Hi-networking

Microsoft End User License Agreement

2008-03-25T15:54:00.001-07:00

Microsoft End User License Agreement

By touching any computer ever made, you agree to the terms of this agreement....

Microsoft shall have the rights to your first born child. This child shal be called Bill or Billina. Said child shall be assigned an activation code, which must be used prior to this child playing outside....

User furthermore agrees to sing praises to Microsoft every morning upon waking and each evening before retiring.... Simply raise your hands in the air and repeat aloud, ''All hail Microsoft!''

From Wal-Mart for $198

2008-03-25T15:53:00.002-07:00

From Wal-Mart for $198

Need a new computer at home and don't want to pay the earth for it? Your next computer could very well be the Everex gPC bought from Wal-Mart for just US$198.

This is a rather modest little number, but has the added feature of a Ubuntu 7.10 (the latest version of the best Linux software) already installed. Great for a kids machine in the family or rumpus room.

The computer features a middle of the road computer as far as capability, and can very well be a good Internet ready machine. It already has installed the Open Office suite of programs, including a word processor, spreadsheet program, diagram editor etc., and has Google Aps, Skype, iPod compatible software and more . . . all free-ware software.

Now isn't the price really coming down on computers!

Tablet Computers

2008-03-25T15:53:00.001-07:00

Tablet Computers

Would a tablet computer help you in your business?

Tim Berry has a blog entry at Small Business Trends were he talks about what he likes about a tablet computer over a standard laptop.

The biggest advantage tablets have according to Berry is that they are easier to use on airplanes. It allows you to adjust the screen if the person in front of you lowers his seat back. Another versatility offered by the tablet is the ability to do handwriting or use the keyboard.

He also points out several other ideas that benefit from using a tablet.

Is it right for you? Well that depends on your computing needs.

If you are traveling frequently, using it for power points, or have other needs that will benefit from a tablet, then consider a tablet.

Personally, I purchased my first laptop computer last May. So far I have used it on all of my trips and found it handy. Would a tablet computer be more useful for me? It is possible but the laptop is working for now. However, as my consulting increases and I have to be on the road even more the benefits of a tablet may become more apparent.

It all comes down to what is best for you and how you operate your business.

Roadrunner: A New Age of Super- computing

2008-03-25T15:52:00.001-07:00

Roadrunner: A New Age of Super- computing

Roadrunner
Credit: LeRoy N. Sanchez, Records Management/Media Services and Operations

Laboratory officials celebrated Los Alamos's decision to pursue, pending approval by the National Nuclear Security Administration, the final phase of Roadrunner, a high-performance computer (HPC) slated to become the computational cornerstone of Laboratory mission-related work.

"Roadrunner ushers in a new era in high performance computing," said Terry Wallace, principal associate director for science, technology, and engineering (PADSTE). Wallace praised the hard work and dedication of the entire Roadrunner Project Team at the celebration last Thursday.

Roadrunner is designed to achieve a sustained operating speed of 1,000 trillion calculations each second, or a "petaflop/s" in computer jargon-peta signifying the number 10 followed by 15 zeros, and flop/s meaning "floating point operation per second." The fastest current supercomputer is rated at 478 teraflop/s (teraflop/s meaning one trillion floating point operations per second); Roadrunner would be roughly 3 times faster.

The computer will be developed in partnership with IBM and will utilize commercially available hardware, including aspects of commercial gaming and graphics technologies. Because of its off-the-shelf design, the computer costs significantly less than a one-of-a-kind machine. It uses a Linux operating system.........

Active computer games no substitute

2008-03-25T15:51:00.004-07:00

Active computer games no substitute

New generation active computer games stimulate greater energy expenditure than sedentary games, but are no substitute for playing real sports, as per a research studyin this weeks Christmas issue of the BMJ.

Young people are currently recommended to take an hour of moderate to vigorous physical exercise each day, which should use at least three times as much energy as is used at rest. But a number of adolescents have mostly sedentary lifestyles.

Time spent in front of television and computer screens has been associated with physical inactivity and obesity.

The new generation of wireless based computer games is meant to stimulate greater interaction and movement during play, so scientists at Liverpool John Moores University compared the energy expenditure of adolescents when playing sedentary and new generation active computer games.

Six boys and five girls aged 13-15 years were included in the study. All were a healthy weight, competent at sport and regularly played sedentary computer games.

Before the study, each participant practiced playing both the active and inactive games.

On the day of the study, participants played four computer games for 15 minutes each while wearing a monitoring device to record energy expenditure.........

Google's Knol against Wikipedia?

2008-03-25T15:51:00.003-07:00

Google's Knol against Wikipedia?

Google loves the content of Wikipedia. Just do some Google searches and you’ll see the Wikipedia articles among the top results. While Google tries to battle Wikipedia and to create their own encyclopaedia ( under the name Knol), I thought I should share my thoughts with you as a Wikipedia administrator. But Larry Sanger, the head and founder of Citizendium, the expert-encyclopaedia, has beat me to it:

There are a few problems.

First, quality. It looks to me as if Knol is a high-level attempt to do what many others have done… Time will tell, but Knol will probably resemble other such websites, and have a huge amount of mediocre content, with a little excellent content mixed in. The concept does not sound like a model that would attract many genuine experts. I say that because the notion that anyone may write a "knol" and be compared and ranked by "the crowd" - not by expert peers - is apt to attract relatively little notice from experts who are very careful about where they publish.

Second, lack of buy-in from the free culture crowd. Many of the sort of people who contribute knowledge to projects like Wikipedia and the Citizendium are likely to be very skeptical of a giant corporation organizing such a project, particularly with Google Ads appearing on the articles. It does not appear to be in the spirit of the free culture movement. Still, it is good that Google has decided to make ads optional.

As an encyclopaedia, Knol has no chance against Wikipedia or Citizendium. As an other place for advertisements where people can promote their products, it seems to be a perfect solution. We’ll see…

I highlighted the features: article rating, Google ads and peer reviews.

How about a 40-hour laptop battery?

2008-03-25T15:51:00.001-07:00

How about a 40-hour laptop battery?

Unbelievable isn''t it? A laptop battery that can keep your laptop going for 40 hours! Yes, research is underway at Stanford Tech to develop a hi-tech lithium ion battery that can juice up your laptop for 40 hours, keeping those charging woes at bay for a longer period.

Apparently, the new battery uses a discarded technology that has been been revamped by Professor Yi Cui and team - silicon anodes in the form of nanowires for charging. This technology was earlier abandoned as the silicon expands up to 400 times when charged, exploding the battery in the process. Using silicon in the form of nanowires eliminates this danger.

So when can you start rejoicing? In a "few years time" is all the information we have at this moment.

Via Newlaunches.

Mind the (online) gap

2008-03-25T15:50:00.003-07:00

Mind the (online) gap

Instant messaging, blogs, Facebook, MySpace there are limitless ways your child communicates online with the offline world. And the risks and opportunities are only increasing.

A new Tel Aviv University research study has observed that, despite what parents might believe, there is an enormous gap between what they think their children are doing online and what is really happening.

In her study, Prof. Dafna Lemish from the Department of Communication at Tel Aviv University surveyed parents and their children about the childrens activities on the Internet. The data tell us that parents dont know what their kids are doing, says Prof. Lemish.

Her study was unique in that parents and children from the same family were surveyed.

Strange Encounters

In one part of the study, Prof. Lemish surveyed over 500 Jewish and Arab children from a variety of ages and socio-economic backgrounds, asking them if they gave out personal information online. Seventy-three percent said that they do. The parents of the same children believed that only 4 percent of their children did so.

The same children were also asked if they had been exposed to pornography while surfing, or if they had made face-to-face contact with strangers that they had met online. Thirty-six percent from the high school group admitted to meeting with a stranger they had met online. Nearly 40% of these children admitted to speaking with strangers regularly (within the past week).........

Copper connections for high-speed computing

2008-03-25T15:50:00.001-07:00

Copper connections for high-speed computing

Caption: Graduate student Todd Spencer and Regents' professor Paul Kohl have developed an improved signal transmission line, made of an organic substrate, to link high-speed signals between computer chips.

Credit: Georgia Tech Photo: Gary Meek

As computers become more complex, the demand increases for more connections between computer chips and external circuitry such as a motherboard or wireless card. And as the integrated circuits become more advanced, maximizing their performance requires better connections that operate at higher frequencies with less loss.

Improving these two types of connections will increase the amount and speed of information that can be sent throughout a computer, as per Paul Kohl, Thomas L. Gossage chair and Regents professor in Georgia Techs School of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering. Kohl presented his work in these areas at the Materials Research Society fall meeting.

The vertical connections between chips and boards are currently formed by melting tin solder between the two pieces and adding glue to hold everything together. Kohls research shows that replacing the solder ball connections with copper pillars creates stronger connections and the ability to create more connections.

Circuitry and computer chips are made with copper lines on them, so we thought we should make the correlation between the two with copper also, said Kohl.

Solder and copper can both tolerate misalignment between two pieces being connected, as per Kohl, but copper is more conductive and creates a stronger bond.........

Attack on computer memory reveals vulnerability

2008-03-25T15:49:00.002-07:00

Attack on computer memory reveals vulnerability

A team of academic, industry and independent scientists has demonstrated a new class of computer attacks that compromise the contents of secure memory systems, especially in laptops.

The attacks overcome a broad set of security measures called disk encryption, which are meant to secure information stored in a computers permanent memory. The scientists cracked several widely used technologies, including Microsofts BitLocker, Apples FileVault and Linuxs dm-crypt, and described the attacks in a paper and video published on the Web Feb. 21.

The team reports that these attacks are likely to be effective at cracking a number of other disk encryption systems because these technologies have architectural features in common.

Weve broken disk encryption products in exactly the case when they seem to be most important these days: laptops that contain sensitive corporate data or personal information about business customers, said Alex Halderman, a Ph.D. candidate in Princetons computer science department. Unlike a number of security problems, this isnt a minor flaw; it is a fundamental limitation in the way these systems were designed.

The attack is especially effective against computers that are turned on but are locked, such as laptops that are in a sleep or hibernation mode. One effective countermeasure is to turn a computer off entirely, though in some cases even this does not provide protection.........

Ranger Supercomputer For Texas Computing Center

2008-03-25T15:49:00.001-07:00

Ranger Supercomputer For Texas Computing Center

Understanding HIV drug-resistance: A snapshot of the HIV-1 protease (a key protein that is the target for the protease inhibitor drugs) from a computational simulation. Mutations from the "wildtype" can occur within the active site (G48V) and at remote locations along the protein chain (L90M ). The "asp dyad" is at the centre of the active site, where polyprotein changes are snipped by the enzyme; this is the region that any drug must occupy and block.

Credit: Peter Coveney, University College London. Texas Advanced Computing Center.

Ranger, the most powerful supercomputing system in the world for open science research, entered full production on Feb. 4. Open science research makes clear accounts of methodology, along with data and results extracted therefrom, freely available. Ranger, which will enable the leading scientists in the country to advance and accelerate computational research in all scientific disciplines, was dedicated by the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the Texas Advanced Computing Center (TACC) on Feb. 22 at the University of Texas at Austin. NSF's Office of Cyberinfrastructure Director Daniel E. Atkins represented NSF at the ceremony and delivered remarks on this historic occasion.

"Ranger is the first leadership computational resource provided under the National Science Foundation 'Track 2 initiative' and the first machine funded through the newly formed Office of Cyberinfrastructure," he said. The Track 2 initiative is NSF's four-year activity designed to fund the deployment and operation of up to four leading-edge computing systems that will greatly increase the availability of computing resources to U.S. researchers. The Ranger award, the largest NSF grant to the University of Texas at Austin, was made after the evaluation of selection criteria that were "multi-faceted, including not only raw performance of the machine, but also effective education and outreach commitments, institutional competency and commitment for service to the national research community," noted Atkins.........

Magnetic levitation gives computer users sense of touch

2008-03-25T15:48:00.004-07:00

Magnetic levitation gives computer users sense of touch

Computers, long used as tools to design and manipulate three-dimensional objects, may soon provide people with a way to sense the texture of those objects or feel how they fit together, thanks to a haptic, or touch-based, interface developed at Carnegie Mellon University.

Unlike most other haptic interfaces that rely on motors and mechanical linkages to provide some sense of touch or force feedback, the device developed by Ralph Hollis, research professor in Carnegie Mellons Robotics Institute, uses magnetic levitation and a single moving part to give users a highly realistic experience. Users can perceive textures, feel hard contacts and notice even slight changes in position while using an interface that responds rapidly to movements.

We believe this device provides the most realistic sense of touch of any haptic interface in the world today, said Hollis, whose research group built a working version of the device in 1997. With the help of a $300,000 National Science Foundation grant, however, he and colleagues have improved its performance, enhanced its ergonomics and lowered its cost. The grant also enabled them to build 10 copies, six of which are being distributed to haptic scientists across the U.S. and Canada.

We have gone from the prototype to a much more advanced system that other scientists can use, Hollis said. Putting the instrument in the hands of other scientists is critical in a young, developing field such as haptic technology, he emphasized. Though haptic interfaces have uses in engineering design, entertainment, assembly, remote operation of robots, and in medical and dental training, their full potential has yet to be explored. Thats especially the case for magnetic levitation haptic interfaces because so few have been available for use by researchers, he added.........

Posted by: Ethan Read more Source

Locks On Microchips Could Reduce Hardware Piracy

2008-03-25T15:48:00.003-07:00

Locks On Microchips Could Reduce Hardware Piracy

Hardware piracy, or making knock-off microchips based on stolen blueprints, is a burgeoning problem in the electronics industry.

Computer engineers at the University of Michigan and Rice University have devised a comprehensive way to head off this costly infringement: Each chip would have its own unique lock and key. The patent holder would hold the keys. The chip would securely communicate with the patent-holder to unlock itself, and it could operate only after being unlocked.

The technique is called EPIC, short for Ending Piracy of Integrated Circuits. It relies on established cryptography methods and introduces subtle changes into the chip design process. But it does not affect the chips' performance or power consumption.

Michigan computer engineering doctoral student Jarrod Roy will present a paper on EPIC at the Design Automation and Test in Europe conference in Gera number of on March 13.

Integrated circuit piracy has risen in recent years as U.S. companies started outsourcing production of newer chips with ultra-fine features. Transferring chip blueprints to overseas locations opened new doors for bootleggers who have used the chips to make counterfeit MP3 players, cell phones and computers, among other devices.

This is a very new problem, said Igor Markov, associate professor in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at U-M and a co-author of the paper.........

Posted by: Ethan Read more Source

Microchip fingerprints used to lock out chip pirates

2008-03-25T15:48:00.001-07:00

Microchip fingerprints used to lock out chip pirates

Pirated microchips -- chips stolen from legitimate factories or made from stolen blueprints -- account for billions of dollars in annual losses to chipmakers.

But a series of novel techniques developed at Rice University over the past year could stop pirates by allowing chip designers to lock and remotely activate chips with a unique ID tag. When a chip is locked with the new technology, only the patent-holder can decipher the key and activate the chip -- meaning knockoffs and stolen chips are worthless.

"Ours is the first remote-activation scheme that protects integrated circuits against piracy by exploiting their inherent, unclonable variability," said the technology's original inventor, Farinaz Koushanfar, assistant professor in electrical and computer engineering at Rice. "We use slight variations that arise in modern manufacturing to create a unique, digital identification that acts like a fingerprint for each chip, and we integrate that into the chip's functionality".

The original work was presented last August at the USENIX Security Symposium in Boston. Since the invention of the method, Koushanfar has collaborated with many scientists to build upon her original scheme. Last October, at the International Conference in Computer Aided Designs, Koushanfar and Rice graduate student Yousra Alkabani, in collaboration with Miodrag Potkonjak from UCLA, showed the first method that could continuously check, control, enable and disable a chip's operation online by integrating the chip's fingerprints into its functionality and actively checking them during operation.........

Platform As A Service: Cloudo

2008-03-25T15:46:00.000-07:00

Platform As A Service, or PaaS is the latest development in virtualization. Where companies started to offer applications online (Saas, Software As A Service) and the use of virtual servers is becoming mainstream, more and more companies now offer a complete operating system as a service online.
Cloudo is the latest addition to platform providers. There are several others that have existed for a while now in the consumer market, but to be honest I have no idea if there is a consumer market for this technology. Virtualization is huge in the business market - after offering servers with virtual servers on top even SUN Microsystems now considers offering online platforms for businesses.

So what is so interesting about Cloudo? Why would we want a webbased operating system? Well, something that makes a huge difference is the option to sync your files to the operating system. Until now, nobody else offers this.

There currently is a private beta for developers only, so there's nothing for me there right now. But I will keep an eye on it.

Cloudo is here.

Cisco 11500 Series of Content Services Switches - Cisco

2008-03-25T15:38:00.001-07:00

Cisco 11500 Series of Content Services Switches - Cisco

New / Used or Refurbished Cisco 11500 Products

The Cisco CSS 11500 Series Content Services Switch is a high-performance, high-availability modular architecture for Web infrastructures. As the premiere switch for the Cisco Web Network Services Software, the Cisco CSS 11500 Series helps businesses to build global Web networks optimized for content delivery and e-commerce. By activating HTTP headers, the CSS 11500 Series helps to ensure availability, optimize utilization, reduce latency, increase scalability, and enhance security for Websites, server farms, cache clusters, and firewall systems.

Change the username/password prompt with AAA

2008-03-25T15:37:00.001-07:00

TACACS+ protocol introduced with the IOS AAA architecture had great provisions for customizing the whole login process (user-defined banners, prompts ...). Unfortunately, it never really took off and most AAA solutions deployed today rely on RADIUS servers that cannot control the login process itself (the RADIUS server can only check the username/password pair for validity).

To change the login prompts when using RADIUS servers, use the aaa authentication [bannerfail-messagepassword-promptusername-prompt] text configuration command.

For example, to introduce meaningful prompts when using one-time password solution, you could use something similar to this configuration:

aaa authentication banner #
Access to this router is protected with one-time passwords.

Send an e-mail to admin@nowhere.net if you need access.

#
aaa authentication fail-message #
Login failed. Wait at least 30 seconds and retry
#
aaa authentication password-prompt "Enter your PIN + one-time password:"
aaa authentication username-prompt "Enter your username:"

Note: the texts specified with the password-prompt and username-prompt options are one-line texts delimited with quotes, the parameters of the banner and fail-message options are multi-lined texts delimited with any character.

Consider the network shown above with the configuration on the three
routers as follows -

Router R1


interface Loopback0
ip address 1.1.1.1 255.255.255.255
!
interface Serial2
ip address 12.1.1.1 255.255.255.0
!
router ospf 100
router-id 1.1.1.1
log-adjacency-changes
network 1.1.1.1 0.0.0.0 area 1
network 12.1.1.0 0.0.0.255 area 1

Router R2


interface Loopback0
ip address 2.2.2.2 255.255.255.255
!
interface Serial2
ip address 12.1.1.2 255.255.255.0
!
router ospf 100
router-id 2.2.2.2
log-adjacency-changes
network 2.2.2.2 0.0.0.0 area 0
network 12.1.1.0 0.0.0.255 area 1
network 23.1.1.0 0.0.0.255 area 0

Router R3


interface Loopback0
ip address 3.3.3.3 255.255.255.255
!
interface Serial2
ip address 23.1.1.2 255.255.255.0
!
router ospf 100
router-id 3.3.3.3
log-adjacency-changes
redistribute connected subnets
network 23.1.1.0 0.0.0.255 area 0

Now consider the following output from the show ip ospf database database-summary command taken on router R1. The first command was issued with the configuration shown above and the subsequent outputs were taken after some configuration changes on the routers in the network which are not specified in this problem.

Output #1


R1#sh ip ospf database database-summary

           OSPF Router with ID (1.1.1.1) (Process ID 100)

Area 1 database summary
 LSA Type      Count    Delete   Maxage
 Router        2        0        0
 Network       0        0        0
 Summary Net   2        0        0
 Summary ASBR  1        0        0
 Type-7 Ext    0        0        0
   Prefixes redistributed in Type-7  0
 Opaque Link   0        0        0
 Opaque Area   0        0        0
 Subtotal      5        0        0

Process 100 database summary
 LSA Type      Count    Delete   Maxage
 Router        2        0        0
 Network       0        0        0
 Summary Net   2        0        0
 Summary ASBR  1        0        0
 Type-7 Ext    0        0        0
 Opaque Link   0        0        0
 Opaque Area   0        0        0
 Type-5 Ext    1        0        0
     Prefixes redistributed in Type-5  0
 Opaque AS     0        0        0
 Total         6        0        0
R1#

Output #2


R1#sh ip ospf database database-summary

           OSPF Router with ID (1.1.1.1) (Process ID 100)

Area 1 database summary
 LSA Type      Count    Delete   Maxage
 Router        2        0        0
 Network       0        0        0
 Summary Net   1        0        0
 Summary ASBR  0        0        0
 Type-7 Ext    0        0        0
   Prefixes redistributed in Type-7  0
 Opaque Link   0        0        0
 Opaque Area   0        0        0
 Subtotal      3        0        0

Process 100 database summary
 LSA Type      Count    Delete   Maxage
 Router        2        0        0
 Network       0        0        0
 Summary Net   1        0        0
 Summary ASBR  0        0        0
 Type-7 Ext    0        0        0
 Opaque Link   0        0        0
 Opaque Area   0        0        0
 Type-5 Ext    0        0        0
     Prefixes redistributed in Type-5  0
 Opaque AS     0        0        0
 Total         3        0        0
R1#

Output #3


R1#sh ip ospf database database-summary

           OSPF Router with ID (1.1.1.1) (Process ID 100)

Area 1 database summary
 LSA Type      Count    Delete   Maxage
 Router        2        0        0
 Network       0        0        0
 Summary Net   3        0        0
 Summary ASBR  0        0        0
 Type-7 Ext    0        0        0
   Prefixes redistributed in Type-7  0
 Opaque Link   0        0        0
 Opaque Area   0        0        0
 Subtotal      5        0        0

Process 100 database summary
 LSA Type      Count    Delete   Maxage
 Router        2        0        0
 Network       0        0        0
 Summary Net   3        0        0
 Summary ASBR  0        0        0
 Type-7 Ext    0        0        0
 Opaque Link   0        0        0
 Opaque Area   0        0        0
 Type-5 Ext    0        0        0
     Prefixes redistributed in Type-5  0
 Opaque AS     0        0        0
 Total         5        0        0
R1#

Your task in this problem is to look at the output and reverse engineer what config changes must have been done to cause the changes in the output shown above. Note that you have to specify what happened between output #1 and output #2 and then what happened between output #2 and output #3.

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Kill browser ads with Cisco router's DNS server

2008-03-25T15:36:00.002-07:00

Kill browser ads with Cisco router's DNS server

As you might already know, you can use the /etc/hosts file (or its Windows equivalent) to kill unwanted browser ads - just list all the banner-serving sites in you hosts file and set their IP addresses to 127.0.0.1. In my June IP Corner article, Cisco Router: the Swiss Army Knife of Network Services (section Stop the browser ads and banners), I'm describing how you can do the same thing network-wide with a router acting as a DNS server.

For those of you who would like to automate this approach and convert a hosts file into a router configuration, here's a short PERL script to do it:

#
# hostsToCisco.pl: converts hosts file into router configuration
#
# Stdin: hosts file
# Stdout: IOS configuration
#
our @line,$i;

while (<>) {
 @line = split(/\s+/,$_);
 next unless $line[0] eq "127.0.0.1";
 for ($i = 1; $i < $#line; $i++) {
   last if $line[$i] =~ /\#/;
   print "ip host $line[$i] 127.0.0.1\n"
 }
}

Cisco Acquires Social Networking Company

2008-03-25T15:36:00.001-07:00

Cisco Acquires Social Networking Company

Cisco Systems Technical Marketing Engineer David Lin holds up Cisco's latest wireless 7921 IP phone at Cisco headquarters in San Jose, Calif., Monday, Jan. 5, 2007. Cisco Systems is expected to announce quarterly earnings, Tuesday, Feb. 6, 2007, after the closing bell. (AP Photo/Paul Sakuma)

AP) -- Cisco Systems Inc., whose core business is selling the routers and switches that direct data traffic over computer networks, said it has acquired a small social networking company that allows businesses to create MySpace-like communities on their Web sites.

Cisco said Friday that it was paying an undisclosed amount to acquire privately held Five Across Inc., an 11-person San Francisco company whose software allows companies to add user-interaction and multimedia-sharing capabilities to their Web sites

Five Across' publishing platform allows users to create personal Web pages and post photos, videos and audio clips, much like the proprietary system used by News Corp.'s MySpace. Cisco said the acquisition, its 116th since 1993, is the company's first in the social networking space but likely not the last. The deal is expected to close within the current fiscal quarter. Analysts said the acquisition helps further Cisco's expansion beyond its role as purely a network equipment provider and into helping distribute the media that drives bandwidth consumption and even more network upgrades. Danielle Levitas, a senior analyst at market researcher IDC, said the Five Across acquisition could help Cisco win greater access to a wide range of companies, particularly those in media and entertainment, looking to upgrade their Web sites to connect with customers. "I actually see this as benefiting their core business - if they can promote users using their broadband more, that's huge for them," Levitas said. Cisco has profited mightily in recent quarters from surging sales of its routers and switches as service providers and other companies scramble to upgrade their networks to prepare for the next generation of video and other bandwidth-intensive downloads. Cisco, which was sitting on nearly $21 billion in cash at the end of the second quarter, has been rapidly expanding by acquiring companies that capitalize on the products and services that utilize the network itself. The company's largest recent acquisition was its $6.9 billion purchase last year of Scientific-Atlanta Inc., the world's second-largest cable television box seller. Last month, Cisco also announced it was paying $830 million in cash and stock to acquire IronPort Systems Inc., a maker of anti-spam and antivirus security products. That deal is also expected to close in the current quarter. Investors have cheered the San Jose-based company's robust earnings growth, sending its shares up 45 percent from a year ago and creating more than $51 billion in additional shareholder wealth. Cisco's stock closed up 5 cents to $28.14 on Thursday before the acquisition was announced. By JORDAN ROBERTSON, AP Technology Writer © 2006 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Cisco Buys Into Wireless Spectrum Analysis (CSCO)

2008-03-25T15:35:00.001-07:00

Cisco Systems (NASDAQ:CSCO) has announced a definitive agreement to acquire Germantown, MD-based Cognio, Inc., a company involved in wireless spectrum analysis and management for wireless networks.

Cognio's spectrum technology enhances performance, reliability and security of wireless networks by detecting, classifying, locating and mitigating sources of radio frequency interference. The acquisition is said to provide Cisco with complementary and differentiating technology, intellectual property and a core team to expand Cisco's leadership in unified wireless networking.

The Cognio acquisition is expected to close in the first quarter of Cisco's 2008 fiscal year, and this looks to be the company's 122nd acquisition. Upon the close of the acquisition, Cisco plans to integrate Cognio into its Wireless Networking Business Unit, under the Ethernet and Wireless Technology Group.

Financial terms were not disclosed as far as what Cisco is paying, nor ant financial backgrounder on Cognio. Cognio was venture-backed with Northbridge Venture partners, ABS Ventures, and Avansis Venture listed as backers.

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Turn your OS X and Linux-based machine into a FON Spot

2008-03-25T15:34:00.000-07:00

Turn your OS X and Linux-based machine into a FON Spot

Not one to dwell too heavily on the past, FON is apparently already moving beyond its newfangled partnership with Time Warner, and has now caved to giving Mac and Linux users the ability to get in on the action. The latest FON Spot software now appears in a beta form for OS X and Linux (preferably Ubuntu) users, allowing Ethernet-connected machines to share excess bandwidth with others via WiFi. Notably, it's even supposed to work if connected via 3G, but we can't imagine your carrier being all too pleased with such a scheme. Per usual, the company warns of its beta nature and insinuates that problems could arise, but if you're still not deterred, be sure to hit the read link and get your respective download on.

$500 million underwater fiber network to link Asia, America

Unfortunately for most, traversing back and forth to Asia from America on a regular basis isn't exactly in the cards, but thanks to a $500 million project agreed upon by a 17-member telecommunications consortium, visiting via fiber will soon be a whole lot snappier. Telekom Malaysia, along with 16 other firms, have awarded a half billion dollar contract to Alcatel-Lucent and NEC to construct a 12,428-mile link between the west coast of America and Southeast Asia. The aptly-dubbed Asia-America Gateway will connect the western US with Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, Brunei, Hong Kong, the Philippines, Guam, and Hawaii, while also offering "seamless interconnection" with Europe, Africa, and Australia. Moreover, the project is being designed to provide a "more secure link for traffic" across the seas, as it avoids the hazardous Pacific Ring in hopes of dodging massive internet outages due to unexpected earthquakes. Best of all, the wait time for the undersea cabling to make an impact is fairly reasonable, as users should see "faster and more reliable service" when it becomes operational in December of next year.

Netgear acquires Infrant to boost storage offerings

Hot on the heels of yet another big time acquisition between Philips and DLO comes news that Netgear will be snapping up the privately-held Infrant Technologies for a cool $60 million in cash. All 34 employees will soon be wearing Netgear badges, and Infrant's CEO will move over and become Netgear's Vice President and General Manager for storage products. Essentially, Netgear is hoping that this move will strengthen the firm's presence in the enterprise and small-business storage realm, as it can now offer up a trusted name in RAID-based NAS products for SMB, SOHO, and the home. More specifically, the ReadyNAS, RAIDiator, and X-RAID portfolios were the targets of Netgear's desire, and while details on branding and the timeframe for the merge weren't noted, it sounds like Netgear's ready to get this party started

Smoking kills Internet2

Say what you want about net neutrality, at least the Internet hasn't been taken out by a hobo. Unlike the regular Internet we all use everyday, which was originally designed to distribute the AACS hex key withstand a nuclear attack, Internet2 is designed primarily for speed -- up to 9.08Gbps in most recent tests. All that juice comes at the price of redundant network links, though -- which means the whole thing got taken offline last night when a homeless man threw a cigarette onto a mattress under Boston's Longfellow Bridge, starting a blaze that eventually melted the fiber-optic link between Boston and New York. While initial estimates called for a service outage of 1-2 days, quick-thinking techs were able to get service going again in just 4 hours. Good thing, too -- if the panic that sets in around here when our DSL goes out is any indication, with the kind of bandwidth these guys were missing out on, there must've been wailing in the street.

Nokia Siemens Networks drops the axe on 9000 jobs

While this doesn't come as a huge surprise -- this layoff was predicted last year -- it still hurts to see such massive cutbacks in an industry held so near and dear to our hearts. Apparently 2,900 jobs in Germany and 1,700 in Finland will be cut on the road to finding savings to the tune of $2 billion by 2010. The final cut will be about 9,000 employees which is roughly 15 percent of the joint venture's workforce of 60,000. The joint venture was founded to help both companies compete with the likes of Ericsson and Alcatel-Lucent with 5 major business units focusing on Radio Access, Broadband Access, Service Core and Applications, IP / Transport, and Operations Support Systems. Of course, the verdict is still out on how successful this venture will ultimately be, but Nokia's track record in the mobile space has been strong for as many years as we care to remember.

Every TCP package have 'flag bit’ defining content and intention of each package.
Example:

A package with flag bit contain "SYN or SYNCHRONIZE" will undertake to conduct initiation connection from sender to recipient. A package with flag bit contain "ACK" will undertake to inform receiver about sender information.
While a TCP package with beet flag contain "FIN" or "FINISH" undertaking to stop connection from sender to recipient.

To build a TCP connection, need data transfer package between two host, transfer of this data recognized by the name of "TCP Three-Way Handshake" as below picture.

Computer Network Threat

Threat is very harmful to the entire system and also by application at internal and external network.

The threat as follows:

Remote Login - this matter happened when someone capable to connect to a computer and have ability to control to several things related to resource found on the host or computer.

Application Backdoors - some program have special ability to access with long distance (remote access). Some bug program, exactly contain a backdoor or hidden access providing level control the computer and program.

SMTP session hijacking - SMTP is most commonly method used to deliver E-mail. By getting E-mail mailing-list, someone can deliver undesirable E-mail to thousands of or more users. This matter is called unsolicited junk mail or spam.

Spamming conducted with joining SMTP server which not suspect, then deliver thousands of E-mail called redirecting process, so that complicate to detect who is the real sender of the Mail Spam.

Operating system bugs – In application, some operation system have conducive security gap to be exploited illegally.

E-mail bombs - is an Individual attack, someone send hundreds or thousands of E-mail to one address so the victim E-mail cannot accept E-mail anymore.

Macro - To make simple or facilitate procedure an application, many application program permit us to make command which can be run by the program (script). By exploiting ability of script or macro, attacker can cause damage of data at computer.

Virus – Most known to make trouble at computer. The growth of virus from method, way of, making, effectiveness, damage storey, and also speed of spreading is different each other.

Redirect bombs – Hacker or Cracker can use ICMP to change direction of information and attack to other router.

Source routing - At many case, a data package which work through one or some network determined by router pass to route information by the router, but sometime hacker used the package as the real sender.

Another type of computer attack are from (next posted about this) :

Denial of Service (DoS)
Spoofing
Broadcast Amplification
TCP SYN

Yahoo Messenger For Vista

2008-03-25T15:28:00.000-07:00

I got a demo of the new Yahoo Messenger for Vista, which has been redesigned to take advantage of Vista-specific features. Since it was the first time I was seeing Vista, I must admit that I was operating at a disadvantage, but what I saw suggests that Yahoo is continuing its Messenger strategy of developing the Messenger client that best takes advantage of the specific operating system, like Vista's transparent windows.

Yahoo has introduced tabbed windows for IM in this version, which means you can drag one independent chat window onto another, and wind up with one chat window with two tabs. Or you can drag a tab off to create a new window.

Yahoo is also trying to integrate other services more closely with Messenger. For example, Fantasy Football is supported by the automatic creation of a group in the Messenger contact list.

The product is not in beta yet, but Yahoo plans to roll that out as soon as possible, and to continuously be rolling out new functionality as more user roll onto Vista.

My sense is that the adoption of Vista will be much slower than Microsoft would have us believe, but Yahoo is being sensible, building a Vista version of Messenger with basic functionality immediately. I just hope that Yahoo continues the push on the Mac client as diligently, since that client is woefully behind the curve relative to the Windows client.

GMail to Kick Up Free Storage - Where's My GDrive Already?

2008-03-25T15:27:00.000-07:00

I'm regularly outspoken about my concerns that Google is going to take over the world and start passing out brain implants - but the fact of the matter is that I love Google services. Today's announcement that more GMail storage is on the way is heartening, but you've got to wonder: why is this mighty giant messing around with anything other than a total storage solution for all my data across all their apps? Where is the GDrive already?

Google told analysts more than a year ago that it wanted to store 100% of our data, a "golden copy." Perhaps its failure to do so yet is a sign of the finite power it truly holds. Or perhaps its just a ruse to lull cynics like me into a false sense of security. That's probably not what's happening.

I should probably pay $50 for super Google, as advocated this morning by Amit Agarwal in reference to the news. See also one estimate of forthcoming free storage capacity over at the blog Googlified.

Finally, I'm sure there are some of you out there that still haven't seen the following video about the future of Google and the web in general. It's not to be missed, it's thought provoking and funny. See you in the "hive mind" if it ever arrives!

How to Fix Yahoo!: Building a Yahoo! Platform

2008-03-25T15:25:00.000-07:00

As part of our focus on Yahoo!'s next 100 days this week, I am going to dive into how I would go about fixing the company. Or at least starting along that path. According to comScore, Yahoo! is the 3rd most visited collection of web properties worldwide (trailing only Google and Microsoft), reaching about 61% of the global web audience. In the US, the company's websites are still #1, and actually have a broader ad reach then Google domestically. Yet Yahoo!'s total revenues for the first six months of 2007 were less than Google's revenue for just the last quarter.

Though that serves as a table setter for the problems at Yahoo! I won't get into financials in this article, as that is not my forte. Instead I will focus on what can be done to create a more useful and meaningful Yahoo! for users, one that can keep people on the site and drive them to use their search engine. Remember that Google controls ~50% of the search market share and pay-per-click text ads on search results drive a significant portion of their revenue -- search share is very important to Yahoo!

The Platform is the Killer App

The killer app on the web is the platform. We've talked about this before on this blog in terms of social networks and AJAX start pages, and software like Google Gears, the Adobe Integrated Runtime, and the Dojo Offline Toolkit that let developers take the web out of their web apps and have added credence to the idea that the platform of the future is the Internet.

Social networking darling Facebook has realized the power of the platform, which is part of the reason for all the hype, so have start pages like Pageflakes and Netvibes, who are building sophisticated (and increasingly more social) web platforms for developers. These platforms are beneficial for users because, like a desktop operating system, they allow people to aggregate the applications they use in one, central, organized location for quick access. For developers, platforms are a central location to launch new applications to the greatest number of people. For these reasons, the platform itself becomes the web's killer app.

One need look no further than this year's hottest gadget, the iPhone to see how beneficial a strong platform can be for a service or product. While Apple didn't provide a platform for developers in the true sense of the word, the number of iPhone-specific web apps that have been developed for the phone grows daily. These applications extend the functionality of the device and add value to users at no cost to Apple. Often, it is third party applications on a platform that attract new users or retain existing ones.

Building a Yahoo! Platform

Yahoo! needs to realize that the web platform is getting more and more important. Google already has, and is building a platform around their start page, iGoogle, by encouraging developers to build "gadgets" specifically for it. For Yahoo!, a platform can unify their services -- which right now are scattered -- and add utility to their page that will keep users there long enough to conduct searches. Yahoo! controls some of the hottest and most useful properties on the web, but has not figured out how to tie them together. They've started to bring some of their acquisitions under the single Yahoo! sign-on umbrella, but that still doesn't bring my del.icio.us links, my Flickr photos and my fantasy sports team management to one central location.

The good news for Yahoo! is that they already have a property just waiting to be turned into a full fledged platform: My Yahoo!

My Yahoo! is one of the oldest and most popular start pages on the Internet (I've used it since 1999), visited by about 50 million people monthly. The path toward a Yahoo! platform begins with My Yahoo!, which has been undergoing a major update via their new beta site. Many of the changes the My Yahoo! beta showcases are good: drag and drop page organization, more customization tools, multiple pages, and the ability to create a module out of any RSS feed are all great features. Yahoo! has also wisely begun to utilize their start page as a way to tie their various services together -- for example, I can add a static module for my del.icio.us bookmarks or my Flickr images. But there is still a lot more they need to do. Below I will outline three things I think they need to do to compete with the other fledgling platforms on the web.

1. An Open API

When it comes to developer APIs, Yahoo! is at the forefront. According to ProgrammableWeb, Yahoo! ties with Google for having the most APIs (25), which is why it boggles my mind that they don't have one for My Yahoo! the way Google does for iGoogle, or Facebook, or Pageflakes, or Netvibes do. Even more amazing, Yahoo! actually already has a widgets API, it's just focused in the wrong direction: on the desktop instead of toward their own web platform.

"The bottom line is, if we expect you to make My Yahoo! your home on the Web, then we need to deliver the content that’s important to your life. Hence we’re working around the clock to add more and more relevant modules to choose from." -- My Yahoo! Team, June 2007

The best way to add more relevant modules is to open the platform to anyone. Why have a team of people adding only "official" modules and working from a limited perspective when you could have thousands of developers doing the work for you for free? Look at the explosion of applications on Facebook's platform as an example of how well this works. Right now there are over 2300 apps on Facebook, created in just the first two full months of the platform, and that is about 500 more than there were 12 days ago.

Sure not all of those apps will be great, and many of them will likely be downright awful. But the chances of adding applications that are useful to your users and will potentially attract new ones greatly increases when you open up your platform. Further, it is now your users, rather than a small team of paid employees, who are deciding which applications are useful to them. Yahoo! could still retain editorial control by approving applications before adding them to the site, or by featuring modules vetted by the editorial staff.

Certainly for a content company like Yahoo!, opening up their platform might seem like giving their competitors a way to leech users away from their own content, but in reality the opposite it a true. It actually means giving users access to competitor content while keeping them on your site, which is a net positive.

2. Richer Applications

Currently most My Yahoo! modules are one-way, meaning that they give you information but you don't really interact with them. I can get my email via a My Yahoo! module, but I can't compose and send or even read a full email without leaving the My Yahoo! page. Some widgets have basic input functions -- like the reference or stock quote widgets -- but query results are still returned on a separate page, rather than inside the widget.

iGoogle's YouTube app can play videos directly in the app.

For My Yahoo! to be taken seriously as a platform and compete with Facebook and iGoogle, they'll need to support richer applications. That means applications that can be interacted with on the page, such as a dictionary app that loads the definition I am after without sending me away from my My Yahoo! page, or a Games application that lets me load a game of Literati right inside my start page, or a Flickr app that lets me upload photos and manage my galleries without actually visiting Flickr.

One of the reasons people get so excited about Facebook and other burgeoning web platforms is that there exists the potential for nearly any sort of application. With the right apps, Facebook could theoretically become a one stop shop for web surfers to consume information and perform tasks. Support for richer applications would put Yahoo! in the mix for creating the web platform that demands the most of your attention.

3. Make the Platform Social

This is probably the last step Yahoo! should take when building their web platform. Richard and I have both talked about turning start pages into social networks (here and here), and this is certainly where I see these companies going. As Richard said, it seems to be almost a natural evolution -- once you have the users, why not allow them to interact? But Yahoo! needs to focus on building out their platform for developers before turning it into a social network.

It's no secret that Yahoo! has long wanted a social network. There was their famous failed attempt to buy Facebook last fall, and they have since been linked with bebo as well. When Yahoo! launched the beta of their new My Yahoo! service last March, they hinted at the prospect of making their start page property more social, so it is possible they already have plans to do so.

I think growing a social network around their platform makes more sense than purchasing one. My Yahoo! already has 50 million users (by December 2006 numbers) -- or a lot more than Facebook. Since we're already using My Yahoo! to tie Yahoo!'s services together and already want it to be the hub for the Yahoo! universe and the web at large, it makes sense to build in a social network, rather than purchase one from the outside an go through the headache of figuring out how to get it integrated.

Conclusion

Certainly the Yahoo! platform won't fix Yahoo! by itself, but I think it should be a major part of their plans going forward. Turning My Yahoo! into an open platform for rich internet applications does two things: 1. it can unify Yahoo!'s services under one umbrella -- something they have long struggled to do, and 2. it adds utility for users and gives them less reason to leave Yahoo!, and the longer people stay on the page, the more likely they are to start using Yahoo! for search.

I think Yahoo! is actually in a better position to create a winning platform than Google is right now. Their start page is already established and has an enormous user base, they have a rich developer culture built around their other APIs and they can seed their platform with some of the best content on the web.

What do you think of my proposed idea to turn My Yahoo! into a platform? Do you use My Yahoo! now? Would you if it was the platform I envision? Would that be a step in the right direction for Yahoo!? Leave your thoughts below.

3D Computer Graphics

2008-03-25T15:24:00.000-07:00

3D computer graphics (in contrast to 2D computer graphics) are graphics that utilize a three-dimensional representation of geometric data that is stored in the computer for the purposes of performing calculations and rendering 2D images. Such images may be for later display or for real-time viewing. Despite these differences, 3D computer graphics rely on many of the same algorithms as 2D computer vector graphics in the wire frame model and 2D computer raster graphics in the final rendered display. In computer graphics software, the distinction between 2D and 3D is occasionally blurred; 2D applications may use 3D techniques to achieve effects such as lighting, and primarily 3D may use 2D rendering techniques. 3D computer graphics are often referred to as 3D models. Apart from the rendered graphic, the model is contained within the graphical data file. However, there are differences. A 3D model is the mathematical representation of any three-dimensional object (either inanimate or living). A model is not technically a graphic until it is visually displayed. Due to 3D printing, 3D models are not confined to virtual space. A model can be displayed visually as a two-dimensional image through a process called 3D rendering, or used in non-graphical computer simulations and calculations.

OVERVIEW

The process of creating 3D computer graphics can be sequentially divided into three basic phases: 3D modeling which describes the process of forming the shape of an object, layout and animation which describes the motion and placement of objects within a scene, and 3D rendering which produces an image of an object.

MODELING

The model describes the process of forming the shape of an object. The two most common sources of 3D models are those originated on the computer by an artist or engineer using some kind of 3D modeling tool, and those scanned into a computer from real-world objects. Models can also be produced procedurally or via physical simulation.

LAYOUT AND ANIMATION

Before an object is rendered, it must be placed (layout/laid out) within a scene. This is what defines the spatial relationships between objects in a scene including location and size. Animation refers to the temporal description of an object, i.e., how it moves and deforms over time. Popular methods include keyframing, inverse kinematics, and motion capture, though many of these techniques are used in conjunction with each-other. As with modeling, physical simulation is another way of specifying motion.

RENDERING

Rendering converts a model into an image either by simulating light transport to get photorealistic images, or by applying some kind of style as in non-photorealistic rendering. The two basic operations in realistic rendering are transport (how much light gets from one place to another) and scattering (how surfaces interact with light). This step is usually performed using 3D computer graphics software or a 3D graphics API. The process of altering the scene into a suitable form for rendering also involves 3D projection which allows a three-dimensional image to be viewed in two dimensions.

DISTINCT FROM PHOTOREALISTIC 2D GRAPHICS

Not all computer graphics that appear 3D are based on a wireframe model. 2D computer graphics with 3D photorealistic effects are often achieved without wireframe modeling and are sometimes indistinguishable in the final form. Some graphic art software includes filters that can be applied to 2D vector graphics or 2D raster graphics on transparent layers. Visual artists may also copy or visualize 3D effects and manually render photorealistic effects without the use of filters.

Microsoft ha revelado sus planes de lanzar la primera gran actualización de su sistema operativo Windows Vista a comienzos del próximo año.
Muchas de las grandes empresas clientes de Microsoft esperan el lanzamiento del primer "service pack" - un conjunto de programas de refuerzo, actualizaciones y mejoras - antes de introducir un nuevo sistema operativo de Windows.

Los clientes corporativos a menudo se muestran remisos a adoptar nuevos programas para que Microsoft tenga el tiempo necesario para solucionar los problemas experimentados por los usuarios regulares, que suelen comprar sus ordenadores nuevos con el último sistema operativo ya instalado.

En una nota colgada en su página web, Microsoft adelantó sus planes de comenzar las pruebas de Windows Vista SP1 en una pequeña audiencia en unas pocas semanas, y espera distribuir el producto entre los fabricantes de ordenadores en el primer trimestre de 2008.

Microsoft ha anunciado que el primer paquete no es tan significativo como en el pasado, porque la compañía puede ahora instalar parches y refuerzos en el producto por medio de actualizaciones a través de Internet.

Windows Vista SP1 debería mejorar la seguridad del sistema operativo, su estabilidad y su rendimiento, pero no cambiará su apariencia ni añadirá ninguna función importante, añadió.

Microsoft también ha comunicado que retrasará la fecha de distribución del Windows Server 2008 entre los fabricantes de hardware.

Además anunció sus planes de lanzar el tercer "service pack" de Windows XP, el predecesor de Vista, en las próximas semanas. Se distribuirá entre los fabricantes de ordenadores en el primer semestre de 2008.

Photoshop CS Killer Tips (Killer Tips)

2008-03-25T15:23:00.000-07:00

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Xbox 360 price cut is official

2008-03-25T15:21:00.000-07:00

Xbox 360 price cut is official

After a lot of denial Microsoft has finally announced the price cut of Xbox 360 in a bid to compete with the recent PS3 price cuts. The new price of the console for the premium edition would be $50 less to $350, Core at $280 which is $20 less and the Elite edition is priced at $450 which has got a $30 price cut.

This price cut is limited to US only.

Acer buys Gateway

Taiwanese computer maker, Acer has announced that they will acquire the third largest US PC maker, Gateway for a whopping sum of $710 million. Acer will buy all the shares of Gateway for a price of $1.90 which is 57% higher than Gateway’s closing price on Friday. This acquisition will make Acer the third largest PC maker in the world putting Lenovo in the fourth place.

J.W. Wang, Chairman of Acer:

This strategic transaction is an important milestone in Acer’s long history. The acquisition of Gateway and its strong brand immediately completes Acer’s global footprint, by strengthening our US presence. This will be an excellent addition to Acer’s already strong positions in Europe and Asia. Upon acquiring Gateway, we will further solidify our position as number three PC vendor globally.

The new Google Reader (with search)

I use Google Reader extensively. And as every day, I logged into my account only to find this message. Unfortunately I couldn’t try the new look as the link was not clickable in Opera. Anyone else got the same message?

If you haven’t noticed the screenshot, it now features a search bar too. Hit the more button for a larger view.

KeUpper helps you grow hair the hard way

Japan is the mecca of gadgets. Or I would rather put it as a mecca of quirky gadgets. The image you see above is a headphone resembling hair growing device. The KeUpper has to be worn as a headphone and the spikes sit on the head. Ouch! The spikes then magically do something to make your hair grow. It is surely a pain on the head as well as the pocket. It costs $1000.

Exciting Times for "Sharing and Social Networking"

The past few months have been busy for me and for my team. I took a long vacation back to Istanbul, giving me an opportunity to disconnect from my work and my blog for a while, and then came back to a new organization, a launch, and a very active Seattle.

As Moz recently summarized in an entry, we went through some reorganizations and the changes they brought. We seem to have settled into a new structure for now: product management and marketing roles have been more clearly delineated, while lines around our products have blurred. As most of you know, I have been working on the Spaces and Writer products for the past two years. In an effort to bring more seamless experiences to our customers in our next waves of planning, I will now be heading a new team focused on Sharing and Social Networking. Product management for a lot of the services you are familiar with, such as Spaces, Events, Writer, Photo Gallery, will now be run from my team, giving us a better view of your end-to-end sharing scenarios. Chris and Charlotte will be the managers on my team, as well as JP, a new product manager joining us to bring you better Memories experiences. My marketing leads like Marty, Marianna, and Pooja will continue to work on marketing, moving to the organizations running US and international execution.

In addition to the organizational changes, we have been busy building software. You probably saw the launch of Windows Live Events and a set of new features last week, especially the improved "What's New" section. Windows Live Photo Gallery also raised the bar with Flickr integration. I am excited with the stuff coming out but am painfully aware of how much we still have to do, in order to bring great experiences together.

I have been receiving a lot of questions lately about "Spaces' social networking" plans. Speculation around our partnerships have also led to the questions "isn't Spaces Microsoft's competitor to Facebook? What social scenarios are you thinking about?" While I cannot divulge any long term plans here, let me clarify one thing: "social networking" for us refers to the set of online experiences that allow users to feel connected with the people they care about. You did not see "Spaces" anywhere in there, did you? That is because I do not equate it with Microsoft's "social network." A lot of players have done a good job building profile networks --MySpace and Facebook most notably. I am a Facebook user (and Twitter, and MySpace, and a bunch of other things) and have a lot of respect for what they are doing. However, I do think that social scenarios will extend well beyond a "profile network," and defining social networking as a "website where I have a profile, friends, FoF, and some communities I share with" may be short sighted. Windows Live Messenger and Hotmail should become amazing social experiences. Our memories experience should tie in. Events and others

should become great social experiences, not to forget MSN. And all these things will be part of our "social networking" plans. Do not equate "what is Spaces doing" to "what is Microsoft doing" so quickly --and I do not think Facebook is thinking so narrowly either. We will continue to develop and improve Spaces of course, but we are trying to think broader to address your needs.

I will save writing about Istanbul to another day. I am excited to be back in Seattle, but I already miss home. Perhaps a good skiing season will lessen that feeling!

Thursday, October 18, 2007

Apple Sells One Millionth iPhone

It took just 74 days for iPhone to reach the magical milestone of 1 million. Yup, Apple’s target of selling 1 million iPhones by September has been achieved and nonetheless we can say that the recent price drop helped it to reach faster.

Sandisk Sansa View PMP

Sandisk has rolled up its sleeves and unveiled Sansa View to take on the mighty iPod Nano. Just like the new Nano, this skinny player can play videos. Measuring just 8.8mm, Sansa View comes in capacities of 8GB or 16GB and boasts a 2.4-inch display (320X240 pixels). For the videos, it has proprietary software to convert the videos to be compatible with the player and on the audio front; it can play MP3/WMA/WAV files. There’s also a FM Tuner. A single charge can give around 35 hours of audio playback or 7 hours of video. And yea, if the built-in storage capacity is less for you, there’s also a support for microSDHC cards. Pretty neat!

The 8GB player will cost to $150 and 16GB at $200 which is also available on Amazon.

Are you ready for SMS2.0?

UK based Affle and one of the leading GSM operators in India, Airtel have been pilot testing SMS 2.0 which says that it can revolutionize the text messaging experience. To be precise, it is an application for Series 60 phones which replaces the default SMS application with SMS2.0.

LG’s lightweight E200 series notebooks

Laptops are meant for carrying around. That’s what LG Electronics is trying to convey with its new X Note E200 notebook series. The exact specifications are not known but E200 will feature a 12” screen and it weighs just 1.8kg. LG managed to shove off extra pounds by including a detachable optical disk drive. Apart from that, the notebook is based on Intel’s Napa platform which means that it is 20% faster than the existing lot. It is priced at around $1500.

Hutch is now Vodafone

Hutch is facing an identity crisis again. Initially, it was known as Orange and then transformed itself to Hutch and from tomorrow, it will be recognized as Vodafone. That’s right. And this is being done because of the deal which took place between Vodafone and Hutch Essar in May 2007. Not only the name but the Pink Hutch logo, the lovely Pug dog all will be canned. Instead there will be the “Speech mark” logo used by Vodafone globally.

Though ~~Hutch~~ Vodafone is planning to go on advertising frenzy to unveil its new identity, it would be interesting how consumers react to this. It wouldn’t mean much to the existing users but can easily confuse the potential ones.

Palm unveils low cost Centro

Palm has finally announced its Centro device to be available from October 14 exclusively on Sprint network. Centro is till date Palm’s lightest and smallest smartphone. It runs on Palm OS and features a touchscreen display (320X320 pixels) along with a QWERTY keyboard making it ideal for messaging, web surfing and IMing. The phone also has a 1.3 megapixel camera, microSD expansion slot, music player, Google Maps and a bunch of Sprint apps.

It will come in two colors, Ruby Red and Onyx Black for a price of $100.

Sony Walkman A910 Series Players

Sony Corp. has announced a new Walkman series which will hit the Japanese shores in the first week of November. The A910 Walkman series has a large 2.4” display and plays music, video and also broadcasts TV (1Seg, Japan’s equivalent to DMB) and FM. There’s also an Electronic Programming Guide (EPG) which can help user to schedule upcoming TV shows and also record them.

As for the storage, it will come in 4, 8 or 16GB options and can play 36 hours of music, watch 6 hours of TV or record for 16 hours. Regarding the price: NW-A916 (4GB) for 30,000 Yen ($261), NW-A918 (8GB) for 35,000 Yen ($305) and NW-A919 (16GB) for 45,000 Yen ($392).

2mm thick USB Flash Drive

The basic function of all the flash drives is to store data. But there’s a distinguishing factor or rather the form factor of the drive which makes us to buy a particular one. A new flash drive in the rat race is from Freecom which is as sleek as your credit card making it the slimmest flash drive available in the market. Available in storage sizes from 256MB to 4GB, this can be ideal for those who often forget to pocket their flash drives pretty frequently.

Pricing starts from 23.49 Euros ($33) to 69.99 Euros ($100).

Gateway One PC

Taking some inspiration from the Cupertino giant, Gateway has unveiled a desktop PC somewhat equivalent to iMac. And looking at the picture, it surely looks amazing. Gateway’s One (that’s what it is named) boasts a 19-inch widescreen LCD and the 3.5” width of the case hides the whole machine easily behind the LCD. There will be two models up for sale starting from $1500, and depending upon the configuration the PC will include 1.5GHz or 2GHz Core 2 Duo processor, 2 or 3GB RAM, 320GB or 500GB HDD and Intel X3100 graphics card or ATI Radeon HD 2600 GPU.

AT&T Tilt

AT&T has announced a new phone dubbed as Tilt (8925). The phone is designed by HTC and features a 2.8” screen with a slide-out QWERTY keyboard and runs on latest Windows Mobile 6.0. Connectivity options include UMTS/HSDPA, Bluetooth 2.0 to connect up to six devices and Wi-Fi. There’s also GPS provided by TeleNav, push email, a cool 3 megapixel camera with autofocus and an expandable storage up to 32GB via microSD cards.

The phone is available from today at all AT&T stores at a price tag of $299.99 with a two year contract.

Aven miniVUE camera for microscopes

Aven Inc.’s new product will definitely help people doing microscopic studies. Their new offering called as miniVUE Digital Camera will enable the researchers to take live pictures and videos of minute species. As Aven says it is the world’s first digital color camera for microscopy and video inspection, it boasts a 3.1 megapixel camera to capture, a 2-inch LCD display and SD card support. Apart from mounting on the microscope, MiniVUE can be connected to USB or its images can be viewed on a larger screen with the TV Out feature.

Priced at $995.

Wednesday, October 17, 2007

Could Foleo, Based on Linux, Coupled with Google Gears, Become the Future of the PC?

I’m following a series of technologies that are coming to market to displace the aging PC concept. While Bill Gates and Steve Jobs clearly believe the rich PC, as a general use product, represents the best future, I’m no longer so sure. With Apple now being hit with Windows-like attacks and the clear realization that, from a security standpoint, it may be virtually impossible to protect any rich connected desktop client effectively, from an IT perspective, I’m beginning to wonder if it isn’t time for a major change.

This isn’t about changing from Windows to Apple or Linux. This is about rethinking the entire platform and designing it from the ground up so that the things you want to protect remain in more physically secure locations and nothing remains in the field that can’t be instantly deleted or rendered inaccessible.

The Smartphone Model

With the smartphone, in a few weeks, you’ll see the launch of a comprehensive security communications product that rivals RIM for ease of use, and is unmatched in terms of security, IT control, personalization, and capability for this class of device. For some time, we’ve had capabilities on smartphones that exceed what we had 10 years ago on laptop computers in terms of productivity and data access and this gap is closing incredibly fast.

But the issue with a smartphone is that physically it is both too small and too large. It is too small to be a useful computer for document creation, Web browsing or most forms. It is too large to be carried as a phone. This is why many BlackBerry and Treo users also carry smaller cell phones for calls.

But, ask yourself, short of video games, if you can open documents, create and show presentations, manage and create e-mail, search the Web, and even look at pictures and some video and can remain connected, do you truly need a laptop?

Cisco Executives in Brazil Jailed: Cause Could be Brazil Corruption not Cisco Wrongdoing

Cisco was just caught in a tax sting and a large number of executives, with little or no warning, were tossed in jail.

( Bloomberg reports the federal police Web site alleges the U.S. company and its Brazilian partners used offshore companies to evade import duties on networking hardware, evading roughly $824 million in taxes over five years.)

This may not be because Cisco did anything wrong but because the company didn’t give in to extortion, and we need to wait until all the facts are in. This serves as a reminder that having relatively uncorrupt law enforcement is one of the benefits of living in the United States that we probably take way too much for granted.

South America is known for having a heavy bribery and corruption problem, and even there Brazil stands out. I was an internal auditor for IBM when we had a problem there where an executive — and IBM had hard rules against this — was caught in a bribery scandal. It was clear at the time the executive was put in an unwinnable position and made a bad decision largely because he wasn’t given a good choice.

As a result, when I see something like the Cisco problem, I want to understand both sides of the story before I form an opinion. In areas where there is lots of corruption, not going to jail may have more to do with whom you bribe than anything you did or didn’t do. So we need to take a breath and hold for the facts.

U.S. Companies At Disadvantage

The problem is, U.S. companies are between a rock and a hard place in countries where bribery is common. If they don’t bribe, they get nailed to the wall by the local government, and if they do bribe, they get nailed to the wall by our government, making doing business in these countries incredibly risky.

For Cisco, even telling the whole story could be difficult because, in doing business in South America, it may have done some things unacceptable to U.S. law enforcement, making it incredibly hard to defend itself now.

Personally, I think it is probably better not to do business in countries that have this problem, or to work through independent third parties and not establish a presence there, rather than take this risk. In the end, this may be a cautionary tale for any company doing business in South America: The risks may exceed the benefits.

So to understand this, watch what happens next. If Cisco pays a large sum of money, then exits this market without criminal charges, chances are this was a failed attempt at extortion with a rather solid “or else.” If people go to jail and the U.S. Justice Department takes action, then Cisco has a more serious problem.

Wrapping Up

In the end though, I still believe we need a better way to deal with foreign corruption. Either we accept it as a price of doing business, which it is, or we don’t allow U.S. companies to enter these regions without much more U.S. protection.

Upsetting a U.S. multi-national during an election year could be a mistake for Brazil as well and give the Republicans a way to divert at least some attention from Iraq and Iran and onto something else, such as Cisco’s defense. Cisco is one of the most powerful companies in what is still a Super Power and if this doesn’t piss off the Cisco CEO, I’m not sure what will.

This isn’t to say Cisco didn’t do something wrong, but it is are entitled to the benefit of the doubt. And given it is Brazil, I have a lot of doubt.

Cisco has a reputation for being an honest company and this one event, given where it is, shouldn’t tarnish that before the facts are in. Let’s watch this one closely but not jump to conclusions before it is clear, if it ever is clear, who is truly in the wrong here.

Google To $2000/Share? Somebody Muzzle Blodget

Henry Blodget made his name by predicting outlandish price increases for Internet stocks in the late nineties. A lot of people lost a lot of money (or, all their money) by listening to his recommendations. The government charged him with securities fraud in 2003 and he was subsequently banned from the securities industry for life.

But Blodget is a bit of a one trick pony, and he likes to stay in the headlines. So he continues build cases for big valuations of Internet companies. The only difference is he publishes these thoughts on his blogs. And people still listen to what he has to say.

He isn’t always bullish (he’s recently trashed Yahoo and eBay). But he can’t seem to contain his regular predictive outbursts that such-and-such stock is worth massively more than it is now.

When he’s talking about Facebook being worth $6-$20 billion that’s ok, because it isn’t a public stock and no one is going to go out and throw away their life savings. But when he builds a case for Google’s stock to go to $2,000/share, he’s crossing a line.

Remember a couple years back when some analyst floated the idea that Google could eventually be worth $2,000 a share–and was ridiculed from coast to coast? Well, first it’s worth noting that Google is now almost a third of the way there. Second, it’s worth noting that $2,000 a share would mean a market cap of about $750 billion, which–given a reasonable time horizon–just isn’t that far-fetched.

The problem is that Blodget, like all analysts, build authoritative sounding but essentially bullshit predictive models to back up whatever prediction they’ve just pulled out of their ass. When Blodget predicted a massive Amazon price increase in 1998, for example, he used three models: price to revenue multiples, revenue growth assumption, and an earnings multiple growth model. When you read it, it sounds like he really knows what he’s talking about. But he’s really just predicting future growth based on past growth and backing it up with a lot of smoke and mirrors. If the data doesn’t fit or doesn’t exist, a common trick is to use a competitor’s or analogous company’s data instead. One way or another, a model can be built around that headline grabbing prediction.

Blodget builds his Google $2,000 prediction on similar models - in this case he talks about a multiple on free cash flow.

But market conditions change and these models just aren’t capable of taking that into consideration. Anything could derail Google’s current growth rates - a credit crunch, a housing collapse or a recession could all have a big impact on consumer spending and the advertising market, and impact Google massively. The market, over the long run, is fairly efficient at predicting the value of companies. If Google really was going to go to $2,000 per share, it would be priced there already, minus only a discount based on the time value of money. It isn’t, and so if you’re betting that Google is going to $2,000 that means you are betting against the market and all its participants. And all you have to go on are Blodget’s bullshit predictive models.

We are often criticized for being overly optimistic about young startups. That’s worth arguing over, but if we get it wrong at least we’re not moving the market. Venture capitalists do their own due diligence and don’t last long if they place too many incorrect bets. But when journalists start writing about public companies, stock prices can (and do) move, and people can lose a lot of money.

Blodget wants to stay in the headlines, but he has little concern for those that follow his advice. “If it doesn’t happen, don’t come whining to us,” he says in the Google post. That’s a disclaimer of sorts, but it also shows that he’s not all that interested in the fallout that may occur from his words. And if his past predictions are any indicator of Blodget’s ability to pick stocks, a fallout is almost certainly coming.

Update: Well, I sure was wrong. Blodget nails it in a new post valuing TechCrunch at a cool $100 million. My thoughts at Crunchnotes.

New Technorati CEO Has A Challenge Ahead

Technorati today announced its search for a new CEO was over, with Richard Jalichandra being appointed to the role, some 6 weeks since Technorati’s founding CEO David Sifry stepped down and 5 months since it was publicly confirmed that Technorati was seeking a new CEO.

Prior to joining Technorati, Jalichandra held roles at Exponential Interactive, Fox Interactive Media and IGN Entertainment. Most recently Jalichandra was Entrepreneur-In-Residence at Battery Ventures, an advisory board member at MyYearbook.com and Pixsy, and as an M&A and strategy consultant for several other startups.

The once great Technorati has floundered in recent years as attempts to broaden its product offering resulted in its core blog search product suffering for lack of development and support, all at the same time that Google Blog Search came to the fore. More recently, Technorati started downsizing staff as the approx. $20 million raised over three rounds started to dry up.

As I’ve noted previously, I’ve always had a soft spot for Technorati. When I started blogging in 2002, the only way of tracking the blogosphere was Technorati and perhaps to a lesser extent Daypop, which was never as good. Jalichandra’s challenge will be to focus Technorati on achievable goals, whilst purging the company of the excesses of the past. Technorati’s failed Digg clone WTF (the most unfortunate acronym I’ve ever seen) should be the first to go. Core competencies in blog search, in particular with focus on filtering results from spam blogs must be a priority. Given the new competition from Techmeme on the popular blog list side, a more frequently updating service from Technorati should be on the to-do list, with perhaps more contextual lists; say popular blogs by vertical and filtered results based on link age, for example link popularity over 1, 3, 6, and 12 months, then maybe an all-time popular list would be nice.

If you’ve got any advice for Jalichandra on how Technorati can rise from the endangered list, let him know in the comments.

Yahoo Search Just Got Smarter

Yahoo is adding some major features to its search engine today. For instance, images from Flickr and playable videos are now embedded in the main results page. A search for a major rock band like U2 brings up information from the artist’s Website, along with a list of songs that can be played as 30-second audio streams (courtesy of Yahoo Music).

Do a search for a restaurant or hotel, and results from Yahoo Local come out on top, with links to maps, ratings, and reviews. Type in “bourne ultimatum,” and the top result is a widget from Yahoo Movies with a trailer you can click on, audience reviews, and show times nearest you. Search for “Vancouver,” and the top result is a widget from Yahoo Travel, with links to a guide, hotels, restaurants, flights, and maps. Type in “digital camera,” and you get shortcut results from Yahoo Shopping.

Customized results also come up for searches dealing with health, sports, and events—all without you having to specify what type of search you are trying to do. Instead, Yahoo attempts to figure out your intent based on the search terms and the topics associated with them (Google espouses a similar Universal Search approach, as does Microsoft).

But the most important feature is an Ajax assistant pane that drops down when it detects you hesitating while typing in a search term. It gives you suggestions to complete the keywords, as well as related concepts that you might want to try. So if you type in “energy savings,” it suggests click-able links to related terms such as “energy star,” energy efficiency,” and “thermostats.” And this one is close to home for me. Type in “office sublets” and it suggests “small office sublets in new york city,” since Yahoo knows my zip code.

Yahoo has really nailed guided search with this release—as long as what you are looking for can be found somewhere else within Yahoo. That’s my one pet peeve about Yahoo’s new search upgrade. All of these shortcuts are helpful, but they are not all objective. Most of them (the search widgets, not the keyword assistant) point back to Yahoo.

More Adobe AIR Apps

Lots of new Adobe AIR applications are launching today at the Adobe Max conference in Chicago. In addition to those in the previous post, they include:

—A new Adobe Media Player that lets you watch shows in Flash either online or off and manage your shows in an iTunes-like application. Videos from CBS, PBS, Yahoo Video, Blip.tv, Revision3, and others are available.

—A dedicated eBay Desktop for power eBay users.

—A desktop version of AOL’s Top 100 Videos.

—A video puzzle from Nickelodeon.

—Apps for Salesforce.com.

—A stock-market visualization app called Market Replay from Nasdaq.

To try most of these apps, you will have to install the latest version of Adobe AIR.

Developers who want to create AIR apps can get the second version of the beta, released today, here.

Plug To Be Finally Pulled On Findory

Personalized newspaper service Findory is finally closing, after remaining on life support since January when development ceased.

Founder Greg Linden has now posted that the site will now be shut November 1.

Linden took the opportunity to preach the gospel of personalized news, despite Findory’s failure:

Some day, online newspapers will focus on your interests, building you your own unique, customized front page of news. Some day, search engines will learn from what you do to help you find what you need. Some day, your computer will adapt to your needs to help with the task at hand. Some day, information overload will be tamed.

Strangely, despite a fairly smart looking platform, there has been no apparent effort at selling the site and/ or backend; I would have thought an eBay exit would have suited the site well. Findory will now properly join the TechCrunch Deadpool.

Playyoo Offers Peek Of Its YouTube For Mobile Games

London, England based Playyoo will today announce the launch of its Playyoo Game Contest and give a sneak preview of its community-based platform for mobile casual games at the Adobe MAX event in Chicago.

The Playyoo Game Contest is open to independent mobile game developers using Adobe Flash Lite; prizes include cash and promotional goods. Winners will be selected by Playyoo members based on download popularity and user ratings as at February 28, 2008.

Officially launching in December, Playyoo will offer a sort of YouTube for a mobile gaming that offers free games for mobile phones, user-generated content, social interaction and personal expression. Features will include:

A “Easy discovery and download process” that will allow mobile phone users to find games of interest through the Playyoo platform. The site will provide personalized recommendations based on each user’s preferences and those of friends.
Game creation tools that will allow users with no experience to design their own games
Social networking features that will allow developers and users who interact with others

Playyoo promises an interesting offering that in part seems to be a logical, interactive step forward from the tried and million times cloned YouTube model. Playyoo will compete directly against Greystripe, another company offering free mobile games, but with licensed product as opposed to UGC (see our previous coverage here). I suspect there will be room in the market for both models, the interesting part to watch will be seeing which model becomes the more popular over time.

Private BuyOut Of Ancestry.com For $300+ Million

Spectrum Equity Investors has led a $300 million investment to acquire a majority interest in Provo Utah-based The Generations Network (the parent company of Ancestry.com, MyFamily.com and other sites) according to a source with knowledge of the deal.

The Generations Network competes with a number of new Internet startups that we’ve recently covered. Its Ancestry.com site competes with Geni and MyHeritage. MyFamily.com competes with Story Of My Life, Our Story and others.

Geni’s last round of financing valued the company at $100 million. But none of those competing sites, or even all of those sites aggregated, have caused any financial pain yet for The Generations Network. The company is pulling in $150 million or so in yearly revenue and is hugely profitable according to our source.

This is a liquidity event for many or most of TGN’s shareholders, although it is apparently not a complete buyout. Employees and possibly some outside shareholders still have equity in the entity, which is almost certainly preparing for an IPO or other larger liquidity event.

The most recent Comscore data says TGN had 8.2 million unique worldwide visitors in August. They’ve raised $95 million to date, although the last round of financing was closed in 2001.

The company is not responding to requests for comment.

Ezmo: Another Online Music Application Nibbling At iTunes

We’ve come a long way since the record industry sued MP3.com in 2000. Listening to copies of your digital music online is quickly becoming commonplace and Norway’s Ezmo is another web application helping push the trend.

Ezmo, like Anywhere.FM, is a clone of iTunes on the web that just came to the United States. Their Flash based player lets you upload your music to the web, organize it into playlists, and share with your friends (just 10). Unlike Anywhere.FM, Ezmo lets you not only pull music from iTunes, but upload music from your Windows Media Player and Winamp music collections too. However, Anywhere.FM still wins out in my mind for the time being. I find it easier for me to use because its user interface stays truer to iTunes. Their buddy radio is also an easy way to consume new music on par with Last.FM. Ezmo only lets you share music with ten friends.

The two companies compete with a host of other online music locker/streaming services like Mp3tunes, Maestro, imeem, Streampad, Songbird, and MediaMasters.

However, as labels and artists free themselves from DRM, sites like these open up a way around iTunes’s stranglehold over digital music sales. DRM-free music is compatible with the extremely popular iPod, which could turn these sites into another point of sale for digital music on the device (unless they become free). Anywhere.FM has already let listeners buy songs they listen to through Amazon’s new digital downloads service. Add to that a compelling simplicity missing from older online sites (Yahoo Music, Rhapsody) and these might be the type of convenient services Ian Roger’s is looking for.

Weather Derivatives Provider WeatherBill Takes $12.5 Million More

San Francisco-based weather insurance site WeatherBill has taken $12.5 million in a round led by New Enterprise Associates and Index Ventures. Original investors Allen & Company, Atomico Investments (Skype founder Niklas Zennstrom), del.icio.us founder Joshua Schachter and Howard Morgan also participated.

Barney Schauble, a partner at Nephila Capital and WeatherBill’s risk capacity partner, will join WeatherBill’s Board of Directors. Total funding for Weatherbill to date is now $16.5 million.

WeatherBill was founded by former Googler David Friedberg. The company offers weather insurance policies to businesses - such as ski resorts, farms, airlines, construction companies, and amusement parks - with more than $1 million in net worth that have suffered losses due to unfavorable weather in the past.

Users choose a weather station via a Google Maps mashup and choose whether you want it to pay out for each hot, cold, rainy or dry day. Temperatures are set by the user by degrees and precipitation by inches.

WeatherBill hedges their own risk via their weather algorithm and also sells their risk on the back end to a number of hedge funds, in theory delivering a guaranteed profit regardless of the weather.

CEO David Friedberg says that Weatherbill has hundreds of customers and faces such high demand that it needs to bring more people aboard to increase capacity. The site has launched not only in the US but Canada, the UK, the Netherlands, Spain, Germany, and Norway as well.

See our previous WeatherBill coverage here and here.

If Only Users Were Gold: Skype Hits 10M Simultaneous Users Mark

Skypehas some more encouraging news following yesterday’s announcement that it has teamed up with MySpace to provide that social network’s users with free Skype calls.

Early this morning, 10 million users were connected to the Skype global network at the same time. That’s a tenfold increase over their celebration on October 20, 2004 of having 1 million simultaneous users.

However, in light of the recent bad news concerning the state of Skype, you may want to hold the applause and remember that lots of users don’t always translate into lots of money.

Monday, October 15, 2007

Google vs Facebook

Some Google employees are leaving Google for social site Facebook. Well, “some” isn’t a trend, but a couple of the remarks of those that left offer insightful perspectives. Pedram Keyani, who the Google System blog reported to have left Orkut in favor of Facebok (along with, as of recent times, Justin Rosenstein and Benjamin Ling) says, “I have the same kind of excitement about work that I had early on at Google. I can get lots and lots done and the only thing slowing me down is how quickly I can go.”

I was wondering, what exactly is slowing down some people at Google, and are those factors more than just the price to pay for managing that many employees? Some stuff like Google Presentations was in a bit of an announce-early-release-late kind of mode we are more used to from Microsoft. And at times, internal product evolutions are changed or halted, and another outside service is bought instead (think Google Video, which was replaced by YouTube as Google’s community video hosting site of choice, perhaps being part of the reason why Google Video director Jennifer Feikin left the company in May). Then again, judging from what Google China released just this year, movement is still very fast in at least some departments around the globe. There’s even some downright ~~pirate~~ hacker spirit going over in Beijing HQ, it seems.

Now Valleywag’s Paul Boutin follows up with a quote from Jason McCabe Calacanis at a discussion in front of a crowd interested in Facebook issues. Paul says Jason, the guy who sold blog network Weblogs Inc. to AOL, went into a “Pacino-esque monologue.” Here’s what he said (with some emphasis):

Social networking is second only to chat rooms as being the lowest CPM, the worst place to advertise... that’s not gonna change. And the reason for that – and this has nothing to do with Facebook, MySpace has the same problems – the reason is the content of your friends and family is more compelling than any advertisement will be.
This is why the comments in the last panel were so foolish about it being so competitive to Google, because Google has the greatest advertising in the history of media ever created... which is search advertising. When you type a word into the box, we know what you’re looking for.
When you’re on Facebook, we know you’re looking to meet a girl or a guy, or talk to your friends or your family. It’s a terrible platform to advertise, it always will be. It will always be low CPM, but high page views that make it up in volume. It’s a terrible, terrible way to make money.

Faced with arguments from another panel member that on social networks, you would buy something because someone else said they bought it and that it’s cool, Jason replies, “The holy grail of ecommerce, people have been talking about this forever... and it has not arrived.” Jason adds that the kind of advertising going on at Facebook is also a very low-margin business “nowhere near search inventory."

Then again, back in 1999, even Google didn’t have the best business plan in the world – in fact, they didn’t have any at all, according to statements made by the Google founders back in the days. Here’s ZDNet news in June 1999 (my emphasis):

When asked how the company plans to make money, Google CEO and co-founder Larry Page would only say what they won’t do. They don’t want to become a portal. No content. And they want to avoid competing with other search engines to be the browser of choice for existing portals. In fact, Page said Google doesn’t have any real competitors at all, which may be why they don’t intend to do much marketing.
But even Internet companies, which are almost expected to lose gobs of money, need at least a revenue stream, don’t they?
“We have other ways of making money,” said Page. “You’ll see.”

Google Apps - Premier Edition

From the You-Know-When-Ajax-Has-Gone-Mainstream-Dept, Google announced today it will be offering businesses a premium service for its key productivity applications, at $50/user/year. The package includes:

Access to office-style applications - Google Docs & Spreadsheets, Google Page Creator. No presentation package yet - perhaps Google should acquire S5 :-).
Access to communication applications - GMail (@your-own-domain), Google Calendar, Google Talk (voice/IM).
Access to Google Homepage (maybe corporations could deck this out to become their intranet homepage?)
Control panel to manage the domain
Ads can be turned off
Storage at 10GB/user
Integration with organisation’s sign-on and email infrastructure
Phone support

The apps themselves are available to anyone, but the integration and extra services come with the premium service. Google provides this comparison table.

The giant elephant in this room is your company’s data sitting on Google’s servers. In the absence of an “Apps Appliance” sitting inside the firewall, there will always be a major proportion of the market unwilling to commit to a solution like this - increased risk of data loss, theft, and manipulation. Google’s pure-external model keeps things nice and simple, but it’s not for everyone.

Zoho, for example, offers “in-premise edition” to run inside an organization’s network. Similarly, Zimbra’s collaboration app. It’s also becoming possible to make your own stack, with apps like Wikicalc and the various wikis, though nothing as comprehensive as Google’s offering. It’s feasible MS will move their apps in that direction too.

The comparison among these approaches will be worth watching in coming months. For now, though, it’s great to see how much Ajax and the web has evolved in the past two years, with Google providing a lot of the inspiration. From TechCrunch: “Beyond competition and concerns, tonight is a good time to recognize the incredible force of innovation that Google is as well. Its nearly full-service suite of sophisticated, integrated online services is something of historic proportion.”

Blogger & Podcaster

Once you setup an account you can add your blogs & podcasts to their free directory (B & P Guide). Not real sure why only three of the four I added are listed. As there aren't tons in the list, I am guessing I must be one of the early ones to get to their site and grab an online copy of Blogger & Podcaster.

Brangelina Triangle Tragedy: Marriage Vows Don't Count

One of the things we know for sure in life is that nothing just happens. Science bears out this point with a well-established, immutable law of cause and effect. So, to hear Angelina Jolie play the "it-just-happened” card in a recent interview for the January 2007 issue of Vogue magazine to explain how her relationship with Brad Pitt evolved on the movie set of Mr. and Mrs. Smith, while he was still married to "best friend," Jennifer Aniston, was very disappointing. Ms. Jolie's moral and ethical conscience appears, at times, to be otherwise alive and well, as witnessed by her stance on several global sociopolitical issues. Therefore, as difficult as it might have been for Ms. Jolie to speak truth on this matter, we would have had a lot more respect for her honesty—and thought her interview less disingenuous—to hear her readily admit, without excuses, that she coveted Ms. Aniston's husband, and that they both suffered moral failure in doing the honorable thing, which would have been to walk away from each other—for good—with their integrity in tact. But then again, her later comments during a press junket for her most recent movie, The Good Shepherd, make it obvious that Ms. Jolie is still in denial (or believes we are) with respect to her actions. Moreover, with a “best friend” like Mr. Pitt, who needs enemies?

Indeed, it is one thing for Mr. Pitt to walk out on his marriage to “best friend” Aniston, leaving her for another woman. But it has to be quite another for him to do so, while publicly declaring, “The idea that marriage has to be for all time—that I don’t understand.” One would have reasoned intelligently that this issue was settled at the “till death us do part” portion of their wedding vows. But, why stop there? To add insult to injury, Pitt, whether through his tacit or explicit agreement, effectively enabled his live-in lover, Jolie—who gave birth to their love child before the ink had dried appropriately on his divorce decree from "best friend," Aniston—to grant the interview and photo spread to Vogue to extol the virtues of their domestic bliss, plus throw out a public offer to Aniston for a truce, in such a manner that dared Aniston to look less than magnanimous if she refused. What a guy, sorry, “best friend”!

No one ever rightly promised that our choices in life were going to be easy. But, isn't the real mark of a person's character displayed in the choices made at those times when he or she is most tempted to pursue less-than-honorable acts? Too often, today, in our culture, “it-just-happened” is expected to explain away and justify ill-conceived behaviors, and the oft disastrous consequences of our choices, as if we were impotent bystanders in our own lives, and the consequences of our actions just crept up and overwhelmed us. However, we maintain that part of maturity—and integrity—is learning to accept the fact that we are equally responsible for the good things in life that "happen" to us, as much as we are for the bad, and the truth is we are enticed into action by our own desires.

In this same regard, then, it would be entirely unfair to say that we believe this sorry state of affairs "just happened" to Ms. Aniston. No doubt, there were choices made on both sides that ultimately precipitated the sad sequence of events. But, please, let us not miss the real issue in this unfolding saga…and it’s not about Pitt, Aniston, or Jolie, and whatever demons they did or did not struggle with. Ultimately, this sordid affair—and how the public has responded to the unfolding saga—is symptomatic of how we, as a culture, have come to value or devalue marriage. Betsy Hart’s recent commentary on the Jolie Vogue interview is right on the money, and we are glad this syndicated columnist had the courage to speak up about what’s really at stake. Indeed, Ms. Hart urges us to consider what these players have revealed about our culture's view of marriage: Marriage has largely become an "as long as I'm happy in the moment" idea.

To be sure, couples ought, rightfully, contemplate the point of making the promise "to love and to cherish as long as we both shall live," especially if it is being made without considered regard to its real cost. Marriage is a lifetime commitment. And, this has always been, and will continue to be, the watershed issue within marriage. But more importantly, what is to become of us as a society when we have become so shallow, and so twisted in our belief system, that adultery, cohabitation, and the like are simply par for the course, and we glorify and deem those who indulge in these illicit pursuits among the most beautiful people, and as the most beautiful family in the world?

Ms. Hart is right. What a tragedy.

Can it be any wonder then, why, through sheer organics, there appears to be a changing of the guard within the bastions of the media? Recently, the UK’s Guardian's Observer Magazine published an expose on Arianna Huffington of The Huffington Post, entitled Hurricane Arianna, and we urge you to read it. Author Paul Harris describes Ms. Huffington as “the Blackberry-toting, Bush-baiting Queen of the Blogosphere who has made her two-year-old website the most potent force in American politics." But more noteworthy than the awe-struck sycophancy afforded Ms. Huffington in the piece, is the growing recognition being given to the shifting balance of power within the media landscape. To be sure, the cost of setting up digital space now makes it more attainable for just about anyone to have a voice. Setting up The Huffington Post was cited to cost just $2 million, compared to a magazine, which might cost a publishing company like Time Inc. 20 times that to start up, yet reach a mere fraction of the audience currently logging on to the Post. But, there is no doubting its influence. What’s more, until the advent of the Internet, the mainstream media largely represented the "good 'ole boys club," and political cronyism at its worst, and the fact is a mere few—typically, those with money—controlled public opinion. Much worse, however, was the fact that the general public failed to grasp just how much these privileged few influenced their perception of truth. And, without a doubt, Time magazine's choice for Person of the Year: You (Yes, you. You, who control the Information Age) is a sign of the times.

Blogs are really what made this award possible. They may not be as well edited, researched, or even as well written as print journalism, but, ultimately, they could serve democracy—and the pursuit of truth—better...and, to be sure, you don't have to haul them down to the recycling bin when you're done! Sites like The Huffington Post, featuring up-to-the-minute news and blogs from a vast array of world-class writers, are making newspapers and weekly news magazines like Time and Newsweek obsolete. In like manner, celebrity Internet sites like PerezHilton, pushing the limits of decency and what is considered ethical in our society today, are challenging the very existence of their equivalent print rivals. But, we have little sympathy for the old media. Why? Because they created the monster that made ordinary people rise up and demand to speak for themselves. For too long, they have monopolized the airwaves and newsstands, with viewpoints that demonstrate we can be educated beyond our intelligence, yet still fundamentally lacking in wisdom. For too long, they have stalked celebrity "victims" as if they were prey, unwilling to pull in the reins of decency regarding what enquiring minds needed to know. For too long, they have damaged the public perception of truth. And, indeed, much of the old media needs to be challenged with respect to what it now purveys as journalism…or be knocked from its pedestal.

So, congratulations to you too, then, on being Time’s Person of the Year. This is great. Now, even sexual predators can tell the Monsignor in their next job interview that they were Time magazine's Person of the Year.

Avril Lavigne @ TBDT Photoshoot

Catherine Zeta Jones @ Tatler Magazine Shoot

Mena Suvari @ Aventura Magazine Shoot

Jennifer Morrison @ House Promoshoot

Nicole Kidman @ "Margot at the Wedding" Premiere

Gün Batımı - (evening) sinema

Gösterim Tarihi: 12 Ekim 2007
Yönetmen: Lajos Koltai
Oyuncular: Meryl Streep , Patrick Wilson, Glenn Close, Toni Collette
Senaryo: Susan Minot, Michael Cunningham
Müzik: Jan A. P. Kaczmarek
Görüntü Yön: Gyula Pados
Tür: Dram
Süre: 117 Dk.
Yapım Yılı: 2007
Ülke: ABD
Dağıtımcı: Bir Film

Hatıraların gücüne yenik düşen Ann Lord (Ms Rdgrave) kızları evli ve çocuk sahibi Constance (Ms Richardson) ile bekar biri olan Nina (Toni Collette)’e uzun zamandır sakladığı bir sırrını anlatır. Ann kimseyi sevmediği kadar bir adamı sevdiğinden bahsettiğinde ikisi de yatağın baş ucundadır.

Ama kimdir bu “Haris”, kızlar annelerinin bu adamla ne yaşadığını merak etmişlerdir. Constance ve Nina Ann’in ve kendi yaşamlarının sırlarını anlamaya çalışırken anneleri de zihninde elli sene önceki bir yaz hafta sonuna Ann Grant (Claire Danes) olduğu zamanlara döner.

Son Ültimatom Sinema

Gösterim Tarihi: 12 Ekim 2007
Yönetmen: Paul Greengrass
Oyuncular: Matt Damon , David Strathairn, Paddy Considine, Julia Stiles
Senaryo: Tony Gilroy, Robert Ludlum
Müzik: John Powell
Görüntü Yön: Oliver Wood
Tür: Almanya-İngiltere-ABD
Süre: 111 Dk.
Yapım Yılı: 2007
Ülke: ABD
Dağıtımcı: UIP Filmcilik

Jason Bourne’in tek isteği ortadan kaybolmaktır. Ancak kaybolmayı başaramadığı gibi kendisini yaratanlar tarafından ele geçirilir. Hafızasını ve sevdiği tek insanı kaybetmiş olan Jason Bourne, iyi eğitimli yeni kuşak katillerin yoğun ateşi altındadır. Artık sadece tek bir hedefi vardır: Başlangıca dönmek ve kendisinin kim olduğunu bulmak.

Casusluk-gerilim serisinin yeni bölümünde Jason Bourne (Matt Damon), yeni bir gelecek bulabilmek için kendi geçmişindeki izleri yakalamaya çalışır. Gerçek Jason Bourne’i bulma çabasına devam ederken Moskova’dan Paris, Londra, Tanca (Fas) ve New York’a uzanan geniş bir alanda seyahat etmek; sürekli manevralarla her an ensesinde olan yüzlerce polisi, federal ajanları ve Interpol ajanlarını safdışı etmek zorundadır.

Google Docs Partly Down Today

Google Docs is having some problems today, at least for some of us. Tadeusz earlier today reported he saw a 404 page at Google Docs. When I logged in, I received the message “The server encountered an error. Please try again later.” Then later, it started to work fine, but just now when opening a document I got the following message:

Sorry, but document editing is temporarily unavailable.

While we are working to restore the service, you can still view your documents – just not edit them. If you check back in a few minutes, editing will likely be available again.

[Thanks Tadeusz!]

Google Vanity Ring and More

Created by Markus Kison of Berlin University for Digital Media, the VanityRing displays the Google page count the wearer gets for their own name. It’s the ultimate status symbol but updated for the 2000s, beating even costly jewels. “Being in people’s mind means being important,” Markus says.

To raise your Google status even more, there are two new options from the Google store: Google lip balm and Google Rubik’s cube.

[Top link & pic via Digg and Manoj. Top image by Markus, second image by Google Store.]

Websites May Require Visually Impaired Access In California

California may require websites to provide access to visually impaired users under ruling made in the long running case of the National Federation of the Blind vs Target.

The case centers on Target not providing basic accessibility to vision impaired users via the use of alt tags for images, keyboard options for navigation and missing navigation headers.

US District Judge Marilyn Hall Patel in the Court for the Northern District of California had previously found that “the inaccessibility of Target.com impeded full and equal enjoyment of goods and services offered in Target stores” and has now ruled that the case is eligible for class action status, despite attempts by Target to have the case thrown out.

The result of the case will have far broader implications for the many startups and Web 2.0 companies operating in California, with many sites having to factor access into their services and sites or risk the prospect of legal sanctions.

Whilst the basics as easy enough: tagging images and making sure that sites can be accessed through text based browsers, the use of Ajax and other means of scripting sites means that the traditional html tagging may not either be available, or more difficult to implement.

There is some suggestion from the court case that accessibility may also be required under the Americans with Disabilities Act as well, meaning that although the ruling is currently focused on California law, it could extend to the rest of the United States.

More information on making websites accessible to those with visual impairments can be found at the American Foundation for the Blind.

Sunday, October 14, 2007

Are Good Security and Web 2.0 Incompatible?

There are far too many numbers in this TechNewsWorld story, which reports results of a survey on Web 2.0 threats conducted by Forrester Research for Secure Computing. The survey, released in conjunction with the introduction of the vendor’s Secure Web 2.0 Anti-Threat (SWAT) initiative, shows that IT folks are unaware, untrained and don’t have consistent policies for this dangerous and increasingly popular way to use the Internet. SWAT aims to raise awareness of the issues, offer tips and in other ways help companies protect themselves.

The story quickly devolves into a sea of percentages. The saving grace is that the big picture is aptly summed up by Ken Rutsky, Secure’s executive vice president of product marketing:

The report reveals a security blind spot. Some 90 percent of enterprise organizations are still deploying security measures designed for the last generation of attacks.

This Computerworld piece uses data — thankfully, more selectively — from what appears to be a different Forrester survey. The piece focuses on the initial reluctance, and now apparent grudging acceptance, of Web 2.0 by IT. Like wireless and other emerging technologies, IT ultimately must bend simply because the folks they serve are using the new approach.

The piece features several short and interesting vignettes on different companies’ approaches and offers eight steps for Web 2.0 proponents to take in order to implement a secure and beneficial platform. They should create awareness; find supporters in the company; get IT on their side and present a proposal to senior management. Web 2.0 fans also should work closely with business units; compile and distribute best practices; resist the urge to force adoption and be patient. IT, for its part, is well advised to seek and create alliances with Web 2.0 proponents who are wise enough to take up these procedures.

In a related story, Computerworld reports on comments by Christian Christiansen, an IDC analyst, at a recent Kaspersky Lab’s conference on cybercrime. Christiansen identifies two overlapping threats to corporate security. The line between employees’ online personal and business lives is increasingly porous. At the same time, employees don’t follow their employers’ security policies — probably because they don’t know what they are. The bottom line is that all sorts of things people do at work and at home — including the connection of untested devices and the use of possibly malevolent Web 2.0 sites — can compromise security.

Those seeking more specifics about the threats — the statement that “Web 2.0 is dangerous” is as nebulous as it is threatening — should look at video. vnunet.com says that Chris Rouland, the CTO of IBM’s Internet Security Systems (ISS), made a presentation at the annual summit of the George Tech Information Security Center in which he suggested that video may be the next big target.

More sophisticated Web 2.0 networks hide less fully developed applications and devices that are latent or active threats to security, according to this piece at eChannelLine. The writer, using research from WatchGuard, maintains that the placement of servers running collaboration, VoIP and other advanced services in data centers heightens the risks. These servers are not as mature as older applications and are therefore more vulnerable to clever hackers. This, combined with the fact that the goal is to create more open and interactive networks, means there are more opportunity for hackers.

ZDNet Australia uses the subpoena of Facebook by the Attorney General of New York State for failing to adequately protect young subscribers as a jumping off point for a look at consumer use of Web 2.0 applications. This is an important issue for IT security staffs because it is a given that employees will use consumer services for work purposes or, at least, on the same devices they use in their jobs.

These social sites often are free in exchange for permission to use tracking and data aggregation tools. The problem is a microcosm of Web 2.0 in general: What the site is trying to achieve involves actions or policies that are the exact opposite of good security practice.

Facebook released FBJS

Marcel Laverdet of Facebook blogged about the release of FBJS 1.0:

If you are already used to Javascript, you will find that most of the syntax and functionality that you have come to know and love (or hate) is available in FBJS. Additionally, we’ve created hooks into our higher-level AJAX and dialog implementations which allow you to easily create dynamic experiences while maintaining the look and feel of Facebook.
We hope that FBJS enables you to build deeply integrated Facebook Platform applications in new and interesting ways.

FBJS does munging on the JavaScript that you provide, as it tries to stop naughty things.

With respect to Ajax, they give you an object to work with that sits on top of XHR, and is proxied by Facebook servers:

FBJS supplies a very powerful AJAX object for developers. Facebook will proxy all AJAX requests and optionally run useful post-processing on the data returned, such as JSON, or FBML parsing. To use it, just instantiate a new Ajax class. It supports the following properties:
ondone(data)
An event handler which fires when an AJAX call returns. Depending on .responseType, data will either be an object, a raw string, or an FBML string.
onerror
An event handler which fires when an error occurs during an AJAX call
requireLogin
If you set this to true the AJAX call will require the user to be logged into your application before the AJAX call will go through. The AJAX call will then be made with the regular fb_sig parameters containing the user’s identity. If they refuse to login, the AJAX call will fail.
responseType
This can be one of Ajax.RAW, Ajax.JSON, or Ajax.FBML.
Ajax.RAW
The response from your server will be returned to your callback in its original form.
Ajax.JSON
The response from your server will be parsed as a JSON object and returned to your callback in the form of an object. Properties of your JSON object which are prefixed with “fbml_” will be parsed as individual FBML strings and returned as FBML blocks. These blocks can used on a DOM object with the setInnerFBML method.
Ajax.FBML
The response from your server will be parsed as FBML and returned as an FBML block. This block can used on a DOM object with the setInnerFBML method.
And one method:

post(url, query)
Start an AJAX post. url must be a remote address, and query can be either a string or an object which will be automatically converted to a string.
Here’s an example showing most of the functionality of Ajax:
Ajax Example

It is interesting to see more and more platforms wanting to open up and give users more abilities, but keeping the balance wrt security, privacy, and general abuse.

There are also rumors of new functionality to come, such as a data storage API.

Bill Gates on Web Apps

If you’ve read any tech news in the past 24 hours, you’ll now be familiar with the meeting Bill Gates held among influential bloggers, ahead of next year’s Mix conference. Aside from learning what’s on Bill’s Zune, we get to hear his views on the future of web apps, thanks to a question from Liz Gannes. She asked him which apps should live in the browser and which should not, one of the key questions in Ajax and one we have touched on in the past.

He replied that the distinction would come to be silly from a technical standpoint, but that the necessary movement toward web APIs does present challenges on the business side. “One of the things that’s actually held the industry back on this is, if you have an advertising business model, then you don’t want to expose your capabilities as a web service, because somebody would use that web service without plastering your ad up next to the thing.”
His solution wasn’t very specific: "It’s ideal if you get business models that don’t force someone to say ‘no, we won’t give you that service unless you display something right there on that home page.”
Then for the tease: “And, you know, [inside the browser and outside the browser are] moving towards each other, but there’s still a bit of a barrier there, and new technology, things we’re working on, really will change that.”

Making JavaScript Safe with Google Caja

Douglas Crockford continues to bang the drum for securing JavaScript in his latest post:

It is possible to make secure programming languages. Most language designers do not consider that possibility. JavaScript’s biggest weakness is that it is not secure. That puts JavaScript in very good company, but it puts web developers in an untenable position because they cannot build secure applications in an insecure language. JavaScript is currently going through a redesign that is again failing to consider the security of the language. The new language will be bigger and more complex, which will make it even harder to reason about its security. I hope that that redesign will be abandoned.
A more fruitful approach is to remove insecurity from the language. JavaScript is most easily improved by removing defective features. I am aware of two approaches that allow us to build secure applications by subsetting the insecure language.
The first approach is to use a verifier. That is how ADsafe works. A verifier statically analyzes a program, and certifies that the program does not use any of the unsafe features of the language. This does not guarantee that the program is safe, but it makes it possible to make programs that are safe. Any program can compromise its own security. The improvement here is that a program’s security is not compromised by the language it is written in.
The second approach is to use a transformer. A transformer verifies, but it also modifies the program, adding indirection and runtime checks. The advantage of transformers is that they allow the use of a larger subset of the language. For example, ADsafe does not allow the use of the this parameter. A transformer can allow this because it can inject code around it and its uses to ensure that it is never used unsafely. The benefit is that it is more likely that existing programs could run in a safe mode with little or no modification. I think that is a dubious benefit because programs that are not designed to be safe probably are not. The downside is that the final program will be bigger and slower, and debugging on the transformed program will be more difficult.
Both approaches work. But we still need to fix the browser.

A new project, Google Caja, is trying to do source-to-source translation to secure things:

Using Caja, web apps can safely allow scripts in third party content.
The computer industry has only one significant success enabling documents to carry active content safely: scripts in web pages. Normal users regularly browse untrusted sites with Javascript turned on. Modulo browser bugs and phishing, they mostly remain safe. But even though web apps build on this success, they fail to provide its power. Web apps generally remove scripts from third party content, reducing content to passive data. Examples include webmail, groups, blogs, chat, docs and spreadsheets, wikis, and more.
Were scripts in an object-capability language, web apps could provide active content safely, simply, and flexibly. Surprisingly, this is possible within existing web standards. Caja represents our discovery that a subset of Javascript is an object-capability language.

FBJS is also trying to do some of this too. Got some time on Friday to look around some code? Take a look at some Caja.

HP vs. Apple vs. RIM and Microsoft/Cisco Convergence: Battle for the Corporate Phone

I first started in tech with a PBX vendor, arguably the most advanced of its time. One of my positions there was as competitive analyst for phones, and I was able to use prototype devices that were vastly more advanced than anything anyone had ever seen.

Since then, I’ve been in major withdrawal, as these features and phones never made it to most desktops. Most folks are lucky if they can figure out how to do things like conference in a co-worker or transfer a call successfully.

This is a long way of saying the telephony industry doesn’t operate at “Internet speeds.” In fact, changes still seem to take decades — or at least did. That is about to change dramatically.

There are two types of convergence going on. The first is being largely driven by Microsoft, which is the only vendor possibly strong enough (and note I said possibly) to drive common standards across the telephony industry for user features. If it weren’t for Cisco, I’d lay odds it would fail, but Cisco is also a game-changer representing the greatest threat the legacy PBX vendors have faced since IBM, before it failed in this industry. And, unlike IBM, Cisco isn’t learning on the job and has what I believe to be the strongest enterprise VoIP solution in the segment.

The second is the convergence of cell and land-line phones. Northern Telecom tried and failed to do this more than a decade ago, but the technology wasn’t ready, and Northern didn’t have the breadth to make it work. With the surge on smartphones driven by RIM and Apple, coupled with the capability of HP, which just entered the segment with the strongest enterprise cell-phone line, the next step of converging PBX and cell services is closer than it has ever been.

Microsoft Background:

This is the fourth time Microsoft has made a run at phones. In the early ’90s there was a joke phone created by Microsoft Europe that floated around for a while. A consumer phone followed, one that depended on Windows 95 for features and was probably the worst telephone I’d ever seen in my life. After NT came out, a number of small PBX vendors used that platform in an embedded-like form and created what were the most reliable Windows Servers of their time (something that surprised most of us).

This is only to show that Microsoft’s experience here tracks back over a decade into both devices and switches, and while the results have been mixed, the company has an established knowledge base.

It’s also interesting that Microsoft itself used the cheapest and most limited phone systems in the market for much of its existence, and that likely motivated the company to create a solution that it could use that wasn’t so incredibly out-of-date. Sometimes self-interest is the best motivator.

It should be noted that Microsoft is hedging its bets by bringing out its own converged product in the SMB market, where technology change could happen more quickly. This is because systems in that market, called key systems, are even more antiquated than what many PBX enterprises use

Microsoft and the First Linux Patent Suit: Conspiracy Theories Explored

The first Linux patent suit brought is being creatively connected back to Microsoft through two employees that Acacia Technologies Group has hired from Microsoft. What makes it unlikely that Microsoft is behind this is that the targets of the action are both Red Hat and Novell.

Microsoft has zero interest in taking Novell to court right now and it is using the argument of indemnification to encourage others to create similar agreements. If the indemnification doesn’t work – in other words, if you are going to get sued anyway – what’s the point in doing an agreement with Microsoft?

The action is being brought by IP Innovation and Technology Licensing Corp., a subsidiary of Acacia Technologies Group, which specializes in enforcing intellectual property. Novell is evidently a client of Acacia but there is no known connection, other than the two recent Microsoft hires, to Microsoft. (Typically you don’t take a client to court.)

Let’s first explore the conspiracy theory that the open source folks would like to believe; a second, more-likely scenario; and what I think is actually the case.

Building a Conspiracy Theory

Just because it doesn’t appear to make sense for someone to do something doesn’t mean they wouldn’t actually do it. Let’s now assume Microsoft was behind this. What would its goal be in going after both firms? A recent post by Mary Jo Foley at ZDNet got me thinking of this scenario.

If the indemnification holds, Microsoft would now, as an apparent third party, come to Novell’s defense and, because Microsoft was on both sides, easily win on Novell’s behalf. Meanwhile, Red Hat would run up massive legal fees and be pounded by a much more hostile and sustaining action. Win or lose, the lesson would be clear: Licensing with Microsoft has solid benefits that can, after this is over, be more easily demonstrated.

It would be a brilliant strategy if Microsoft could execute it, but Microsoft leaks information like a sieve. It would undoubtedly get caught and the end result would be incredibly painful. In short, I view it as virtually impossible that such a strategy could get approval and the sequence of known events doesn’t map to this strategy at all. The first known action on this IP was against Apple, not any known open source company (IBM appears to have protection).

Hollywood Special Effects with Adobe Premiere Elements 3

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Hollywood Special Effects with Adobe Premiere Elements 3 is a book that will help users get to the next level in video editing, and that next level goes beyond simply splicing together clips and creating simple titles. In no time readers will be overlaying multiple tracks of videos and adjusting transparency; creating Picture-in-Picture overlays; using key frames and motion paths; setting and refining greenscreens and bluescreens; using color effects for emotional impact; and a whole range of other special effects to help them tell their story. What sets this book apart is the author's expertise in carefully showing readers how to execute each of these effects step-by-step in a clear and friendly writing style. With this book, budding filmmakers will be well on their way to becoming the next George Lucas! The accompanying DVD contains royalty free music, sound effects, and video clips from Artbeats, Digital Juice, TwistedTracks, and the Footage Firm (among others).

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