Gregarius » BetaNews.Com » novembre 16, 2011

BetaNews.Com (10 non lus)

Boxee begins cord-cutting Live TV USB dongle preorders

Publié: novembre 16, 2011, 10:29pm CET par Ed Oswald

Boxee confirms it is working on an USB dongle add-on for its Boxee Box set-top box that allows an antenna to be connected to the device to recieve "over-the-air" HD television signals. Pre-ordering opens Wednesday in the United States and Canada for $49, and the dongle will ship in January.

Those with unenecrypted basic channel service -- called clearQAM -- would also be able to connect the cable to the Boxee Box device. Either way, the set-top box itself still requires an Internet connection in order to use the signature functions of the Boxee service.

"If you are like us then the way you watch TV has changed", CEO and founder Avner Ronen says. "You end up watching less traditional TV, but continually pay more for it, which doesn’t make much sense". Ronen talks up the benefits of OTA digital television, but of course, one needs to be within range of the television transmitters in order to get the maximum benefit.

Users of Boxee's Mac and PC based platforms are currently incompatible with the dongle, Boxee says. The company didn't indicate plans to support it, even though an update for the desktop version is due in the coming months.
PETA's anti-fur campaign takes on Mario

Publié: novembre 16, 2011, 9:36pm CET par Ed Oswald

Animal rights group People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals has a new enemy: Mario. Yes, that lovable overall wearing plumber of Nintendo fame. His crime? Wearing fur in Nintendo's latest Super Mario franchise title for the Nintendo 3DS, Super Mario 3D Land.

To point out Mario's sins, PETA launched a new online campaign called "Mario Kills Tanooki". The Tanooki is a Japanese raccoon dog, and during gameplay in 3D Land Mario dons the coat of a Tanooki, much like he did in Super Mario 3 for the original Nintendo system. The suit allows Mario to fly.

"Tanooki may be just a 'suit' in Mario games, but in real life, tanooki are raccoon dogs who are skinned alive for their fur", PETA says on a site for the campaign. "By wearing Tanooki, Mario is sending the message that it's OK to wear fur".

PETA's efforts come complete with a game titled Super Tanooki Skin 2D, where the object is to help the Tanooki reclaim his skin from Mario's grip. In what has become typical of PETA's anti-fur campaigns, the site includes graphic imagery of the animals being abused by Japanese fur traders.

Nintendo has not responded directly to PETA's campaign, but stressed that nothing more than entertainment should be read into its games.
HP debuts thin and light Folio 13 ultrabook

Publié: novembre 16, 2011, 8:20pm CET par Tim Conneally

The ultrabook. It's a weak name for a compelling notebook design class that has been gaining popularity for a little over two years.

On Wednesday, still-in-the-PC-business Hewlett-Packard announced its contribution to the ultrabook class will be a business-focused model called the HP Folio 13.

According to Intel's definition, ultrabooks measure less than 20 mm (0.8 inches) in thickness and sell for less than $1,000, and the Folio 13 indeed lives up to these guidelines with a thickness of 18 mm and a starting price of $899.99 (when configured with an Intel Core i3 processor.)

The standard display size is 13.3", and storage comes in the form of an 128 GB SSD drive. It also has a backlit chiclet keyboard, RJ-45 ethernet and USB 3.0 ports, SD card slot, webcam and an optional TPM embedded security module.

The consumer-facing model will be released on December 7th, in time for the holiday shopping season, but the business model isn't expected to be released until January.

Besides the TPM chip, however, HP hasn't provided much information about what will make the Folio 13 any more businesslike than Acer's Aspire S3 ultrabook, or Toshiba's Portege Z830 ultrabook, which offer roughly the same specs, screen size, and price as the Folio 13.
Tick Tock, here's a new Windows clock

Publié: novembre 16, 2011, 6:53pm CET par Mark Wilson

Finding out what time it is need not mean relying on Windows’ built in clock, which is functional, but ultimately pretty ugly. Horloger, on the other hand, is a beautiful flip clock that will look great on any desktop. The look may appear familiar to mobile owners as widgets with a similar style are also available for the likes of Android, but this is a take on the genre that has been designed with Windows users in mind.

The stylish clock feels simultaneously old-fashioned and ultra-modern, and there are small and large versions available -- you can also choose from a few other skins, but the default is probably the best looking. Rather than being forced to keep your clock tethered to the lower right hand corner of the screen, Horloger can be placed anywhere on your desktop.

One of the advantages of using Windows’ own clock is the fact that it is tucked out of the way and does not obscure anything you may have open on your screen. If you have decided to position your flip clock somewhere more central, you have the option of making it transparent so that things in the background can still be seen. With the option of displaying the date as well, this is a seriously stylish and useful utility.

You can grab yourself a free copy of the clock app by paying a visit to the Horloger review page. If this clock doesn’t suit your particular tastes, you might want to take a look at Vector Clocks or even the Vector Clock Designer if you’d like to come up with your own.
MediaMonkey 4 now supports video

Publié: novembre 16, 2011, 6:42pm CET par Nick Peers

Ventis Media has overhauled its music management tool to add full support for video. MediaMonkey 4.0, available in free and Gold editions, allows Windows users to manage and organize their media collection with a set of powerful tools.

Version 4.0 also adds support for library sharing to and from UPnP/DLNA devices, improves automatic synchronization capabilities with Android mobiles and introduces a new portable installation option, allowing MediaMonkey to be run from USB drives.

The standout feature in MediaMonkey 4.0 is the fact it now supports video as well as music -- the media manager currently supports AVI, MP4 and WMV videos only, with support for MKV promised at a later date. Video support is exactly the same as music support, allowing the user to quickly play, sync, tag and update video art and metadata over the Internet.

As with music files, video files will also be capable of being quickly renamed and organized according to their metadata, and there are video-conversion capabilities too. Additionally, video libraries can be segmented into separate collections, allowing the user to organize video into various categories such as recorded TV, movies and home video.

Version 4.0 also adds support for library sharing with UPnP/DLNA devices such as xBox, PS3 or compatible televisions and media streaming boxes. Automatic sync support allows you to sync with a wide range of compatible devices via profiles, which can be fine-tuned as required.

Other changes in version 4.0 include a new "secure ripping" system, that aims to improve CD ripping accuracy by slowing down the disc’s rotational speed whenever inaccuracies have been detected. The software also reportedly improves audio quality via the Windows Session Audio API.

The app’s user interface has also been tweaked to make it simpler to use, with a number of improvements that start with a setup wizard after installation and include a new tabbed interface and integrated file monitoring features. Version 4.0 also includes a wide number of bug fixes that resolve a number of issues.

MediaMonkey 4.0 is available now as a free download for PCs running Windows XP or later. A Gold license, which includes a number of additional features and performance improvements, is also available, with prices starting from $24.95. The upgrade can be performed within the Free edition of the software.
Capture passwords and pretty much anything else on your network with York

Publié: novembre 16, 2011, 6:32pm CET par Mike Williams

Network capture tools can be useful for all kinds of reasons: troubleshooting, security, system optimization, or just to keep a better record of your online activities.

Setting them up and making sense of their reports can often be tricky, of course, but it doesn’t have to be this way. York, while far from perfect, offers easier than usual setup and in-depth logging of your traffic, and so could be very useful as a first network capture tool.

As with many similar programs, for instance, York uses WinPcap to handle the traffic logging basics. But you don’t have to worry about finding or downloading this: York will install it for you.

This good first impression is spoiled a little because York doesn’t intelligently decide which network adapter to monitor. And so you may not see any logged data until you choose this manually (click Options, Network Adapter, click the adapter to be monitored). But with that done, you should immediately be able to see the details of any captured network traffic.

The Packets tab displays the basic details, for instance: date and time of a connection, local and remote IP addresses, ports and traffic size.

The Passwords tab sniffs out HTTP, FTP, POP3, SMTP, SMB, VNC and AIM passwords. So if you need to know an email account password, say, and your email client has it stored but won’t otherwise tell you what it is, then just run the program, collect any new messages, and York will capture and display all your user names and passwords.

The program can also sniff out and save copies of the images you view, and the files you access. Which could be useful both as a backup record of some web research (you won’t have to remember to save copies of everything as you go along), or as a way to see exactly what others might be doing on your PC. (This isn’t enabled by default, though: click Options, Logging and check “Log & Save HTTP/FTP files…” to turn the feature on.)

And if you’re a network guru then there are plenty of other settings you’ll appreciate here. York can log UDP, ICMP and NetBIOS packets, for instance, as well as TCP traffic. You’re able to save captured traffic in a PCAP file for analysis elsewhere, or open an existing PCAP file to find out more about any logged activities.

The program still has its problems. The interface doesn’t always work as you expect, for instance, and occasionally you’ll need to explore the Options dialog to try and find out how to modify its behaviour accordingly. It’s compact, free and generally easy to use, though, so if you’re interested in network capture but have been put off by the complexity of other tools, then York may be worth a closer look.

Photo Credit: olly/Shutterstock
W3C publishes first drafts of the 'do not track' Web standard

Publié: novembre 16, 2011, 5:26pm CET par Tim Conneally

The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) on Wednesday published its first two drafts for online privacy and tracking standards: the Tracking Preference Expression, which is a definition of the HTTP request header field "DNT" for expressing tracking on the Web; and Tracking Compliance and Scope, which defines the terminology of tracking preferences and scope in the DNT expression, and lays out ways that websites can comply with it.

These standards will let users set more universal preferences about whether or not their browsing data can be collected for tracking and advertising purposes. The W3C says this will help to re-establish trust between users and service providers in the marketplace.

They also will define new mechanisms for sites to disclose how they are honoring the users' preferences, and new ways for users to grant exceptions for specific sites with which they're comfortable sharing their data.

"None of the participants in this Web of customization and targeted advertising want to offend the user. For advertisers, it is counterproductive. For Web site owners, it drives away their audience and income. For advertising networks, it leads to blocking and lost advertisers," the DNT draft says. "Therefore, we need a mechanism for the user to express their own preference regarding cross-site tracking that is both simple to configure and efficient when implemented. Likewise, since some Web sites may be dependent on the revenue obtained from targeted advertising and unwilling (or unable) to permit use of their content without cross-site data collection, we need a mechanism for sites to alert the user to those requirements and allow the user to configure an exception to DNT for specific sites."

These draft standards are being edited by representatives from Adobe, Google, and the Center for Democracy and Technology, and the Tracking Protection Working Group includes 23 companies such as Alcatel-Lucent, Apple Inc, BlueCava, Deutsche Telekom AG, Effective Measure International, ESOMAR World Association for Social, Market and Opinion Research, Facebook, Future of Privacy Forum, IAB Europe, IBM, Microsoft, Mozilla Foundation, The Nielsen Company, Online Publishers Association, Opera Software, Stanford University, TRUSTe, The Walt Disney Company, W3C and Yahoo! Inc.

These preferences are broadly based upon privacy mechanisms from IE9 that Microsoft submitted to the W3C last February.

Image: Kentoh/Shutterstock
Mozilla pleads: 'Protect the Internet' from Stop Online Piracy Act

Publié: novembre 16, 2011, 5:23pm CET par Joe Wilcox
This morning, as I write, the US House of Representatives is conducting a hearing on the Stop Online Piracy Act. Senate version of the bill is PROTECT IP. Either bill would dramatically change how Americans use the Internet, by granting power to shut down sites for many reasons -- in the case of SOPA simply for linking to another site or content that may be pirated.

I'll probably write a commentary about the bills, which their critics claim will undermine free speech that made the World Wide Web an enabler of communications, commerce and transparency. Many opponents of both bills express greater concern about the House version, SOPA, which was introduced in late October. Patrick Leahy (D-VT) introduced the Senate version, PROTECT IP, in May. The bills' motivations are simple: To extend copyright protections to the Internet.

But the means are aggressive, leading to outcries of censorship. Mozilla calls SOPA the "first American Internet censorship system. This bill can pass. If it does, the Internet and free speech will never be the same. Join us to stop this bill...Help us stop the Internet Blacklist Legislation". The open-source developer directs supporters via a "Take Action Now" button to Electronic Frontier Foundation, which fiercely opposes the bills.

As law, PROTECT IP would empower government law enforcement to:
- Seize domains of sites involved in the distribution of illegally obtained copyrighted material.
- Compel ISPs to block access to seized domains (such as from cached servers).
- Compel credit card companies to block access to infringing sites.
- Prevent advertising companies from selling or carrying ads for infringing sites.
- Require search engines like Bing and Google to block access to infringing sites.
SOPA's objectives, many of which overlap PROTECT IP's, are simply stated in this House synopsis:

H.R. 3261 allows the Attorney General to seek injunctions against foreign websites that steal and sell American innovations and products. The bill increases criminal penalties for individuals who traffic in counterfeit medicine and military goods, which put innocent civilians and American soldiers at risk. And it improves coordination between IP enforcement agencies in the U.S.

EFF claims:

Under SOPA's provisions, service providers (including hosting services) would be under new pressure to monitor and police their users’ activities. While PROTECT-IP targeted sites 'dedicated to infringing activities', SOPA targets websites that simply don’t do enough to track and police infringement (and it is not at all clear what would be enough). And it creates new powers to shut down folks who provide tools to help users get access to the Internet the rest of the world sees (not just the 'US. authorized version').

US Congress is considering two new copyright bills: PROTECT IP and Stop Online Piracy Act. Do you support them?

The bill's supporters brush aside such criticisms. In a letter to the US House of Representatives, Floyd Abrams, a constitutional attorney with law firm Cahill Gordon & Reindel, writes:

Copyright violations have never been protected by the First Amendment and have been routinely punished wherever they occur, including the Internet. This proposed legislation is not inconsistent with the First Amendment; it would protect creators of speech, as Congress has done since this Nation was founded, by combating its theft.

Do you support either bill? Please answer in comments below and poll above. I will include some of your comments in my followup commentary.

Photo Credit: JustASC/Shutterstock
Arthur Levinson replaces Steve Jobs as Apple Chairman

Publié: novembre 16, 2011, 2:56am CET par Joe Wilcox

People die. There is a period of mourning. Business goes on. So it is that today, more than 45 days after Steve Jobs' death, Apple replaced him as chairman of the board. If there is a day to truly mark the end of the Steve Jobs era, this is it.

Arthur Levinson, an Apple board member since 2000 and co-lead director since 2005, is the new chairman. Jobs was chairman and CEO. His successor, Tim Cook is chief executive only.

"Art has made enormous contributions to Apple since he joined the board in 2000", Cook says. "He has been our longest serving co-lead director, and his insight and leadership are incredibly valuable to Apple, our employees and our shareholders".

"I am honored to be named chairman of Apple’s board and welcome Bob to our team", Levinson says. "Apple is always focused on out-innovating itself through the delivery of truly innovative products that simplify and improve our lives, and that is something I am very proud to be a part of".

Apple also appointed Disney Robert Iger to its board of directors, where he will serve on the audit board.

"Bob and I have gotten to know one another very well over the past few years and on behalf of the entire board, we think he is going to make an extraordinary addition to our already very strong board", Cook says. "His strategic vision for Disney is based on three fundamentals: generating the best creative content possible, fostering innovation and utilizing the latest technology, and expanding into new markets around the world which makes him a great fit for Apple".

Iger comes to Apple as Jobs leaves vacancies at both companies. Apple's cofounder joined Disney's board in 2006, following the media company's acquisition of Pixar.

"Apple has achieved unprecedented success by consistently creating high quality, truly innovative products, and I am extremely pleased to join the board of such a wonderful company", Iger says. "Over the years, I have come to know and admire the management team, now ably led by Tim Cook, and I am confident they have the leadership and vision to ensure Apple’s continued momentum and success".

Apple shares dipped slightly in after-hours trading, on news of the board changes, down about 1 percent. Shares closed at $388.83 per share.

Photo Credit: 1000 Words / Shutterstock
Advanced SystemCare 5: Faster, smoother PC management

Publié: novembre 16, 2011, 12:30am CET par Nick Peers

IObit has launched version 5 of its all-encompassing PC maintenance, optimization and security suite. Advanced SystemCare 5 sees the debut of ActiveBoost technology, a background process that aims to keep the computer running smoothly through intelligent management of system resources.

Advanced SystemCare features a new cloud-based database for up-to-the-minute updates, redesigned user interface and enhanced Quick and Deep Care modules. The system tool has also been rewritten with a brand new architecture and source code to extend compatibility to both 32- and 64-bit operating systems.

Advanced SystemCare 5, which comes as a cut-down Free version as well as fully functional Pro version for $19.95, features a raft of new features and optimizations.

ActiveBoost technology works in the background as you use your PC, intelligently managing memory and application processes to ensure the system is running as efficiently as possible. While this won’t have much effect on day-to-day use, it may prove useful in situations where your PC would normally become sluggish after being overloaded by too many resource-intensive processes competing for resources.

A number of new features have been added to the program’s Quick and Deep Care modules to provide additional deep-cleaning and optimization functions. The malware detection and removal module is now kept up-to-date via cloud-based updates, ensuring it’s capable of responding more quickly to the latest threats.

The Turbo Boost mode has also been overhauled to provide two separate, and configurable, presets covering work and game use, ensuring the computer is optimized for both day-to-day use as well as for more resource-intensive gaming.

Version 5.0 has also been recoded to allow compatibility with both 32- and 64-bit versions of Windows, and IObit claims that this also translates into faster launch times and less resource usage, which is important seeing the role ActiveBoost is playing in managing your PC’s resources. Rounding things off is a slightly tweaked user interface, designed to make certain functions easier to find.

Advanced SystemCare 5 Free is available as a free download for PCs running Windows 2000 or later. Certain features, including “complete” malware removal and deep system cleaning, are only available through the purchase of a Pro license, which retails at $19.95.