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Cyber Monday turns into a dark Monday
Marketeers at Shop.org today are dancing a victory dance.
Shop.org is the applause machine for online retailers. In a clever but deceitful plan they came up with a way to piggyback ride on the "Black Friday" phenomenon that sees sales in retail store spike on the day after Thanksgiving.
The idea: claim that there is such a thing called "Cyber Monday" where workers after a three days of shopping in brick and mortar stores would continue their buying spree online, using their bosses broadband connections. Cyber Monday, in summary, was portrayed to be the largest day of online shopping in the year.
Some media took the bait. And some shoppers were fooled into thinking that there bargains to be had, causing a 35 per cent rise in internet traffic.
But Shop.org's executive director Scott Silverman quickly confessed his deceitful ways to BusinessWeek: "It's not the biggest day. But it was an opportunity to create some consumer excitement."
The Monday after Thanksgiving actually doesn't even come close to being the largest day in online shopping. It ranks at a mediocre 12th place. For your online shopping bonanza, you should've looked at November 22 (which is when Microsoft started selling the Xbox 360 in the US).
Crazy Thanksgiving shoppers are mostly found offline
Tags: shop.org, e-commerce
Google stock takes a sanity break
Google's valuation in the stock market dropped by about $5.9bn today, its stock slipping 4.71 per cent to $403.54.
Investors dropped the stock after data was released indicating that retail sales in the past weekend were less bullish than hoped. Fewer retail sales could indicate a weaker economy, leading to a slowdown in advertising sales on Google's web pages (including its Froogle price comparison service).
Nearly $6bn might be a bit of an overreaction, but apparently some investors are finally starting to see that Google isn't in the business of printing money but instead will grow over time. This justifies valuations that are more in line with other normal businesses where the laws of supply, demand and competition apply.
Bull statue near Wall Street
Photo: myles davidson
Tags: google
How long did Sony have to screw up the XCP?
As F-Secure already published when the Sony BMG XCP controversy first started spinning out of control, the company was already on Sony's tail before Mark Russinovich informed the world about this evil technology.
The difference being that F-Secure reported the issue quietly to Sony BMG to drive its consultancy business (helping fix the flaw before taking credit) where Russinovich was out to give Sony BMG a public whipping.
This story went back in time to seek out what exactly happened prior to the Russinovich blog posting. Most importantly it even further shows the level of incompetence that First 4 Internet showed in dealing with its own flawed code. The firm not only failed to act when it was first told about the security flaws in its software, it also derailed attempts to bring in F-Secure to help fix the issue (the parties couldn't agree on the terms of the non disclosure agreement). Given that First 4 Internet had created a patchwork of proprietary code combined with stolen GPL components, this isn't a big surprise.
First 4 Internet still won't comment on the mess it created. With lawsuits popping up against its technology all over the world, that's no big surprise. But the report in BusinessWeek only seems to make matters worse for both Sony BMG and First 4 Internet.
Creating insecure code is one thing. Knowing its bad nature and failing to act is even worse.
Tags: Sony BMG, first 4 internet, XCP, DRM, trojan
Are we being hacked by aliens?
Aliens could use the radio signals that we are trying to analyse with projects like Seti@home to hack into the world's computer infrastructure, D. Carrigan is warning.
That would mean that the signals have a hidden message that we fail to notice but that does succeed at hacking our computers. Carrigan advices that we act more carefully when analysing radio signals from outer space, using stand alone systems to prevent the alien worms from spreading.
How badly do we want to believe in the existence of intelligent life in space?
Carrigna's theory is fundamentally flawed, as F-Secure points out on its blog. Even if there is intelligent life closeby (say within 25 light year's range), it would take 25 years for the aliens to pick up human radio signals. They then need to analyse them and develop exploit code and send back a signal which again will take another 25 years to reach earth. By that time the computer architectures have fundamentally changed and the chance that the exploit still works is zero.
Most alien theories are easily deflated
The dirty Open Document war
The mud slinging in the format war down in Massachusetts is in full fare. As the Inquirer points out, both governor and Mitt Romney his CIO Peter Quinn have come under political fire after they decided to favour the Open Document Format (ODF), dealing a blow to Microsoft.
Quinn now is accused of accepting bribes because he failed to properly report trips to open source conferences. The allegations charge that he should have reported which companies sponsored the events.
A Microsoft servant was clearly firing a warning shot here. Besides the ridiculous nature of the complaint, the trips actually took place after the state decided that it like open formats better than proprietary ones. So far for charging that the event sponsors were trying to influence the decision making process.
Besides, Microsoft last week more or less opened its Office document format, which might outdate the entire discussion.
Still there is much at stake here for Microsoft. If Massachusetts keeps favouring ODF over the Microsoft, it will set an important precedent.
Tags: Microsoft, ODF, Massachusetts
DMCA used as a blunt weapon
In a society where companies file lawsuits before they sit down and think (or talk), it's no big surprise that the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) is being widely abused.
A study from two California universities found that more than half of the DMCA claims were used as a scare tactic against direct competitors. Another 30 per cent of the claims that referred to the DMCA wouldn't stand up in court, 10 per cent of which should be discarded because the complaints were badly written.
The DMCA is widely criticised legislation that gives sweeping powers to copyright owners. The study focuses on the DMCA and publication of copyrighted materials, but the DMCA for instance also makes it illegal to 'reverse engineer' software. Reverse engineering is a useful technique to find out what software like the Sony XCP anti-piracy technology is actually doing or to hunt for security bugs.
Let's not forgot that the DMCA aims to serve the legitimate need for copyright owners like movie studios and record labels to protect their intellectual property. The industries were the main backers of the legislation, but a mere 6 per cent of the cases originated from there. The games industry accounted for about on quart of the claims, targeting publishers of cheat and authorisation codes (which enable illegal copies).
Every copyright owner is entitled to see his property protected. But this study hopefully will cause law makers to have a good look at the monster they created. Do the legit cases really justify the rubbish that comes with it?
Tags: dmca
Opera ventures into the snake oil business
Opera today "revealed" that security concerns have prompted record downloads of its browser.
In a schoolbook of example of "don't send a press release if you've got nothing to say," the company sent out a press release for the sake of sending one.
The "revelation" isn't based on anything, as the reader will find out. It just combines two findings: more than one million copies of Opera 8.51 have been downloaded in the past week and Internet Explorer keeps getting pounded by security vulnerabilities. But Opera doesn't provide any data to back up the claim that there is a link between the record number of downloads and security concerns with Internet Explorer users (aren't the downloaders more likely to be upgrading from older version of the Opera browser?)
Add a link to the Secunia security website (deceivingly suggesting that the link will show the reader an independent test to verify Opera's security claims) and a generic CEO quote and you got yourself a case study for PR gone wrong.
Opera might have a decent (although far from perfect ) security track record, today's news release only sought to capitalize on the holiday shopping craze and the sad state of online security. Suggesting a link between unrelated facts is better left to the sellers of real snake oil.
Tags: opera, internet explorer, security
Hosting for tree huggers
Webhosting venture AISO Inc is hoping that putting on a green face will help it gain some new customers.
The California company claims to have build a "green" design to its web hosting facility that will minimize the impact on the earth's resources. The building is powered by 120 solar panels as well as other environmental friendly design features.
It's no secret that hosting firms are big energy hogs, so naturally there are firms trying to make money off that. AISO is joined by several other 'green' hosting providers that power their data centres from renewable energy sources.
It probably makes good business sense. Hosting services are pretty much a commodity service where providers find it impossible to differentiate their products from the competition. Being green is a clear differentiator that could give profit margins a nice boost.
tags: green hosting, environmentalism, solar energy
Smash my Xbox
The best $400 spend this week came from a group of pranksters who set up the website smashmyxbox.com.
The idea is simple: get in line to buy a new Xbox and then go medieval on it with a slash hammer in front of the Xbox faithful. Put up a movie on the internet and voila.
Except… that the prank itself was kind of lame. They bought their Xbox alright, but didn't have the guts to wreck the thing inside the store for all the Xbox wannabes to see and be shocked. Instead they went to the outside parking lot and did their magic in front of an audience of 3 Xbox buyers.
Their responses are amusing nonetheless – especially the guy that says: "Why?" several time and then starts nagging: "Can I have you controller?" But the effect would have been so much better if the group would’ve pulled the trick inside.
Another interesting point is made at the very beginning of the video when a store clerk from Best Buy tells the group of people waiting about the troubles that they had with the demo Xbox units. He ends with the phrase: "So, serious, guys…" and a look on his face that tells: don't buy it.
Tags: microsoft, xbox 360
Amazon your place to buy... IDC research?!
Analyst firm IDC is selling research papers on Amazon. The firm is offering over 14,000 of its reports for sale on the webstore.
Business doesn't appear to be spectacular. The best selling paper, a $1,500 report on networking for next generation gaming consoles like the Xbox 360 from May this year, has an overall Amazon sales rank 240,430 in the books category.
At that price, nobody should be surprised that business is limited. Especially since I tend to visit Amazon to buy digital cameras and books. Still the online store claims that people who bought the gaming paper also purchased an Xbox bundle with Halo (mind you: this is the old Xbox and these discontinued bundles were overpriced ways for Microsoft to make Xbox fans pay for a T-shirt and hat).
This looks more like an experiment than a genuine part of Amazon e-commerce efforts. If people really would be buying IDC research papers on Amazon, you'd probably have seen office supplies or other business items pop up in the "customers how purchased this item also bought" section.
There is no information on the site indicating how long these sales have been going on. Amazon first started selling digital documents in 2001.
Webmasters who didn't think when they registered their URL
The /spadassin/ blog has a nice list of URLs that can be read in more than one way. Make sure to give the blog a visit, but here's one to give you an idea of what to expect:
Need a therapist?
http://www.therapistfinder.com
Google and Yahoo are killing web startups
The cut throat competition in the search and portal markets between Yahoo and Google is causing a draught in the venture capital investments, claims investor Tony Conrad in the San Jose Mercury News.
Last year Conrad reluctantly sold his shares in a company called Oddpost. The startup had developed a better online email application and was quickly purchased by Yahoo.
Neither the company itself or its investors had been planning to sell out at such an early stage. It's better to let the business mature and get some revenues because that gets a much higher sale prices. But Yahoo made an offer they couldn't refuse.
Because Yahoo and Google don't have much patience in waiting for startups to mature, they are effectively driving down profit margins for venture capital investors. As a result those investors are starting to look at different market altogether and are creating a drought in innovation and investments in the portal area.
The whole thing inevitably should level out at some point. If an overly aggressive acquisition strategy causes a drought in VC funding, there soon will be nothing to acquire. Or Yahoo and Google will have to set up their own VC funds to fill the void.
Droughts tend to make victims
Tags: Yahoo, Google, venture capital
Black, black Friday coming
With Thanksgiving coming on Thursday (to celebrate how native Americans saved the immigrants behinds once by feeding them turkey), the most important day in a shopping year shopping is just around the corner: Black Friday.
It's the official kick off for the Christmas shopping season. Retail insiders claim that stores only start making a profit on this day and that all the other months are just waiting time leading up to December. Profits use black ink vs. red ink for losses, hence the term Black Friday.
Black Friday has grown into a shopping bonanza with early hour sales and the likes. Fry's, an electronics store with lousy service, bad quality and low prices, is famous for selling items for cents after mail in rebates. Low cost warehouses Wal Mart this year plans on selling an HP Windows laptop computer for $378.
Stores are overcrowded and parking impossible to come by, so don't expect to see me there. But in case you're interested, several sites have overviews of sales (some times much to the dismay of the stores).
Tags: black friday, thanksgiving
Nokia declares the N-Gage dead
Nokia has admitted failure in its effort to create a mobile gaming system with the Nokia N-Gage.
"N-Gage is still being sold but it was not a success in the sense of
developing a new category," said Antti Vasara, Nokia's vice president for
corporate strategy on vnunet.com.
The mobile phone with a heavy emphasis on gaming was launched in 2003, but sales have disappointed. Gaming is no longer an item on Nokia's product roadmap until 2007. The new Walhalla, according to the Finish manufacturer is actually mobile music and television.
Success in that space isn't assured either. Convergence is a fine art that few have mastered. The big question is in the marketing: is a the N-Gage a mobile phone with a gaming feature, or a gaming console with mobile phone features? And in either case neither feature is allowed to under perform. Sealing the N-Gage's faith, it turned out to be a poor phone and a mediocre gaming platform.
The same question has caused the Motorola Rokr (aka iTunes phone) to dissapoint. Although here is was perfectly clear that we were dealing with a phone with music capabilities, Motorola launched a marketing campaign portraying it as a music device.
Tags: Nokia, Ngage, Rokr, Motorola
The art of Xbox 360 price gouging
The US last night survived the launch of the Xbox 360. A happy few were able to buy a premium system for $400, the unlucky got stuck with a core system that lacks a hard drive and therefore won't be able to play any of the first generation Xbox games (but you can always upgrade)
Soon after the launch the laws of supply and demand kicked in. The record: one system sold on Ebay for $10,400.
If you hope to copy this healthy 2500 per cent profit margin when the Xbox launches in Europe next week or Asia the week thereafter, pay attention. Below are some observations based on looking at that prices that people paid for new Xbox systems on Ebay.
- Promise the fastest shipping possible: the $10,400 auction promised to ship the unit overnight on Tuesday, allowing the buyer to touch it on Wednesday. Others told prospective buyers to wait up to a week.
- Carefully time when your auction ends. You aren't dealing with your price conscious regular Ebay crowd here. These are impulse buyers. You want to catch them when they are the most desperate:
- Buyers on average paid the most in auctions that had ended before noon. Most systems that sold for around $3,000 actually went under the hammer by 11 am in New York (8 am in San Francisco).
- By 5 pm San Francisco time the average price had dropped to about $800.
- Later in the evening the seemed to pick up again: this one sold for $1325 at 6:30 pm (SF time)
- Learn to spell! Few people will find your Xobx.
- People don't care much about the core systems: this premium system sold for $1025. Only 8 minutes earlier a Core version sold for only $649
- Do you know for sure that you'll get an Xbox? SELL IT! If you're really desperate to own one, sell yours in the morning and buy one in the afternoon after prices have levelled off.
- If you're in for a gamble, follow the above rule even if an Xbox hasn't been allocated to you.
- Don't get greedy: this unit never sold, probably because of a $2,000 reserve price. Ebayers like to bid on items that others already bid for. And low prices get you your first bidders.
- All these rules would also apply if you're looking to buy, in which case I'd like to urge you to take a deep breath and spend a few bucks on a new game for your existing Xbox that will get you through the Holidays. You'll save a truckload of money by waiting. Just donate the savings to charity to further enhance the Holiday spirit.
Tags: Xbox 360, microsoft, ebay
Researchers foil government's tinfoil hat conspiracy
A group of brave students at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology has foiled a large scale government conspiracy to control the minds of its citizens.
They took it upon themselves to research the effectiveness of the tinfoil hat, the devices that have saved us all from the mind control brain waves that the government is sending. But contrary to popular belief, the hats don’t block the radio waves, but actually act as an amplifier. Logically the CIA has known this all along and actually seeded the brain control wave rumours to make its "project zombies" more effective.
"It requires no stretch of the imagination to conclude that the current helmet craze is likely to have been propagated by the government, possibly with the involvement of the Federal Communications Commission," wrote the authors of the paper entitled On the Effectiveness of Aluminium Foil Helmets: An Empirical Study.
The group tested the 3 basic hat designs: the classic over the head (aka: the punctured soccer ball), the 'fez' conical (aka: dumbo) and (my personal favourite) the 'centurion' with the foil peak (aka: silly Germany army World War 1).
For sale: used Windows, only surfed to the grocery store and back
A UK firm claims to have found a loophole in Microsoft license agreements that will create a market for second hand software licenses.
A software license in theory is between you and the developer, meaning that you can't just sell your license to someone else. But Microsoft's license agreement has a loophole for bulk licenses at bankrupt companies: those are up for grabs.
So Discount-licensing.com has started to scout bankruptcy auctions for software licenses and has now opened the doors of its web store.
A version of Windows NT gets you a nice 50 per cent discount over what you'd pay a reseller, the store claims, with more recent Microsoft products discounted by at least 20 per cent.
"years of gentle use, stored in a secure location"
Tags: microsoft, windows, software license, used software, second hand software
Spammer seeks to launder spam proceedings through… spam
An unknown spammer has been sending email messages recruiting money launders, security expert F-Secure is reports on its blog.
But the email messages aren't actually that clear in phrasing it. The spam email is masked to look like a job posting from Monster.com, pointing to a fake moster.com website. The description mentions that the job involves transferring money through Western Union.
Moving around money made from illegal operations is a common method for criminal to launder their proceedings, putting up smoke screens that make it hard for authorities to track these money streams. F-Secure pointed out that the job posting likely tries to recruite people to launder money made from credit card fraud and identity theft operations.
An excerpt from the job listing that F-Secure posted states:
"In case of getting order from another country we have to pay 15% fee for international bank transfer according to the US law. To reduce the transfer cost we are looking for Financial Managers all over the world. When we get an order from another country, the Financial Manager in this country gets the payment and sends it to us through Western Union. Commission rate of Financial Managers is 3%."
The posting mentions a genuine company called Velocity Global Resources, but the URL for the site that it points to adds an 's' at the end of velocityglobal.com, pointing to a site hosted by the spammer.
I must give the criminals credit for their cleverness in trying to recruit unknowing job seekers for their money laundering operation. By offering fake Monster.com posting and referring to a fake but real company, they might just fool the occasional individual.
Sony DRM's silver lining
Nothing to add:
(click image for a larger version)
Today's twist in the Sony DRM soap
No single sane person can do by accident what Sony has done over the past weeks with the XCP anti piracy technology. Sony must have a bigger plan with this DRM technology. (Summary: software for Windows seeking to protect copyrights. bad design, poor security, easy to defeat, PR nightmare, consumer boycott).
Only the creator of a TV soap could have come up with the unlikely twists and turns that Sony BMG has shown.
In last week's episodes we saw how the respectable Sony created its own downfall because of substance abuse. Today, the RIAA, the long time slut of the recording industry who will sleep with anyone claiming to have a nickel, came to the rescue of the record label.
"The problem with the Sony BMG situation is that the technology it used contained a security vulnerability of which it was unaware," said RIAA president Cary Sherman. He didn't realise that his remarks only made Sony look worse. Endorsements from known villains trying to fight technological progress by yelling "burn the witch" ever louder tend to have a negative effect.
Then over the past weekend, Gatner, the friendly neighbour who has had a thing with Metagroup in the past, dropped a bomb, unveiling another one of Sony's dark secrets. The XCP technology could have been easily defeated by putting a piece of tape on the CD.
Also last week's news that XCP has actually illegally used GPL licensed code that was partially authored by DVD John was a nice twist that rivalled the "brining back a character from death" move.
I can't wait for the next episode of the Sony BMG soap. Will Sony have an affair with the slutty neighbour? Or will the soap authors bring in a surprise visitor who upsets the current balance of chaos? Stay tuned for more after these messages.
PS: This blog has a brilliant analysis of the whole situation.
Bad acting and poor story lines are no longer a soap opera monopoly
Photo: Rafael Reverte
Tags: Sony BMG, first 4 internet, XCP, DRM, trojan
More exploding mobile phones
The LG v6000 mobile phone of a student in Wyoming caused burn wounds when it exploded on the owner's bed, according to a Philadelphia ABC affiliate.
The student had placed the phone on her bed while it was being charged. The explosion burned a hole through her sheets and caused a large "popping" sound.
The owner had replaced the factory issued battery with an unapproved one – which in the past has caused several mobile phone explosions. Other than saying that she should've known better, these pictures might deter future battery skinflints.
Microsoft doesn't even care about Microsoft's standards
Showing exactly just how Microsoft cares about adhering to standards and backward compatibility, the MSN.com website is no longer properly displayed in the Internet Explorer browser for Apple's OS X operating system.
Users who (for whatever reason) might try and visit MSN.com using the Microsoft software will see a poorly rendered page stating:
"Your browser cannot find our style and presentation information and as a result may not display the page properly. You are welcome to use the page as is, or upgrade your browser to its latest version which may address the problem. If you are using Microsoft Internet Explorer, go to the Microsoft Internet Explorer website to install the latest version. If you are using another browser, see the provider's website for more information. If you are using Internet Explorer for Mac, we recommend that you use another browser to have an optimal experience on MSN."
Admittedly Microsoft has mothballed Internet Explorer on the Mac after Apple released the 1.0 version of the Safari browser in June 2003. The Microsoft software has been stuck on version 5.2 and won't move anywhere – other than for any security updates.
Microsoft however is still offering the application for download on its website, claiming that the software is "award-winning" and "makes it easy to view and find information on the internet." They should at least change that into: "find some information on the internet".
The fact that Microsoft pages aren't displayed properly on the Microsoft browser shows a blatant disregard of internet standards. Sure IE5 is two years old. Given that many consumers and enterprises today still use Windows 2000 (which is 5 years old), users have expect that software lasts longer than 2 years. But then we already knew that Microsoft doesn't really care about standards.
tags: internet explorer, ie5, microsoft, monopoly
Cheat codes for your car
According to reports on discussion boards, some Toyota made cars (including the Lexus luxury brand) has what amounts to a cheat code to turn off the VDIM (Vehicle Dynamics Integrated Management).
Better take a pen and paper:
....start the car with the parking brake on ....then foot brake twice....(keep the foot brake down)....then parking brake twice (keep it down )and repeat till skid light is on the dash.....it will reset when you restart the car.
This is said to be described in the maintenance manual.
VDIM uses a series of sensors to ensure a car's stability on the road, measuring wheel rotations and angle and such. It will automatically apply the breaks and do other things to improve the car's stability while driving. In the case described at on the online discussion board, this had led to excessive wear and tear of the break pads.
But you'd expect that for those cases the car maker come up with a proper way instead of something that resembles a cheat code for a gaming console.
UPDATE:
This isn't so weird after all, apparently. A friend of my neighbour's dog watcher's grocery bagger owns a GMC where you reset the oil quality monitor (after you refreshed the oil) by pressing the gas pedal three times.
Lexus
Tags: lexus
Is there no limit to Sony BMG's incompetence?
After all the horrible mistakes that Sony BMG has made over the past weeks with the XCP anti piracy technology, it now seems that the firm has also violated the General Public License (GPL).
Sebastian Porst of Germany and Finish Matti Nikki took a good look at the binaries for the software that Sony had included on XCP equipped audio CDs, and found numerous references to functions that were performed by open source (GPL and LGPPL) applications.
If the software contains any GPL code, the GPL license requires that the developer has to release the source code of the new application.
Since Sony and First 4 Internet, the company that developed the technology in the first place, didn't do so, they violated the terms of the GPL. Sony must understand how bad that is but to put it in terms that they understand: it's similar to downloading music of the internet for free.
Sony will probably be able to make the case that it merely purchased the software off First 4 Internet, but is unlikely to get away from this DRM nightmare unharmed.
Why on earth would a commercial company that claims to safeguard copyrights rip off GPL code? For starters because they probably believe they would get away with it. But secondly because this isn't about 'safeguarding copyrights', but all about greed.
First 4 Internet lacked either the time, money or engineering skills to create its technology all by itself (probably all three of those come into play). Security experts already had typified the application as poorly engineered.
Can someone please sue First 4 Internet into oblivion? And before we do so, tattoo the words "incompetent idiot" on the foreheads of each of its employees.
Management schools some day will have a field day picking apart how the company added failure upon failure upon failure. It would be amusing if it wasn't so sad.
Tags: Sony BMG, first 4 internet, XCP, DRM, trojan
Those poor Indian call centre workers
Do you dislike foreign call centres over outsourcing concerns? Don't take it out against the poor $1-per-hour-earning-agent that you get on the phone. People like you are undermining the mental health of India.
"A lot of trauma is caused," Vinod Shetty, a Bombay lawyer who has formed a collective for call-center workers said in the San Francisco Chronicle.
Shetty blames the outpour of customers swearing at call centre agents on racial dislikes over the outsourcing trend.
In addition to the mental damage, India now starts to hate those rude Americans for their telephone tirades instead of their tendency to invade sovereign countries under false claims of weapons of mass destruction.
A recent study by Harris Interactive by the way found that companies using outsourced call centres experience a drop in customer satisfaction according to 47 per cent of consumers. Half of them didn't trust giving them financial details over fears of identity theft.
Cricket: one thing that most Indians probably would prefer to do over being confronted by rude American callers.
(This photo replaces one of a crowd protesting against America by burning a flag – several readers pointed out that the picture was inappropriate. I'd hereby like to apologise)
Tags: offshoring, outsourcing, call center
Spammer gets 6 years to think things over
The UK might have lousy laws to prevent denial of service attacks, a judge this week was more willing to leash out against a prolific spammer with a tendency to making death threats.
Peter Francis-Macrae received a six year jail term for sending out bogus emails selling .eu domain registration services and making subsequent threats against people complaining and the police. Francis Macrae is a known spammer listed in the Spamhaus blacklist of spammers.
"You are, I think, one of the most vindictive young men I have ever seen," judge Nicholas Coleman told him at the time of sentencing.
The 23-year-old might still have lived at home, he made a cool estimated £1.1million ($1.9m). It isn't clear where he hid those funds, although part of it was spent on a lavish lifestyle with Yves Saint Laurant clothing (£12,000 - $20,600) and helicopter lessons (£16,000 - $27,500). Both are things that have little use in a jail cell however.
Solar power plants inch forward
California is about to start construction of two new solar power plants that will make any existing project look like child's play.
To be set up in the Mojave dessert, one plant is set to generate 500 megawatts of energy and a second one 300 megawatts. A coal or gas powered plant typically generates 500 to 1000 megawatts. Current generation solar farms using photovoltaic cells only get to 35 to 80 megawatts.
The new plants will use mirrors to direct sunlight to a so-called Stirling Engine. The engine has a reservoir filled with hydrogen that will expand due to the heat from the mirrors. The expansion will drive pistons generating electricity.
The 500 megawatt generator will feature 20,000 dishes (a set of mirrors) – each with its own Stirling engine - spread out over an area of 4,500 acres (18.2 square kilometres). That might not look very pretty, but anything that reduces the world's dependency on foreign oil and in the process might diffuse any terrorist threats (oil funds have largely funded terrorist activities over the past decades) has my vote. Flash animation: Sterling Energy Systems
Tags: solar power, stirling engine
You and I are paying $170bn for telcos' screw ups
A study from analyst firm Analysys claims that telecoms this year alone will loose $170bn through in efficiencies.
The sum boils down to 11.6 per cent of the firm's overall revenues, up from last years 10.7 per cent.
Let's do some math. Assuming that there are about 6 billion phones in the world today (both mobile and land line), this boils down to $28 per phone per year. And guess who's paying for that? We all are.
The cost are caused by fraud, credit management, least-cost-routing errors (not taking the cheapest route), interconnect/partner-payment errors, and poor processes and systems.
Any new provider that succeeds in cutting these costs can break open the telecom market. And can lower my phone bill.
tags: phone bill, operator, fraud
Helpdesk? What do I do if counterfeit money is stuck in my printer?
Police in Arizona have caught a crime ring that is believed to have been responsible for up to 10 per cent of all the counterfeit money in the state.
The group sort of gave themselves away when they sent in a printer for repair that had an unfinished sheet of counterfeit dollar bills stuck in its mechanism.
The bills were of average quality. But the group of 10 would prevent detecting by using the money to buy expensive items at Walmart, paying at a register staffed by an accomplice. The purchases later would be returned for cash.
Police caught $56,000 when they raided the group members' homes. Another $160,000 is believed to have been spent.
Nine things to look for when catching a counterfeit $50 bill
Tags: dumb criminals
Starformers double up on geeky fun
If you remember the transformers, even played with them as a child, than you are likely to score above average on the geek scale.
But what is more geeky than anything? Exactly, Star Wars.
All geeks therefore should mark their calendars. Starting this January Hasbro will start selling the Star Wars Transformers (I recommend we refer to them as Starformers, as it is much shorter and easy to pronounce).
Watch in amazement as Darth Vader turns into a TIE Advanced x1 star fighter (if you don't know what either of those are, Starformers aren't for you). Obi-Wan Kenobi will become a fighter plane from Episode III and General Grievous transforms into a wheel bike. Luke is set to morph into a X-wing fighter.
Finally something new to put up in your cubicle, even if they won't be available in time to be put under the Christmas tree.
Tags: star wars, transformers
A free Windows? Sure, but not now
An internal Microsoft research paper is suggesting that the company is looking at launching a free version of its Windows operating system, supported by advertising. Microsoft only makes $9 per user per year from Windows, the paper alleges.
Google's average revenue per user is about $50 per year, we reported earlier. So no wonder that Microsoft is looking at ways to capture some of the adversiting market's richness. In fact, that's what that vendor's Live Software initiative is all about.
Add the threat of open source applications to the mix, and Microsoft should do some deep soul searching.
But don't mistake the paper for anything other than soul searching. The paper was merely prepared for an executive brainstorm session and doesn't represent any actual plans.
Over time Windows is likely to become free – if it wants to meet open source competitors. But currently there is no need to Microsoft to do so. The vendor still has a comfortable market share in the desktop computer market.
Just putting up advertising in Windows also is unlikely to make Windows an interesting advertising destination. Google didn't become successful by selling online advertisements, but by offering highly relevant advertisements next to the search queries that users performed.
You can already argue about the value of advertising next to your Gmail or Hotmail If there is any case for it, it is far smaller than next to search results. Let alone that any users is waiting so see irrelevance hence intrusive banners on his desktop or popups between application windows.
Irrelevant advertising is has little economic value
photo: Jenni Baker
Tags: windows Live, office live, microsoft
Sony-BMG flushes DRM down the toilet
Record label Sony BMG has finally stopped selling music CDs with the XCP anti-piracy technology. The company for days failed to listen to security experts who claimed that that the technology formed a security risk if the owner inserted it into his computer.
But as soon as the first real internet worm surfaced, the executives bailed ship and did what they should have done from the very first day: ditch the affront of a software product called XCP that was created in the dark dungeons of First 4 Internet.
If you happen to own one of the CDs, you can exchange it.
While it didn't take worm authors long to create a computer virus that targeted the features of XCP that hides the technology from both the system and users, it's comforting that they have failed to actually do so.
By now half a dozen of worms have been detected that try to exploit the cloaking features. But not a single one has actually succeeded using the features, even though every security expert that studies the technology could explain you how to do it.
It's comforting because it shows that most virus authors are mentally challenged and have the programming skills of an onion. Al also makes you fear what happens if more skilled programmers join the virus writing guilt.
Sony BMG's new corporate head quarters
Tags: Sony BMG, first 4 internet, XCP, DRM, trojan
And now SAP looooves open source?
SAP is upset, to say the least, about a story that we at vnunet.com published last week about some comments that SAP's president of the product and technology group Shai Agassi made.
Agassi speaking at the Churchill Club in Silicon Valley explained why he believed that open source wouldn't work as a model for innovation and made the mistake to refer to (at least part) of the open source movement as "intellectual property socialism".
Now Agassi together with SAP's PR department put up a response on the company's website that is presented to suggest that it comes only from Agassi himself. They told me it was prepared by PR, and it also explains the mistake of entering an incorrect date for the event, claiming that it was on Tuesday where in reality it took place on Wednesday.
It isn't often that one of our (vnunet.com's) news stories themselves become news, but this time SAP did just that by claiming that we "got the story wrong and took […] quotes completely out of context."
We disagree, but since SAP is attacking our integrity, vnunet.com no longer can be considered an impartial observer. Listen to Agassi's remarks in mp3 here (the open source bashing section is at 35:30).
Or read here what some other observers had to say about Agassi's remarks after they read Agassi's posting (and in some cases listened to the mp3 recording).
If we have any regrets about the story, they would be about the headline. As it goes with headlines, they are a simplification and summary of the story. A much more accurate headline would have been "SAP says that open source model in enterprise software is great for bug catching but in practice doesn't deliver much innovations". It wouldn't have fit on the screen and wouldn't have made it past the editor. So when you condense the hell out of it, you come to the admittedly more sexy: "SAP dismisses open source innovation."
But I doubt that would've given SAP a large head ache.
Reading the blog postings where Agassi is flamed for his remarks, they mostly rant about the use of the words "IP socialism". In his blog posting Agassi does little to rebuke the socialism argument, but only waters it down to "extreme socialism", adding that any "extreme" movement usually is bad.
Secondly, Agassi's remarks seemed to act as the fuse in the proverbial barrel of gunpowder that was waiting to go off: the software patent discussion. SAP is a strong proponent of software patents, where the open source community is mostly against it. According to the group that makes this argument, you can't claim that you "love open source" yet lobby in favour of software patents.
The original story touches on several points about SAP and open source:
- Agassi compares the ability to customise open source applications to customize SAP's enterprise applications and notes that SAP's experience shows that long term it creates issues with upgrading and maintenance.
- The trend for SAP to go more towards a "closed box" solution where access to the source code is limited in favour of the creation of application programming interfaces (APIs) (as supported by this Zdnet blog posting)
- Agassi points to the fact that Windows Vista isn't copying features from Linux but rather from OS X, labeling it as the most innovative operating system in the market today.
- Agassi says about the ideals of free open source software that live within (parts of) the open source comminty that "Intellectual property socialism is the worst that can happen to any IP-based society," and claims that it will stifle innovation because developers will be unable to earn back the research funds they invest.
In his blog posting Agassi touches on 4 points:
- the value of having access to the source code (which he calls "openness of source code"), because it allows for customisations
- the value of the swarm of innovators to which SAP accommodates by creating APIs
- the need for a commercial entity to monetize its intellectual property. Here he again leashes out against the "socialize IP ownership"-movement (but as one observer points out, there is no trace of such a movement on the web today)
- the value of open source as a solution for commoditised technology.
I don't see any huge differences, but tell me what you think.
Tags: SAP, Shai Agassi, open source, open souce socialism
Scott Adams is real
"The best part of the story is the face he made when it became clear I wasn’t going to change my mind. It looked like someone had taken his dog and shoved it up his grandmother’s ass, put them both on his driveway, borrowed his SUV and used his gas to run over them repeatedly in front of the kids."
Anyone capable of coming up with such a phrase is my hero.
And this anyone happens to be Dilbert author Scott Adams. He has a blog, I just found out, which is just as amusing as his comics.
I had the pleasure of interviewing Adams about 3 years ago. We talked in his home in Danville, CA for about 2 hours. Walking back to my car at the end I wondered if the interview was actually any good. His answers to questions about office horror made too much sense for a guy that does hilariously ridiculous comics.
The uncertainty quickly vanished when my editor told me she loved the copy turned it into a cover story.
What I learnt from the interview is that Scott Adams has the gift to get to the core of a ridiculous situation and explain it's ridiculousness in a way that makes sense. You see the same on his website.
Tags: dilbert, scott adams
Microsoft memo: we suck at innovation
Whether it was leaked intentionally or not doesn't really matter, but the Microsoft memos that CTO Ray Ozzie and Microsoft chairman Bill Gates authored are stating the obvious: Microsoft sucks at innovating.
Microsoft today makes money with products that it copied rather than invented: the idea of Windows' graphical user interface came from Xerox Park and Office too wasn't exactly a Microsoft innovation. Similarly the Xbox was a clear "me too" strategy.
So when the memo says that the company is worried about failing to gain the lead in key areas of internet technology, there is only one response: duh!
The memo is a summary of obvious areas where Microsoft went wrong rather than a call to action.
It names the resurgence of Apple and the rise of RSS, Google and Skype as examples of areas where Microsoft has failed. The company has itself to blame for each of those failures: it still has the image of a monopolist with a hunger for money, the company is notorious for failing to adopt open standards and both users and industry partners simply don't trust the company.
Or to look at if from the other side: Apple single-handedly created a market for downloadable digital content. RSS emerged because it solves a real problem. Google innovated on internet search and pioneered a new online advertising model – combined with a "do no evil" philosophy. And Skype again innovated, making it easy to place phone calls over the internet without facing the fear of being sucked into a dark empire.
The memo might have been leaked on purpose to create some goodwill and let Microsoft make a plea for its new Live Software initiative. If the latter is the case, the company succeeded.
But Live Software isn't exactly showing Microsoft's innovative side. It merely bundles existing services like Hotmail and Messenger and makes some suggestions for what might or might not happen in the future. Innovation and Microsoft still are very much out of synch.
Ozzie and Gates last week, unfolding their Live Software initiative.
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Tags: ray ozzie, bill gates, Microsoft, apple, rss, skype, google
Sony, yoo-hoo! Would a trojan qualify as a security threat?
Large enterprises are fun to observe when the screw up. In their bigness, they are unable to respond to threats because everything has to go through the chain of command. Loyal worker bees as they are, employees who actually know what they are doing blindly follow orders from higher management.
That appears to be what's happening with Sony-BMG's controversial rootkit that is shipping with several music CDs. The technology aims to hide the digital rights managent technology that prevents you from making illegal copies. But it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that the technology is a huge security risk. It doesn't even need 'exploiting', anyone can simply 'use' its features by adding the characters "$sys$" in front of a file name.
It's like Sony distributed loaded handguns across town. You only have to wait until somebody picks one up and makes a kill. But Sony always has maintained that the technology "does not compormise security".
Worm authors have picked up the first one today. Around noon London time security firms spotted the first internet trojan that tried to use the Sony rootkit to dodge detection by anti virus software.
Luckily for us humble users, worm authors typically are idiots who are unable to properly write any code. In this case the worm fails to install on a system that hast he root kit running and won't survive a system reboot, reported F-Secure.
Surely somebody within Sony must understand, like the rest of the world does, that the XCP technology is evil and rotten to the bone. But somebody with in the organisation is blocking them from admitting that, as they are blinded by their desperate need to protect their copyrights. Corporate pride is an interesting – an reputation shattering – phenomenon.
Guns don't kill people, people kill people. Sony just happens the hands out guns to kill your computer.
Photo: Jesper Noer
Tags: Sony BMG, first 4 internet, XCP, DRM, trojan
Wind for your wireless
Researchers at the University of Texas have created a tiny windmill that can power wireless sensor networks or other wireless radios in remote locations. If there is wind, this technology will bring you wireless.
The windmill is about 10 centimeters (4 inches) high and generates 7.5 milliwatts of power.
Why you still need wind to power the network, researcher Shashank Riya said that his technology performs better than solar powered technologies, because it isn't affected by cloudy days or shady spots.
The technology isn't the only way that researchers are looking to generate power. The Nature article describing the mini windmills also described a project that uses the vibrations that cars generate when the drive over a bridge to power sensors.
SAP overlooks the open source threat
SAP doesn't believe in open source as an innovative power. Appearing at the Churchill Club in Silicon Valley, SAP's Shai Agassi today dismissed the movement as "socialism in intellectual property".
His argument is the age old case that innovation won't happen without a financial incentive (being: use innovation to gain a lead over you competitors and selling your products at a premium while your lead lasts). How else can you make back the money you invested?
If you want an innovative operating system, you should look at Apple's OS X, not at Linux, he argues.
While there is some truth to his arguments, Agassi fails to take Intel and IBM into consideration. Both companies are fierce supporters of open source, committing real research dollars to creating innovations such as IBM's involvement in the Geronimo and Project Harmony and Intel as a major supporter of Xen.
The fun fact there is that both companies can afford to invest money in open source because their real revenues come from hardware and services. Creating open source applications only helps them to generate additional demand for those products.
The laws of economics work in favour of open source. If there is an infinite supply of code, the price inevitably will drop to zero. IBM and Intel understand that consultants and chips still are objects to which the supply and demand equation applies. Niche applications might escape, but SAP's main business is at risk.
Shai Agassi
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Tags: churchill club, shai agassi, intel, ibm, open source, SAP
The Razr: the first _mobile phone_ with iTunes
Motorola later this year will start shipping a version of its Razr mobile phone with the iTunes music software.
The model at first glance might be just another attempt at launching a mobile phone with a media player, it is actually a 180-degree turn around for Motorola after the Rokr failed to excite.
The Rokr tried to cash in on the iPod hype by launching a music player that happened to be a phone. It failed because it's a lousy music player and an over-priced phone. The Rokr caps off the number of songs it holds at 100 and costs $249 from Cingular – and then you're stuck with a 2-year contract. At that price, you're better off buying an iPod Shuffle or Nano and a cheap basic mobile. At least O2 in the UK understood things better and makes it available free of charge with a 1-year contract.
The Razr however is a great mobile phone that now will also feature a music player - in that order. The model already is the number one selling mobile in the US and Motorola in the past quarter sold a cool 6.5 million of them.
The move indicates that Motorola no longer expects consumers to buy its phones just because they have the iTunes software. The Rokr doesn't need iTunes to become a success, it can only make it an even larger success.
Now if Apple will only get rid of the artificial and needless cap on the number of songs that the phone will hold, consumers can simply buy a high capacity memory chip, plug it in their phones and get rid of their iPods altogether. (I suspect that's exactly the reason why Apple put the cap in place)
The challenge with convergence is in the marketing. A iTunes mobile phone didn't really work out. The Razr will show if consumers are ready for a Mobile phone with iTunes instead.
Tags: motorola, apple, itunes, rokr, razr
Hackers too like anonymity
A student at the Rose Hulman Institute of Technology became an unwilling accomplice in hacking attack, the university's paper reported.
Senior computer science major David Yip knowingly installed the Tor onion router, a tool that allows for anonymous internet browsing that is published by the Free Haven Project and Electronic Frontier Foundation. The tool reroutes internet traffic across a network of 'onion' nodes, making it hard to track its origins. It's website advertises that: "Your traffic is safer when you use Tor."
But it fails to mention that also goes for hackers who use the tool.
In Yip's case a hacker used Tor to launch an attack against a French company, defacing its website and taking over mail servers to send out 'vulgar emails'. The attack was traced back to Yip's computer, but there the track dropped dead.
Now Yip is in a truckload of trouble. The university has suspended his internet connection and is investigating if further action should be taken.
Anonymous surfing tools might be great to secure free speech, anyone using them should also realise that criminals tend to use the same tools in their efforts to cover their tracks. As a computer engineer to be, Yip should have known better.
The case should make a strong argument for a mandatory course in computer security skills and ethics at the university.
Tags: security, Tor onion router, Tor, Rose Hulman Institute of Technology
Things to bring on your African cruise: thongs, sunscreens and… sonic weapons?
A cruise ship off the coast of Somalia in Africa last week used a sonic weapon to fend of two small boats that were attacking the ship. Pirates tried to board the ship while firing rocket propelled grenades and machine guns.
CNN has a picture of one of the boats with the pirates that was taken by a passenger. The men appear to be hanging back and enjoying themselves.
But that was before the cruise ship's captain ordered his crew to blast the ships Long Range Acoustic Device (LRAD), sending a 150 decibel loud noise beam in the pirate's direction. The device makes a shrill tone similar to a smoke detector, but then much louder – a smoke detector doesn't do more than 90 decibels.
The US developed the LRAD after the 2000 attack on the USS Cole off Yemen to keep small boats at bay. It is also deployed in Iraq as a crowd control tool.
The cruise ship's passengers and crew lived to tell the story, but that could have been because the captain also changed course for the high seas and sped up.
Military style LRAD
Tags: IRAD, Somalia, pirate
Ingres: time of death, 7 November 2005, 7am
Turn on your corporate BS filter before you start reading the press release announcing that Computer Associates has spun off its Ingress Database into a new company: the Ingres Corporation.
Ingres once tried to fight Oracle for the top spot in the database market. It failed and the code ended up with Computer Associates, the place where software used to go to die. But now even CA doesn't want Ingres anymore.
How do you say that in a way that shrouds the truth? CA chief executive John Swainson gives it a try:
“This partnership with Garnett & Helfrich represents a step toward rationalizing CA's solutions portfolio and provides Ingres with the dedicated resources and focus to ensure its future success. It also provides CA with favorable economics and we believe it will assure continued support for CA's current customers and position Ingres for leadership in the business open source database market.”
You should read:
Ingres isn't core business for CA. Instead of killing the project altogether, we sold the application to Garnett & Helfrich in exchange for some stock. This is actually cheaper for us than continuing supporting the application, which we kind-of have to do to prevent pissing off the few remaining users. Otherwise people will again start reminding us of the horrible ways in which we have treated users in the past.
Swainson continues:
“During the past year, CA has been looking closely at its solutions portfolio and deciding how to best focus investment dollars on growth areas. Part of that program has been aimed at internal development, part on making key acquisitions and the last part on finding ways to unlock the value of solutions areas that, while not strategic to CA's core business, have significant potential in the marketplace. Our partnership with Garnett & Helfrich will bring the focus and investment required to unlock the value of the Ingres solution.”
Swainson means to say:
We are really trying to change. We no longer want to be the vacuum cleaner of the software industry that makes a living out of acquiring end of life products while squeezing their users for every penny they have. We made a big bet by open sourcing Ingres in 2004. It didn't work. But killing the product now would be a huge blow to our image.
And Garnett & Helfrich Capital's Terry Garnett? He too has turned on the PR BS filter.
"Open source software is being widely embraced by enterprise IT organizations seeking to optimize their flexibility, time-to-innovation and return on technology investments. By moving the Ingres product to an independent company, we can more effectively capitalize on this market momentum by attracting top industry talent, accelerating the evolution of our technology and expanding our strategic partnerships.”
With the filter turned off:
We keep hearing that open source is going to be huge. I mean, even IBM is talking about it. We have to be in this space because it's hot hot hot. Nobody makes money from open source applications, you say? They said the same about the internet back in 1997! I smell a hype when I'm stepping into one!
Stick to your instincts. If it smells like BS, it probably is.
Tags: Ingres, computer associates, CA
Cisco takes on the Gender Gap in IT
Cisco Systems has teamed up with the National Center for Women & Information Technology (NCWIT) to promote education of women in technology. The company has helped develop a website that help students, teachers and partents learn more about carreers in the exiting world of bits and bytes. Since there glass ceiling is rather obvious in the technology world, any help is more than welcome.
Besides, Cisco is very much the larger, more quiet brother of Google: it apprears to have a 'do no evil' strategy plastered across its strategy
OK, the networking giant messed up big time this summer when it used intelectual property claims in an effort to mask a security vulnerability in its IOS operating system. The leading subject in that controvery by the way recently found a job at Cisco competitor Juniper Networks.
But other than Cisco typically does the right thing, working nice with partners customers and the outside world.
Why, you might ask? Cisco knows that playing nice and being genuine actually makes sense for business, as the company reported today in its first Citizenship Report .
Make the world population more technology aware will increase the used of technology and networking. And of course Cisco would love to sell you box to build the infrastructure to do just that.
Even donating money to seemingly unrelated causes like the Cisco Health Academy that's operating in Egypt and Jordan has its perks. John Chambers hanging out with the king of Jordan to talk about his health initiative tends to get him noticed inside the country. So guess who people'll start calling when they need networking equipment?
If it's genuine, good corporate citizenship gets you much more than just smiling faces.
Cisco Signapore organised a dragon boat race to raise funds for charity.
(photo from Cisco's website)
Tags: charity, cisco, john Chambers
Google founders take to the air in style
Google founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page have purchased a Boeing 767-200 airplane, claims the Wall Street Journal. While the plane is a used model previously operated by Australian Qantas Airways, it is considerably larger than the Gulfstream business jets that were the millionaire's toy of choice during the dotcom boom days.
The airplane had served from 1987 until 2004 and has since been mothballed at a storage facility in an Arizona desert.
A typical 767 holds 180 passengers, but after the engineers are done renovating Brin's and Page's model, it will only seat 50 travellers. It will have a sitting area, two staterooms and a shower, as well as a dining area. The back is expected to feature first class-style seats for guests and employees.
The Wall Street Journal (paid registration) reports that: Mr. Page acknowledges that the purchase might seem ostentatious. But "we tend to have an engineering approach, to be fact-based," he says. "We looked at this and we just did the economics and we said, 'you know, it makes a lot of sense.' "
The aircraft is estimated to have cost no more than $15m, much less than a new Gulfstream. Flying the plane would come to about $13,000 per hour, compared to $7,850 for a Gulfstream, the newspaper stated. But if filled to capacity, the costs boil down to $400 per passenger per hour for the Gulfstream and $260 per passenger per hour for the Boeing 767.
A Qantas Boeing 767-200 taking off in 2002
Tags: Google, Sergey Brin, Larry Page, boeing, executive jet
Gates predicts: search engines will start paying their users
Google is making too much money from search advertising – about $50 per user per year. So the laws of supply and demand will kick in: additional providers will join in causing a price drop. This leaves Google with no alternative but to start offering additional features, or simply start paying its users for using its search engine.
That is in summary what Bill Gates is saying in this interview.
Don't dismiss his claims just yet. Remember the internet boom with its pay to surf schemes? Several providers started offering web users money if they would watch their banner ads. As the internet bubble burst, the providers too all went bust.
There is however a major difference. Google has the network effect going for it: it has a large group of regular users that a new provider will have trouble building. And the service is already adding services at an astounding pace that seem to be targeted at locking in users more than generating additional revenues.
I doubt that Google would start paying its users, but a new startup might very well take this approach. Hell, if the search results are any good, wouldn’t you switch search engines if there's a check involved?
Tags: google, bill gates, microsoft
Contest: Win a copy of Halo 2
We have received more goodies to give away! This time we'll ship out a copy of Halo 2 (Xbox only) that we received at LinuxWorld to one lucky winner.
Make sure your read all the rules before entering.
To enter the contest, you need a blog. If you don't have one, you can get one for free here. Using your blog I'd like you to:
- Create a posting on your blog that says something (anything) about the Xbox. In your posting add a link this posting on the Silicon Valley Sleuth blog.
- To make sure that I can see your entry, either use the trackback feature or leave a comment below.
- Contest ends Friday 4 November 2005 at 5pm Pacific Time.
Good luck!
Yahoo Maps pranks Google
Yahoo engineers apparently couldn't help themselves. The beta of the new Yahoo Maps for a short while listed "The Dude's Fish Store" at 1600 Amphiteatre Parkway in Mountain View, CA.
The address is better known as the headquarters for Yahoo's competitor Google.
Yahoo claimed to have further information (broken link here; screenshot on the left) about the store, listing hours of operation (only open in summer) and an assortment of fish, hamsters, gold fish, snakes and spiders. Languages spoken are German and Russian.
The store even has a basic website (screenshot on the right) featuring a picture of a collection of cheeses and claiming that "Our fish NEVER die!". The link page offers a link to the "Bestest page" (Google) and Stanford University.
"Need directions? Go to Google Maps", the site claims, with the link leading to a Yahoo map instead.
The phone number listed is for guy named Ruben Suterwitz (or that's what it sounds like on his voicemail). His voicemail gives the option to get assistance, forwarding callers to the Google front desk.
There are several hints pointing to a Google prank. The search engine's co-founder Sergey Brin was born in Russia and both he and his buddy Larry Page were students at Stanford when they founded the company.
The 'fish store's' website by the way lists a different address on Middlefield Road. Nothing is listed at that address.
And the foolishness at Yahoo doesn't stop with the alleged fish store. The Yahoo Local information on Google itself points to the website of Google Belgium (screenshot on the right). One of the two comments claim that the company has a "great cafeteria".
UPDATE: The information on the fish shop has been removed by Yahoo. The screenshot for the Local listing comes from the Google Desktop cache, causing it to look less than perfect.
Britain becomes a DOS paradise
A British teen who sent five million emails to his ex-employer has walked free after a judge ruled that he had not broken any laws.
The culprit was charged under the Computer Misuse Act from 1990, which unfortunately doesn't mention denial of service attacks.
Oh dear.
But then, the UK justice system is known for staying up to date...
Sony is the new evil
Sony latest experiment with digital right management technology comes straight out of a horror movie. While Sony has the most noble of intentions (to protect its copyrights), it has created a monster and in an effort to cover up its tracks is spinning a web of lies.
The quick facts: some audio CDs from the Sony record label ship with a new DRM technology dubbed XCP. The application installs itself when a user tries to play the CD on a computer, limiting the number of copies that can be made and the file format in which the file can be ripped. To prevent the user from removing the technology, it also comes with a rootkit that renders the software invisible to users, the system and anti virus software.
Again, inherently there is nothing wrong with that, except that Sony has made it ridiculously easy for other files and applications to hide behind this root kit. And guess what? Worm authors would kill for such an option.
Sony is playing dumb, denying that there are any security risks associated with its software. But the entire security industry is calling Sony's bluff.
"It is a terrible security hole," Roger Thompson, chief executive at security provider Worm Radar told vnunet.com.
"Using rootkit technology is an extremely dubious technique, and the poor coding of this particular example also raised our eyebrows," Kaspersky Labs wrote on its blog.
F-Secure: "The system is implemented in a way that makes it possible for viruses (or any other malicious program) to use the rootkit to hide themselves."
And Sony?
The label on Wednessday released a patch that makes the rootkit visible for security software (allowing them to remove it) but won't stop using the methodology.
"This component is not malicious and does not compromise security," the label argued.
They also make it very easy to remove the application. Don't bother using the Add/remove software tool in Windows. Sony has a better way:
"If at some point you wish to remove the software from your machine simply contact customer service."
How can a company be so out of touch with reality?
They forgot to add: "and a new low in your computer's security"
Tags: Sony, DRM, XCP, First 4 Internet
iPod? iGod!
The iGod poster is a great parody of the iPod, referring both to the player's iconic status and the signature iPod advertising style.
A spot to die for
Silicon Valley residents know that the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco is a popular suicide spot – some even claim that it's the number one suicide spot in the world. Enough so that for years now there have been suicide hotline call boxes installed on the bridge.
The bridge's 240 feet (72 metres) height will ensure that few people survive the actual fall. And even if you do so, there are very strong currents that will cause any suicide victim to drown.
The San Francisco Chronicle took the effort to analyse the suicide statistics. Jumpers hit the water at speed of 75 mph (120 kmh). Those who don't die from the impact usually drown in their own blood. Two per cent of the jumpers survice. The jumpers are men (75 per cent) and come from the area (87 per cent).
As this chart shows, the city side of the bridge is far more popular than the ocean side. Also jumpers prefer to get off right in the middle of the bridge, although many don't make it that far and decide to jump off at the first section.
It's both sad and fascinating. In choosing to die, these people pick their spot with geometric precision.
Luckily it might soon all be over. The bridge's board is considering putting up a barrier that would prevent jumpers from climbing down.
Florida DUI law: license to drink
Judges in Florida have granted a motion filed by a group of more than 150 accused drunk drivers who asked to see the source code of the breathalyzer that was used to determine their guilt.
Fair enough, I would argue, that you establish if a device that says you're guilty is telling the truth. After all you're allowed to cross examine a human being, so why shouldn't you have that right when it comes to computers?
But in the Florida DUI case, this has a dark side. The state will be unable to comply with the order – the judge is fully aware of that. The software is the property of a company called CMI. They claim the software is a trade secret and the judge can't force them to open source the software. The likely result is that the evidence (the breathalyzer tests) gets thrown out and the defendants walk free.
All this could be easily prevented if CMI, the maker of the Intoxilyzer 5000 agrees to an independent audit – as ordered by the judge – that would guarantee the manufacturer's trade secrets. But CMI isn't blinking nor will they talk to the media, which leads you to suspect that they have something to hide.
Expert witness for the defence Harley Myler testified that it appeared that (uncertified) changes to the software have been made, but that he couldn't ascertain whether the changes were substantial without viewing the source code.
And the sad thing is, many Florida counties are about to replace the Intoxilyzer 5000 with a new device: the Intoxilyzer 8000. Public records show that authorities have already questioned the latter's results, one of the defendant's attorneys told us. With today's ruling, you know that the 8000 model is going to be scrutinised big time. If you even get caught driving drunk in Florida, ask for a breath alcohol test. You know for sure that you'll walk free, thanks to CMI.
The judge's ruling (PDF download) is available here.
The Intoxilyzer 5000. It looks like it's outdated and after today's ruling, it very soon will be so too.
Tags: intoxilyzer, CMI, DUI
3rd party applications in Office Live (video demo)
Microsoft's Bill Gates and CTO Ray Ozzie on Tuesday unveiled the company's new Live Software strategy. In the coming months users can expect a slew of new online applications.
In this video, you can watch Microsoft general manager Rajesh Jha demonstrate how third parties can hook up their applciations to the new Office Live. In this case he describes how payroll outsourcing firm ADP is using the Microsoft service.
Click here to watch the video (2.8Mb .wmv download)
Tags: Microsoft, Live Software, Windows Live, Office Live, Bill Gates, Ray Ozzie
Enterprise Applications in Office Live (video demo)
Microsoft's Bill Gates and CTO Ray Ozzie on Tuesday unveiled the company's new Live Software strategy. In the coming months users can expect a slew of new online applications.
In this video, you can watch Microsoft general manager Rajesh Jha demonstrate a contact management applciation, one of over 20 enterprise applications that will be available free of charge to small businesses through Office Live.
Click here to watch the video (11.0Mb .wmv download)
Tags: Microsoft, Live Software, Windows Live, Office Live, Bill Gates, Ray Ozzie
Mojo in Office Live (video demo)
Microsoft's Bill Gates and CTO Ray Ozzie on Tuesday unveiled the company's new Live Software strategy. In the coming months users can expect a slew of new online applications.
In this video, you can watch Microsoft general manager Rajesh Jha demonstrate Mojo, a new collaboration tool that allows workers to jointly work on a single document over a network connection. The technology will be part of Office Live.
Click here to watch the video (10.9Mb .wmv download)
Tags: Microsoft, Live Software, Windows Live, Office Live, Bill Gates, Ray Ozzie
Website and email in Office Live (video demo)
Microsoft's Bill Gates and CTO Ray Ozzie on Tuesday unveiled the company's new Live Software strategy. In the coming months users can expect a slew of new online applications.
In this video, you can watch Microsoft general manager Rajesh Jha demonstrate webhosting and messaging capabilities for small businesses in the new Office Live.
Click here to watch the video (18.9Mb .wmv download)
Tags: Microsoft, Live Software, Windows Live, Office Live, Bill Gates, Ray Ozzie
Phone calls on Windows Live (video demo)
Microsoft's Bill Gates and CTO Ray Ozzie on Tuesday unveiled the company's new Live Software strategy. In the coming months users can expect a slew of new online applications.
In this video, you can watch Microsoft corporate vice president Blake Irving demonstrate the capability in Messenger to place a phone call to a regular telephone number.
Click here to watch the video (7.0Mb .wmv download)
Tags: Microsoft, Live Software, Windows Live, Office Live, Bill Gates, Ray Ozzie
Local search in Windows Live (video demo)
Microsoft's Bill Gates and CTO Ray Ozzie on Tuesday unveiled the company's new Live Software strategy. In the coming months users can expect a slew of new online applications.
In this video, you can watch Microsoft corporate vice president Blake Irving demonstrate the new Windows Live Local, combining local search with a mapping application.
Click here to watch the video (10.9Mb .wmv download)
Tags: Microsoft, Live Software, Windows Live, Office Live, Bill Gates, Ray Ozzie
Sharing in Windows Live (video demo)
Microsoft's Bill Gates and CTO Ray Ozzie on Tuesday unveiled the company's new Live Software strategy. In the coming months users can expect a slew of new online applications.
In this video, you can watch Microsoft corporate vice president Blake Irving demonstrate Windows Live Folders, a service that allows users to define the contents of a folder that they share with a friend or co-worker.
Click here to watch the video (5.6Mb .wmv download)
Tags: Microsoft, Live Software, Windows Live, Office Live, Bill Gates, Ray Ozzie
Contacts in Windows Live (video demo)
Microsoft's Bill Gates and CTO Ray Ozzie on Tuesday unveiled the company's new Live Software strategy. In the coming months users can expect a slew of new online applications.
In this video, you can watch Microsoft corporate vice president Blake Irving demonstrate how Windows Live Contacts automatically updates information in your address book.
Click here to watch the video (4.8Mb .wmv download)
Tags: Microsoft, Live Software, Windows Live, Office Live, Bill Gates, Ray Ozzie
Messenger in Windows Live (video demo)
Microsoft's Bill Gates and CTO Ray Ozzie on Tuesday unveiled the company's new Live Software strategy. In the coming months users can expect a slew of new online applications.
In this video, you can watch Microsoft corporate vice president Blake Irving demonstrate the new Windows Live Messenger, replacing the current generation MSN Messenger.
Click here to watch the video (12.8Mb .wmv download)
Tags: Microsoft, Live Software, Windows Live, Office Live, Bill Gates, Ray Ozzie
Mail in Windows Live (video demo)
Microsoft's Bill Gates and CTO Ray Ozzie on Tuesday unveiled the company's new Live Software strategy. In the coming months users can expect a slew of new online applications.
In this video, you can watch Microsoft corporate vice president Blake Irving demonstrate the new Windows Live Mail, the next generation of the Hotmail service.
Click here to watch the video (9.7Mb .wmv download)
Tags: Microsoft, Live Software, Windows Live, Office Live, Bill Gates, Ray Ozzie
Security in Windows Live (video demo)
Microsoft's Bill Gates and CTO Ray Ozzie on Tuesday unveiled the company's new Live Software strategy. In the coming months users can expect a slew of new online applications.
In this video, you can watch Microsoft corporate vice president Blake Irving demonstrate the new Windows Live Safety Centre.
Click here to watch the video (4.3Mb .wmv download)
Tags: Microsoft, Live Software, Windows Live, Office Live, Bill Gates, Ray Ozzie
Gadgets in Windows Live (video demo)
Microsoft's Bill Gates and CTO Ray Ozzie on Tuesday unveiled the company's new Live Software strategy. In the coming months users can expect a slew of new online applications.
In this video, you can watch Microsoft corporate vice president Blake Irving demonstrate 'gadgets', custom online applications.
Click here to watch the video (4.7Mb .wmv download)
Tags: Microsoft, Live Software, Windows Live, Office Live, Bill Gates, Ray Ozzie
Personal homepage in Windows Live (video demo)
Microsoft's Bill Gates and CTO Ray Ozzie on Tuesday unveiled the company's new Live Software strategy. In the coming months users can expect a slew of new online applications.
In this video, you can watch Microsoft corporate vice president Blake Irving demonstrate the customizable homepage of the new Live.com website:
Click here to watch the video (9.7Mb .wmv download)
Tags: Microsoft, Live Software, Windows Live, Office Live, Bill Gates, Ray Ozzie
Microsoft 'Live' sets out to cure all of Microsoft's ailments
So Microsoft is preparing a major push into hosted applications with its Windows Live and Office Live products.
But look closely at the offerings and you'll see that the strategy also is a first step towards solving Microsoft's top 2 headaches: free/open source software and Google.
Both Office Live and Windows Live will be available free of charge – advertising revenues are supposed to pay the bills. Conveniently Google was the first company to prove that you can build a viable business solely based on advertising revenues. And at the a media event in San Francisco where Microsoft unveiled its new strategy, the company's CTO Ray Ozzie admitted that he is eager to find a way to take a big bite out of the online advertising market.
Relying on advertising revenue rather than software license income also allows Microsoft to challenge open source competitors. The latter group has greatly profited from the ability to give away its products free of charge.
It's still early days, but if these Live products prove successful, we are about to see a stronger Microsoft.
Ray Ozzie at the Microsoft Live Software unveiling.
These photos on your website or blog?
These photos are available under a Creative Commons Attribution - ShareAlike 2.5 License. Attribution required: www.SiliconValleySleuth.com
Tags: Microsoft, Live Software, Windows Live, Office Live, Bill Gates, Ray Ozzie
Bill Gates kicks off Live Software initiative (photos)
Disclaimer: Typepad is screwing up the design of this blog. If you get a messed up page, please go here to get a proper view. Sorry for the inconvenience.
Posting:
Bill Gates at a media event in San Francisco is currently unfolding Microsoft's Live Software strategy. This is the software maker's vision for on demand applications that will be offered at various levels: a free version will be supported by advertising revenue, Gates said, while premium version will require a subscription fee.
The software will available across devices, ranging from desktop computers to portable devices and televisions. "We are using [technology advancements] to deliver a new kind of software experience called Live Software," Gates said.
Gates announced two products: Windows Live and Office Live.
A beta of the Windows Live is online right now on Live.com.
Office Live will offer online storage and setting for Office - it doesn't compete with Office but complements the desktop software.
Windows Live does the same for applications like messaging.
This posting will be constantly updated as Gates' persentation progresses.
These photos on your website or blog?
These photos are available under a Creative Commons Attribution - ShareAlike 2.5 License. Attribution required: www.SiliconValleySleuth.com
Tags: mcirosoft, Live Software, Bill Gates, Ray Ozzie
Convergence can be confusing
Convergence is usual hugely confusing for consumers, but even more so for industry analyst, as is illustrated by the figures that come out of Gartner and IDC.
Last week IDC reported a drop in PDA shipments of 16.9 per year.
Today Gartner said no way, claiming they increased by 20.7 per cent
The details are in the fine print. IDC takes the classical approach to the PDA, defining it as a device that is a handheld computer with synchronisation capabilities. Cellular radios won't be able to qualify, which excludes both the Blackberry and the Palm Treo.
Gartner on the other hand excludes all smart phones that are 'voice centric'. This leads the firm to exclude the Blackberry 7100 smartphone and Treo, but include the large Blackberry, iPaq 65xx and Nokia 9300.
While there is something to say for either method, they fail to take the consumer into consideration. End users look at features in determining which device they want, not at the marketing lingo. A phone running Windows Mobile for many consumers makes their PDAs obsolete. Meanwhile an enterprise looking to use a PDA for its mobile computing needs could very well end up finding a model with an integrate mobile phone to be the best solution.
It seems that both IDC's and Gartner's market definitions would benefit from a review.
Pogo: It a PDA... no wait.. smart phone... eh... just plain ugly (and the company is out of business)
Tags: gartner, IDC, treo, blackberry, ipaq, convergence
Typepad messes up big time
If you use RSS to read this blog, you might have noticed that the links won't work. Typepad is playing games with this page, and this time they have messed up big time, or so our technical staff tells us (the VNU techies have proven very competent in the past so I tend to believe them).
The problem is the dumbest of the dumb: Typepad decided to change the settings for this blog, pointing all traffic that goes through links on the webpage or in the RSS feeds to a non-existentent domain. The problem has been reported, but I fear it just ended up on a big pile.
Apple users get to see the smiley face first
As part of the update to OS X 10.4.3, Apple has delivered the first major browser to end users that passes the Acid2 test.
Current versions for Internet Explorer, Firefox and Opera fail miserably, as is shown in the screen shots below. Future versions of Firefox (Greasemonkey) will pass, and Opera (version 9) too is expected to support Acid2. Internet Explorer is holding out (and why is it that this this doesn't surprise me?)
The test allows users and developers to verify if their browsers adhere to current web standards. A browser playing nice with all the standards will display a smiley face. Non-compliant browsers mess up the picture big time.
A big pad on the back for Apple's developers. Open standards are what save us users from vendor lock-in. Now lets start talking about opening up the iTunes music format...
Exhibit A: This is what it should look like
Let's see how Firefox deals with that...
Opera seemst o be taking a modern art, minimalistic approach...
While Internet Explorer is seeing red
Tags: apple, os x, itunes, safari, internet explorer, opera
Car drivers crash their iPods
Users trying to hook up their iPod music players to their car stereos most often fail to install the device.
In a quick poll on the Autobytel website (meaning it's unscientific and should be used for its anecdotal value only), only 33 per cent of the respondents said that had been able to install the iPod in their vehicles. Another 36 per cent said that they had been "somewhat successful" and 31 per cent failed to install the device.
An increasing number of cars however offers optional equipment that allows drivers to easily hook up their iPods and control them through their radio interface. Such kits range from a cable integrated into the car to complete docking stations that will hold the unit in place.
But if you aren't prepared to buy a new car just so you can easily plug in your iPod, you're required to use a cassette adapter, FM modulator or auxiliary inputs.
The adapter comes with a cassette shaped device that you put into your cassette player. It will create a signal that the cassette player recognizes as music. It creates a jungle of wires coming from you radio and doesn't charge your iPod's battery, while sound quality is mediocre at most.
FM modulators transmit a short range signal on the FM radio band. Quality tends to get bad in areas with many radio stations. Also, no battery charging.
The auxiliary inputs, as well as CD changer adapters, tend to give the best result, but also require the most advanced engineering skills.
Optional iPod support in a Scion (a Toyota owned brand best known for their knock-off of the pope-mobile)
tags: apple, ipod, car stereo, scion
Spanish
