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BetaNews.Com (7 non lus)

Sony serves some Ice Cream Sandwich to Tablet S

Publié: avril 26, 2012, 11:31pm CEST par Joe Wilcox

If you own Sony's Android tablet, the wait is over. Android 4.0 is available, starting today. The company says that users will be prompted to update the next time they connect to WiFi.

Sony's tablet packs one of the most customized versions of Android, from look and feel down to a plethora of apps, the majority focused on entertainment. Users can expect plenty of spit-and-polish tweaks and enhancements throughout its ICS iteration.

"There are a lot of cool new things you can do now with the firmware upgrade -- hellooo, single-motion panorama photo mode and direct access to your SD card", [Maya Wasserman explains] on the Sony blog. Other enhancements include the ability to unlock direct to camera, "small apps for multitasking", and easy switching browser from mobile to desktop mode.

Sony launched Tablet S in August, initially $499 for the 16GB model or $599 for its 32GB companion. The electronics giant temporarily discounted during the holidays, then made them permanent in January with $100 cuts. As Mother's Day approaches, another discount comes: $50 instant rebate plus free docking cradle.

Sony S comes with 9.4-inch display with 1200 x 800 resolution, Nvidia Tegra 2 processor, 5-megapixel rear-facing camera, 1GB RAM and as, previously mentioned, 16GB or 32GB storage, which is expandable with SD card.
Amazon fixed one of the most broken things about Kindle Fire, now it needs to fix the rest

Publié: avril 26, 2012, 9:15pm CEST par Tim Conneally

For a platform that was built to handle text documents, Amazon Kindle's support for non Kindle-formatted files has been nothing short of atrocious.

Wirelessly sending documents to a Kindle required that they be emailed to a Kindle email address where they'd be converted and sent to the user's Kindle library; or they could be uploaded directly to Kindle e-readers or tablets via USB, but with spotty usability.

In the case of PDF files, this often meant lost pagination, no text search, and no interactivity (read: highlighting.) It was a generally unpleasant experience to get outside content into the Kindle library, and then consuming it was another unpleasant experience.

Yesterday, Amazon took a major stride in remedying this messy situation, and released the "Send to Kindle" application for Windows/Mac. This desktop application dramatically streamlines the process of uploading new content onto Kindle devices.

On Windows machines, you can simply right-click on a document (word, text, rtf, image, pdf, and others) and click "Send to Kindle," on Mac machines, you can drag the file you want to send to the "Send to Kindle" icon in the dock. On all systems, a menu then pops up to let you select which registered Kindle device to send the document to, including mobile applications for phones and tablets. They can be sent to any combination of your devices, all of them, none of them, whatever.

I am an Android user. Not a die-hard, not a fanatic who walks around in a little green bugdroid beanie, but someone who uses Android because it is customizable and versatile.

I am also one of those people who does not believe there is a "winner" among Android tablets; a device that can be everything to everybody like the iPad manages to be.

That being said, the Kindle Fire is now the closest Android Tablet of any to reaching that ideal. Amazon just needs to fix a few things.

Kindle Fire's branch of Android is based entirely around Amazon's retail ecosystem and giving customers various ways to interact with their purchased content, or to purchase more content. It's good, but it fails in two respects.

Compatibility

The Kindle Fire allows applications available from third-party sources to be installed, but with the new Send to Kindle application, we see how hostile Amazon remains toward content from outside of its ecosystem.

Users can send the following formats to their Kindle: .DOCX, .DOC, .TXT, .RTF,
.JPEG, .JPG, .GIF (not animated), .PNG, .BMP, and .PDF. For books, I've found that the application actually does support the transfer of .mobi e-books, but it does not accept the extremely common .epub (archived HTML/XHTML), or protected .pdf e-book formats. Audio and Movie files are bounced right out of the application.

For as easy as Amazon has made file transfer, it still has not made compatibility any broader.

Interface

The Kindle Fire UI, generally speaking, is horrid.

I'm talking about the "carousel" view of recent processes which dominates the home screen. It is constantly changing based upon whatever apps or content you most recently interacted with, and when your device is full of various documents without a cover image, your homescreen becomes a big Rolodex of white cards.

Whenever you add a new book or application, it slides into the first position in the carousel and is the first thing you then see on the homescreen, irrespective of where you actually want it to go.

The constant aspect of the homescreen UI is the top navigation bar, which contains buttons for Newsstand (Kindle periodicals), Books (Kindle e-books), Music (Amazon mp3), Video (Video on Demand/Prime), Docs, Apps, and Web (Silk Web browser).

Until yesterday, when Amazon released Send to Kindle, the "Docs" tab on my Kindle Fire had never been used because the method for populating it was so unwieldy. I have had several directories of e-books and magazines that I had gotten through various non-Amazon channels that didn't make it to my Kindle Fire for this very reason.

Now that the document sharing aspect has been simplified, the docs directory is full, but only of the things that Amazon supports.

If document compatibility is improved, and the UI is fixed, there is no reason why the Kindle Fire couldn't be the banner iPad competitor.
There is no Apple without Steve Jobs

Publié: avril 26, 2012, 7:50pm CEST par Joe Wilcox

That's essentially George Colony's contention. "Apple will decline in the post-Steve Jobs era", the Forrester Research analyst opines. The sentiment is stunning in context of Apple's first two quarterly results following Tim Cook's ascension to chief executive. The company generated more revenue ($85.83 billion) than all fiscal 2010 ($65.23 billion). Net income ($24.12 billion) exceeds that of fiscal 2009 and 2010 combined ($22.25 billion). That's hella good performance.

Yesterday, I argued that "Apple is better off without Steve Jobs", in part based on recent performance that derives from Cook's running logistics for the better part of three years. But I also believe that no one knows the future, and that good reporting is about looking from different viewpoints. So today I offer counterpoint to yesterday's prognostication. Yeah, I'll rebut myself, something I frequently do. You just don't see the process, and Colony's argument is good foundation.

Disruptive Risks

The question to start with: What is Apple? For many long-time Mac fans, Jobs is Apple. The two can't be separated. But for the hundreds of millions of people buying iPads, iPhones and iPods over the last decade, Apple is something else. According to a new report released today by NPD, one in three Americans owns an Apple product. The majority of newbies own iPhone or iPad, but increasingly the tablet.

Referring to iPad, NPD analyst Ben Arnold says that "one-in-five Apple owner households has one -- nearly equivalent to the number that own an Apple computer". These aren't Steve Jobs' people -- the so-called Mac faithful that worshipped him and his sense of style. Most of them probably didn't know who Jobs was until his tragic, well-publicized death.

But Jobs' influence over these Apple product owners is undeniable. His leadership led these products to market and define a style that Cook so far fails to exhibit: Disruptive risk-taking. Last year I wrote about decade-past Apple launches that are foundational. Three were huge risks, and Apple took them at a difficult time -- during a recession: OS X, Apple Store and iPod, in order of 2001 release. But the big pay-off risks came later: iPhone and iPad, particularly, and culminated others.

Apple launched iPhone on one carrier in 2007, moving into a market where it had no expertise, no experience. Then came iPad, which moved into a market where many other computer and consumer electronics giants had failed. Yet these risks paid big rewards. During fiscal 2012 second quarter, for example, iOS devices generated 76 percent of Apple revenue. iPad and iPhone generated $29.3 billion revenue, or 74.8 percent of revenue. These disruptive risks define Jobs' return as Apple CEO.

But who will take such risks now? Who will lead disruptive changes like these? Ponder those questions while reading the next section.

David Thinking

In December 2009, I posted here at BetaNews something taken from my personal blog months earlier: "Why Apple succeeds, and always will". I wrote:

Apple doesn't play by the rules. It reinvents them. Apple applies what I call 'David Thinking' to its broader business, product development and marketing. Apple is David to Microsoft Goliath -- and other ones, too. Goliath plays by one set of rules. David choses to change the rules, which favor his strengths rather than those of Goliath.

David thinking derives from research political scientist Ivan Arreguín-Toft conducted. In 2005 book, How the Weak Win Wars: A Theory of Asymmetric Tactics, he explains how seemingly weaker opponents can prevail against stronger ones by changing the rules of engagement. He produces excellent historical data showing that, in wars, when smaller rivals use such tactic they are more likely to win, even against mightier opponents. The Biblical example of David vs. Goliath is good analogy. Rather than fight like Goliath -- and almost certainly lose by dawning armor and sword -- David relied on his own strengths. A slingshot and stone kept him out of Goliath's reach but still on the offensive. I call this approach David Thinking.

But Apple has gone through dramatic transformation since I wrote that analysis. Apple is no longer David but Goliath. Apple's size and success makes it the status quo and encourages management decisions that seek to preserve what is rather than take forward-reaching risks. The higher Apple's stock price rises or the more customers it acquires, the less attractive risk-taking looks to management. Today's Apple, under Cook's leadership, is in jeopardy of losing the risk-taking, David Thinking that defined Steve Jobs' leadership. It's answer to the question I started with: What is Apple? A disruptive, risk-taking, rule-changing innovator.

Charisma vs. Competence

Apple is not a cult of Mac enthusiasts; they're a minority now. As stated earlier, most people buying the products today have never been influenced by the so-called "reality distortion field" -- the spell of Steve Jobs. Apple's cofounder spent little time on the keynote stage starting in 2008, because of his health.

Colony sees Apple for what it was, not what it is -- a business led by a charismatic leader:

In charismatic organizations, the magical leader must be succeeded by another charismatic -- the emotional connection of employees and (in the case of Apple) customers demands it. Apple has chosen a proven and competent executive to succeed Jobs. But his legal/bureaucratic approach will prove to be a mismatch for an organization that feeds off the gift of grace.

That's not Apple 2012, nor was it before Cook's ascension to CEO about eight months ago. There's a well-known management maxim that charismatic leaders often can't grow companies far enough because they micromanage too much. Many of the most successful startups required the charismatic leader to step back and put someone else in charge. Given Jobs' health situation and Cook largely running day-to-day operations, at least from January 2009, this leadership change effectively occurred at Apple years ago. Jobs continued to provide vision -- and good taste -- while Cook expanded the core business. As I asserted yesterday, Jobs' ego held back Apple. His declining health let Cook make competent decisions about manufacturing and distribution logistics that generated huge sales. Apple can design pretty products, but it means nothing if there is no place for people to buy them.

Meanwhile, the faithful decreased in numbers, particularly outside the company. That Apple shares soared, rather than collapsing, after Jobs stepped down as chief executive and then tragically died, says much about the myth and the man -- that the charismatic leader and company are one. They aren't.

Colony and I agree about something that is important to Apple's future: "When Steve Jobs departed, he took three things with him: 1) singular charismatic leadership that bound the company together and elicited extraordinary performance from its people; 2) the ability to take big risks, and 3) an unparalleled ability to envision and design products". I absolutely agree on the second, but question the other two -- how much is myth versus the man. Colony says that "Apple's momentum will carry it for 24-48 months", and without a charismatic replacement will decline like the company did after Jobs left in 1985 or following the departure of Polaroid and Walt Disney founders.

No Risks, No Gain

Apple doesn't need charismatic leadership. The company requires someone with vision to think like David, to constantly change the rules of the game and in process take risks in innovation. That was Apple under Steve Jobs.

What's risky about iPhone 4S or new iPad? Sure, Apple developed these products while Jobs was CEO, but he also was ailing and Cook ran day-to-day operations. Cook has yet to demonstrate David Thinking, not that he's had much time. Still, there's time enough.

My favorite example of Jobs' disruptive approach is iPod nano, and I watched to see if there might be something similar with third-generation iPad. Apple introduced the diminutive music player in September 2005 to replace the iPod mini, which was the standard copied by competitors. Just as their larger devices arrived for the holidays, Apple transformed the category with the tiny nano.

Something else: Apple killed off iPod mini at the height of popularity. No one does that! But Apple did. iPod sales dramatically rose with launch of the mini in early 2004 and simply skyrocketed after the nano. iPad's high-resolution display adopts similar philosophy but is nothing near as radical. In more ways, it preserves the status quo rather than defies it. Cook must do better.

For Apple to remain Apple, disruption and risk should be defining characteristics. If not, then there is no Apple without Steve Jobs. The company has become something else.
Walmart lets online shoppers pay with cash

Publié: avril 26, 2012, 6:05pm CEST par Ed Oswald

Cash as a form of payment is rare these days as plastic takes over, and online it is all but nonexistent. Not anymore, though -- Walmart now allows online customers to pay for their orders with the good ol' Greenback.

Here's how it works: customers place their orders on the website, and select "Cash" as the payment option. They then have 48 hours to take a printed-out copy of the order form and pay at any local Walmart store. Walmart's demographics seem to support such an offering, so it is obvious why the retailer would offer cash as a form of payment.

The Bentonville, Ark. retail giant notes that only 15 percent of its in-store transactions are paid in true credit, while the rest are paid in cash or cash equivalent. A larger portion of its customer base lives paycheck to paycheck and may not have the means or desire to access a bank account or credit card. In a recent study, Walmart found that nearly two-thirds of "underbanked" customers would use such a feature if it was available.

"[Pay with cash] makes it easier for our customers to shop the way they want, where they have access to a broader product selection at Walmart.com coupled with the convenience of payment and shipping as they want", Walmart.com president and CEO Joel Anderson says. Anderson believes this is a huge opportunity for the company.

Low-income customers are likely not the only ones to use such a system either: some consumers prefer to not share payment information over the Internet. A pay with cash system is likely very attractive to these consumers as well.

Photo Credit: Redstarstudio/Shutterstock
Delete something accidentally? Try Wise Data Recovery

Publié: avril 26, 2012, 3:59pm CEST par Mark Wilson

How many times have you done it? After deciding to spring clean your computer you empty the Recycle Bin only to realize that it contained some files that you meant to copy out. Or you may be browsing through files over the network and delete some files on another machine, bypassing the Recycle Bin altogether. We have all found ourselves needing to restore files that have been deleted in haste, and this is something that Wise Data Recovery can help with.

The name of the program is about as descriptive as you could hope for, and this is an example of an app that does precisely what you would expect it to. There are no fancy extra features to be found here, but what this free recovery tool does, it does well and makes everything as simple as possible. Scans of hard drives are performed surprisingly quickly and you can tell at a glance what chance you have of restoring the data thought you might have lost.

Wise Data Recovery enables you to browse through recoverable files in their original folder structure, although you may find that folder names have been obliterated, and uses a traffic light system to let you know the status of any file. Files marked with a green icon are in good condition and should be recoverable without problems while those with a yellow icon are in a poor condition. This may mean that you are able to recover some data from them, but anything that has been assigned a red icon is unrecoverable.

There is also a search option on hand to help you to track down files that include certain words and you can either work through files restoring them on an individual basis, or you can selected large number to recover at the same time. For a free tool this seems like an impressive program and in tests it was able to successfully recover files that had been deleted some time ago. If you have lost data, this is well worth taking a look at.

You can find out more and download a free copy of the program by paying a visit to the Wise Data Recovery review page.

Photo Credit: Dirk Ercken/Shutterstock
Get ready for exciting changes coming to Firefox 13, 14 and 15

Publié: avril 26, 2012, 2:30pm CEST par Nick Peers

Following on from the release of Firefox 12 FINAL, Mozilla has updated its developmental branches to versions 13 (Beta), 14 (Aurora) and 15 (Nightly/UX), respectively. Those looking for major changes in version 12 will may be disappointed, but future builds promise a number of radical new features, including redesigned Home and New Tab pages, plus panel downloads manager and inline preferences screen.

Get a head’s up on what’s coming and discover which build is best for your personal needs with our essential guide to what’s coming up in the near future for Mozilla’s open-source, cross-platform browser.

Firefox 12.0 FINAL
This is the recommended release for most users, being the latest, stable build available. That said, version 12 will not go down in the annals of Mozilla folklore as a notable release, with a minor refresh of the HTML5 controls and the move to silent updates on Windows machines being the only two changes of note. Ordinarily we’d caution against moving rapidly on to the next version, but read on to discover why you may not be able to resist taking the plunge and moving to the beta channel.

Firefox 13.0b1 Beta

Last August, Mozilla unveiled a presentation of how it sees the Firefox user interface changing in the months ahead. A few minor tweaks have already landed in Firefox, but version 13 sees two noticeable new features making their first appearance: a new Home page, and a New Tab page.

Firefox’s new Home page (type about:home into the Address bar) provides users with a customized page that includes shortcuts to bookmarks, downloads, add-ons, history, sync, settings and an option for restoring the previous session. This latter feature is another new addition to Firefox’s feature set, and restores all open tabs from a previous browsing session.

The home page, which can be pinned permanently as an app tab for easy access, is fully functional already, but will evolve further in time; Mozilla plans to use it as a portal to the upcoming Apps Market, for example.

Firefox 13 also introduces a redesigned New Tab page that will be familiar to Chrome and Opera users: thumbnail previews of frequently visited sites. On first visit these will appear blank, but as time goes on and you visit said sites, they should start to populate themselves with thumbnail images of the site itself.

Sites can be permanently removed (click X), pinned to the list and even dragged and dropped into a new order, and those who hate the new feature will find a small button in the top right-hand corner that toggles between this new view and the traditional blank tab page.

There’s one other major change in version 13: smooth scrolling is now enabled by default, despite the acknowledgement of one bug that may cause issues on certain web pages. Meanwhile, Android users will be pleased to learn that support for Flash is finally being enabled in version 13 of the mobile app, but only if you’re running Android 2.x or 4.x.

Firefox 14.0a2 Aurora

Aurora is an “alpha” build of Firefox, which means it’s undergone minimum testing only. As such it’s not suitable for everyday use, which is why Firefox Aurora is installed as a separate build alongside the stable or beta build, allowing you to test its features without affecting your day-to-day browsing. Settings are shared between Firefox Aurora and your other builds, however, so again caution should be exercised before installing it.

After all the excitement of Firefox 13 Beta, you’d think the Mozilla developers would rein things in for v14, but none of it. The most exciting features planned are currently listed as in definition, design or development, which means there’s no guarantee they’ll appear in Firefox 14. These include a version of Firefox that runs in Windows 8’s new Metro interface, support for desktop apps (which can be installed and used independently of Firefox, even when offline), and the panel-based download manager that’s been a staple of the UX build for a long time.

One other tweak in development is an extension to the silent updates feature introduced in Firefox 12, and that’s the ability of Firefox to update itself in the background, so the user will never have to worry about manually updating again. This is slated for version 14, but may yet slip to version 15 due to a current slew of issues undergoing fixes.

The inline autocomplete function remains stubbornly part of Aurora, where it has been since version 12's release. This is designed to anticipate what URL is being typed into the Address Bar, pre-loading the web page in the background before the URL has been entered.

Other “landed” features are minor, and behind-the-scenes tweaks. These include incremental garbage collection, hang detector and reporter, and cycle collector performance improvements, some of which were slated for Firefox 13 Beta and may yet be implemented in this version.

As things stand, there’s nothing visible to get excited about in Firefox Aurora, which makes us think it’s probably best to wait until it gets to Beta before seeing if any of the more exciting new features mentioned above are ready for their move to primetime.

Firefox 15.0a1 Nightly/Firefox 15.0a1 UX

Firefox’s two Nightly channels give users access to code hot off the press, but while you’re looking at the latest bleeding-edge version of Firefox, you’re also venturing into uncharted waters because much of this new code has had no testing at all. Nightly builds update regularly, so once installed you’ll find your build updating on a much more frequent basis than other unstable releases.

After the excitement of features being developed in versions 13 and 14, Firefox 15 looks like being a more minor release at this early stage in its development. At the present time only three new improvements are in the pipeline: two performance-related (faster start-up times for Windows users, and tweaks to session restore so it doesn’t slow down the browser restart process) and one that’s being developed by students at Michigan State University.

This latter feature, “in-content preferences”, will see Firefox’s Options dialogue box removed and the program’s preferences moved into a browser window, similar to how Chrome’s preferences currently work. This is currently accessible in Firefox 15.0a1 UX, the parallel nightly build of Firefox where interface improvements such as the panel-based downloads manager and New Tab pages first made their appearance.

When selecting Options, you’ll see the old pop-up window is replaced by a new tab with a series of buttons to choose from. Click one to access that section’s settings -- at present this feels a little clunky, but we suspect it’ll evolve into something sleeker in time.

Windows and Linux 64-bit users may be interested in trying Firefox 15.0a1 Nightly 64-bit and Firefox 15.0a1 UX 64-bit. We’d recommend all but developers and serious, knowledgeable enthusiasts avoid the Nightly builds of Firefox.

So, to Summarize...

Which version of Firefox should you try? Stick to the most stable version you feel comfortable with, although the temptation to sneek a peek ahead is actually quite compelling with these latest developmental builds.

That said, it’s hard not to recommend people check out Firefox 13 Beta -- the new features will make a difference to the way you use your browser going forward, and it’s a shame one or other couldn’t have been made ready to provide version 12 with a little more pizzazz.

If you do plan to take a look into the future of Firefox, back up if you plan before installing Beta or Aurorabuilds of Firefox. And If you do decide to give the Nightly or UX builds a try, consider using a non-critical machine or virtual setup (try VirtualBox) instead of your main computer, just in case…
VMware source code leak: 'IT equivalent of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill'

Publié: avril 26, 2012, 12:21am CEST par Ed Oswald

VMware has confirmed that a portion the the source code for its ESX hypervisor was compromised, although the code dates back as early as 2003. That said, a fairly significant portion of the company's customers are still using the platform as VMware works to push them towards its newer hypervisor called ESXi.

A hypervisor in the simplest terms is a virtual machine management platform on which several virtual machines can run concurrently. The hypervisor controls the sharing of virtualized hardware resources. ESXi has a far smaller attack surface, which limits the available avenues of attack on a installation.

The code was posted to Pastebin by a LulzSec-related hacker who goes by the handle "Hardcore Charlie" on April 8. The breach was part of a larger effort by the hacker which compromised the servers of the Beijing-based China National Import & Export Corp (CEIEC). The hacker says he was looking for information on the US military's efforts in Afghanistan.

Adding insult to injury, VMware says it is aware that additional code disclosures may occur, but attempted to downplay any damage. "VMware proactively shares its source code and interfaces with other industry participants to enable the broad virtualization ecosystem today", the company's Security Response Center director Iain Mulholland says.

Given the sometimes glacial pace the enterprise moves when it comes to updating software, this week's confirmation of the breach should provide some impetus to those still using the ESX hypervisor. While this particular code may check out and be free from holes, there's no assurance future code disclosures will be equally bug-free.

Mulhollland says the company is conducting both an internal and external investigation of the breach, and will share further details as they become available.

Paul Roberts, blogger with Kaspersky Lab's ThreatPost, calls the breach the "IT equivalent of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill disaster", pointing to the fact that VMware itself cannot rule out that its own source code repository may have been hacked.

Roberts is not referring only to the VMware code, but a chunk of other sensitive data that has "bubbled up" from the CEIEC breach, including sensitive information on US military operations in Afghanistan, and a host of internal communications from Chinese companies through an associated breach of Chinese e-mail hosting company Sina.com.

Photo Credit: US Coast Guard