« October 2006 | Main | December 2006 »
Security threats to strike everywhere in 2007
Malware authors are becoming more sophisticated. And given that there is money to be made, they will continue to expand the scope of software and device that they target.
If you didn't guess so yet from the introduction, McAfee has published its list of security predictions for 2007. The company no doubt is the first many others.
Generically you can assume that attackers will continue their battle as long as they can make money from creating botnets, installing spyware or stealing confidential information. Meanwhile it surely helps if many people are using the same application, just like pickpockets liking crowded shopping malls.
You can draw your own conclusions moving forward. Movies probably will make for attractive targets, as do mobile phones (will 2007 finally be the year of the mobile phone worm outbreak?).
But the vendor stresses that there's no reason to panic. Because… ahem… they also happen to sell software that protects corporations and individuals from all the evils that lurk on the internet.
technorati tags: mcafee, security, 10, predictions, 2007
Laptop battery recall to cause market share shifts
While users haven't lost faith in notebook computers following this fall's large scale Sony battery recall, it has prompted about 15 per cent of corporate buyers and consumers to consider switching suppliers, according to a survey by analyst firm IDC.
It makes sense that especially Dell users would be a bit more nervous these days, given that Dell accounted for more than half of the 7+ million recalled batteries. But then where should they go instead?
HP and Gateway are among the few manufacturers that didn't recall their
batteries, but HP has recalled batteries last spring and last year.
Sony's batteries were to blame for the issue, and could also point to a
potential solution. Under the hood all laptops are the same. They all
use components from the same suppliers and are probably all assembled
in the same factory.
A computer's case is by far the biggest differentiator. Underneath, it's all inbred. Happy shopping.
technorati tags: dell, battery, recall, idc, market+share
OLPC does Doom
As the One Laptop per Child project is receiving more test units, developers working on the project installed the ultimate shoot-em-up game Doom on the Linux powered laptop.
In the movie below, the XO (as it's currently called) is shown running the 1993 computer game. The source code for the game's engine was released under the GPL in 1999.
The Linux powered noted seems to have little trouble running the game in e-book mode. But although the system features two scroll buttons, it is lacking a right click (required to open doors in Doom… know your classics!).
The top video shows the game running in colour with the backlight turned on. The second video shows the screen running in black-and-white mode that is designed for outdoor use (making the screen function like a calculator screen).
Remember, games can be educational too.
technorati tags: doom, oplc, xo, christopher+blizaard
Meet Oracle: the new Microsoft
Pouring some salt into Oracle's security wounds, security researcher David Litchfield has published details of a new class of attack against the database. The vulnerability could allow an attacker to steal confidential information or insert coding time bombs in the database that will get executed at a later time.
Oracle can't do much about this one. Instead, application developers have to make sure that they follow best practices.
Although Oracle is trying to meet the challenges of today's security landscape, the company so far has failed to step up to the challenge. It isn't just that Oracle is unable to fight off the onslaught of new SQL injection vulnerabilities, as the unpatched vulnerabilities meter currently surpasses 200.
The database vendor also seems unable to handle a world in which information travels at the speed of light, and in which it needs to respond instantaneously.
The company has a "global product security blog" which published a paltry four postings last October, and none so far in November. Security related questions to Oracle's PR department as a rule remain unanswered.
Security seems an afterthought with Oracle. The company should consider looking at Microsoft for some inspiration.
technorati tags: oracle, patch, security, database, microsoft
Podcasts: growing pains or the end of a hype?
About 12 per cent of the internet users in North America has downloaded a podcast, according to the PEW Internet & American Life project. The same study however suggests that the online audio broadcasts fail to captivate their audience: just one per cent of the internet population downloads podcasts on a regular basis.
The fact that most people don't even own an iPod or some other portable mp3 player probably plays a major part in this.
I'm also tempted to say that most podcasts are as boring as the slides of aunt Patty's Grand Canyon vacation. But given the success of words of wisdom distributed in vodcasts, its more likely that users have simply moved on the newest new thing.
Podcasts after all are so 2005.
Red Hat's Jboss dance gets stranger
Red Hat appears to be moving away from Jboss software in favor of the work that is done by its old friend ObjectWeb.
The ObjectWeb open source consortium is most famous for developing the JOnAS application server. Red Hat in 2004 chose to use this application over the Jboss software as the foundation of its Red Hat application server. Even more famously, the software then failed miserably in the market place.
JOnAS failed despite its technological qualities. The application is said to be technologically superior to the Jboss software. And ObjectWeb in general has a reputation of delivering quality code.
When Red Hat shelled out $420m to acquire Jboss earlier this summer, the open source community raised quite a few eyebrows. The price was high by all standards, but justified by the fact that a slew of jesters was courting the company. But the move made perfect sense considering Red Hat's aspirations in the middleware space.
So Red Hat will discontinue its application server and move over to the Jboss application server. But the dust has far from settled.
This week, Jboss signed a strategic partnership with French IT integrator Bull, one of the major forces behind ObjectWeb. The two will collaborate on R&D and Bull will become a reseller of Jboss technology, causing ObjectWeb to loose another user of its JOnAS technology.
But the move will also link ObjectWeb to Jboss.
In the end, that could very well be a good thing. Jboss is known as a good marketing operating churning out mediocre code. ObjectWeb is the exact opposite, doing a poorly in the market department while delivering good code.
technorati tags: JOnAS, application+server, red+hat, objectweb, bull
EpicRealm gets cornered in
The Public Patent Foundation has filed a request with the US Patent and Trademark Office to reexamine two patents owned by Epicrealm.
It turns out that IBM filed a nearly identical patent that was awarded about 16 months before the Epicrealm one. But somehow this one hadn't been noticed before.
Epicrealm claims that it owns the idea behind dynamic websites: the ability to present each visitor with a custom website. Most of today's websites are covered by the patent. Just thinking about that little factoid made dollar signs appear in the company's eyes.
So last year Epicrealm set out on a legal journey, filing 13 lawsuits against smaller companies that can easily be scared into paying licence fees. After all, trying to invalidate a patent through the courts costs an estimated $8m in legal fees, and could be catastrophic if you end up losing.
While five of the targeted victims have since settled, the Epicrealm's patent crusade also attracted the attention of PubPat. The foundation's executive director Dan Ravicher told vnunet.com that he was confident that the would win the case.
"This is one of the strongest cases that I've ever had," Ravicher.
By the way, IBM didn't seem to know it owned its patent. Earlier this year the company settled a lawsuit with Epicrealm on behalf of Safelite, on of its clients that held Big Blue to the indemnification provision in its software licence agreement.
Photo credit: Ken Duncan
PS1 + PS2 = PS3
Simple math determines that a PS1 and a PS2 combined make for a PS3. This prompted an entrepreneurial citizen of Canada to tape the two together and put his "custom built PS3" on Ebay.
With 4 days of bidding left, the highest offer currently stands at 160 Canadian dollars (about $140 US). Buyers will receive a working PS 1 and PS 2 machine, as well as the games Grand Turismo 1 and 4.
But buyer beware. As we learn in the question section, the seller can't make any guarantees about the quality of the tape that is used to marry the two units. The backward compatibility that issues that are plaguing the 'other' PS3 units however don't affect this custom built model.
technorati tags: ps3, sony, playstation, ebay
Oracle's security record goes belly-up
Contrary to what Oracle likes to advertise in its marketing spin, the company's database is far from secure. The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) might have been the application's first user, but these days the software is flooded with SQL injection flaws.
Contrary to Windows however, the flaws in Oracle remain largely invisible to the outside world. After all, few people have Oracle running on their desktop computers and we haven't seen any large scale worm attacks targeting Oracle databases. To the extent that attackers are targeting Oracle databases, they do so in targeted attacks to steal customer data or conduct industrial espionage.
So how do you make sure that the world finds out about Oracle's horrible security record?
By comparing the new devil with the old one, security researcher David Litchfield decided. Earlier today he published a whitepaper that drew a crystal clear picture. Around the same time that Microsoft succeeded to curb its security problems in SQL Server, Oracle completely lost control and saw the number of security vulnerability skyrocket.
Another researcher plans to have a "week of 0-day Oracle Database bugs" in an effort to draw the public's attention to the issue.
Larry Ellison in 2001 unwrapped a marketing programme that claimed that his database was "unbreakable", but reality has long since unveiled the hollowness behind the hype. Last month he dusted off the slogan once more, this time to market Oracle's support for Red Hat Linux.
If that's what Oracle's "unbreakable" respresents, Red Hat has nothing to worry about.
technorati tags: oracle, security, david+litchfield,
Was Novell's Microsoft pact a mistake after all?
Novell executives must have known that they would draw some major fire from the free software corner when they forged their partnership with Microsoft.
But following the fallout between the two companies in the past days, they should seriously consider ask themselves if they haven't opened Pandora's box when they agreed to pay Microsoft a license fee for each copy of Suse Linux that Novell ships.
The issue is that there are two kind of patent threats. Real threats from bad patents, and bad threats from real patents. The first kind draws lots of media attention because the battles are waged in open court and involve patents that have a decent shot of getting invalidated. Examples included the case of NPT vs. Blackberry and Eolas vs. Microsoft.
The second group contains patents from large companies. Their patents might not be any better, but their owners aren't merely looking for licence fees. They can also use their intellectual property to protect their market position or use it as change in negotiations with other patent gorillas.
Just like nuclear weapons, these patents are hardly ever enforced. Because the result of a patent war is just as impossible to predict as that of a nuclear holocaust.
When Novell negotiated its patent truce with Microsoft, it must have thought that patents were thrown in as change. Customers from both Microsoft and Novell wanted a patent covenant, so let's give them one.
But as Microsoft chief executive Steve Ballmer said last Thursday, the company still considers open source a real threat to its patent portfolio and intellectual property. To Microsoft, the patent covenant is about paying respect to the power of Redmond.
After all, who cares about customers when there is money to be made?
Hovsepian and Ballmer cuddle up. Has the adrenaline rush worn off yet?
technorati tags: novell, microsoft, patent, covenant, ron+hovsepian, steve+ballmer
Zango's reality distortion field survives unscathed
What is easier than agreeing to a legal settlement and promise that you will abandon illegal software distribution practices? Saying that you parted with your bad ways a long time ago, while you really continue your deceitful practices.
Adware researchers Ben Edelman (right) and Eric Howes today in a blog posting provided a detailed look at how Zango pop-up ads failed to properly identify themselves. Or how Zango would fail to get clear consent from the end user when the application gets installed.
That is really bad because Zango earlier this month agreed to a (proposed) settlement with the FTC. In addition to paying a $3m fine, the company agreed to start properly disclosing the nature of the application to end users as well as identify its pop-up ads.
The company at the time claimed to welcome the FTC settlement and even boasted that it had been in compliance for at least the past 10 months. But Edelman and Howes clearly demonstrated that Zango's word is as worthless as its adware software.
technorati tags: zango, adware, 180solutions
Blinded by the Wii's shine
A buyer whose $295.99 bid won an Ebay auction labeled: "NINTENDO WII PRE-ORDER!!" on Sunday was in for a harsh surprise.
If the buyer with user name "neelzy" had read the item's description, he or she would have quickly found out that item for sale was:
"a ultra rare reserved email address wii-order@hotmail.com!! Similar email addresses have gone for upwards of $700!! Hurry!"
Anyone reading the item's description would have quickly noticed the numerous inconsistencies. Although the password would be sent by email, the buyer also offered 2-3 day shipping by US mail. And in case the product was defective or damaged, the buyer would be entitled to a refund, minus a 15 per cent restocking fee.
Yes, the auction was deceptive, the seller recanted and issued a refund. But anyone stupid enough to fall for this scheme deserves to part with their cash.
By the way, if you're in the market for a wii-related email account, crazy4wii@homail.com is yours for only 1 buck. Despite free shipping, it failed to attracts any bids two hours before the end of the auction.
A better way to get a Wii
Inside the exciting world of corporate Web2.0
Why do most entrepreneurs leave their companies soon after they have been acquired? If you've been an office dweller your entire life (which most of us are), you might not see the issue.
Aaron Swartz in the past weeks got to make the switch when his upstart Reddit was acquired by Wired. And he is sharing his experiences with the outside world through his blog.h
"It wasn't until I started working in an office that the question begun to make sense. Since I moved to San Francisco I literally haven't gotten anything done. I haven't finished a book (I finished three on the plane out here), I haven't answered many emails (I used to answer hundreds a day), I've written only a couple blog posts (I used to do one a day), and I haven't written a line of code (I used to write whole programs in the evenings). It's a pretty incredible state of affairs.
...
"Wired has tried to make the offices look exciting by painting the walls bright pink but the gray office monotony sneaks through all the same. Gray walls, gray desks, gray noise. The first day I showed up here, I simply couldn't take it. By lunch time I had literally locked myself in a bathroom stall and started crying. I can't imagine staying sane with someone buzzing in my ear all day, let alone getting any actual work done."
The actual blog posting has more Dilbertesque observations.
Would you like any inspiration with your work environment?
technorati tags: reddit, wired, dilbert, Aaron+Swartz
Ebay: the refuge for desperate gamers
As was to be expected, the limited supply of Playstation 3 consoles fueled a very profitable buying frenzy on Ebay. Following the Thursday midnight introduction, buyers paid up to $4,000 for a system that retailed at $599.
The same happened last year when Microsoft unveiled its Xbox360 console, and the whole scenario is bound to repeat itself in March when the PS3 launches in Europe and in the coming days when Nintendo launches its Wii.
Given that the Ebay phenomenon is going to take place regardless, the console makers should consider making it a little more honest. Instead of allowing people with the most spare time on their hands to stand in line and scoop up the first consoles, why not set apart say 10,000 consoles to be auctioned off on Ebay on the launch day?
If the manufacturer wants to prevent being called a price gauger, pass the profits on to charity. And even if they decide to keep the money, they can very much use if you consider the fact that Sony taking a $300 loss on each console.
The right to buy a PS3 was raffled of at this Best Buy store.
technorati tags: sony, playstation3, ps3, ebay
A cure for stupidity
The market is holy. It provides a mechanism to determine the viability of any cure for human flaws.
Take the data recovery market for example. If you're of the paranoid kind, you don't just format your hard drive once, you do it ten times (after all, more must be better, right?). And only then do you realize that your disk held some much needed information.
So you send it to a data recovery firm where they will chuckle at the thought of the clueless end user formatting and reformatting the drive. The second through the tenth format after all has as much of a benefit as turning off your car engine ten times. If you really want to wipe clear your hard drive, you have to use a scrubber. And forensic engineers will tell you that even then there are plenty of ways to access the data.
The first price in the incompetence computer skills awards however goes to the university professor who believe that his hard drive was making squeaky noises. So he open the case and emptied a can of WD-40 aka: oil. The squeaky noise was gone, as was the drive's ability to read the boot sector.
photo: Daniel J Armishaw
technorati tags: hard+drive, PC, data+recovery
Sony takes $300 loss on PS3
iSupply has unscrewed a PS3, tallied up the cost of each component and reached the conclusion that a the new gaming console must cost Sony $805.85 to manufacture (for the 20Gb model).
Given that the model retails at $499, Sony is subsidizing the device by more than $300. The company therefore will have to sell a lot of games (for which game developers pay Sony a license fee) before it starts making any money.
The Xbox360 meanwhile lost an estimated $125 on every Xbox when the device launched last year, which by now had been turned around to a $75 gross profit.
Don't forget however that the iSupply estimate doesn't account for distribution and packaging.
Sony however doesn't seem to have a choice. Few consumers would buy an $800 PS3, allowing Microsoft to only further build out its lead in the war over the next generation console.
Don't forget to wipe your feet.
technorati tags: microsoft, xbox, sony, xbox360, isupply, ps3, playstation3
Microsoft gives another reason to shun the Zune
Microsoft's closed platform Zune player doesn't support Windows Vista – or at least not yet.
Consumers hardly needed another reason not to buy the device. The Zune allows users to wirelessly connect to other Zune devices, both other than that is it pretty much a carbon copy of Apple's iPod.
That includes a proprietary DRM platform that locks up the user's music inside the player and Microsoft's desktop software.
And don't forget the fact that Microsoft will share a percentage of Zune sales with the starving record labels, because they know that you'll use the device for a massive copyright infringement operation.
When Microsoft set out to design the Zune, it completely forgot about the end user. Consumers can return the favor by forgetting about the Zune.
technorati tags: zune, microsoft, windows, vista, windows+vista
The porn glass is half empty
One percent of the pages on the web depicts pornographic content, according to a new study.
That's quite a shocker given the popular belief had it that about 80 per cent of the web is filled with adult oriented content. Don't forget furthermore that porn pioneered e-commerce and online payment systems. Their tiny video downloads probably also bootstrapped early sales of web servers and routers.
The way that news organization presented the porn statistic to their readers could say a lot. Most headlines stated that "1 per cent has porn". Instead, we took a "glass half empty approach" and stated that 99 per cent of the web is porn free.
It's witty, insightful and doesn't imply that the 1% is a great loss to humanity. It proofs that there is still a huge difference between average reporters and great reporters.
Iain, it's great to have you back.
technorati tags: porn
I'll take "things that go Boom" for 200
Reality rains on the aircraft iPod parade
The fine print in yesterday's Apple announcement about offering iPod connectors at 30,000 feet is bound to dissappointment frequent fliers who ran out and purchased a video iPod following.
Two of the airlines, KLM and Air France, are flat out denying that there are any concrete plans, and the other partners seem to be severely limiting the flights and/or seats where they will be made available.
The connectors allow travelers to recharge their iPods and will allow passengers to display video content on the seat-back display.
That alone should indicate that the connectors won't be available on most flights. Most domestic flights after all don't have seat-back screens.
United will only offer the connectors in Business and First class on international flights. Continental will include coach/economy seats, but limit the offering to about 40 airplanes that mostly serve international destinations, a company spokesperson told us.
Delta meanwhile will install the connectors on domestic flights on all seats for flight that take more than 4 hours. It also is considering to include business class seats on its international flights.
In essence, travelers have a slim chance that they will find an iPod connector on their flight. Too bad. I almost would have bought any iPod.
Photo courtesy of Delta.
technorati tags: ipod, apple, airline, aircraft, klm, air+france, connector
Samba developers join the "No on Novell-Microsoft" club
The Samba open source project has sided against Novell and its new Microsoft partnership.
The group on Sunday put up an open letter asking Novell to "reconsider" because it goes against the "goals of the Free Software community".
This isn't merely a case of Iceland threatening to declare war on the US if it won't abandon the war in Iraq. Novell claims to be an active supporter of the technology that provides an emulator that allows Windows applications to run on Linux.
But the question remains if Samba can make any real impact. Novell seems to be determined to proceed with the agreement as planned. While the free software section of the open source community has generally spoken out against the deal, the pragmatic camp has either sided with Novell, or remained quiet.
The first group may vote through the GPL3 and its anti-patent provisions, the second one votes with their dollars. If they increase their purchases of Novell Linux because of the Microsoft indemnification, Novell is bound to continue to prosper and offer its Microsoft-endorsed Linux.
When you're battling mountains of letters and denouncements hard cash still goes a long way.
Any developers feel like chiming in on the Novell-Microsoft cheer?
technorati tags: novell, samba, open+source, microsoft
Sony breaks PS3 compatibility promise
Despite the delay in the PS3 launch, Sony apparently didn't feel it was necessary to spent some more time on testing older games on the new console.
Instead Japanese gamers who purchased one of the 100,000 systems that Sony made available over the past weekend found out the hard way that 2.5 per cent of their current games won't work.
Sony has acknowledged its screw-up and promised a software update.
Gamers in Europe can rejoice – they might be unable to purchase the PS3 until next March, but at least by then consumers in the US and Japan will have ironed out all the early bugs.
Waiting for buggy software
technorati tags: ps3, playstation, compatibility
Sun unveils GPL Java (video)
Sun Microsystems today released the first open source Java code. The only real question that was left going into the unveiling was about the licence that they would use: GPL or CDDL?
In the video below you can watch Rich Green, Sun's software boss, explain why the company choose for the. The decision is bound to do well within the open source community, especially after Sun had Richard Stallman of the Free Software Foundation come out and flat out endorse the new GPL-ed Java.
And Sun's newfound love for the GPL doesn't stop with Java. Following the official unveiling, the server maker unveiled that it is at least sun to release Solaris under the GPL too (it's currently under the CDDL).
You can watch the full video below.
technorati tags: sun, sun+microsystems, gpl, java, jonathan+schwartz, richard+stallman, rich+green
Tech giants battle over Silicon Valley sports scene
Cisco Systems tomorrow is expected to reveal that it will become the name sponsor of a new Cisco Field in the city of Fremont. The facility will house the Oakland A's baseball team.
The new stadium will be humming with routers and switches if it's up to Cisco. The company earlier this year demonstrated how its networking technologies should allow fans to wirelessly upgrade their seats through their cellphones or watch the game from a remote conference room (watch video demo below). Providing proof of things to come, the demo was built around the Oakland A's.
The A's currently play in the McAfee Coliseum, but that venue is shared with the Oakland Raiders Football team.
Something is definitely brewing in the Silicon Valley sports sponsoring scene.
Only weeks ago, Oracle signed a sponsorship contract for a stadium that houses the Golden Gate Warriors, a basketball team that is famous for overpromising and underperforming (small picture above).
Next, the San Francisco 49ers last week unfolded a plan to move from San Francisco to Santa Clara, where it plans to build a new stadium just around the corner from Sun Microsystems' and Intel's corporate head quarters.
Although the 49-ers decision isn't final, it caused enough disruption to thwart San Francisco's bid for the 2016 Summer Olympics.
All is quiet around the HP pavilion in San Jose, but that couldn't take too long.
Technology companies are making money once again, and are spending it in new places.
technorati tags: nba, cisco, oracle, sponsorship, san+francisco, fremont, oakland
Bill Gates brings the Microsoft distortion field to Brussels
Bill Gates was in Brussels last week and for once, he didn't just travel to the center of the EU bureaucracy to fight with anti trust authorities. On Thursday Gates spoke as the closing keynote speaker at the Microsoft Business Innovation Event.
Talking up the long overdue Windows Vista, he claimed that the upcoming operating system (due out on January 30) will allow software to catch up with today's hardware capabilities. All those dual core, 64-bit processors and wide screen monitors after all aren't being put to any good use in Windows XP today.
You gotta love Microsoft's sense of humor. First they take five years to launch their next operating system, and then they act to surprised about the fact that hardware has continued to evolve while they were tinkering around with the software.
It has to be humor. Because otherwise, it would be just sad.
Our Belgian sister publication DataNews has created a video of the Bill Gates keynote that you can watch below.
technorati tags: bill, gates, datanews, bill+gates, windows+vista, windows, vista, brussels
10 web2.0 lies
The excellent Tech Chronicles blog by the San Francisco Chronicle's overworked business editors compiled an even more excellent list of top web2.0 lies.
You can't improve on perfection... I mean: it's better to creatively steal than to clumsily create... oh well: I just copy pasted the thing because it's good:
1. We learned our lesson last time. And we're going to cash out before this bubble pops.
2. This is not a bubble. Hot parties, overheated PR pitches, and five or six dozen social networking sites are just healthy indicators of a new boom.
3. It's all about community and sharing. But we told our venture capitalists that our exit strategy will make them rich. (Corollary: But you have to know someone to get into our conference/party.)
4. Online advertising will pay for everything. As if click fraud is any kind of a threat.
5. These sites are so easy, my mother could use them. And they're so geeky, she has no interest in even trying.
6. The analysts are trustworthy now. Like the one who said MySpace will be worth $15 billion in a few years -- or was that the one who said Amazon was worth $400 a share? Whoops, I'm mixing my bubbles.
7. There's no glut of social networks -- young people are always up for trying something new. And we're happy to share in the 17 percent of them who aren't glued to MySpace.
8. Our site is still in Beta. And it won't be out of Beta until we figure out how to make money from it, or sell it to Google, whichever comes first. (Paraphrased from Ivor Tossell's piece in Canada's Globe and Mail newspaper.)
9. We're different from all those other sites. But we have a silly name, open APIs, some flashy Ajax technology, and other features just like the rest of them. (Thanks again to Tossell.)
10. We look forward to working with our new partners at Google. Take the money, hand over the keys and step aside. Larry and Sergey are driving your bus now.
Some web2.0 logos and brand names
Scammers jump at a chance to exploit user confusion
Online criminals have enthusiastically embraced the anti phishing filter that Microsoft has built into its Internet Explorer 7 browser... by spoofing it.
Security experts with Sunbelt have spotted numerous webpages that are designed to look like Internet Explorer 7 warning screens (example below). It will feature a standard warning bar in the top of the screen, which will claim that your system is infected with malware. Except that this one isn't invoked by a security scare but embedded into the web page.
The warning message is accompanied by link to a fake spyware removal tool.
There will be plenty of Internet Explorer 7 users who know that there have been some changes to the browser's security and who will assume that the screen is just a standard warning message.
No 0day vulnerabilities required. Exploiting peoples gullibility still provides a pretty good way to exploit security vulnerabilities
Politicians spice up GPS navigation
Our younger sister Computer Idee in The Netherlands is offering its readers to spice up their GPS navigation devices (we both have the same parent company, in case you wondered).
Tying into the upcoming elections, the publication is publishing six sets of custom commands by local politicians for the TomTom gadgets.
TomTom already offers customer voice prompts at a fee. For 10 euros, users for instance can download a set that's narrated by John Cleese.
The politicians try their best to stay in character. Loosely translated, the foreman for the Socialist Party announces a left turn by saying: "We can't help it, we'll just have move to the right this one time."
The local head of the conservative Christian SGP states that: "We'll keep going straight ahead and stay the course. Otherwise we'll never reach our destination."
Socialist foreman Jan Marijnesses: "You have reached your destination. Leave the keys in the ignition so the next needy citizen can use this vehicle and we can build a socialist paradise."
technorati tags: elections, netherlands, dutch, gps, navation, tomtom
Microsoft butters up record labels
Microsoft has agreed to contribute a portion of Zune sales to Universal, and will offer similar deals to other record labels.
Microsoft doesn't spell it out in its press release, but the underlying idea is that Zune buyers will use the devices to listen to pirated music and the contributions are intended to compensate the artists.
While levies on recording and duplication devices are commonplace in Europe and Canada, Microsoft is the first device maker to voluntarily increase its bill of materials and pay artists. Most of its peers are fighting the system.
There is a very obvious problem with any copyright levy: it assumes that the buyer is going violate copyrights, even if the legal systems has to assume that everybody is innocent until proven otherwise. Consumer aren't just considered guilty, they are also punished for crimes that they may or may not commit.
Secondly, even after paying the levy, copyright holders will still file legal charges if consumers are caught pirating copyrighted materials.
But at least Microsoft is giving consumers options. They can choose to pay a copyright tax by purchasing the Microsoft device, or buy an iPod, Sandisk or some other device.
I guess Microsoft is just making sure that it sets itself up for disaster when the Zune starts shipping next week.
Microsoft becomes a meter maid
technorati tags: microsoft, zune, ipod, levy, copyright, copyright+levy, universal
Sony's battery apology wasn't an apology
Sony wasn't really sorry when the company apologized in a press conference late October.
As the Japan correspondent of IDG News explains, a company executive might have said that he was sorry, but he didn't accompany his words with the appropriate bow, rendering the apology ineffective.
You gotta love this one. In Japanese culture, the duration and depth of a bow can make or break an apology or remark of gratefulness. In Sony's case, executive deputy president Yutaka Nakagawa only bowed slightly while he remained seated. Loosely translated, he said he was sorry while flipping the bird.
Adding insult to injury, Sony now officially countered that the company ever intended to apologize for the fact that its batteries had an inconvenient tendency to explode in its customer's faces:
The news conference was about explaining the battery problem. It wasn't held for the sole purpose of apologizing and so the bow, to which thought had been given, was deemed appropriate.
Sony never was sorry in the first place. We just should have paid attention to the bow.
Bowing class
technorati tags: sony, appology, culture, japan, battery, explosion, Yutaka, Nakagawa, Yutaka+Nakagawa
Carly Fiorina's revenge is a gift that keeps on giving
Five years ago Carly Fiorina made one of the boldest moves in her career when she launched a bid on rival system builder Compaq. The move attracted massive criticism because its perceived lack of business value, but Fiorina prevailed. Looking back at the mega merger, analyst firm IDC is now saying that Fiorina was right.
Not just that, the firm is pretty much declaring that the merger was a success for all the reasons that Fiorina pushed it in the first place: allowing HP to improve its position in markets that are rapidly commoditizing.
The year 2006 is rapidly becoming the year of Fiorina's revenge. The server maker earlier got exposed for the embarrassing way in which its board of directors underperformed. And that too allegedly can be traced back all the way to the HP-Compaq merger.
The deal caused the original rift in HP's board of directors. The discourse among the directors continued throughout the years and caused one of the board members to start leaking information to the media. The whole thing snowballed out of control and lead to a tasty corporate identity theft and spying scandal.
By then however, Carly had already left. She had been forced to resign early 2005, before the first of the two widely publicized KONA investigations were launched.
Fiorina meanwhile gets to witness all these event unfold while she enjoys her plush severance package as well as sales of her strategically timed book release.
Fiorina posing for a picture with Gwen Stefani at the Consumer Electronics Show in 2005. The executive rubbing elbows with pop stars at the event is said to have been the final straw to many people within the company and sealed her fate
as a "celebrity CEO".
(small picture top right: Fiorina and Michael Capellas announcing the merger five years ago)
technorati tags: hp, fiorina, carly+fiorina, compaq,
Hitting bad patent applicants where it hurts
A patent is bad when the USPTO examiners turn down the application. But when they turn it down, claiming that the patent covers technology that is at least 4,500 years old, the applicant should be tarred, feathered and locked up in a cell with Sadam Hoessein.
Thanks to the Patently-O blog, we were notified about a rejected patent application. The examiner didn't just trash the application. It got trashed:
In Genesis, Chapter 41, we are told that Pharaoh appointed Joseph to be his representative and instructed him to enter into contracts to purchase grain. These contracts included an offer with an activity (supply grain) and a benefit (get paid for the grain). Payment was made upon delivery of the grain. The story of Joseph is about 4,500 years old. . . . the principal/agent relationship is of immemorial antiquity. It no doubt predates civilization itself. . . . Many of Applicant’s [other] claims could also be rejected using the same reference.
The examiner in other words exposed the patent as a business method patent – which is a big no-no in the flawed world of patents.
So which inventor was so mindless to waste paper on this horrendous application? None other than Dean Alderucci, chief counsel of Walker Digital. The company doesn't make or produce anything. Instead its employees spend their days exploiting a broken patent system. The company's patents are then used to squeeze licence fees out of other others or fund new companies.
The joking doesn't stop with the examiner's rejection. Instead, Alderucci objected in style. The examiner has "complete misinterpreted the most popular and analyzed book in all of human history".
Read the full document. It's a hoot, especially considering the fact that lawyers have no sense of humor. But at the same time one can't help feel sad about the deplorable state of the patent system.
This book seems to suggest that you can even patent your dog?
Windows Vista goes gold at last
Windows boss Jim Allchin today proved all the pessimists who were convinced that Microsoft would further delay the launch of Windows Vista wrong. This morning Allchin revealed that the software was released to manufacturing earlier today and will be on store shelves on Tuesday 30 January.
Microsoft had promised a January launch, and even if it was by the narrowest of margins, the company delivered on its promise.
You can expect Microsoft to make some major noise about the software at the Consumer Electronics Show this January – where tradition has Bill Gates delivering the opening keynote.
As noted before, we've sacrificed a personal computer a few weeks ago and upgraded it with Windows Vista. While compatibility issues keep popping up (add Adobe Premier and Tomtom to the list. Meanwhile Picasa somehow sends you back into the graphics stone age by disabling the Aero user interface), the operating system itself is still a pleasure to use.
But if compatibility is a concern, I'd stick to Windows XP. Running the Vista Upgrade Advisor on a business notebook gave a plethora of warnings about incompatible hardware and software components.
technorati tags: jim+allchin, windows, windows+vista, vista, RTM, gold
Dell says no to Intel's vPro
From a Intel champion, Dell has suddenly transformed itself into a champion of open standards. The computer maker wants Intel to open up its vPro desktop management platform to the extend that AMD should be able to sell vPro systems and make enhancements to the technology.
Dell for years was accused of having an intimate love affair with Intel, but that affair appears to have ended abruptly.
The computer maker on Wednesday will start selling its first AMD powered desktop system, marking the last product line to switch over to AMD chips.
But the flat out refusal to dance to Intel's tune in the enterprise desktop market is far more remarkable than a single AMD system.
Dell's customers essentially are on to Intel and the fact that its vPro technology is essentially a vendor lock-in. AMD after all won't be able to create vPro systems. A company standardizing on vPro by default is also standardizing on Intel.
The world, and especially the enterprise world, has gotten burnt by proprietary standard a few times to often. Instead of joining the Intel parade, the system vendor will be looking at open standards. Unless of course its customers start demanding that they adopt vPro after all.
Intel chief Paul Otellini at the vPro launch last April
technorati tags: dell, vpro, intel, active+management, technology
Windows boss stats blogging, but where are the other Microsoft executives?
With Windows Vista about to be released to manufacturing, Windows boss Jim Allchin decided to start blogging about the forthcoming operating system.
In a first post to the Windows Vista Blog, Allchin declares the Address Space Layout Randomization security technology his favorite feature of Windows Vista. The technology prevents security attacks against addresses spaces that are easily predicted.
But instead of surging overindulging in the technology he quickly moves on to sing the praises of Remote Assistance instead. The tool allows remote users to take over control of a system to solve maintenance issues. For a company that is big about blogging, Allchin is an exeption more than the rule. The company's top executives have famously avoided the blogging wave the swept through the company in the past years.
Bill Gates nor Steve Ballmer have a blog. Office boss Steven Sinofsky stopped blogging last March after he changed jobs within Microsoft. Ray Ozzie, who will replace Bill Gates as the company's chief software architect, last posted on his blog in April.
Whatever the reasons they may have to shy away from their blogs, few would apply to Allchin. After heading up the Windows group since 1999, Allchin is set to retire in 2007 with Sinofsky taking over.
Jim Allchin at the Professional Developer Conference last year
technorati tags: jim+allchin, allchin, microsoft, windows, vista, windows+vista, blog, blogging, bill+gates, steve+ballmer, steven+sinofsky
Borat fans vandalize Kazakhstan wikipedia page
The Kazakhstan page on Wikipedia has been locked down after it was vandalized by fans of the Borat movie.
The Borat character claims to come from the Central Asian nation of Kazakhstan and is played by Sacha Baron Cohen of Ali G fame. He depicts the country as a culturally backwards third world society where "now women can now ride on inside of bus".
The Wikipedia page was updated numerous times over the past months. Last July for instance, a user by the name of BoratSagdiyev changed the state motto to:
Kazakhstan is wonderful country. Now women can ride on inside of bus and homosexual no have to wear blue hat. Sacha Baron-Cohen the Jew he tell many lies.
The Borat has been around for years, but is attracting new attention after his movie launched in the US last week.
technorati tags: borat, movie, kazakhstan, wikipedia
NTP continues its patent hunt
What do you do after you squeeze a $612.5m patent settlement out of Blackberry maker Research in Motion? You take a long vacation and six months later, you target a new victim.
Patent holding company NTP today filed a lawsuit against Palm. Just like the infamous Blackberry case, the company demands payment for its patents around a mobile email devices.
But this time NTP doesn't hold as many trump cards as it did in the Blackberry case.
Most importantly, Blackberry was forced to settle because the alternative would have been to disable its services in North America. The US Supreme Court meanwhile has overruled an earlier judgment that required a default injunction.
This time, NTP will have to proof that Palm's patent infringement is causing "irreparable injury". That might proof a tough challenge. NTP doesn't make anything – it solely exists to milk some email patents. In other words, it doesn't matter to NTP's business if Palm infringes on its patents or not.
While this may not help Palm protect itself against the actual claim, it makes this a much more even battle.
technorati tags: ntp, rim, blackberry, palm, lawsuit, patent, patent+trol
Microsoft's Linux pledge surfaces an open source rift
Microsoft endorsing Novell's Suse Linux distribution could be good or bad, depending on who you talk to. But there appears to be nothing in between.
Ask Ingres CTO Dave Dargo or OSDL chief executive Stuart Cohen for instance, and they will tell you that the deal has neutralized a threat to Linux and open source. And what's good for customers is good for Linux.
Ask open source advocate Bruce Perrens or legal expert Eben Moglen, and they'll tell you that this is just making things worse.
It isn't a coincidence that the first group people that want to build commercial enterprises on top of Linux and open source. The OSDL is an organisation that is sponsored by CA, IBM and Novell, among others, and that aims to increase the adoption of Linux in the enterprise. Ingres isn't just the steward of the open source database, but also is aggressively trying to build a profitable business on top of it.
Moglen and Perens meanwhile represent the idealistic side of the open source community.
Often they get along quite well, but in some cases they collide - like they did over the Novell-Microsoft deal.
The fuse in this case is provided by Microsoft. The first group takes Microsoft as a given force in the IT market. They might not like the company, but for pragmatic reasons put up with that fact that too many people are running Microsoft products for the company to just go away.
To the second group Microsoft is the source of all evil. They believe that open source and free content is an inevitable force that can't be stopped. That software patents and license fees are merely a tax on society that doesn’t represent anything good. That Vista will fail in the market place and that Microsoft's Office business is going down the drain.
If Novell tends towards the pragmatic group, Red Hat could be labelled as a follower of the traditional movement.
Open source needs both groups to advance. We need to challenge conventions, but also are required to make sure that open source meets customer needs. There is a vacancy for a peace maker. Perhaps IBM wants to apply – just like it did in 1999?
Novell and Microsoft holding hands
technorati tags: novell, suse, steve+ballmer, ron+hovsepian, microsoft, SLES, linux, red+hat, patent, patent+pledge
Zango fined for bad adware, everybody happy
Zango has settled an investigation with the Federal Trade Commission over the illegal and semi-illegal installations of its software.
Zango will pay $3m, which is probably pocket change to the company considering the fact that more than 20m people worldwide run the software on their computers.
But more than giving Zango a proper legal spanking (even though the company didn't admit to any wrongdoings), the settlement defines some new rules that provides a stick to poke future offenders.
Adware makers from now on are required to explicitly ask the user permission to install the software - burying that section in the end user license agreement won't do anymore.
Also, adware makers from now on will be held accountable for the mischief of their distributors. Zango in the past for instance was often installed on virus infected systems by botnet operators, making the distributor a cool (estimated) 50 cents per installation.
While Zango clearly profited from those illegal installations, the company always maintained that its couldn't be blamed for these unauthorized installations.
Is Zango the worst offender in the download software sector? While the company certainly has built up bad a reputation, it appears that it has cleaned up its act. But there are plenty of offenders left that need straightening out.
Microsoft and Novell raise the bar on Linux-Windows interoperability (video)
Microsoft and Novell's chief executives today took the stage to unveil a new partnership that provides both interoperability and a patent licensing deal.
But don't think that Microsoft and Novell have gone soft on each other. Both Ron Hovsepian and Steve Ballmer stressed that they will keep trying to kill each other in the market place - they'll just listen to their customers a little more when they tell them that they are acting like little children.
Below you can watch a video where Ballmer and Hovespian discuss their new partnership.
technorati tags: novell, suse, steve+ballmer, ron+hovsepian, microsoft, SLES, linux, red+hat, patent, patent+pledge, video
Microsoft takes the Linux patent pledge (video)
Microsoft today took a deep breath and dove into a Linux patent pledge. The company promised that it won't sue any Suse Linux subscribers. And more importantly, Microsoft will not assert its patents against individual non-commercial open source developers or any developer contributing to the OpenSuse.org project.
How exactly does that go? Below you view a video where Microsoft's general counsel Brad Smith explains the legal side of its new agreement with Novell.
technorati tags: novell, suse, steve+ballmer, ron+hovsepian, microsoft, SLES, linux, red+hat, patent, patent+pledge, video
Oracle move over, Novell is the new Linux champion
Enterprises that worry about running Windows and Linux together in a single datacentre better take a close look at news that Novell and Microsoft served up today.
The two companies today unveiled a broad ranging partnership that promises to tackle all of the two main issues that Linux is facing today: the patent threat and interoperability.
Their chief executives Steve Ballmer (right) and Ron Hovespian (below) at a San Francisco press conference unveiled a cross license patent agreement, ensuring users and Linux developers that they won't face legal charges for using Novell's Suse Linux Enterprise Server and Suse Linux Enterprise Desktop software. The pledge includes individual developers that contribute to the Linux kernel and all developers that contribute code to OpenSuse.org. The last group indirectly includes all developers contributing to the Linux kernel that is used as the basis for OpenSuse.
Secondly, the two parties will support each other's operating system to run as virtual systems on top of the Xen virtualisation technology. SLES 10 today offers Xen support and Microsoft will build it into its forthcoming Windows Server codenamed "Longhorn".
They will also cooperate to create web services standards that allow users to manage servers regardless of the operating system.
And it doesn’t stop there. Another part of the agreement will see Microsoft distributing 70,000 coupons each year for Novell's SLES to its customers to run as virtual operating systems.
Just the last part will greatly benefit Novell's market share in the overall Linux market, which is lagging behind Red Hat's by a street length.
Next, Novell now gets to ensure its customers that they won't be sued by Microsoft for any patent infringement. Red Hat can't and won't offer that.
Suse users might still risk patent claims from other companies, but Microsoft is generally considered by far the greatest threat to Linux. And besides, Novell has a significant patent portfolio that will deter most companies from going after its customers.
Oracle last week took the lead with its support programme for Red Hat Linux, but the company only got to enjoy it for a very short period of time. Today Novell jumped to the top of the pack, and it's up to Red Hat and Novell to respond.
technorati tags: novell, suse, steve+ballmer, ron+hovsepian, microsoft, SLES, linux, red+hat,
Belgians make better chocolate than Google fines
Google is vehemently denying claims by Belgium newspaper La Libre (page in French, use Babelfish to translate) that the search engine has been fined €34m for its failure to comply with a legal order to remove copyrighted materials from Google News.
A judge in September sided with Copiepresse, an organisation representing represents French news paper publishers in Belgium including La Libre. The organisation complained that Google's news service illegally copied (segments) of its news stories.
Google was forced to publish the ruling and remove the content from its servers.
The original La Libre report claimed that Google was unable to identify all the content that required removal and had therefore requested the help of the newspaper editors. The search engine for instance was alleged to still link to content from a version of the La Libre website for the visually impaired.
These and other continuing copyright violations triggered a €1m daily fine for Google, La Libre alleged, but the parties were said to have capped off the fines at €34m.
In exchange, Copiepress demanded that Google would once again include its websites in the regular search engine, the paper claimed.
But Google says there is no €34m fine.
"I can confirm that it is completely untrue," a Google spokeswoman told vnunet.com.
And according to the search engine, there are no websites for La Libre, Le Soir or any of the other newspapers that refused to be indexed by Google News.
La Libre had better get back to making chocolate and cutting French fries.
Google navigates a different legal system.
technorati tags: google, copiepress, la+libra, l'echo, le+soir, belgium, la+dh,
Jpeg patent meets its match
Patent holding company Forgent has settled all lawsuits about its '672 patent, commonly referred to as the Jpeg patent for a mere $8m.
The intellectual property covers the way that the Jpeg file format compresses images, and Forgent over the past years has collected $110m in license fees from companies like RIM and Sony.
But not all technology companies bowed to the Jpeg patent. Apple, Google, Microsoft and others were among a group of 40 companies that accepted the challenge and instead of settling decided to go to court.
The Public Patent Foundation too joined in. The legal group takes on "bad" patents that slipped through the cracks and tried to to get them invalidated. Last February it convinced the USPTO to take another look at the Jpeg patent.
There is no guarantee that the USPTO investigation would result in the patent getting invalidated.
Forgent however must have seen the writing on the wall. It faced some minor legal defeats and instead of waiting for the legal ruling, it accepted an $8m legal settlement. The company won't discuss the terms of the settlement, but did indicate that it won't seek to enforce the Jpeg patent any further.
Coincidentally, the average cost of a patent case is about $8m.
So Forgent recoups most of its legal costs and can gets to keep the $110m that it has collected so far. The other parties meanwhile split the $8m and go home undamaged.
But the patent system meanwhile remains a mess.
technorati tags: patent, forgent, jpeg, uspto, public+patent+foundation
Youtube dispels copyright crackdown rumors
The slew of copyrighted videos that have been removed from Youtube are nothing new, according to the company's co-founder Chad Hurley.
Over the past weeks Youtube was found removing tens of thousands of videos. In one case the removals were done at the request of Japanese publishers and in another one Comedy Central forced the video service to remove a slew of its videos.
Media and bloggers claimed to see a link to the Google acquisition of Youtube. Google was believed to make a frantic effort to remove copyrighted materials to avoid legal claims.
But Hurley told Business2.0 that the removals have been going on for months.
"I think people are reporting take downs because they have just noticed them, but this is nothing new to us," he said.
"We have been responsive when we receive any request to take down content. We are even expanding on that with our relationships with the labels. We have new ways to fingerprint files by audio, and are letting them control how they want to use their content, as well as developing more ways to verify people's identity. We are not operating any differently," claimed Hurley.
Either way, there are still plenty of Stephen Colbert and Jon Stewart videos available on Youtube today. If there is a coordinated effort to remove Comedy central material, it isn't very effective.
technorati tags: stephen+colbert, jon+stewart, comedy+central, youtube, copyright, google, chad+hurley
Motorola pips Apples to wireless music nirvana
Apple may pride itself of the fact that iPod car integration sets are an option for most new cars today, Motorola this week showed a far more elegant way to put audio on wheels.
The mobile phone's new T605 Automotive Music & Hands-free System
turns the mobile phone into a wireless automotive entertainment hub.
Slated for availability by mid 2007, it wirelessly streams both phone
calls and music to the car's stereo system.
Apple meanwhile puts an ugly cable in your shiny plastic wood-look-alike interior or hides the iPod in the glove compartment, stuffed between empty candy wrappers and your map collection.
Apple could have integrated Bluetooth or Wi-Fi in its iPods a long time ago, but so far has chosen not to. Could Motorola provide the necessary inspiration?
technorati tags: apple, ipod, motorola, T605, wireless, bluetooth, audio, entertainment, CES, las+vegas, consumer+electronics+show
New WirelessHD adds to wireless confusion
You can raise some serious doubts about the chances of the new WirelessHD standard that by next year aims to create a short range, high bandwidth wireless technology. The projected January launch indicates that the standard's backers hope to make a big splash as the forthcoming Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas.
A quick glance under the average desk demonstrates that cables today can make a big mess. But Bluetooth's failure to live up to its self created hype meanwhile has demonstrated that wireless technologies don’t necessarily provide a usable alternative.
The new WirelessHD standard is pushed by A-list consumer electronics manufactures such as Samsung and Sony and aims to provide enough bandwidth to power high definition video over a 10 meter/30 foot distance.
At such distances, you're talking about connecting a set-top box to a TV and a stereo. But you're out of luck if you were hoping to steam HD video from the living to a bed room. Few consumers however will be willing to pay extra to retire the few living room cables, especially if you never see them once a new system has been put in.
WirelessHD furthermore offers functionality similar to Ultra Wideband (UWB), not to mention the Homeplug alliance's Ethernet over power line initiative.
technorati tags: ces, consumer+electronics+show, homeplug, wirelessHD, intel, samsung, sony, CE, networking, wireless
This posting is also available on vnunet.com's CES Blog.
Google does a wiki dance
Google has acquired Jotspot, a commercial Wiki provider that focuses on the corporate market. The software provides an online collaboration platform. Wikis have Wikipedia as their prime example.
Following the acquisition, Google dropped the subscription fees.
Google not having a wiki was like a drunk without a bottle. Both have elevated collaboration and data sharing to a religion. Google could actually benefit from integrating the wiki software with its Google Code service that offers to host open source projects.
Jotspot was founded by Joe Kraus and Graham Spencer of internethype 1.0 fame: they co-founded Excite, which after merging with @Home became one of world's the most notorious dotcom failures.
But this time Spencer and Kraus seem to be doing much better. Financial terms of the deal weren't disclosed, but most of these low profile Web2.0 acquisitions bring in between $10 and $25m: enough to make the founders happy but nothing to get professional investors excited.
technorati tags: google, jotspot, wiki, acquisition, Joe+Kraus, Graham+Spencer
Spanish
