XO Laptop: Child's Play

The hardest thing about learning to use the One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) project's XO notebook PC is finding the right way to twist its antenna ears and open the display. Once you can see the screen, just follow the icons to write a note, snap a photo or compose a tune.

OLPC invited analysts and reporters to play with the B2 version of its computers during a press conference at their Cambridge, Massachusetts, offices last week. The group plans to begin mass production in September despite announcing they will now charge $175 for each of what had been the ballyhooed "hundred-dollar laptops."

That price is still far below the $500 price tag on the most basic commercial notebook in U.S. retail shops, a discount that OLPC hopes will allow developing nations to buy XO laptops in mass quantities and supply them to rural school children.

Simplified Computing

With its curved surfaces, bright green plastic shell and puppy-ear WiFi antennas, the physical design of the XO is easy to carry. OLPC President Walter Bender held his 3-pound XO aloft as he spoke to reporters, his fingers wrapped around the laptop's integrated suitcase-type handle.

Even generating electricity for this laptop feels like a game. OLPC designers have cut out the iconic hand-crank that was attached to the side of earlier versions like the engine starter on a Model T Ford. But they still offer that charger mounted on a USB cable as an optional accessory for users without access to reliable electrical sockets. Other power choices include a pull-cord that delivers an hour of use for 6 minutes of pulling, a foot pedal, a car battery adapter and a solar panel the size of a cafeteria tray.

In addition to finding creative power sources, OLPC designers have traded computing speed for lower cost and longer battery life. Instead of Microsoft Windows Vista they use Red Hat's Fedora Linux; instead of an 80GB hard drive they use a 1GB NAND flash drive; and instead of a 3GHz dual-core processor, the B2 XO uses a 400MHz Geode GX 533 from Advanced Micro Devices.

Intro to Apps

In practice, the Geode chip provides plenty of power to launch applications like paint, calculator and newsreader RSS feeds.

A user can click on the drum-shaped icon, launching the TamTam music composition program and producing a symphony of duck quacks, infant giggles and car horns. Once the laughter stops, he can click on the camera icon, and snap photos and videos by pointing the laptop at subjects. A mosaic-shaped icon starts a quick game of Tetris, and the laptop screen be rotated and used as a tablet for reading an illustrated children's book written in Farsi.

However, with all those applications running at once, the XO can begin to respond sluggishly. The experience can be disorienting for a user accustomed to the speed of a business notebook, but a quick reboot returns the XO to its original state. Future versions may perform better, since OLPC will use a faster, 433MHz Geode LX 700 in the B2-2 and future versions.

Instead of the hierarchical drop-down menus familiar to Windows users, the Sugar interface on the XO lists applications as icons on the screen, arrayed like numbers around a clock face. And a grown man could find it difficult to type a 500-word story on the cramped keys. The keyboard keys are very close together -- rendered on the XO, that sentence came out as "the keybosrd keysare very clsetogether."

Promote Communication

OLPC replies to that criticism by pointing out that the XO is not designed for modern office use, but for three universal traits that every kid has in common: learning, socializing and creating, Bender said.

That is why the XO's desktop page shows a graphic map of WiFi signals up to 2 kilometers away, allowing all the XO laptops in a village to share drawings, notes, photographs, and musical compositions. The mesh of laptops could also share a single Internet connection, allowing them to use a distant ISP or a single schoolhouse server.

source : www.pcworld.com

Microsoft Goes Open Source?

Microsoft is expected to show a new friendliness to the open-source community by unveiling plans to release the source code to a part of its Silverlight technology at MIX 07 next week, according to sources familiar with the company's plans.

Sources said Microsoft will also release a beta of Silverlight, a recently unveiled browser plug-in that allows Web content providers to offer a rich video and interactive media experience from directly within Web sites. The technology leverages Vista's new graphics framework, Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF), and Microsoft is promoting it as a direct competitor to Adobe Systems' Flash tool and delivery mechanism for rich multimedia content on the Web.

Specifics on which aspect of Silverlight will be open-sourced were not available, and Microsoft's public relations firm declined to comment Friday.

Aiming for Adobe

The final version of Microsoft's Expression toolset for building rich Internet applications (RIAs) also may make an appearance at MIX 07, according to sources, though Microsoft has two more months to work on the tool according to its schedule. The company has said Expression, another product it hopes will woo RIA designers away from Adobe, will be available before the end of June.

Microsoft is pitting Expression as an alternative to Adobe's recently released Creative Suite 3, and the toolset is also key to Silverlight because the company hopes designers will use it to create applications to be delivered through Silverlight.

Microsoft's rather unconventional move to embrace the open-source community could be a response to Adobe Systems' announcement earlier this week that it will open-source the SDK for its Flex RIA development environment by the end of the year.

Adobe has a multiyear headstart on Microsoft in luring developers to its RIA tools, and open-sourcing components of Flex should grow that base, users have said. Microsoft likely sees a need to lure developers to Silverlight as quickly as it can if it wants to catch up to Adobe.

Microsoft hosted its first MIX show last year as an appeal to Web designers and developers of RIAs, an audience whose respect the company has yet to win. Microsoft has made several stops and starts in offering Web authoring and design tools over the years, but the company has had far more success among developers building desktop applications because of its Windows and Office products.

Tough Market

Keith Cutcliffe, IT developer and analyst for ProAssurance in Birmingham, Alabama, said he has reviewed tools in the Expression suite, and from what he's seen it's a solid product. "However, I stand by my belief that Microsoft just doesn't know how to appeal to the designer crowd," he said. Cutcliffe attended MIX in its inaugural year, but is not attending next week.

Strategically, Microsoft is trying to make the necessary leap to the Web as a platform for developing applications to compete not only with companies such as Adobe, but also Web services companies like Google and Yahoo. It's important for the vendor to make inroads with developers using the most cutting-edge Web and multimedia design technologies, Cutcliffe said.

Adobe isn't the only competitor Microsoft had to contend with on the RIA front. A small company in Silicon Valley called Laszlo Systems also has a sophisticated tool for building RIAs, and already has made available an open-source version of it, OpenLaszlo, which lets developers build both Flash- and Ajax-based applications.

David Temkin, founder and CTO, of Laszlo Systems, said Microsoft's interest and entry into the RIA space is good for competitors, because it should stir up interest in related products.

source : www.pcworld.com

Patent Reform Questioned

Patent reform legislation introduced last week would create uncertainty about the validity of many U.S. patents, critics said Thursday.

Officials from Amgen Inc., 3M Innovative Properties Co. and the University of California all raised concerns about the Patent Reform Act, hailed by many tech vendors as a needed overhaul of the U.S. patent system.

Major objections voiced during a hearing before the House of Representatives Subcommittee on Courts, the Internet, and Intellectual Property centered around the bill's creation of a new post-grant procedure to challenge a patent and its restriction on patent infringement awards that would eliminate any preexisting products from being considered. The bill requires that only the patent's "specific contribution" be considered in infringement awards.

But 3M's patent on Post-it Notes would have little value if juries had to disregard the value of the preexisting inventions of paper and adhesive, said Gary Griswold, president and chief counsel of intellectual property at 3M.

"Limiting damages tilts the balance in favor of infringers at the expense of American researchers and innovators," Griswold said. "An infringer of the Post-it Note patent would be permitted to argue that the value of the paper and adhesive ... should be subtracted from the value of the infringing note, leaving essentially nothing on which to base a calculation of damages."

Biotech Amgen can spend US$1.2 billion and take 15 years to develop a new drug, and most of the company's projects "result in failure," added Kevin Sharer, the company's chairman and CEO. The bill's new post-grant patent challenge procedure would create uncertainty about the few patents the company is granted, he said.

The bill "expands dramatically the ability to invalidate patents," Sharer added. "We seek a clear and quiet title we can rely on going forward."

Representative Darrell Issa, a California Republican and patent holder, also expressed concerns about the post-grant opposition procedure in the bill, saying it could allow challengers to "have bite after bite after bite" into a patent.

Others at the hearing praised the bill, saying an overhaul of the U.S. patent system is long overdue. The U.S. tech industry has been victimized by "excessive" patent infringement awards, said Anthony Peterman, patent counsel for Dell Inc.

"Plaintiffs are exploiting litigation rules and seeking artificially high damages," Peterman said. "It's litigation as a business."

Many companies, because of the fear of "irrational" patent awards, settle lawsuits even when they don't believe they've infringed a patent, he added. "This patent reform legislation is needed, and needed now, to help sustain America's growth and vitality," Peterman said. "The problem hurts American competitiveness and the U.S. economy."

Patent reform has been at the top of the agenda for many tech companies and trade groups for several years. Tech groups have argued that many invalid patents are being granted in the U.S. and that infringement litigation is out of control.

The bill would also give more resources to the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. It would award patents to people who first file for the patents, instead of those first to invent, and limit the jurisdictions where patent holders could file infringement lawsuits. The U.S. has the only first-to-invent patent system worldwide.

Patent reform is needed, said Representative Lamar Smith, a Texas Republican and cosponsor of the bill. "This bill represents a good starting point for us to work through the many issues," he said. "This is the most significant, comprehensive update to patent law within the past decade."

source : www.pcworld.com

Hands On: Microsoft Xbox 360 Elite

Microsoft's Xbox 360 Elite is here, and this version of the sleek game console offers more than just cosmetic improvements. The unit's bolstered specs--such as a 120GB hard disk drive and an HDMI 1.2 connector, perfect for today's high-def TVs--mean more room to store digital content, and a better way to view high-definition content.

Though I don't think this update of the current Xbox 360 makes sense for every gamer to upgrade to, the HDMI capability alone makes the Elite a more-appealing option if you're planning on buying your first Xbox. The new console goes on sale Sunday, April 29, and will cost $480, although some sites are charging a premium.

My first impressions of this new iteration of Microsoft's two-year-old game console are generally positive--particularly with regard to the dramatically improved integration of the optional Xbox HD DVD Player, and the improved image quality offered by HDMI (the differences are there, albeit not as striking as one might expect). For photos of the Xbox 360 Elite and its components, see our slide show.

Basic Black

The Xbox 360 Elite differs from the current Xbox 360 in ways beyond cosmetic finish. Black, however, really can be slimming--even in the context of an inanimate game console. The matte-black Xbox 360 Elite manages to look more svelte than its off-white predecessor.

Looks aren't everything, though. While I can appreciate that the Xbox 360 Elite will blend in better with the rest of my entertainment components, I'm more interested in the unit's bolstered specs and what those new features will let me do. I was also interested to see how the unit handled--especially with regard to high-definition movie playback.

A Mostly Breezy Setup

I found the initial setup of the Xbox 360 Elite a snap: Select the language and establish your Xbox Live account or migrate an existing one.

From there, you can select the High Definition Settings option for choosing the optimal audio and video for high definition.

This option is prominently displayed on the console's screen, and I applaud its inclusion since many users will use the Xbox 360 Elite on a high-definition TV. However, I found actually choosing this option a bit disappointing: It deposited me into the Console Settings panel, directly into the display settings; audio was just one of many console settings I could adjust below that. I had expected to go to a menu that unified setting the audio and video for high-def.

The menu showed my current, default setting for the display--1080i wide-screen. I next drilled two more levels down within the menu, so I could select the HDTV setting; I chose 1080p, to match the resolution of the Pioneer Elite Pro FHD-1 50-inch plasma display I was using. The menu also has an option to select screen format, but on the unit I tested, that option was grayed out.

I then moved back to adjust the audio settings, to select the digital output. The default setting here was for Dolby Digital 5.1; however, you can also choose digital stereo or Dolby Digital with WMA Pro. The on-screen display warns you that you can only get digital audio output through certain connectors--you must use an Xbox 360 Component HD, Advanced SCART, S-Video, or VGA HD AV cable to get digital output.

Strangely, though, the menu doesn't make any mention of the HDMI AV cable, despite the cable coming with the Xbox 360 Elite (that inclusion is a nice touch since the cable could be expensive). That omission also means that the unit's setup makes no mention of what kind of audio you can expect to recieve over HDMI. (I'm awaiting confirmation on what audio the Elite can support over HDMI; if it's limited to the same stated specs as within the menu options, though, that would be a major disappointment--especially considering that many HD DVD movie titles have shipped with multichannel Dolby TrueHD or Dolby Digital Plus audio tracks.)

source : www.pcworld.com

New Zune Player Will Face Tough Market

More types of Microsoft Corp. Zune music players are in the works, but some analysts are unsure whether new form factors or functions will significantly boost Zune's popularity.

Microsoft sees three main categories in the sector, and all of them are important as the company develops new Zunes, said Chris Stephenson, general manager of global marketing for Zune. The three categories include higher-end video players, mid-range music-centric devices such as the iPod Nano and low-end USB devices such as the iPod Shuffle, he said.

"We think of [the Zune] as a broad entertainment offer that is driven by music at the moment," he said. "We will start to play more aggressively in a broader number of categories." The current Zune is just the "tip of the iceberg," he said.

In the next month or so, Microsoft plans to reveal more about its vision for the future of Zune, he said.

One analyst isn't so sure that a very low-end version of the Zune comparable to the Shuffle will help. "I don't personally see that as something the Zune should do next," said James McQuivey, an analyst at Forrester Research. "Zune should first worry about getting a base of users of both flash and hard drive versions before experimenting with little companions." He said most users of Shuffles buy them essentially as companions to a larger iPod.

However, Microsoft could plan on selling such a lower-cost product as a way to quickly boost its user base "so no one counts them out," he said.

The Zune is currently a distant second in portable music player market share, behind Apple.

Developing a player like the Nano, Apple's best-selling music player that uses flash, would be a good idea for Microsoft, said Michael Gartenberg, an analyst with Jupiter Research. "If they're going to compete with Apple, they're going to need something that competes directly with the most successful in the line, and that means a flash-based player" like the Nano, he said.

Beyond the form factor, Microsoft is also likely to expand the Wi-Fi capabilities in the Zune, Stephenson said. Without revealing any specific plans for new Wi-Fi capabilities, Stephenson described scenarios that are being discussed in the marketplace, such as the potential for Zune users to download music over Wi-Fi in public hotspots or to synch with their PC-based music collections while at home. Currently, Zune users can only use the Wi-Fi connection to share music with other Zune customers.

But even expanded Wi-Fi capabilities may not be enough to draw new buyers. Connecting a Zune to a home or public network could be technically difficult for some users, McQuivey said. "If you have the kind of know-how to do that, you're the person who bought an iPod four years ago," he noted. "So how do you grow beyond the iPod footprint? I don't know the answer to that."

While Microsoft has the resources and the talent to develop cutting-edge products, it's not clear that the company will manage to hit on a winning product or service. "They're going to have to find ways of being where Apple isn't and find ways of growing the overall market," Gartenberg said.

source : www.pcworld.com

Google Declares Personalized Home Page Glitch Solved

Google Inc. has finally solved a technical glitch on its Personalized Home Page service that rattled an undetermined number of users.

Anecdotal evidence gathered from discussion forums indicates that Google began rolling out a fix to the problem at around 3 a.m. ET on Friday, almost 24 hours after the problem erupted, although the glitch seems to still be affecting some users at press time early Friday afternoon ET.

The company didn't declare the problem solved until almost 2 p.m. ET Friday, about 32 hours after the first problem reports started surfacing. "A number of Google users had difficulty accessing their settings and preferences on the personalized version of their homepages over the past day," a spokeswoman wrote via e-mail. "Users should have their personalized homepages restored at this time. We apologize for the inconvenience this may have caused our users. We know how important Google Personalized Homepage is to our users, so we take issues like this very seriously."

In the statement, Google didn't disclose how many users were affected, nor did it offer an explanation of what happened.

Personalized Home Page is a free service that lets users turn Google.com into a customized portal by adding to it syndicated content feeds, as well as "gadget" applications, turning it into a user's hub for Web content, online services and applications.

The problem, of apparently significant proportions, erupted at around 6 a.m. ET on Thursday, when angry users began flocking to discussion forums to report that their home pages had either reverted to old versions or to their original default settings.

Users complained about lost productivity and missing data, but throughout Friday morning many reported in discussion forums that their Google home pages had been restored, although some said the problem hadn't been fixed for them as late as 1:14 pm ET.

In a number of forum postings, users called on Google to offer an explanation for the problem and to let them save their Personalized Home Page settings to their PCs, so that the settings can be restored even if they get wiped out on Google servers.

Episodes such as this one have affected other Google services recently, leading some to question the company's ability to provide robust availability for its online services, particularly for those for which it offers uptime guarantees, like the paid version of Google Apps, the suite of hosted communication and collaboration applications for businesses of all sizes.

Earlier this week, Google backtracked on a plan to do a 13-hour upgrade to its Google Calendar service, which is part of Google Apps, apparently after a significant number of Google Apps administrators expressed deep concern at the possible impact of the maintenance work on the service's availability during a weekday and during U.S. work hours.

Incidents like the one affecting Personalized Home Page also weaken the position of backers of delivering applications as hosted services. Google is one of the most vocal proponents of the software-as-a-service model, which rivals the traditional approach of having users install applications on their own PCs and servers, of which Microsoft Corp. is a clear example.

In March, the Gmail portion of Google Apps suffered three major outages, affecting even subscribers who have signed up for the fee-based version of the suite, which guarantees 99.9 percent uptime.

source : www.pcworld.com

All You Need to Know About the SEC's Apple Probe

Earlier this week, the investigation into the practice of backdating stock options at Apple resulted in the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission filing charges against one former Apple executive while reaching a settlement with another. Here's a summary of what's happened in the investigation so far and what could potentially happen in the wake of this week's events.

What is stock-option backdating, and why is Apple under scrutiny for it?

We offer a more thorough explanation of backdating here , but as a quick refresher, backdating is a perfectly legal practice in which a company backdates the strike price of an option to a more favorable date, so that the employee's option becomes more valuable. Again, this is all above board; it only becomes an issue when companies fail to notify shareholders and regulators that it's taking place so that everyone has the complete picture of the company's financial dealings.

That's why Apple--like hundreds of other companies--finds its practices under scrutiny. The company has acknowledged irregularities in some of the stock option grants it issued between 1997 and 2001. More troubling from the perspective of regulators is that some of the options in question were allegedly approved by Apple's board of directors at meetings that never took place.

What, specifically, has happened so far?

After announcing in June 2006 that its internal probe had found irregularities in stock option grants--including one issued to CEO Steve Jobs--Apple conducted an internal investigation, restated its quarterly earnings from 1997 to 2005, and cleared current executives of any misconduct . In October 2006, as Apple announced the results of a three-month probe into stock option practices, Fred Anderson, Apple's CEO from 1996 to 2004, resigned from his seat on the company's board of directors . His departure followed that of Apple counsel Nancy Heinen, who left the company last May.

The exits of Heinen and Anderson, coupled with Apple clearing current employees of any wrong-doing, seemed to suggest that the two ex-Apple executives would be the focus of the government's investigation . And that speculation proved correct this week, when the SEC announced its plans to pursue a complaint against Heinen while settling with Anderson .

source : www.pcworld.com

EarthLink Scales Back, Focuses Muni Wi-Fi Effort

EarthLink Inc. is pulling in the reins on its municipal Wi-Fi business, focusing on existing deals and big cities for the rest of this year, in a move that raises questions about the growing trend of city-wide wireless networks.

The ISP (Internet service provider) will keep working on projects it's already committed to and continue talking to other cities, but will focus on large cities such as Los Angeles and Chicago, Chief Financial Officer Kevin Dotts said on a conference call Thursday following the release of EarthLink's first-quarter earnings. The company lost US$30 million in the quarter, or $0.24 per share, as more subscribers left its traditional dial-up business.

For the rest of the year, EarthLink plans to focus on driving up usage in large cities rather than launching new projects, Dotts said. The company plans to cut in half its capital expenditures on municipal Wi-Fi.

EarthLink has aggressively pursued contracts to build and operate municipal wireless networks, which many cities in the U.S. and elsewhere have built or are planning. Governments hope widespread Wi-Fi will give them a new tool for their own operations, attract business and get underserved consumers and small enterprises online. While many of these projects include a free access option, sometimes advertising-supported, EarthLink aims to make money through paid services such as monthly subscriptions and "anchor tenant" deals with city governments.

Reports of spotty service on some of the networks, along with political spats and doubts about advertising prospects, have taken some of the shine off the municipal Wi-Fi movement. EarthLink's scaling back is likely to raise further questions about the economic viability of the concept, though these projects are still in their infancy.

The Atlanta service provider has won contracts for networks in Houston, Corpus Christi, Texas, and other cities and has been chosen along with Google Inc. for a high-profile proposal in San Francisco that is currently embroiled in political controversy. But so far the company only has about 2,000 monthly consumer subscribers to its municipal Wi-Fi services, which executives estimated on Thursday cost an average of $40 per household to deploy.

The regular price for a monthly plan is $21.95, though many subscribers aren't paying that yet because they are still on discounted introductory plans, the company said. Revenue from occasional users has been stronger than anticipated. EarthLink looks to bring its average revenue per user over $21.95 in time by signing up governments for applications such as wireless parking meters.

source : www.pcworld.com

Digital Currency Firms Indicted for Money Laundering

A grand jury in Washington, D.C., has indicted two digital currency companies and their owners on charges of money laundering, accusing the companies of helping to fund illegal activities such as child pornography and identity theft, the U.S. Department of Justice announced Friday.

The four-count indictment, handed down on April 24 and unsealed Friday, targets E­Gold Ltd.; Gold & Silver Reserve Inc.; and their owners Douglas L. Jackson, of Satellite Beach, Florida; Reid A. Jackson, of Melbourne, Florida; and Barry K. Downey, of Woodbine, Maryland.

The defendants face charges on one count of conspiracy to launder monetary instruments, one count of conspiracy to operate an unlicensed money transmitting business, one count of operating an unlicensed money transmitting business under federal law and one count of money transmission without a license under D.C. law.

The DOJ also obtained a restraining order to prevent the defendants from unloading their assets, as well 24 seizure warrants on more than 55 accounts believed to be property involved in money laundering and the operation of an unlicensed money transmitting business.

The restraining order does not limit the E­Gold operation’s ability to use its existing funds to satisfy requests to exchange E-Gold into national currency for customers of non-seized accounts, or its ability to sell precious metals, the DOJ said.

E­Gold’s digital currency, called E­Gold, functioned as an alternative payment system and was purportedly backed by stored physical gold, the DOJ said. Customers seeking to use the E­Gold payment system were only required to provide a valid e-mail address to open an E­Gold account, and no other contact information was verified.

Customers could then fund their accounts in a number of ways and convert national currency into E­Gold. Account holders could access their accounts through the Internet and conduct anonymous transactions with other parties anywhere in the world.

The indictment alleges that E­Gold has been highly favored by operators of investment scams, credit card and identity fraud, and sellers of online child pornography. The defendants conducted funds transfers on behalf of their customers, knowing that the funds involved were the proceeds of illegal activity, the DOJ said.

The defendants operated the E­Gold operation without a license in the District of Columbia or any other state, and without registering with the federal government, and thereby violated federal and state money transmitting laws, the indictment said.

The conspiracy charge in the case relating to money transmitting, and the federal violation of operating an unlicensed money transmitting business, each carry a maximum sentence of five years in prison. The District of Columbia Code violation for money transmission without a license carries a maximum sentence of five years. The conspiracy charge relating to money laundering carries a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison.

The case is being investigated by the U.S. Secret Service with the assistance of the Internal Revenue Service and the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

source : www.pcworld.com

Google Desktop 5 Speaks 29 Languages

Google Inc. took a step closer on Thursday to being able to search everything: its desktop search application is now available in 29 languages, including Hindi, the company announced.

Seven weeks after launching the English-language version of Google Desktop 5, the company localized the software in 29 languages, including French, Spanish, German, Dutch, Japanese, Chinese, Russian -- and Hindi, the first time a version of the application has been offered in that language.

Google Desktop 5 is an application for Windows Vista, XP or 2000 that, once installed on a PC, can be used to search the hard disk for documents using an interface similar to that of Google's Internet search engine. Like its Internet counterpart, it can be used to preview the contents of documents without having to launch the application used to create them. Version 5 also includes updated "gadgets," small applications that can display new email, weather forecasts, diary entries or a to-do list.

The company faces renewed competition on the desktop since Microsoft Corp.'s introduction of new desktop search functionality in Vista, its latest Windows upgrade. Microsoft also offers desktop search for Windows XP as a free download.

With Version 5, Google tried to play on users' fears about the security of Microsoft's browser and OS, introducing an early warning system designed to protect users from phishing attempts and Web sites harboring malicious code.

Google Desktop was itself the subject of two warnings by security researchers in February. However, Google software engineer Xiyuan Xia gave no indication in his posting to the official Google Desktop blog on Thursday whether the new localized versions patch all the reported flaws.

Google also released a version of the desktop search application for Apple Inc.'s Mac OS X operating system three weeks ago.

source : www.pcworld.com

Chartered Ready for Surge in 65nm Chip Production

Singaporean contract chipmaker Chartered Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. Ltd. said Friday that chips manufactured using a 65 nanometer process will account for 5 percent of its revenue as the technology enters commercial production.

"We are moving slightly ahead of schedule with regards to 65nm production and we expect to start commercial shipments in the second quarter," said Chia Song Hwee, Chartered's president and CEO, during a conference call with investors on Friday.

Chips made using the 65nm process will account for approximately 5 percent of revenue during the second quarter, Chia said, adding the company expects to win further 65 nm orders during the second half of the year.

Despite anticipated high demand for the 65 nm process, overall demand for computer chips was sluggish during the first quarter and is expected to remain so during the second quarter before picking up during the second half of the year, Chia said.

Chips made using the 65 nm process will account for a "double-digit" percentage of the company's revenue by the fourth quarter, he said.

Based on Chartered's forecast that its second-quarter revenue will be flat compared to the first quarter, orders for 65 nm chips will likely be worth about US$16.2 million. The company Friday reported revenue of $323.8 million during the first quarter.

Chia did not name customers, but much of the expected surge in 65 nm orders during the second quarter will likely come from Advanced Micro Devices Inc., which uses Chartered to manufacture chips, including processors, when its own factories are at full capacity.

AMD plans to begin shipments of its quad-core Barcelona server processor, which requires the 65 nm manufacturing process, during the second quarter, with the first servers based on the new chip expected to hit the market during the third quarter.

source : www.pcworld.com

Optical Nets Easier to Hack than Copper

Optical fibre is a lot easier to tap than most people imagine. There is no need to break or splice the fibre now -- a relatively shallow bend can be enough.

The technique works because the light in the cable propagates by bouncing off the insides of the fibre. Unsheath the cable, and a detector can pick up the tiny amount of light that escapes through the fibre's coating, explained Thomas Meier, the CEO of Swiss company Infoguard.

He demonstrated the technique on a fibre carrying a VOIP phone call over Gigabit Ethernet. A section of fibre from inside a junction box was looped into a photodetector called a bend coupler, and the call was recorded and then played back on a laptop.

"People claim optical fibre is harder to tap than copper, but the opposite is true -- you don't even have to break the insulation, as you would with copper," Meier said. "You can read through the fibre's cladding with as little as half a dB signal loss."

He claimed that suitable bend couplers can be bought off the shelf -- or from eBay -- for a few hundred dollars, and connected to the extra fibre that is typically left coiled up in junctions boxes for future splicing needs.

The demo was to promote Infoguard's encryption devices which it said are 10Gig-capable with a latency of just 5us. The €29,000 (US$39,516) boxes encrypt at the network level, Layer 1, so are suitable for point-to-point links only, but Meier said that it means they can encode any protocol, not just IP.

He added that the risk is not imaginary or theoretical -- optical taps have been found on police networks in the Netherlands and Germany, and the FBI investigated one discovered on Verizon's network in the U.S. Networks used by U.K. and French pharmaceutical companies have also been attacked, probably for industrial espionage, he said.

source : www.pcworld.com

OLPC Raises Hundred-Dollar Laptop Price to $175

The One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) group said Thursday that it had raised the price for its hundred-dollar laptop to US$175, but were still confident they would collect enough orders to begin volume production by September.

OLPC now has orders for 2.5 million units, but needs to reach 3 million units by May 30 in order to give its suppliers enough lead time to fill the pipeline with parts, said OLPC founder Nicholas Negroponte in a meeting with analysts in Cambridge, Massachusetts on Thursday.

"We are at the most critical stage of OLPC's life," he said. "A year and a half ago, we were selling a dream, but it's easy to sell dreams if you're passionate and can share that passion with other people. But that was dreams, and now we've got to launch. We need three million units to trigger the supply chain."

The goal of the OLPC project is to create a durable, power-efficient notebook PC that is cheap enough for developing nations to use as a common classroom tool.

OLPC has distributed about 200 beta versions of its XO laptop to each of the seven countries that have committed to making bulk orders so far: Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay, Nigeria, Libya, Pakistan and Thailand. The group has also sent nearly 2,000 laptops to software developers around the world.

Negroponte did not say where the remaining orders could come from, but did say that Peru and Russia may join the group. He also said that he had fielded inquiries from the governors of 19 U.S. states including Florida and Massachusetts, a demand that has softened his previous resistance to selling the PCs in U.S. markets from "never" to "maybe."

If the group meets its sales goal, it will quickly boost production, reaching levels of 400,000 per month almost immediately after the September 20 launch date. Manufacturer Quanta Computer Inc. of Taiwan would produce 1 million laptops by the end of 2007, and 3 million within nine months of the launch, said Mary Lou Jepsen, the chief technology officer of OLPC.

Once they reach that volume production, the price will soon begin to fall again, since OLPC is a non-profit organization and has recently struck a deal with Citigroup Inc.'s Citibank to handle the administrative side of the business, Negroponte said.

"The manufacturing cost of these laptops is $175. We'll charge maybe $176 to cover the cost of these offices. Usually 50 percent of the cost of a laptop is sales and marketing, distribution and profit, but we don't have any of those things," he said. He also pledged that OLPC would readjust the price every business quarter, leading it to drop about 25 percent within a year.

The price of most electronics drops about 50 percent every 18 months, Negroponte said he has learned from his experience on Motorola's board of directors. In response, most vendors add new features, hoping that consumers will pay at least the same price next year.

"But what happens with laptops especially is that you end up with a bit of bloat. My laptop has never been less reliable than it is now. It crashes three or four times a day, and I'm getting tired of the little sign saying 'Do you want to tell Microsoft about it?'

In contrast, OLPC designers will keep the XO design trim, holding its average power consumption between 2 watts and 4 watts. Instead of selling more expensive PCs, the group's business model relies on large scale sales, rising from 3 million to 5 million units produced in 2007 to a range of 50 million to 150 million in 2008.

Large PC vendors are growing nervous as OLPC nears its launch date, Negroponte said, pushing Microsoft Corp. to offer a $3 version of Windows Vista and pushing Intel Corp. to create the "Classmate" notebook PC design for developing nations.

"Bill Gates said 'Get a real laptop,' but when your house doesn't have electricity, two watts is a real laptop," he said.

source : www.pcworld.com

Acer to Buy Small PC Vendor

Acer Inc. expects to acquire a small company in the coming months to expand its PC business but has ruled out Gateway Inc. as a possibility.

Reports last month that Acer was interested in buying a rival sparked rumors that the target might be Gateway, sending its shares to a 52-week high of US$2.44 on March 19, an 18 percent leap from the start of the month.

Acer declined to say who the target is but its chairman, J.T. Wang, said at an investor conference in Taipei Friday that it is "not in the United States," ruling out Gateway.

Talks are underway with the target company and Acer expects to conclude a deal in three to five months, Wang said. "It's a small case so we will not spend so much money," he added.

Wang revealed in March that Acer was looking for acquisition targets as part of its bid to overtake Lenovo Group Ltd. as the world's third-biggest PC vendor. But Acer won that crown from Lenovo in the first quarter in any case, according to Gartner Inc. Acer ended the quarter with 6.8 percent of the market, compared to Lenovo's 6.3 percent, the market researcher said.

source : www.pcworld.com

Vista Security

Photograph: John Abbott

In late March, when security researchers stumbled upon drive-by download attacks exploiting yet another serious Windows hole, they had an eye-opening surprise: The vulnerability--caused by the way Windows handled animated cursor (.ani) files--didn't affect just Windows XP. It also hit Vista, Microsoft's new security-centric operating system.

Security experts still proclaim Vista a major improvement over previous Windows versions, and readily say that its important new safety features--including an improved firewall, a "Protected Mode" for Internet Explorer, and User Account Control--make it much more resistant to the most common forms of spyware and malware.

However, this latest flaw (now fixed) is a major black eye for Microsoft; along with two other critical security patches issued for Vista in its first three months on shelves, the problem has tarnished Vista's security sheen (see "Vista's Vulnerabilities" for details). The new OS may be safer, but its users must still be on their guard.

source : www.pcworld.com

Companies Can't Break Ties to Adware

Earlier this year, AT&T's Cingular division and Travelocity both pledged not to advertise anymore via adware--programs that slip onto PCs and inject ads into a user's browser. Verizon took a stance against computer invaders when it became a sponsor of an antispyware initiative. Yet, in March, ads from all three companies were being distributed through adware.

These businesses, along with Comcast and Vonage, acknowledge that their ads have surfaced in adware, but say they never intended for that to happen. The incidents raise a troubling question: Have advertising networks grown so complicated that sponsoring firms can't control where their ads appear, or are the companies simply not being vigilant enough?

Adware's Sources

The findings come from research by adware and spyware expert Ben Edelman. Edelman found that PCs with the adware program FullContext installed showed ads for Cingular and Travelocity that appeared to be on the Google Web site--without the search giant's knowledge. FullContext, according to Edelman, is sometimes installed on a PC without user consent. Security companies McAfee and Symantec identify FullContext as a medium-risk adware program and quarantine it on their customers' PCs. At press time, the FullContext firm had not replied to PC World's e-mail requests for an interview.

Cingular and Travelocity say they prohibit the use of adware by advertisers they hire. Travelocity says that as soon as it found out its ads were showing up in adware, it "immediately suspended and eventually terminated its advertising campaigns with partners who may have been associated with those violations." Cingular says that it took similar action.

According to Edelman, Verizon banner ads were showing up on sites like Google because of a program called DollarRevenue. Once installed on a PC, the DollarRevenue software can inject ads on Web sites in the same way FullContext does. McAfee and Symantec both quarantine DollarRevenue when they find it on users' PCs, calling it a high-risk program.

"Something went wrong," says Jim Smith, a Verizon spokesperson. He says Verizon did business with an advertiser that contracted with another advertiser to distribute the ads. That firm in turn contracted with another advertiser. While Verizon permits redistribution of ads, Smith says, it prohibits the use of adware to show Verizon ads. He says Verizon suspended the advertiser from distributing ads until further review.

source : www.pcworld.com

Iowa Judge Approves Microsoft Class-Action Settlement

A judge in Iowa's Polk Country District Court Wednesday granted preliminary approval to a settlement in one of the last class-action lawsuits faced by Microsoft Corp. in the wake of the antitrust case brought by the U.S. government in the 1990s.

The agreement dismisses antitrust and damage claims that had been raised in the Iowa case, which could have amounted to US$1 billion or more, according to Microsoft.

"This case concerned issues that have long since been resolved, and we're very pleased to put this chapter behind us and to focus on the future," said Rich Wallis, associate general counsel for Microsoft, in a statement.

Microsoft and the complainants announced the Comes v. Microsoft class action lawsuit settlement in February, but Judge Scott Rosenberg's preliminary ruling allows the parties to reveal details of their agreement.

The agreement, among other things, calls for Microsoft to pay up to US$179.95 million to individual users and businesses that bought Microsoft software between May 18, 1994 and June 30, 2006.

People in Iowa who purchased the products will be able to receive $16 for OSes; $29 for Office, $25 for Excel, and $10 for Word. Individual users will get cash. Volume buyers will get vouchers for products from Microsoft, its competitors and others.

Microsoft faced a wave of class-action lawsuits in the wake of U.S. District Court Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson's finding, in November 1999, that Microsoft has monopoly power in the desktop operating system market. That finding was made in the government's antitrust case against the software maker.

Since then, Microsoft reached a remedy agreement with the government, which continues to be monitored by the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.

A final approval hearing for the Iowa case is scheduled for Aug. 31. Meanwhile there is one other case still scheduled to go to trial, in Mississippi.

Source : www.pcworld.com

Cambridge Researchers Plan Wireless Sensor Network

Researchers at Harvard University and BBN Technologies have designed a wireless network capable of reporting real-time sensor data across an entire city.

Scientists will initially use the CitySense network to monitor urban weather and pollution, and the network could eventually be adopted to provider better public wireless Internet access.

Installing Sensors

The researchers plan to install 100 sensors by 2011 on streetlamps throughout the city of Cambridge, Massachusetts, using a grant from the U.S. National Science Foundation. Each node will include an embedded PC, an 802.11a/b/g Wi-Fi interface and a collection of weather sensors, said Matt Welsh, assistant professor of computer science at Harvard's School of Engineering and Applied Sciences.

The system solves a constraint on previous wireless networks -- battery life -- by mounting each node on a municipal streetlamp where it draws power from city electricity. That approach opens up a new range of uses for the sensors, performing long-term experiments like real-time environmental monitoring, correlating micro-climates with population health, or tracking the spread of bio-chemical agents, according to BBN.

A larger challenge was how to design a network that allows remote nodes to communicate with the central servers at Harvard and BBN. CitySense will do that by allowing each node to form a mesh with its neighbors, exchanging data through multiple-hop links. That strategy allows a node to download software or upload sensor data to a distant server hub using a small radio with only a one-kilometer range, Welsh said. A prototype of the network is already running on five CitySense nodes installed in Welsh's second-floor laboratory on the Harvard campus.

Each CitySense node includes an embedded single-board computer running the Linux OS with 64MB of RAM and 1GB of flash memory, loaded on a motherboard made by Soekris Engineering of Santa Cruz, California, and packaged by Metrix Communication of Seattle, Washington.

Large-Scale Effort

People have built such networks on smaller scales before, but have used them for private purposes or to provide wireless Internet links in towns such as Madison, Wisconsin, and Champaign, Illinois, Welsh said. In contrast, CitySense will allow academic researchers from around the world to log onto the project Web site and submit their own research programs to run on the nodes.

"Think of it like a virus infecting all the nodes. Every node can talk to its neighbor and pass along the data, and eventually you get your program up and running on all of them," Welsh said.

In turn, the servers post the database information online. In a separate announcement Thursday, Microsoft said it would overlay that data onto maps using its Virtual Earth and SensorMap technologies. That will allow scientists to track pollution spread by weather and wind on the city block level -- offering them sharper resolution and a longer time span for monitoring than they have had before. The only way researchers can collect such data today is to carry backpacks loaded with sensors, batteries and global positioning system (GPS) trackers as they trudge around the city, Welsh said.

The CitySense network will initially track environmental variables like temperature, wind speed, rainfall, barometric pressure and air quality. Future applications could use virtually any type of sensor, from those that count airborne contaminants to microphones that measure noise pollution. The network could even grow to include mobile sensors attached to cars and buses.

source : www.pcworld.com

Microsoft Posts Tools for Windows Home Server

Microsoft last week released a beta of documentation for a free software development kit (SDK) that helps developers build applications for its forthcoming Windows Home Server product.

The SDK documentation is available for download on the Microsoft Developer Network. It provides guidance on how developers can use the API and services in Windows along with the Visual Studio integrated development environment and Visual Studio C# tool to build new applications for Windows Home Server, which is currently in its second beta release.

Developers also must sign up and download the Windows Home Server beta on its Web site to use the SDK.

Typically, an SDK would also have libraries developers can use to build applications, but the developer libraries for Windows Home Server are available in the OS itself, said Charlie Kindel, general manager of Windows Home Server group at Microsoft.

He also said developing new applications for the product should be easy for developers because under the covers it is essentially the Windows client OS, except with tweaks aimed at specific functions. Those include features that help home users set up a network for several home PCs; store data and files from those PCs centrally; set up a security hub for the PCs; and allow users to access content from their PCs even when they are away from home.

Microsoft unveiled Windows Home Server, formerly known by the code name Quattro, at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas in January, and it is the first Microsoft server OS aimed specifically for home use. At the time of its launch, Microsoft said it did not plan to sell the product out of the box; instead, it said the OS will be distributed through original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) only on hardware built specifically to run it.

On Thursday, however, Kindel, said there might be a change in that plan. He said Microsoft may sell Windows Home Server out of the box when it becomes available later this year, alongside new MediaSmart Servers from Hewlett-Packard Co. that will be the first hardware available with the new OS pre-installed.

"We got a lot of feedback [from testers] and we want to satisfy them, so we are investigating whether [selling it separately] might be an option," he said.

Kindel said applications developers might build using the Windows Home Server SDK include those for system protection, media sharing, home security and home automation. Microsoft will continue to update the SDK beta as more information and APIs become available.

source : www.pcworld.com

Carriers Oppose Consumers Seeking Open Networks

Representatives of large broadband and wireless carriers have voiced opposition to a proposal from consumer groups that would impose open access and net neutrality conditions on a spectrum auction next year.

On Thursday, a coalition of consumer groups, including Public Knowledge and Consumers Union, sent a proposal to the U.S. Federal Communications Commission, calling on the agency to place conditions on upcoming auctions of valuable spectrum in the upper 700MHz band. The groups called on the FCC to limit the bidding of large broadband providers, to allow open access on half of the spectrum being auctioned and to enforce net neutrality rules prohibiting auction winners from blocking customer access to Web content or applications.

But representatives of CTIA -- The Wireless Association, representing wireless phone providers, and the Hands Off the Internet coalition, representing AT&T Inc., Alcatel-Lucent SA and other groups, said they oppose the consumer groups' plan.

The proposal by the six groups calling themselves the Save Our Spectrum Coalition is an "awful idea," said Joe Farren, CTIA's director of public affairs. Auction conditions are unnecessary because "consumers have an abundance of choice" in the wireless market, he said.

"This makes no sense," he added. "In fact, it's dangerous because it could upend a completely healthy, competitive market."

The FCC's auction for 60MHz of spectrum in the upper 700MHz band is expected by early 2008. The spectrum, being abandoned by U.S. television broadcasters as they move from analog to digital broadcasts, is particularly valuable because wireless signals can travel four times farther than signals in higher bands. The spectrum would make it cheaper for wireless broadband providers to deploy networks over large geographic areas than with current spectrum, experts say.

The Save Our Spectrum Coalition said the spectrum auction represents the "last, best hope" for U.S. broadband customers to get a competitive third alternative to cable modem and DSL (Digital Subscriber Line) service. The conditions proposed could drive down prices and improve broadband speeds for U.S. customers, said Gigi Sohn, president of Public Knowledge.

"The problem we're trying to solve here is the lack of competition in the broadband market," added Ben Scott, policy director for Free Press, a media reform advocate and member of the Save Our Spectrum group. "If we don't have competition, we won't have better broadband networks. Without better broadband networks, we won't have the economic growth that has fueled our economy in the information age."

But the Hands Off the Internet Coalition, which has opposed net neutrality bills in Congress, said the Save Our Spectrum Coalition is attempting to circumvent an FCC inquiry into the need for net neutrality.

"Those promoting regulation evidently aren't content with trying to slow down the wired Internet because they're now trying to tie down the wireless Web, too," Christopher Wolf, Hands Off the Internet co-chairman said in an e-mail. "Federal regulation is simply incapable of keeping up with changing wireless technologies, which are transforming the wireless Web even faster than the wired Internet."

source : www.pcworld.com

Photobucket Rules its Market

Photobucket Inc.'s eponymous photo sharing site is by far the most popular in its category among U.S. users, dwarfing the traffic of competitors like Yahoo Inc.'s Yahoo Photos and Flickr.

Photobucket nabbed 41.4 percent of U.S. visits to photography Web sites in March, a market share that is more than seven times larger than its nearest competitor, according to Hitwise Pty. Ltd.

Yahoo Inc.'s Photos came in a distant second place with 5.8 percent, while Flickr, also owned by Yahoo, had 4.6 percent, Hitwise said Wednesday. Slide Inc.'s Slide.com (4.5 percent) and Eastman Kodak Co.'s Kodak Gallery (3.4 percent) rounded out the top five.

Storing, displaying and sharing of photos is one of the most popular activities on the Internet, as digital cameras and camera phones have become ubiquitous devices in the general population. As such, photo sites are strong vehicles for advertising revenue.

Photobucket lets users store photos, slide shows, videos and graphics on its servers and then link them to other Web sites. It is particularly popular among users of the social networking giant site MySpace, from where it receives almost 57 percent of its upstream traffic, according to Hitwise.

Photobucket, founded in 2003, has 39 million registered users. It links its photos, videos and graphics to 500,000 different Web sites, according to the company. Its users upload about 7 million photos and 40,000 videos to the site every day.

Photobucket ranked 34th among ComScore Networks Inc.'s top 50 U.S. Web properties in March, with almost 16.8 million unique visitors.

source : www.pcworld.com

Microsoft Funds New Mapping Research

Microsoft Corp. announced US$1.1 million in funding for academic research programs that will develop new applications using its Virtual Earth and SensorMap technologies.

One of the recipients of the funding is a Harvard University project called CitySense, which is also funded by the National Science Foundation. CitySense is a network that consists of 100 nodes -- PCs equipped with long-range Wi-Fi radios and sensors -- that hang on streetlights in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The sensors monitor pollution, wind speed, humidity, temperature, rainfall and car traffic.

The data collected by the sensors will be displayed on SensorMap, technology developed at Microsoft that lets users publish and share sensor data and also browse live data on an interface such as Virtual Earth, Microsoft's mapping product.

Without access to the SensorMap technology, the Harvard researchers would have had to build their own program to publish the data. Microsoft hopes to learn from the project about using a common platform to support diverse types of sensor data publishers and users, the company said.

Another grant winner, the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, is developing a similar project that will use mobile sensors. That project will build two applications, including one that could be used in ecological studies to monitor bird sounds, heartbeats and location.

The second is a social application allowing a person to wear a jacket with activity-monitoring sensors. One University of Illinois researcher envisions applications that would allow a user to create an avatar that reflects what the user is doing in a virtual world, so family and friends can monitor their activities.

Researchers at the College of Computing at Georgia Tech University also received grant money from Microsoft to continue working on its City Capture project. They want to mount sensors developed by Microsoft Research that have high-resolution, high-focal length camera lenses around a city to document changes over time. With several pictures a day from multiple cameras integrated into Virtual Earth, the researchers can build a record of the city's evolution, they say.

In addition to the grants, winners receive access to relevant Microsoft publishing technologies and research support from the company.

source : www.pcworld.com

ICANN May Go Private

The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers is considering a change in the way Internet's governing body is organized that could allow it to skirt some potential legal issues.

In late March, a committee that was formed to make recommendations to ICANN related to certain strategic issues released the President's Strategy Committee Report with its findings. The committee recommends that ICANN and relevant stakeholders consider the advantages of "moving ICANN's legal identity to that of a private international organization based in the U.S."

As the committee sees it, that change would offer the organization immunities to limit liabilities.

Some onlookers are skeptical of the idea. "ICANN's new President's Strategy Committee Report makes public for the first time what insiders have been muttering about for almost a year: ICANN has a great new idea for avoiding all accountability," Michael Froomkin, a professor specializing in Internet and administrative law at the University of Miami School of Law, wrote on ICANNWatch.org, a Web site he helped found.

If ICANN were to go the route of re-classifying itself as an independent international organization, it would be on par with groups like the International Olympic Committee and Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA), the international soccer association. That model hasn't necessarily worked perfectly, he said. "Not surprisingly, the lack of accountability at the IOC and FIFA created a climate for scandal and speculation," he wrote.

Also, the U.S. is unlikely to agree to such a change, which would essentially shield ICANN from any liability or judicial supervision, he wrote.

If ICANN does move forward with the plan, it should make sure to establish full accountability and review mechanisms, including a process for using international arbitration panels, the committee wrote. It should also consider incorporating relevant California or U.S. federal law into its arbitration process, the committee said.

The proposal comes after a decision late last year to extend U.S. government oversight of ICANN for three more years. That decision drew praise from onlookers eager to ensure that a transition to independence is smooth for the organization and criticism from those pushing for ICANN to be truly international, without the influence of any one government.

source : www.pcworld.com

Netsky Still Crawling

Although protection has been available for more than three years, the Netsky family of worms still accounted for almost a third of all malware detected during the month of March, 2007.

According to Sophos, the Netsky family had the biggest impact on computer users last month.

Interestingly, just 0.18 percent or one in 555 emails was infected in March, yet Sophos detected 8,835 new threats, bringing the total to 231,548.

Sophos senior security consultant, Carole Theriault, said these numbers indicate that while malware spreading via e-mail is still causing trouble, the vectors used to distribute threats are changing.

"Hackers are continuing their move away from mass-mailing worms in favor of using spam messages with links pointing to infected Web pages," she said.

"Unwanted e-mails hiding copies of Netsky are still spreading like weeds in an untended garden, showing how well seeded these mass-mailing threats are.

"It's frustrating to think that there are a bunch of new threats out there that are much more targeted and devious in their approach, yet how can we expect the average computer user to protect against them when the Netskys and Mytobs remain so rooted?"

Theriault said users need to roll up their sleeves and commit to keeping their PCs secure.

According to the top 10 list of countries hosting malware-infected Web sites in March, China came in first with 35.6 percent, followed by the United States with 32.3 percent and Germany with 7.5 percent. Australia ranked 34th.

source : www.pcworld.com

British Hacker Loses Extradition Appeal

A British hacker who broke into U.S. military computers looking for evidence of UFOs lost another extradition appeal on Tuesday in London's High Court.

Gary McKinnon, of London, remains free on bail and could appeal the decision to the House of Lords, according to a High Court spokesman.

The Briton is accused of deleting data and accessing information on 97 U.S. military and NASA computers between February 2001 and March 2002. He was charged in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia and could face up to 60 years in prison.

McKinnon challenged an initial U.S. extradition order in May 2006. His attorney fought the order on the grounds that his client could be held as an "enemy combatant," a status the U.S. created for terrorism suspects. U.K. Home Secretary John Reid approved the extradition order, however, and McKinnon appealed again.

He freely admits to hacking into the computers but says he never caused any harm. U.S. officials, however, say his probes caused US$700,000 in damages and the shutdown of critical computers used by the military after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

The soft-spoken McKinnon said he timed his hacking when no one was working at the U.S. offices. On one occasion he miscalculated the time zones, however, and someone using a computer that McKinnon had hacked noticed the cursor moving on its own.

McKinnon used a program called "RemotelyAnywhere" to control the computers. Many of the computers he accessed were set up with their default passwords, which made them easy to access, said McKinnon, who spoke at a security conference in London last year while his appeal was underway.

McKinnon did not immediately return a call seeking comment.

source : www.pcworld.com

Jobs Unlikely to Push for Lift of Video DRM

Apple Inc. CEO Steve Jobs may be pushing for music labels to lift copyright protection on digital music but he doesn't appear so eager to do the same for video content, despite his position as the largest shareholder in Walt Disney Co.

On Monday, Jobs joined EMI Group executives to announce that EMI music will become available on Apple's iTunes store without DRM (digital rights management), the copyright protection technology that limits the way that digital music buyers can share and use their music.

But even though Jobs has been pushing the music industry to drop DRM, he has different opinions about video.

When asked during the EMI conference call about the potential of lifting DRM from video, Jobs said: "Video is pretty different from music right now because the video industry does not distribute 90 percent of their content DRM free. Never has. So I think they are in a pretty different situation and I wouldn't hold it to a parallel at all."

Jobs was referring to CSS (Content Scramble System), technology that comes on DVDs that prevents users from copying the videos. He is arguing that CSS makes the video market different than the music industry because music CDs don't come with copy protection. As a result, Jobs' argument has been that digital music should be sold in an equivalent manner as CDs -- without copy protection.

Anti-DRM activists and analysts don't buy that explanation.

"Most people believe he's taking advantage of a technicality when he says that," said James McQuivey, a principal analyst at Forrester Research. Programs that let users get around CSS are readily available and widely used so it's not a strong argument for why the DVD industry is different from CDs.

While some anti-DRM activists say that Jobs can easily set a precedent in the video industry by dropping DRM off video content produced by Disney, McQuivey says that Jobs is hampered by larger business issues.

"No movie studio would ever support the iTunes store if it was clear that Jobs would be pushing them to remove DRM," he said. If Jobs did start offering Disney content on iTunes without copy protection, the other studios might fear that he'd start pushing them to do the same, he said.

The reason that Jobs can negotiate with the music industry and encourage announcements like the one with EMI is because the iTunes store represents about 10 percent of music sales in the U.S., McQuivey said. By contrast, the iTunes store has only recently begun selling video and the store has yet to prove itself as a money-maker for video content producers. That means that even if Jobs did want to push for DRM-free video, he wouldn't have the same negotiating position with the movie studios as he does with the music labels.

"When a single retail outlet has the ability to control 10 percent of sales, you have to listen to him. Apple doesn't have that clout yet in the movie business," he said.

The politics behind why Jobs may not be pushing for DRM-free video doesn't placate opponents of DRM.

DefectiveByDesign, a campaign of the Free Software Foundation dedicated to encouraging DRM-free content, has collected 6,200 signatures on an open letter to Jobs asking him to remove DRM from certain content, including video. The letter notes that last year Jobs sold Pixar to Disney and in doing so became the largest shareholder in Disney. It also notes that Disney was the first to approve distribution of movies through iTunes.

"You can set the example in the arena of video and movies," the letter reads. "Disney can be the first 'major' to drop DRM. You have the direct power to do this."

The Electronic Frontier Foundation is another group that has been pushing the music and video industries to drop DRM. While the EMI announcement is a step in the right direction, "why shouldn't this apply to video sold in the iTunes video store? It seems the basic reason for removing DRM should apply there too," said Derek Slater, activism coordinator for EFF.

In Norway, which has a national consumer representative who has led the charge against the iTunes DRM policy in Europe, a consumer agency applauded the EMI move but also hopes for something similar in the video market.

"The movie industry, and any company in other cultural sectors for that matter, that's slowly entering the download service market should take special notice of this important step EMI has taken today. If they want the respect and business of consumers they also need to offer up a fair deal which among other elements includes true interoperability and the complete absence of lock-in technology," wrote Torgeir Waterhouse, a senior advisor on the Norwegian Consumer Council, in an e-mail.

source : www.pcworld.com

FAQ: iTunes and DRM-Free Music

Apple and EMI today announced that you'll soon be able to buy higher-quality, DRM-free digital music from EMI artists through the iTunes Music Store. These songs will be added to the list of copy-protected songs that iTunes currently offers, which play only via iTunes or on iPods. The EMI files also will cost more than DRM-protected songs.

We had questions about the plans, and you probably do also. Here are ours--with answers.

Why are Apple and EMI doing this? What's in it for them?

More money, for starters, as the DRM-free music costs almost one-third more. Also, EMI says it sees the deal as a strategic move to be a big player in the rapidly expanding digital marketplace (the record company could use the boost to its business, given recent profit troubles).

For Apple' part, CEO Steve Jobs has previously voiced his opposition to DRM, and analysts say there is no coincidence that Apple is making this move as consumer groups in Europe have criticized Apple for making music purchased on iTunes compatible only with Apple's own iPod music player.

When will these music files become available for purchase?

In May. We're trying to pin down a specific date.

How much will the files cost?

They'll cost $1.29 per song--30 cents more than iTunes' current price of 99 cents for DRM-protected songs. But full albums will cost the same as the current iTunes price ($9.99 for most albums).

How much will the files cost?

They'll cost $1.29 per song--30 cents more than iTunes' current price of 99 cents for DRM-protected songs. But full albums will cost the same as the current iTunes price ($9.99 for most albums).

What's the difference in quality between current iTunes songs and the new files?

iTunes songs are currently sold as 128-kilobits-per-second music in .aac format. The new, DRM-free music will be 256 kbps, which means less compression and higher audio quality.

Can real people tell the difference between 128 kbps and 256 kpbs?

Yep. But don't take our word for it. Senior Editor Eric Dahl just blogged about this issue and placed some music ripped at both bit rates in his blog. Try out these music files yourself and vote in the PCW poll.

What about the Beatles' catalog? Will I be able to buy digital versions of Beatles songs?

Sorry, though the Beatles are somewhat of the Holy Grail, no digital Beatles music is available just yet. The Beatles' Apple Corporation (different from Apple Computer) has to consent to releasing Beatles music in digital format, and it hasn't yet done so. "We are working on that," says Eric Nicoli, chief executive officer of EMI.

source : www.pcworld.com

JavaScript Botnet Code Leaked to Internet

Software that could be used to turn a Web browser into an unwitting hacker's tool has been posted to the Internet, after it was downloaded by a quick-thinking attendee at last month's Shmoocon hacker conference.

The software, called Jitko was written by Billy Hoffman, lead researcher at Spy Dynamics Inc. Hoffman demonstrated the code on March 24 as part of a presentation on the dangers of JavaScript malware.

Hoffman had discovered a way to write a Web vulnerability scanner in JavaScript, a Web language that can run in any browser. This technique circumvents JavaScript's security restrictions and, concerned that his Jitko code could be misused, Hoffman says he took extra steps to prevent the code from getting out.

However, in order for his demonstration to work, he had to post the Jitko code somewhere on the Internet. "Very briefly you could see the original URL of where the Jitko code got fetched," Hoffman said.

That was enough for show attendee Mike Schroll to snag a copy.

"I was sitting pretty close to the front and had my laptop out already," said Schroll, an information security consultant with Security Management Partners, Inc. "The second I saw it i just started typing away."

Schroll posted the code to his Web site March 25, and submitted a link to the code on Digg.com. He removed the software several hours later at Hoffman's request.

Schroll said he posted the code because he thought it would be useful to other security professionals looking for ways to illustrate just how dangerous a scripting attack can be. "I was pretty interested in it because we do some engagements with clients where we do fake phishing sites," he said. "I wasn't trying to be nefarious or malicious."

The software was downloaded from his Web site about 100 times, Schroll said.

Over the past weekend, the code surfaced again, this time on the Sla.ckers.org online discussion forum.

With Jitko now public, security researchers worry it could be misused by criminals to scan internal networks for sensitive information, or to build a malicious botnet code. "This particular tool is designed to take control of the Web browser," said Jeremiah Grossman, chief technology officer with WhiteHat Security Inc. "It will crawl other Web sites and scan them, looking for vulnerabilities."

Hoffman was sanguine about the release of his tool, saying that criminals would probably have been able to develop something similar to his short, 800-line application.

"It's kind of a tragedy that this ended up getting released," Hoffman said. "But in reality the bad guys probably knew this and even if they didn't have it they were probably a couple of months away."

He said he's not angry at Schroll for snagging and releasing the Jitko code. "He probably did what any curious individual would have done," he said. "I really can't fault someone for being curious because that's what my job is."

source : www.pcworld.com

PSP Players Get Free Wi-Fi

Sony has announced a new firmware upgrade for the PlayStation Portable (PSP) that allows users to surf the internet and play compatible games online at over 7,000 T-Mobile US HotSpots. Locations include most Starbucks, Borders bookstores and over 70 major airports.

The free Wi-Fi access will be available for six months to customers downloading Sony's latest firmware 3.30 update for the PSP. After this period, T-Mobile will give PSP owners the chance to purchase a subscription at a discounted rate. Further details of the offer will be available nearer the time directly from T-Mobile. PSP owners must log-in to the T-Mobile HotSpot Network by 28 March 2008 to gain access to the six-month promotional period.

Peter Dille, senior vice president of marketing at Sony, said: "The new offer enables Sony to take portable gaming and entertainment to a new level of mobility and convenience for PSP owners."

The first title to take advantage of this online access to compatible games via the PSP's Wi-Fi functionality is Ratchet and Clank: Size Matters. Additional software titles supporting access to T-Mobile HotSpot locations will be made available later this year.

The firmware 3.30 update also includes an upgrade that allows PSP users to view videos saved on a Memory Stick Duo in full resolution. A further upgrade allows thumbnail files for video and RSS content to be displayed. The firmware updates can be downloaded directly to a PSP wirelessly, downloaded to a PC and transferred to a PSP or installed using upcoming UMD software.

source : www.pcworld.com

Online Ads to Surpass Radio

Online advertising is set to overtake radio next year -- beating previous forecasts -- media experts have predicted.

Media services firm ZenithOptimedia forecasts that worldwide spending on internet advertising will grow 28.2 percent in 2007, compared with a rise of just 3.7 percent in the rest of the advertising market.

The U.K. is ahead of other countries in the share of advertising spending now going online, with 16.6 percent of U.K. spending now directed at the internet.

In a forthcoming report on worldwide advertising, Zenith says: "We now expect the internet to overtake radio in 2008, a year earlier than in our last forecast. We forecast the internet to account for nearly 9 percent of global ad spend by 2009, and its share should reach double digits early next decade."

The internet now attracts more than 10 percent of advertising spending in Norway and Sweden as well as the U.K., and is expected to pass the 10 percent mark in the U.S., Australia, Canada, Denmark, Israel, Japan, South Korea and Taiwan by 2009.

Zenith said it had "downgraded" its forecasts for newspaper and magazine advertising as publishers move to invest more in online products and less in print. Advertising expenditure is "still growing in both media, in nominal terms at least, but after adjusting for inflation newspaper expenditure is essentially stagnant," Zenith said.

Worldwide online advertising spending is set to hit £16.6 million (US$32.6 million) this year, slightly behind the £18.2 million expected spend on radio adverts and substantially behind the £63.1 million spending on newspaper adverts. But by 2009, internet advertising is set to hit £21.5 million, with radio on £19.5 million and newspapers on £66.9 million.

source : www.pcworld.com

Lycos Launches Web Utilities

Lycos Europe N.V. is quietly rolling out a service that wraps together several trendy functions it hopes will woo users for its convenience and simplicity.

The service, called Jubii, includes e-mail, instant messaging, short message service (SMS), voice over Internet protocol (VoIP) calls plus photo, video and file sharing, said Jan Wergin, executive vice president of the service. Jubii was launched in the U.S. in February and will start in Europe later this month.

Lycos, one of the major portal players in the 1990s, has stubbornly stuck around but is dwarfed by Yahoo, Google, and Microsoft. It's also split: Lycos in the U.S. is owned by the South Korean company Daum Communications, which bought the subsidiary in 2004.

Lycos Europe can't use its brand name in the U.S., so it has named the service Jubii, a Danish word for joy or fun. The name comes from a successful portal by the same name owned by Lycos Europe in Denmark, Wergin said.

In Europe, Lycos registered about 23.7 million unique visitors in February, with about 18 percent of European Internet users visiting Lycos at least once, according to Nielsen//NetRatings, which tracks online traffic. In a top-10 list of general interest portals, Lycos Europe came in sixth, with Google, Microsoft's MSN and Yahoo taking the top three spots in that order.

However, that ranking may be misleading. About 45 percent of Lycos' traffic in Europe was via the Internet Movie Database (IMDB), www.imdb.com, an Amazon.com property, said Alex Burmaster, European Internet analyst with Nielsen//NetRatings.

Amazon and Lycos Europe have a business agreement to count traffic through the IMDB for Lycos, Burmaster said.

Nonetheless, the Jubii service faces a healthy array of online competitors. From MySpace to Friendster to Google, all have offerings that incorporate some of Jubii's features in some way.

Wergin said one of Jubii's strengths is the ability for a person to control their information, such as who may view stored photos. Jubii can also be used through any Web browser, meaning that the application is not tied to a user's home computer.

"I think what is going to happen is a lot of consumers are going to look at one-stop solutions with added value," Wergin said.

Those strengths are appealing, but it will come down to how Jubii can sell itself to users who may already be using other services, Burmaster said.

"I suppose anything that a company puts out there that makes the online user experience easier and more contained is potentially going to be successful," Burmaster said, "but it's just a question of how good they are at getting that message out there in a very cluttered space."

Jubii will make money through a mix of online advertising and premium services, Wergin said. For those who sign up for the beta program, Jubii will offer 10GB of storage, and VoIP calls will be limited to no more than five minutes per call for a maximum of 30 minutes a day.

After the beta, Jubii will feature 4GB of free storage, and Lycos Europe will sell more storage as part of a premium, paid service, along with VoIP minutes, Wergin said. Pricing hasn't been determined.

Jubii will eventually be available in Germany, Denmark, France, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain, and the U.K.

source : www.pcworld.com

AMD Releases Chipset for Embedded Devices

Advanced Micro Devices Inc. introduced its M690 chipset for embedded devices on Monday, rounding out the company's first chipset line that integrates technology from ATI Technologies Inc.

The chipset offers enhanced video performance and more display and connectivity choices for thin clients, point of sale, gaming and single-board computers, AMD said.

AMD also announced Socket S1, used to connect a chipset to a computer's motherboard, and the M690 chipset development board, a development platform for small, graphic-intensive devices.

The development board has a standard ATX form factor, and integrates PCI and PCI Express expansion slots, USB 2.0, and options for display connections such as CRT (cathode ray tube), DVI (digital video interface) or LVDS (low voltage differential signaling), AMD said.

The 690 series, announced in February, became available last week. The chipsets are designed for high-definition video, including hardware technology that uses less power when reading DVDs. AMD has integrated ATI's Radeon X1250 graphics processor into the chipset, which means a graphics card isn't needed.

The 690 chipsets, compatible with AMD's desktop processors, are powerful enough to handle Microsoft's Corp.'s Vista OS, whose higher processing demands includes expanded graphics capabilities, AMD said.

source : www.pcworld.com

Can PlayStations be Servers?

A new virtual hosting solution has been launched that draws on spare processing power from multiple devices and platforms to reduce the cost of provisioning additional servers.

The service, dubbed Joint Infrastructure Virtualization Enhancement, can draw on unused processing capacity in desktops, laptops, Personal Digital Assistants (PDAs), mobile phones and even gaming consoles by using the Skeet migration service to stop, break up, migrate, and distribute running applications between servers and devices.

Bulletproof Networks Pty Ltd. Director of Sales and Marketing Lorenzo Modesto said the extra processing load on the devices may increase power consumption but he denied it would adversely affect performance.

"The only downside may be a higher consumption of battery in mobile phones and PDAs but that's it," Modesto said.

"It can draw on processing power from anywhere; if an employee brings their kids into work with a Sony Corp. Playstation then the business could leverage its processing and the same with MP3 players.

"You can exceed your computing requirements without having to purchase extra hardware through a distributed and highly available architecture."

He said the solution is a global first and can use any device with wireless connectivity and a CPU, with take-up expected to be strong in the sales, manufacturing and warehousing industries which typically have low installed server power and high latent mobile device penetration.

However, Gartner managing vice president, Phil Sargent, said the solution would pose a number of contentious issues such as pricing and security that would need to be addressed.

"There would be some interesting ramifications if these devices that are being relied on are turned off," Sargent said.

"Security is a big issue here because this extends the technology outside the corporate boundaries.

"Software licensing fees and overall pricing may be difficult to manage because of how resources are [provisioned]."

He said the technology was previously used within an organization's boundaries by enterprises such as banks which used resources between data centers and remote user computers.

The solution was developed for about a year and is an offshoot of the company's hosted virtualization service.

Modesto was unavailable to reply at the time of publication.

Moreover, Datacom virtual infrastructure architect, Andre Rencontre, said he is skeptical of the offering because it addresses a non-critical problem in most infrastructures - the vast majority of servers are not CPU constrained.

With eight way processor cores scheduled for release next year and plans for 16 and 32 core processors this will continue to be the case, he added. "The real issue for customers with virtual machines in the data center is the provisioning of RAM and storage, not processing," Rencontre said.

source : www.pcworld.com

Microsoft Offers New Vista Enterprise Licenses

Microsoft Corp. is offering two new licensing options for Windows Vista enterprise customers that want to take advantage of emerging scenarios for large data centers.

The first gives enterprise users the ability to run the Windows Vista Enterprise client on a diskless computer, said Scott Woodgate, director in the Microsoft Windows product group. The second option, called the Vista Enterprise Centralized Desktop, for the first time lets users run a client version of Windows on servers in a data center so the OS can run locally via virtual machines.

A diskless PC has no hard drive; instead, the hard drive is stored on the network and an image of the OS is streamed from there into the memory and CPU of the computer, Woodgate said.

Companies interested in protecting sensitive data, such as financial services companies and government customers, have expressed interest in running Vista on diskless PCs for security reasons. However, it is an emerging scenario for data centers, and so for now will only affect a small number of customers, he said. "The target audience is for early adopters," Woodgate said.

To run Windows Vista Enterprise on diskless PCs, customers must use third-party diskless boot software from companies such as Citrix Systems Inc. and other Microsoft partners. This software enables the PC to find a copy of Windows on the network and to stream that software back onto the local machine, Woodgate said.

Vista Enterprise Centralized Desktop allows customers to take Windows Vista Enterprise client software and install it on a virtual machine on a server so it can be accessed from a thin or rich client. This licensing scenario is also the first time customers will be able to run Windows client software on servers, Woodgate said.

The centralized desktop option provides a cost-effective option for companies such as brokerage firms that have trading brokers viewing several computer monitors at once that are all attached to one PC. This way, a business can run one copy of Windows Vista Enterprise on a server and access the OS in multiple virtual machines, Woodgate said.

The diskless PC option is available Monday for no extra charge for customers that already have licensed Windows Vista Enterprise, said Mike Burk, a Microsoft Windows product manager.

The Vista Enterprise Centralized Desktop license will be available for customers that have Microsoft's Software Assurance subscription service for an additional fee beginning in July. Microsoft is not disclosing how much more customers will pay for the license as fees for Software Assurance vary per customer, Burk said.

source : www.pcworld.com

MySpace Bug Hunt Gets Off to a Slow Start

A group of hackers has kicked off its month of MySpace vulnerabilities, which it hopes will make more of a splash than January's month of bugs for Apple Inc.'s software.

But they acknowledge they've started off with a softball, as the first one revealed on Sunday isn't too dangerous, they wrote.

The problem involves URL (Uniform Resource Locator) spoofing. An attacker could build an official-looking MySpace page using MySpace's CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) editing features that's designed to solicit a person's log-in details. The fake page could have a URL that reads "www.myspace.com/PasswordReset."

The problem is credited to mybeNi websecurity.

"Note, it's a pretty light one, seeing how today is Sunday, and we don't really expect the crack MySpace Security Squad to actually do a lot of code changes on Sunday," they wrote. "So, we went with one they probably don't care about, and isn't terribly dangerous on its own."

The hackers, who go by the names Mondo Armando and Müstaschio, have said they picked MySpace for their project for its high number of users. MySpace had 64.4 million unique visitors in February, according to comScore Networks, which tracks Web site traffic.

The hackers have informed MySpace of the project, they said.

"They are adhering to the company line that they do not respond to inquiries regarding security," one of the hackers wrote in an e-mail to IDG News Service.

The "month of bugs" theme has been criticized as gimmicky and, sometimes, just not that exciting. Others have done the "Month of kernel bugs" and "Month of PHP bugs" projects. The month of Apple bugs, which ran throughout January, turned up flaws but nothing too alarming.

But MySpace might prove more fertile. It has frequently been targeted by hackers since a single compromised account can open a door to potentially hundreds of thousands of other users, which can be targeted with spam or infected with malicious code.

In December, a worm rapidly spread across user profiles using a cross-site scripting weakness and a feature within Apple's QuickTime multimedia player.

Users who visited another MySpace profile could be infected by viewing an embedded QuickTime file, which could then begin an attack to capture the user's log-in details.

If the MySpace vulnerabilities aren't that thrilling, the hackers said it could aid the end of month-long bug-finding sprees.

"If it kills this Month of Whatever fad, then hurray for everyone, it's over," they wrote on their Web site.

source : www.pcworld.com

Attacks Increase; Windows Patch Due Early

Microsoft has decided to rush out a fix for a flaw in its Windows operating system, saying that the problem has become too serious to ignore.

The flaw, which will be patched on Tuesday, was originally disclosed to Microsoft in December, but it was not publicly reported until last week. The bug lies in the way Windows processes .ani Animated Cursor files, which are used to create cartoon-like cursors in Windows.

Web Sites on Attack

Since the first attacks based on this flaw were reported, security experts say that more than 100 Web sites are now serving up malicious Web pages that take advantage of the bug, and a new worm, has begun spreading in China, according to by Symantec.

On Saturday, hackers posted sample code that could be used to exploit the flaw, and shortly after that, Microsoft decided to rush out the emergency patch instead of waiting for its next regularly scheduled set of security updates, due April 10.

"Over this weekend attacks against this vulnerability have increased somewhat," Microsoft Program Manager Christopher Budd wrote Sunday on the company's Security Response Center blog. "Additionally, we are aware of public disclosure of proof-of-concept code. In light of these points, and based on customer feedback, we have been working around the clock to test this update and are currently planning to release the security update that addresses this issue on Tuesday."

Such early patches are not unprecedented. Microsoft released similar "out-of-cycle" fixes in January and September last year.

Unofficial Patch Offered

For those who cannot wait until Tuesday, two unofficial patches for the problem are now available: The first is from eEye Digital Security, the second was released on Sunday by a volunteer group called the Zeroday Emergency Response Team.

Microsoft's patch has been in the works since security vendor Determina brought the flaw to Microsoft's attention late last year, Budd wrote. "We've been working on our investigation and a security update since then."

source : www.pcworld.com