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Atari Online News, Etc. Volume 12 Issue 40
Volume 12, Issue 40 Atari Online News, Etc. October 1, 2010
Published and Copyright (c) 1999 - 2010
All Rights Reserved
Atari Online News, Etc.
A-ONE Online Magazine
Dana P. Jacobson, Publisher/Managing Editor
Joseph Mirando, Managing Editor
Rob Mahlert, Associate Editor
Atari Online News, Etc. Staff
Dana P. Jacobson -- Editor
Joe Mirando -- "People Are Talking"
Michael Burkley -- "Unabashed Atariophile"
Albert Dayes -- "CC: Classic Chips"
Rob Mahlert -- Web site
Thomas J. Andrews -- "Keeper of the Flame"
With Contributions by:
Fred Horvat
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=~=~=~=
A-ONE #1240 10/01/10
~ Net Neutrality Shelved ~ People Are Talking! ~ Worm Hits Iran Nuke!
~ RIM Unveils Playbook! ~ Ease Internet Wiretaps? ~ More Gmail Control!
~ More Hotmail Security! ~ Another Acer 3D Laptop! ~ Google Opens Goo.gl!
~ No 3DS for Christmas! ~ Huge Zeus Trojan Bust! ~ Ties With Oracle Cut!
-* 'Jihadi Sites' Aren't Stopped *-
-* Cyber-Blitz Response Plan Testing! *-
-* U.S. Cyber Command Slips Behind Schedule! *-
=~=~=~=
->From the Editor's Keyboard "Saying it like it is!"
""""""""""""""""""""""""""
Here we are, the first of October, and we're taking a pounding with high
winds and bursts of torrential downpours as a result of the remnants of
yet another hurricane making its way past us up the east coast. The
sounds of acorns and small tree branches hitting the house has been
constant for more than a day now! It's been an interesting past couple
of days!
October 1st! Wow, yet again I'm wondering where this year has gone!
Nothing much has changed other than the year on the calendar! We're
all another year older, along with the effects that go along with adding
to our age! Another period of political wrangling; like many of you,
you're probably seeing typical BS campaigning in your state like we are
here in Massachusetts. This time around we have the added attraction of
some "Tea Party" candidates to keep things interesting. Obama's
presidential slogan for change may come back and haunt him - especially
in a couple of years!
It's been another long week! Pretty soon, like in a week or so, I'll
stop working at the golf course and return to my "regular" schedule at
the grocery store. Another sign of the seasons... Not looking forward
to that regular routine again; it's been tough on me physically, but
bills need to be paid and food put on the table! Not too many of us have
the luxury of taking our pick of jobs these days, if we're even lucky
enough to find one! So, let me get the dogs out one last time for the
evening before the skies open up again, and then put this week's issue
to be for another week!
Until next time...
=~=~=~=
PEOPLE ARE TALKING
compiled by Joe Mirando
joe@atarinews.org
[Editor's note: Due to being out of sorts due to more respiratory ailments,
there will not be a P.A.T. column this week.]
=~=~=~=
->In This Week's Gaming Section - No 3DS for Christmas!!
""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" Video Games for Surgeons!
=~=~=~=
->A-ONE's Game Console Industry News - The Latest Gaming News!
""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""
Nintendo Cuts Profit, 3DS Not Ready for Christmas
Nintendo slashed its earnings forecast by more than half Wednesday after
announcing that its 3DS game machine, packed with glasses-free 3-D
technology, won't be ready to go on sale for Christmas.
Nintendo now expects 90 billion yen ($1 billion) in profit for the year
through March 2011, down from an initial projection of 200 billion yen
($2.4 billion) profit.
The 3DS will go on sale in February in Japan, and March in Europe and
the U.S., missing the year-end shopping season which is a critical time
for all game-makers to rake in profits.
Kyoto-based Nintendo Co. had promised the 3DS for sometime before April
next year, and so the announcement is not technically a delay. But its
forecasts had assumed the machine would on be on sale sooner.
Nintendo said the strong yen, which reduces profits from overseas sales
when brought back to Japan, and the timing of the 3DS launch were behind
its decision to lower projections for the fiscal year.
For the year through March 2011, Nintendo expects to sell 23.5 million
DS machines, including 4 million 3DS, down from its earlier forecast for
30 million. It sold 27 million DS machines the previous fiscal year.
The latest revision shows that even Nintendo, which has stood up fairly
well among Japanese exporters in hard times, is getting battered by the
surging yen. Nintendo had counted dollar trading near 85 yen. The dollar
has recently dived below 85 yen.
Nintendo President Satoru Iwata said 3DS will cost 25,000 yen ($300) in
Japan, where it will hit stores Feb. 26. Overseas prices and specific
dates will be announced later.
Hirokazu Hamamura, president of Enterbrain Inc., a major Tokyo
game-industry publisher, said he was surprised by the release date because
of widespread rumors the 3DS would hit stores in time for year-end and New
Year's - a booming shopping time in Japan because children get cash gifts
from relatives during the holidays.
He said Nintendo is likely taking time to perfect the technology, as well
as giving more time to outside software developers to come up with games.
"There is an element of awe in 3-D that's really important for games.
They are all about entertainment," Hamamura said.
The portable machine looks much like the DS machines now on sale, and has
two panels. The top panel shows 3-D imagery, giving players a relatively
immediate illusion of virtual reality - such as a puppy licking the
screen that appears to live inside the machine.
The 3-D games don't require the special glasses that are needed for 3-D
theater movies or 3-D home-console games like rival Sony Corp.'s
PlayStation 3. They also don't need 3-D TV sets.
Iwata said the drawback for 3-D technology was that the appeal of the
feature can't be conveyed easily in TV or magazine ads.
Fears have also been growing about the health effects of too much 3-D as
some people have gotten sick looking at 3-D movies or playing 3-D games.
"We are not taking the success of the 3DS for granted," Iwata told
reporters at Makuhari Messe hall in this Tokyo suburb. "The value of the
3-D experience can be understood only by getting people to try it out."
Nintendo said that several 3-D games were in the works including its
trademark Super Mario games and "nintendogs + cats."
Outside game developers were also preparing products, such as a 3DS
"Biohazard" from Capcom Co.
The 3-D handheld version of "Metal Gear Solid," from Konami Digital
Entertainment, shown to reporters on the machine as a demonstration
movie, but not in playable game form, presented vivid animation of
jungle scenery, buzzing bees and a warrior's hands, all in 3-D, inside
the tiny screen.
The 3-D feature is adjustable by a button at the side so players can
choose the amount of 3-D razzle-dazzle they want.
Nintendo said that wireless technology packed in the 3DS will allow
owners to automatically communicate with passers-by who also have 3DS,
allowing them to trade avatar figures and combat each other in fighting
games.
Nintendo did not disclose details of the wireless technology, but Iwata
said it was beefing up connectivity for 3DS at Japanese fast-food
chains, train stations and other spots for social networking as well as
gaming.
Nintendo was among the earliest developers of 3-D technology. Its
Virtual Boy, which went on sale in the 1990s, bombed, partly because of
the bulky headgear required as well as the image being all red.
Iwata acknowledged that failure but said the company had learned from
past mistakes.
"Players will be able to move freely around in virtual gaming space with
our new 3-D," he said.
Future Surgeon Prerequisite: Video Gaming
Video gamers rejoice, your potential future career as a surgeon just got
a little less daunting. Forget a morbidly precocious interest in Gray's
Anatomy at some tender age, if you play video games, you're already on a
trajectory toward a career involving advanced surgical techniques.
Canadian research scientists recently found that hand-eye skills developed
by gaming - no /great/ surprise here - train the brain for sophisticated
visuomotor tasks, tuning skills necessary for complex surgical procedures
involving images displayed on a video screen. Skills such as laparoscopic
surgery, for instance.
The study involved 13 males in their twenties who'd played video games a
minimum of four hours a week for the prior three years, compared with 13
males who hadn't. Both groups were asked to complete tricky visuomotor
tasks, such as using a joystick to accomplish specific goals, or looking
one way while reaching in the opposite direction.
"By using high resolution brain imaging, we were able to actually measure
which brain areas were activated at a given time during the experiment,"
said Lauren Sergio, associate professor in the Faculty of Health at York
University in Ontario.
"We tested how the skills learned from video game experience can transfer
over to new tasks, rather than just looking at brain activity while the
subject plays a video game."
Non-gamers tend to use their parietal cortex, which integrates spatial
sensory information, according to the study's results, while the group
of gamers (or those with more recent gaming experience, anyway) used
their prefrontal cortex instead.
What's the difference? The prefrontal cortex "receives highly processed
information from all major forebrain systems, and neurophysiological
studies suggest that it synthesizes this into representations of learned
task contingencies, concepts and task rules," according to a 2002
scientific paper titled "The prefrontal cortex: categories, concepts and
cognition."
"In short, the prefrontal cortex seems to underlie our internal
representations of the 'rules of the game'. This may provide the necessary
foundation for the complex behavior of primates, in whom this structure is
most elaborate."
The other spot of good news: The York researchers believe this could be
a major breakthrough for Alzheimer's patients, whose visuomotor skills
can become severely impaired as the disease progresses.
The study doesn't indicate what type of games lead to prefrontal versus
parietal brain area use, but it's something the York research group
hopes to determine in the future, as well as whether gender plays a role.
=~=~=~=
A-ONE's Headline News
The Latest in Computer Technology News
Compiled by: Dana P. Jacobson
U.S. Cyber Command Slips Behind Schedule
U.S. Cyber Command, responsible for shielding 15,000 U.S. military networks
and for being ready to go to war in cyberspace, has slipped behind schedule
for becoming fully operational, the Defense Department said on Friday.
The command is still putting necessary capabilities in place, said Bryan
Whitman, a Pentagon spokesman. It had been due to be declared fully
operational no later than this month, a deadline some had read as October 1.
Cyber Command leads day-to-day protection of all U.S. defense networks
and is designed to mount offensive strikes if ordered to do so.
It began operating in May 2010, seven months later than initially
ordered by Defense Secretary Robert Gates.
Gates ordered the command's creation in June 2009 to consolidate
far-flung units under a four-star general after determining the cyber
threat had outgrown the military's existing structures.
More than 100 foreign intelligence organizations are trying to break
into U.S. networks, Deputy Defense Secretary William Lynn wrote in the
latest issue of Foreign Affairs. Some "already have the capacity to
disrupt" U.S. information infrastructure."
Whitman declined to name a new target for reaching full operational
capability. The important thing, he said, was building the capabilities,
not an "artificial date."
The department blamed the schedule slip chiefly on what Whitman called a
seven-month delay in Senate confirmation of Army officer Keith Alexander
as head of the new unit located at Fort Meade, Maryland. Alexander was
confirmed on May 7.
Alexander, 58, also heads the National Security Agency, the Fort
Meade-based Defense Department arm that protects national security
information and intercepts foreign communications.
He told the House of Representatives Armed Services Committee last week
that putting cyber defenses fully in place was urgent. At the time, he
voiced no expectation of a delay in reaching full operating capability.
"The need is great and there is no time to lose," Alexander said in an
opening statement to the panel on September 23.
He cited the emergence of new tools that could damage or destroy systems
and "have effects approaching those of weapons of mass destruction."
A Senate Armed Services Committee staff member said the delay in
Alexander's confirmation followed what he called the Defense
Department's "failure to provide information to the committee in a
timely fashion."
Committee Chairman Carl Levin said in opening Alexander's April 15
confirmation hearing that the panel had moved "methodically to gain an
understanding of what the Congress is being asked to approve and what
the key cyberspace issues are that need to be addressed."
The 24th Air Force, a Cyber Command component, was declared fully
operational on Friday by General Robert Kehler, commander of Air Force
Space Command, the Air Force said.
U.S. Mounting First Test of Cyber-Blitz Response Plan
The United States is launching its first test of a new plan for responding
to an enemy cyber-blitz, including any attack aimed at vital services such
as power, water and banks.
Thousands of cyber-security personnel from across the government and
industry are to take part in the Department of Homeland Security's Cyber
Storm III, a three- to four-day drill starting Tuesday.
The goals are to boost preparedness; examine incident response and
enhance information-sharing among federal, state, international and
private-sector partners.
"At its core, the exercise is about resiliency - testing the nation's
ability to cope with the loss or damage to basic aspects of modern
life," said a release made available at DHS's National Cybersecurity and
Communications Integration Center in Arlington.
The simulation tests the newly developed National Cyber Incident
Response Plan, a coordinated framework ordered by President Barack Obama.
The plan is designed to be flexible and adaptable enough to mesh
responders' efforts across jurisdictional lines. Refinements may be made
after the exercise, DHS officials said.
The test involves 11 states, 12 foreign countries 60 private companies.
Six cabinet-level departments are taking part beside Homeland Security:
Defense, Commerce, Energy, Justice, Treasury and Transportation, as well
as representatives from the intelligence and law-enforcement worlds.
Cyber Storm III takes place amid mounting signs that bits and bytes of
malicious computer code could soon be as central to 21st-century
conflict as bullets and bombs.
"There is a real probability that in the future, this country will get
hit with a destructive attack and we need to be ready for it," U.S. Army
General Keith Alexander, the head of a new military cyber-warfare unit,
told reporters last week, referring to computer-launched operations.
Cyber Storm III involves simulated harm only, not real impact on any
network, said Brett Lambo, the exercise director.
In the drill, mock foes hijack Web security infrastructure used by
businesses, government and consumers to verify and authenticate online
transactions.
In so doing, they upend Internet reliability and relationships before
launching major attacks against the government, certain critical
infrastructure, public sector enterprises and international counterparts.
Officials did not spell out the scenario's details to preserve the
surprise of exercise play.
Among the industry sectors currently represented at the 24-hour watch
and warning hub are information technology, communications, energy and
banking and finance, said Sean McGurk, the DHS official who directs the
hub inaugurated last October.
Other participants take part from the locations where they would
normally respond to a cyber-attack. The foreign "players" are from
Australia, Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Hungary, Japan, Italy, the
Netherlands, New Zealand, Sweden and Switzerland.
Lawmakers Decry US Failure To Stop 'Jihadi Websites'
US lawmakers Wednesday lamented their inability to shutter Internet
websites set up by violent Islamist groups such as Al-Qaeda that aim to
inspire, recruit and train would-be extremists.
"Can we? Yes. Will we? No," Representative Brad Sherman told AFP after a
House hearing that sought to pin down a US strategy for the websites,
referring to the possibility Congress could clamp down on extremists'
online portals.
"It is more likely we will tie ourselves up in knots than we'll do anything
useful," added Sherman, chairman of the Subcommittee on Terrorism,
Nonproliferation and Trade, which held the hearing.
He said bureaucratic wrangling and free speech advocates were the main
obstacles to giving the US government legal tools to eliminate the sites.
Sherman earlier even lashed out during the hearing at popular
video-sharing website YouTube for allowing Yemen-based Al-Qaeda in the
Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) to post videos with English subtitles that
promotes a "jihadist ideology" from its own channel.
"I don't know how much money YouTube makes, how much its executives make,
but they are endangering people throughout America for their own profit,"
he said.
"And it's not about (YouTube's) loyalty to the concept of the First
Amendment, it's about their loyalty to money," he complained, referring to
the US Constitution which protects freedom of expression.
Sherman also questioned whether US authorities should maintain the groups'
online outlets to gather intelligence or simply eliminate them, asking if
the United States is "going to be a polite country or safe country."
He concluded the United States was "manifestly unable to take down these
sites through cyber attack because we are restrained by our own
politeness."
Gregory McNeal, a law professor at California's Pepperdine University,
testified before the hearing that there was "no concerted government
effort to shut down jihadist websites" because there was no legal avenue
that allows it.
McNeal later told AFP the biggest issue preventing US legislators from
going after such sites was "civil liberties opposition groups that would
see this as a threat to free speech."
The best way to take them down, McNeal said, was to go through blacklists
maintained by the US Treasury and State Department for terrorist
organizations, adding the approach would be difficult as authorities would
have to verify the websites were maintained by those designated groups.
"The Supreme Court has never spoken on crime-facilitation speech... there's
always a challenge between drawing the line between merely informative
speech and speech that facilitates a crime with the intent of doing so,"
he said.
"Is it surmountable? No. Because unless there's a triggering event like
an attack that was prompted by a video (on an extremist website), it's
easier to keep the status quo. Sadly, we often wait for an attack before
we take action."
The rise of extremist groups employing online media to attract followers
and give tips on how to pursue jihad against Western targets was
highlighted this year with the launch of an English-language Al-Qaeda
magazine from AQAP - removing the language barrier for non-Arabic speakers
to the group's ideology.
The first edition of "Inspire" magazine in June ran articles such as one
entitled "Make a Bomb in the Kitchen of Your Mom" and featured sleek
pictures of Al-Qaeda leaders accompanied by sleek graphics.
Pete Hoekstra, the top Republican on the House Intelligence Committee,
said upon the magazine's launch that AQAP's effort was "unfortunately
well done," and proof "Al-Qaeda and its affiliates have launched a
direct appeal for Americans to launch small-scale attacks here at home."
US Seeks To Ease Internet Wiretaps
The Obama administration is drawing up legislation to make it easier for
US intelligence services to eavesdrop on the Internet, including email
exchanges and social networks, The New York Times said Monday.
The White House intends to submit a bill before Congress next year that
would require all online services that enable communications to be
technically capable of complying with a wiretap order, including being
able to intercept and unscramble encrypted messages, the Times reported.
The services would include encrypted email transmitters like BackBerry,
social networking websites like Facebook and peer-to-peer messaging
software like Skype.
Federal law enforcement and national security officials are seeking the
new regulations, arguing that extremists and criminals are increasingly
communicating online rather than using phones.
"We're talking about lawfully authorized intercepts," said Federal
Bureau of Investigation (FBI) general counsel Valerie Caproni.
"We're not talking expanding authority. We're talking about preserving
our ability to execute our existing authority in order to protect the
public safety and national security."
Officials from the White House, Justice Department, National Security
Agency, FBI and other agencies have been meeting in recent months to
craft the proposals, the Times said.
But, citing officials familiar with the discussions, it said the
participants had not yet agreed on important elements, such as how to
define which entities are considered communications service providers.
President Barack Obama's administration is seeking a broad mandate that
would also apply to companies whose servers are operated abroad, such as
Research in Motion, the Canadian maker of BlackBerry smartphones.
As an example, officials told the Times that investigators discovered
that Faisal Shahzad, the suspect from the failed Times Square bombing in
May, had been using a communication service without prebuilt
interception capacity.
That meant that there would have been a delay before he could have been
wiretapped, had he aroused suspicion beforehand, the officials said.
Leaked Bill Aims to Create Net Neutrality Law
Draft legislation from the U.S. Congress would create a new network
neutrality law but would prohibit the U.S. Federal Communications
Commission from making its own rules prohibiting broadband providers from
selectively slowing Web traffic.
The draft bill, published on NationalJournal.com, would hold mobile
broadband providers to a less stringent net neutrality standard than wired
carriers.
The bill, authored by Democrats including House Energy and Commerce
Committee Chairman Henry Waxman, would prohibit wired broadband providers
from "unjustly or unreasonably" discriminating against legal Web traffic,
but would not apply that prohibition to mobile providers. The bill would
prohibit both wired and mobile providers from blocking consumer access to
websites and from blocking legal websites.
Mobile carriers have argued that net neutrality rules shouldn't apply to
them because of the limited bandwidth on their networks.
The legislative proposal is similar in some ways to a net neutrality plan
released in August by Google and Verizon Communications. Like the Google
and Verizon plan, the Waxman draft would allow the FCC to fine broadband
providers up to US$2 million for violating net neutrality rules, but the
Waxman proposal would not take away the rulemaking authority of the FCC.
The Google and Verizon plan, criticized by many net neutrality advocates,
would require the FCC to enforce net neutrality principles on a
case-by-case basis.
The new draft won praise from some groups that have opposed the FCC's
efforts this year to create formal net neutrality rules. Waxman's bill
would prohibit the FCC from reclassifying broadband as a common-carrier
service subject to increased regulation by the agency.
FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski has proposed reclassifying broadband
from being a largely unregulated service. That move came after a U.S.
appeals court ruled earlier this year that the agency did not have the
authority to enforce informal net neutrality principles after Comcast
slowed its customers' access to the BitTorrent peer-to-peer service.
An FCC spokeswoman declined to comment on the draft bill, as did a
spokesman for Public Knowledge, a digital rights group pushing for
stronger net neutrality rules.
Scott Cleland, chairman of the broadband carrier-backed NetCompetition.org,
praised the House draft.
"This House Democrat draft signals to the FCC Democrat majority loud and
clear that House Democrats do not support the radical ... proposal to
regulate broadband Internet networks as 1934 common carrier telephone
networks," he said in an e-mail. "This legislation proposes a sensible
resolution and workable alternative to this destructive polarizing issue
that is serving no one who seeks an open Internet that works, grows and
innovates without anti-competitive concerns."
The draft includes some "positive elements," but also raises some
concerns, added Randolph May, president of the free-market think tank,
the Free State Foundation.
The bill's December 2012 expiration date would allow Congress to focus
on broader telecom law reform, May said. But he questioned the bill's
prohibition on content discrimination.
"If interpreted too rigidly by the FCC, this legacy common carrier-type
restriction can inhibit development of new, differentiated services in
response to evolving consumer demand," he said. "I think any
discrimination prohibition should explicitly require a showing of
consumer harm as a prerequisite to any agency remedial action."
House Democrats Shelve Net Neutrality Proposal
House Democrats have shelved a last-ditch effort to broker a compromise on
the thorny issue of "network neutrality."
The Democrats late Wednesday abandoned proposed rules meant to prevent
phone and cable companies from playing favorites with the online traffic
flowing over their networks.
House Commerce Committee Chairman Henry Waxman, R-Calif., had led the
effort. He gave up in the face of Republican opposition to his plan.
Waxman's retreat is a setback for the nation's big phone and cable
companies. They fear the issue could now go back to the Federal
Communications Commission, which could impose more restrictive rules on
the industry. The FCC has also deadlocked over the net neutrality issue.
"If Congress can't act, the FCC must," Waxman said in a statement.
Worm Hits Computers of Staff at Iran Nuclear Plant
A complex computer worm capable of seizing control of industrial plants has
affected the personal computers of staff working at Iran's first nuclear
power station weeks before the facility is to go online, the official news
agency reported Sunday.
The project manager at the Bushehr nuclear plant, Mahmoud Jafari, said a
team is trying to remove the malware from several affected computers,
though it "has not caused any damage to major systems of the plant," the
IRNA news agency reported.
It was the first sign that the malicious computer code, dubbed Stuxnet,
which has spread to many industries in Iran, has also affected equipment
linked to the country's nuclear program, which is at the core of the
dispute between Tehran and Western powers like the United States.
Experts in Germany discovered the worm in July, and it has since shown
up in a number of attacks - primarily in Iran, Indonesia, India and the
U.S.
The malware is capable of taking over systems that control the inner
workings of industrial plants.
In a sign of the high-level concern in Iran, experts from the country's
nuclear agency met last week to discuss ways of fighting the worm.
The infection of several computers belonging to workers at Bushehr will
not affect plans to bring the plant online in October, Jafari was quoted
as saying.
The Russian-built plant will be internationally supervised, but world
powers are concerned that Iran wants to use other aspects of its civil
nuclear power program as a cover for making weapons. Of highest concern
to world powers is Iran's main uranium enrichment facility in the city
of Natanz.
Iran, which denies having any nuclear weapons ambitions, says it only
wants to enrich uranium to the lower levels needed for producing fuel
for power plants. At higher levels of processing, the material can also
be used in nuclear warheads.
The destructive Stuxnet worm has surprised experts because it is the
first one specifically created to take over industrial control systems,
rather than just steal or manipulate data.
The United States is also tracking the worm, and the Department of
Homeland Security is building specialized teams that can respond quickly
to cyber emergencies at industrial facilities across the country.
On Saturday, Iran's semi-official ISNA news agency reported that the
malware had spread throughout Iran, but did not name specific sites
affected.
RIM Unveils PlayBook Tablet to Compete with iPad
Research In Motion unveiled a tablet computer on Monday that it hopes will
leapfrog Apple's iPad with its potential for social networking, media
publishing and corporate uses.
The tablet, named BlackBerry PlayBook, has a seven-inch screen and dual
facing cameras. It has WiFi and Bluetooth but needs to link with a
BlackBerry smartphone to access the cellular network.
Shares of RIM jumped nearly 2 percent to $49.29 in after-hours trade
following the announcement, made at the company's annual developers'
conference in San Francisco.
"It's ultra-mobile and it's ultra-thin," co-Chief Executive Mike Lazaridis
told the developers, who responded with intermittent applause. "PlayBook
delivers a no-compromises web experience," he said.
PlayBook can mirror a BlackBerry phone, giving users a bigger screen to
view media and edit documents, and wipes all corporate data once the link
between the two devices is broken.
The PlayBook weighs 400 grams (14 ounces). It will launch with a dual-core,
one gigahertz processor running a QNX kernel and operating system that can
incorporate BlackBerry OS 6, which RIM introduced in its Torch smartphone
in August.
The market for tablets - touchscreen devices larger than a smartphone and
smaller than a laptop - has gotten more congested since Apple launched its
iPad in April, with Samsung and Dell showing off releases in the past two
months and others expected from Hewlett-Packard and Toshiba.
While the market's direction is relatively uncharted, most analysts agree
success will be measured by which applications each tablet can run.
"RIM has a strong story to tell to developers to say - look, however you
want to make things for this thing, we're giving you tools and a platform
that will allow you to do that," said Forrester Research principal analyst
Charles Golvin.
The QNX operating system uses industry standard APIs, or application
programing interfaces, meaning developers should have little difficulty
in making their games, software and other applications work on the device.
"All the code that is out there, and there is a huge source base out there,
(it) is completely portable to QNX," said Dan Dodge, who co-founded and led
the company until RIM acquired QNX less than a year ago.
RIM expects to ship the device to corporate customers and developers in
October. It will become commercially available early in 2011.
RIM has yet to set an exact price but says it will fall in the lower
range of prices for consumer tablets already in the suddenly congested
market.
Asked if later versions will connect to advanced 4G networks now under
development, RIM co-Chief Executive Jim Balsillie told Reuters: "That's
not a question we're answering today, but it's not a hard one to guess at."
The absence of a direct link to the cellular network means network carriers
may be less eager to subsidize the device or promote it heavily. But
corporate IT departments will likely cheer about its ability to mirror a
company-issued BlackBerry without retaining that data when that link is
broken.
"It's compelling, certainly to an IT guy, if they can look at this tablet
and say it's really nothing we have to lock down," said Kevin Burden from
ABI Research. "An IT manager can look at this tablet and say we don't even
need to put this on our asset-tracking list."
Acer Tries Another 3D Laptop With Aspire AS5745DG
Acer will make 3D part of its holiday laptop lineup with the Acer Aspire
5745DG, but don't accuse the computer maker of joining the bandwagon.
Acer was already pushing 3D notebooks last year, before any television
makers introduced 3D sets stateside and began hyping them as the next
big thing in home entertainment. Last year's model, the Acer Aspire
5738DG, was praised in PCWorld's review for converting 2D movies
effectively and excelling at 3D games, but faltered on weak battery life
and a cheap-feeling touchpad.
The new Acer Aspire 5745DG takes a different approach to 3D compared to
its predecessor. Instead of using polarized glasses (the cheaper kind
you get in movie theaters), this laptop goes full-bore with active
shutter glasses, like the ones used with today's 3D televisions, and a
built-in IR receiver. Acer says each eye sees a 60 Hz signal as the
glasses alternate images between the left and right eyes, creating the
3D effect.
For content, the Aspire 5745DG's main draw will be 3D gaming, using
Nvidia's 3D Vision technology (here's a list of supported games, sorted by
how well they perform in 3D). But Acer's notebook also packs a 3D Blu-ray
player and includes a feature that converts 2D images to 3D.
As for other specs, Acer's Aspire 5745DG runs on an Intel Core i5 processor
with NVIDIA GeForce GT 420M graphics and a 500 GB hard drive, but no word
on RAM. The laptop also includes a webcam and 802.11 a/b/g/n Wi-Fi.
Can the 5745DG overcome the battery problems of last year's model? Hard
to say, because Acer avoided giving an estimate on battery life in its
product announcement. However, the new notebook has a 9-cell battery.
Hopefully, that'll outlast the 6-cell battery in the 5738DG, which
cranked for a measly 2 hours and 28 minutes in /PCWorld's/ tests.
Acer isn't the only company working on a 3D laptop with active-shutter
glasses. HP's Envy 17 is coming this holiday season. Toshiba and Sony
have also announced 3D laptop plans. Acer's Aspire 5745DG will arrive in
late October for a cool $1000.
Microsoft Beefs Up Hotmail Security
Microsoft is beefing up security for Hotmail in order to curtail hijacking
and phishing scams on legitimate accounts.
"These updates will help you protect your password and, in the unlikely
event that a hijacker gains access to your account, provide a more
secure recovery path so you will always be able to get your account back
and kick the hijackers out," John Scarrow, Microsoft's general manager
of safety services, wrote in a blog post.
In addition to pre-existing security measures, Hotmail is adding a
couple of password proofs to keep accounts from being infiltrated.
Scarrow compared proofs to a set of spare keys when you've been locked
out of your house.
Previously, users locked out of their accounts were asked to provide an
alternate e-mail address or answer a personal question to prove their
identities. However, "only 25 percent of people with a secret question
actually remembered their answer when needed," Scarrow wrote.
As a result, Microsoft introduced two new Hotmail account recovery
options: cell phone verification and a link to a "trusted PC." With the
phone option, Microsoft will send a single-use password via text message
that you can use to activate your account. With "trusted PC," meanwhile,
you can link your account to two or more personal computers.
"Then, if you ever need to regain control of your account by resetting
your password, you simply need to be using your computer and we will
know you are the legitimate owner," Scarrow wrote.
As an added layer of security, making changes to your Hotmail account -
like adding your cell phone number or a trusted PC - would require you
to access an existing proof, like that second e-mail address. "This
means that even if a hijacker steals your password, they can't lock you
out of your account or create backdoors for themselves," Scarrow said.
Microsoft also pledged to monitor the reputations of IP addresses in
order to more readily pick up on potential threats.
Microsoft rolled out an updated version of Hotmail for its 360 million
users this year, finishing up earlier this month. It also incorporated
Facebook chat and a partnership with professional networking site LinkedIn,
and allowed for users to post updates simultaneously to all their
connected networks. It also added Microsoft Exchange ActiveSync for e-mail,
contacts, and calendar to the
iPhone.
Google Gives Gmail Users More Control Over Inboxes
Google Inc. is addressing one of the biggest complaints about its free
e-mail service by giving people more control over how their inboxes are
organized.
The new option announced Wednesday will allow Gmail users to choose
whether they prefer their incoming messages stacked in chronological
order, instead of having them threaded together as part of the same
electronic conversation.
Gmail has been automatically grouping messages by topic or senders since
Google rolled out the service six years ago.
But this so-called "conversation view" confused or frustrated many Gmail
users who had grown accustomed to seeing all their newest messages at
the top of the inbox followed by the older correspondence. After all,
that's how most other e-mail programs work.
The complaints grew loud enough to persuade Google to revise the Gmail
settings so users can turn off conversation view and unravel their
messages.
"We really hoped everyone would learn to love conversation view, but we
came to realize that it's just not right for some people," Google
software engineer Doug Chen wrote in a Wednesday blog post.
The aversion to conversation view doesn't seem to be widespread. Gmail
ended July with nearly 186 million worldwide users, a 22 percent
increase from the same time a year ago, according to the research firm
comScore Inc. Both Microsoft's Windows Live Hotmail (nearly 346 million
users) and Yahoo's e-mail (303 million users) are larger, but aren't
growing nearly as rapidly as Gmail.
Google Opens Goo.gl URL Shortening Service to the Public
Before Twitter blew up and everyone started thinking in 140 characters,
no one really cared about having long URLs. With Twitter users
scrambling to solve the 140-character puzzle, URL shortening sites like
Bit.ly, TinyURL, and Ow.ly have grown increasingly popular. Google on
Thursday jumped into the game and announced its own URL shortening site,
Goo.gl.
The Google URL shortener was actually introduced last December as part
of Google Toolbar and Feedburner. Since then, the service has been
integrated into Google News, Blogger, Google Maps, Picasa Web Albums,
and Google Moderator. But until now, there was no standalone Google site
to shorten a URL.
But why bother with Goo.gl when there are already other sites you can
use? According to Google's Social Web Blog, "when you click a goo.gl
shortened URL, you're protected against malware, phishing and spam using
the same industry-leading technology we use in search and other products."
Like many of the URL shortening sites, goo.gl is pretty basic. However,
it does have some nice URL-tracking features. For example, when you sign
into your Google account, you can see a list or URLs that you've shortened.
You can then view public, real-time analytics data, including traffic over
time, top referrers, traffic sources, and visitor profiles for countries,
browsers, and platforms. Also, according to Mashable, there's a hidden
Easter egg in Goo.gl.
"Earlier today, Google engineer Matt Cutts tweeted ... add .qr to a
shortened goo.gl URL and you'll create a QR code that, when scanned,
will redirect to the original URL. It's a quirky additive that makes
goo.gl all the more friendly for brands and marketers experimenting with
QR codes. A Twitter tipster also informed us that you can add .info to
the goo.gl URL to check out analytics," Mashable said.
Microsoft Marks Anti-Malware Anniversary with Stats
To mark the first anniversary of Microsoft Security Essentials, the company
has released some sobering statistics it has gathered during the past year
via the free anti-malware software.
According to Microsoft, Security Essentials has been installed on 31 million
computers worldwide. Out of that group, 27 million users reported malware
infections during the year.
The United States was the most frequently attacked country. Microsoft said
that during the past year, more than 2 million U.S. machines were attacked
and reported the infections to the Microsoft Malware Protection Center.
The U.S. was followed by China, which had over 693,000 attacks reported to
the center. Brazil and the United Kingdom took the third and fourth spots
with over 586,000 attacks hitting Brazil and more than 212,000 attacks
reported by U.K. users.
It's worth noting that those figures are only threats reported to Microsoft.
They do not represent all the attacks that occurred in the Windows
ecosystem throughout the year.
Overall, Microsoft Security Essentials detected nearly 400 million threats
during the past year, Microsoft said. Security Essentials users opted to
remove 366 million of those threats.
Although those figures might highlight the issues Windows users continue to
have staying safe from malware infections, Microsoft was quick to point out
that it believes the past year has been a success for Security Essentials.
In fact, Microsoft said in a blog post that the company is doing its part
to "increase security across the Windows ecosystem."
Security Essentials has enjoyed some acclaim since its release last year.
CNET's review described the software as one of the "good set-it-and-forget-it
security programs" and gave it four and a half out of five stars.
OpenOffice.org Volunteers Cut Ties with Oracle
LibreOffice. That's the possible new name of OpenOffice.org. The
volunteers that develop and promote the free office software severed
ties with Oracle on Tuesday and formed an independent group called The
Document Foundation.
OpenOffice.org successfully grew under the Sun Microsystems banner for a
decade, but the volunteers believe a new ecosystem will generate more
competition and choice for customers, as well as drive innovation in
office-productivity software. The group also hopes to lower the barrier
of adoption for users and developers. In essence, the group wasn't happy
under Oracle.
Oracle acquired the OpenOffice.org assets along with its acquisition of
Sun. The Document Foundation has invited Oracle to become a member of
the new foundation, and has asked the tech giant to donate the brand
name. Until Oracle responds, the group is using the name LibreOffice.
The break has been widely lauded by software companies large and small.
Chris DiBona, open-source programs manager at Google, called The
Document Foundation a great step forward in encouraging further
development of open-source office suites. "Having a level playing field
for all contributors is fundamental in creating a broad and active
community around an open-source software project," DiBona said.
Red Hat's Jan Wildeboer and Canonical's Mark Shuttleworthy, among many
others, also offered support for the project. And Guy Lunardi, product
management director at Novell, made a bold statement: "Viva la
LibreOffice. Ultimately, we envision LibreOffice will do for the
office-productivity market what Mozilla Firefox has done for browsers."
The Document Foundation vowed to build on the work of OpenOffice.org.
The founders noted that the group was created in the belief that an
independent foundation is the best fit to the community's core values of
openness, transparency and valuing people for their contributions.
Oracle has released two stable versions of the open-source software
since the Sun merger, but the OpenOffice.org community didn't jibe with
Oracle's vision. Oracle couldn't immediately be reached for comment. But
Al Hilwa, an analyst at IDC, isn't surprised that the community is
breaking away from Oracle.
"Is Oracle going to run things more tightly than Sun? No doubt. It's a
tighter ship. They are going to make some decisions about what to
support and what not to support, who to invest in and who not to," Hilwa
said. "I wouldn't expect any less from them."
The question is, could Oracle's decision to run a tighter ship
ultimately become a problem with its open-source connections? There is
already tension between Oracle and open-source communities. Hilwa said
it could cause some issues for developers.
"Oracle's DNA is to make decisions around cost and investments and tight
control," Hilwa said. "It's not like Oracle to scatter investments and
resources all over the place without any specific quid pro quo."
Users Making the Switch to Cutting Edge Browsers
New Web browser market share stats are out. This past month has seen a
decline in the overall market share of the Internet Explorer franchise,
but breaking things down by version shows that more users are adopting the
latest generation of Web browsers whether it's Internet Explorer, Firefox,
or Chrome.
Microsoft's Internet Explorer declined again in overall market share for
the first time in a few months. The browser as a whole lost .75 percent -
with Internet Explorer 6 dropping .63 percent, and Internet Explorer 7
falling half a percent. Those losses were offset, though, by yet another
significant gain for Internet Explorer 8 - climbing 1.16 percent since the
last month.
Chrome 6 had by far the largest gain over the previous month, coupled with
Chrome 5 taking the most precipitous plunge. Overall, Chrome is upslightly,
but that is after a decline of 4.33 percent by Chrome 5 and a swift rise
of 4.66 percent over the previous month for Chrome 6. Apparently the vast
majority of Chrome users willingly embraced the latest browser and made
the switch.
Firefox users followed the same trajectory. The use of Firefox 3.5 fell
.18 percent. However, the latest official release, Firefox 3.6, went up
.25 percent, and Firefox 4 - which is still only in beta - went up .08
percent.
Even Internet Explorer 9 is riding the cutting edge browser popularity
wave. It has only been two weeks since Microsoft publicly launched the
beta of Internet Explorer 9 at a media event in San Francisco. In that
brief period, though, the beta of Microsoft's next major update to the
Internet Explorer Web browser has already been downloaded more than six
million times.
In an Exploring IE blog post, Microsoft's Ryan Gavin notes, "Net
Applications' browser usage share report released today shows IE9 Beta
usage share at 0.25 percent for the two weeks after launch. The tech
enthusiast community is observing a notable increase in IE9 activity:
LiveSide reported IE9 Beta users accounted for 25 percent of their reader
base, IE9 overtook IE6 users at DownloadSquad, and Network World reported
poll results showing 47 percent of people intend to try IE9 Beta.
Additionally, we saw tweets from the likes of Ed Bott who noticed,
"Halfway through Day 1 of IE9 availability, 8 percent of my ZDNet visitors
are using the beta. Steady increase all day, higher than IE7.""
Some of that upswing may be a function of the success of Windows 7 and
an increase in PC sales. Users who have clung to outdated browsers like
IE6 would suddenly have IE8 by default on a new Windows 7 system, and in
the event that a user chooses not to use Internet Explorer, the
likelihood is that they will install the latest version of whatever
browser it is they opt to install.
Regardless, of the reasons behind the numbers, new Web technologies need
new Web browsers, so the transition to cutting edge Web browsers
benefits developers, as well as everyone else who surfs the Web.
U.S. Busts $3M 'Zeus Trojan' Cyber Crime Ring
The Manhattan U.S. Attorney on Thursday announced charges against 37
individuals for their roles in cyber attacks that logged keystrokes to
help the criminal steal $3 million from dozens of U.S. bank accounts.
The cyber-attacks, using malware known as the "Zeus Trojan," started in
Eastern Europe. E-mails were sent to computers and U.S. small businesses
and municipalities, and if opened, the malware embedded itself in the
victims' computers and recorded their keystrokes. Those keystrokes were
used to capture bank account numbers, passwords, and other online
security codes.
Hackers then used the personal information to take over peoples' bank
accounts and transfer money to accounts set up by their co-conspirators.
These accounts were set up by a "money mule organization," which
recruited people in the U.S. on student visas to set up bank accounts
using fake passports. Once the accounts were set up, and the money was
transferred in from the victims' accounts, the mules forwarded the cash
to the scammers' bank accounts - many of them overseas.
All told, the scammers made off with $3 million.
N.Y. Attorney General Preet Bharara said 37 defendants have been charged
in 21 separate cases. Ten people were arrested early Thursday, while an
additional 10 were previously arrested. Seventeen people are still being
sought in the U.S. and abroad. The defendants charged in Manhattan
federal court include managers of and recruiters for the money mule
organization, an individual who obtained the false foreign passports for
the mules, and money mules.
"The digital age brings with it many benefits, but also many challenges
for law enforcement and our financial institutions. As today's arrests
show, the modern, high-tech bank heist does not require a gun, a mask, a
note, or a getaway car. It requires only the Internet and ingenuity,"
Bharara said in a statement. "And it can be accomplished in the blink of an
eye, with just a click of the mouse. But today's coordinated operation
demonstrates that these 21 Century bank robbers are not completely
anonymous; they are not invulnerable. Working with our colleagues here and
abroad, we will continue to attack this threat, and bring cyber criminals
to justice."
=~=~=~=
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