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Atari Online News, Etc. Volume 13 Issue 01
Volume 13, Issue 01 Atari Online News, Etc. January 7, 2010
Published and Copyright (c) 1999 - 2011
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:
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=~=~=~=
A-ONE #1301 01/07/10
~ Sharp Decline in Spam! ~ People Are Talking! ~ Recovery Downloads!
~ OLPC Cuts Price, Power! ~ OLPC Cuts Price, More! ~ Facebook IPO in '12?
~ Always Connected Shown! ~ Twitter for Mac Debuts ~ Atari Greatest Hits!
~ Watch Kaspersky Renewal ~ Firefox Tops in Europe ~ Online Health Info!
-* CES Gadget Fest Sizzle Fizzle *-
-* MS: Lost Hotmail E-mails Restored! *-
-* Microsoft's Answer to iPad Still in Pieces *-
=~=~=~=
->From the Editor's Keyboard "Saying it like it is!"
""""""""""""""""""""""""""
Well, we've made it through the first week of the new year! Things are
getting back to some semblance of normalcy now that the holidays and all
other celebrations are over. I happen to prefer "back to normal"; I
guess that I'm a creature of habit, and not crazy about change and things
that manage to move me too far off of my normal pattern of doing things.
As is typical, we spent a quiet night ringing in the new year. My wife
was the early bird to retire, while I had a couple of drinks, listened to
some music and played some video games that I had received over the
holidays. Nice and quiet, more or less. I feel no more prosperous than I
did in 2010, but perhaps that will come over the next year, or I happen to
end up holding a winning lottery ticket! No, I don't live in Idaho or
Washington - still not a millionaire the "easy" way!
I'm going to take it easy on you this week. No politics worth discussing.
It's been a quiet, but busy week - and a long and tiring one. Yes, I'm
still getting older and the energy levels are not what they used to be!
So, I won't bother you with any New England weather reports (snow is
coming!) or other potentially monotonous tales this week. Let's just
dive right into this week's issue and relax!
Until next time...
=~=~=~=
PEOPLE ARE TALKING
compiled by Joe Mirando
joe@atarinews.org
Hidi ho friends and neighbors. Well, we made it through the first week of
the new year, I guess. I hope all went well for you and yours, and that we
can all look forward to a happy and healthy new year.
First of all, this column may look a little different to you this week.
That's because the hard drive partition with my usual and preferred
operating system (Linux) is all messed up and I have to use [gasp] WINDOWS!
No, I'm not going to bash Windows... I'll let you do that. But I WILL say
that I just don't like it. I never have. Oh sure, I can appreciate the
sheer size of the OS, the bells and whistles, the way it can take a super
fast CPU with the fastest hard drive and RAM ever available to the general
public and turn it into a Commodore VIC20 on heavy doses of cough syrup.
Oh, umm... errr... uhhh... I guess I DID kind of bash Windows a bit,
didn't I? Tough. Bill Gates can just deal with it. I doubt he'll lose very
much sleep over anything that I have to say. EYE wouldn't if I were him.
Anyway, I'm not comfortable with Windows. I know how to 'use' it, how to
wrangle the most of it, how to get rid of a lot of the bells and whistles
and turn it into as lean and mean an OS as it's capable of. But it just
doesn't 'feel' right. Know what I mean? It's like a... fake. Of course, if
you're a longtime reader of this column, you know that I've never been a
fan of Windows, Microsoft or Bill Gates, so it's really not surprising that
I haven't changed my mind.
But there IS a reason (at least in my mind) for it all. The cost, the
unwarranted complexity, the eternal resource drain... should I go on?
Oh, how about booting up? (Yeah, I'm starting up again) It was one thing
when the best we had was a 6502C or 8088 processor, but c'mon, we're
talking about fast machines now with huge amounts of memory and storage. Is
there really any reason that loading and booting an operating system should
take ten minutes on a machine that could compute pi to about a million
digits in the same amount of time?
That's one of the things I always thought was cool about the ST and
computers like the [ducking for cover] Commodore 64; when you turned them
on, the OS was there, ready and waiting for you. That's one of the things
that made me prefer those machines over "PCs". PCs had to load the OS from
disk while 'my' machines had the OS in firmware. That gave me an advantage.
Not only did I not have to wait for a slow floppy drive to load the
operating system in, I didn't have to worry about that disk getting
corrupted or erased or have coffee spilled on it. Yes, it's true that I
had to deal with the lack of upgrade ability, but hell, that really didn't
matter too much. I was happy with the OS the way it was.
But, to paraphrase Arlo Guthrie, that's not what I came to tell ya about.
I came to talk about reality shows.
I've seen one or two commercials recently for these new reality shows
coming out...
Now, there is no power on earth that could make me watch Snookie, and I
don't care who the next top model is, but I do kind of like things like
Last Comic Standing and America's Got Talent.
I like the talent shows for a couple of reasons. I mean, they do tend to
throw a lot of people without a particular talent act like they DO have it.
They know they're not good at what they're doing, but they either want the
attention or just genuinely enjoy doing it anyway... like me. I couldn't
carry a tune in a bucket, but I love to sing. Of course, I don't subject
everyone in the country with a television to it, but that's neither here
nor there. I enjoy singing even though I know I'm terrible at it. Okay,
that's one of the reasons.
The other reason is that, once in a great while, these shows stumble upon
something amazing. Terry Fader, the incredible ventriloquist, Susan Boyle
from Britains Got Talent, etc.
I was listening to the radio the other day, and a song I hadn't heard in a
long time came on. It was "Drinkin' My Baby Goodbye" by Charlie Daniels.
I've always liked that song. Aside from that, it put me in mind of one of
these reality shows. There was a family musical group that I thought was
really good. I don't remember their name now, but they were from Branson,
Missouri and the group was all family. They each had their own specialty,
be it guitar, fiddle, drums, piano, whatever.
The song they chose was Charlie Daniels' "The Devil Went Down To Georgia".
They did a good job of it but, by the very nature of the song, the fiddle
overpowered everything else.
If I remember correctly, they had a setup where you could email any of the
contestants and encourage them. I really liked this group, and while I
didn't know how much of a chance they had of winning with so many other
music groups, I decided to email them anyway.
I told them that I thought they were quite talented, but that I thought
there was a better song than "Devil Went Down To Georgia" to showcase their
individual talents. That song was, of course, "Drinkin' My Baby Goodbye".
One of the women in the group replied quickly to me, thanking me for my
'advice', and saying that they would take it under consideration, but that
they, being a family group, were very conscious of family values and didn't
think that glamorizing alcoholism was.. the right way to go for them.
I thought about it for a while, decided not to reply, then decide TO reply.
My reply to her was something like, "You're right, alcoholism isn't
something to be taken lightly. Making a wager with the Unholy One is a much
better way to go.
Oddly enough, I never heard back from her. [chuckle]
Well, that's it for this time around, friends. Tune in again next week,
same time, same station, and be ready to listen to what they are saying
when...
PEOPLE ARE TALKING
=~=~=~=
->In This Week's Gaming Section - "Angry Birds" To Land on PS3 and PSP!
""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" Atari Greatest Hits: Volume 2!
=~=~=~=
->A-ONE's Game Console Industry News - The Latest Gaming News!
""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""
"Angry Birds" To Land on PlayStation 3 and PSP
Sony revealed on Monday that mobile phone game sensation 'Angry Birds' is
heading for the Japanese entertainment giant's PlayStation 3 consoles and
PSP handheld videogame devices.
The addictive puzzle game in which players catapult birds to smash
through structures protecting egg-stealing green pigs has rocketed to
popularity since being released by Finland-based Rovio Mobile in late
2009.
"Angry Birds" will feature 63 levels, Sony said in a PlayStation blog
message listing games set for release in the coming week.
Sony did not indicate the price it would charge for "Angry Birds."
Atari Announces Atari Greatest Hits: Volume 2
Featuring Four-Player Multiplayer for the First Time
Atari, one of the world's most recognized publishers and producers of
interactive entertainment, today announced Atari Greatest Hits: Volume 2, a
follow up to the popular Atari Greatest Hits: Volume 1. Delivering 50 more
of Atari's addictive games exclusively on the Nintendo DS family of
hand-held systems, Atari Greatest Hits: Volume 2, brings together more of
Atari's popular arcade and Atari 2600 titles including Star Raiders, Yars'
Revenge, Millipede and Asteroids Deluxe and Major Havoc. These timeless
gaming classics will hit retail shelves in North America in Spring 2011.
Atari introduced a new era of interactive entertainment throughout the
1970s and 1980s with its addictive arcade games and home gaming system.
With Atari's Greatest Hits: Volume 2, each spotlighted game will feature
the same pick-up and play control scheme as their original arcade and 2600
console form, with modern updates to align with the Nintendo DS platform.
Up to four-player multiplayer via both DS Download and multi-card play
will be available for 20 titles including Combat and Warlords for
head-to-head gaming.
Additionally, Atari Greatest Hits: Volume 2 will feature a selection of
interviews with Atari founder, Nolan Bushnell, an arcade gallery with
arcade games and select arcade game memorabilia. As an added bonus,
players can also try out the Atari 400 emulator using the Touch Screen
keyboard.
"Given the positive response to Atari Greatest Hits: Volume 1, we look
forward to offering gamers more of Atari's timeless classics in Atari
Greatest Hits: Volume 2," said Jim Wilson, CEO of Atari. "By adding four
player multiplayer to such classics as Warlords, we continue to offer
players new levels of robust gameplay."
The complete Atari Greatest Hits: Volume 2 line-up is as follows:
Atari Arcade Hits
Asteroids Deluxe, Black Widow, Crystal Castles, Liberator, Major Havoc,
Millipede, Red Baron, Super Breakout, Warlords.
Atari 2600 Favorites
Breakout, Crystal Castles, Millipede, Super Breakout, Video Pinball,
Warlords, Return to Haunted House, Secret Quest, Canyon Bomber, Circus
Atari, Combat, Combat Two, Demons to Diamonds, Desert Falcon, Off-the-Wall,
Radar Lock, Golf, Double Dunk, Realsports Basketball, Realsports Soccer,
Super Baseball, Super Football, Video Olympics, A Game of Concentration,
Backgammon, Basic Programming, Brain Games, Code Breaker, Maze Craze, Video
Chess, Black Jack, Casino, Fatal Run, Night Driver, Steeplechase, Street
Racer, Quadrun, Sentinel, Space War, Star Raiders, Yars' Revenge
Developed by Atari in partnership with Code Mystics, Atari Greatest Hits:
Vol. 2 will be available in Spring 2011. For more information, please log
onto www.atari.com/agh2.
=~=~=~=
A-ONE's Headline News
The Latest in Computer Technology News
Compiled by: Dana P. Jacobson
CES Gadget Fest Sizzle Fizzles
Some 125,000 attendees descending on the annual tech gadget confab in Las
Vegas this week can be forgiven for feeling as if they have traveled back
in time.
Once the premier showcase of consumer technology's cutting edge, in
recent years the Consumer Electronics Show has wallowed in the shadow of
the one company that never attends: Apple Inc. The iPad maker famously
snatched the spotlight from the show in 2007 when it unveiled the first
iPhone at a rival convention. This year, the specter of a new iPad awaits.
Still, legions of executives, journalists and geeks will make the annual
pilgrimage to the Nevada desert's glittering oasis to pore over what
they did last year: fancier televisions and tablets.
"The more things change, the more they stay the same," said NPD analyst
Stephen Baker. "We're in more of an incremental world than a monumental
world, moving ahead a bit at a time."
Last year, a slew of electronic books and periodicals readers took
center stage. Prototypes of more full-featured tablet devices were shown
off, but companies were waiting to see how Apple would fare with the
iPad, which was unveiled a few weeks after last year's CES.
The blockbuster sales of the iPad has inspired an explosion of me-too
devices at this year's trade show. The tablet market is expected to
surge to more than 50 million units in 2011, and analysts expect
companies like Motorola Inc, Lenovo and Toshiba Corp, among many others,
to use CES to show off their iPad killers.
Longtime tech analyst Roger Kay of Endpoint Technologies said most
companies are fearful of spending research dollars on a unproven market.
"Businesses by nature tend to be cautious, and they've been cautious
this year; they're spending less. They're less willing to take chances
than they were in 2007. But that has a downside," he said.
A procession of global technology chiefs declared 2010 as the year of 3D
televisions, only to cut prices and retrench by the end of the year.
This week, they are expected to talk up Internet connectivity on the
small screen and attempt to address the decade-old unfulfilled promise
of connecting your television to Web shows and software stored in the
cloud and on your personal computers.
Unlike tablets, the fight over the connected living room lacks a
dominant player - or even a common method for delivering content. But
it does not lack for aspirants.
"It's going to be the Wild West for a while," Baker said.
The battle will pit heavyweights including Samsung, Sony Corp and LG
Electronics, but also companies like Google Inc, Netflix and Apple, all
fighting to make their technology the standard.
Jason Oxman, senior vice president of the Consumer Electronics
Association, the trade group that runs CES, said every TV maker is now
looking to incorporate Web connectivity.
"TV manufacturers see the opportunity to provide that content built in.
I think you'll be hard pressed to find a TV on the show floor that
doesn't have these kind of apps built in," he said.
Products like tablets and connected TVs, which scarcely existed five
years ago, now command outsized attention from heavyweights like Sony,
Microsoft Corp, Intel Corp and Samsung Electronics, all of which will
have a major presence at CES.
With a show floor of more than 1.5 million square feet, CES will feature
the usual crush of gadgets: from cameras to home theater equipment to PCs.
Consumers are spending again on technology, following the contraction
from the global financial crisis in 2008. The CEA expects consumer
electronics revenue in the United States to rise 3 percent in 2010 to
$174.9 billion, and climb another 4 percent in 2011.
CES officially kicks off on Thursday, but the activity starts a day
earlier, as product launches and keynotes begin.
The major keynotes at CES will include Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer,
Verizon CEO Ivan Seidenberg, Ford Motor Co CEO Alan Mulally and Audi AG
Chairman Rupert Stadler.
There will be particular interest in Ballmer's address, following
reports that Microsoft will unveil a version of its software that runs
for the first time on processors designed by UK-based ARM Holdings.
ARM's chips dominate the tablet and handheld device market.
Verizon has said it would use CES as a platform to talk about its first
phones for services based on Long Term Evolution (LTE), a technology
standard with which Verizon is currently upgrading its network.
AT&T and T-Mobile USA are also expected to show off gadgets that run on
faster data networks.
Asus Bets on Variety of Forms To Win Tablet Fans
Taiwan's AsusTek Computer Inc. plans to start selling an array of tablet
computers - including hybrids that sit somewhere between a laptop and a
tablet - with the hope that variety is the best weapon against Apple
Inc.'s iPad and other similar gadgets.
Asus chairman Jonney Shih unveiled the new devices Tuesday ahead of the
International Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. They included the
Eee Pad Transformer, which is a laptop that splits in two to function as
a tablet, and the Eee Pad Slider, a tablet with a keyboard that slides
out of its left side.
"We admire companies like Apple that offer great innovation, but they
provide very limited choices for the customers," Shih said. "Different
kinds of customers have different kinds of needs, and the best way to
better serve them is to provide choice."
Asus, which essentially created the market for low-price netbooks with
the 2007 launch of the Eee PC line, will need this strategy to pan out
if consumers gravitate toward tablets as quickly as analysts expect. And
Asus won't just be contending with the iPad: The company is just one of
many big names expected to unveil tablets at CES.
Analysts believe the iPad will still account for the bulk of the 55
million tablets that Gartner Inc. expects will be shipped this year, but
there's still room for rivals to vie for sales of the remaining 10
million to 15 million devices.
Asus hopes the Transformer and its other tablets will be among the
winners. When using a full-sized keyboard docking station, the
Transformer appears to be a black laptop, but once opened its screen
detaches by sliding out of a slot on the keyboard's edge. The device's
touch-screen will measure 10.1 inches diagonally and is half an inch
thick.
Shih said the Transformer will run the upcoming Honeycomb version of
Google Inc.'s Android software, which will be more geared toward tablets
than the current version for smart phones. It will get up to 16 hours of
battery life and include an Nvidia Tegra 2 dual-core processor. The
Transformer is set to begin selling in April for $399 to $699, depending
on its configuration. Asus has not said how much memory it will include.
The Slider will have the same hardware features as the Transformer -
including the same processor, 10.1-inch screen, and Android operating
software - but its keyboard won't be detachable. The Slider, which will be
0.7 inches thick, is scheduled to be sold starting in May for between $499
and $799. Shih did not say how much built-in memory it will have.
Shih presented two other tablets as well: The Eee Slate, which appeared to
be the same tablet he showed at the Computex Show in Taiwan last year, and
the Eee Pad MeMO.
The Slate, which will run Microsoft Corp.'s regular PC operating software,
Windows 7, will come with a 12.1-inch touch screen that has
1280-by-800-pixel resolution. It will include a 34-gigabyte or 64-gigabyte
hard drive and a more powerful Intel Core i5 dual-core processor.
The MeMO will have a 7-inch touch screen and a Qualcomm Snapdragon
processor. It will run the Honeycomb version of Android.
The Slate will cost $999 to $1,099 and be available this month, while the
MeMO is set to be sold for $499 to $699 in June.
All the upcoming tablets will include the ability to play high-definition
video. All but the Slate will have cameras on the front and back for
taking photos and video chatting; the Slate will have one camera on its
face.
Microsoft's Answer to the iPad Is Still in Pieces
Instead of unveiling an elegant response to the iPad, Microsoft came to
the tech industry's premier gadget show with a collection of exposed
computer guts.
Microsoft's biggest news was that the next version of Windows would run
on the style of cell phone chips that power the iPad and other tablets
today. It proved it with a series of demonstrations on half-built
computers; on the monitors hooked up to those machines, the software was
indistinguishable from the current Windows 7.
Microsoft's missing tablet served as a reminder that the world's largest
software maker remains years from a serious entry into this new category
of devices. It also raised more doubts about whether Microsoft Corp.
will ever be able to grab a meaningful piece of this fast-growing
segment. If it can't, Microsoft Corp.'s dominance of personal computers
may become increasingly irrelevant as people embrace ever-sleeker
portable devices.
CEO Steve Ballmer mostly lingered on what went right last year when he
gave the company's customary keynote on the eve of the International
Consumer Electronics Show on Wednesday. He had his share to boast about.
Xbox 360 and the Kinect motion-sensing controller that's racked up more
than $1 billion in sales in just two months, a ground-up overhaul of the
Windows smart-phone software and rapid adoption of Windows 7 on PCs are
all legitimate successes.
Still, it's hard for anyone to applaud Microsoft without noting the
threats posed by the growing popularity of Apple Inc.'s iPad. It's also
hard to see Windows as a tablet contender amid an onslaught of new
tablets running Google Inc.'s Android software, which has already helped
turn mobile phones into mini-computers.
Those concerns have been weighing on Microsoft stock, which has hovered
around the $20 to $30 range for the past decade. Apple, on the other
hand, has seen its share price more than triple since the first iPhone
was announced in early 2007. Last year, Apple's market capitalization
surpassed Microsoft's, making Apple the second-largest U.S. public
company after Exxon Mobil Corp.
Microsoft has not been absent from the tablet discussion - Windows
tablets have been around for years, but the devices never caught on with
the mainstream. At last year's gadget show, Ballmer demonstrated a sleek
"slate" from Hewlett-Packard Co. that runs Windows 7, and today there
are several iPad-esque tablets that use Microsoft's operating system.
But those gadgets have none of the iPad's cachet, and Microsoft has done
little to market them. And it's the upcoming Honeycomb version of
Android, Google's first to be designed specifically for tablets, that is
seen as the best shot to challenge Apple.
Many analysts and design experts say Windows 7 is doomed to fail as a
tablet system because it was created with the keyboard and mouse in
mind. At best, said technology industry analyst Rob Enderle, Windows 7
tablets are a stopgap measure while Microsoft pushes ahead on what will
likely be called Windows 8.
Microsoft declined to make Ballmer available for an interview Thursday.
Given the rudimentary proof-of-concept work Microsoft demonstrated
Wednesday, and the difficulty of the task of building a multi-platform
operating system, analysts don't expect a new Windows to arrive for at
least another two years. Microsoft moved late in part because it didn't
take tablets seriously.
"Remember, we just had the netbook scare," Enderle said in an interview.
Netbooks, a class of cheap, under-powered laptops that at first ran
versions of the free, open-source Linux operating system, were heralded
as the end to Windows' domination. But Windows soon edged out Linux on
netbooks; shortly thereafter, consumers realized the devices weren't
good for such tasks as watching online video. The phase passed so
quickly that when the industry moved on to tablets, Microsoft expected
to see the same progression, Enderle said.
The factor Microsoft apparently failed to take into consideration was
Apple, which scoffed at netbooks but took the tablet very seriously.
When the iPad launched, Apple's design and marketing savvy tipped
tablets into the mainstream.
"Now, they recognize that they've got a problem," Enderle said.
In the near term, worrying about Microsoft crumbling at Apple's feet
seems overblown despite its stagnant stock. After all, the software
maker has for years handily fended off challenges to its cash cows,
Windows and Office, from the likes of Google and Apple.
The company, with more than $40 billion in cash on its balance sheet,
can afford to slog from behind in areas such as search and smart phones.
Its earnings rose 29 percent and revenue grew 7 percent in its last
fiscal year that ended in June, while most other companies were
foundering in the global recession.
Microsoft's dividends are generous and steady. Ballmer frequently draws
criticism from the media but wins high praise from analysts and large
shareholders for delivering quarter after quarter of strong results that
just about any other CEO would envy.
But some analysts fear that missing the tablet boat might make a lethal
crack in Microsoft's complete dominance in the PC market.
Wells Fargo Securities analyst Jason Maynard said he worries that even
though Microsoft still generates the bulk of its wealth from corporate
spending on technology, consumers are starting to have more sway in
deciding the kinds of devices that make it into the workplace.
This trend, Maynard said, could become the "Trojan horse" that Apple
needs to increase Mac sales to businesses, or that Google needs to chip
away at Microsoft's hold on e-mail and desktop software.
When Microsoft changes direction, it must weigh the affect its moves
will have on more than a billion Windows PC users. Roger Kay, founder of
the research group Endpoint Technologies Associates, said this hobbled
Microsoft's tablet planning. It can't afford to repeat the pattern when
the next hot device trend lands.
"It's clear Microsoft has to become more nimble," Kay said. "It may be
able to recover from this tablet debacle, but this won't do for business
as usual."
OLPC Cuts Price, Power Use of XO 1.75 Laptop
One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) showed off the next version of its famous
laptops on Thursday at the International Consumer Electronics Show in Las
Vegas, saying the new price-per laptop has been reduced to US$165 each and
power consumption has been slashed by half compared to the previous
version.
The XO-1.75, with its 8.9-inch touchscreen, will start shipping in the
second quarter of this year to countries around the world trying to bring
schoolchildren into the computer age. OLPC was formed by professors at the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) to develop a low-cost laptop
for kids in poor countries to help make sure nobody is left behind in the
computer age.
"The biggest obstacle has been power. We are pretty excited about getting
a lower power laptop out there," said Edward McNierney, chief technology
officer of OLPC, at a booth at CES.
The XO-1.75 is the first OLPC laptop to use chips based on processor
technology from Arm Holdings, which has been a huge factor in reducing
power on the laptop, McNierney said. The previous XO used an x86-based
microprocessor, the kind made by Intel, Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) and
Via Technologies.
Using Arm-based chips halved power consumption to just 2-watts, he said.
The upcoming OLPC tablet, the XO-3, will come out in 2012 and use just
1-watt of power, he said.
The XO-1.75 laptop uses an 1GHz Armada 610 chip from Marvell Technology
with Arm processing technology on board.
The new laptop takes a major step into the tablet-era for OLPC, McNierney
said. The group put the entire motherboard, which holds the chips and other
components, behind the laptop screen, leaving the other half of the laptop
for the keyboard and battery. The move simplifies the design so the next
step can do away with the bottom half and end up with a tablet.
The XO-3 tablet will have the same screen size as Apple's iPad, 9.7-inches,
McNierney said.
"It's gotta be a full-sized device," he said.
OLPC also plans to make a cover to protect the tablet's screen. OLPC could
put a soft, flat keyboard on the cover for easy typing and use a solar
panel to solve the power issue.
OLPC has learned from experience that finding electricity is the main
problem in getting the XO laptops to kids in developing countries. Many
areas lack electricity, making it hard to recharge laptops. The group
has come up with a number of novel ways to recharge the laptop's
batteries.
McNierney recharged the XO-1.75 with a hand crank. It takes 1 hour and
47 minutes to fully recharge the battery by hand, he said.
The battery is made with lithium ferrous phosphate, which he said is
safer the lithium ion. The OLPC batteries are designed to last for five
years and slow-recharging is one way to extend the life of the battery,
he said.
Always Connected Lifestyle on Display at CES
Smarter devices, homes and cars for the always connected lifestyle are
taking center stage as the annual Consumer Electronics Show kicks off here
on Thursday.
Slick new smartphones, ultra-thin laptops, tablet computers to rival
Apple's iPad and Web-connected and 3D television sets are expected to
grab the most attention during the four-day event at the Las Vegas
Convention Center.
But the show floor will also feature more smart home appliances such as
ovens which can download recipes and vehicles which give drivers
hands-free voice control access to their smartphone applications.
Technology titans such as Cisco, Intel, LG Electronics, Microsoft,
Motorola, Panasonic, Samsung, Sony and Toshiba were among the firms
offering a glimpse of their upcoming products to reporters here ahead of
the official CES opening.
Motorola Mobility and LG Electronics both announced plans to launch
touchscreen tablet computers this year powered by "Honeycomb," the
latest version of Google's Android software optimized for tablets.
Motorola Mobility said its tablet, the Xoom, which features a screen
about the same size as the iPad, will be in stores by the end of March
while LG Electronics said its G-Slate is expected to be available in the
coming months.
More than 100 tablets are expected to be announced at CES as
manufacturers around the world attempt to carve out a share of a market
which technology research firm Gartner estimates will see sales of 55
million units in 2011.
As for market leader Apple, the California-based maker of the iPod,
iPhone and iPad is once again shunning CES.
Motorola Mobility was also one of a number of companies showing off
their latest smartphones including devices designed to work on Verizon's
4G network, which boasts mobile Internet speeds up to 10 times faster
than 3G.
Internet-enabled televisions are also in abundance as manufacturers seek
to merge the Web with the traditional television viewing experience.
"The next big transformation is on us; the marriage between television
sets and the Internet," Sony chief executive Sir Howard Stringer said.
"It is clear that consumers are ready for it."
The Consumer Electronics Association (CEA), which brings together the
2,600 exhibitors expected at CES this year, has forecast that more than
half of all TV sets sold in 2014 will be Internet enabled.
As for 3D TV, which has met with a fairly unenthusiastic response from
consumers so far, Sony is among the companies rolling out new 3D models,
betting that the future of home entertainment is in 3D.
David Steel, executive vice president for Samsung Electronics North
America, said more than one million 3D TV sets were sold in the United
States last year with Samsung taking a 70 percent market share.
"We're making a big investment in 3D and we're very optimistic about its
future," Steel said.
As for the home, CEA chief economist Shawn Dubravac said the average US
household has 24 technology products - and they are getting smarter all
the time, from ovens to dishwashers to refrigerators to floor-cleaning
robots.
Sanjay Jha, the chief executive of Motorola Mobility, said the
smartphone is emerging as the device at the "center of our digital
lives" allowing people to "connect with home while on the road."
"Smart access will allow us to control and monitor home appliances with
a smartphone," Jha said.
Twitter for Mac Debuts
Twitter has launched Twitter for Mac, a desktop application for Apple
computers. The company announced in a blog post that the application is
debuting in conjunction with the new Mac App Store, which went live on
Wednesday.
"This app gives Twitter users another fast and convenient way to stay
connected to what they care about most," Twitter's Carolyn Penner wrote.
"Tweets appear in real-time (using our streaming API), and the app
auto-shortens URLs and has lots of useful keyboard shortcuts."
Penner said that the new app is "three times faster than its original
version," which was called Tweetie for Mac. The previous version was
created by atebits, a company Twitter acquired in April.
"We acquired atebits with a focus on launching our own Twitter iPhone
application," Penner added. "Since, then, we've been asked repeatedly
for a new version of Tweetie for Mac. We decided that the new version
fits well into our goal of ensuring that mainstream users will have the
best possible experience on all platforms."
Launched in July 2006, Twitter now has more than 175 million registered
users. But most of its growth was achieved over the past two years.
According to a recent study from social media analytics company Sysomos,
95 percent of Twitter handles have been created since January 2009.
Prior to that time, Twitter's growth had been relatively steady, albeit
slow.
Sysomos also said that Twitter users have gotten more comfortable with
sharing personal information since 2009. In the past two years, the
number of users that have published a bio on the micro-blogging site has
surged from 31 percent to 69 percent.
Despite these findings, Pew recently said that only 8 percent of Web users
in the U.S. are on Twitter.
First announced at Apple's Back to the Mac event in October, the Mac App
Store was launched Wednesday with more than 1,000 apps.
Microsoft Says Lost Hotmail E-mails Now Restored
Microsoft Corp. said Monday that it has resolved a glitch that caused
thousands of Hotmail users to temporarily lose all of their e-mails.
A chorus of frantic people had posted complaints to the Redmond,
Wash.-based company's online message board over the weekend, saying their
e-mails had disappeared. In some cases, e-mails were mistakenly sent to
their deleted mail folders.
Chris Jones, senior vice president of Microsoft's Windows Live business,
said in a blog post Monday that 17,355 people lost their e-mails starting
on Thursday. By Sunday evening, the messages had been restored.
Though his team has identified what went wrong, Jones did not disclose
any details.
"As with all incidents like this, we will fully investigate the cause
and will take steps to prevent this from happening again," he wrote.
Hotmail is the world's most popular free Web-based e-mail service, with
about 360 million users, according to Web traffic measurement group
comScore Inc.
The online Hotmail message board has racked up 492 pages of complaints
about lost and deleted e-mails dating back to early November.
Kaspersky Customers Should Renew Carefully
Magazines really hate it when you let your subscription lapse. The time
between receiving your first issue and receiving your first renewal
notice can be amazingly short. If you like the magazine that's not a
problem; you can renew any time and simply extend your subscription. Not
all security software subscriptions work the same way, though. In
particular, if you renew your Kaspersky subscription too early you can
incur a significant loss.
An irate customer brought this problem to my attention. He got a notice
that his Kaspersky Internet Security 2011 was about to expire, so he
extended the subscription for two years. Being a person of rare perception
he noticed that the new end date was two years from the present, not two
years from the previous end date. He lost two full months of coverage.
I checked with Kaspersky and was very surprised to find that indeed this
is their policy. If you renew in the two weeks prior to the end of the
current subscription you'll retain the remaining two weeks. But if you
renew sooner you simply lose the remainder of the current subscription.
According to my Kaspersky contacts a warning about this policy should
have come up when the reader tried early renewal. According to the
customer no such warning appeared. I tend to believe the customer, who
was sharp enough to notice the discrepancy in end dates.
If you're a happy user of a Kaspersky security product you'll certainly
want to keep your subscription current. Just be very careful not to
renew too early!
Firefox Becomes Most-used Browser in Europe
Firefox was the most-used browser in Europe in December, edging out
Microsoft's Internet Explorer for the first time, according to new data
released by the Web analytics service StatCounter on Tuesday.
The open-source Web browser held a 38.11 percent market share in Europe,
while IE had a 37.52 percent share, according to StatCounter. The
company compiles its statistics from its tracking code, which it says is
used on more than 3 million websites worldwide that receive about 15
billion hits monthly.
Firefox may have secured the top position due to the strong gains made
by Google's Chrome browser in Europe, according to StatCounter. Chrome
had a 14.58 percent market share in December, up from 5.06 percent for
the same month a year earlier.
Another contributing factor to IE's decline may have been the European
Commission's antitrust settlement with Microsoft that resulted in
consumers being given a clearer choice when selecting a default Web
browser, StatCounter said.
Microsoft and the Commission reached an agreement in October 2009 that
dictated that Windows users be presented with a ballot screen in which
they can change from Internet Explorer to one of 11 other browsers.
Microsoft is required to continue to present the ballot screen for about
four more years.
But IE is still on top in North America, where it holds a 48.92 percent
share. In that region, Firefox had a 26.7 percent share, with Chrome at
12.82 percent followed by Safari at 10.16 percent, StatCounter said.
Downloads To Recover Your Files and Save Your Bacon
Losing important files - whether they're business documents, precious
photos, or even favorite videos or songs - is certainly distressing. The
data isn't necessarily gone forever, though. Whether you've deleted
files accidentally or lost your entire drive to a crash or a disaster,
you can try to retrieve the data with help from the following utilities.
Recuva (free, donationware), which is stylish and easy to use. It's also
available in a portable version. In addition, Recuva offers sector-based
recovery.
What is sector-based recovery? When a hard drive crashes, or a PC
produces error messages, or you can't boot into the operating system,
you need something stronger than a mere undelete utility. If the crashed
drive shows up in the Windows Disk Management console, and is still
spinning and not making funny noises, you may be able to retrieve your
data with one of the sector-based utilities below. It will probably cost
you, though: All of these free demos will show you what they can
recover, but you'll have to pay to get more than a minimal amount of
data back.
Note: Never install a sector-based recovery utility on the hard drive
or partition from which you're trying to recover data. You might
overwrite the data.
Easeus Data Recovery Wizard ($70; free demo). The demo version will recover
a single file for you - no matter the size. Data Recovery Wizard is also
arguably the easiest recovery program to use, as it walks you step-by-step
through the process.
R-Studio ($80; free demo) has been my go-to recovery application for years
because it works with every file system out there, including Linux and
Mac. The interface and approach are a bit technical, but R-Studio does
the job if the job can be done. The demo comes with its own boot CD in
case you need to recover from a machine that can't boot to its OS; I
always try to attach the ailing drive to another computer since
Windows-based recovery is faster, but it's a nice feature. The demo
recovers files of 64KB or smaller.
Active File Recovery Standard ($35; free demo) makes it a tad easier to
see what's recovered than R-Studio. Also, it's relatively inexpensive, and
the demo recovers files up to 64KB. Companion product Active Partition
Recovery ($40; free demo) has also delivered good results. In many cases,
by restoring a partition you'll be able to boot to the OS again - and if
not, you'll at least be able to use standard file-copy methods to recover
your data. For the latter, you'll probably have to boot from a CD; any
version of Linux that will run from a CD, such as Slax or Ubuntu, is
suitable and free.
Active File Recovery Professional ($45; free demo) combines both file
recovery and partition recovery. Hint: Buy Professional unless you need a
boot CD, in which case the Enterprise version ($100; free demo), which
comes with a Windows 7-based boot CD, is appropriate. Again, the demo can
recover files up to 64KB.
Other recovery utilities are out there, including the very pricey
EasyRecovery ($200; free 30-day trial) from Ontrack, which I've used
effectively as well; its demo can recover a single file. But the programs
I've discussed above have worked for me consistently over the years. It
doesn't pay to mess around or to try to cheap it out when your drive might
be dying even as you recover data - so don't risk it.
That said, in my tests the sector-based recovery in the latest iteration
of Recuva worked fine with IDE drives (though not SCSI). If you're sure
that hard-drive failure isn't imminent - it can be when you start seeing
errors - give Recuva a shot.
SEC Rule Likely To Trigger Facebook IPO in 2012
With so many investors becoming fans of the company, Facebook will be
legally required to begin sharing more information about its finances and
strategy by April 2012, according to documents distributed to prospective
shareholders.
Some of the numbers that began trickling out Thursday were eye-popping -
most notably a net profit margin of nearly 30 percent, much higher than
most people had previously speculated.
The owner of the world's largest Internet social network, privately held
since it started in a Harvard University dorm room seven years ago, will
be forced to open its books because it expects to have more than 500
shareholders at some point this year, according to a person who has
reviewed the documents handed out Thursday. The person asked not to be
identified because the documents are only being given to an elite group
selected to buy a stake in Facebook through a fund packaged by the
company's newest investor, Goldman Sachs Group Inc.
Surpassing 500 shareholders will catapult Facebook over a hurdle likely
to lead to the company's long-awaited initial public offering of stock
next year.
After a company with at least $10 million in assets has more than 500
shareholders, the Securities and Exchange Commission requires it to
disclose its financial results and other details on a quarterly basis in
an effort to ensure investors are adequately informed. The reporting
requirement kicks in 120 days after the fiscal year in which a company
exceeds the shareholder threshold for the first time.
Facebook's fiscal year ends Dec. 31, meaning it would have until late April
2012 to comply.
The company, now based in Palo Alto, could still retain a private
ownership structure, but an IPO is the more probable scenario given
Facebook will have to make many of the same disclosures of a publicly
traded company anyway.
But Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, 26, has been in no hurry to take
the company public, partly because he hoped to preserve a free-wheeling
culture. Some analysts also think Zuckerberg, named Time magazine's
person of the year for 2010, wanted to avoid the public limelight so he
would have more time to mature as a leader.
To help keep the company private, Facebook sought and received an SEC
exemption in 2008 that assured employees who received a class of stock
wouldn't be counted toward the 500-shareholder barrier. The stock
awarded those employees won't be issued until an IPO or sale of the
company occurs, another factor that will pressure Zuckerberg to drop his
resistance to an IPO. Zuckerberg owns about a 25 percent stake in Facebook.
Facebook spokesman Jonathan Thaw declined to comment Thursday.
Crossing the 500-shareholder barrier prompted Google to pursue its IPO
in 2004 before the Internet search leader had turned six years old.
If Facebook follows a similar timeline as Google did, its IPO would
probably occur during the summer of 2012.
Some of Facebook's financial information is being shared for the first
time as part of the exclusive stock offering that Goldman Sachs put
together in an effort to raise $1.5 billion. The minimum investment in
the fund is $2 million, although some exceptions are being made for
Goldman's own partners.
Some of the numbers emerging in the limited stock offering help explain
why Goldman Sachs itself decided to ante up $450 million for a less than
1 percent stake in Facebook earlier this week. The investment valued
Facebook at $50 billion, more than twice the current market value of
Internet pioneer Yahoo Inc.
Through the first nine months of last year, Facebook earned $355 million
on revenue of $1.2 billion, according to the person who reviewed the
offering document. That 30 percent profit margin is in the same range as
that enjoyed by Google, which posted net income of nearly $6 billion on
revenue of $29.9 billion through the first nine months of 2010. Facebook
produced a similar profit margin in 2009, too, with net income of $220
million on revenue of $777 million, according to the person who had seen
the Goldman Sachs documents.
Like Google, Facebook is making most of its money so far by selling
advertising. Facebook has emerged as a marketing magnet because it now
has more than 500 million users worldwide, and the company knows a lot
about them because its audience shares so much information about their
interests on the website. More than 30 billion links, notes, photos and
other types of content get posted on Facebook each month.
As impressive as Facebook's growth has been, just how much the business
is worth remains a hotly debated topic.
The $50 billion market value implied in Goldman Sachs' investment is 25
times higher than the $2 billion in revenue that analysts believe the
company had last year. Google, the Internet's biggest moneymaker so far,
ended Thursday with a market value of $196 billion, about seven times
its annual revenue.
Finallyfast.com Maker To Refund Thousands in Spyware Case
The company whose late-night commercials promised to "make your computer
run fast the way it's supposed to," will pay tens of thousands of dollars
in fines and refunds to settle charges that it engaged in deceptive
advertising.
In a settlement with the Washington State attorney general's office,
Ascentive, best known for its FinallyFast.com Web site, will pay $78,000
in penalties and offer $17.90 refunds to thousands of its Washington
State customers who purchased the company's PC cleanup products but did
not use them.
At FinallyFast.com, PC users download software that tests their system for
any performance bottlenecks and then offers to clean things up - for a
fee. Consumers complained that the software didn't work as advertised and
that Ascentive racked up charges without properly notifying customers.
According to Assistant Attorney General Jake Bernstein, the company was
peddling scareware - software that always found severe problems no
matter what the condition of the computer being scanned. "They basically
crossed the line in terms of advertising to consumers," he said.
Bernstein's office has a list of complaints against Ascentive, which
echo consumer grievances that can be found online.
In court documents, the Washington attorney general's office said that
until March 2009, Ascentive's free scan software came with adware and
endless, annoying pop-up warnings that exaggerated problems on the
computer. "The free scan categorizes everything that it identifies as an
'error,'" the filings state.
Customers who wanted to cancel their subscriptions were forced though a
cumbersome process and finally had to respond to an e-mail message
before their accounts would actually be closed. The company has now
agreed to fix the way it advertises and bills for its products,
Bernstein said.
Ascentive sued Google in June 2009 after the search engine company began
refusing to run advertisements for its products. It dropped the suit a
month later, and Google is again running ads for Finallyfast.com.
Ascentive could not be reached for comment.
However, it looks like the company has made a lot of money. Ascentive
claims there have been more than 20 million downloads of its free scans.
In a YouTube video interview with Ascentive CEO Adam Schran, filmed on
Richard Branson's Necker Island Caribbean resort, Schran describes how
he's enjoying the money he's made with the company, "It's important to
spoil yourself along the way," he says. "Treat yourself to trips to Necker
Island or a local spa or massage. Whatever is fun."
Global Spam Levels Decline Dramatically
There has been a dramatic decrease in the amount of spam email sent
worldwide recently. Data from security firm Symantec shows that spam levels
have been steadily dropping since August, with a sharp decline in December.
Symantec said that while 200 billion spam emails were being sent out
daily in August, that number deflated to about 50 billion in December.
Most spam emails are sent via botnets. Rustock, the dominant spam bot
last year, is almost inactive, compared to the amount of spam it was
sending out months ago. Symantec said that since Dec. 25, spam coming
from Rustock has comprised less then 0.5 percent of worldwide spam.
According to a BBC report, Rustock accounted for almost half (47 to 48
percent) of global spam at its peak.
Additionally, two other botnets have basically gone quiet. Since Dec.
28, Lethic has been inactive and Xarvester has been idle since Dec. 31.
"Whilst this is an excellent gift over the holiday season for anyone who
regularly uses email, we would not expect the level of spam to stay this
low for long," Mathew Nisbet, Symantec malware data analyst, said in a
blog post. "As we saw after the closure of McColo in 2008, and following
further takedown attempts in subsequent years, botnets rarely stay quiet
for very long. Even if these three botnets don't come back soon, we would
expect other botnets, even new ones, to pick up where they have left off -
very soon."
The BBC said that these spammers could be organizing a new campaign.
Because they are profit-driven, if the botnets aren't as lucrative as
they'd like, they stop and regroup.
Spammers might have found a new niche sending out junk posts on Facebook
and Twitter. Twitter suffered a spam attack last month via tweets that
discussed the "acai berry." The attack was related a hack into Gawker's
commenter password database, and Twitter encouraged users to change their
passwords immediately.
Online Health Info Popular But Often Unchecked
The number of people looking for health information online is set to soar
as workers return from holiday breaks, but few will check where the
information comes from, according to an international survey on Tuesday.
A report by researchers at the London School of Economics (LSE)
commissioned by the private healthcare firm Bupa said that with
smartphones and tablet computers set to outsell personal computers by
2012, more health information is available online and there are more ways
to access it than ever before.
The Bupa Health Pulse survey questioned more than 12,000 people in
Australia, Brazil, Britain, China, France, Germany, India, Italy,
Mexico, Russia, Spain and the United States and found that 81 percent of
those with internet access use it to search for advice about health,
medicines or medical conditions.
Russians search for health advice the most on the internet, followed by
China, India, Mexico and Brazil. The French search for online health
information the least, according to the survey's findings.
It also found that 68 percent of those who have access have used the
internet to look for information about specific medicines and nearly 4
in 10 use it to look for other patients' experiences of a condition.
"New technologies are helping more people around the world to find out
more about their health and to make better informed decisions. However,
people need to make sure that the information they find will make them
better, not worse," said David McDaid, a senior research fellow at the
LSE.
In Britain, where Bupa predicted there would be 40 million hits on
health websites this week as people make New Year's resolutions after
their Christmas break, experts warned that much online health content is
unchecked and people would struggle to know what to trust.
The survey found that of the 73 percent of Britons who say they go
online for health information, more than six in 10 look for information
about medicines and more than half of them, or 58 percent, use the
information to self diagnose.
Yet only a quarter of people say they check where their online advice
has come from.
"Relying on dodgy information can easily lead to people taking risks
with inappropriate tests and treatments, wasting money and causing
unnecessary worry," said Annabel Bentley, a medical director at Bupa.
"Equally, people may check online and dismiss serious symptoms when they
should get advice from a doctor."
=~=~=~=
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