Gregarius » BetaNews.Com » septembre 27, 2011

BetaNews.Com (13 non lus)

Google+ market share grows 1,269% in one week

Publié: septembre 27, 2011, 11:44pm CEST par Ed Oswald

Website traffic analysis firm Experian Hitwise said Tuesday that traffic to Google+ grew some 1,269 percent from the week ending September 17 to the week ending September 24. This was good enough to catapult the site from the 54th most visited site in the Social Networking and Forums category to 8th in just one week.

Research director Heather Dougherty said Hitwise's analysis indicated Google+ had nearly 15 million total US visits in the last week alone, its first since opening up to the public. She also said the company's analysis indicates that a large portion of the services users still remain early adopters.

The company has some funny names it uses to describe the different categories of users it follows across the sites it tracks called Mosaic. Regardless, these are still the influencers and technologically savvy who were the first to jump on board when Google+ launched in late July.

"In comparison to the online population, Google + continued to over-index for and win a high share of its visits from Mosaic USA 2011 Types which contain 'Influencers,' 'Early Adopters' and the internet-savvy, like 'Bohemian Groove,' 'Gotham Blend' and 'Progressive Potpourri;' this indicates that 'Early Adopters' still account for a large share of Google+’s traffic," Dougherty writes.

However, the firm noted that the audience profile of Google+ was shifting to lower and middle-income groups, which likely indicates that the social network is beginning to move past the early adopter phase of its growth.
Nokia debuts MeeGo-powered N9: perfect timing?

Publié: septembre 27, 2011, 9:22pm CEST par Tim Conneally

Nokia officially launched the N9 today, the Finnish mobile phone maker's first (and potentially only) smartphone to be powered by mobile Linux distribution MeeGo.

The slick N9 impressed us quite a bit when it was announced back in July: 3.9" (854 x 480) AMOLED display with convex Gorilla Glass, a 1 GHz TI OMAP3630 processor, 1GB of RAM, 16 or 64GB of storage, an 8 Megapixel flash camera, and front-facing chat cam, and global wireless support. It will be available in 20 countries for €480 (16GB) or €560 (64GB).

The critical issue with the N9 is the fact that it's partially a developmental dead end since Nokia made a commitment to Windows Phone, and officially gave up hope on MeeGo being a competitive OS for the company.

It is therefore only fitting that the N9 should launch on the same day as Microsoft launches the Mango update to Windows Phone.

But this appears to be no scheduling accident.

Tomorrow in Seattle, Intel's Elements 2011 developer conference will open, and MeeGo is going to be one of the major topics of discussion. In fact, the Financial Times of Germany today said that MeeGo is going to be merged with much more penetrative mobile Linux distro LiMo, which has been used on more than 20 mobile devices by Panasonic and NEC, mostly in Japan.

If that happens, MeeGo will receive support from LiMO Foundation members Samsung, NEC, Panasonic, NTT DoCoMo, Vodafone, Orange, SK Telecom, and Telefonica, who could conceivably pick up any slack in development as a result of Nokia's gradual egress from MeeGo support, and it could feel like much less of a dead end.

Of course, this is just rumor, and we have received no confirmation from Intel, Panasonic, or NEC about it. Fortunately, though, we'll be on the floor at Elements 2011 tomorrow with the first word on this if it happens.
Paragon Backup and Recovery 11 Home review

Publié: septembre 27, 2011, 9:01pm CEST par Mike Williams

Paragon Software’s Backup & Recovery has always been one of the most feature-packed backup tools around, and the latest release, Backup & Recovery 11 Home, does its best to carry on this proud tradition.

At a first glance down the “new features” list, though, the strategy doesn’t appear to be entirely successful. The program is more about evolution, than revolution: there’s no game-changer here, it’s really just building on what’s come before.

But still, the new build does have some useful additions, and of course it’s building on a very solid base, so whether you’re familiar with the program, or are a Paragon newbie, it definitely deserves a closer look.

Feature-Packed

As with the previous edition, the program opens with its Express interface, an easy-to-use, front-end menu that helps you get started at speed. Which in most cases will mean launching the Smart Backup Wizard, and having this walk you through the process of creating your first backup.

There’s a good choice of backup types: you can save your media files, documents, emails (Outlook, Windows Mail and Outlook Express only), individual partitions, complete hard drives, or the files and folders you specify, just in a click or two. There’s support for a wide range of backup destinations. Your backup files can be saved to local or network drives; a chosen partition, even if it’s not mounted or supported by your operating system; or burned to CD, DVD or Blu-ray discs. And, new this time around, Backup & Recovery 11 Home can also back up and restore to or from an FTP or sFTP server.

You get an extensive and customizable list of include and exclude filters to ensure your backup contains only the files you need. A new Encryption option allows you to password-protect your archives. And your completed backup job can be run immediately, or scheduled for launch when you log on, every day, week, month or more, courtesy of the scheduler.

Factor in the improved hardware support -- the ability to work with drives bigger than 2.2TB, SSDs, AFDs, USB 3.0 drives, and drives that don’t use 512-byte sectors -- and the program is off to a very good start.

But there was one relative disappointment, in the program’s performance over a wired network (though local and USB drive backup times were fine). We backed up a small test system (107GB of data) to a NAS device, using a specialist imaging backup tool, and the process took 35 minutes. But when we tried backing up the same system with Backup & Recovery 11 Home, it took around 49 minutes, or 40-percent longer.

There are some compensations here. Our imaging program was fast, but heavy on resources; Backup & Recovery 11 Home was a little slower, but much more lightweight, so it’s no problem to carry on using your PC while it runs in the background. And if this doesn’t apply to you because you’re running unattended backups, then you probably won’t care how long a job takes to run anyway.

Still, if you’ve a lot of data to back up then this may become an issue. Make sure you test how the program performs on your system before you buy.

Advanced Interface

The Express interface is fine when you’re getting started, but only displays a few of Backup & Recovery 11′s functions. So to get a complete picture of what the program can do you must switch to the Advanced Interface. This is much more complex, but also looks very similar to other Paragon products, so if you’ve ever used one of these you’ll quickly feel at home.

This interface includes straightforward wizards to run differential partition and incremental file backups, for instance. These can save time by backing up only new or changed data, a great way to cut your backup times.

There are also simple tools to copy partitions or entire disks, including an option to migrate your system to a larger hard drive (Backup & Recovery 11 will resize any partitions appropriately to make best use of the space). And these don’t have to be image copies; the (new to this version) ability to use Exclude filters means that you can avoid copying particular file types – *.bak, *.tmp, *,old or whatever. It’s all very straightforward

Elsewhere, you’ll find a few basic partitioning tools: you can create, format, hide and unhide them, assign drive letters, and so on.

There is a handy Undelete Partitions wizard, too, and a raft of low-level functions. You’re able to view and edit drives at the sector level; update a hard drive’s MBR; change your primary slots; and, new this time is a wizard to easily convert a standard MBR-formatted drive to GPT without losing any data.

Perhaps most intriguing, though, are the recovery options, as Backup & Recovery 11 Home has far more to offer here than most of the competition.

Disaster Recovery

If your PC stops booting for whatever reason then of course you won’t be able to launch Backup & Recovery 11 Home to restore a previous backup. And so the program allows you to create a bootable recovery environment to get everything working again.

At its simplest you can just use the standard image provided with the program, a Linux environment which quickly boots you into a cut-down version of Backup & Recovery. Bonus extras here include the Boot Corrector, which can fix many common Windows boot problems, and so may help you avoid the need to restore any backup at all. But if it fails then you can use the program to restore anything from an individual file to an entire drive backup.

Another option, new this time, is the Windows PE 3.0 boot disk. This includes essentially the 32-bit version of Backup & Recovery Home, so there’s less learning involved: it looks and behaves exactly like the program you’re used to. There’s also an extra option to add (32-bit) third-party drivers on the fly, useful if your hardware isn’t supported by default. And the Windows PE disc is also better at connecting to your network, which will also be important if your backups are saved to some network drive or device.

And the other addition to Backup & Recovery 11 is support for Paragon Adaptive Restore 3.0, which means you should be able to more reliably restore your system backup onto entirely new hardware, as the program injects the necessary drivers for you. This may be useful for some people, but in our experience Windows itself does a good job of coping in these situations, and additional tools are usually unnecessary.

Overall, then, while there’s no single stand-out new feature, Paragon Backup & Recovery 11 Home does have more than enough enhancements to justify your attention: the extended hardware support, backup to FTP/ SFTP servers, encryption, exclude filters when copying a hard drive, and Windows PE 3.0 boot disc are all worth having.

And when you add these to the solid, reliable and highly configurable foundations of the previous version then you’ve got yourself one very powerful backup tool. If you’re looking for a solid, reliable, versatile and highly configurable way to protect your valuable data, then give Paragon Backup & Recovery 11 Home a try -- it could be just what you need.

The software runs on Windows 2000 SP4, XP, Vista, 7 -- all 32 and 64-bit editions -- all lists for $39.95.
Apple will announce one iPhone, not two, on Oct. 4th

Publié: septembre 27, 2011, 7:17pm CEST par Ed Oswald

Patient (or impatient) iPhone aficionados will not have to wait much longer for that highly anticipated iPhone 5: Apple on Tuesday began mailing out invitations to journalists for an iPhone event on October 4, to be held at its headquarters in Cupertino, Calif. Apple often drops hints in the graphic elements accompanying the invites about what's coming. The not-so-cryptic message: One iPhone will be coming, contradicting weeks of rumors about two -- the other being the so-called 4S.

It's not clear why Apple chose to have its event on-campus this time versus its typical launch venue, the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts. The YBCA is showing no events for that day. In any case, Apple may be leaning towards a more intimate setting, hoping to maximize press coverage for the device by only inviting the most highly-read news outlets to the event itself.

The invitation is simply titled "Let's Talk iPhone," with an image showing the iOS icons for its calendar, showing the date of Tuesday the 4th, the clock, (showing the time of the event), the Map icon showing a pin where Apple's campus is located, and the phone icon.

If the visual clues extend to the phone icon, this may be the most important part of the whole invite. Notice that the "1" badge is on this image. For several months now, we've waffled between Apple releasing either one or two phones. In true Apple style, the company may have hidden its answer in the invitation itself. Those sneaky devils.

What is still unclear regardless of the number of phones Apple debuts next Tuesday is the release date. Using the iPhone 4 as a baseline for speculation, the announcement came on June 7, 2010, followed by preorders on June 16 (Wednesday) and in-store sales on June 24 (Thursday).

By that reckoning, presales would start October 12 and the phone would be in stores on October 21. But a more ambitious schedule would better rumors of October 15. In that scenario, Apple would begin presales on October 5 and have iPhone 5 in stores on the 13th.
AVG Anti-Virus Free for Android has your back

Publié: septembre 27, 2011, 7:15pm CEST par Mark Wilson

PCs are certainly the most common target for virus attacks, but this does not mean that other platforms are immune. The increased use of mobile devices means that platforms such as Android devices are prone to virus infection and antivirus software is now available to help counter this. AVG is most famous for its desktop virus protection software, but Anti-Virus Free is also available for Android and its aim is to protect your mobile in a number of ways.

As you might expect, the app provide virus protection on a real-time basis as well as enabling you to scan on a schedule or manually. Surfing the web is the source of many threats, and to this end the app includes phishing and malware protection. But Anti-Virus Free also goes far beyond this, and includes a number of handy extra tools and utilities.

If your phone is lost or stolen, there are a couple of remote tools that will be of interest. The app can be used to remotely switch on GPS and then broadcast the location of your phone so you can go and pick it up. Remote locking is also available so you can prevent a thief or anyone that should find your phone from running up a huge bill or prying into your personal information.

While AVG’s focus is understandably on avoiding virus infection and other threats, data protection is also important. There is a beta version of a backup utility that can be used to backup you text messages, contacts and other data while a task management tool is available to enable you to kill apps and processes that become problematic.

You can find out more and download a free copy of the app by paying a visit to the Anti-Virus Free review page.
USPTO denies Apple's 'multi-touch' trademark -- for the final time

Publié: septembre 27, 2011, 6:22pm CEST par Ed Oswald

Apple has made big brouhaha about its multi-touch user interface on iOS products like iPhone, and has for almost four years been attempting to trademark the term here in the United States. That effort is now for naught as a filing made public on Friday shows that the company's application was denied.

Apple originally applied for the trademark back on January 9, 2007, the same day the first iPhone was introduced at that year's Macworld Expo. Its application was initially denied by a US Patent and Trademark Office attorney on the basis that it was "merely descriptive of the applicants goods," but Apple pressed on.

In a resubmitted application, Apple attempted to prove "acquired distinctiveness," but the USPTO was not persuaded and denied it a second time. Running out of options, the decision was then appealed to the full board, which held a hearing in April and handed its decision down last week, again affirming its attorney's opinion on the matter.

The decision seems to reflect the opinion of the USPTO that multi-touch now has become a generic term to describe the interface between the user and most touchscreen devices. Since that is the case, it becomes much more difficult, if not impossible, to trademark the term.

"Simply because the applied-for term has been used in association with a highly successful product does not mean the term has acquired distinctiveness," the USPTO said in conclusion.

The full text of the decision can be viewed here.

Photo Credit: Joe Wilcox
WebM Video Converter is an absolute doddle to use

Publié: septembre 27, 2011, 6:15pm CEST par Mark Wilson

Converting video from one format to another can be a real chore. Whether you are looking to reduce the size of a video file so you can more easily add it to your website, or if you need to have a file in a particular format so you can play it back on your chosen media device, almost everyone will have to battle with video formats and conversion software at some point. Free WebM Video Converter is a free tool that may just be able to make your life a little easier.

There are a large number of applications available that can be used to convert video files from one format to another, many of them are rather expensive and complicated beasts. Free WebM Video Converter is different as it is completely free of charge and an absolute doddle to use. There is no need to fiddle with complex menus or tweak endless options, with Free WebM Video Converter successful video conversion can be achieved in just a few mouse clicks.

The fact that the program is available free of charge does not mean that you have to make compromises about the video formats you are able to work with. Even if your digital camera captures footage in an obscure format, support for the likes of .ivf, .ts, .ogv, .mts, .tod and .mod, in addition to the usual .avi, .mov, .3gp and more, means that you can work with your videos without worries.

The actual conversion process is incredibly simple, and once you have selected the file you would like to work with, you can then select a name, destination and tagging options. After selecting a video format, you can use a drop down menu to choose from one of a number of presets before getting the conversion underway. It is possible to batch convert a number of videos at once and your computer can be scheduled to switch off when this is complete for overnight processing sessions.

You can found out more and download a free copy of the program by paying a visit to the Free WebM Video Converter review page.
T-Mobile's Galaxy S II is a beast

Publié: septembre 27, 2011, 5:59pm CEST par Ed Oswald

T-Mobile won't deny its customers the best. With the AT&T merger in doubt over antitrust concerns, and what appears to be the increasing likelihood that the carrier will not offer iPhone 5 come October when its other large competitors likely will, T-Mobile needs to offer some truly innovative smartphone.

The carrier is showing the best comes to those wait. Its Samsung Galaxy S II variant may be the last to come to these shores, but it is by far most powerful of the three that were launched for Sprint, AT&T and T-Mobile.

When Betanews was up in New York City last month for the unveiling of the device, T-Mobile curiously placed its S2 under glass and wouldn't let the media handle it for themselves. We now know why: the phone's specs exceeds any of its siblings.

While AT&T and Sprint S2 models have 1.2GHz dual-core processors, T-Mobile's version sports a 1.5GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon S3 processor. You really can't compare T-Mobile's data to Sprint's due to the differences between WiMax and GSM, but comparing it to AT&T's model is fairer: here T-Mobile's S2 maxes out at a top speed of 42Mbps versus 21Mbps for the AT&T variant.

T-Mobile is publicly claiming its field tests in four major markets showed the devices (the HTC Amaze 4G included) averaged download speeds of 8Mbps and peak speeds approaching 20Mbps. That performance would put these near the top of the fastest phones available on the market today, not only for the speed of the hardware but also data throughput as well.

T-Mobile is also enabling NFC on the device, allowing it to take advantage of the growing support for the technology for mobile payments. The carrier itself is part of a mobile payments effort called Isis, although it has been repeatedly delayed since its initial debut in late 2010, and is not expected to be live until next year.

Like the HTC Amaze, T-Mobile's Galaxy S II will also be available October 10 for an online presale, and October 12 in stores. T-Mobile says the phone will cost $279.99 with a two-year contract, but will come with a $50 mail-in rebate bringing the price down to $229.99. It's pricier than the AT&T and Sprint models, which go for $199.99 but without rebate. But they don't have that screaming Snapdragon processor.

Here's the specs we got from T-Mobile:

Size: 5.11 inches x 2.71 inches x 0.37 inches
Weight: 4.77 ounces
Battery: Rechargeable 1850 mAh lithium-ion battery
Processor: Qualcomm® Snapdragon S3 Processor with 1.5 GHz dual-core CPUs
OS: Android 2.3.5 Gingerbread
Outputs: DLNA, HDMI output (MHL adaptor required)
Memory
Internal storage: 16 GB
External storage: Micro SD Memory card slot (up to 32 GB)
RAM: 1 GB
Connectivity
4G: Up to 42 Mbps download speed
Wi-Fi: IEEE 802.11 a/b/g/n
Bluetooth® 3.0
Cameras
1080p HD video capture and sharing
8 MP rear-facing camera with flash, 2 MP front-facing camera
Display: 4.52" Super AMOLED Plus WVGA touch screen
800-by-480-pixel resolution

Photo Credit: Ed Oswald
What if iPhone 5 isn't LTE?

Publié: septembre 27, 2011, 4:25pm CEST par Joe Wilcox

Stated differently: what does Verizon know that you don't?

I've been asking both questions after reviewing Verizon's legal filing supporting Samsung in its patent dispute with Apple. America's largest wireless carrier has asked a California judge to reject Apple's request to grant preliminary injunction against four Samsung 4G devices: Droid Charge, Galaxy S 4G, Infuse 4G and Galaxy Tab 10.1. Verizon's major argument, but not the only one, is that the injunction will hurt adoption of its next-generation 4G LTE network. Samsung's Droid Charge, which would be barred from US sales if the injunction is granted, is one of four LTE handsets that Verizon carries. Surely this close to launch Verizon knows whether or not iPhone 5 will support LTE. If iPhone is so important to Verizon, if iPhone 5 sales are expected to be huge (so say financial analysts) and if iPhone 5 could more than fill the void left by Droid Charge, why take a stance against Apple?

There are other questions to ask: If iPhone 5 doesn't support LTE, will it matter? Will potential buyers even care?

Verizon waited a long time to get iPhone 4. The carrier only started selling Apple's smartphone in February of this year -- three-and-a-half years after AT&T, which had exclusive US distribution. The legal filing supporting Samsung really is a stance taken against Apple. Why should Verizon risk that relationship, particularly if iPhone 5 will support LTE? It's about mitigated risk. By any reasonable analysts' sales estimates, and based on still strong iPhone 4 sales, iPhone 5 should be more important to Verizon than Droid Charge.

Verizon offers four LTE smartphones, all running Android: Droid Bionic by Mototola, LG Revolution, Pantech Breakout and the aforementioned Samsung Droid Charge. That's another wrinkle asking the "why stand against Apple" question. Regardless of intentions, Verizon has taken a stand for Android by filing on Samsung's behalf. For good reasons, that's where the sales are. According to data Nielsen released yesterday, 56 percent of new smartphone acquirers bought a device running Android in August. An injunction would reduce the number by one quarter, leaving a huge hole in the lineup unless there was something to replace it -- like iPhone 5.

From Verizon's legal filing:

The motion to enjoin Samsung’s devices comes at a critical moment: when Verizon Wireless is expanding its LTE network to paying customers and right before the holiday shopping season. The proposed preliminary injunction would affect only Samsung devices that make use of wireless carriers’ next-generation networks...the proposed injunction would disproportionally affect the very devices that are most critical to adoption and expansion of Verizon Wireless’s next-generation network.

Verizon says it has spent $65 billion on the LTE network, which includes $9.6 billion for spectrum purchased in 2008. According to the legal filing, the LTE network launched on Dec. 5, 2010 in 39 markets and will reach 175 markets -- and 185 million people -- by end of this year. Interesting, advertisements on Verizon's website say 26 markets. So how many really is it?

Verizon sold 1.2 million LTE handsets during second quarter, but activated twice as many iPhones -- 2.4 million. If LTE is so important as Verizon contends and if iPhone 5 supports the 4G technology, surely Apple's handset would more than make up for the loss of Droid Charge?

Which again raises question: Why would Verizon stand against Apple? There's another way to interpret Verizon's actions -- that it knows iPhone 5 LTE is locked and loaded. So Verizon risks little by backing one of its other major manufacturers and one that has been a partner a helluva lot longer than Apple.

Ultimately only one thing matters. Do you care? Apple launched the original iPhone without 3G support at a time when it was becoming standard -- and still the smartphone sold well. The question: Just how much does LTE matter to you? Would it keep you from buying iPhone 5? No-LTE support certainly hasn't stopped millions of people from buying iPhone 4. Please respond in comments.
Mozilla releases Firefox 7 -- get it now!

Publié: septembre 27, 2011, 3:24pm CEST par Nick Peers

Mozilla has placed the final, stable build of Firefox 7 on its FTP servers. This latest build has one major game-changing improvement to speak of, which should ensure that Firefox performs more efficiently and doesn’t gobble up system resources when left running in the background.

Version 7.0 also sees improved graphics performance in Windows, but as with the recent releases of Firefox 5 and 6, other changes are relatively minor, with a slightly tweaked Address Bar and faster bookmark and password changes during Firefox Sync operations being the most notable, visible tweaks of interest to end users.

The game-changing improvements in Firefox 7.0 surround its memory usage and optimization. Mozilla claims that Firefox 7 reduces memory usage by at least 20 percent, and as much as 50 per cent in some cases, while still delivering improved startup and page-loading times, as well as overall responsiveness.

Of equal importance is the fact the memory leak that has plagued earlier versions has finally been addressed with the Javascript garbage collector, which has been tweaked to run more frequently to free up memory no longer in use. It means the browser can now be left running for an extended period of time without quietly eating up more system resources in the background.

Better still, you’ll now be able to free up system memory simply by closing unwanted tabs as opposed to having to shut the browser down and restart it.

Windows users also get a performance fillip with the introduction of a new graphical component called Azure, which promises better performance when rendering Canvas operations, part of the new HTML5 standard.

Firefox’s Awesome bar (the Address bar to you and me) also features more subtle changes to add to those introduced in version 6 – gone is the “http://” prefix, while the subdomain element of a web address is made even paler to highlight the main domain.

Firefox Sync has also been tweaked to sync password and bookmark changes more frequently as they’re added or edited, while other changes are more minor, involving support for a new CSS3 Text Overflow method (ellipsis) and a new web timing spec, allowing developers to measure page load times and site navigation, enabling them to identify website performance improvements.

The latest release comes six weeks to the day after Firefox 6 shipped, right on schedule according to Mozilla’s new rapid release cycle. Those unhappy with this switch to a new version number every six weeks will be alarmed to hear that Mozilla has discussed, and not completely rejected, the idea of shortening the release cycle to just five weeks -- although it’s clear from the discussion this won’t be happening any time soon.

Firefox 7.0 is available for download now under the open-source license for Windows, Mac and Linux. It will be shortly be offered as an automatic update to all existing Firefox users.
Verizon stands against Apple in Samsung patent dispute

Publié: septembre 27, 2011, 4:14am CEST par Joe Wilcox
You'd think that Verizon would show more gratitude. Everyone knows how important iPhone is to America's largest cellular carrier. We know because the rabble of pro-Apple bloggers and journalists (and, whoa, there are so many) told us so. Over and over and over again. But, no, Verizon isn't showing gratitude or loyalty to Apple at all. Last week, the carrier filed a legal brief with the United District Court for the Northern District of California asking a federal judge to reject Apple's request for preliminary injunction against four Samsung devices. A hearing is scheduled for the afternoon of October 13.

The filing is really unsurprising when looked at rationally. Verizon has much more invested in Android than iPhone. The devices in question use Verizon's 4G LTE network. Holiday sales are another consideration. The latter two points are among the cornerstones of Verizon's arguments for why the judge should reject Apple's request for preliminary injunction. Then there is that pesky loyalty thing. iPhone 5's launch is imminent, and Verizon will be one of the major beneficiaries. So why risk the Apple relationship? If the judge doesn't wonder, perhaps you should.

Apple is asking the court to issue an immediate preliminary injunction against four Samsung devices: Droid Charge, Galaxy S 4G, Infuse 4G and Galaxy Tab 10.1. I've repeatedly observed that Apple's patent and other intellectual property claims are selective: Against devices that compete against iPhone. The three smartphones and LTE version of the Tab 10.1 all offer faster data bandwidth than does iPhone 4.

Verizon offers two of the four products: Droid Charge and Tab 10.1, which both run on its LTE network. Only four of Verizon's smartphones are LTE; Galaxy Tab its legal filing as much about Android vs iPhone as anything else. Verizon has made tremendous investments in Android, particularly the Droid brand, which it controls. For example, Verizon launched the original Droid with a $100 million advertising campaign in autumn 2009.

Whether or not its main goal, Verizon has taken a stand for Android by filing on Samsung's behalf. For good reasons, that's where the sales are. According to data Nielsen released today, 56 percent of new smartphone acquirers bought a device running Android in August. Just 28 percent bought iPhones.

From Verizon's filing, about its LTE network:

An injunction would prohibit some of the newest, most advanced wireless devices sold today and impede the growth of Verizon Wireless’s high-speed 4G network. The accused Samsung devices are among the few products that can access Verizon Wireless’s next-generation high speed network and, therefore, are among the most sought-after devices by early-adopting consumers -- a critical market segment in the industry. Verizon Wireless has invested and is investing billions in developing and deploying its next-generation Long Term Evolution (LTE) 4G network; that investment depends on consumers having access to devices that can make use of that network.

How big an investment? Verizon says it has spent $65 billion on the LTE network, which includes $9.6 billion for spectrum purchased in 2008. The LTE network launched on Dec. 5, 2010 in 39 markets and will reach 175 markets -- and 185 million people -- by end of this year. By the way, that 39 markets is from the legal filing, but advertisements on Verizon's website says 26 markets.

From Verizon's filing about its LTE devices:

Samsung is one of only six manufacturers (including HP, HTC, LG, Motorola, and
Pantech) that has developed and is offering a limited number of such devices today. Moreover, the motion to enjoin Samsung’s devices comes at a critical moment: when Verizon Wireless is expanding its LTE network to paying customers and right before the holiday shopping season. The proposed preliminary injunction would affect only Samsung devices that make use of wireless carriers’ next-generation networks.

During second quarter, Verizon sold 1.2 million LTE devices. "The Samsung Droid Charge, one of the smartphones at issue in the motion, is one of the marquee products offered by Verizon Wireless to showcase its LTE network. Samsung’s Galaxy Tab 10.1, which is also the subject of the motion, is the first LTE tablet sold by Verizon Wireless". Verizon started selling the Tab 10.1 LTE on July 28.

Verizon makes two major arguments about why an injunction would either be unfair or harmful. Why it's unfair:

The utility patent at issue in the motion has nothing to do with the 4G network technology that makes the accused smartphones and tablet uniquely attractive to consumers. Instead, the patent covers the way documents can be viewed on the devices. There are nearly two dozen other devices accused in the current lawsuit that are not part of Apple’s preliminary injunction motion. But those devices are mainly older devices that are not designed to make use of Verizon Wireless’s and other carriers’ next-generation networks. Thus, the proposed injunction would disproportionally affect the very devices that are most critical to adoption and expansion of Verizon Wireless’s next-generation network.

Why the injunction would be harmful, according to Verizon:

The harm from a preliminary injunction would be substantial to both consumers and Verizon Wireless. Consumers cannot benefit from the billions of dollars that Verizon Wireless has invested in its next-generation network unless they can purchase and use 4G devices compatible with that network.

Protecting against consumer harm is one of US competition law's primary objectives. I'm not a lawyer and don't feel competent to evaluate the likelihood the judge would accept this argument, particularly from a third-party with no real legal standing in the case.

Additionally, Verizon asserts that an injunction against Samsung LTE devices would be devastating, because:
- The carrier has so few other LTE devices available to use
- Should Samsung re-engineer its LTE devices, they would return to market too slowly
- LTE adoption is at the crucial early-adopter stage, where loss of the LTE devices would discourage adopters
"An injunction that limited the availability of 4G devices in the market could substantially reduce the number of customers who could or would purchase those devices", Verizon's filing asserts. "Such a loss in sales of 4G devices, in turn, undermines the business justification for continuing to expand Verizon Wireless’s LTE network".

More: "The rate of technological changes in the wireless industry further exacerbates the harm from impeding early adopters’ access to 4G devices. For example, analysts predict that consumers will replace 50 percent of their smartphones and 30 percent of their tablets within two years".

I probably shouldn't start rumors, but...Surely Verizon must know by now if iPhone 5 will support LTE. Could it be inferred from this that iPhone 5 won't be LTE?

Verizon also presents the holiday sales as another area of harm the preliminary injunction would inject:

The harm from the proposed preliminary injunction would be increased if it issued during the holiday and year-end sales season. Holiday sales form a significant percentage of Verizon Wireless’s yearly revenue. Verizon Wireless has been preparing for the holiday period for months. Its build-up to this season has involved ordering smartphone and tablets, developing and launching new marketing campaigns, and training additional sales personnel. The holiday season will begin in November, with holiday commercials starting the first week of that month. If an injunction issued in the midst of the holiday season, after Verizon Wireless has begun its holiday sales campaigns, the time and money spent on those campaigns would be lost.

Verizon then also claims that the injunction would have larger economic impact, which includes employment. That reads to me more like a political than legal argument. But it's timely nevertheless.

That's the gist of the Verizon filing. I intentionally left out the legal nuances and case law. The purpose of this news report is presenting Verizon's rationale and its context. Something else: I'm more than a day late on this story because I chose to get the legal filing rather than cite FOSS Patents, as most of my peers did yesterday. I wanted to read and report on the original source material -- the legal filing -- rather than have it selectively filtered by FOSS Patents' Florian Mueller. Yesterday, on Google+ I wrote about the single-sourcing problem plaguing online news reporting today. Having actually read Verizon's filing, I must say that Mueller's analysis is unreasonably conspiratorial.

Musical accompaniment while writing this story -- album "Torches" by Foster the People.

Photo Credits: Verizon
Google+ sees explosive growth, 50 million-plus users in less than 3 months

Publié: septembre 27, 2011, 1:10am CEST par Ed Oswald

All that talk of Google+ becoming a "ghost town" seems premature. Paul Allen, founder of Ancestry.com and self-titled "Google+ unofficial statistician," said his model which attempts to estimate the number of Google+ users by counting unusual surnames shows that the social network grew some 30 percent just in the two days following its opening to the public.

It gets even better than that: Allen estimates that as of Monday ("plus or minus a few days"), the site had reached some 50 million users. Google+ would have achieved this feat in just 88 days. Compare this explosive growth to other services: MySpace took 1,046 days to reach that level; Twitter 1,096 days; Facebook 1,325 days; and LinkedIn 2,354 days. It's clear that Google's social networking service has captured the interest of consumers and continues to grow quickly.

"I think we are witnessing the most exciting battle in tech history as two well-funded, fast-growing, highly-profitable, genius-led Silicon Valley companies are competing from very different starting points to affect how we find information, how we connect with people, how we view the world, and how we spend our time," Allen said in a Google+ post highlighting the milestone.

He cautioned against assuming that this achievement isn't necessarily bad for competitors such as Facebook; instead he believes the competition will only make both sites better.

"Customers will benefit as these two innovative tech companies try to empower users with the best social tools," he writes. "Some people will choose one social network over the other and will evangelize their choice. Others will use both to communicate with different groups of people."

Indeed, we may have seen the first salvos in the coming social media wars through Facebook's announcements at its f8 developer conference. It made a significant change to the way profiles work by introducing Timeline, and strengthened its offering overall by partnering with entertainment providers.

At the same time, we may also have the first concrete evidence that Facebook's widely-criticized redesign may have pushed many to try out Google+ for the first time, as Allen describes the strong growth rates in the days following as not seen since the initial limited launch back in July and early August. Another explanation: Google+ opened to anyone last week, after being in invite-only trial.

Photo Credit: AHMAD FAIZAL YAHYA/Shutterstock
This is how Facebook tracks you

Publié: septembre 27, 2011, 12:15am CEST par Nik Cubrilovic

On September 25, Nik Cubrilovic posted a terrific analysis looking at how Facebook uses cookies to track users even when they have signed out of the service. His findings about Facebook cookie tracking raises yet more red flags about subscriber privacy. We asked and he granted permission to repost the analysis, which differs in two subtle ways from the original: Slight editing for house style and incorporation of two updates into the main text. We also changed the headline.

Dave Winer wrote a timely piece yesterday morning about how Facebook is scaring him since the new API allows applications to post status items to your Facebook timeline without a user's intervention. It is an extension of Facebook Instant and they call it frictionless sharing. The privacy concern here is that because you no longer have to explicitly opt-in to share an item, you may accidentally share a page or an event that you did not intend others to see.

The advice is to log out of Facebook. But logging out of Facebook only de-authorizes your browser from the web application, a number of cookies (including your account number) are still sent along to all requests to facebook.com.

Even if you are logged out, Facebook still knows and can track every page you visit.

The only solution is to delete every Facebook cookie in your browser, or to use a separate browser for Facebook interactions.

Here is what is happening, as viewed by the HTTP headers on requests to facebook.com. First, a normal request to the web interface as a logged-in user sends the following cookies:

Note: I have both fudged the values of each cookie and added line wraps for legibility.

The request to the logout function will then see this response from the server, which is attempting to unset the following cookies:

To make it easier to see the cookies being unset, the names are in italics. If you compare the cookies that have been set in a logged-in request, and compare them to the cookies that are being unset in the log-out request, you will quickly see that there are a number of cookies that are not being deleted, and there are two cookies (locale and lu) that are only being given new expiry dates, and three new cookies (W, fl, L) being set.

Now I make a subsequent request to facebook.com as a 'logged out' user:

The primary cookies that identify me as a user are still there (act is my account number), even though I am looking at a logged-out page. Logged-out requests still send nine different cookies, including the most important cookies that identify you as a user

This is not what 'logout' is supposed to mean. Facebook are only altering the state of the cookies instead of removing all of them when a user logs out.

With my browser logged out of Facebook, whenever I visit any page with a Facebook Like button, or Share button, or any other widget, the information, including my account ID, is still being sent to Facebook. The only solution to Facebook not knowing who you are is to delete all Facebook cookies.

You can test this for yourself using any browser with developer tools installed. It is all hidden in plain sight.

If you wish to view the raw logs, I have saved them here. Specifically the datr and lu cookies are retained after logout and on subsequent requests, and the a_user cookie, which contains your userid, is only cleared once the session is restarted. Most importantly, connection state is retained through these HTTP connections. There is never a clean break between a logged in session and a logged out session.

An Experiment

This brings me back to a story that I have yet to tell. A year ago I was screwing around with multiple Facebook accounts as part of some development work. I created a number of fake Facebook accounts after logging out of my browser. After using the fake accounts for some time, I found that they were suggesting my real account to me as a friend. Somehow Facebook knew that we were all coming from the same browser, even though I had logged out.

There are serious implications if you are using Facebook from a public terminal. If you login on a public terminal and then hit 'logout', you are still leaving behind fingerprints of having been logged in. As far as I can tell, these fingerprints remain (in the form of cookies) until somebody explicitly deletes all the Facebook cookies for that browser. Associating an account ID with a real name is easy -- as the same ID is used to identify your profile.

Facebook knows every account that has accessed Facebook from every browser and is using that information to suggest friends to you. The strength of the 'same machine' value in the algorithm that works out friends to suggest may be low, but it still happens. This is also easy to test and verify.

I reported this issue to Facebook in a detailed email and got the bounce around. I emailed somebody I knew at the company and forwarded the request to them. I never got a response. The entire process was so flaky and frustrating that I haven't bothered sending them two XSS holes that I have also found in the past year. They really need to get their shit together on reporting privacy issues; I am sure they take security issues a lot more seriously.

To clarify, I first emailed this issue to Facebook on the 14th of November 2010. I also copied the email to their press address to get an official response on it. I never got any response. I sent another email to Facebook, press and copied it to somebody I know at Facebook on the 12th of January 2011. Again, I got no response. I have copies of all the emails, the subject lines were very clear in terms of the importance of this issue.

I have been sitting on this for almost a year now. The renewed discussion about Facebook and privacy this weekend prompted me to write this post.

The Rise of Privacy Awareness

Ten to 15 years ago when I first got into the security industry the awareness of security issues amongst users, developers and systems administrators was low. Microsoft Windows and Internet Information Server were swiss cheese in terms of security vulnerabilities. You could manually send malformed payloads to IIS 4.0 and have it crash with a stack or heap overflow, which would usually lead to a remote vulnerability.

A decade ago, the entire software industry went through a reformation on awareness of security principles in administration and development. Microsoft re-trained all of their developers on buffer overflows, string formatting bugs, off-by-one bugs etc. and audited their entire code base. A number of high-profile security incidents raised awareness, and today vendors have proper security procedures, from reporting new bugs to hotfixes and secure programming principles (this wasn't just a Microsoft issue, but I had the most experience with them).

Privacy today feels like what security did 10-15 years ago. There is an awareness of the issues steadily building, and blog posts from prominent technologists is helping to steamroll public consciousness. The risks around privacy today are just as serious as security leaks were then -- except that there is an order of magnitude more users online and a lot more private data being shared on the web.

Facebook are front-and-center in the new privacy debate just as Microsoft were with security issues a decade ago. The question is what it will take for Facebook to address privacy issues and to give their users the tools required to manage their privacy and to implement clear policies - not pages and pages of confusing legal documentation, and 'logout' not really meaning 'logout'.

Erratum: I refer to the wrong cookie name in the post above. I also say 'all sites' can be tracked, when I meant to say 'all sites that integrate facebook'.

Nik Cubrilovic is an Australian-born serial entrepreneur, writer and hacker. He currently is working on pre-launch startups, previously at Techcrunch, Omnidrive and a number of other startups since 2000. He has lived in Australia, Bosnia, the UK, South Africa and the USA; Cubrilovic is currently based in Wollongong, Australia.