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BetaNews.Com (9 non lus)

HP's open source webOS embraces Android, iOS

Publié: janvier 25, 2012, 9:12pm CET par Tim Conneally

Hewlett-Packard announced on Wednesday that it has begun the great open-sourcing of mobile operating system webOS with the release of the Enyo 2.0 core application framework.

Just a little over one month ago, HP announced it would be turning over webOS software development to the community, and open sourcing its components while participating in the project as an investor and controlling interest.

At the time, HP said the Enyo application framework would be the first part to be released to the community under open source licensing.

Enyo is an object-oriented JavaScript framework that works "on any platform with a modern web runtime." The first version of the framework used for all of the apps on the HP TouchPad, targeted webOS development specifically.

However, Enyo v. 2.0, part of the release package today, is designed for cross-platform application development, and webOS apps developed with it can be repackaged for iOS, Android, or really any other operating system with a "modern" browser such as Chrome, Firefox, IE9 or Safari.

"While 2.0 does not yet include any UI widgets, the core will support a wide variety of libraries and add-ons. A UI widget set for 2.0 will be released in the near future," Sam Greenblatt, CTO and head of technical strategy for the open webOS project said. "Upcoming releases include our distribution of WebKit, which will support not only HTML5, but also Silverlight and Flash through the use of plug-ins. It will enable the rendering of webpages to HTML Canvas and 3-D textures, and will support a wide range of application interfaces, including multi-touch."

In addition to launching Enyo, Greenblatt discussed a bit of the webOS roadmap, which includes a new kernel based on the Linux Foundation standard, a new database using LevelDB, and enhanced JavaScript integration through register callbacks and custom multi-process architecture for security, load balancing, and recovery availability.

The completed open source webOS will be called Open webOS 1.0, and is expected to be complete in September.
What are the top domains used for spam?

Publié: janvier 25, 2012, 8:29pm CET par Ed Oswald

It's likely that most will expect domains belonging to popular web-based e-mail services are at the top of the list for the mountains of spam we receive everyday. That's not the case: the most common spam domains according to Chelmsford, Mass.-based security firm AVG are social networks.

Facebook tops the list at 7.3 percent, followed by Twitter at 4.2 percent. Considering these are the top two social networking sites, that's not too surprising. How about Google+? Hard to say since it doesn't have its own domain, nor did google.com appear in the list AVG supplied us. LinkedIn also appears, but way down in eighth at 1.5 percent of all spam.

Webmail services do show up in the third spot, with gmail used in about 3.1 percent of all spam. Two other webmail domains show up, yahoo.com and hotmail.com, in the fifth and sixth spots with 2.4 percent each.

Spam isn't just originating from what most of us likely consider to be the most common sources. Akamai.net, associated with the company who delivers up to a fifth of all Internet traffic, sees about 2.7 percent of all spam originate from its servers.

Chtah.com is another domain where spam finds a home: 1.7 percent of spam originates from the domain. It belongs to CheetahMail, an established e-mail marketer owned by Experian. Even the cloud is getting into the act: rounding out the survey is amazonaws.com, Amazon's Web Services domain. It seems you can't go anywhere without being spammed these days, no?
The top-10 web security threats you should avoid

Publié: janvier 25, 2012, 7:30pm CET par Ed Oswald

The compromised website is still the most effective attack vector for hackers to install malware on your computer with 47.6 percent of all malware installs occurring in that manner, says security firm AVG. Another 10.6 percent are tricked into downloading exploit code -- many times, without their knowledge -- by clicking on links on pages to sites hosting malware.

The Chelmsford, Mass. company announced its findings as part of a broader study of threats detected by its software. It also found that faked pharmacy sites are a popular attack method, seen in about 10.4 percent of all attacks.

Fake antivirus scanners remain a popular malware injection method at 8.4 percent. The news is timely considering just yesterday Microsoft announced its newest defendant in the Kelihos botnet case was a former antivirus vendor employee. Kelihos used fake antivirus to install itself on unsuspecting victims.

"'Old habits die hard': cyber criminals are up to their old tricks, apparently the use of fake antivirus product is still successful", the firm says in its report. It adds that a significant portion of these rogue antivirus installs are coming through whats called a "Second-Click Redirect Mechanism".

A faked image gallery is a good example. Clicking on the first image will behave as expected, however going back to the gallery and clicking on a second thumbnail will trigger the script. The user is redirected to download antivirus software after a popup claims viruses were "found".

Fake antivirus is nothing new, but this attempt to bury it is: the attackers want it to look more legitimate.

That's not all, though: AVG warns that the security issues plaguing desktops are migrating to mobile devices. "While consumers are going mobile, so are the cyber criminals," the company writes. "We have witnessed the use of the same malicious intent tactics targeting mobile devices: social engineering, stolen or fake certificates to sign malware, rootkits and other tactics".
Kingsoft Office 4.3 for Android mini-review

Publié: janvier 25, 2012, 6:46pm CET par Mark Wilson

There are a number of tools that computer users will install by default on their Mac or PC -- an email client, web browser, media player and an office suite. Make the move to a mobile platform such as iOS or Android and the range of apps you need changes slightly. Most phones and tablets will comes with a number of apps pre-installed including a calendar, messaging tool, web browser and various other tools. One thing that is generally left out of the mix is a mobile office suite.

There are plenty of suites to choose from, but the vast majority of them cost too much and many users are disappointed to find that the app they choose to try out is too limited for their needs. Kingsoft Office is something of an anomaly -- an extremely powerful and feature-packed Android office suite that is available for free.

As you would expect from any productivity app, Kingsoft Office can be used to open and edit documents that have been created in Microsoft Word, including the more recent XML-based formats for Word, Excel and PowerPoint, including encrypted files. Your documents can be stored locally or in the cloud -- box.net or WebDAV -- and performance is reassuringly fast.

When it comes to opening files that you have already created, there is a great preview screen that can be used to navigate through documents before you open them. Rather than browsing through fiddly folders, full screen previews are displayed that you can easily swipe through to find the file you need. There is also an excellent file explorer that can be used to browse through all of the documents stored on your Android device, including text and PDF files that can be opened in the suite.

One of the problems with many mobile office suites, aside from the cost that many people are unwilling to pay, is that going down the mobile software route usually means making feature compromises. While Kingsoft Office is no mobile replica of Microsoft Office, it certainly is one of the most complete tools. Ability to use features such as headers and footers, adjusting line spacing, add comments and much more, mean that this is probably the most comprehensive mobile office app available.

Ease of Use

When working with spreadsheets, you can freeze panes to aid navigation and display charts and shapes. The navigation of spreadsheets is something that has long proved tricky but it is something handled with panache in Kingsoft, and the option of quickly switching to full screen mode is very useful. It is easy enough to type in documents using the on-screen keyboard, there is also the option of using a Bluetooth to make extended sessions of typing more comfortable. Standard keyboard shortcuts for copying and pasting can be used when working with an external keyboard.

One of the problems that any mobile office suite faces: Expectation there will be a large number of options and these would ordinarily be housed in monitor width toolbars, like the desktop. While this is easy enough for Mac and Windows application, mobile apps do not have the luxury of such screen space and also have to be geared up for use in two different orientations. Kingsoft Office uses a familiar toolbar system that would not look out of home in Microsoft Office, but makes them scrollable.

This technique means that it does not matter whether you are working in portrait or landscape mode, it is still possible -- easy, even -- for access a large number of toolbar buttons. The size of the buttons means that they are easy to identify and press, but it does also have the side effect that, particularly in portrait mode, a limited number are displayed out without having to scroll, and it is possible to 'forget' that the remaining buttons exist.

Mobile phone users are unlikely to turn to Kingsoft Office as their primary office tool -- there is no getting away from the fact that a desktop suite will always be easily to use and boast more powerful features -- but tablet owners have a particularly great tool on their hands. The screen space available on tablets means that spreadsheets are very easy to work with and more of a text document can be seen at any one time.

The ability to view and play presentations means that the suite could be used as a valuable tool for business meetings, but it is also the sort of app that home users will find countless uses for. Free software is often dismissed as being inferior to commercial apps, but here is an example of a free app that is at least as good as the paid-for competition.
I've redone the Windows 8 architecture slide (so you won't have to)

Publié: janvier 25, 2012, 6:23pm CET par Chris Boss
Microsoft's Windows 8 architecture slide

Mary-Jo Foley's article about a slide shown at last year's Microsoft BUILD conference raises uncertainties that bug me as a developer. It's the graphic that attempts to lay out the architecture of Windows 8, particularly in relation to Metro versus the Desktop. As a long-time Windows API programmer, I regard this graphic as the most important yet about Windows 8. Something doesn't seem right!

Somehow all the different interpretations of this chart don't make sense to me. Something's not right, especially the position the Win32 API is given. So I decided to do some digging to see if I could uncover what is really going on under the hood.

So Where are the Metro Applications Anyway?

My first problem was finding where the Metro applications were located so I could inspect them and their layout, as well as dependencies. It turns out they are in the folder \Program Files\Applications but one won't notice this because the folder is both hidden and requires administration rights to access. Once I found the folder, the rest was easy. Each Metro app has its own folder. A Metro app folder appears to always contain four files at minimum:
- AppxBlockMap.xml
- AppxManifest.xml
- AppxSignature.p7x
- resources.pri
AppxManifest tells Windows what the startup file is, which is either an HTML file or an EXE.

Let's Check Some Metro EXEs for Dependencies.

Most of the Metro apps were HTML, but a few were EXE files. I decided to use the Depends utility that comes with early versions of the Windows SDK to check these EXEs for their operating system dependencies. There are two types of EXEs. One appears to be .NET style applications that use the CLR. The other appears to be C++ applications that use the WinRT. The .NET apps only showed one primary dependency, mscoree.dll, which is the CLR runtime execution library; mscoree.dll will then have its own dependencies in the operating system. The C++ style apps have a number of dependencies. The copper application has the following dependencies:
- mfplat.dll
- mfreadwrite.dll
- D3D11.dll
- D2D1.dll
- DWrite.dll
- ole32.dll
- msvcp110.dll
- msvcr110.dll
- vccorlib110.dll
- kernal32.dll
Some of these are C++ runtimes, some DirectX DLLs and others are Win32 API dlls.

Added to this are two dependencies, for which I could not find the files anywhere on the hard drive. I hoped to find them since it would give me a glimpse into the WinRT. They must exist somewhere, but Windows does not make this easy to find. They are named:
- api-ms-win-core.winrt-string-L1-1-0.dll
- api-ms-win-core.winrt-L1-1-0.dll
They are obviously WinRT files. Also the naming of the files are similiar to how much of the kernel services are named. There are plenty of OS dlls that start with something like "api-ms-win" or "api-ms-win-core" and so on. A good bit of what used to be the Win32 API has been moved to these kernel files (not the same as kernel32.dll) since Windows Vista. The Depends utility had a very hard time loading an EXE and scanning for dependencies since the Windows kernel is made up of many, many files now.

Chris Boss's revised Windows 8 architecture slide

The Windows 8 chart needs to be redone!

From this inspection of Metro applications and their dependencies, the Windows 8 chart seems even more wrong to me. Maybe I am missing something. Maybe I am making some wrong assumptions. I am not saying my interpretation of this chart is any better (or worse) than others. But I figured I would take a try at it and see if I could rearrange it to something that makes more sense to me and which fits the model I have built in my mind from this little excursion into Metro apps and their dependencies.

So I present my version of the chart. Rather than be critical of it, why not post some comments of how it could be improved to be more accurate. My chart is only a guess (only Microsoft knows for sure), but it is a calculated guess based on what I currently know of Windows 8.

Chris Boss is an advanced Windows API programmer and developer of 10 year-old EZGUI, which is now version 5. He owns The Computer Workshop, which opened for businesses in the late 1980s. He originally developed custom software for local businesses. Now he develops programming tools for use with the PowerBasic compiler.
Intuit launches new GoPayment mobile credit card swiper

Publié: janvier 25, 2012, 6:03pm CET par Tim Conneally

Financial software and services company Intuit launched its redesigned GoPayment Card Reader on Wednesday, after debuting the new design earlier in January. The free device plugs into a smartphone's or tablet's audio jack and lets users scan credit cards for payment.

Mobile payment systems are a hot business where lots of different standards are competing, with no clear "winner" in the space.

Square, founded by Twitter inventor Jack Dorsey, took the world by storm with its smartphone-based debit/credit card swiping peripheral in 2010, and spawned a host of imitators in the meantime: ROAMpay, ProPay Jak, Verifone PAYware mobile, Payfirma, and many others each offer a mobile card swiping apparatus.

Intuit's GoPayment is probably Square's highest-profile competitor.

As such, Intuit redesigned the free GoPayment reader to make it a little more robust than Square's. By angling and lengthening the swipe channel in the reader, Intuit says it can read cards more accurately the first time. It also features a silicone sleeve to keep the reader from spinning in the audio jack when swiping a card (which the company says is a problem for "similar products.")

The other advantage of this product over Square, of course, is that GoPayment transactions can be piped directly into Intuit's QuickBooks software. Like Square, standard transactions with GoPayment incur a 2.7 percent fee, so the company is hoping to attract users with a reliable method of scanning and easy integration with its popular desktop financial software.

Intuit's GoPayment reader can be obtained freely at gopayment.com.
Evernote updates Android and Windows clients

Publié: janvier 25, 2012, 2:45pm CET par Nick Peers
Online note capturing and storage service Evernote has updated its Windows client, Evernote for Windows, to version 4.5.3. Despite the minor revision number, Evernote for Windows 4.5.3 packs in a number of new features aimed at those who store PDF files within Evernote.

Also updated is Evernote for Android to version 3.5, offering two major new features -- auto-title suggestions and save anytime functions – plus improved layout of images when viewing notes.

When searching for text across your notes, Evernote for Window swill now also search inside your PDF files for searchable text, highlighting matches in yellow. You can also search inside individual notes containing PDFs by pressing [Ctrl] + [F].

Not only is text now searchable within PDF documents, it can also be manually selected and then copied to the clipboard for pasting elsewhere, either within Evernote itself or another application. This functionality relies on the PDF containing searchable text, but Evernote Premium customers will find that even scanned documents will become searchable, since the service includes OCR scanning of all uploaded PDF documents.

The new PDF toolbar also includes functionality for dragging embedded PDF files out of Evernote into other applications, on to the desktop or into a specified folder -- just click and drag the middle portion of the PDF toolbar (the part which indicates what page you’re currently viewing) where you want it to go.

Android Update

Also updated today is Evernote’s app for Android users. Evernote for Android 3.5 offers three major new features:
- Auto-titles, which are generated by the app automatically when a note’s title is left blank
- Improved layout of images in notes
- "Save anytime" feature that allows the user to effectively store drafts of their notes in the device’s memory prior to syncing them.
The new version also promises a raft of bug fixes and reliability improvements, and claims faster note saving times as a result.

Evernote for Windows 4.5.3 is available now as a free download for PCs running Windows 2000 or later. Also available – but less advanced – are free clients for Mac OS X as well as iPhone/iPad and Android.
Get more from screen captures with WinSnap 4.0.1

Publié: janvier 25, 2012, 1:32pm CET par Mark Wilson

Capturing what’s on your desktop can be as simple as hitting the Print Screen key and pasting the contents of the clipboard into an image editing app. But you’ll notice that it is not possible to capture everything; the cursor cannot be included in grabs and many dialogs disappear when Print Screen is pressed. WinSnap is a powerful screen capture tool that includes a number of handy options, with the latest version bringing support for the capturing of native Aero shadows.

WinSnap is now able to capture the shadow that is added to windows and object by Windows, but in cases where this is not possible, post-capture shadowing can be added for you. Screen capturing has many purposes, but it is often used to highlight information. To make this easier, WinSnap includes a number of annotation tools that can be used to draw shapes and arrow on your grabs as well as adding text. To the same end, there are also a number of effects to choose from. If you want to highlight a particular area of a screen capture, you can opt to grey out the rest of the image, or blur it slightly.

A number of different keyboard shortcuts can be created to allow for a variety of capture modes -- full screen, active window, sizeable region, and various others. You can choose whether or not to include the cursor in your captures -- while useful, this may not be an option you always want to use -- and the ability to place a delay on captures means that it is possible to grab objects that would normally disappear when a hotkey was pressed.

To allow for more impressive presentation, there is an intelligent cropping mode available. This is particularly useful when cropping screen captures that include Aero shadows as it means that shadows can be re-added at the edge of a crop to give a more professional finish. If you are using your captures in other programs, WinSnap preserves any areas that are transparent to eliminate the need to capture multiple versions of the same shot so you can piece something together. Add to this the ability to add watermarks, custom cursors that can be moved around as separate objects, and a decent price point, and you have yourself a very accomplished screen capture tool.

You can find out more and download a free trial of the app by paying a visit to the WinSnap review page.
iPhone generates more revenue than all Microsoft

Publié: janvier 25, 2012, 5:05am CET par Joe Wilcox

In case you missed it, and I certainly would have if not for someone asking a question, Apple's fiscal 2012 first quarter earnings report has a jaw dropper. iPhone generated $24.42 billion revenue. During the same quarter, all of Microsoft: $20.89 billion. More broadly, Apple revenue ($46.33 billion) was more than twice Microsoft's, and net income nearly was ($13.06 billion versus $6.62 billion, respectively). But it's that iPhone figure that really stands out. One product's revenues against an entire company's. Microsoft's margins are better, but who wouldn't want more money in the bank?

Nearly five years ago, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer dismissed iPhone, in a USA Today interview: "There's no chance that the iPhone is going to get any significant market share. No chance. It's a $500 subsidized item. They may make a lot of money. But if you actually take a look at the 1.3 billion phones that get sold, I'd prefer to have our software in 60 percent or 70 percent or 80 percent of them, than I would to have 2 percent or 3 percent, which is what Apple might get". How's that for the mother of wrong predictions?

Thing is, now Microsoft's software is down there in the low single-digit market share doldrums, while iPhone share rises. At end of fourth quarter, for example, Windows Phone share among US subscribers was 1.4 percent, according to Nielsen. iOS: 37 percent, up 7 points in two months. That's all while making "a lot of money". Ballmer's licensing strategy failed, with Android and iOS stealing share from Windows Mobile and Phone 7. Okay, so maybe Microsoft collects $30 a license -- hey, let's be generous and call it fifty -- compared to Apple's $600 bucks per phone -- and many more units. Which amount would your business rather take in?

But it's not just iPhone. Apple did something remarkable during fourth quarter -- Mac sales grew during three months when PC shipments were their worst in a decade, according to IDC. Apple sold 5.2 million Macs, generating $6.6 billion -- or more revenue than any single Microsoft division. Closest: Office at $6.28 billion.

In the United States, fourth-quarter PC shipments fell for every vendor in the top five but Apple, according to Gartner. HP shipments plummeted by more than 26 percent -- meanwhile Apple's grew by 20.7 percent. IDC put HP's decline at 25.3 percent and Apple's gain at 18 percent. The Mac maker solidified its No. 3 ranking, with market share rising to 11.6 percent from 9 percent year over year according to Gartner and to 10.92 percent from 8.63 percent by IDC's reckoning.

Revenues for Microsoft's Windows division fell by 6 percent to $4.74 billion, while income plummeted 11 percent to $2.85 billion. For comparison, Apple portables generated $4.66 billion revenue, up 26 percent year over year, or nearly as much. Microsoft blamed slow PC sales on the hard drive shortage caused by flooding in Thailand. During today's earnings conference call, Apple CEO Tim Cook said the hard drive shortage had no "material impact" on Mac sales and he doesn't expect any for fiscal second quarter. However, Apple does expect to pay more for drives.

These numbers were unheard of even just a few years ago. During fiscal quarter 2010 -- yeah, just two years ago -- Apple reported $15.68 billion revenue and net profits of $3.38 billion. Two years later, Apple nearly tripled revenue and almost quadrupled earnings. During the same quarter two years ago, Microsoft generated more revenue and net income than Apple -- $19.95 billion and $6.64 billion, respectively. My how fortunes change.