Gregarius » BetaNews.Com » avril 30, 2012

Image Insight on Monday announced the first free trial release of GammaPix for Android smartphones, an application that loosely measures gamma radiation with the phone's camera.

The GammaPix gimmick is that it can detect radiation in different everyday situations, such as cosmic radiation while flying in an airplane, or gamma radiation in medical waste. You simply pull up the app, and begin taking a reading. Under normal circumstances, the camera can grab a complete reading in about five minutes.

The application uses technology that analyzes video and still imagery for the signature of gamma rays that have hit the image sensor. The measurements themselves indicate the rate of interactions of gamma ray radiation with the particular camera being used, so different phones will yield different results. Image Insight formed in 2010 with the explicit purpose of developing this app under a $679,000 contract with the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA).

The application is in no way a replacement for a Geiger Counter or Scintillation Counter, and is intended only for use in non-emergency settings where radiation could be present, furthermore the app only provides non-quantitative measurements for observing variations in gamma ray exposure.

Still, it's a neat concept.

Initially, the app will be available as a free trial download in Google Play on specific Android phones, then an iOS version will be released, and a version for first responders will follow.

Though the app is compatible with phones running Gingerbread and up, it may not work with your device. Setup takes in excess of 20 minutes, and I spent all morning trying to get it to work on the Galaxy Nexus, to no avail. We're going to keep trying with other Android devices today. Let us know how you fare.

Photo: Bob Orsillo/Shutterstock

The best-designed Android tablets you can buy today aren’t the sleekest or the sexiest. They’re not the most powerful. And they don’t boast the largest or brightest displays. What they do have, however, are sales. The tablets? The Kindle Fire from Amazon and Barnes & Nobles’ Nook Tablet.

On a runway awash with thin, pretty models, it’s easy to overlook this pair of plain Janes. But don’t. They are two of the top three largest-selling Android tablets on the market. And their formula should serve as a model for how to succeed in this market if you’re a supplier that’s lacking a throng of breathless fanatics aching to snap up anything you sell.

According to comScore data for the US market, more Kindle Fires were in use than all other Android tablets combined at the end of February, just its third month on the market. comScore says that 54.4 percent of all Android devices accessing the Internet were Kindle Fires.

In the same breath in which comScore lauds the Kindle Fire, though, it snubs the Nook Tablet. You see, comScore excluded Nook Tablet from the study, classifying it instead as an e-reader rather than a tablet.

Microsoft, however, knows a good thing when it sees it. The software giant today invested $300 million in Barnes & Nobles’  ebook spin-off, Newco.

Regardless of whether Microsoft or comScore understand, both Barnes & Noble and Amazon know they hold the keys to this market: that a successful tablet is built around what I call an “anchor” app. Yes, you can load other apps, just as you would with a general-purpose tablet. But when it’s optimized for a popular app, it’s more compelling than one that’s being marketed by its form factor.

Think about it this way: would you be more or less likely to consider purchasing a Swiss Army Pocket-able Lump?

The Kindle Fire and the Nook Tablet were two of the four best-selling tablets last year. And they weren’t even available until the fall. The other two -- the Samsung Galaxy Tab and the iPad -- were launched in 2010.

Savvy CE manufactures have taken a lesson from Amazon and Barnes & Noble. Watch for them to unleash tablets designed around other anchor apps beginning late this year. A few of the more attractive anchors:

1. Gaming. I would argue that Sony’s PlayStation Vita is a gaming-centric tablet. It’s got a browser, Facebook, Twitter and access to an online store where you can go get other apps. Just last week, in fact, Sony added Skype to its app store.

I’d be shocked, by the way,  if Microsoft wasn’t hard at work on an Xbox-inspired tablet to unveil after Windows 8 is on the market.

2. Video. I’m shocked that I still see people on planes who are watching movies on portable DVD players. Who is buying these dinosaurs? Regardless, there is obviously a ready-made opportunity for a well-designed video tablet to entice these consumers out of the disc age.

3. Personal Navigation. The window for this is limited, as the market for single-function GPS devices is already beginning to contract. Nevertheless, it is an established device market that a GPS-centric tablet could tap into and quickly exploit.

Needless to say, designing a tablet around a popular app isn’t the only ingredient for success. The Vita stands testament to that. As well, there will continue to be a market for sleek and shiny general-purpose tablets. But as Amazon and Barnes & Noble have shown, it’s much easier to coax consumers to pull out their wallets if your tablet does impeccably well what it is they want to do.

Remember: you can call it a knife and still tuck a toothpick and a fish scaler inside.

Mike Feibus is principal analyst at TechKnowledge Strategies, a Scottsdale, Ariz., market research firm focusing on client technologies. You can reach him at mike at techknowledge-group dot com.

CyberLink makes some great media software -- PowerDirector is probably the best consumer video editor available today -- but, unsurprisingly, for the most part it isn’t a cheap date. Equipping yourself with the company’s media player, media manager and video editor alone will cost you almost $170, for instance, and that’s before you’ve even thought about disc authoring, file format conversion and other desirable functions.

Fortunately CyberLink does offer a more cost-effective alternative in the shape of Media Suite 10. This bundles 11 CyberLink packages together, which makes them vastly cheaper: Media Suite 10 Ultra is $129.95 for the complete set, and if you opt for the Pro build instead (more on that later) then it can be yours for only $99.95.

Sounds good. But what, exactly, do you get for your money? We take a closer look.

Core Packages

Buy Media Suite 10 and you’ll get five major CyberLink apps. (We don’t have space to discuss them in detail here, but follow the links if you’d like more information.)

PowerDVD 12 BD Express caters to your media playback needs, DVD, Blu-Ray and even 3D movies and videos. There’s built-in support for browsing YouTube, Facebook or Flickr, and the program can now even stream content from DLNA servers.

PowerDirector 10 HE3D is an excellent video editor. Improvements this time include MKV and FLV import, faster rendering, support for 3D video imports and effects, and AVCHD/ BD disc creation.

And elsewhere, MediaShow 6 Deluxe delivers enhanced media management with new 3D support and improved face tagging; Power2Go 8 DE, the core disc burning tool, can now mount disc images as virtual drives; and PowerProducer 5.5 Ultra is a powerful tool for template-based Blu-ray and DVD authoring.

We would rate PowerBackup 2.6 Standard as next in importance; it’s a capable tool for backing up your system to DVDs or Blu-ray discs. And MediaEspresso 6.5 Deluxe is a useful application for converting media files into more mobile device-friendly formats, although the large amount of free competition means it doesn’t quite have the value it once did.

And the remaining applications are less important: some people might like them, others may use them rarely, if at all. So for instance, WaveEditor 2 Standard allows you to edit audio files and create mobile ring tones; PowerDVD Copy 1.5 Standard makes quality DVD movie backups, including automatically compressing dual-layer content to fit 8.5GB onto a 4.7GB DVD; LabelPrint 2.6 Standard is an easy-to-use tool for designing and printing disc labels, and InstantBurn 5 Standard is a packet writing app which allows you to drag and drop files to DVDs or Blu-ray discs just as though they were another hard drive.

Not all the bundled packages are particularly important, then. And media-wise, there’s a notable shortage of photo-editing power (MediaShow has some editing options but nothing exceptional). Still, that’s not necessarily a problem: there are at least five applications here with significant commercial value, and as long as you’ll use three or maybe four of these then Media Suite still looks like a good buy.

Integration

When you’ve this much functionality on offer, it can be hard to know which program you should launch to carry out a particular task. But fortunately CyberLink has provided PowerStarter, a simple front-end menu system that generally points you in the right direction.

Essentially the program breaks down your media life into six tabbed areas: Movie, Video, Photo, Music, Data & Backup and Utilities. Clicking any of these displays a set of related tasks, so choosing “Video” gives you “Play Video Files”, “Advanced Video Editing”, “Upload to Social Networks” and so on. And clicking any of these then launches the appropriate program: easy.

This integration has its limits. You’re still working with a set of 11 individual applications underneath, for instance, and these will individually ask you for registration: you can’t register everything in a single action.

And initially we were a little annoyed to see pop-up ads and “upgrade!” messages when we first launched some applications. This may seem like a budget deal to CyberLink, but if we’ve just spent $129.95 on a suite then we’d like to think the company can give the marketing a rest for a while.

We only saw a few of those messages, though, and they can probably all be disabled from PowerStarter’s settings (clear “Receive CyberLink product information”). So on balance this seems to work well enough, with the program quickly leading you to whatever features or functionality you need.

Which Version?

The key point to remember when you’re thinking about purchasing Media Suite 10 Ultra is that it doesn’t include the full stand-alone versions of every package: in a few cases these are cut down, and in ways you might not always expect.

The most significant example of this is PowerDirector, where you get the HE3D build. This has some of the high-end Ultra features, including 3D display support; the ability to convert 2D videos to 3D; 3D video effects, and full Blu-ray and AVCHD disc burning. But at the same time, you don’t get features like full HD preview; 3D particle effects, and TrueTheater video enhancement. There are less templates for things like slideshows, and some output options are missing (you can’t save projects in QuickTime format, for example).

And your Power2Go 8 DE build also has some omissions, in particular being unable to create system recovery or video discs. (You can use PowerProducer for your video authoring, of course, but the absence of system recovery options is a shame.)

You shouldn’t let this put you off entirely. Buy even the most basic stand-alone version of everything here and you’ll pay around $430, so even if there are a few missing features then Media Suite 10 Ultra’s $129.95 price tag still looks like an excellent deal (as long as you’ll make significant use of 3 or 4 of the programs, anyway).

And in theory you can save even more cash by opting for Media Suite 10 Pro. It has the same packages, but drops Blu-ray movie playback and most 3D support, amongst a few other issues, and can be yours for $99.95.

Whatever edition you’re looking at, though, it’s wise to be cautious. We think Media Suite 10 is a great way to introduce yourself to the CyberLink range, but it is possible that the various restrictions and omissions could prove annoying to some, so we would strongly recommend that you take the trial build for a spin before you buy.

Photo Credit:  Alex Kosev/Shutterstock

LG will enter the cloud on Tuesday, debuting a new service aimed at sharing content across multiple devices. LG Cloud consists of apps for the Android and PCs, as well as LG's own line of smart televisions.

LG Cloud is part of a broader effort by the company to focus on both services and hardware. The offering will become part of a new LG division called the Smart Business Center, which is tasked with developing content and other services for its smart devices.

It's a wise move: content and services have much lower overhead compared to hardware. Low-margin services can lift hardware sales.

"Most companies today only see the cloud as a storage device or in the case of YouTube or Flickr, only for one type of content", LG Home Entertainment president and CEO Havis Kwon says. He argues that consumers wish to get their content from a single location, and that was the genesis behind LG Cloud. "Our solution is about making life more convenient".

Unlike other cloud services, the transcoding to produce content for various devices occurs in real-time. This means videos on one device that are shared in the cloud are almost instantaneously available on any other device connected to the cloud. LG says that no other streaming cloud service currently offers such a feature.

Transcoding is a serious issue when it comes to cloud media streaming. Video on one screen may not look good (or be compatible) with another. This has traditionally been done after the fact though, and not automatically. LG hopes that such a feature will attract consumers to its offering. It will also be able to successfully transcode 3D content for viewing on 3D-compatible devices, LG says.

LG Cloud will be available as both free and premium services, with pricing and storage varying depending on the market. The company did not say whether it plans to make a version of its mobile app compatible with the iOS platform.

Photo Credit: Toria/Shutterstock

You think your PC is infected by something dangerous, but your regular antivirus package hasn’t raised any alerts. So what now?

This is a question we cover fairly often here. Only last week we reported on the latest version of Mandiant Redline, which will scan your system’s executables and highlight those most likely to be malware. Now, CERT (Computer Emergency Response Team) Austria has come up with another small contribution in DensityScout; it’s not for PC novices, but if you’re an expert computer user then you could find the program very helpful indeed.

What DensityScout essentially tries to do is identify files in a given folder path that have been packed. This is a technique commonly used by malware to obfuscate or encrypt its contents, making it more difficult for regular scanners to identify the threat (although it’s also used by many legitimate programs, so you need to be cautious how you interpret its results).

And the program uses a simple mathematical idea to figure this out. Standard unpacked executable files will have an uneven spread of bytes; that is, some byte patterns will occur more often than others due to structures in the file. But the packing process means you’ll have a much more even distribution of byte usage throughout the file, and so by calculating and reporting on a file’s density (which the author says is similar to entropy, though we’re still awaiting the precise details), you can more easily find possible malware.

So what does this mean? The author recommends launching the program with a line like this:

densityscout -s cpl,exe,dll,ocx,sys,scr -p 0.1 -o results.txt c:\Windows\System32

(Be sure to read his SANS blog post on DensityScout for the full details.)

Which essentially means scan all the executable files in the Windows System32 folder, saving the data to results.txt. Those results are then placed in order, with the lowest and most suspect values at the top. Which, on our test Windows 7 system, started like this:

(0.02417) | c:\Windows\System32\FlashPlayerInstaller.exe
(0.16460) | c:\Windows\System32\DivX.dll
(0.22350) | c:\Windows\System32\iglhsip32.dll
(0.28759) | c:\Windows\System32\AuthFWGP.dll

That’s not bad at all. The program has immediately highlighted a couple of non-system files within the \Windows\System32 folder (and there were other examples further down the list).

But it also illustrates the problem with DensityScout: legitimate files may be packed, too, so you need to interpret these results with care. And you certainly can’t scan an entire system and expect useful results (if nothing else it’ll take too long; the program must count every byte in the scanned file types so isn’t too speedy).

Still, we were impressed by DensityScout’s ability to highlight packed files in our Windows folders. And they’re a common target area for malware, so even if you never use the program for anything else, then its ability to check those locations could be very useful. Just be sure to very carefully research any files it throws up, because being packed does not necessarily mean a program has any malicious intent.

Photo Credit: infografick/Shutterstock

Macs have been in the news more than normal recently. The Flashback Trojan shows the platform is just as prone to viruses and malware as Windows and other operating systems.  Many Mac users believe -- wrongly, it might be added -- that OS X is immune to malware and does not need any form of protection. The latest high-profile infestation highlights the need for Mac security tools and; with almost uncanny timing, avast! Free Antivirus for Mac has exited beta and gone gold.

Software from avast! has been available for Windows for quite some time, and the Mac version of software is based on the same protection engine. The app is broken down into three basic areas -- File System Shield, Mail Shield and Web Shield -- and if you have used the Windows version of the tool, you’ll know pretty much what to expect. As is becoming increasingly common, this security tool takes advantage of community reporting to improve the analysis of suspicious files, helping to allow for faster responses to emerging threats.

Individual files can be scanned for infection by dragging them onto the app interface, but you also have the option of running scans of your entire system, including removable media and network locations. The Web Shield works in conjunction with the WebRep browser plugin -- available for Safari, Chrome and Firefox -- helping to protect against malicious phishing web sites as you spend time online.

Unlike some security software, when avast! say that their software is free, they mean that it is free. This is true for both home users and businesses, which is great news for any small company looking to keep costs to a minimum while maintaining the security that is so important.

You can find out more and download your free copy of the program by paying a visit to the avast! Free Antivirus for Mac review page.

Photo Credit: Jirsak/Shutterstock

If you were unimpressed by the fairly unexciting appearance of Firefox 12 last week, then today does at least bring some browsing alternatives by way of the performance-optimized spinoff projects, Pale Moon 12 and Waterfox 12. And although the lack of additions to the broader code base means they’re both essentially maintenance releases, there is still some interesting news here.

Pale Moon 12 notably has not moved to a silent install method, for instance, which means it won’t provide the maintenance service. The developer tells us there are several reasons for this, not least “the fact that Pale Moon has always been in favor of giving users the choice when and where to download and install an update to what is for most people the heart of their on-line experience”.

Further, the Pale Moon 12 Release Notes also explain that “instead of following the rapid release schedule of Mozilla, the browser will use version 12, a properly matured build with essential functionality, as a base to make incremental updates upon.” Which, the document states, means there will be less need to “go off on the “Web OS”/”Metro”/”Desktop integration” tangent that goes against Pale Moon’s goals of being and remaining a web browser”, while giving the developer more time to implement things that he thinks are actually worth doing.

But this time, anyway, the Pale Moon 12 changes are relatively small. Updates to the status bar code, the HTML5 media controls and localisation of the status bar preferences into three additional languages (German, French and Spanish) being probably top of the list.

And if you prefer Waterfox 12, the custom 64-bit version of Firefox, then that’s also now available. Again, the lack of movement in the core code means that items like “Page Source now has line numbers” rank surprisingly highly on the “What’s New” list, but of course it still includes some useful security fixes, so if you’re already a Waterfox fan then it’s a very good idea to upgrade.

Nobody partners, or negotiates deals, like Microsoft. That's evident from today's stunning agreement with Barnes & Noble, which is sure to turn the ebook market on its head. The two will jointly invest in Newco, temporary name for ebook venture that incorporates B&N's digital and College business divisions. B&N gets partner in Microsoft, which invests $300 million, for 17.6 percent stake; both parties end ongoing patent disputes, largely related to Android; and Microsoft launches Windows 8 with native Nook Reader application. All around it's win-win, after losing a decade ago.

That's right, Barnes & Noble and Microsoft have been here before, in pioneering ebook ventures that failed. Both companies jumped on ebooks back when Amazon, which makes the popular Kindle, was still just a struggling Web 2.0 startup. Microsoft Reader led the first big ebook push at the turn of the century, and Barnes & Noble launched its original e-bookstore using the software. I bought my first ebooks there about 12 years ago. But by late 2003, it was over; Barnes & Noble gave up on ebooks -- a market later re-entered only after Amazon's Kindle success. Microsoft kept producing Reader software, but that's done, too, when the software retires on August 30.

Starting Behind

The newer initiative is hugely strategic for the companies. Amazon and Apple have taken early leadership in standard and educational ebooks. For example, Amazon rents e-textbooks, while Apple offers software and service for making and selling them -- and both companies tout aggressively low prices compared to printed textbooks. B&N offers Nook Study, which lets students rent or buy e-textbooks.

Meanwhile, Microsoft has fallen way behind in tablets, a market it shepherded a decade ago only to see Apple and Amazon snatch it away in just two years. According to IDC, the two companies commanded 71.5 percent of the global tablet market in fourth quarter. At the end of February, in the United States, Amazon led Android tablets, with 54.4 percent share, according to comScore.

Windows 8, and its touch-oriented Metro user interface, is Microsoft's platform for regaining tablet momentum. The partnership assures availability of a native ereader app and hungry partner. Both companies are hungry, and ready to compete hard against Apple and Amazon.

"The formation of Newco and our relationship with Microsoft are important parts of our strategy to capitalize on the rapid growth of the Nook business, and to solidify our position as a leader in the exploding market for digital content in the consumer and education segments", B&N CEO William Lynch says. "Microsoft’s investment in Newco, and our exciting collaboration to bring world-class digital reading technologies and content to the Windows platform and its hundreds of millions of users, will allow us to significantly expand the business".

Read Me

But Microsoft is in the midsts of a major architectural shift that competitively is ill-timed. "Because the Metro user experience also includes new software architecture and the new Microsoft Store for apps, it will take time for the developer ecosystem to build", Forrester Research analyst Frank Gillette writes in report "Tablets Will Rule The Future Personal Computing Landscape", published last week. "As a result, it will take most of 2013 for the Microsoft ecosystem to create a fully capable Windows Metro experience for customers, pushing sales acceleration to 2014. Once rolling, however, we expect Microsoft will be a significant player, but one chasing a leader with a multiyear head start". That leader is Apple.

Gillette forecasts that tablet shipment compound annual growth rate will be 46 percent through 2016, when global number will reach 375 million, up from 56 million last year. He estimates that the tablet install base will be 760 million tablets, compared to 2 billion PCs. He predicts that by the time Windows tablets begin to make significant share gains in two years, Apple and Amazon will both have aggressively expanded the platforms to enterprise software developers. Other than education, Amazon's focus is all consumer today.

"Our complementary assets will accelerate e-reading innovation across a broad range of Windows devices, enabling people to not just read stories, but to be part of them", says Microsoft mobile chief Andy Lees. "We’re at the cusp of a revolution in reading". That's the key point for the software giant. Tablets and ereaders are products sure to converge, as Kindle Fire, iPad and even Nook demonstrate.

But there's something else: Android. Today, Nook runs a customized Android version, not Windows anything. The deal effectively ends Microsoft patent litigation against Barnes & Noble and leaves Google's Motorola Mobility subsidiary as last major Android licensee not to cut a deal with Microsoft.

What's that saying? Keep your friends close, but your enemies closer? Microsoft cuts deals with competitors as easily as partners -- and they're often one in the same -- for monetary or strategic gain, which is both here.

Photo Credit: Tischenko Irina/Shutterstock