested this as a solution: "I’d like to see some kind of bonding requirement or perhaps if you are busted for hacking and you are 'certified,' penalties are all doubled." Now that would put some teeth into the certification. At least at that point you can be pretty sure a Certified Ethical Hacker is going to strive to keep their activities up to the legal standard.

God is in the Details

Trying to determine how a person will act on ethics alone is risky. You simply do not know enough about their background or who they are to trust they will do the "right" thing. However, what if you could have insight into their religious beliefs? Would knowing a person was a practicing Christian or Muslim have a bearing on your opinion?

I pondered these questions and decided to ask others in the field how they felt. The answer was overwhelming.

Jose Nazario put it like this, "Many of the most talented hackers are deeply respectful and religious or spiritual. From my experience, they run the whole gamut from devout to devoid, just like anyone in any common profession or line of work or hobby." And I agree. In fact, I recall one year at BlackHat the subject of religion came up with those around me. To my surprise everyone was open with their beliefs. What was more surprising was the wide range of faiths represented by these top notch security professionals. Mormons, Catholics, and more were all there and accounted for and not scared to share.

Despite the strong beliefs that many have, there is often a great divide between religion and online activities. Johnny Long made an observation about himself that strikes the point home: "I felt like God wasn't on the Internet." This simple statement is quite true, and the online virtual world fosters this feeling. Just ask the many people out there who steal music via a P2P program. They wouldn't walk into a store and steal the CD, but they give little thought to stealing it online.

This brings us back around to the question "Can a person's religious beliefs determine how they will act as a hacker?" The answer across the board was no. There are again too many factors involved.

Kung Foo Hacking

If you have been in the security world for long, you will be familiar with the idea of Kung Foo/Fu. In short, this is basically the idea that an expert hacker has a certain Kung Foo quality about their programming skills.

Tim Rosenberg, the CEO of White Wolf Security noted that there should be a connection between how a hacker works with their computer, and a Samurai works with their sword. He stated

"When I taught swords in college, my instructor cadre reinforced the need to practice within an ethical framework; i.e. violence to defend self and family is ok, violence for the sake of self is not. So too with hacking. Boot Camps [the name given to week long cram courses that lead to a certification] are about teaching skills, but not within an ethical framework. Dojos teach skills, yet tie them to the body and spirit through honor, discipline, ethics and morality."

Another well known security expert, Dr. Gary McGraw (CTO of Citigal and author of the new book Software Security: Building Security In), uses the Yin/Yang approach to describe how the best of hackers needs to understand:

"...that a unified approach to security requires as much bad guy fu as good guy fu. Security design, secure coding, penetration testing, exploit development... offense, defense, construction, destruction. A clear mix. So the notion of the Yin/Yang, an eternal inextricable binding of two opposing forces fits very nicely."

An ethical hacker then would be one who has expert computer skills of all types, but keeps them in sync with their body and spirit, as strange as that may sound. Of interest, this is already known in part by the corporate world and is why most companies now require a personality/psychological profiling tests before you get a job. In such tests you will be asked what you think about different scenarios and how you would react. The results of these tests generally show what kind of person is applying and if they are trustworthy. I wonder if someday we will see a psychological ethical hacking test?

Summary

This section looked at a lot of ideas and concepts. However, in the end we can conclude that "ethics," as measured or required by certifications, are not worth much. We also can conclude that a person's religious orientation may not be inline with their heart and actions in the digital world. Perhaps someday a true test of a person's psychological makeup will be included with the certification process, but for now I think a verse from Proverbs 20:11 sums it up best:

Even a child maketh himself known by his doings. Whether his work be pure, and whether it be right.

And incase you were wondering, I am a Christian :)

A True eBay Crime Story

2006-05-24T20:31:00.000-07:00

It was the scandal that rocked the internet. A seemingly worthless painting sold on eBay in early 2000 for $135,805 -- all because buyers believed it might be the work of the 20th-century abstract painter Richard Diebenkorn.

It wasn't.

Nor was the story behind the painting true.

In fact, Sacramento, California, lawyer Kenneth Walton had forged the suspiciously Diebenkorn-esque signature, which appeared in an auction photograph, and concocted the hokey yarn about finding it at a garage sale some years back. Some of the highest bids, it turned out, came not from serious art-buyers but from Walton's eBay business partner, Ken Fetterman.

Before long the tangle of deceits that led to the historic sale began to unravel on the front pages of newspapers around the country. Walton and another business partner, Scott Beach, pled guilty to federal felony charges. After three years as a fugitive, Fetterman was finally arrested while on his way to a Frisbee golf tournament in Kansas.

Walton tells his side of this true internet crime story in his new memoir, Fake: Forgery, Lies, & eBay. Wired News spoke to him about the book and his experiences as an online outlaw.

Wired News: The story of your Diebenkorn auction broke on the front page of The New York Times in mid-2000. Do you feel the amount of attention your story got was a symptom of the times?

Kenneth Walton: It was on the front page of the Times three days in a row. I'm not sure it would have gotten the same amount of attention today. The scandal occurred right in the wake of the dot-com crash. Everyone's stock portfolios were crashing and the internet had turned from darling to devil overnight.

EBay's stock wasn't crashing, but the press was turning on them as well. Then I came along and gave them the perfect anecdote to go along with the idea that eBay was rampant with fraud.

WN: Was it rampant with fraud?

Walton: It was rampant with my fraud at the time, I suppose. There was and always is a certain amount of fraud that goes on on eBay.

WN: Let's talk about your fraud. You bought cheap paintings at garage sales and sold them, often, for hundreds of dollars and even thousands of dollars on eBay. How was that even possible?

Walton: In some of the sales I was involved with, they were paintings with forged signatures, and that's the subject of the book. A lot of the paintings I sold were simply good paintings I picked up at thrift stores and antique shops and I did sometimes make huge profits on them.

WN: In the case of the fake Diebenkorn, you even went so far as to make up this whole story around it. What was the effect you hoped it would have?

Walton: I realized there were a lot of art buyers out there who were looking for naïve sellers who didn't know the value of what they had.

My description of the Diebenkorn painting was just a complete fable to make me look like a hapless everyman rube who found this painting in his garage, didn't know it's by Diebenkorn and puts it up and there's these letters in the corner but he doesn't know to mention and they just happen to appear in the corner of one of the photographs.

WN: You said your kid ran over it with a Big Wheel.

Walton: There was a hole in the painting and I said my kid ran into it with his Big Wheel and you might be able to fix it with duct tape. Of course, I don't have a kid or a Big Wheel.

WN: How many of the techniques you used are no longer possible today because eBay has cracked down on them, or people have become more savvy?

Walton: In the wake of the scandal, eBay really cracked down on shill bidding, and made it much more difficult for sellers to bid on their own items or (let) people they know bid on their own items. They put into place some very complex pieces of software to police that. I'm not going to say it's impossible anymore, but I think that's much tougher. That's been a big improvement to the site, probably as a direct result of complaints that arose after the Diebenkorn scandal.

WN: As a result of what you did, you became a felon, lost your law license, and it sounds like your personal life suffered as well. Were you surprised when you got caught and by how hard the law came down on you?

Walton: In California, shill bidding has been an infraction for a long time, subject to just a $100 penalty. It's less serious than a speeding ticket, so I was shocked that the feds wanted to prosecute it as a felony. In a way it was my legal background, the way I could research these things and come up for a reason this wasn't illegal that got me into trouble. I wasn't listening to my gut.

WN: I think a lot of people will be surprised to hear how you earn your living these days. You write software for eBay users. Right?

Walton: Well, it was an ironic twist to the story. I was forced to quit selling on eBay and eBay banned me for life and I had to give up (my) law license, so I really didn't know what to do for my career. A couple of my brothers were computer programmers and really loved it, so I decided to give it a try.

The first thing I wrote was an eBay fee calculator, and things took off from there. I ended up starting an eBay software company called Hammer Tap. It ended up doing very well. Eventually eBay found out I was running it. They threatened to sue me if I didn't sell it, so I wound up selling the company. At this point, I no longer have any connection (to eBay).

WN: For some people eBay seems to be this addiction that's hard to break. Do you think that's true?

Walton: Absolutely. It is an addiction of a sort, or at least it's a habit that's really hard to break. It's like a lot of things on the internet -- e-mail, blogs, RSS feeds -- things you have to check on a regular basis. They just give you quick fixes of something you want. I was completely hooked on it myself.

WN: For many people writing a book can be a redemptive act. Was it that way for you, a way of clearing your conscience of things?

Walton: I don't know if I could necessarily call it redemptive. It was very cathartic, and it was a way for me personally to come to terms with what had happened. Even if no one buys it, it was great for me to go through the process of writing.

Storm-watching satellite heads into orbit

2006-05-24T19:07:00.000-07:00

CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida (Reuters) - Boeing launched an unmanned Delta rocket carrying a new U.S. weather satellite towards orbit on Wednesday, the first with the ability to keep an eye on developing storms even when the solar-powered craft is in Earth's shadow.

The Boeing rocket carrying the satellite blasted off at 6:11 p.m. EDT (2211 GMT) from the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, following a 15-month stay at the launch pad.

The mission was delayed due to technical problems with the rocket and the Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite, and because of a machinists' strike.

The spacecraft is the first of three upgraded GOES weather satellites to be launched over the next few years. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration will use them to provide imagery and data for weather forecasting in North America and the rest of the Western Hemisphere.

The new satellite, designated GOES-13, will be the first to have enough battery power to continue data collection and transmission around the clock, even when the solar-powered craft is in Earth's shadow. Unlike its predecessors, the spacecraft also will be able to use sound wave technology to analyse the moisture content of storms.

With the 2006 Atlantic hurricane season starting on June 1, forecasters are eager to get the new spacecraft into orbit and ready to work as a backup in case one of the currently operating, though ageing, GOES satellites fails.

After reaching its operational altitude of 22,300 miles (35,680 km) above Earth's equator, the satellite will be tested for about six months to make sure its instruments are working properly. Then it will be put into orbital storage until it is needed to replace one of the three now in use.

Though GOES-13 is primarily intended to watch for storms, hurricanes and other threatening weather on Earth, it also has sensors to monitor the Sun for flares and other disruptions. Solar activity can knock out communication and navigation satellites as well as pose a threat to astronauts in space.

The GOES satellites are geostationary, meaning their orbits are synchronized with the Earth's rotation so they hover continuously over the same spot.

Hi-tech bid for joggers to reboot

2006-05-24T19:05:00.000-07:00

THESE shoes are made for walking – and so much more.

Sports giant Nike and computer titan Apple have joined forces to unveil a running shoe that tells runners the distance they've covered, their pace, time and how many calories they've burned.

But fitness fanatics and part-time plodders will have to wait until October for the Nike+iPod system.

They will also have to be prepared to fork out some big bucks, with the entire set-up expected to cost at least $370.

The system consists of a sensor kit, a special Nike shoe and an iPod nano.

The sensor is slipped into the shoe and measures a runner's activity, sending the information wirelessly to a receiver attached to the iPod.

The information can then be displayed on the iPod screen and audio progress reports given through the headphones at the touch of a button.

Runners can also call up a pre-programmed motivational song to give them a boost when their energy starts to flag.

"The result is like having a personal coach or training partner motivating you every step of your workout," Apple chief executive Steve Jobs said at the slick New York launch of the system yesterday.

After the workout, the iPod can be plugged into a home computer so the information can be downloaded and stored for performance comparisons.

A Nike spokeswoman in Australia said the first of the iPod compatible shoes, the Air Zoom Moire, was expected to reach our stores in October.

She said price had not been decided but the shoe was expected to retail for $100 in the US.

An iPod nano costs between $219 and $359, depending on memory space and the sensor kit, which is expected to be available from the Apple website within 60 days, costs $49.

The death of Wikipedia

2006-05-24T17:27:00.000-07:00

Wikipedia, the encyclopedia that "anyone can edit," was a nice experiment in the "democratization" of publishing, but it didn't quite work out. Wikipedia is dead. It died the way the pure products of idealism always do, slowly and quietly and largely in secret, through the corrosive process of compromise.

There was a time when, indeed, anyone could edit anything on Wikipedia. But, as eWeek's Steven Vaughan-Nichols recently observed, "Wikipedia hasn't been a real 'wiki' where anyone can write and edit for quite a while now." A few months ago, in the wake of controversies about the quality and reliability of the free encyclopedia's content, the Wikipedian powers-that-be - its "administrators" - abandoned the work's founding ideal and began to impose restrictions on editing. In addition to banning some contributors from the site, the administrators adopted an "official policy" of what they called, in good Orwellian fashion, "semi-protection" to prevent "vandals" (also known as people) from messing with their open encyclopedia. Here's how they explained the policy:

Semi-protection of a page prevents unregistered editors and editors with very new accounts from editing that page. "Very new" is currently defined as four days. A page can be temporarily semi-protected by an administrator in response to vandalism, or to stop banned users with dynamic IPs from editing pages.
Semi-protection should normally not be used as a purely pre-emptive measure against the threat or probability of vandalism before any such vandalism occurs, such as when certain pages suddenly become high profile due to current events or being linked from a high-traffic website. In the case of one or two static IP vandals hitting a page, blocking the vandals may be a better option than semi-protection. It is also not an appropriate solution to regular content disputes since it may restrict some editors and not others. However, certain pages with a history of vandalism and other problems may be semi-protected on a pre-emptive, continuous basis.

Ideals always expire in clotted, bureaucratic prose. It distances the killer from the killing.

The end came last Friday. That's when Wikipedia's founder, Jimmy Wales, proposed "that we eliminate the requirement that semi-protected articles have to announce themselves as such to the general public." The "general public," you see, is now an entity separate and distinct from those who actually control the creation of Wikipedia. As Vaughan-Nichols says, "And the difference between Wikipedia and a conventionally edited publication is what exactly?"

Given that Wikipedia has been, and continues to be, the poster child for the brave new world of democratic, "citizen" media, where quality naturally "emerges" from the myriad contributions of a crowd, it's worth quoting Wales's epitaph for Wikipedia at length:

Semi-protection seems to be a great success in many cases. I think that it should be extended, but carefully, in a couple of key ways.
1. It seems that some very high profile articles like [[George W. Bush]] are destined to be semi-protected all the time or nearly all the time. I support continued occassional experimention by anyone who wants to take the responsibility of guarding it, but it seems likely to me that we will keep such articles semi-protected almost continuously. If that is true, then the template at the time is misleading and scary and distracting to readers. I propose that we eliminate the requirement that semi-protected articles have to announce themselves as such to the general public. They can be categorized as necessary, of course, so that editors who take an interest in making sure things are not excessively semi-protected can do so, but there seems to me to be little benefit in announcing it to the entire world in such a confusing fashion.

2. A great many minor bios of slightly well known but controversial individuals are subject to POV [point-of-view] pushing trolling, including vandalism, and it seems likely that in such cases, not enough people have these on their personal watchlists to police them as well as we would like. Semi-protection would at least eliminate the drive-by nonsense that we see so often.

The basic concept here is that semi-protection has proven to be a valuable tool, with very broad community support, which gives good editors more time to deal with serious issues because there is less random vandalism. Because the threshold to editing is still quite low for anyone who seriously wants to join the dialogue in an adult, NPOV [neutral point of view], responsible manner, I do not find any reason to hold back on some extended use of it.

Where once we had a commitment to open democracy, we now have a commitment to "making sure things are not excessively semi-protected." Where once we had a commune, we now have a gated community, "policed" by "good editors." So let's pause and shed a tear for the old Wikipedia, the true Wikipedia. Rest in peace, dear child. You are now beyond the reach of vandals.

Microsoft Says New Windows Is on Schedule

2006-05-24T17:25:00.000-07:00

Microsoft said yesterday that Vista, the much-delayed new version of its Windows operating system, was ready for its last and broadest round of testing.

Bill Gates, Microsoft's chairman, announced the release of the final test version of the program, along with test versions of its Office business software suite and Longhorn server software, at the company's annual conference for hardware developers in Seattle. In a speech that was broadcast on the Internet, he called the release "a significant milestone."

By showing it can stick to its latest development schedule, Microsoft is clearly hoping to win back the allegiance of developers. Many were disappointed when the company conceded in March that Vista would not be ready for consumers until January, missing the holiday sales season.

Microsoft holds 90 percent of the PC operating system market, and more than 300 PC manufacturers install Windows on their machines at the factory. The software accounts for nearly a third of Microsoft's revenue. The company had originally said it would release Vista in 2005, then delayed it until mid-2006.

Jim Allchin, co-president of Microsoft's platforms and services division, said in an interview yesterday that he was confident that the software would be ready for consumers by January and for corporate customers this November.

"This is a call to action to make sure everybody is prepared," Mr. Allchin said, referring to the thousands of hardware and software developers whose livelihoods depend on Vista's success.

But Michael Silver, an analyst with Gartner Inc., a technology market research company, said that the shipping schedule was overly ambitious and that Vista was not likely to reach consumers before next March. "We think they are underestimating how long it's going to take to respond to the problems that two million people find," he said, referring to those who are likely to test Vista.

The announcement comes less than a week after Symantec, a longtime Microsoft partner, filed suit against the company, claiming that it violated the terms of a licensing agreement with Veritas, which Symantec acquired last year. The suit, which was filed in federal court in Seattle, charges that Microsoft improperly used Veritas technology in Vista and other software. It seeks an injunction to stop Microsoft from selling Vista until the technology is removed.

Mr. Allchin said he was confident the suit would not affect the release of Vista, and called the dispute with Symantec "a sad state of affairs."

A car that slows you down

2006-05-24T17:24:00.000-07:00

Vehicles in London could soon be fitted with technology that would automatically slow them down if they break the speed limit.

Transport For London, or TFL, said it is investigating the technology and plans to run a trial next year in an attempt to cut road traffic deaths.

"We've got to the point where we need to look at new ways of reducing road deaths. This technology exists in the early stages of development, and we are looking at this now," a TFL representative told Silicon.com

A trial of speed-limiting technology is likely to take place next year with 10 TFL vehicles. The idea is that if the vehicle exceeds the speed limit, the engine revs are automatically limited so that it slows down again.

Motorists often claim that they are speeding because they don't know the limit in a particular area. But this would no longer be an excuse if their GPS satellite navigation system could alert them to changes in speed limit as they drive.

TFL is working on a map of the speed limits in London, which could then be loaded into satellite navigation systems.

"We are working with Ordnance Survey to come up with a digital speed-limit map," the TFL representative said. "There are so many variations of speed across the capital, we need to get that map sorted."

Another potential use is to equip buses with the technology. The TFL spokesman said: "If you are behind a bus that can't break the speed limit, then you can't break the speed limit."

Separately, The Times is reporting that speed cameras will start taking digital photographs of speeding drivers' faces, in order to crack down on motorists who try to evade fines by claiming that someone else was driving their car.

Steve Ranger of Silicon.com reported from London.

Imagining a day without Microsoft

2006-05-24T17:20:00.000-07:00

If the company we love to hate disappeared tomorrow, we'd be in for still more headaches

Did you ever hear the warning, “be careful what you wish for, it might come true?” Well, because Microsoft is the company most people love to hate, I decided to ask a cross section of industry cognoscenti this simple question: What would happen if Microsoft and all of its technology disappeared tomorrow?

“Initially, panic in the streets,” says Tony Meadow, president of Bear River Associates, an ISV focusing on mobile applications. “[Microsoft] didn’t establish [its standards] in a nice sort of way, but they are the basis for a lot of things that we use and do with computers.”

Today you can send a Word document to anybody in the world and expect them to be able to open it. According to Meadow, it takes forever for people to agree to these kinds of standards.

Josh Greenbaum, principal at Enterprise Applications Consulting, says, “Downloads for [StarOffice] would bring the Internet to a screeching halt.”

Hollis Bostick, a multidiscipline consultant to Pratt &Whitney’s Rocketdyne Division, notes that there is deep Microsoft penetration from the server side out and that if Microsoft disappeared “we would be going back to specialty buckets.” Bostick says that may not be such a bad idea in the long run, because those specialty buckets always delivered more “precise software.”

Bostick says that because Microsoft has, over the years, standardized its user interface across its product line, it’s easy to find what you need. Compare that to Adobe Premiere Pro for video editing, which has a ton of switches, but you have to know about them and where they are. “Microsoft kind of standardized the place they put stuff so you can find it.”

Bostick also says, “[At Pratt & Whitney] we have 10,000 software packages to help make rocket engines, but we use only one package [Outlook] to communicate.”

From a security perspective, if Microsoft disappeared no one vendor would have a 95 percent market share and worms could not spread as fast. “Heterogeneity is a powerful positive,” says John Pescattore, vice president for Internet security at Gartner.

We would also find out how bad the Linux and Apple vendors are at providing patches, compared to what [customers] got used to from Microsoft,” Pescattore says, adding that Microsoft is much better than Apple and Linux at delivering security patches. “If you keep getting into car accidents, you know how to fix dents.”

Marty Cooper, the man who invented the cell phone when he was at Motorola, thinks a world without Microsoft would be a disaster -- but only because we would have to learn somebody else’s complex system. Cooper points out that you can get into a rental car anywhere in the world and just drive away, despite the fact that the automatic transmission is at least as complex as Office.

“Good technology is transparent and invisible,” Cooper says, “and we haven’t gotten there yet.”

Finally I asked our own tech guru, Jon Udell, what he thought. On the whole, he thought Microsoft’s disappearance would be a good thing, saying, “I hope it would jump start the kind of competitive innovation we haven’t seen forever.”

What do I think? It is not an accident that Microsoft and its hardball tactics have succeeded all these years. They did not happen accidentally. Like the roots of a plant searching for water, the high-tech industry itself created Microsoft in order to survive.

If Microsoft didn’t exist, we’d have to invent it.

Backing Up Messages In Outlook Express

2006-05-23T22:07:00.000-07:00

Most email programs provide you with the capability of backing up your email messages. Since a lot of us would be somewhat lost if we lost some of the information stored in emails, it’s a very important feature.

In Outlook Express, you have the option of just backing up an individual message. Even though a message is stored in Outlook Express, this may not be enough especially if the message is of high importance. So for added safety, why not make an extra copy of that message.

To do this, open up Outlook Express. Open the folder that contains the email message you want to make a copy of. Also open Windows Explorer and open the folder where you want the copy of the message to be stored. Back in Outlook Express, highlight the email message and drag it into the Windows Explorer window (or onto the Windows Explorer button on the taskbar). A file will be created with an “eml” extension which is the backup copy of your email message.

Outlook Express does not have a backup function to backup all messages. However, if you use Outlook Express as your email client you may want to backup all your messages in the event that you need to restore them. The process is not as simple as it is in Outlook but it is certainly something you should consider doing. So here is what you have to do.

Before you can make a copy of your messages, you must first compact them.

Open Outlook Express.
Click File, point to Folder, and click Compact All Folders.
A window will appear informing you that it is compacting.
Once complete, your folders are saved to a file with a .dbx extension.

Next, you have to locate the correct file (with the .dbx extension) and make a copy of it.

Open Windows Explorer to search for the files with a ".dbx" extension.
In your search box type *.dbx. Windows will search for all files with this extension.
You may have several files appear. You want to backup the most recently modified. You can determine this by checking the date modified field.
Once you've identified the correct file, make note of the path. If you are using Windows 2000, it will be something similar to c: \ Documents and Settings \ [username] \ Local Settings \ Application Data \ Identities \ [identifier] \ Microsoft \ Outlook Express.
Browse to the file in Windows Explorer.
Right the Outlook Express folder and click copy.
Paste the folder in the location where you want to store the folder such as a CD or ZIP drive.

How to download movies from YouTube

2006-05-23T22:05:00.000-07:00

Brian writes, I just started watching videos on YouTube recently, but I can't figure out how to save them to my hard drive. Is this possible, or am I stuck bookmarking the pages?

YouTube uses Flash video to playback movies on their site. In addition to being universally supported on most computers, one of the many benefits of using Flash from a publishers standpoint is making it harder for people to download the movies. It's not impossible and depending on how the Flash movies are played, you can sometimes simply dig in your Temp directory for the file because the server actually downloads the entire movie to your computer during playback.

For YouTube movies, it's easier to let someone else do all the hard work of locating the file. My favorite solution for downloading YouTube movies is a Website called KeepVid, which locates downloads from a handful of Internet sites. It's one of the few sites I bother bookmarking.

If you find a YouTube video you like, copy the URL to the page the video is on, paste it into the KeepVid download look up, choose YouTube from the list of sites and click the Download button.

KeepVid will find the download link and provide instructions on how to download it.

Follow the directions and you're almost done.

YouTube uses the FLV Flash format, which isn't immediately playable. You also need an app to play it back. Windows users will want to grab a copy of FLV Player to watch the files on your computer. A better option is the shareware app SWF.max, which shows thumbnails of the movies and adds a number of features to control playback.

‘Age Of Conan’ Wins ‘Best MMO Of E3’ Awards

2006-05-23T22:02:00.000-07:00

Funcom is proud to announce that Age of Conan received multiple E3 awards as the ‘Best Game of Show’ in the MMO genre. The game went on to win awards from the three world leading gaming websites IGN, Gamespot and Gamespy.

Gamespot awarded the game ‘Best Massively Multiplayer Game’ of E3 and said “based on what we saw it’s the most promising massively multiplayer game in development today.” Gamespy awarded the game ‘Best MMO’ of E3, and stated “every time we see it, it manages to look better and better.” IGN handed out two awards for Conan, both as the best overall MMO as well as the best PC MMO, and reasoned “When you talk about the greatest fantasy writers of the 20th century, there’s no disputing the two names at the top of the list: J.R.R. Tolkien and Robert E. Howard. We’ve been waiting for an authentic Conan game for a long time and Funcom’s certainly on track to deliver an experience worthy of the license.”

"The MMO genre is one of the most competitive in gaming today, and earning an award as the 'Best MMO of E3' from the three major gaming websites is a great achievement for Funcom" said Trond Arne Aas, CEO of Funcom. "These awards are a testament to the quality of our game. They show that 'Age of Conan' is seen by the world's leading gaming sites as the best MMO currently in development."

'Age of Conan' is a Showcase Game for Windows Vista, and is scheduled for release in Q4 2006.

Enterprise Security Reporter

2006-05-23T22:00:00.000-07:00

Enterprise Security Reporter (Business - Helpdesk & Remote PC)

Enterprise Security Reporter automates the documentation of Windows security for compliance audits and security reviews, preventing data theft, protecting confidential records and meeting regulatory requirements.

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License:	Demo
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OS:	Win95,Win98,WinME,WinNT 3.x,WinNT 4.x,Windows2000,WinXP,Unix
File Size:	58.26 MB
Company:	ScriptLogic
Version:	3.00
Last Update:	2006-05-15
Screenshot:

What Is A Cluster?

2006-05-23T21:58:00.000-07:00

A cluster is a group of computers working together as if it were a single computer. This allows access to and management of the cluster as a single unit. Each system within a cluster is referred to as a node, and all nodes have their individual NetBIOS names. Each cluster also has a NetBIOS name, which is the cluster name.

Each node within a cluster has an IP address as does the cluster as a whole. Messages sent to a specific cluster node go directly to that server, but those sent to the cluster name or cluster IP address can be responded to by with node that is online. The network clients do not need to know which node is online to be able to access the cluster, as long as they use the cluster name instead of the node name.

The private network is dedicated to communications between cluster nodes. This connection is not used for client access to the cluster nodes. Instead, public connections are used for client access to the cluster nodes.

There are four different types of clusters in the Microsoft world:

Failover cluster: This is a cluster made up of two ore more nodes. One server is active at a time. If one server fails, the other will assume the responsibilities of the first server.
Network Load Balancing: Allows certain services to be accessed on up to 32 services as one TCP/IP virtual server, so that access is load-balanced across multiple servers, An example of NLB would be multiple Web servers with the same content that are accessed in a way that equals the load on all the servers to provide better performance.
Component Load Balancing: Used to distribute application services among several servers. This allows for load balancing of access to the services and for fault tolerance of the application as a while. This is a function of Application Center 2000.
Distributed partition views: Used with SQL to distribute a single database across several servers for load balancing. For example, if there are three servers, the database could be split into thirds and each server would manage one third of the database. Because one third of the database reside on each server, client access would be balanced among them