Gregarius » éléments par Patrick Roanhouse

éléments par Patrick Roanhouse

Anonymous targets Ukraine for Demonoid torrent tracker takedown

Publié: août 11, 2012, 2:09am CEST par Patrick Roanhouse

This week, the loosely connected online activist and hacking community Anonymous began a new "operation": attacking the Ukrainian government.

In retaliation to Ukraine's take down of popular BitTorrent tracking site Demonoid, Anonymous is seeking "revenge against all criminals responsible" in the country's government.

In what Anonymous called a "state-sponsored Denial of Service attack" on Demonoid, the group plans to make everyone aware they will not tolerate the takedown. In a statement, Anonymous accused the Ukrainian government of a form of international appeasement to the United States. This is not the first time this accusation has been hurled at a country's governing body. Spain, for example, fast-tracked the Sinde Law, its version of the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA), before talks with the USA. Documents posted to Wikileaks seemed to suggest the USA was actually strong-arming Spain into passing the act.

News of the Ukrainian Government's involvement in the raid on Demonoid first hit the Web after an article ran in the Ukranian newspaper Kommersant on Monday. The paper reported that the raid on Demonoid was timed to coincide with the very first United States political trip for Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Valery Khoroshkovsky. Sources from the Ukrainian government reported that copyright infringement was going to be on top of the agenda. The US Government had previously stated it saw Demonoid as one of the most visited sites used to share pirated content. Demonoid.me is ranked globally as the 950th most popular site on the Web, and ranked 441st in the USA according to Alexa.com. But commonly Demonoid was also ranked one of the top 10 favorites of peer to peer BitTorrent mega-trackers.

Starting around April 26, 2010, the site started to receive a series of Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks. The first round of which ended after Demonoid temporarily banned Taiwanese and Chinese IP address ranges.

But DDoS attacks started again on July 24th, ultimately bringing down the site. On August 1st, Demonoid's admin changed the domain redirector straight to a reported malware distributing ad network for unknown reasons. The admin said that he was in the process of bringing the site back up. But on August 6, 2012, Ukrainian authorities shut down the site manually from Ukraine's largest data center ColoCall.

So what kind of reprisal has the Ukrainian Government seen since Anonymous announced #OpDemonoid? The Kiev Post reported that DDoS attacks have shut down the websites of: the Ukrainian Anti-Piracy Association; the Ukrainian equivalent of the MPAA/RIAA (APO), the Ukrainian Agency for Copyright and Related Rights [uacrr.kiev.ua] and The National Television and Radio Broadcasting Council of Ukraine [nrada.gov.ua].

In an update Wednesday, Anonymous stated that the objective of #OpDemonoid is:

1.Restore Demonoid services by any means necessary and, if possible, facilitate a series of mirror sites operated by free Anons everywhere. In essence, open source Demonoid.

2. Retaliate against those responsible for the interruption. And Lulz.

Calling the actions of the Ukraine out as:

The action was spearheaded by the usual cabal of lobbyists, SOPA/ACTA supporters, and their bribed politicians.

Some artists and musicians who create the content shared via torrents have recently come out in favor of file-sharing culture and torrent tracker sites. Reports of artists using bit torrent trackers like Demonoid and The Pirate Bay become increasingly common, especially in the wake of reports that copyright infringement court settlements have ended up in the hands of the RIAA and MPAA, and not the actual artists whose content was being shared.

Photo Credit: Rob Kints/Shutterstock

Google Android app translates photos

Publié: août 10, 2012, 12:27am CEST par Patrick Roanhouse

Google Translate for Android, today available as v2.5, packs some smoking new features: voice-to-text and text-to-voice translation in more than 64 languages and -- get this -- photos.

New features to this version include live/instant language translation results as you type. Allowing you to get the translated text sooner. For people who use the speech-to-translation option, you can now choose your dialect preference for your speech/voice input. For Japanese language users there is now support for handwriting multiple characters at once, allowing for words to quickly be written in for both travelers and native Japanese people.

The app has also been given permission to check network availability when sending requests. Making sure that the network is there before it sends your text to be translated by the Google Translate service in the cloud.

But the biggest new feature is that of in app picture text translation. The app now has an added button at the bottom showing the Android camera icon. You can now take pictures of signs and billboards, and with a highlight of the particular text you want translated you will get the text translation in the top of the app window. The photo translation feature requires phones with Android 2.3 and above. Etienne Deguine, Google Translate associate product manager, explains:

By integrating Google Goggles’ optical character recognition technology, we’ve made it possible for you to use the camera of your Android smartphone to input text without typing. This makes Google Translate for Android one of our most intelligent and machine learning-intensive apps. Speech recognition, handwriting recognition, OCR, and machine translation all rely on powerful statistical models built on billions of samples of data.

Obviously influenced by the late science fiction author Douglas Adams, the Google Translate team is really making the mobile Google Translate app a must have for all people with Android phones. The only downside to Google Translate is the app requires an Internet connection to work. The app is available now from Google Play.

Microsoft and NYPD make new Precrime tool, hopes you won't get a red ball

Publié: août 9, 2012, 9:52pm CEST par Patrick Roanhouse

New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg and NYPD Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly unvield a new partnership with the Microsoft Corporation. Working together, New York Police Department and Microsoft developed a crime prevention and counterterrorism information analysis platform they call Domain Awareness System. When fully deployed, the new system will provide NYPD investigators and analysts a comprehensive view of potential threats and criminal activity. DAS will help aggregate and analyze public safety data in real time.

DAS takes tips, emergency response calls, and other live incident and safety reports and automatically ties them to richer amounts of information. A network of smart CCTV cameras, license plate readers, speed cameras, and pre-existing cross-agency database information is filtered to relate to those incidents and tips that match. Law enforcement can then develop live real-time incident reports that can be transmitted to police in the field.

Analysts working on the system could use it to track possible suspects, their known connections and even predict crime patterns for particular areas of the city using the stats data it provides. GPS tracking spatial systems in police cars also allow police to better allocate their resources and officers with live report information from the DAS. In a test case senario, if reports of unknown packages or suspicious vehicles come in they can be tied together, and DAS could track people around a given area to see if there might be possible connections automatically, without police having to do extra digging -- allowing the best choice for first responders and other officers with the ability to go and collect further evidence in other directions.

At the press conference Mayor Bloomberg made the statement:

Part of the reason we have been able to continue driving down crime to record lows while devoting considerable resources to counterterrorism is our heavy investment in technology and our willingness to develop new, cutting-edge solutions to keep New Yorkers safe, This new system capitalizes on new, powerful policing software that allows police officers and other personnel to more quickly access relevant information gathered from existing cameras, 911 calls, previous crime reports, and other existing tools and technology. It will help the NYPD do more to prevent crimes from occurring and help them respond to crimes even more effectively. And because the NYPD built the system in partnership with Microsoft, the sale of the product will generate revenue for the city that will fund more new crime-prevention and counterterrorism programs.

NYPD Commissioner Kelly statement:

The system is a transformative tool because it was created by police officers for police officers, Its development is a testament to the talent and experience of our officers. And this agreement with Microsoft will allow the NYPD to continue to fund innovative counterterrorism and crime prevention programs.

Microsoft claims the solution is uniquely tailored to meet the specific needs of its users but the basic tools would never have been possible without the help of the NYPD in their practical knowledge of what law enforcement agencies needed. Kathleen Hogan, corporate vice president of Microsoft Services, states:

Microsoft is honored to partner with the NYPD to provide these important public safety capabilities to other jurisdictions, The NYPD is a respected leader and is continually innovating to help ensure the safety of New York’s citizens. It is a privilege to support its work with our technology and professional services.

As the DAS was co-developed by both Microsoft and NYPD officers, the police department will receive 30 percent of revenue from all future sales to customers worldwide. Hopefully squashing any worries about tax payer money going to pay for the development costs of for-profit company products.

Square forges major mobile payment partnership with Starbucks

Publié: août 8, 2012, 5:19pm CEST par Patrick Roanhouse

Starbucks Coffee Company and mobile payments startup Square on Wednesday announced a broad interconnected partnership which includes Starbucks investing $25 million in Square as part of the startup’s Series D financing round, Starbucks chairman, president and CEO Howard Schultz joining Square’s Board of Directors, and Square's mobile payments and credit transaction platform being used in U.S. Starbucks stores.

Starbucks customers will be able to use Square's "Pay with Square" mobile app, available on both Android and iPhone, at U.S. Starbucks stores later this fall, and find nearby Starbucks locations within Square Directory. Square will also take on the processing of Starbucks U.S. credit and debit card transactions.

This will significantly expand Square’s scale and credit processing size in the market. This will greatly increase the leverage Square will have with negotiating credit card transaction fees with the major credit card companies as well as increasing benefits to businesses on the Square platform, especially small businesses, all while reducing Starbucks credit card payment processing costs as well.

"As the largest retail mobile payment platform in the U.S., we’re excited and proud to accept payments with Square," said Howard Schultz, Starbucks chairman, president and CEO. "The evolving social and digital media platforms and highly innovative and relevant payment capabilities are causing seismic changes in consumer behavior and creating equally disruptive opportunities for business. Both Starbucks and Square take a similar approach when building products and running our businesses, and together we can bring the best possible payment experience to Starbucks customers."

This isn't just big for Square but for the future of the entire mobile payment market space. Of the 27 million small businesses in the U.S., more than two-thirds do not accept credit or debit cards. This is in large part due to the high interchange fees associated with credit card payment processing, not to mention the typically cumbersome application process, credit checks, and then equipment rental fees and monthly access fees to do mobile or static location credit card transaction processing. Square enables merchants of any size – from sole proprietors to national retailers – to accept credit and debit cards. A prime example of this is the ever growing popularity of artisan food trucks, who before Square, were cash only, significantly lowering their reach to mobile customers.

Therein lies the rub. Square first gained a cult following from independent coffee shops, pop- up restaurants, merch-selling musicians, and independent manufacturers and craftspeople. Starbucks, now an international chain of franchises, has all but lost its independent cachet among these types of users. Trying to reassure faithful Square users, Jack Dorsey, Square CEO and founder posted this letter to them this morning:

August, 8 2012

I am pleased and proud to announce that today Starbucks signed up for Square.

Square began with a really simple idea: everyone should be able to accept credit cards. It should be easy and free to get set up, it should use simple technology people already own, and, most importantly, it should instantly adapt to any size business—from the person chasing a dream to the largest organization on the planet. By embracing Square, Starbucks has validated these ideas as powerful tools—not just for small businesses, but for smart businesses.

It's amazing to think that Starbucks began as a single coffee shop in Seattle. The concept of taking a good idea and helping it grow is not foreign to them, and Starbucks doesn't just view Square as the simplest way to accept payments. They see an opportunity to extend and accelerate a model they grew up with: the idea that business is local and that community plays a vital role in job creation and economic vitality. When Starbucks builds the Square Directory into their apps and in-store Digital Network, it gives Square new visibility, driving more customers to opt-in to Square. And with nearly 7,000 Starbucks stores soon accepting Square, these new payers will be able to find your business (including coffeehouses) and pay with their name, building community and creating value.

Our customers make us who we are, and we are proud of every single one of you—including our newest. Our promise to you remains the same: build simple, affordable, and fast tools that level the playing field for everyone. Thank you for helping us build Square. And please share your thoughts and tweets; I'm listening.

As Howard Schultz says: #Onward,

Jack Dorsey

CEOSquare Inc.

It will be interesting to see how this will stack up in the coming fight between the Google Wallet NFC service, who is partnered with Money Network to process transactions, and the possible future for Apple's Passcard application system in the works for iOS 6. Apple was was also granted a 2008 patent Tuesday, patent application No. 12/286,361, in regards to an entire dual NFC and QR code personal shopping cart and payment system. It will be interesting to see how it might play out in the ever growing patent wars.

Corporate America is ripe for phishing

Publié: août 7, 2012, 6:40pm CEST par Patrick Roanhouse

A new survey released Tuesday by the Chantilly, Virginia-based security and anti-spam company PhishMe has a lot to say about filtering phishing attack emails in the corporate environment. PhishMe conducted a survey at this year's Black Hat hacker conference in Las Vegas, July 24th to the 26th. PhishMe surved 250 security professionals, of whom more than two thirds (69 percent), have said they encounter phishing messages that get past anti-spam filters at least a few times a week. Nearly a quarter of those surveyed say they see multiple phishing emails daily in their corporate network users' mailboxes.

"Phishing" is the name given to a form of an email attack that uses social engineering tactics to lull the recipient into a false sense of security in order for them to click links within the email. The email can have links that look like they go to real sites, but are in fact redirecting Unicode Urls that don't show up properly in most email clients still. The point of these emails is to gather user information though man-in-the-middle style attacks, or to get the user to malicious websites that can execute malicious code, installing viruses or rootkits on a system. A more targeted form of this type of attack is called "Spear Phishing", an email attack in which the phishing emails are targeted to a specific person or group of people, usually people within an organization that shares a common set of information.

According to PhishMe, spear phishing has become the top method of infecting enterprise systems with malware. In the survey, more than one quarter (27 percent) of security professionals said that top executives, or other privileged users in their enterprises have been compromised (and thus comprised their internal networks) by spear phishing attacks within the last 12 months. It's like someone buzzing your apartment door, saying they live in another apartment and forgot their keys, and you let them in only to have them break in and rob other tenants.

Another 31 percent of network professionals said they weren't sure whether their executives or privileged users had been hit with such attacks.

"Many enterprises believe that because they are using spam filtering tools or other email security technologies, they are safe from phishing attacks," says Scott Greaux, Vice President of Product Management and Services at PhishMe. "What we found in our survey is that despite such filters, end users are presented with live, malicious attacks in their inboxes nearly every day."

But with this vast amount of unfiltered phishing messages getting through spam detection systems, surely large companies are being proactive in training, right?

Sadly, PhishMe's survey of Black Hat attendees indicates that most end users receive only the bare minimum of security awareness training. Nearly half (49 percent) of the professionals surveyed said their corporate network users receive training as much as only once a year. Even worse, nine percent said their organizations have no security training programs at all, sending untrained and usually very naive users to work as easy vectors of attack.

Those surveyed stated that of the companies that do provide security training programs, many rely on repetitively scripted, sometimes outdated, delayed forms of training. Training that provides little in the way of significant knowledge or metrics to program managers or administrators. In fact, three of the top four training methods listed by Black Hat attendees include:

recorded video/computer-based training, 39.4 percent
paper tests/quizzes, 32.9 percent
handbooks/printed guides, 28.5 percent

Many of the security professionals surveyed by PhishMe deemed all of these methods as largely unsuccessful as they lacked practicum knowledge and training in realistic simulated situations. Only 16 percent of security professionals surveyed say that their companies' trained their users via simulated attacks.

"This survey demonstrates with great clarity that phishing attacks - particularly targeted attacks - are getting through to end users with alarming regularity, yet most organizations don't train their users on what the most current attacks look like or how to react to them," says Aaron Higbee, CTO and co-founder of PhishMe. "If enterprises are going to protect themselves, they need a realistic, regular training regimen that helps users make the right decisions when they see a potential phishing attack - passive security awareness that doesn't focus on tracking behavior modification is ineffective."

Photo: Ivelin Radkov/Shutterstock

Siri's little sister Nina just came out to play, wants to show you her API

Publié: août 6, 2012, 4:40pm CEST par Patrick Roanhouse

Nuance Communications, Inc., the company known for Dragon Naturally Speaking dictation software, the Swype virtual keyboard, and T9 text completion has just announced its very own digital mobile assistant platform named Nina.

Nuance, who also contributed behind the scenes to Apple's Siri, is taking a different approach with Nina. Nina will be released as a global speech-based virtual assistant for both iOS and Android mobile apps, and will also come with a Virtual Assistant SDK.

Nina is, in effect, the Siri you can build into your apps. The SDK will include access to Nina's core APIs, including those that hook up to the the platform's core cloud services like speech recognition, text to speech, and Natural Language Understanding (NLU).

This provides the most control and customization possible to mobile app developers, which includes the ability to customize Nina's persona, allowing to have unique and custom UI support. Also, the API will come with plenty of source code references to inspire and inform developers

USAA, a popular U.S. military credit union, financial services provider and insurance company, has partnered with Nuance to be the first service to market with a Nina Virtual Assistant-enhanced mobile banking app.

"USAA’s innovative solutions are designed to make life easier for our highly mobile military service members, and increasingly for all members who now expect to get things done when, where and how they want," said Neff Hudson, assistant vice president of emerging channels for USAA. "We believe that the virtual assistant has tremendous potential to make it simpler, faster and more satisfying for our members to manage their financial affairs on their mobile devices."

"Nina is a watershed innovation for the automated customer service industry, not only because it brings the virtual assistant directly into an app, but because it raises the bar through its level of interactive dialog and language understanding," said Robert Weideman, executive vice president and general manager of the Nuance Enterprise Division. "Nina provides our customers a major competitive differentiator by enabling more successful self-service through their mobile apps. We are especially pleased to further our partnership with USAA, a company known for its innovation and approach to delivering a premier mobile customer service experience to its members."

The Nina Virtual Assistant SDK and cloud service is now available from Nuance in the United States, British, and Australian English. Additional languages are to be made available later this year.

Android Jelly Bean is running on the TouchPad, but I still love webOS

Publié: août 4, 2012, 8:06pm CEST par Patrick Roanhouse

Thursday it was announced that an unofficial port of Android 4.1 Jelly Bean CyanogenMod 10 custom ROM was available for the discontinued webOS powered HP TouchPad, with a big early thanks to XDA-Developers forum member and Android developer James Sullins, aka jcsullins.

Though it's discontinued, and mostly a niche device, the HP TouchPad is no slouch in the hardware world. It sports a 9.7 inch, 1024 x 768 pixel display, a 1.2 GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon dual-core processor, has 1GB of RAM, and 16GB to 32GB of storage. It is still a very solid tablet.

Currently the Android Cyanogen10 Custom ROM has no hardware video or graphics acceleration, nor does it have audio or microphone support. Even the front facing camera doesn't work, but it is proof that drivers can be shoehorned in to get it working in a rather silent but usable fashion.

But why should we care? Hewlett-Packard killed Palm and tossed webOS out to the community. HP even gutted the resources they put to the 'Open webOS' platform project, an open source continuation of the of Palm/HP webOS mobile operating system. And even worse the Open webOS team made an announcement that Open webOS will not be able to support any existing webOS devices, including the TouchPad and Pre3. The reason given was that their processors and hardware, with proprietary drivers in the "closed" version of webOS do not support the Linux 3.3+ Standard Kernel. Nor are there complete open source replacements for hardware component drivers.

"For Open webOS we are aiming for support on future hardware platforms where SoC’s support Linux 3.3+ kernel and where open source replacements for proprietary components are integrated. Existing devices cannot be supported because of those many proprietary components, including graphics, networking and lack of drivers for a modern kernel (but of course, there is the Community Edition for those interested in improving the TouchPad)."

So Open webOS and Enyo is the future, and the Palm and HP hardware of the past is relegated to hobbyist status with Open webOS Community Edition. Still, if TouchPad drivers are created for Android, they can be applied to the Linux Kernel in Open webOS too, and help propel the platform forward. If Open webOS can gain traction, webOS as we know it might be able to make a comeback.

Maybe it's a bit fantastical to think about, but if the developer community can get the current HP executive staff to take notice of the work that's being put in, a webOS updated and ready for next-generation platforms could make for a serious asset to leverage.

WebOS is still one of the most beautiful modern mobile environments, and was groundbreaking for using one of the most impressive concepts of application development: a framework that used Javascript and HTML to make Web apps that hooked into the hardware. That now open sourced framework is called Enyo, and I for one want to see it make a serious comeback with the Open webOS platform.

CodeAcademy adds Python to the list of languages you can learn for free

Publié: août 3, 2012, 10:24pm CEST par Patrick Roanhouse

CodeAcademy, the free site for learning how to code, has just added the Python programming language to its tutorial platform.

CodeAcademy made a big impression on the Web back in August of 2011 when its cofounders, two graduates of the y-combinator startup training camp, Zach Sims and Ryan Bubinski, announced the service on the ycombinator Hacker News forum. Since then, the site has seen extensive growth, and it currently offers a few hundred exercises in HTML, CSS, JavaScript and jQuery.

While the site has a substantial list of lessons already, the inclusion of Python marks a major turning point for CodeAcademy. Co-founder Zach Sims said in the the CodeAcademy LABS blog that CodeAcademy has been "Focused on client-side languages and markup - Javascript, HTML, and CSS...this is the beginning of new language support on CodeAcademy – Python is only the first server side language you’ll see."

Python programming language has been around for 21 years, and it is frequently used as part of the development framework for interactive Web applications. Python is even is one of the official five languages that Google uses, and its uses range from cross-platform scripting to powering backend services like the Google App Engine web apps hosting platform. The Python programming language is also used in a lot of NASA projects too, particularly in streamlining mission design processes.

Anti-Patent Troll bill to 'save high-tech innovators' hits House

Publié: août 3, 2012, 3:57pm CEST par Patrick Roanhouse

"Patent trolls," or non-producing companies that buy up patents in hopes of litigating their way to profit, have been in the technology news for years. They have, in effect, created a cottage industry within tech where one company after another uses poorly written and overly broad patents to block new products, squash competing products from reaching the market, or just to try to defend themselves from possible legal extortion. However, a new bipartisan bill coming from the desk of US Congressional Representative Peter DeFazio (D-OR), cosponsored by Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-UT) will be the first legislative deterrent to predatory patent troll lawsuits. The bill's goal is to amend Chapter 29 of title 35 of United States legal Code.

The new bill, H.R 6245 112th Congress, 2011–2012, 'Saving High-Tech Innovators from Egregious Legal Disputes (SHIELD) Act' [GovTrack] could change the patent lawsuit game. The introduction to the bill states:

"To provide for the recovery of computer hardware and software patent litigation costs in cases where the court finds the claimant did not have a reasonable likelihood of succeeding, and for other purposes."

If a person or company files a patent lawsuit, and the court believes that the suit has weak credible patent usage, the person or company that filed the patent suit would have to pay for the legal costs of the defendant. So the SHEILD act would turn the once easy profit from patent licensing into a potential loss for the plaintiff if there is not justifiable damage being done.

In a public statement on his website, Rep Peter DeFazio stated:

Patent trolls don’t create new technology and they don’t create American jobs, They pad their pockets by buying patents on products they didn’t create … suing the innovators who did the hard work and created the product. These egregious lawsuits hurt American innovation and small technology start ups, and they cost jobs. My legislation would force patent trolls to take financial responsibility for their frivolous lawsuits.

In a June 2012 report by Boston University School of Law, it was estimated that "patent trolls" cost US bodies $29 billion just in the basic litigation fees.

Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) staff attorney Julie Samuels agrees, making a public EFF statement blog post opening with "Finally, a moment of sanity..."

Further, Samuels states that "Fee shifting, often called 'loser pays,' is not a new idea. It's long existed in copyright law, for instance, allowing a court to award a winning party costs and fees in certain cases. In patent litigation, this type of provision would help tilt the playing field slightly more in favor of the good guys."

Photo: Livestockimages/Shutterstock

Google Wallet finally gets real, expands to all major U.S. credit providers

Publié: août 2, 2012, 3:04pm CEST par Patrick Roanhouse

Google on Wednesday afternoon made a huge announcement for its near field communications (NFC)-powered Google Wallet platform. Beginning August first, with an update to the Google Wallet app, Android phone users with supported NFC devices such as the Samsung Galaxy Nexus, HTC One X, or Fujistu Arrows, will be able to use any credit card from Visa, MasterCard, American Express, or Discover as an NFC payment solution. These credit cards can be used at one of the 200,000 MasterCard PayPass-supported retail locations across the United States.

Not only does the update support the full assortment of major U.S. credit card companies, but it also moves the encrypted secure bit for credit card authentication off the phone, and into the cloud on Google's servers. Previously, the wallet ID (virtual card number) was stored in a secure encrypted storage area of the Android phone. This could corrupt the wallet on the phone if software updates were performed, or firmware was updated without clearing the wallet data first. But now with the new permissions being passed down from the cloud, there is an added level of security. That new level of security is the ability to remotely disable your mobile wallet app if your phone is stolen.

The new service will pass through Google any retail purchases made on your card via NFC. Google will then instantly charge your chosen credit or debit card giving you detailed purchase information on the phone on top of showing it in your typical credit card statements. This, as Robin Dua, Head of Product Management for Google Wallet noted, will speed up the integration process for banks.

Banks that want to help their customers save cards to Google Wallet, including their custom card art, can apply on Google's new online bank support application site at no extra cost. Also, to remotely disable your Android devices' access to your wallet, Google has set up a device managment site.

This new platform could easily be expanded to a whole host of other services as well. The new web backend for the secure authentication could, for example soon lead to mobile transit cards and personal money transaction services with NFC, similar to PayPal and Square.

Amazon Instant Video apes Apple, releases app for iPad

Publié: août 1, 2012, 9:17pm CEST par Patrick Roanhouse

Amazon Instant Video, the little video service that could, has now moved into Apple territory. Starting August 1st, Amazon will be releasing an iOS iPad app for its Amazon Instant video service. The new app allows iPad users who are also Amazon Prime account members to access the 20,000+ title collection of videos available to them.

The new iPad app also allows viewing of Amazing Instant Videos not in the "free" Amazon Prime video section as well. The Amazon Instant Video App for iPad also offers access to "Your Watchlist," a list of all the movies and TV episodes Amazon members want to watch in the future, regardless of if they own the video or not. Also, the app provides access to a "Your Video Library" feature that gives iPad customers access to their previous purchases and rentals from Amazon Instant Video. Another nice feature is the option to either watch over a Wi-Fi connection or download the video for offline viewing mode.

"We want to give customers the convenience of being able to watch all of their movies and TV episodes, wherever they are, on their iPad," said Anthony Bay, Amazon.com vice president for video. "Today we’re excited to extend our ‘buy once, enjoy everywhere’ approach to iPad, giving customers the chance to enjoy more than 120,000 titles from Amazon Instant Video and more than 20,000 titles from Prime Instant Video anytime, anywhere."

However, some of the common features of iOS media apps are missing from the Amazon Instant Video app. For example, you can’t buy or rent new videos or subscribe to the Prime service directly from the new app, and you can't search for available videos through it either. This is similar to the omission of in-app purchasing in the Kindle app for iOS, which forces users to launch the iPad browser to buy content. Amazon Instant Video for iOS, likewise, makes users order and purchase content for the app through the web browser. Also, sadly the app has disabled AirPlay veiwing support on devices still missing Amazon Instant Video, like the Apple TV.

The app is free for download in the iTunes store and compatible with any iPad running iOS 4.3 or later.

Amazon Instant Video clients are also available on Kindle Fire, PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, Roku set top box, as well as on Vizio, Samsung, Panasonic, LG, and Sony smart televisions and Blu-ray players.

Come fly the insecure skies, a lesson in IT deployment at one of the largest US airports

Publié: juillet 28, 2012, 11:31pm CEST par Patrick Roanhouse

In July of 2011, Bryan Halfpap waited for his return flight home to Maryland. A network systems security professional working for a natural resource refiner and energy provider, he had just finished up the near week-long events of the security conference DefCon, in Las Vegas.

Slumped in his waiting chair, tired and bored, with time to kill he popped open his laptop. The sound and visual confirmations of open wireless networks sounded on his computer. McCarran International Airport, the gateway to the neon colored Pleasure Island that is Las Vegas, had free Wi-Fi. And for whatever reason, Halfpap wanted to kill the time by getting to know the airport he was sitting in.

He opened his web browser and pointed it to McCarran.com. With a quick click of a menu Halfpap had popped up the HTML code page of McCarran's website. Like any HTML-powered website, the code of the site is open to the public. It is how all web browsers can read the formatting of individual websites. So nothing digitally fiendish was done when Halfpap started searching through the lines of hypertext markup language and basic web scripting code in the webpage source.

With a quick look over of the code on several of the McCarran.com webpages Halfpap found that the files were being hosted by a Xerox Docushare Content management system (CMS) backend that had its own subdomain. Usually when you visit a subdomain CMS (Content Managment system) you will be greeted with an error display page in your browser. Only the sites and users given access to certain folders should be able to see any files. But that's not always the case. Automated search engines can sometimes see things that secure CMS are suppose to block.

Googling McCarran

Modern search engines index websites; in order for, say, Google to be able to find keywords on sites to load it uses an automated robot process to comb content as well as other links to other websites. If a website links to another site, Google follows that link and reads whatever it can for indexing. The search will keep doing this until all links have been followed and all pages have been indexed. The number of links to other websites gives you a ranking while the context is cached in text form by Google for keyword searches. So multiple sites that link to each other will usually have tons of data to cross reference from sub-pages of a main site. It's how you can find the contact page for McCarran without actually having to go to Mccarren.com first.

But you would think simply Googling "site:McCarran.com" would not turn up anything major from a web-facing hosting server. No one would be that foolish. There is no way a file with sensitive secure information could be found on a major international airport's public website. But being a network security professional Halfpap knew something basic, not everyone remembers to do what they are supposed to do all the time.

In what can only be called the mother of all inept network deployments, guest access was left on this Internet-facing content management system and a file marked PUBLIC that was supposed to be only for the staff of the airport had a sub folder called /security which had the airport's network documentation, security procedures documents, airport terminal hardware manuals and internal financial documents. All of this was found within the first 30 minutes of only basic Googling from his airplane waiting seat, says Halfpap.

In 2010, Las Vegas's McCarran International Airport ranked 22nd in the world for passenger traffic, with 39,757,359 passengers traveling though its terminal. It ranks ninth in the world for "Aircraft movements" with 505,591 takeoffs and landings. McCarran and Clark County Department of Aviation are completely self-sufficient enterprises, requiring no money from the Clark County, Nevada General Fund. With an airport that in the money, with slot machines and top-tier boutique stores inside, you would think it would have network security topping that of any Vegas casino.

Unexpected Find

But when Halfpap got home he was able to recover over 300,000 documents from this content management system made open to the public. While not all files had full guest access, document snippets were still cached and viewable from the guest account. Halfpap estimates that this only makes up about 10 percent of the files hosted on the CMS. The The full list of fields included that he could find without any security breaches and just simple Googling included:

600 user profiles and usernames
157 email messages
employee directory
organizational charts
manuals for the servers
deployment procedures for their servers
deployment procedures for their desktops
security policies
network documentation
network diagrams
IP addresses
specifics on their baggage setup
specifics on how they use the common use terminals for flight check in

There was so much information Halfpap could never search it all. But then he thought, this was open to the web and was being indexed. He then went to Google and typed in "CMS.Mccarren.com PASSWORD" and there is was. Documents upon documents with usernames and passwords for a plethora of internal systems. Nothing he could access without breaking the security of the site but more than enough to do it without ever getting detected.

One thing though peeked Halfpap's interest: a simple manual -- for McCarran's custom-made Unix C airline feed architecture FID Systems (Flight Information Display system). It is the system that used to run the spinning clacking flip card screens telling passengers when and where flights leave. It is the system that controls the new digital screen systems and interfaces with airlines to update flight information online. It uses proprietary protocols that the manual fully explains. Not only that, it has the entire names of all the people who worked on the project inside the manual. The manual, from a purely open, non-hack intelligence level gathering standpoint, is a golden goose of information.

Not only did Halfpap now know the internal workings of the flight system for McCarran Airport, he also learned who wrote the code that ran it. He knew who edited what and where. With Google and job history social profile site Linkedin, he also could see where all the FIDS software developers worked now.

As a network security professional, Halfpap knew this was serious. He gathered a lot of information during a short period of time. Using online Internet tool The Wayback Machine, part of InternetArchive.org, he learned that this guest account access could have been left on with this public folder facing the Internet from as far back as 2003.

Slow Response

Armed with this information he contacted the airport in January 2012 to talk with the CIO or someone in charge of information security. But Halfpap got no response. No voice mails were ever returned. Halfpap tried contacting McCarran Airport via email as well and via its public Twitter account; he got no response.

It was now May of 2012, after several more failed attempts to get the attention of McCarran Airport Halfpap finally contacted a friend of his who worked for a government contractor that had close ties to the FBI. From there an FBI agent contacted an officer in the US Department of Transportation, and from there someone contacted someone in the Federal Aviation Administration, which then finally contacted the Clark County Department of Aviation to fix the problem. By May 17th 2012 the guest access had been revoked, and the public folder partialy removed.

But even still the airline had a serious problem. No one on the staff actually followed the Internet security policy of the airport. In my interview with Halfpap, he states:

Their security policy states 8 characters alphanumeric with symbols, don't write it down, change default passwords, and don't share passwords. Well they broke each one of those. Didn't change default passwords, shared them, and wrote them down as the shared files showed and has such gems as as "lasvegas1", the number "1", and "blank" as in nothing it's a blank password. And one of those might or might not been the password for a smaller domain of the network.

Halfpap says this with an uneasy laugh of frustration. Other passwords that could be found via Google besides the baggage system included email test admin passwords and passwords for McCarran's Stoneware account, a location deployment environment. Halfpap says they didn't give him the keys to the kingdom. But with this much information he could have easily spear fished or socially engineered his way in. He had the full employee directory with their titles, phone numbers, and offices. Everything that would ever be needed with his technical knowledge of the platform deployments to get in.

The root cause of this major security hole at McCarran was because the team that deployed the system forgot to turn the guest account off, and worse, a policy of keeping secure documents in a public folder was set.

Halfpap says if he had been in charge of this network and in charge of the deployment, he should have been fired. Today, Halfpap discussed his finding at this year's Defcon in a talk called "Grepping The Gropers: Airport Security".

At press time, BetaNews had not received response to several requests for comment, including the Clark County aviation administrator responsible for maintaining the airport's network.

Photo Credit: photobank.ch/Shutterstock

IDC Appcelerator survey reveals what app developers love and hate the most

Publié: juillet 25, 2012, 1:33am CEST par Patrick Roanhouse

International Data Corporation (IDC), in partnership with mobile platform company Appcelerator, announced results of a global survey of Appcelerator developers on Tuesday, The survey created a detailed profile of developers' outlook on the market, with a particular focus on development for enterprise.

At a high level, the survey showed that developers believe Apple is leading the charge in the enterprise mobile deployment; see Android only as a consumer opportunity; are excited about remote cloud service integration; and are cautiously optimistic about Windows 8 and Windows RT tablets; but see Windows Phone as disappointing.

iOS in Enterprise

A significant 53.2 percent of developers believe Apple iOS will "win" in the enterprise market, versus 37.3 percent of developers who believe Google's Android platform will. The most common reason for this belief is the already regular adoption of the iPad as a tool by both executives and workers. Also noted are the IT challenges of dealing with Android fragmentation and potential malware. Lastly, the survey found that enterprise developers question the value of Android deployment outside of traditional business verticals, such as in machine to machine communications.

They want Windows 8 to be good, but...

Most developers are polled as being cautiously optimistic about Windows 8, and find Microsoft's Metro UI to be especially compelling. An impressive one-third of all developers say that they are very interested in Windows 8 tablets. Yet devs have voiced concerns about the move to ARM platforms with Windows RT tablets. Developers, the IDC report notes, have distinct needs when porting ARM-based mobile apps to x86-based devices like Windows 8 tablets, which include the ability to support consistent user experiences and the ability to reuse as much code as possible, with tools to assist porting between architectures. If Microsoft can not provide this, Windows on ARM might be a bad venture for them.

Windows Phone *yawn*

Another hard fact from this report is that developer interest in Windows Phone has dropped sharply. The amount of developers "very interested" in Windows Phone has dropped from 37.0 percent in first quarter of 2012 to 25.0 percent in the second quarter of 2012. This was not unexpected, given disappointing WP7 handset sales to date and Nokia's recently reported competitive challenges. But they might have wiggle room to turn it around based upon the loss of developer favor for Android. In any case, turning around that sharp drop will take massive efforts on Microsoft's part.

The cloud is crystal clear

Mobile developers are committed to the cloud, and 83 percent of all developers in the survey plan to use cloud services in some capacity for their applications. For back end deployment, 50.4 percent of developers say they will use Apple's iCloud, and 49.1 percent say they will use Amazon's cloud platform. Microsoft's Azure trails with somewhat colder interest; yet another sign of Microsoft's weak mobile presence.

Tools of the trade

The survey reveals that two thirds of mobile application developers use multiple platform development tools to build apps now. This is mostly due to the sheer number of mobile operating systems in use. Most developers do not have the resources to develop a different version of their application for multiple platforms, so finding an all-purpose development toolset is paramount.

Therefore, significant momentum has been made for mobile HTML5-based apps that can be used on any platform. Using HTML5 allows for easy development of cross-platform apps that still support native push notifications, social integration, and authentication for cloud services.

Photo Credit: kentoh/Shutterstock

EU trustbusters tire of Microsoft tricks, probe Windows 8

Publié: juillet 21, 2012, 2:49am CEST par Patrick Roanhouse

Just days after opening a new Microsoft investigation, European antitrust regulators have broadened the scope. The software giant already faces possible multi-billion dollar sanctions for non-compliance with a 2009 agreement. European Windows users are supposed to get browser choice, but a ballot box mysteriously disappeared when Windows 7 Service Pack 1 released in February 2011. The European Competition Commission has since added Windows 8 to the investigation.

The agreement, which expires at the end of 2014, requires that a browser choice screen must appear in all copies of Windows, including version 8. The browser choice screen allows a dozen alternate third-party browsers to be shown as options for installation besides Internet Explorer -- when starting IE each time, or starting Windows for the first time. Microsoft faces new allegations the browser choice screen is missing from the final version of Windows 8 and Windows RT.

Another allegation is quite serious that -- Microsoft is providing co-marketing funds to computer makers like Dell, Hewlett-Packard or Lenovo to discourage them from setting third-party browsers as default in Windows 8. If true, such action would violate the 2009 EU agreement, which states that Microsoft cannot set conditions that forbid OEMs from installing other browsers on their PCs. Nor can Microsoft retaliate against OEMs that distribute third-party browsers like Chrome, Firefox, Opera or Safari with brand new machines.

There's more. Mozilla, Opera, and Google allege that Microsoft is also blocking access to system APIs that, missing, cripple their browsers in Microsoft's newest operating systems. Responding to these complaints, the European Commission expanded the investigation into the yet to be publicly released Windows 8 and also Windows RT. The latter is the offshoot of Windows 8 designed for ARM processor-powered tablets and other devices. Previously, the Commission had declined to say whether it believed Windows RT is covered by the agreement, but now leans that way.

Stuffed Ballot Box

In relation to the Browser choice exclusions from Windows 7 Service Pack 1, Joaquin Almunia, the EU's chief regulator and head of the EU's Competition Commission states that:

If the facts are confirmed, we will use the legal instruments at our disposal to deter and to punish Microsoft. If confirmed, this would have severe consequences...and there will be sanctions.

In a statement of its own, Microsoft claims the omission was an oversight stating that:

Due to a technical error, we missed delivering the Browser choice screen [BCS] software to PCs that came with the Service Pack 1 update to Windows 7. We learned recently that we've missed serving the BCS software to the roughly 28 million PCs running Windows 7 SP1.

Aped APIs

Even if the EU were to forgive the "oversight" of the Windows 7 Service Pack Browser Choice Screen omission, others would be harder to overlook. The API blocking allegations come from Asa Dotzler, director of the Mozilla Firefox project, and Harvey Anderson, Mozilla's general counsel. Harvey Anderson made a public post about it on the Mozilla official blog back in May 2012 with direct antitrust allegations.

Asa Dotzler then also made several posts [1] [2] to the Mozillazine newsletter, eventually issuing this summation post explaining the crippling nature of the blocked API access with tech diagrams. But his post can be summed up to his key statement:

We could build a beautiful Firefox that looked really nice on Metro, but Firefox would be so crippled in terms of power and speed that it's probably not worth it to even bother.

Google in response released a statement that says:

We share the concerns Mozilla has raised regarding the Windows 8 environment restricting user choice and innovation. We've always welcomed innovation in the browser space across all platforms and strongly believe that having great competitors makes us all work harder. In the end, consumers and developers benefit the most from robust competition.

Strong-Arm Tactics

As for the OEM promotional-marketing funding strong arming by Microsoft, the EC's Antoine Colobani says:

Third parties allege that Microsoft is acting in violation of the browser commitments by discouraging computer manufacturers (OEMs) by means of payments or withholding payments under marketing programmes from setting third-party browsers as default in Windows 8. We will indeed look at these allegations made by third parties in the context of the investigation on Microsoft's compliance with our December 2009 decision.

At this time the EU could not name the OEMs raising the allegations for fear they might be hit with further financial intimidation.

If any or all of these allegations prove true, each violation could be seen as a separate fineable offense. Each fine would be based on the gravity and duration of the illegal behavior. Under EU law, the Competition commission can levy fines as high as 10 percent of a company's annual revenue. For fiscal 2012, which ended June 30, Microsoft posted global revenue of $73.72 billion.

Photo Credit: Pete

Will Novell-Microsoft ruling make developers digital serfs to platform lords?

Publié: juillet 18, 2012, 3:05am CEST par Patrick Roanhouse

Today marked another win for Microsoft while under the watchful eyes of Judge J. Frederick Motz, who dismissed the antitrust lawsuit brought by Novell. The case stems from a complaint that Microsoft deliberately withdrew namespace extension APIs for Windows 95, knowing they were key to Novell's application, with the intent of thwarting software application competition. Specifically to give an edge to the Microsoft Office suite over third-party products.

At the time, 1994, WordPerfect had 30 percent productivity suite market share worldwide. WordPerfect had developed its rich user base since the days of MS-DOS and was more widely used than Microsoft's own competing upstart Office suite, which had only been released a few years earlier.

Novell in a public statement says it plans to appeal the decision.

As previously stated, Novell and Microsoft were before Motz last year. The 2011 case ended when he issued an opinion granting Microsoft a "Rule 50 motion", essentially dismissing the case. A Rule 50 motion, which is made by a judge in hung-jury cases, is called a "judgment as a matter of law motion." In the 2011 case, a lone 21-year-old security guard was the holdout juror for the dead-locked jury.

But in the other court case, Novell's argument had been cut down to a single claim that Microsoft violated Section 2 of the Sherman Antitrust Act by monopolizing the software applications market, limiting competition. Novell sought nearly $1 billion from Microsoft. Judge Motz explained in the published decision why he dismissed the case:

Although Novell presented evidence from which a jury could have found that Microsoft engaged in aggressive conduct, perhaps to monopolize or attempt to monopolize the applications market, it did not present evidence sufficient for a jury to find that Microsoft committed any acts that violated [Sherman Act Section 2] in maintaining its monopoly in the operating systems market.

Even though I am not a lawyer this is still a very puzzeling decision as some of the evidence brought to trial even included what some called a smoking gun memo from Bill Gates that stated:

I have decided that we should not publish these extensions. We should wait until we have a way to do a high level of integration that will be harder for the likes of Notes, WordPerfect to achieve, and which will give Office a real advantage.

And in what could only be more head wrapping after this damning memo is Judge Motz's reason in saying why this isn't a prime example of an antitrust case:

A monopolist is free 'to exercise [its] own independent discretion as to parties with whom [it] will deal, It is well established that a monopolist generally has no duty to cooperate with its competitors.

This ruling leaves me with a disturbed, ominous concern for the future of software development. Has Judge Motz opened a precedent that will allow companies like Microsoft, Apple or even Google the right to dictate a total monopoly market power over third-party applications that run on their Operating System and platforms? If Microsoft, Apple, Google or any platform developer has competing application products, can it now just refuse to cooperate technically with software vendors that write applications for their platforms?

It seems that Motz is ruling in favor of unfair market advantage completely negating the point of the Sherman Act and antitrust laws. If this is so companies like Apple; who already do the same thing with their iOS platform in blocking "applications that duplicate iOS features", now have legal carte blanche to do so. This could turn out to be a very disturbing ruling for all third-party software developers.

It could be the digital equivalent of the days of old when the king of France took a liking to your wife, and then sent you off to war so he could have his way with her. Or in this case, copy your application's features and then block your app from being able to run on the King's platform.

Sprint 4G LTE service goes hot in 15 cities in southern United States

Publié: juillet 17, 2012, 12:44am CEST par Patrick Roanhouse

Sprint announced today it has flipped the switch on 4G LTE coverage in 15 cities in the Georgia, Kansas, Missouri, and Texas markets.

Running on the 1900 MHz spectrum, Sprint's LTE will not be as fast as competing networks of Verizon running on the 700 MHz Band 13 frequency or AT&T running at 700 MHz band 17 and 2100/1700 MHz band 4 frequencies. Also Sprint's service is limited by the backhauls to its towers, as well as limited to using only two 5 MHz bands for uplink and downlink. This will only allow speeds of 2Mbps to 3 Mbps on Sprint's current LTE network, far less than AT&T or Verizon.

Unfortunately Sprint's LTE will also not be able to penetrate into large buildings due to the higher frequency of their LTE network, similar to how a low-frequency bass sound from a speaker will penetrate a building more than the higher frequency treble noise.

But Sprint's LTE service is the only one that does not have restrictive data caps. The lure of unlimited data can only last so long unless the carrier is quick to jump on a faster backhaul and gets access to use open access 700 MHz spectrum.

The 15 cities:

Atlanta
Athens, Ga.
Calhoun, Ga.
Carrollton, Ga.
Newnan, Ga.
Rome, Ga.
Dallas
Fort Worth, Texas
Granbury-Hood County, Texas
Houston
Huntsville, Texas
San Antonio, Texas
Waco, Texas
Kansas City, Mo.-Kan.
St. Joseph, Mo.

Sprint sugests visiting its coverage map for more details on new deployments.

Anonymous supports Greenpeace, hacks oil companies

Publié: juillet 16, 2012, 7:34pm CEST par Patrick Roanhouse

In what the loosely-tied hacker group Anonymous calls #OpSaveTheArctic, over 1,000 email credentials and Hash checks of email passwords from five major international oil giants were released. The companies targeted included Exxon Mobil Corporation, Shell Petrochemical Corp., and BP Global; as well as the Russian based Gazprom Corporation and Rosneft Petroleum Corp.

The data dumped on anonymous text post website Pastebin includes 317 emails and their unsalted MD5 hashed passwords from a hack on Exxon mobil from June. Added July 13th: a further 724 emails and hashed passwords from BP, Gazprom, and Rosneft, and 26 emails with clear-text passwords from Shell Petroleum. Also listed: all of the internal mail system information, detailing routers, operating system type, database details and server hardware vendor. Further detailing of the type of data gained is available at the DC/Nova/Maryland network security blog site NovaInfoSeco.com.

Posted in the data among leaked pastebin posts is the pointed detailed explanation #opSave. TheArctic pointman, @le4ky explains the reasons for the security breach:

The energy companies that caused the Arctic to melt in the first place are looking to profit from the disappearing ice. They want to open up a new oil frontier to get at a potential 90 billion barrels of oil. That’s a lot of money to them, but it’s only three years’ worth of oil to the world.

Previously classified government documents say dealing with oil spills in the freezing waters is “almost impossible” and inevitable mistakes would shatter the fragile Arctic environment. We’ve seen the extreme damage caused by the Exxon Valdez and Deepwater Horizon disasters -- we cannot let this happen in the Arctic. To drill in the Arctic, oil companies have to drag icebergs out the way of their rigs and use giant hoses to melt floating ice with warm water. If we let them do this, a catastrophic oil spill is just a matter of time.

In further postings about the leaked data from Exxon Mobil in June, @le4ky confirmed that some of the data had been used by third parties for email phishing attacks. But more humorously the lot of the compromised email listing had been used to sign a petition running on the Greenpeace website SaveTheArctic.org.

In regards to who was responsible, @le4ky clarifies that the operation was carried out by Anonymous only, and was in no way affiliated with Greenpeace in any shape or form. Stating that they [Anonymous] were "just supporting their [Greenpeace] cause".

Photo Credit: arindambanerjee/Shutterstock

Gartner says 2012 IT spending will surpass $3.6 trillion worldwide

Publié: juillet 10, 2012, 8:12pm CEST par Patrick Roanhouse

Information Technology is now a part of every day life. Every office will be networked, with data on demand. And with the push for easy access location independent records, paper files will be made redundant. But Gartner's newest IT spending forecast shows the march to digitalization slowing -- on pace to reach $3.628 trillion in 2012 and $3.786 trillion in 2013. That is only an estimated 3 percent and 4.4 percent increase compared to the the $3.523 trillion spent last year in 2011, which was 7.9 percent growth compared to 2010.

Computer Hardware in 2011 accounted for $404 billion in spending with a 7.4 percent growth. In 2012, Gartner estimates spending will reach $420 billion, only 3.4-percent growth. Gartner projects by 2013 that will go to 6.6 percent growth at $448 billion.

Enterprise Software spending in 2011 was $269 billion at 9.8-percent growth from 2010. The Gartner forecast pegs that at $281 billion for 4.3-percent growth in 2012. For 2013 the analyst firm puts the enterprise software spending at $301 billion with a 6.9 percent growth.

IT Service spending the forecast stated $845 billion was spent in 2011 at a 7.7 percent growth to the previous year. In 2012 that's expected reach $864 billion, a 2.3 percent increase from 2011. With 2013 reaching $408 billion, 4.8 percent growth.

Telecom Equipment spending was $340 billion, up 17.5 percent growth in 2011. In 2012, the estimate is $377 billion, or 10.8 growth. For 2013, the forecast is $408 billion, with only 8.3 percent growth.

Telecom Services spending in 2011 reached a whopping $1.663 trillion -- 6 percent growth over 2010. But forcasts for 2012 have it only estimated to rise to $1.686 trillion and for 2013 only $1.725 trillion -- 1.4 percent and 2.3 percent growth, respectively.

Richard Gordon, research vice president at Gartner states: "While the challenges facing global economic growth persist -- the eurozone crisis, weaker US recovery, a slowdown in China -- the outlook has at least stabilized...There has been little change in either business confidence or consumer sentiment in the past quarter, so the short-term outlook is for continued caution in IT spending".

In contrast to the rather slowing growth outlook for IT spending, Gartner expects a "brightspot for IT providers" as enterprise spending on public cloud services grow from $91 billion worldwide in 2011 to $109 billion in 2012. By 2016 the firm expects enterprise public cloud services spending to reach $207 billion.

This is not surprising as many services such as company contact management, accounting tools, business management, cloud computing data processing and even word processing / spread sheet / and presentation office tools are all moving to web-based cloud services that can scale for small to even full global enterprise-level businesses.

"Business process as a service (BPaaS) still accounts for the vast majority of cloud spending by enterprises, but other areas such as platform as a service (PaaS), software as a service (SaaS) and infrastructure as a service (IaaS) are growing faster", Gordon says.

The data Gartner uses in its forecast comes from records and interviews with more than 75 percent of the Global 500 companies about their key technology decisions.

Photo Credit: gualtiero boffi/Shutterstock

Microsoft announces Windows 8 for October retail release

Publié: juillet 9, 2012, 5:02pm CEST par Patrick Roanhouse

At the 2012 Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference in Toronto, Canada, Microsoft CFO and Chief Marking Officer Tami Reller finally revealed the time when we can expect Windows 8 to hit the market.

During her keynote presentation, Reller talked about the new features of the Windows platform and how it will work with its deployment partners. Of course, the bigest news was that the final build of Windows 8 will reach RTM (release to manufacturing) in the first week of August.

Enterprise customers will be granted access to Windows 8 at the end of August. Following up at the end of October, it will be released in both its boxed form for retail, and as upgrades.

Windows 8 will be available in 109 languages across 231 markets worldwide, a subject Ms. Reller called "unprecedented." One of the biggest targets with the new Windows 8 install will be cheaper upgrades for Window XP holdouts. Also touched upon at the keynote was the 18-month long milestone changes since Windows 8 announcement at the 2011 CES.

Ms. Reller than went on to talk about the new forms of Windows with new key features. She demoed new multi-touch feature that is surprisingly fast on new ultrabooks from Acer. She also demoed Asus laptops using ARM and X86 SoCs. The biggest new product reveal was the new ten finger multitouch angled touchscreen PC from Lenovo. Reller demoed the new multi-touch evolution of MS Paint, using actual paint brushes to paint with. Finally, she demonstrated Windows 8 on a USB keychain to maintain live installs of Windows 8 for secure corporate environments.

You CAN recover stolen or lost gadgets, but it ain't easy

Publié: juillet 7, 2012, 10:18pm CEST par Patrick Roanhouse

We carry expensive gadgets on us all the time now. On a flight we listen to music on an iPhone or read on a Kindle ebook reader. We watch movies on an iPad or play Angry birds on an Android. But what do you do if you misplace that device, or worse it is stolen? What recourse do you have to get it back, if any? Who do you call, or contact for help, and what can you do to be prepared beforehand to help in getting it back yourself?

In this article I will do a quick rundown of types of devices that are most commonly lost or stolen and go over some basic rules of the road beforehand with any new gadget or device you have.

Keep It In Your Records Rule

The following things you can do for any new gadget or product purchase. Simply: Put it in your personal records. This is a simple and easy to-do process for anyone:

Take a few picture of the device. Keep a visual record, which some insurers will demand.
Write down the make and model of the device. It helps to know just what you have so you can claim it later.
Write down the serial number and or any other device specific identification numbers such as ETIM, MEID, FSN, and MAC address numbers of the device. This is important for reporting lost or stolen products as these numbers cannot be changed in most electronics and are hardcoded in most of them.
Keep a copy or scan of the original receipt and store it with the documents as a PDF or as an actual printed copy. Proof of purchase always helps, and if you want to resell later you can hand it over on bill of sale for the new owner and a note showing the transaction.

Device specific Rules

Tablets, Cell Phones, and Computers. First, follow the rules above. But if you want to be active in your devices' return there are a couple of tools that can help.

Apple iPads and iPhones are known for their Find My iPhone app that was included in the the 2009 update of the MobileMe platform but now supports iPads as well in iCloud. Just remember to have your free iCloud account setup and have "Find My iPhone" installed. If you don't have 3G or you have a lost iPod, the app will still work as it uses WiFi SkyHook enabled Geo-Location information. It will even let you lockdown the device from further use and send messages to the person who might have it, to possible comical effect.

For users of the Windows Phone platform, Microsoft took a page right from Apple's playbook with their own Find A Lost Phone service. They even have a simple set of instructions on their website.

For Android phone and tablet users, as well as iPhone/iPad 3G users who don't want to use Apple to track their device, there is one of my favorite free and opensource projects, The Prey Project. What's even better is it also supports Windows, Apple Macintosh, and Linux installed laptops as well with native clients. Prey project is basically a free, up-to-3-devices clone of Find My iPhone but in many ways better. The tiered pro version can even be implemented to track entire enterprise setups of devices. What's even nicer, the app/service can use your phone, tablet, and even your computer, to take pictures of the person using the device. It can also send messages just like Find My iPhone and it too can lock down a device while giving you GPS / WiFi Geo-location directions to where it is located.

Lastly, if you have a stolen or lost cellphone, hotspot, iPad 3G/4G, or cellular supported tablet or notebook, report it to your mobile service provider. The Federal Communications Commission announced back in April that all four major US cellphone carriers have agreed to deny cell and data service to stolen phones, and contribute the serial numbers of those phones to a national mobile device database. It is reported that this service will go live in the middle of July with AT&T. They will lead the charge with a new service that will allow customers to deny voice, data and SMS access to any individual phone or tablet. All of this while keeping their account intact, avoiding the inconvenience of a full SIM block.

Ebook Readers. The ebook market is full of one-off devices but if your device is not Internet connected you may never see it again -- save for a lucky lost and found hunt. The king of the devices though is the Kindle. But the sad fact is unlike some cellphone providers with mobile phones, Amazon wont help you get it back. On Amazon's help page they write the following advice:

Lost or stolen Kindle.

First, deregister Kindle via the Manage Your Kindle page. To file a police report, please contact your local police department. You will also want to make sure that you cancel any active Kindle subscriptions on the Manage Your Kindle Subscriptions page. Canceling the subscription will ensure that you are no longer billed; you'll also receive a pro-rated refund for remaining issues you already paid for. You always have the option of subscribing at a later date.

I found a Kindle.

Please turn the Kindle device in to an appropriate lost and found, or turn it in to the local authorities. If you'd prefer, you can also send the device to be recycled by our certified recycler, Eco International. You can create and print your own prepaid UPS shipping label through Eco International's website. Visit ecotakeback.com/kindle for further instructions.

Those instructions are not very helpful though. It is like they want you to buy a new kindle instead of getting yours back. Again, the best bet is to follow the Keep It In Your Records Rule.

Kindle's serial number is on the outside of the box it came in, a reason to keep the box. The serial number can also be found in the Settings menu on your Kindle. All the MAC address and cellular number information is on that same Settings menu page as well.

Cameras. As with most modern devices the information about your camera can be found in the about or settings menu. One nice thing though is besides reporting it to the police you can also report the lost or stolen device to the original manufacturer. If the camera ever comes in for repair or resale at a pawnshop or used electronics store it can be red flagged and held for further investigation.

ALWAYS CALL POLICE FIRST

If you ever do have a gadget stolen remember to call the police first and report it. You never know what kind of dangers or even possible organized crime might have their hands on your stolen device. In the past police have been slow to act on device theft reports. But in recent cases of public embarrassment of the police, where people had reported the name, address, and personal contact information of the person who had the device, cops have made device thefts a higher priority.

In New York City the NYPD now even trains their police officers on how to use several of the personal tracking software tools used by consumers today.

But in the end, you are your best chance of getting your device back as long as you follow the Keep It In Your Records Rule.

Photo Credit: RioPatuca/Shutterstock

Do network neutrality rules violate Verizon's freedom of speech?

Publié: juillet 5, 2012, 1:24am CEST par Patrick Roanhouse

June 2nd marked the return shots fired by telecommunications juggernaut Verizon against the Federal Communications Commission for fines the FCC leveled on them in regards to network neutrality. In a legal brief filed in Washington DC at the United States Court Of Appeals, Verizon and regional cell phone provider MetroPCS formally appealed.

Verizon claims that the FCC forcing them to keep all data traffic equal priority is unconstitutional -- that equal priority of data is an affront to carrier's freedom of speech.

Backstory, Oh Sweet Backstory

Network neutrality is the concept that all bits should be treated equal. The cleanest example of this is the case of online video streaming. If you have an Internet connection from Comcast or Verizon, neither provider can limit, slow, or block the traffic of services such as Netflix, YouTube, Vudu, or Amazon streaming. The same concept would apply to online telephony services like Skype. Doing such to limit third party video competitors when your Internet provider also provides streaming services they are trying to sell would limit innovation and possible access to the open unfettered internet.

In 2007, two non-profit advocacy organizations, Free Press and Public Knowledge, filed a complaint with the FCC against Internet/television provider Comcast, which was discovered to have been limiting and, in some cases, blocking data to many of its customers using BitTorrent. The peer-to-peer technology is found in everything from the popular Blizzard game "World of Warcraft" to online legal file sharing services as well as illegal ones.

The complaint from Free Press and Public Knowledge stated that Comcast’s actions violated the FCC Internet Policy Statement, particularly the statement’s principle that “consumers are entitled to access the lawful Internet content of their choice... [and] to run applications and use services of their choice”. When the FCC tried to penalize Comcast under the jurisdiction granted by the Communications Act of 1934 (47 U.S.C. § 154), Comcast compiled with the penalization but then appealed in 2010 in the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia. The appeals court ruled against the FCC, stating that it had overstepped its bounds in policing information technology infrastructure, authority not intended by the Communications Act of 1934. The FCC shortly thereafter registered a set of formal rules with the Government (September 2011).

Political Pawn in a Republicans vs Obama Debate

During the Comcast vs. FCC case, the Republican party started to beat the drum for the telecom industry. Frequently you would see elected Republican GOP officials in both the House and Senate come out with what seemed to be purposefully conflicting and confusing statements about what network neutrality was and actually meant and trying to peg the FCC as hampering the open Internet to block high tech jobs as an example of government over-regulation. Every major player of the GOP was coming out against the FCC with Republican Senate leader Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky being the first to signal the attack call in this statement:

At a time when the private sector would like to create jobs and grow the economy, it seems like too many in Washington want to create regulations and grow government. And so like many Americans, I was heartened two months ago, when the President came to the Capitol and laid out a very specific test for judging the merits of federal regulation ...

... But now, the FCC says its regulations are necessary because of what might happen in the future, if broadband providers have incentives to favor one type of content over another — despite the fact that after 15 years, there is no evidence of this occurring in any significant way,

House GOP Leader John Boehner (R-OH) joined shortly after the 2010 midterm elections saying:

The new House majority will work to reverse this [FCC Network Neutrality] unnecessary and harmful federal government power grab next year.

What was once a simple issue had now become a pawn in the Republicans vs. "Big Government" Democrats debate. Something so simple as making sure Internet service providers, who might have bias to preferential treatment of their own video and phone services, did not outright block competing 3rd party services was now unfair big government bureaucratic regulation. It didn't matter if companies like Comcast were blocking or slowing down the services of other online competitors and then planning on forcing them to pay to get back on equal footing. It was digital highway robbery via digital extortion or modern online protection rackets. Yet to the political players on the right it was still “Big Government” regulation "hampering" the "open internet's growth".

All Bits are Equal, but Some Bits are More Equal than Others

This is what brings us back to Verizon, with regional celluar carrier MetroPCS. In the FCC penalty appeal, Verizon is now trying to state that the FCC forcing them to keep all data traffic equal priority is unconstitutional. Verizon's lawyers are going so far as to say that the rules set in place to defend the customer's/consumer's rights of equal priority of the data is an affront to Verizon's freedom of speech.

Verizon sees the data running across its network as speech now. Even if it's your text, another company's movie or video, or someone's email or blog. It's all their speech now by this legal argument. Verizon also goes to say the FCC rules are "arbitrary and capricious." Basically stating that the fears of Verizon, or other companies, slowing down traffic or blocking services on their networks, for the sake of their own services, would never happen. But it has happened, numerous times already.

I just have to point out the recent case of Comcast video on Xbox Live. Comcast recently started offering TV channels via Xbox Live in an app but then said that the data that was used to transmit that video over your Internet connection doesn't count toward data transmission caps on users. These data transmission caps still apply to data sent via non-Comcast based services, such as Netflix, Amazon video streaming, and Vudu.

The lack of support for the citizen and end user is the scariest part of all of this. It shows that those who are the loudest in blocking the FCC and destroying the concepts of a Neutral All bits are equal Internet are the same ones who have the most campaign donations to gain from the large telecom industry.

In the end if a decision like this happens in favor of Verizon, corporate telecom giants will have just gotten the legal go ahead for truly destructive and progress halting anti-competitive actions. It is only in an open Internet that innovation will flourish, not at the whim of large Telecom Barrons who can choke off the access to new upstart competitors. The deck is stacked in the major corporate favor and now more than ever we need to protect an open and free internet.

What if ... Apple just now released the first iPhone?

Publié: juillet 2, 2012, 12:25am CEST par Patrick Roanhouse

Fourth in a series. To commemorate iPhone's fifth-anniversary, we present several stories looking at its debut and colorful history -- so far. This one is different from the others, as it's a work of fiction, looking at a possible, alternative timeline.

Apple, the trendsetter of design and function has made good on their WWDC 2012 promise. Today marks their release of what they dub the very first smart phone, the iPhone. But the big question: Are they a little too late to the game now? The new phone marks a 180-degree turn from the past statements of Apple cofounder Steve Jobs, who asserted Apple is, or was, a computer, media and services company first.

Many suspected Apple was on a path to a mobile phone years ago with the release of the mobile iTunes platform, which was first made popular on the Motorola brand of phones. But all the signs pointed to nigh.

Apple now enters into a very rough sea of contenders. Following twin 2009 acquisitions -- Microsoft of Research in Motion and Nokia of Palm -- Apple faces daunting competition. But the electronics powerhouse seems to have a strong grasp of the basics of the mobile market already down as shown with their iTab tablet Mac OS X device. The new iPhone uses a slimmed-down version of the same operating system -- mobile OS X Unix platform "mOSX" used on the tablet, for now simply called iOS.

Apple already has very strong knowledge of media and application sales for any of its new platforms. The Apple iTab was the first to see this integration into the updated iLife Store, which name changed from iTunes Store in 2007. The operation gave Apple more control over major first- and third-party software titles, largely from the success of the Universal Carbon Apps SDK. Apple's was the first secure Internet software applications store supporting OS X and Windows platforms and any already existing Personal Computer Phones.

Apple's success delivered a serious blow to Sun's Java, which was a very strong mobile application platform. Apple quietly developed its true Trojan horse into the mobile space. Microsoft and Nokia have yet to achieve the same level of user support from media or application sales that Apple started with iLife Store on early iPod media player devices.

It will be interesting to see what Microsoft's Blackbear platform and Nokia's SymbianNext devices will do. Both already have the iLife Store as very strong store fronts on them. Microsoft still has their Xune platform, yet all but acknowledged defeat when it stopped support for the music / media only platform after the BlackBerry acquisition. Apple still has the ability to pull serious sway in the market with this new product. Some analysts see it as the first true user-centric lifestyle phone.

Touting this as his final triumph, Jobs stepped down as CEO but remains on board as Chairman for the company he came back to save in 1996. He claimed that iPhone will be his finest work -- a truly integrated connected Internet communication device with form and function and design people expect from Apple.

Jobs will head up a group to develop the first open-education platform with online tracking and classes, partnering with Kahn Academy. But that's another story. The new "smart phone", as Apple has branded it, will be Jobs' lasting mark on the company he created. From the look of the strong, ever-growing market share of the iLife Store platform and that of Apple computer products, iPhone has a strong ecosystem to support it.

Photo Credit: Anneka/Shutterstock

Google comes clean: Yes, your kernel panic is Chrome's fault

Publié: juin 29, 2012, 5:33pm CEST par Patrick Roanhouse

The last thing Google needs following its exciting developer conference (ending today) is for something sharp to pop its big fun beach ball called Chrome. The search and information giant scrambles to fix a bug that sends the newest MacBook Air into kernel panic. That's "crash" to you Mac layfolk.

Starting just shortly after the release of Sandy Bridge-powered Macbook Airs earlier this month, troublesome reports appeared on Apple’s support communities where, owners complained their slender machines crashed to the point of kernel panic -- and frequently.

The culprit of the grey screens of death is Google's browser, particularly Chrome GPU acceleration, when used on the Intel HD 4000 graphics chip. What Google calls a "resource leak" is actually a very strange thing. Chrome is a Userland level application -- general applications that have to work through the "system space" / "system level" applications in order to reach the kernel, or brain of the operating system that handles hardware interaction via drivers. However, browsers using hardware acceleration tend to sidestep this, since they use graphics cards to increase rendering and processing for interactive HTML5 browser graphics and animation, and even video.

In a statement first reported by Gizmodo, Google acknowledges the MacBook Air problem stating:

We have identified a leak of graphics resources in the Chrome browser related to the drawing of plugins on Mac OS X. Work is proceeding to find and fix the root cause of the leak.

The resource leak is causing a kernel panic on Mac hardware containing the Intel HD 4000 graphics chip (e.g. the new Macbook Airs). Radar bug number 11762608 has been filed with Apple regarding the kernel panics, since it should not be possible for an application to trigger such behavior.

While the root cause of the leak is being fixed, we are temporarily disabling some of Chrome's GPU acceleration features on the affected hardware via an auto-updated release that went out this afternoon (Thursday June 28). We anticipate further fixes in the coming days which will re-enable many or all of these features on this hardware.

Late last night, Google provided an auto-update patch that temporarily disables GPU acceleration on Mac hardware with the HD 4000 Intel graphics chip. More information is available on the Google Chrome Releases blog.

Photo Credit:

ADOBE FLASH IS DEAD -- on mobile!

Publié: juin 29, 2012, 4:40pm CEST par Patrick Roanhouse

From the halls of Adobe come the bells of impending death tolls. The master slayed its dragon. Flash is dead. The words from Adobe today in a public blog post mark another major blow to Flash, at least in the mobile form. The company announced that it will no longer develop Flash for Android after Android 4.0. There will be no certified implementations for Android 4.1.

Earlier this week, during its developer conference, Google officially unveiled the newest Android version -- Jellybean -- which replaces the stock browser with Chrome, for which Flash already isn't available. Google released Chrome for Android beta, supporting on v4 Ice Cream Sandwich, in February. From that perspective, the announcement, and timing, isn't super surprising.

Starting August 15, Adobe will also limit access to the Flash Player in the Google Play Store to only devices that already have it installed and later removing it entirely. This is a major death blow to the Flash platform -- seemingly now to match the prophetic reasons the late Steve Jobs blocked it from the iPhone (although his reasons had more to do with Apple platform competition than anything else).

Strangely, Adobe could do more to end Android fragmentation than anything Google has done. Nearly 93 percent of Android devices have versions older than Ice Cream Sandwich. Google has given no indication that Chrome will ever be available for them. As Flash disappears, and the utility of the stock Android browser further decreases, cellular carriers and phone manufacturers may face increasing customer pressure to get devices off Gingerbread, which has the largest install base, and onto Android 4.x.

Clearly fragmentation is a problem for Adobe, which cites time-consuming device certification as one reason to abandon Flash on Android:

Certification includes extensive testing to ensure web content works as expected, and that the Flash Player provides a good user experience. Certified devices typically include the Flash Player pre-loaded at the factory or as part of a system update.

With the increase in the speed of the Android platform roadmap, and Chrome rising above the stock browser, Adobe just doesn't want to continue. However, in the blog post, the developer reiterates its support for the PC market. But I say they know the writing's on the wall.

LONG LIVE HTML5 + CSS3 + Javascript!

Photo Credit: metalstock/Shutterstock

Apple's Mountain Lion will allow automatic security updates

Publié: juin 27, 2012, 10:45pm CEST par Patrick Roanhouse

In the most recently released developer preview of Mac OS X, Mountain Lion, Apple has included an automated system that lets the user check and install new Security Updates. Part of a new set of OS X 10.8 protection tools against the once non-existent Mac OS malware threat, the new feature is called "OS X Security Update Test 1.0," and it will be rolled into the release version of Mountain Lion when it comes out next month.

The new security automator can run at a daily scheduled interval, or upon system restart, and it offers the user the ability to download and install updates in the background. In the Mac App Store, Apple states that after restarting your Mac, it will provide a much more secure connection to Apple's update servers, providing an encrypted connection to help protect from possible man-in-the-middle attacks for each update.

The new Security Update is available through the Mac App Store and comes in at 1.15 GB.

Photo credit: megainarmy/Shutterstock

T-Mobile USA CEO Gives himself the axe

Publié: juin 27, 2012, 8:41pm CEST par Patrick Roanhouse

T-Mobile CEO Philipp Humm announced in a statement today that he will be resigning from the top executive postion of Deutsche Telekom's US-based subsidiary.

Humm joined Deutsche Telekom in 2005, and was responsible for the company’s mobile business in Germany. In 2008, he took on the responsibility of managing the sales and service activities within the larger Deutsche Telekom Group. In May 2010, he moved to T-Mobile USA, taking over as CEO in November of that same year.

While CEO of T-Mobile USA, his main goal was that of fixing the diminishing user base and fixing the company's notoriously falling profits in the US Market. He was one of the key players in the initial bid for the US T-Mobile / AT&T merger.

In the statement, Rene Oberman, CEO of parent company Deutsche Telekom said:

"Philipp Humm has given the company some important initiatives over the past years: Under his leadership the cost situation at T-Mobile USA has vastly improved and he led the company during a difficult phase regarding the planned merger with AT&T."

Oberman also announced that Jim Alling, Chief Operating Officer of T-Mobile USA will be taking over the role as CEO, saying, "Now we need somebody who can convert initiatives into market-successes."

Photo Credit: Jonnystockphoto/Shutterstock

Cisco launches its first 802.11ac gigabit wireless router

Publié: juin 26, 2012, 9:39pm CEST par Patrick Roanhouse

Cisco has taken the plate and swung hard for the fences with their new draft 802.11ac gigabit wireless router product, the Linksys Smart Wi-Fi Router EA6500.

Scheduled for release in August, the EA6500 is available as a $219.99 pre-order in Cisco's Web store. Besides the feature set of the latest draft 802.11ac for speeds of up to 1300 Mbps, it also includes a fancy new NFC (near field communication) capability for smart device admin access, and the new "Cisco Connect Cloud" which will allow remote monitoring and administration from a native mobile device app. The Cisco Connect Cloud will be free and also have support to control other home automation devices such as smart appliances, smart security systems, and smart TVs.

Other features included in the device are: backwards compatiblity with a/b/g/n devices, two USB ports for printer and NAS storage support with DLNA certified media server support, easier and more robust quality of service (QOS) tools specifically designed for streaming HD video. Full IPv6 support.

And like all modern Cisco Linksys routers, the new device is equipped with four gigabit LAN ports and 1 gigbit WAN port.

New Sony Google TV launches ... in the UK, oh goody

Publié: juin 25, 2012, 5:57pm CEST par Patrick Roanhouse

The Google TV platform kind of flopped when first launched in the United States two years ago. Anemic hardware and wonky UI made the experience a total cluster bomb of grief and end-user cursing for anyone that purchased it. Logitech took a $30 million write-off and ditched their failed Google TV product, Logitech Revue.

The set-top box that "augmented" your television viewing experience also launched with the Sony NSZ-GT1 and Sony Internet TV with Google TV. The old consumer electronics behemoth that is no stranger to showing gumption for beating a dead horse will try again. Starting July 25, Sony will release the NSZ-GS7 set-top box in the UK for £200/$199. International launch will follow.

Google TV 2.0 released in December, adding desperately needed updates and refining the user interface. But still lacked polish, while some system performance issues remained, mostly due to underpowered hardware. A major update was integration with the Android mobile application platform. The Sony NSZ-GS7 not only takes advantage of these improvements but will use the new apps support to its advantage.

The NSZ-GS7 runs on a beefier 1.2 GHz dual-core Marvell processor, which should offer plenty of power compared to the older model. It comes with a new touchpad remote with 3-axis motion control, as well as finger gesture control and voice control.

Following the UK release in July, Sony plans to launch in Australia, Brazil, Canada, France, Germany, Mexico and Netherlands later this year. The NSZ-GP9, a GS7 with an integrated Blu-ray player, will arrive in October for the UK priced at £280/€300/$299.

UK users of Google TV devices can look forward to localized content powered by UK newspaper The Guardian. But other info about localized apps and UK-specific services is still sketchy at the moment. Google's own Google TV blog states that UK users will find out more in the coming week at Google I/O.

Google stands against government spying and censorship

Publié: juin 20, 2012, 2:27am CEST par Patrick Roanhouse

Google's fifth "Transparency Report" shows that the emperors of the world wear no clothes. The search and information giant started releasing the data two years ago, offering a small peek into the bombardment of user information requests that world governments make -- everything from non-copyrighted YouTube video take-downs, to search result link removals, to, most alarmingly, private citizen emails and information.

But what is most alarming about these requests? Many are not even for serious matters of national security. Most are down right requests to silence, censor, track, and or monitor dissident internal political groups and political opponents. In some, it is the outright censorship of non-violent organizations, ideas, or even the requested silence of whistle-blowers pointing out corruption. Google's own policy analyst, Dorothy Chou, sees a disturbing trending rise, particularly from "Western democracies not typically associated with censorship".

Google, Take Down This Post

Google states at the top of its 'Content Removal' by country government chart just some of the basic reasons for the content take downs by governments:

Content removals are requested due to allegations of defamation, while others are due to allegations that the content violates local laws prohibiting hate speech or pornography. Laws surrounding these issues vary by country, and the requests reflect the legal context of a given jurisdiction

An example of local country law violations that lead to reasonable requests for removal is that of Germany, ranked second in the list. German courts had 60 requests for 1304 items, while the German government had 43 requests for 418 items. Google's self-reported compliance with the requests was at 80 percent for the court orders and 72 percent for the direct government requests.

The majority of these requests were brought by the Federal Department for Media Harmful to Young Persons (BPjM - Bundesprüfstelle für jugendgefährdende Medien), a federal government youth protection agency in Germany. The requests were for the removal of some 70 videos on YouTube and lists of urls that have content that violates the German youth protection law which blocks content touting Nazi memorabilia, extreme violence or explicit pornography material that children can easily access. Google responded by removing the urls from Google.de and limited the videos playback from inside of Germany. Google uses its own discretion in requests, not entirely removing possible valid items from the entire search index.

Another example of local country rules is Thailand. All of the requests came from the Ministry of Information, Communication and Technology -- to remove 149 YouTube videos for allegedly insulting the monarchy in violation of Thailand's lèse-majesté law. There was 100-percent Google compliance reporting for four requests. Google responded with the discretion by restricting 70 percent of these videos from viewing in Thailand.

But as a US citizen I find it most shocking that the United States collective State & Federal governments ranked No.1 in the top 10 for 'Content Removal' requests by both court order and by government agency request. Under court orders the US Government requested 117 times to remove 3851 items and under Government agency requests; ranging from Executive branch down to local police, there were 70 requests for 2341 items. In the court-ordered take-down requests, Google's self-reported compliance level was 40 percent. In the government agency requests that was slightly higher at 44 percent removal compliance. But the real question is what kind of data is the US requesting to take down?

Google's own summery states:

We received a request from a local law enforcement agency to remove a blog because of a post that allegedly defamed a law enforcement official in a personal capacity. We did not comply with this request, which we have categorized in this report as a defamation request.

We received a request from a local law enforcement agency to remove 1,400 YouTube videos for alleged harassment. We did not comply with this request. Separately, we received a request from a different local law enforcement agency to remove five user accounts that allegedly contained threatening and/or harassing content. We terminated four of the accounts, which resulted in the removal of approximately 300 videos, but did not remove the remaining account with 54 videos.

We received a court order to remove 218 search results that linked to allegedly defamatory websites. We removed 25 percent of the results cited in the request.

Mr. Googler, Papers Please?

The worst thing though is that the United States leads in the request of personal user data. The rise between 2009 and 2011 is astounding:

In Google's 2009 July to December dataset, the United states made 3,580 requests for an undisclosed number of US citizens' user data.
In 2010 January to July that jumped to another 4,287 requests for an undisclosed number of US Citizens' data.
In 2010 July to December it was another 4,601 requests for an undisclosed number users' data but with Google reporting the percentage of data requests fully or partially complied for the requests to be 94 percent.
2011 January to June marks the first time we get a number of users accounts specified, with the United States making 5,950 requests for 11,057 individual users/accounts private information with a 93 percent full/partial fulfillment by Google.
This last dataset for 2011 July to December now sees United States hit a high score of 6,321 requests for 12,243 accounts with Google agreeing fully or only partially to 98 percent.

To put this into context of all the other recorded countries on the list. The United States has been No. 1 since Google started the transparency reports. No country is even close to competing with the number of private user data requests. In the combined datasets of 2011 the United States requested access to a total of 23,300 individual accounts. That more than beats the second highest requester of India, which requested access to only 5,866 individual user accounts in the combined 2011 datasets. Brazil was third with only 4,044 individual users' private data requests.

The US government also has the dubious record of largest growth of their requests. The United States has shown an astounding 66.2 percent increase since the start of Google's Transparency Report. Google cannot even state the reason for these partial or full data requests they provide. Is it terrorism threats? Are these criminal accounts? Are they possible connections to internal attacks or the banking collapse? The stage curtain has been opened to unveil only another curtain in this play of possible privacy invasion and spying on US citizens.

We Are No Longer In Kansas, Dorothy

Chou is the one who crafted the official blog post announcing the latest six month datasets for the Transparency Report findings. Chou explains how at first the report started out just showing basic info of the requests but now shows far more information. Such examples include graphs showing traffic patterns and disruptions to Google services from different countries. The most recent new feature is a section showing the requests Google gets from copyright holders to remove search results. What most of you have seen when google searches end in this iconic statement:

In response to a legal request submitted to Google, we have removed 1 result(s) from this page. If you wish, you may read more about the request at ChillingEffects.org.

But what Chou hammers on in this short blog post is what you should be made very much aware of:

Unfortunately, what we’ve seen over the past couple years has been troubling, and today is no different...We noticed that government agencies from different countries would sometimes ask us to remove political content that our users had posted on our services. We hoped this was an aberration. But now we know it’s not.

Chou warns that the most disturbing of these government offenders are Western democracies with requests that tantamount to censorship. What I like to call "Political Character Cleanup" or "Internet Personal Image Sanitizing" is on the rise. Chou spotlighted Spanish regulators and Poland public institutions:

Spanish regulators asked us to remove 270 search results that linked to blogs and articles in newspapers referencing individuals and public figures, including mayors and public prosecutors. In Poland, we received a request from a public institution to remove links to a site that criticized it. We didn’t comply with either of these requests.

Chou goes on to say that this last dataset had the largest amount of "interesting fact annotations" yet, as to reasons for requests. You can read more of on the transparency report annotation page.

Brave New Digital World: A Writer's Closing Opinion

The digital world has changed the face of how the people are heard by the world, and by their governments. The Arab Spring was born following the self-immolation suicide protest of Tunisian Mohamed Bouazizi. He protested corruption, high unemployment, food inflation, lack of freedom of speech and poor living conditions; he was memorialized on Facebook and twitter. His death lead to Internet-connected protest organization across seventeen Arab and African countries, toppling four autocratic governments and getting massive changes in seven others governments, hopefully for the better.

Google's YouTube showed us the 2009 Iran Green Revolution protests that questioned the Religious police and disputed the re-election of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. The galvanizing video that will be remembered is of the Assassination of Iranian Neda Agha-Soltan. Her death became the "voice", as her name in Persian actually meant, for citizens to rise up. They recorded everything and posted it to YouTube in any way possible.

But in all this change for the good there is a scary back peddle in developed countries. Even those we thought were the strongest free-speech democracies are taking cues from authoritarian and autocratic regimes in denying freedom of speech and the ability to whistle-blow wrongdoing of corrupt leaders or systems. America is no innocent bystander in this. On a state by state level recordings of police misconduct and assaults have been met with retaliatory prosecutorial action. Prime examples being the Maryland state case of Anthony Graber. He was brought up on charges for wiretapping. All for posting a video to YouTube that his helmet camera recorded as a plain clothes off duty officer pulled him over at gunpoint for speeding on interstate 95 in the baltimore county area. Garber had just come home from his last tour of duty with the Maryland National Guard duty, serving in Afghanistan.

Police violence to protestors at the Occupy protests have been famously documented using YouTube from New York City to Oakland Calif. with police even singling out journalists to delete footage and photos that caught them in acts of grievous violence from cameras. But it keeps happening to such a point where protestors are now livestreaming every protests and every action they take to make sure people have it documented. Even if police raid the live streaming broadcast centers to try to shut them down. I don't even think I need to go on to the lack of protection to whistle-blowing in America now. The creation of whistle-blower sites has created tidal waves of posts.

When a country is based on freedom of speech and the right to address grievances to government those rights should be supported universally on any platform. If we have learned anything with last year's domino effect fall of several autocratic dictators, no matter how much governments try to censor information, or try to downright turn off the pipes to the internet, the signal cannot be stopped. The right to say something, no matter how vile to our ears -- unless it supports acts of unjust violence, mass panic, hate speech, bigotry, or harassment -- is the universal right of every man, woman, child, and sentient being on this planet. To try to secretly reign that in behind closed doors on the behest of corrupt politicians, campaign donating corporations, and embarrassed military and police is a sad state of affairs. In America we are supposed to be a shining example in personal freedom and in the experiment of a democracy. It is what we are suppose to support in the American experience we represent.

I'm glad to see Google believes in these ideals to a greater extent than most companies I have seen in the past. The company might have to do the bidding of some corrupt governments to do business but discloses what in the transparency reports. I for one applaud Google's civic and community responsibility in supporting and publishing so much in real time. I just wish more companies did reports like this, especially when we status update minute-to-minute with our latest inane thoughts, feelings, or regrettable emotional outbursts.

Photo Credit: Andrea Danti/Shutterstock

Ethiopian government outlaws VOIP, 15-year prison sentences possible

Publié: juin 15, 2012, 9:14pm CEST par Patrick Roanhouse

Troubling news is coming out of East Africa this week. International media site Al Jazeera has just picked up that on May 24th 2012, Ethiopia ratified new legislation called the 'Ethiopian Telecom Service Infringement Law'. The Legislation criminalizes any third-party Internet services not run by the state controlled telecom monopoly, Ethio Telecom, with Skype being a focus. However, the ban affects other services, such as Google Talk.

The new telecom law is meant to impede Internet telephony, with reported punishments of heavy fines and 8 to 15 years in prison if caught. The legislation prohibits all network telephony traffic, along with audio and video data traffic via social media, reports the The Africa Review.

In order to catch people, Ethio Telecom has implemented brand new "deep packet" inspecting services to filter its citizens' Net access to political opposition blogs and other news outlets. Reporters Without Boarders was first to report about the new Internet censorship tools going in to country that are specificly designed to also catch people using the popular Internet proxy anonoymizer tool TOR, the onion router.

According to watchdog group OpenNet Initiative, Ethiopia currently has the second-lowest Internet penetration rate in sub-Saharan Africa and just around 700,000 of the country’s 84 million citizens had Internet access in 2010. The average Internet speed in Ethiopia, says Akamai, is currently 622 kbps.

When questioned about the reason for the ban and criminalization of outside VOIP services, particularly Skype, Ethiopian officials reportedly said at first it was for national security. They later let slip about concerns that Skype hurt the state-owned telecommunications company; the legislation also helps to squash independent journalism and bloggers over social media.

A recent ruling political party media workshop titled "Internet Management", supported by China's Communist Party, was held in Ethiopia's capital city of Addis Ababa. The workshop was headed up by Professor Gao Hongeim of the Chinese Leadership Academy. The head topic of the talk was about the experience of China regarding "mass media capacity building", "mass media institution management" and "Internet management".

This was reported by Etheopia's own ruling party, the Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Democratic Front. A quick 'sanitized language' to layman translation of the topics basicly states China is teaching other countries how to censor and shut down its citizen right to free speech.

Nokia stock collapses after announcing massive layoffs

Publié: juin 14, 2012, 7:05pm CEST par Patrick Roanhouse

It is a dark day for the employees of the world's most-recognized phone maker in Espoo, Finland. Stephen Elop, Nokia CEO, announced today that 10,000 positions will be made redundant by the end of 2013. In what is being called part of a strategy to rescale Nokia's operations after terrible losses over the past four quarters, offices in Finland, Germany and Canada will close. Also executives Niklas Savander, Mary McDowell, and Jerri DeVard will step down.

The market reacted swiftly and painfully, driving down Nokia's share price about 18 percent to $2.30. In early trading, Nokia shares dropped their greatest percentage in 11 years.

"These planned reductions are a difficult consequence of the intended actions we believe we must take to ensure Nokia's long-term competitive strength", Elop says. "We do not make plans that may impact our employees lightly, and as a company we will work tirelessly to ensure that those at risk are offered the support, options and advice necessary to find new opportunities".

"Lightly" but taken with a heavy hand? When did the once great titan of wireless innovation -- inventor of the smartphone and until recently global handset market share leader -- become frail patient on life support?

The fall of Nokia started with the rise of touchscreen smartphones, following Apple's June 2007 launch of iPhone. Nokia could not offer multitouch smartphones that competed. What followed: An innovation heart attack that put the once proud Finnish phone maker in weakened state.

But it's the transition to Windows Phone that has put Nokia at death's door. The February 2011 distribution deal replaced Symbian for Microsoft's mobile OS, and Nokia has lost nothing but market share, customers and money since.

A once proud brand is tarnished. Could it get any more worse before it gets better?

"We intend to pursue an even more focused effort on Lumia, continued innovation around our feature phones", Elop says, "while placing increased emphasis on our location-based services. However, we must re-shape our operating model and ensure that we create a structure that can support our competitive ambitions".

Nokia will cut smart devices research and development, accelerating a hand-off to Microsoft. The restructuring -- R&D cuts, layoffs and plant closures, among others -- won't be cheap, adding by 2013 1 billion Euros to the 900 million already announced.

Photo Credit: Viorel Sima/Shutterstock

Verizon Share Everything plan shares very little savings

Publié: juin 13, 2012, 12:45am CEST par Patrick Roanhouse

I find it humorous to read a press release from a large telecom in regards to cellular service plans. They use powers of the telecom heavens to make their calling and data plans "easier" for simple, dumb mortals. Carriers play it up like they have come down from Olympus to give us fire. All so we can build temples to them faster.

Of the top-three of the pantheon of cellphone carriers, Verizon is the biggest of them all -- the Zeus of wireless, who can screw anyone in any form. It's pretty simple for them. They have the biggest lightning bolts if you didn't know. It's clearly in their commercials for the "lightening" fast 4G LTE data speeds. So when they have something they think is "game changing" they send their fastest messenger.

The Hermes for this plan change is Tami Erwin, vice president and chief marketing officer of Verizon Wiresless:

“Customers asked, and today Verizon Wireless delivered an industry first" ... "Share Everything Plans are the new standard for wireless service. They are simple; customers no longer have to think about their voice and message plans, because both are unlimited. Share Everything Plans are convenient; customers purchase one data plan and they share it with up to 10 mobile devices. And, they are worry-free; customers can connect their 3G or 4G devices wherever and whenever they want on America’s most reliable network.”

Isn't that nice? Silly mortals no longer have to worry about voice and message plans. That means the cost of service is all one simple clean fee with the data rates right? WRONG! What once was the voice and phone service is now a "Monthly Line Access" fee. This line access fee is $10 per month for tablet devices, $20 per month for USB modems, hotspots, and netbooks; and $30 per month for basic dumb feature phones. Lastly it's $40 a month for a smartphone. This is on top of the $50 to $100 dollar per month fee for the shared data that you have from 1GB to 10GB to share.

To clarify this in a simple form. For $100 dollars a month you can have unlimited voice and messaging with only 2GB of data on a smartphone. For $90 dollars share 2GB of data on three tablets. Or for one laptop, one tablet, and one laptop / modem share 2GB data for $130. And this 2GB is over both LTE 4G and EDVO. To everyone on Verizon who will lose your unlimited grandfathered plans since your telecom god has forsaken you, I'm sorry for your loss. The temple of Sprint says hello though. That's where I worship.

Nike+ fitness tracking integrated into Xbox Kinect? Not so fast, Marathon Man

Publié: juin 8, 2012, 3:27pm CEST par Patrick Roanhouse

At the Microsoft E3 2012 Press Conference Microsoft executive Yusuf Mehdi talked about a rather amazing brand partnership, introducing Stefan Olander, Nike vice president. The Nike+ service, already made famous for its partnerships with Apple, and the ability to help track your workouts and keep you motivated to stay fit, is coming to the Xbox 360. Olander came on to show us the history of Nike+ and the goals of Nike to help empower the athlete in everyone to reach their peak of performance. A demo of footage of a title called Nike+ Kinect Training hit the jumbo screen with flashes of CGI models inter-spliced with live action human models demonstrating moves -- even flash of a screenshot showing the Nike+ app on a Windows Phone tracking a workout.

But not much else was talked about. Would Nike+ track you as you played all kinect titles? Would you know just how many calories you might have lost while shaking your money maker to the dance moves of Dance Central 3? Would you be able to know you not only saved the world with the Mutant, Magic, and Technology infused powers in Avengers: Battle For Earth? What about the workout you get from a magical onslaught you wrought upon the hoards of baddies in Fable: the Journey?

I, like others, expected to get more information at Microsoft's E3 Xbox booth. But, alas, that was not true. From what I could get from the very mum public relations team of Edleman the Nike+ will not be integrated across the board to track your workout in any other kinect games. It will only be applied to the Nike+ Kinect Training. I'm personally sadden by the fact I will not get to know how many calories I loose playing with virtual baby tigers in Kinectimals. Microsoft PR told me that more information about Nike+ on Xbox will be released Monday June 11th.

Photo Credit: Patrick Roanhouse

PlayStation Mobile might be kinda dope ... if this display case tells you anything

Publié: juin 8, 2012, 6:01am CEST par Patrick Roanhouse

Here at E3 Expo, nowhere on the general floor are any of the Sony Playstation Mobile certified devices. No one of the Sony PR team can even tell me anything. Even the head of the Playstation Digital Platforms, the team in charge of the Playstation Network Store and Playstation Plus can't answer my question: "Will games purchased on Playstation Mobile certified devices be playable on Playstation Vita or Playstation 3?"

But on the press- and developer-only second floor of the Sony E3 Booth stands this sad lonely unmanned glass covered case. It tells me NO TOUCH, but I have to take pictures. Now don't hate me if I'm wrong because I'm using deduction from display case association; from the looks of this case the Playstation Vita is considered one of the Playstation Mobile Certified devices, which would mean: If you purchase a Playstation Mobile Certified game that is a PSONE Classic or PS Mini title, it should be playable on all certifies Playstation Devices. Sony is always cagey with details, but I got two bits to bet on this one that I'm right.

Samsung Smart TV Cloud Gaming Powered by Gaikai and Nvidia [Video]

Publié: juin 8, 2012, 12:14am CEST par Patrick Roanhouse

Hidden away in the middle of the concourse walkway between South and West halls of the Los Angeles Convection center sits this little corner display booth. Most people pass it by not knowing how big it might be to the future of gaming but as soon as I see who is there I have to stop and ask questions.

Gaikai is a service that started just two years ago -- at first thought of as nothing more than phantom console level vapor it is one of the two companies to announce "Cloud Gaming"; PC gaming via virtualization. Its first demo shows off high-end games from producers / developers EA and Red Project for titles like Mass Effect 3 or The Witcher 2. Using a web page Java applet client it runs on any Windows, Mac, or even Linux machine.

But now Gaikai is taking the fight to the TV. Partnering up with Samsung and LG, Gaikai, with the help of video card power house Nvidia, will be powering cloud gaming stores for Samsung and LG Smart TVs.

The services need a broadband connection and provide 720p game video for 5Mbps connection and 1080p with connection of 10Mbps; Ping times are under 100ms but sweet spot is 60ms and below. It even supports stereoscopic 3D titles if the game and television support 3D. This would need a connection of about 15Mbps to 20Mbps.

It's up to the partner what to do for controllers but the software supports all native USB controllers, even the Xbox one, and you are good to go. The client for the desktop runs in a Java applet.

Game stores are handled by the provider who lease the Gaikai service so for purchasing games you purchase them through the Samsung SmartTV or LG Smart TV app stores. No information is available as of yet if you can take them to other devices or even run them on your desktop.

Unlike other well-known cloud gaming service Onlive, the Network Multiplayer doesn't have to be in a walled garden, you could in theory play against other Windows, Macintosh, or Linux PC gamers who are on desktop machines. But that is up to the software developer and service provider and agreements to what they do.

Smasung SSD might give you a Ghost of a chance

Publié: juin 7, 2012, 6:47pm CEST par Patrick Roanhouse

In the crowd of hungry tired worn-out journalists at the Showstoppers Tech and Gadget showcase event at the Icon LA Ultra Lounge, right next to a Hooters, across the from the Los Angeles Convention Center, Samsung, like everyone else, isn't showing off anything new. But the particular bobble they have that catches my eye is the Samsung 830 series solid-state drive, released back in October of 2011. It is a sleek little gun-metal black drive thinner than 1/5 of an inch and no weight to it whatsoever. The case is a gun metal brushed aluminum with only the silver raised logo of Samsung emblazoned on it.

This is when I strike it up with Chris Geiser, senior product management at Samsung. Geiser is passionate about the product. He lets it drop that, "Samsung is now spendings $12 billion a year on memory research". Every SDD samsung makes is 100-percent Samsung made parts, from the NAND storage memory to the controller.

Geiser tells me that over the Samsung 830 series SSD's Serial ATA 3.0 6Gb/s interface you can expect to get a sequential read speed of up to 520 MB/s and in sequential writes, a speed of 400 MB/s. The drive has full support for TRIM as well. This is where he really hits me with some cool features of the device, its controller is powered by a multicore Arm9 processor. Three cores constantly focus on one task. One core handles the data writing. Another handles the data read. The last handles constant garbage collection.

This dedicated core for garbage collection is a very good thing. One of the issues with SSD drives is that over time the bits stored in the NAND, while removed from the record of the journal of a file system, are still there and reading and writing over them over and over can cause serious issue and drop performance nearly 50 percent after so many read and write-overs of an SSD Drive.

The MSRP for the drives now are:

$129.99 for the 128GB model kit
$229.99 for the 256GB model Kit
$719.99 for the 512GB model kit

But you can find these on amazon for $139.99, $269.99, and $699.99.

Included in the kit is Norton Ghost transfer/Backup/Recovery software, 5.25 drive adapter tray, USB power / transfer adapter and for a limited time starting this month any Samsung SSD drive sold comes with a coupon for a free copy of the new Ubisoft title, "Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon: Future Solider".

The bigger thing about this is that Samsung has reached the dollar to gigabyte cost factor for solid state drives. It will only get cheaper.

Photo Credit: Patrick Roanhouse

Hands-on with Microsoft's SmartGlass [video]

Publié: juin 6, 2012, 11:19pm CEST par Patrick Roanhouse

Microsoft's Xbox SmartGlass announcement yesterday provided a shot of adrenaline in the aging leg of the Xbox 360. While Kinect was a way to extend the life of the console for a couple of years during the motion control craze, SmartGlass is a further push to open the console to unique gameplay elements in the future, and to advance the "settopboxification" of the Xbox 360 console.

This is a good thing.

A running gag among many Xbox 360 owners is that the console has aged into the NetfliXbox. The demonstration of SmartGlass we saw doesn't do anything to really change that joke, but it does show that the new secondary display information and control options afforded by SmartGlass can really expand the movie-watching experience. It's just up to developers to build this "augmented active media experience" into their apps.

What we're potentially looking at is an era of secondary information displays in entertainment technology, which started by Nintendo eight years ago with the DS, and has been upheld by countless end users who couldn't watch TV without their iPad in their lap.

But the question is: Will SmartGlass out-Wii the Wii U?

The fact that SmartGlass will work on Android, iPhone, iPad, Windows Phone and Windows 8 tablets, while Wii U will only work with the Wii Gamepad might give you a hint who has the upper hand this round.

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Sony Playstation Mobile wants certified third-party Android devices in the gaming ecosystem starting with HTC

Publié: juin 6, 2012, 2:50am CEST par Patrick Roanhouse

At the the Electronic Entertainment Expo 2012 Sony Press Conference, Sony announced a big push for their mobile phone gaming platform for Android powered mobile devices. Once called Sony Playstation Suite, Sony is first changing the name to Playstation Mobile. The whole idea is about making it possible to allow access to PlayStation Classic games and other PlayStation titles on "PlayStation Certified" devices. This move expands the selection of access to Playstation games for mobile beyond the current Sony made Xperia phone and tablet line of Android devices.

Sony Computer Entertainment of Europe (SCEE) president, Andrew House, announced this on stage during the briefing as a big move, "That is promoting PlayStation Mobile for third-party Android Cellphone makers". House also unveiled the initiative's first third-party hardware partner is HTC. Not much more in the way of details besides this has been released. It's interesting that Sony would jump into this kind of bed.

Sony Electronics is known to keep all equipment very insular in its platforms. The typical goal from Sony has been "consumer product solutions" by owning all Sony electronics. Sony's goal is to sell more Sony gadgets, VAIO computers, Bravia TVs, Playstation game consoles, Alpha cameras, and Xperia phones -- all part of the "Sony Life" branding. That is why I find it so very strange the consumer electronics giant would be one to put its games on someone else's hardware, even if just mobile phone games.

To put it in context, think Nintendo putting Mario on iPhone or another console other than its own. The only reason I see Sony doing this is the overhead costs and returns for allowing these classic, e.g. old, properties on third-party devices. But how will this integrate with the already existing PSN network store? Will you be able to transfer those Playstation classics between phone, console, and Vita? That is the question I want to really find out.

Nintendo says Wii U will revolutionize the living room, we hope so

Publié: juin 6, 2012, 1:19am CEST par Patrick Roanhouse

The stage is set at the Nokia theater. The large screen in the middle of the stage flickers with the logo of Nintendo before the familiar face of Shigeru Miyamoto, the father of Mario and Zelda, shows up with his pixie-like smile and innocent glee. Nintendo's opening act for today's E3 Expo press conference -- the Wii U update of the Gamecube classic Pikmin in Pikmin 3, setting the tone for the entire presentation.

This conference is about the games first, hardware accessories are a far second thought. The features of the Wii U hardware are only mentioned by Nintendo of America President Reggie Fils-Aime, by saying "The Wii U will have YouTube, Hulu, Netflix, Amazon Video, but you can find out more about the console later, let's do a rundown of the new GamePad and get back to what's important, the games!"

That's it on the Wii U console. The only other time hardware/accessories are mentioned outside of the rest of the press event is a quick blurb viral meme joke from Fils-Aime: "My body is ready" to talk about the Wii Fit U Fit Meter and how it will sync a Pedometer via the IR port on the Wii U GamePad.

The next act for Nintendo is to introduce their new social platform: "The Miiverse", what Nintendo views as its answer to the Xbox Live social interaction juggernaut. Using the interaction of your cartoony Wii avatar called a Mii, Nintendo wants to show you with visual representation of your friends' Miis what's popular and what's hot in the apps and games on your Wii U.

The desktop loads to an open space where your friends' Miis gather around large floating tiles representing a game or app on the Nintendo Wiiverse. It gives an instant understanding of what games or apps are hot or not by the crowd of Mii's around it. You also will see message bubble popups similar to that seen in a social interactive Twitter map.

This new Social window is key to games like "New Super Mario Bros. U", which will integrate with the Miiverse. Miis leave message bubbles with tips and tricks on a per-level basis, or as Fils-Aime says: "a real time social window that will open up as you play".

There will also be new integration for multiplayer in what Nintendo calls dual-screens gameplay - asymmetric gameplay in which the person uses the new GamePad to control, lead or mess with other people just playing with the Wiimotes. This is where Nintendo announces that Wii U will support two separate Wii U GamePads, knowing the console only comes with one of them. No price is set yet though.

Another game integrating with Miiverse is Scribblenauts Unlimited -- a port of the popular iPad and Nintendo DS game now brought to the home console in HD, that will now allow your Mii friends to share and create new items to help solve puzzles and share with friends.

The Wii U marketing is in the games, and as such we get a demo of several Wii U games -- including Batman Arkham City, Armored edition. This version of the popular Batman franchise from Warner Brothers interactive integrates the usage and control of the Wii U GamePad in ways that extend the story and gameplay mechanics. Using the Wii GamePad will have you picking weapons, looking at scans, and planning your attacks.

There is also ZombieU from Ubisoft, which will have players trying to survive a "28 days later" zombie outbreak in Great Britain. The Wii U GamePad becomes a sniper scope, and electronic panel to unlock security doors, inventory menus and motion scanner panel.

Lastly, there is the Miiverse and Wii U GamePad equivalent of Windows solitaire, with the how to use the Wii U title called Nintendoland. Much like Wii Sports, it will take players through a series of mini games that will train Wii U owners how to play with the new interface and services. Each mini game is themed on twelve different Nintendo properties turned into rides at an amusement park.

Miiverse will also be available through web apps, mobile phones, and on the Nintendo DS on the launch day for the Wii U during Holiday 2013.

Photo Credit: Patrick Roanhouse

What's in game at E3 Expo? You wanna know, and we're gonna tell you

Publié: juin 2, 2012, 6:43pm CEST par Patrick Roanhouse

Follow me, Patrick Roanhouse, as I cover major press news from the E3: Electronic Entertainment Expo -- the the biggest video game trade show in the United States. Developed and birthed when the video game industry outgrew the once gigantic consumer electronics tradeshow Comdex, E3 expo first pressed the start button in 1995.

Historically Los Angeles based, E3 Expo marks the start-off point for the titans of the video game industry to sell their newest wares to retail corperate buyers for the Latin, American, and European markets in Las Vegas-level neon showcases. An industry, journalism, and buyer only tradeshow, attending E3 Expo typically is the the dream for most video game nerds eager to see the next big thing.

News breaks, tech is shown and people openly weep. Joy or sadness, you never know which. But this is the tradeshow that gets kids and man-childs burning pen to paper for holiday wishlists. This year plans to be a big one. Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo are all speculated to announce or set release dates for big bad brand new home game consoles.

The industry has greatly evolved since the days of Pong, Atari 2600, and Colecovision. Video games and video consoles are massive multi billion dollar multimedia convergence platforms. With the integration of "apps" and downloadable content the new game consoles have evolved to now be the end all be all box for your home entertainment experience.

But the big-three console makers will be drop big news this year. As previously stated, Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo, each have new consoles in the works. Now pushing the boundaries of the online gaming, 2k video, motion control, and 3D. If rumors are to be believed, 4k video will be state of art and gamers will get even more user control with voice and motion. Nintendo, though, is just entering the HD race with the new Wii U, while another minor internal beefed up to the Wii and Gamecube; its new killer feature is an iPad-like six-inch touchscreen and joy pad combo controller for the primary player. It was demo showcased behind closed doors at last year's E3. But the big question burning in most gamers' mind's eyes is ''What will Sony and Microsoft have?"

Sony has their system spec leaked Playstation 4, codename 'Orbis'. In the Microsoft camp, they have their developer whispered Xbox 720, codename 'Durango'. Both are rumored to support more platform services intergration for online stores and media playback. But they are also rumored to push full 1080p 60fps 3D video support. Also multiplayer and 3D games the tech is being prepped to handle the future Super HD video standards of 4k video -- display tech that only just got announced in prototype form at the CES 2011 tradeshow this year from LG and Sharp.

The point is the big boys are coming out and they are ready to fight it out in this next chapter of the console wars. I will provide coverage from the press conferences and interviews with developers over the course of the insanity that takes the downtown LA area like a tropical storm.

The current schedule for major press conferences I will focus on are:

Monday, June 4th, 9:00 am -- Xbox E3 2012 Media Briefing
Monday, June 4th, 6:00 pm -- Sony E3 Press Conference
Tuesday, June 5th, 9:00 am -- Nintendo All-Access Presentation @ E3 2012
Tuesday , June 5th, 6:00 pm -- ShowStoppers @ E3

All times are Pacific.

I will also do booth tours and interviews and post them as the day goes by between the show floor days June 5th to June 7th.

Photo Credit: Joe Wilcox

CES 2010: Highlights from FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski public forum

Publié: janvier 9, 2010, 11:39pm CET par Patrick Roanhouse

By Patrick Roanhouse, Betanews

US Federal Communications Commission Chairman Julius Genachowski was interviewed by CEA President and CEO Gary Shapiro at a Super Session panel January 8 at CES 2010. Topics of discussion included Chairman Genachowski's efforts to modernize the FCC and his vision for the agency in the coming decade.

Genachowski and Shapiro also discussed developments in crafting new pro-competition policy, and the ability to develop incentives to keep mobile and hardwired broadband cheap.

At issue first was the FCC's authority to regulate a free and open Internet, brought to the surface by oral arguments being held that day in the Comcast v. FCC case in the Federal Appeals Court. Genachowski declined a direct reaction, stating he wasn't able to fully read the ruling due to being on the CES floor. He did go on to say the FCC needs to keep the Internet open and free to the people and open to everyone on a equal basis.

Competition in any market keeps people fair, the Chairman said. Access to competitors is what typically allows fair prices, but the way that most providers have always done it is contrary to competition.

The FCC's national broadband plan is due before Congress next month -- or rather, the month after that, which is March. That correction drew a few laughs from the crowd, who were probably aware that the Chairman called for a delay of about one month.

Keeping the regulatory process open, the Chairman went on to say, is the most important thing that allows anyone from the public or marketplace to have access to the information of inquests and panels. Public notices let people know when events are happening. In general, Genachowski continued, the country should have had this plan years ago, for a full deployment of high speed broadband for America.

In response to whether the FCC has the authority to regulate wired services as telecommunications services, Genachowski said broadband consists of both wired and wireless service. In that sense, there are two classes of spectrum: one for government, and the other for the consumer and commercial space.

Genachowski pointed to the looming crisis in available spectrum for expanding Internet applications. Tackling this problem requires several simultaneous attacks on multiple fronts:

Find more spectrum and find how to get around physics constraints because of each type not allowing maximum transfer for data;
Make sure that the spectrum is used most efficiently;
Make it so that on the device and software level, devices are greatly more efficient and more precise in their usage.

Access to the Internet is important, said Genachowski, because of the fact most jobs are only putting applications online now. Digital Literacy is something we really need to put more focus on, he said.

For the evolution of the FCC, the Chairman believes all all documents the FCC collects should be open to the public and searchable for anything related. He referred to Reboot.FCC.gov, a new platform for communicating with the public to help spread information to the people, and to get responses back on how the people want the information.

Genachowski wants his work to be remembered at the FCC as moving the Commission to the 21st century -- to ubiquitous broadband, freeing spectrum, and helping inform family and consumers. He said the FCC is a strange organization with comparison to similar regulatory agencies in other countries, because of the fact that in other countries, usually a different government agency handles wires, another one handles wireless, another one handles small scale electronics, another one handles large-scale electronics.

The Chairman's talk was briefly interrupted at one point by a heckler, whom we were not able to understand.

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