Gregarius » BetaNews.Com » décembre 17, 2012

BetaNews.Com (10 non lus)

SuperSU developer delivers unofficial fix for Samsung Exynos exploit

Publié: décembre 17, 2012, 7:36pm CET par Mihaita Bamburic

Samsung is yet again in the spotlight with a new, potentially dangerous, security flaw. A developer revealed an exploit at kernel level that allows access to the entire physical memory on a number of popular Exynos-based devices, including the Galaxy S III and Galaxy Note II.

Thankfully, a developer behind the SuperSU rooting tool, came promptly to the rescue and released an app which can be used by affected users to temporarily plug the security hole.

The exploit could potentially allow any malicious app to gain rooting privileges on affected devices without requesting elevated permissions from the user. The app, which is interestingly titled ExynosAbuse, takes a similar approach but it does so to plug the security hole. It enables root on targeted devices however, unlike malware, the SuperSU app is also installed in order to manage future requests for elevated privileges. But there is a down side -- it may break the camera.

As a result the developer behind ExynosAbuse allows users to also enable the exploit when they want to take a picture or record a video. It can hardly be considered an ideal solution, but until Samsung issues an official fix, the app is the safest bet. The compatible devices include the Galaxy S II (codename "I9100"), Galaxy S III (codename "I9300", "I9305"), Galaxy Note II (codename "N7100", "N7105", "SGH-I317", SCH-I605"), Galaxy Tab Plus (codename "P6210") and Galaxy Note 10.1 (codename "N8000", "N8010", "N8013" and "N8020").

The flaw in the kernel's security was uncovered through a common practice among modders. The developer that found it was looking into a method of obtaining rooting privileges on the Galaxy S III without using ODIN to flash the needed files. According to his findings, all devices based on the Exynos 4210 and 4412 chipsets could be potentially affected, but there is no specific list provided at the moment.

The Google Nexus 10, which also sports an Exynos chipset (albeit an Exynos 5 type), is considered unaffected. Also, according to the developer behind the app not all Gingerbread firmwares for the above mentioned devices (where applicable) include the security exploit. He stated that "several SGS2 GB firmwares" are unaffected, but did not provide further details. It's safe to assume that installing the app is recommended.
Apple's perception problem is HUGE

Publié: décembre 17, 2012, 7:06pm CET par Joe Wilcox

For more than a decade I've quipped: "In business perception is everything". For some brands, this axiom is truer than for others. Apple leads the list, much to its determent. For more than a month now, I've read speculative stories from all quarters trying to figure out why the company's stock tailspins. Some people blame the fiscal cliff, others taxes. Meanwhile, the anti-Apple crowd delights in rumors iPhone sales are slowing and the mini cannibalizes iPad 4 sales. There's an aura of doom that I can only describe as the anti-reality distortion field.

Earlier today, Apple shares briefly dipped below $500, a low not seen since around Valentine's Day. Bloggers are beside themselves posting about this catastrophe -- or so they see it. I laugh, because they are a large part of the company's falling stock price problem. All these stories contribute to negative perceptions that feed the frenzy. That's one part of the answer to how someone nicked an artery and Apple bled about $200 per share, or 27 percent decline, from September's $705.07 record high. These bloggers were, and still are, detached from reality -- like analysts covering the company. Just two months ago, the Apple Fan Club gloated about projections of $1,000 a share. Now they run around like street people holding signs "The World Ends Dec. 21!" as shares slip and analyst cut back projections.

Hey, Chicken Little

I can understand some of today's freakdom. Overnight, Apple issued a press release boasting about two million iPhone 5 sales during the launch weekend in China. Surely that is cheery news in Apple's second-most important market and the one that, according to IDC, will top the United States for smartphone sales this year. In the past, Apple news like this would have sent shares soaring. They're in retreat instead, in part because some analysts took bites out of their Apple forecasts. Oh my, Chicken Little, the sky is falling. (Note: Shares reversed earlier declines, ever so slightly. They're up about 1 percent as I post.)

There's an irony, and quite laughable one, to Apple's share price crisis: Misplaced perception. For years, Apple was a perception stock, largely buoyed by smart marketing and cofounder Steve Jobs' ability to cast the so-called "Reality Distortion Field", while generating cult-leader like adoration. For most of his time running Apple during his so-called second coming, Apple shares rose more because of positive perceptions, and overly-given attention from the Apple Fan Club of analysts, bloggers, reporters and other writers. Funny thing: Apple is no longer a perception stock but performance one. That's why I refer to the current situation as the anti-reality distortion field.

The dynamics lifting Apple high bring it low. The company has long benefited from rumors and clearly-deliberate leaks about future products. These helped lift perceptions about Apple as an innovator and kept the brand all over the InterWebs. The people writing obsessively about Apple before continue to do so, but with more negative tone and concern as the bottom seemingly drops out of the stock and the brand. (For the record, Apple damaged its brand with all these patent lawsuits, which is a separate story I've written many times. Then there is Apple Maps, which is the brand equivalent of nuclear reactor meltdown.) People who love Apple or invest can't seem to shut up about declining shares. They feed the beast they want to kill. One of the benefits of being a non-investor: There's no conflict of interest, I write with a clear conscience and as such don't obsessively pen stories about every little Apple stock fluctuation.

Growing negative perceptions feed off rumors, too. The track record of Apple rumors that are wrong, and the number of times Wall Street analysts misjudged Apple sales, is reason to ignore them all. Apple is an emotional stock and negative or positive feelings prevail -- and that includes analyst share targets. C`mon, some of them set 1,000 bucks just a couple months ago, while others lower the bar below $600 today. It's not the Mayan Apocalypse, people.

Money Maker

Apple's enormous growth was never sustainable. What matters more: Can the company continue meeting high revenue and margin targets? Recent history shows one helluva performer. Starting in 2010, Apple saw tremendous -- simply astounding -- revenue and profit gains, nearly doubling in one year from $13.5 billion to $24.7 billion and $3.1 billion to $6 billion, respectively. During fiscal 2010, Apple generated $65.23 billion in revenue. 2011: $108.25 billion. For fiscal 2012, which closed end of September: $156.51 billion. Apple revenue is up 140 percent from fiscal 2010. During the same time period, Apple's net income rose from $14.01 billion to $25.92 billion to $41.733 billion.

Looked at differently, for calendar 2012's first three quarters, Apple generated $110.175 billion in revenue. That's more than twice Microsoft ($51.7 billion). Two years ago, Microsoft revenue exceed Apple quarter for quarter. By calendar Q4 2011, iPhone revenue alone exceeded all of Microsoft.

I may be an Apple boycotter, but I'm not anti-Apple. Someone has to point out the insanity of the anti-reality distortion field. This is a company with in excess of $120 billion in cash and related assets. The foundation is rock solid from every perspective that counts: Component supplies, manufacturing, distribution and gross margins.

I understand some of analysts' nervousness, when looking at Android gains on smartphones and tablets. What the platform gains in overall numbers, it gives up to Apple in profits. For example, on Black Friday, tablet average selling prices fell to $151 from $219 a year earlier, NPD says, mainly because of Androids. Based on Apple's promotions, I wouldn't expect much less than $500, if that. Globally for third quarter, using Apple financial statements, I see $535 average selling price. The point: While bunches of Androids compete for the lowest price, Apple skims the cream off the top of profits and margins. Meaning: Android tablet gains don't make iPad a loser. Same applies to smartphones.

But nervousness prevails, with negative perceptions acting like gravity the way positive ones lifted the stock just months ago. No one knows what next quarter or those that follow will bring to Apple. Analysts can speculate, but based on my quarterly earnings coverage, I see them as more consistently wrong than right. So Citi cut price targets today, no big deal. Shares fell to $499 -- that's even less to worry about. Apple is a solid performer. The bottom won't fall out in a quarter, two or even three, as the rumormongers so publicly worry about. Frankly, the people who love Apple most write too much about share declines. If they really want to help Apple, shut the frak up.

Photo Credit: ARENA Creative/Shutterstock
Flush with SoftBank cash, Sprint buys out Clearwire for LTE network

Publié: décembre 17, 2012, 4:56pm CET par Tim Conneally

In its continued evolution and growth, the United States' third-largest wireless network operator Sprint announced on Monday that it will be acquiring wireless network Clearwire for a total of $2.2 billion, or $2.97 per outstanding share.

Sprint has had a long relationship with Clearwire, as the two companies were the biggest supporters of the WiMax wireless protocol. Soon after launching their respective first WiMax networks, Sprint and Clearwire joined forces in 2008.

But as LTE became the de facto 4G standard in the United States, less robust technologies like WiMax fell by the wayside. Sprint, the biggest WiMax supporter, signaled the death of the standard when it signed a deal with LightSquared to share resources when the hybrid satellite/ground network launched its LTE services.

One by one, supporters of WiMax dropped out. Following the LightSquared announcement, Clearwire said it was pursuing a switch from WiMax to LTE, pending the acquisition of funding. Then Broadcom said it had abandoned WiMax in the US. Then in early 2012, Google sold its stake in Clearwire. The writing was on the wall, WiMax was through, and LTE was the way to go.

Sprint's progress toward a new LTE network hit a snag when it backed out of its deal with LightSquared when the network couldn't get regulatory approval for deployment. Suddenly, the tide shifted, and a series of major announcements came from Sprint.

In October 2012, a potential acquisition by Japanese company SoftBank was being examined, and both companies announced SoftBank had acquired 70 percent of Sprint for a massive $20 billion.

Flush with cash, Sprint then bought U.S. Cellular's Midwest business to expand coverage in the heartland.

The acquisition of Clearwire gives Sprint all of the carrier's 2.5 GHz spectrum licenses, which will be utilized in the network's full migration to LTE.

"Today’s transaction marks yet another significant step in Sprint’s improved competitive position and ability to offer customers better products, more choices and better services," Sprint CEO Dan Hesse said on Monday. "Sprint is uniquely positioned to maximize the value of Clearwire’s spectrum and efficiently deploy it to increase Sprint’s network capacity. We believe this transaction, particularly when leveraged with our SoftBank relationship, is further validation of our strategy and allows Sprint to control its network destiny."

Photo credit: Dr.OGA/Shutterstock
Official CyanogenMod 10.1 builds starting to surface

Publié: décembre 17, 2012, 4:23pm CET par Mihaita Bamburic

Modders, get your tools ready! Little short of three weeks after the team behind the popular custom Android distribution CyanogenMod introduced official builds for the Nexus 4 and Nexus 10, CM 10.1 nightly releases are starting to make their way onto more supported devices.

At the time of writing this article CyanogenMod 10.1 builds are available for the Samsung Galaxy S III (codename "I9300", "d2att" and "d2tmo"), Galaxy S II (codename "I9100" and "I9100G"), Galaxy S (codename "I9000" and "I9000B"), Galaxy Nexus (codename "maguro"), Google Nexus 7 (codename "grouper"), as well as ASUS Transformer Pad Infinity ("codename "tf700t"). The latest nightly release, dated December 17, is based on Android 4.2.1 Jelly Bean, build number JOP40D, and delivers a significant number of features, either ported from previous iterations of the custom distribution or adapted for the new version of Android.

The most noteworthy additions over the stock variant include a revised quick settings menu with a wider tile selection and more lockscreen shortcuts. Enthusiasts also have access to more traditional functionality such as the Trebuchet launcher, profiles, Themes app, the older power widget, Quiet Hours, or different volume panel styles.

The CyanogenMod File Manager is also present, but there is an issue with root access in the latest build that denies users from taking advantage of complete functionality. Superuser, the app which manages root requests, often crashes. As a result, apps that do require elevated privileges may not operate properly and on my Galaxy Nexus I found this issue to affect Titanium Backup. On the other hand TricksterMod works sporadically. Flashing SuperSU in a custom recovery is reported to fix the problem.
Raspberry Pi launches its own app store

Publié: décembre 17, 2012, 4:16pm CET par Wayne Williams

The maker of the popular credit card-sized ARM GNU/Linux computer has launched an online store to enable developers to share their games, applications, and tutorials with other Raspberry Pi users. The device was originally conceived as a way of encouraging youngsters to get into programming, and the store will provide a place for them, and older developers, to share their creations and maybe make a little money at the same time.

At launch the store has 23 free titles, and a paid game (Storm in a Teacup which is priced at £1.99/$3.22). The free content includes utilities such as LibreOffice and Despotify (an open source Spotify client) and classic games including Freeciv and OpenTTD. There’s also an exclusive 3D multiplayer space combat game called Iridium Rising. Winners of the Raspberry Pi Summer Programming Contest are being encouraged to upload their entries to the store, too.

According to the Raspberry Pi Foundation, the store "runs as an X application under Raspbian, and allows users to download content, and to upload their own content for moderation and release". Content can be given away or charged for, and the store offers a tip jar feature, so even free applications could earn some money for more popular developers.

The key to the store’s success will be down to how well the community gets behind it and in addition to downloading and submitting projects, users will be able to rate and review entries. "The Pi Store has a recommendation engine which is tailored to you and your preferences, so the more you review, the better the recommendations we’ll be able to offer you (and other users) will be. If you rate and review constructively, it means the really great content that gets submitted will percolate up to the top, where everyone can see it," a blog post on the Raspberry Pi site explains.

Although the store was available to access earlier it’s currently down (presumably due to too much traffic from excited Raspberry Pi-ers). Hopefully it will resurface later today.
Like the Grinch, policymakers hang our gifts over the fiscal cliff

Publié: décembre 17, 2012, 4:07pm CET par Robert X. Cringely

Most of us have had mentors, and when it came to becoming a writer three of mine were the late Bill Rivers at Stanford, who taught me to think and not just report; legendary book editor Bob Loomis at Random House, who felt I might be able to stack enough of those thoughts together to fill a book; and a guy most of you know as Adam Smith, who let me copy his style.

Smith, named after the English economist and writer, helped start both New York and Institutional Investor magazines while at the same time punching out books like The Money Game and Paper Money -- huge best sellers that taught regular people how the financial system really worked. That gig explaining the inner workings was what appealed to me. So 30 years ago, having been recently fired for the second time by Steve Jobs, I went to New York and asked permission of Smith to imitate him, though applying his style to technology, not finance. Many such impersonators exist, of course, but I was apparently the first (and last) to ask permission.

And so we became friends, Smith and I, for half of my lifetime and more than a third of his (he, like many of my friends, is now over 80). Smith holds court these days on 5th Avenue at a hedge fund called Craig Drill Capital -- a pocket of integrity and thoughtfulness you’d think could not exist in a world so devoted to high frequency trading. When I’m in New York I sometimes visit Smith and he introduces me to his friends, one of those being economist Dr. Al Wojnilower.

Dr. Al started working at the New York Fed two years before I was born and spent 22 years as chief economist at Credit Suisse First Boston. Sixty years on he’s still explaining where the financial world is going and why, somehow doing so without a supercomputer in sight. Dr. Al is the best of the best when it comes to understanding those inner workings, in this case of our economy and the world’s. And that’s why he’s the author of the only guest post I’ll ever print in this rag. It’s about the so-called “so-called fiscal cliff” we’re so worried about. His explanation is simple, untainted, and worth reading and he’s allowing me to reprint it here. I’ll come back at the end with a comment.

One more thing: the reason I am writing about this rather than whether the iPad Mini will soon get a retina display is because this is much more important to us as a nation and a world. I’ll get back to technology tomorrow.

FALLING OFF THE FISCAL CLIFF

Dr. Albert M. Wojnilower

December 14, 2012

Although most observers have long understood that fiscal policy is tightening, many may have underestimated the severity of the tightening scheduled for 2013, and the difficulty of reconciling the conflicts of ideology and personal ambition that separate the parties who would have to agree to any mitigating "deal". While the contestants joust, the economy is already falling off the fiscal cliff.

Most of the public remains blissfully unaware of the scale of the problem. They will be aghast when, soon after year-end, they experience reduced take-home pay and higher tax bills, as well as unforeseen job losses at the many entities, both public and private, that depend, both directly and indirectly, on federal funding and contracts.

Monetary policy has been hard at work to produce sharply lower long-term interest rates, an easing of credit availability, and a recovery in home and stock prices. In recent months (some three years after the end of the Great Recession), households have finally responded by stepping up sharply their purchases of homes, autos, and other durable goods. The increased spending has reduced the rate of personal saving to near its pre-recession lows. Saving will narrow further as unanticipated tax increases bite into incomes until households are forced to curtail their outlays once again, bringing on a new recession.

The improvement in business due to the increased buoyancy of the household sector has been partly offset by reductions in military and state and local government outlays. But more ominous is the fact that business capital investment, which had earlier sustained the economy by rising at double-digit rates, is now actually shrinking -- notwithstanding record profit margins and the low credit spreads brought about by Federal Reserve policy. The decline reflects mounting fear that the impending setbacks to household incomes will halt or reverse the upward momentum in consumer spending, which is the chief source of business revenues. The indifference of elected officials to such a disastrous reversal is yet another reason for the widespread loss of confidence in governmental competence.

Growth in credit and debt is a vital attribute of modern economic systems. The funds that I spend to buy your products and services must be re-spent by you on other goods and services. To the extent you put the money in the mattress (that is, fail to recirculate your revenues), the flow of incomes is reduced. Even if you use the funds to buy financial assets rather than goods and services, total incomes will be lowered until the ultimate recipients spend the money. And if the funds are used to pay off debt owed to financial institutions, the income flow is reduced until someone else borrows in order to spend.

The current prospect is that government borrowing will be reduced more rapidly in coming years, as additional revenues are raised from households in ways that compel consumers to curtail their borrowing and spending. This in turn is liable to provoke businesses also to tighten their belts. The result will be that total credit, debt, and incomes grow more slowly, or even shrink. So will GDP. If the shrinkage in incomes and GDP is substantial, the federal budget deficits that we are trying to reduce may actually get larger.

Perhaps, as has happened in recent years, last-minute political agreements will be adopted that, although advertised as cutting spending and raising revenues, actually accomplish the opposite. The damage from Hurricane Sandy may move the fiscal debate in that direction. Natural disasters tend to strengthen business in the short run, because they impel large public and private expenditures for repairing the damage. That sort of budget compromise, if it were of a longer-term nature, would be the best possible outcome of the current fiscal cliff negotiations. It would offer hope that, after a modest fiscal shock had been absorbed, GDP growth might reach 2½ percent later in 2013 (compared to less than 2 percent this year) and continue to accelerate.

Unfortunately, no such token agreement is likely, since President Obama is himself an austerity advocate; he just wants to distribute the austerity in different ways than the Republican opposition. An agreement to raise revenues and lower spending along "Simpson-Bowles" lines, the most probable sort of compromise (if there is a compromise), likely would lead to years of GDP growth limited to about 1½ percent or less, as domestic business investment continues to languish. Business invests when the economy is expected to grow, not when it is condemned to austerity.

Conceivably, no compromise will be reached at all, mainly because of deadlock on the issue of extending the debt ceiling. Unless the ceiling is abolished, or raised in unassailable fashion for a number of years, any agreement will be worthless. The Administration could not accept an agreement that had to be renegotiated every few months to avoid a government shutdown. And without an agreement, the economy would topple over the fiscal cliff into a recession that has no visible means of exit. Business capital spending geared to the future would collapse.

Awareness of these dangers is bound to have a major effect on the Federal Reserve’s policy decisions. Lower interest rates and easier credit have played a key role in strengthening business investment, raising real estate and stock prices, and promoting the recovery in housing starts and consumer buying. As long as stringent fiscal restraint persists, so will monetary ease. Although the current technique of "quantitative ease", i.e. the large-scale buying of Treasury and mortgage-backed securities in order to lower longer-term rates of interest, may eventually be subject to diminishing returns, it seems to be working well for now. The Federal Reserve has also announced specific thresholds of 6½% for unemployment and 2 1/2 pecent for inflation to underline its commitment to continue aggressive ease until economic growth is satisfactory.

This suggests that, absent a benign fiscal agreement, high quality bond yields may well decline even further. Meanwhile, the cost-of-living index will be sustained by the increasing prices of utilities, transit, education, and medical care, as governmental supports are reduced.

As befits the season, we cross our fingers and depend on "good will towards men" for continued prosperity.

Okay I’m back. As I read it Dr. Al puts a pox on both their houses. Neither Republicans nor Democrats have viable public positions for growing the economy out of its current mess, and growing out of messes is pretty much the only method we’ve ever had as a nation. So one or both sides don’t actually mean what they say OR they are simply stupid. Could be both. And "good will towards men" means a grudging compromise of sorts where both sides complain about what they’ve had to give up while they achieve what they were actually aiming for all along.

We’ll soon see…

Reprinted with permission
View all your web browser histories from MiTeC’s Internet History Browser

Publié: décembre 17, 2012, 3:27pm CET par Mike Williams

You visited a great web page yesterday, and read a really helpful article -- but now you can’t remember where it was. It’s easily done, but viewing your browser history should give you the information you need.

Of course, if your PC has multiple browsers installed then reviewing your (or anyone else’s) activities can be a little more challenging. Unless, that is, you run the free Internet History Browser, which collects your histories from all the main browsers (IE, Firefox, Chrome, Opera and Safari) and displays them in a single, simple interface.

Unzip and launch Internet History Browser, click the "Scan this machine" description (there’s no button, so simply click the picture or text) and the program will check your system’s installed browsers, interrogating their histories and assembling them into a single database.

Within a second or two you’ll get the result in a chronological report. This highlights the title of each visited page, along with the icon of the browser used to view it, and is then ordered by the visit date and time.

Clicking a page of interest displays its full URL, and the number of times it’s been visited (according to the combined history), as well as displaying an "Open" button which will launch that page in the default browser.

You can also search the history for particular sites or key words. Entering "Facebook", say, will filter the report to display only sites with Facebook in the URL or page title.

And if you close the program you’ll find it’s now saved that history in a .DAT file database, in the same folder as the IHB.exe executable. Which means that you could, say, run Internet History Browser on your child’s laptop to collect their internet histories, and then review the file at your leisure elsewhere to make sure they’re not visiting dubious sites.

We did notice one significant problem throughout all of this. While it collected and displayed most browser histories perfectly, Internet History Browser doesn’t appear able to work with Internet Explorer 10, most probably because that uses a new history tracking scheme.

We expect that’s something the author will fix fairly soon, though. And in the meantime, if you use an earlier version of IE, or are happy to display the histories of other browsers only, then Internet History Browser is a simple and convenient way to get the job done.
Manually detect malware with SX System Suite 2.0

Publié: décembre 17, 2012, 12:55pm CET par Mike Williams

A good antivirus suite will protect you against the vast majority of malware, but of course there are no 100 percent guarantees. It’s still possible that, just occasionally, something will penetrate your defenses.

Fortunately help is at hand, in the shape of SecurityXPloded’s SX System Suite 2.0, a free collection of system monitoring tools which may be able to help you manually detect an infection.

SpyDLLRemover, for instance, can scan your PC to detect some spyware, while its Process Viewer allows you to check what’s running on your PC at VirusTotal, ThreatExpert, Process Library and Google.

ProcNetMonitor meanwhile itemizes all the processes with open network connections, listing the relevant port number, remote IP address and so on. If you see something which looks suspicious then, again, you can search for the process at VirusTotal or Process Library, and kill it if the news is bad.

Malware will sometimes install itself as a Windows service, and the suite includes an Advanced Windows Service Manager to help detect this. On launch the tool will show you all running non-system services, for example, highlighting any which seem suspicious. Again, you can search for more information on particular files online, pausing or disabling any service you think is unnecessary.

Elsewhere, SpyBHORemover itemizes your installed Internet Explorer browser helper objects. StreamArmor is able to scan your system for alternate data streams, alerting you to any which look suspicious. And, perhaps most usefully, VirusTotalScanner submits any file you like to VirusTotal.com (without having to upload the entire thing, much faster than the usual route), where it’ll be checked against more than 40 antivirus tools to see which (if any) think it’s malware.

We weren’t completely happy with SX System Suite 2.0. It’s a little annoying that the package tried to install a browser add-on during setup, for instance. You can easily avoid this by clicking "Decline", but when you may want to be investigating this kind of add-on it seems unhelpful to be installing more.

The lack of integration to the suite -- not even any form of local help -- means that less experienced users won’t find it particularly easy to use.

And the tools themselves generally don’t have the depth or configurability of the best system monitoring applications (SysInternals software, for instance).

SX System Suite 2.0 does offer plenty of useful features and functionality, though, and if you’re an experienced Windows user who needs to manually detect malware then there’s a good chance it’ll be able to help.
Did I REALLY say that? Twitter will soon let you download every embarrassing tweet you ever sent

Publié: décembre 17, 2012, 11:15am CET par Wayne Williams

The micro-blogging site appears to be making good on its promise to allow users to download all of their tweets -- from day one -- in a single archive. Although there’s been no official announcement yet, there have been numerous sightings of the feature which is reportedly being rolled out to a very small percentage of users.

To check if you have the option, go to Settings and look for a ‘Your Twitter archive’ section at the bottom of the page. If it’s there, clicking the ‘Request your archive’ button will set the wheels in motion, and you’ll be emailed a link when your zip is ready to download. Extract the HTML file to view your tweets in calendar format, with the years on the right and the tweets on the left.

Speaking at the Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy last month, Twitter’s CEO Dick Costolo confirmed plans to give users access to their entire catalogue of past tweets, saying: "By the end of the year you'll be able to download the archive history of your entire tweets; you know, your entire tweet archive. Yes. It's a commonly requested feature. Now, I caveat this with: the engineers who are actually doing the work don't necessarily agree that they'll be done by the end of the year, but we'll just keep having that argument and we'll see where we end up year end."

So why would you want to be able to download your entire archive? Well, if you’re a heavy Twitter user it can be useful to go back in time and view everything that mattered to you since you started tweeting. The archive will help you see how your usage has changed over time (I was a very heavy Twitter user in the first year or so but then backed off when I realized just how much time I was spending tweeting about anything and everything).

It’ll also provide an interesting way of seeing how you’ve developed as a person (prepare to cringe at those early tweets) and let you quickly find past comments, should you need to reference them for any reason -- to win an argument for example. You can use it to find out what you said at the time of monumental world events too – like the deaths of Michael Jackson, Whitney Houston, and Osama Bin Laden.

Personally I’m pretty excited about it, even though I don’t use the site anywhere near as much now as I once did.

Will you be downloading your tweets when the option becomes available? And have any of you actually seen the feature yet? Let me know in the comments below.
iPhone 5 first-weekend China sales top 2 million

Publié: décembre 17, 2012, 4:54am CET par Joe Wilcox

Apple started selling its newest smartphone in the People's Republic of China on December 14. Late tonight, the company claims 2 million sales for Friday and the weekend. The announcement comes as rumors mount about slowing sales.

"Customer response to iPhone 5 in China has been incredible, setting a new record with the best first weekend sales ever in China", Tim Cook, Apple CEO, says. "China is a very important market for us", which is quite the understatement. During fiscal fourth quarter China revenue reached $5.7 billion, up 26 percent year over year. iPhone rose 38 percent, Macs 44 percent and iPad 45 percent. For the fiscal year, China generated $23.38 billion revenue, or 15 percent for all Apple. China accounted for more than three-quarters of Asia-Pacific revenue.

Meanwhile, as a market for smartphones, China's importance rises. For 2012, IDC forecasts dramatic changes. In 2011, US share was 21.3 percent compared to 18.3 percent for China. This year, China is expected to reach 26.5 percent, while the United States falls to 17.8 percent.

As the United States cools and China heats up, Apple faces increasing competition from lower-cost Androids reaching people with lower incomes. "Regionally, we expect smartphone demand to flow down to lower-tier cities", James Yan, IDC senior market analyst, says.

Already, Androids put heat on iOS during third quarter, according to Gartner. Based on actual sales to end users, not less-reliable shipments to carriers and dealers, Android's global smartphone OS share rose a stunning 19.9 points year over year. That's to 72.4 percent, up from 52.5 percent. Meanwhile iOS fell to 13.9 percent from 15 percent.

"In China, sales of mobile phones grew driven by sales of smartphones, while demand of feature phones remained weak", Anshul Gupta, Gartner principal research analyst, says.

The real test of Apple's mettle and iPhone's capacity to cool Android momentum is the newest model's release in China. The company expects to have iPhone 5 available in more than 100 countries later this month.

Apple shares are in free fall. At Friday's close, the stock was down nearly $200, or 28 percent, from the all-time high set just a few months ago. Will the news give the stock lift? Tomorrow's trading will answer.

Photo Credit: Francesco Dazzi/Shutterstock