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Atari Online News, Etc. Volume 11 Issue 24
Volume 11, Issue 24 Atari Online News, Etc. June 12, 2009
Published and Copyright (c) 1999 - 2008
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 #1124 06/12/09
~ Web Domain Changes? ~ People Are Talking! ~ Safari 4 Launches!
~ Snow Leopard This Fall ~ MS - Free Anti-Virus! ~ End of Game Stores?
~ AOL Buys Two Startups! ~ AV, Microsoft Apology? ~ Wii Suit Tossed!
~ Vying for Green Crown! ~ CIA and Web 2.0 Tools! ~ Dot-com Era Is 20!
-* China Defends Web-Filtering! *-
-* Spam Drops 15 Percent After Takedown *-
-* Browser-Free Windows Gives No Real Choice! *-
=~=~=~=
->From the Editor's Keyboard "Saying it like it is!"
""""""""""""""""""""""""""
Maybe I'm getting older... Okay, so according to life and the calendar,
that's a pretty stupid statement to make. But, besides the obvious, it's
becoming more difficult to juggle around a busy schedule, which includes
more than the usual physical activity that I'm used to dealing with. I
just don't have the energy (or the necessary amount of time) to consider
a good editorial topic, sit down and work it over in my mind, and then
put it all down "on paper" in time for you all to enjoy it!
So, for another week, I'm going to have to beg off adding some witty
remarks to this week's issue. So, I know that I can rely on Joe to have
some great comments this week to keep you all entertained!
Until next time...
=~=~=~=
PEOPLE ARE TALKING
compiled by Joe Mirando
joe@atarinews.org
Hidi ho friends and neighbors. I'm not at all sure how long this column
is going to be this week, but there's just one thing I want to touch on
and then we'll get to the UseNet messages. Okay?
This past week, everybody's favorite media darling and talking point,
Sarah Palin, was in New York. David Letterman of The Tonight Show, who
does a "Top Ten List", used Palin's visit this time around. This list
was...
Top Ten Highlights of Sarah Palin's Trip To New York City
10. Visited New York landmarks she normally only sees from Alaska
9. Laughed at all the crazy-looking foreigners entering the U.N.
8. Made moose jerky on Rachel Ray
7. Keyed Tina Fey's car
6. After and wink and a not, ended up with a kilo of crack
5. Made coats out of New York City rat pelts
4. Sat in for Kelly Ripa. Regis couldn't tell the difference
3. Finally met one of those Jewish people Mel Gibson's always talking
about
2. Bought makeup at Bloomingdale's to update her 'Slutty Flight
Attendant" look
And the number one highlight of Sarah Palin's Trip to New York...
1. Especially enjoyed not appearing on Letterman
Now granted, not all of them are funny, but I found number two to be
particularly apropos. Palin has always seemed to me to be an adult parody
of a horny drunk cheerleader. "Flight Attendant" is funny because of her
hair style. I can picture her up in the front of a plane giving the
emergency/seatbelt/oxygen mask tutorial like she's vying for an Academy
Award, complete with lots of eye-winking, cheek-sucking and lip licking.
I must confess, I just don't get it. Yes, she is fairly attractive... in
my opinion... and until she speaks... but so are hundreds of thousands or
millions of other women in this country; certainly more than the entire
population of the state of Alaska. What makes her so special?
Anyway, Letterman continued through the show with "Palin" jokes. A
couple, anyway. And I laughed at both of them. They centered around
Palin's daughter. One was about Palin having to keep Elliot Spitzer,
former governor of New York and prostitute patron, away from her
daughter. The other was about an embarrassing moment for Palin while
attending a Yankees baseball game... that during the seventh inning
stretch, A-Rod knocked up her daughter.
Now, I took both of these to be about Bristol, Sarah Palin's (now) 18
year old daughter. Conservative mouthpieces and talking heads have
conveniently taken it to mean Willow, Palin's 14 year old. I guess I can
see that, because Willow was there at the game and Bristol wasn't. But I
made the connection that it was about the daughter who'd gotten pregnant
already... Bristol.
Well, things got kind of nutty after that, with both Sarah and Tawd (add
your own Lisa Lubner accent here) complaining that it was about having
sex. with a minor. Okay, point taken and it needs to be addressed. But if
that was the case, why are the Palins only now talking about this topic?
Bristol was only 17 when she became pregnant.
So the following night, Letterman talked about it during the show. I
thought it was very well done, and afforded all the decorum and
seriousness that making fun of the Governor demanded. Of course, he
re-read the jokes too. Way to go Dave!
If you're interested, you can find a video of the Top Ten List
here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vEvkOPidWkY
And Letterman's little talk about it the following night
here: http://tinyurl.com/lqydg5 [URL modified by Editor]
Okay, let's get on with the news, hints, tips and info from the UseNet,
huh?
From the comp.sys.atari.st NewsGroup
====================================
'Phantom' asks:
"Anyone remember Chameleon? IF so, what was it for?"
Steve Sheppard tells Phantom:
"It was a terminal emulation program by John Palevich (sp?) originally
distributed through Atari's APX program.
I used Chameleon (tape version) many times to submit programming
assignments to school (way back when). Using tape and the slow
transfer rate (300 baud) was incredibly cumbersome but it beat driving
to school at 2:00 AM (the only time the campus terminals seemed to be
available)."
Rvan Collins adds:
"I was in the same boat, used it most of my freshman year with my little
xm301 modem and 800xl. I at least had a disk drive though."
Mark Bedingfield adds:
"There was also a loadable desk accessory called Chameleon. It allowed you
to load and unload ACC's at will."
Ekkehard Flessa agrees:
"That used to be an accessory for SingleTOS that would allow you to load
(and unload) other accessories at runtime."
Guillaume Tello asks about the power supply for the STacy, the portable
ST:
"I have a Stacy without its power unit. But I have an IBM one with those
characteristics:
OUTPUT 20 - 10 V =
2.00 - 3.37 A
Can it be used as a replacement?
Another question... This IBM AC adapter has 4 pins:
1) Ground
2) +
3) -
4) Input signal
What is the 4th for??"
Greg Goodwin adds:
"The STacy expects an input between 10.6 and 18VDC. (The STacy has a
'power low' light that comes on around 11.5V. However, the STacy keeps
running until somewhere around 10.5V).
I experimented with the STacy in 2001 and made several posts in 2002
regarding powering the STacy with batteries. Here's a brief summary:
Don't use "C" cells! Atari and I both tried it, and it doesn't work
well (you get 15 minutes per charge). With some expensive high-
amperage cells you can get 30 minutes, but internal packs just don't
have enough juice!
However, a 12V cord to a 12V battery will work, but since the "power
low" light comes on at 11.5V you will have the "power low" light on
frequently. Also, you need to have a large enough battery to handle
the drain. Expect to use 2 - 3 Ah (Amp-Hours) of capacity for each
hour of use for large (auto-sized) batteries and 3 - 4 Ah of capacity
for smaller batteries due to the voltage drop. The commonly
available "jumpstart" batteries typically hold 14 - 21 Ah and thus I'd
suspect that they'd work for several hours. (FWIW, I used a 40 pound 72
Ah lead-acid wheelchair battery (13.8V) to power the STacy for several
years and managed over 24 hours a charge!)
Before I go, let me note that I'm going off of memory, although I'm
reasonably certain my numbers are accurate. Still, no warranties are
given or implied."
Mark Duckworth posts this about bargain hunting:
"I troll my local Craigslist twice daily for Atari stuff and wouldn't you
know it an Atari 520ST with 1MB, 2 SF314's, 1 SC1224, and 1 set of VERY
archaic (full height) scsi drives with what looks to be an adscsi was
sold to me for $30. He said he had all kinds of responses but I was the
first to actually show up or even make an appointment. It's really nice
to get a hold of what is an exact copy of my first computer ever and at
such an ebay (shipping, bleh) beating deal. This time I won't let go of
it so easily! I've been doing this for a year and a half! It takes
dedication."
Ben Smith of Bravo Sierra Computers tells Mark:
"I believe the Adaptec Controller is for MFM or RLL and you'll still need
a SCSI Host Adapter to make it work! It's hard to find MFM or RLL
Hard Drives!"
'Leed' adds:
"That's AWESOME. The AdSCSI alone is worth a mint!"
Mark explains:
"It's NOT an adscsi. It's an adaptec 4000 something or other. I never
knew such a thing existed? Maybe it's an MFM controller... I didn't look
at the drives yet but it would kind of make sense given that they are
like 10 and 20mb. Either way, I'm totally stoked to have a little
unmolested piece of history. There's even docs on there from the mid to
late 80's. The setup, with quick ST and gdos and maxifile.. Priceless. It
literally sat in this dude's basement for the last 19 years."
Phantom now asks about using a DVD drive on a Falcon or MegaSTE:
"I have a SCSI 50 pin Matsushita, Model No. LF-D101N. Was thinking of
using it on a Falcon or MegaSTE. Does HD Driver support this model? Does
ExtenDos Gold/CD Writer support this model?"
Uwe Seimet, author of HD Driver, tells Phantom:
"It should, since there is no restriction on the SCSI devices supported
by the SCSI driver included in current versions of HDDRIVER. Just run an
ID check and check the termination in case the device is not found.
Also ensure that SCSI initiator identification is enabled and that the
drive does not have the same SCSI ID as the Falcon.
As far as the MegaSTE is concerned a LINK96/97 is required for some SCSI
devices. Some devices require the computer to have an SCSI ID of its own
(which is mandated by the SCSI standard) in order to work properly."
Well folks, that's it for this week. 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 - Will Digital End Stores?
""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" Suit Against Wii Tossed!
=~=~=~=
->A-ONE's Game Console Industry News - The Latest Gaming News!
""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""
Digital Downloads Spell End for Video Game Stores?
Will digital downloads kill the video games store?
That's the multibillion dollar question facing retailers from Wal-Mart
Stores Inc and Target Corp to GameStop Corp, as Internet distributors
continue to grow.
Retailers like Target splashed out on large booths at last week's E3
Expo in Los Angeles, showcasing games like Activision's "Transformers:
Revenge of the Fallen."
But gamers - especially on personal computers - are increasingly
turning to alternative methods to play and buy games, such as
downloading or "streaming" online games, rather than trekking to a store.
Take industry veteran Dave Perry, whose Gaikai online system lets PC
gamers buy and stream games through their Web browsers without needing
to download any content.
"Our solution is not to dive into a fight with Sony (Corp), Microsoft
(Corp), Nintendo Co Ltd, as it wouldn't gain any 'new audience' for
publishers," Perry said. "Instead, our strategy is 100 percent focused
on being an ally to publishers and first-party hardware makers, by
delivering them audiences they don't reach today."
Digital downloads are still a small, but fast-growing business.
According to the NPD group, 17 percent of games sold in 2008 by PC
gamers were digitally downloaded. Microsoft and Sony are trying to
convert console gamers who have become accustomed to consuming music and
movies digitally via services like Netflix and Apple Inc's iTunes.
Wedbush Morgan Securities analyst Michael Pachter estimates digitally
downloaded games will account for roughly 2 percent of industry sales
this year, or around $400 million. He expects demand to double annually
for a few years, to $800 million in 2010 and $1.6 billion by 2011.
"As broadband penetration increases and the Internet connection migrates
to the living room, downloads or cloud computing solutions will become
much more viable," he said.
"Downloads will become 20 percent of the market within five years, and
probably peak at around 50 percent of the overall market in 10 years,"
said Pachter. This assumes an overall market growth of 5 to 10 percent
annually, he added.
With video game sales growth slowing somewhat, publishers and developers
are seeking new channels to reach customers.
Yet some retailers resist the format, arguing that going through a
third-party online distributor further saps margins for both developers
and retail chains. Analysts say the big retail chains like Wal-Mart and
Target have also yet to embrace and invest in digital sales.
"Nothing that has been digitally distributed retains the same value as a
retail version; it's always less," GameStop CEO Dan DeMatteo said in
September.
Getting content on demand is no stranger to households accustomed to
watching movies over set-top boxes, or teens streaming music over the
Internet. But spontaneously ordering a game is stymied somewhat by the
limits of the gamers' personal computer system.
Some fledgling companies try to work around that.
Over the past seven years, entrepreneur Steve Perlman has been
developing a digital distribution box called OnLive. He hopes to offer
high-definition PC games on low-end hardware.
OnLive has struck deals with Electronic Arts Inc, Ubisoft, Take Two
Interactive, Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment, THQ, Epic Games,
Eidos, Atari and Codemasters. While the company had 16 games on display
in March at the Game Developers Conference, it had no presence on the E3
show floor.
OnLive this fall is slated to launch a subscription service similar to
Microsoft's Xbox Live.
NPD estimates 18 percent of Xbox 360 users who have a "Gold" membership
to Microsoft's Xbox Live service regularly download from Xbox Live
Arcade, and 10 percent of PlayStation 3 users regularly buy digitally
from Sony's PlayStation Network.
The largest independent games distribution network is Valve Software's
Steam, which has 21 million users and 700 games.
Doug Lombardi, vice president of marketing at Valve Software - known as
the groundbreaking backers of the "Half-Life" shooter series - said
digital distribution has already been largely embraced by the industry.
But the real forte of digital distribution may be the ability to provide
automatic updates and extras, keeping things new as with the Team
Fortress multiplayer-shooter series.
"Now that games can be connected to their audience, they will last and
grow well beyond their traditional 6-month to 1-year sales cycle,"
Lombardi said.
Judge Tosses Patent Claim Against Nintendo
A judge has dismissed a patent-infringement lawsuit against Nintendo
over the company's Wii video game machine.
The order from U.S. District Court Judge Manuel Real in Los Angeles
comes less than six months after the lawsuit by Guardian Media
Technologies Ltd. was filed.
The claims against Nintendo are part of a bigger lawsuit against
retailers and electronics makers over parental-control technologies that
Guardian Media has patented.
The judge ruled that Nintendo did not infringe Guardian Media's patent.
"At the earliest stages of this case, Nintendo convinced the court to
dismiss this case as Guardian's patent had nothing to do with Nintendo's
products," Rick Flamm, senior vice president of legal and general
counsel for Nintendo of America, said in a statement.
=~=~=~=
A-ONE's Headline News
The Latest in Computer Technology News
Compiled by: Dana P. Jacobson
EU: Browser-Free Windows Gives No Real Choice
European Union regulators said Friday that Microsoft Corp. was offering
less choice, not more, by vowing to sell the next version of Windows
without any Web browsers at all.
Microsoft said Thursday that it would remove its Internet Explorer
browser - and not include any alternatives - in the Windows 7 software
it will sell from Oct. 22 in Europe to soothe EU antitrust concerns.
The company is trying to avoid new EU fines on top of a previous euro1.7
billion after being earlier charged with unfairly using its operating
system monopoly to squeeze into other software markets.
But the European Commission said it preferred to see consumers offered a
choice of browser "not that Windows would be supplied without a browser
at all."
"Rather than more choice, Microsoft seems to have chosen to provide
less," it said.
It will soon decide whether Microsoft had violated EU antitrust law
since 1996 by tying the browser to its ubiquitous Windows operating
system which is installed on most of the world's desktop computers.
A "must carry" option that would offer several browsers was a better
option, the EU executive suggested, because "consumers should be
provided with a genuine choice of browsers" on the software that
manufacturers install on computers.
It said Microsoft's solution would give no choice to the 5 percent of
consumers who buy Windows software in a stand-alone pack, as opposed to
pre-installed on a computer. Microsoft said it will give PC users who
want the browser a way to obtain it.
But regulators were more positive about the larger market - which sells
software to computer manufacturers - saying Microsoft's decision meant
they could choose to install Internet Explorer or one or more other
browsers.
The European Commission said it would have to weigh up whether this
would actually create genuine consumer choice.
It warned that it would still have to look at "the long standing nature
of Microsoft's conduct" and whether the removal of Internet Explorer
"could be negated by other actions by Microsoft."
The EU charged Microsoft with monopoly abuse in January, following a
complaint from tiny rival Norway's Opera Software ASA, which said
Microsoft was unfairly using its power as the dominant supplier of
operating system software to squeeze out browser competitors.
Mozilla Corp., which makes the Firefox browser, and Google Inc. have
signed on as third parties against Microsoft in the case.
Microsoft's browser is the most widely used worldwide, but Firefox is
gaining in popularity and Google, the top Web search provider, has
released its own Web browser, Chrome.
Spam Drops 15 Percent After FTC Pricewert Takedown
The U.S. Federal Trade Commission's recent takedown of an Internet
service provider thought to be a safe haven for spammers has reduced
spam volumes, but only by a little.
According to e-mail security vendor Marshal8e6, total spam volume
dropped by about 15 percent last week, as the FTC got a court order to
pull the plug on a notorious ISP named Pricewert. "We noticed quite a
drop-off mid to late last week," said Phil Hay, a threat analyst with
Marshal8e6. "Things got pretty quiet compared to what we'd been seeing."
Pricewert, which also did business under the name 3FN, was knocked
off-line after the companies that provided it access to the Internet
stopped doing business with it. This happened after the FTC was granted
a temporary restraining order Tuesday in the U.S. District Court for the
Northern District of California.
According to the FTC, Pricewert was home to a host of illegal activity
including the distribution of viruses, phishing, spyware and child
pornography. In a statement, the FTC said Pricewert "actively shielded its
criminal clientele by either ignoring take-down requests issued by the
on-line security community, or shifting its criminal elements to other
Internet protocol addresses it controlled to evade detection."
The ISP has said that the alleged criminal activity on its network was
the result of bad customers and not its fault.
Pricewert lists its principal place of business as Belize City, Belize,
but it operated out of a DataPipe data center in San Jose, California,
the FTC said.
Pricewert was thought to be home to several servers used to control
computers infected with the Cutwail Trojan program (also known as Pushdo).
Criminals had been using these infected machines to pump out spam
messages, and right before the takedown the ISP was responsible for
about 30 percent of the spam tracked by Marshal8e6.
Last November, spam levels dropped close to 50 percent after notorious
ISP McColo was taken off-line by its upstream providers, and it took
months for spam levels to rebound to the same volume.
However, the results from the Pricewert takedown were not as dramatic.
According to data from Cisco Systems, spam levels dropped about 30
percent at the end of last week but rebounded to normal levels on Sunday
and Monday.
Security experts say that following the dramatic McColo incident,
spammers may have put better backup systems in place to maintain control
of their botnets of hacked computers. "Obviously, this was not a McColo.
They were ready for the takedown," said Richard Cox, chief information
officer with Spamhaus, an anti-spam group. "We've seen the backups pop
up and have to get taken down and so on."
Safari 4 Launches, Snow Leopard Coming in September
Apple on Monday launched its next-generation browser, Safari, and gave
details on the Snow Leopard OS X update.
Apple said during its Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) that the
operating system would be available in September. Apple presenters took
the time to denigrate Windows 7 as merely a version of the much-derided
Vista. Windows 7 will launch on October 22, according to Microsoft. Snow
Leopard will only run on Intel-based Macs, so older IBM PowerPC based
Mac PCs are out in the cold with Snow Leopard.
Safari 4 will cost just $29 to current Leopard users, but doesn't offer
much in the way of new features for end users.
Its inner plumbing takes advantage of new trends in PC hardware, such as
64-bit and multicore CPUs, along with faster graphics processing
hardware. The most noticeable feature for end users will be its built-in
support for Microsoft Exchange mail, contacts, and calendars, and a new
version of QuickTime called QuickTime X. Installation will be 45 percent
faster and opening JPEF image files and PDF documents will be 2 and 1.5
times as fast, respectively.
"We've built on the success of Leopard and created an even better
experience for our users from installation to shutdown," said Bertrand
Serlet, Apple's senior vice president of software engineering. "Apple
engineers have made hundreds of improvements so with Snow Leopard your
system is going to feel faster, more responsive and even more reliable
than before."
The Safari 4 browser is available today as a download for Mac OS X
(Leopard and Tiger) and Windows. It's notable for an iTunes-like Cover
Flow interface for viewing history, and Top Sites view that shows your
most visited sites in a 3D grid view.
Featurewise the brower is indistinguishable from the Safari beta I tested.
Apple again claimed that the browser was faster than Google's Chrome, the
current leader in my testing. A retest showed that it took 1707
milliseconds to complete the SunSpider JavaScript Benchmark, whereas
Chrome 2 took 1656 on the same PC, so they're neck-in-neck.
"The successful beta release helped us fine tune Safari 4 into an even
better, faster version that customers are going to love," said Philip
Schiller, Apple's senior vice president of Worldwide Product Marketing.
"Safari is enjoyed by 70 million users worldwide and with its blazing
fast speed, innovative features and support for modern web standards,
it's the best browser on any platform."
Most Firms Unaware of Web Domain Changes
Two thirds of businesses are unaware they will be able to use their own
name in place of domain extensions such as .com, .org, or .net when
Internet domains are liberalized next year, according to a survey.
The change would let the likes of Nike or Microsoft control their own
domain and better exploit their brands, and also counter cyber-squatters
who use variations of brands on the 280 or so existing domain extensions.
"If you have '.nike', for example, you can create real and specific
branded Websites, like 'running.nike' or 'runlondon.nike'," Joe White,
chief operating officer of domain registrar Gandi.net, told Reuters in an
interview.
The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), which
oversees domain names, is expected to start taking applications for new
top-level domains early next year, said Future Laboratory, which
conducted the research.
But the move is not on the radar of a majority of companies, the survey
for Gandi.net found.
"(Companies) are generally completely unaware of this change coming down
the line," said White. "This change has not yet permeated into the
mainstream for businesses or consumers."
"However, those businesses which are aware actually see the prospect as
being quite exciting," he said.
The price of $185,000 will initially limit applications to the largest
corporations and organizations, said Tom Savigar, Strategy and Insight
Director at The Future Laboratory.
ICANN is expecting 300-500 applications when it opens its doors in the
first quarter of next year, he said.
"You'll see the big global corporations getting there early to own more
of their online space," he said.
"(Owning their domain) could secure a higher level of credibility and
recognition."
Smaller businesses will be able to use more specific extensions to match
their business sector or geography such as ".london" or ".paris," he said.
The Future Laboratory surveyed 100 e-commerce managers; 50 from
high-street companies and 50 from small and medium businesses online.
Microsoft Will Soon Unveil Free Anti-virus Software
Microsoft Corp is getting ready to unveil a long-anticipated free
anti-virus service for personal computers that will compete with products
sold by Symantec Corp and McAfee Inc.
A Microsoft spokesman said on Wednesday that the world's biggest
software maker is testing an early version of the product with its own
employees. Microsoft would "soon" make a trial version, or product beta,
available via its website, he added, but declined to provide a specific
date.
Investors are closely monitoring the free service, code-named Morro
after Brazil's Morro de Sao Paolo beach, amid concern it could hurt
sales of products from Symantec and McAfee, which generate billions of
dollars of revenue a year protecting Windows PCs from attacks by hackers.
"It's a long-term competitive threat," said Daniel Ives, an analyst with
FBR Capital Markets, though he added that the near-term impact was
minimal.
Microsoft has said that Morro will offer basic features for fighting a
wide range of viruses, which would likely make it comparable to low-end
consumer products from Symantec and McAfee that cost about $40 per year.
Their top-selling products are security suites that come with features
including encryption, firewalls, password protection, parental controls
and data backup.
Three years ago, Microsoft entered that market with Live OneCare, which
turned out to be a commercial flop. It announced plans in November to
kill that product suite, saying it would launch the free Morro service
by the end of 2009.
Analysts said they are looking forward to Morro's beta to see exactly
how its features compare to those in products from competitors.
Microsoft has said it will provide protection from several types of
malicious software including viruses, spyware, rootkits and trojans.
Officials with Symantec and McAfee have said they do not see Morro as a
threat.
"Microsoft's free product is basically a stripped down version of the
OneCare product Microsoft pulled from the shelves," said Symantec
Consumer division president Janice Chaffin. "A full Internet security
suite is what consumers require today to stay fully protected."
Joris Evers, a spokesman for No. 2 security software maker McAfee, said
his company is already enjoying strong growth despite competition from
free anti-virus products that are on the market.
"On a level playing field, we are confident in our ability to compete
with anyone who might enter the marketplace," he said.
A spokeswoman for Trend Micro Inc, the No. 3 player, declined to comment.
Microsoft's Free Antivirus: Is This An Apology?
Who should know more about PC threats than the company whose software
makes most of them possible? Is Microsoft's upcoming, free anti-malware
app the company's way of apologizing to customers?
Not hardly. The free service, codenamed "Morro" and due in beta "soon,"
appears only after years of Microsoft trying and failing to sell a
protection product called "OneCare," which routinely landed low in the
protection ratings.
As I said, you'd think Microsoft would know more about solving its own
security problems than anyone, but if that were really true, we'd face
fewer problems in the first place, right?
Microsoft also badly needs to do something to add zing to the Windows 7
release. That's zing, not Bing, which will, presumably, already be in
Windows 7. Maybe Morro is supposed to be the feature people will upgrade
to get.
There are times when even "free" isn't worth the price, and Morro may be
one of them. Granted, it's not even in beta yet, but Morro will have to
do much better than Microsoft's previous efforts to be worth anyone's
time.
Morro's real-time anti-malware service, which will route all the URLs
you want to visit by Microsoft first for a check against known malware
sites, ought to be a winner. As quickly as Microsoft finds out about a
malware location, it would immediately protect Morro users from it.
Of course, this requires that the Morro servers not slow down the user's
browser performance and raises privacy concerns. What will Microsoft do
with all your browsing data? Nothing too bad, I suspect, but it's always
worth wondering and asking.
We also don't know whether Morro will always be free and what operating
systems it will support. If it's Windows 7-only and turns out to be
good, Microsoft will have missed a golden opportunity to build goodwill.
If it turns out to be OneCare Part II, XP users will be glad we couldn't
download it by mistake.
That puts Morro firmly onto my "wait-and-see" product list.
You may also be wondering what impact Morrot will have on the entrenched
anti-badstuff companies, such as McAfee and Symantec. Probably zero, at
least in the near-term. Theoretically, a really great Morro, available
for all Microsoft desktop operating systems could kick the legs from
under consumer protection software.
It is hard to believe that will happen, though it would be a welcome end
to consumers not being protected nearly as much as they need to be. It
is hard to argue with free protection, though it is already available.
It could be that the wide promotion of paid consumer products simply
drowns out the free options that are available, such as Grisoft AVG and
Avast.
Granted, that's not great software, but the price is right if you need
something and aren't willing to spend.
Maybe that's what Morro will be: A last-ditch attempt to get protection
to people who don't understand the need for it. Microsoft could actually
name it Zing - as in "Zing the Bad Guys!" - and spend another $100 million
advertising it. Or maybe "Zap," "Pow," or best of all, "Bang!"
Probably not, but Morro, while worth watching is not yet something to
get excited about. Unless, of course, it's a slow summer day and the
iced tea is running low.
AOL Buys Two Web Startups
Internet pioneer AOL, which Time Warner plans to spin off into an
independent company later this year, announced on Thursday that it had
bought two small Web startups focused on local content.
AOL, in a statement, said it had purchased Patch Media Corp., a local
news and information platform for local communities, and Going Inc., a
platform for sharing information about events in major cities.
Financial terms of the deals were not disclosed.
"Local remains one of the most disaggregated experiences on the Web
today -- there's a lot of information out there but simply no way for
consumers to find it quickly and easily," said Tim Armstrong, who was
hired away from Google this year to become AOL chairman and chief
executive.
"It's a space that's prime for innovation and an area where AOL has a
significant audience and a valuable mapping service in MapQuest," he said.
"Going forward, local will be a core area of focus and investment for
AOL," Armstrong said. "The acquisitions of Patch and Going will help us
build out our local network further."
Patch.com is currently available in five local communities in the United
States and expects to be available in a dozen by the end of the year.
Going.com provides information for young people about what is going on in
major US cities such as New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Miami and Boston.
"By joining with AOL, we have the opportunity to greatly expand the
reach of our platform to more cities both in the US and around the
world," said Going chief executive Evan Schumacher.
AOL is currently the number four gateway to the Web after Google,
Microsoft sites and Yahoo! and has been trying to refashion itself
recently as a popular one-stop portal.
CIA Adopting Web 2.0 Tools Despite Resistance
The CIA is adopting Web 2.0 tools such as blogs and collaborative wikis,
but not without a struggle in an agency with an ingrained culture of
secrecy, CIA officers said Friday.
"We're still kind of in this early adoptive stage," said Sean Dennehy, a
CIA analyst and self-described "evangelist" for Intellipedia, the US
intelligence community's version of the popular user-curated online
encyclopedia Wikipedia.
"There's a lot of cultural issues we have to encounter with bringing
this kind of open source ethos into the intelligence community," Dennehy
said during a panel discussion organized by the Washington office of
Internet giant Google.
The Central Intelligence Agency analyst recalled Mahatma Gandhi's quote:
"First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you,
then you win."
"We've been ignored, we've been laughed at, on occasion we've been
fought and we haven't won yet," he said.
Dennehy said Intellipedia, which runs on secure government intranets and
is used by 16 US intelligence agencies, was started as a pilot project
in 2005 and formally launched in April 2006.
"From that point to where we are here in 2009 it's been a struggle," he
said. "Some people have (supported it) but there's still a lot of other
folks kind of sitting on the fence."
A number of colleagues with a "fair amount of seniority" are active
users, however, who see Intellipedia as "a potential tool that is a
gamechanger," he added.
Dennehy said blogs and wikis were "a challenge to our culture because we
grew up in this kind of 'need to know' culture and now we need a balance
between 'need to know' and 'need to share.'"
"Trying to implement these tools in the intelligence community is
basically like telling people that their parents raised them wrong," he
said. "It is a huge cultural change."
"We actually had people kind of go through Intellipedia in the early
days taking notes down on which pages were wrong and then sending it up
to their chain of command," he said.
A desire to compartamentalize information was another problem, he said.
"Inevitably, every person, the first question we were asked is 'How do I
lock down a page?' or 'How do I lock down a page so that just my five
colleagues can access that?'
"We said 'Go somewhere else,'" Dennehy said. "Go send another email."
"Because this is different and it's going to undercut the power of these
tools if we start introducing locks into a culture that's already
somewhat risk averse," he explained.
Dennehy said Intellipedia was now averaging about 4,000 edits a day.
Calvin Andrus, a CIA innovation officer and 26-year veteran of the
agency, told the gathering that the collaborative and immediate nature
of a wiki made it a powerful tool in an age with a need for instant
communications.
"The wiki is a bunch of people writing in a collective way and it can
change and adapt very quickly to the news," Andrus said. "You don't have
to take yesterday's news and publish it tomorrow."
He recalled that because of the slow nature of communications, back then
the Battle of New Orleans between British and American forces was fought
in January 1815 although a peace treaty had been signed weeks earlier.
"In Iraq we've had an example where we learned, or we had some
intelligence, that there were some bad guys in a restaurant and 15
minutes later bombs were dropping," he said.
"We're in a world where the number of policy decisions made per unit of
time is increasing exponentially," he said.
China Defends Web-Filtering Software Requirement
China on Tuesday defended a new requirement that personal computers sold
in the country carry a software that filters online content, saying the
program is targeted at preventing the spread of pornography and other
"unhealthy" content.
The Ministry of Industry and Information Technology posted on its Web
site Tuesday a notice to all PC makers that they will be required to
pre-load the "Green Dam-Youth Escort" filtering software on units to be
sold in China as of July 1, including imported PCs.
The move has been met with criticism by at least one U.S.-based industry
trade group, which denounced China's efforts "to build censorship
capabilities right into the hardware."
Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang defended the government's
administration of the Internet, saying it was in accordance with the law
and that the software "is aimed at blocking and filtering some unhealthy
content, including pornography and violence."
China, which has the world's largest population of Internet users at
more than 250 million, also has one of the world's tightest controls
over the Internet.
Beijing routinely blocks political sites, especially ones it considers
socially destabilizing such as sites that challenge the ruling Communist
Party, promote democratic reform or advocate independence for Tibet.
The government also bans Internet pornography and this year launched a
nationwide crackdown that led to the closing of more than 1,900 Web
sites. Web sites including Google and Baidu, China's most popular search
engine, also have been criticized for linking to suspect sites.
"If you have a child, or if you're expecting a child, I think you could
understand the concerns of parents about the unhealthy contents on the
Internet," Qin said at a regular briefing.
The IT ministry's notice to computer makers said the "Green Dam" program
would either be installed on the hard drive or enclosed on a compact
disc. The notice said PC makers would be required to tell authorities
how many PCs they have shipped with the software, which is made by a
Chinese developer under contract with the government.
"Blocking access to pornography sounds like an acceptable goal," said
Washington-based Computer & Communications Industry Association's
president, Ed Black. "But the problem is that it's all too easy to use
the same technology to expand the censorship."
Although porn sites are initially targeted, the program could be used to
block other Web sites, too, including those based on keywords rather
than specific Web addresses, although its developer said users could
disable blocking of any site on the list or even uninstall the software
completely.
Global PC Makers Vying for "Green" Crown
Personal computer makers are increasingly prioritizing "green"
strategies, creating a pivotal point of competition for customers that
are becoming more attuned to their financial - and societal - benefits.
Analysts say going green has become a business plan unto itself for the
industry's heavyweights: a way to stand apart from rivals, win over a
growing segment of environmentally conscious consumers, and shore up
branding worldwide.
The three major U.S. computer vendors - Hewlett-Packard Co, Dell Inc,
and Apple Inc - argue that customers glean real benefits, for example
lower power consumption in green-certified display screens.
"It's really a green arms race, in which they're trying to one up each
other," said John Spooner, an analyst with Technology Business Research.
"The good news is they're all working in this direction and that's going
to benefit themselves, their customers and the environment."
Analysts point to certain efforts - such as Dell's recycling program,
Apple's moves to remove toxic raw materials, and HP's actions around
packaging - as areas of success.
But the IT industry still accounts for an estimated 2 percent of global
emissions of greenhouse gas carbon dioxide.
Consumers might have trouble picking out just who among the PC makers
are making the right moves: Dell says it aims to become the "greenest
technology company on Earth"; Apple lays claims to the "greenest family
of notebooks"; and HP stresses it has a long tradition of
environmentalism as well as the market size to effect change.
TBR recently ranked Dell No. 1 out of 40 technology companies on
corporate sustainability. But a recent Greenpeace report ranked Apple
best among the major PC makers.
While there are differences between the three in areas such as
materials, PC power usage and recycling and packaging, analysts and
environmental groups say, the green agenda is profiting from the
competition between them.
Campaigns by interest groups like Greenpeace to praise or tweak PC
makers have been particularly effective.
"Companies are realizing that consumers do use these environmental
considerations as tiebreakers. It does help differentiate their
products," Forrester's Sally Cohen said.
Around 70 percent of companies surveyed in a recent report by Forrester
Research cited product differentiation - the desire to stand out - as
a business driver for their environmental strategies.
"It has struck a chord with consumers, businesses, stakeholders and
NGOs," said Eric Lowitt, a research fellow at Accenture.
In interviews, Dell and HP - while each asserting leadership -
downplayed talk of competition. They pointed out that any good
sustainability strategy must be comprehensive, and span the company,
right down to its supply chain.
Some analysts say what may be more important than companies' actual
green initiatives - often highly technical - is their ability to
communicate them to the market.
Tod Arbogast, Dell's director of sustainable business, said there is
actually some collaboration around green initiatives.
"I don't think we've reached the tipping point yet, I think we'll
continue as an industry to innovate, challenge one another to go
further. faster on these efforts," he said.
Bonnie Nixon, HP's director of sustainability, said green practices
should be integrated throughout the company.
HP's "commitment has really been there, certainly through the 90's and
the fact that society is really focusing on green right now is great.
We're in an industry that can truly demonstrate" environmental
leadership, she said.
20 Years Ago Today: Birth of the Dot-Com Era
It doesn't seem like it, but 20 years ago today, the dot-com era was
born. On June 8, 1989, Brad Templeton, started Clarinet.com, an online
newspaper business that many consider to be the company that started it all.
"ClariNet was the first company created to use the internet as its
platform for business, and as such this event has a claim at being the
birth of the 'dot-com' concept which so affected the world in the two
intervening decades.," said Templeton, who for many years has been
president and chairman of the Electronic Frontier Foundation.
His electronic newspaper, which consisted of wire service stories and
other content, was delivered using the USENET protocol, there being no
HTTP until inventor Tim Berners-Lee launched it in late 1990.
"In those days, the Internet consisted of regional networks, who were
mostly non-profit cooperatives, and the government funded 'NSFNet'
backbone which linked them up," writes Templeton, a friend of many
years' standing.
"That backbone had a no-commercial-use policy, but I found a way around
it. In addition, a nascent commercial internet was arising with
companies like UUNet and PSINet, and the seeds of Internet-based
business were growing. There was no web, of course," Templeton writes in
a history of ClariNet published for the anniversary.
"The internet's community lived in e-Mail and USENET. Those, and FTP
file transfer, were the means of publishing. When Tim Berners-Lee would
coin the term 'the web' a few years later, he would call all these the
web, and HTML/HTTP a new addition and glue connecting them."
Brad is quick to point out that other companies can make similar claims
from around the same time, but I was for many years a ClariNet user and
it was the first "for pay" Internet content provider that I ran into.
This isn't a boom-and-bust story, but one man's engaging account of the
early days of the medium you are using right now to read this. Brad is
one of the pioneers and, like him, I remember those days-when an
Internet connection was hard to come by-with great fondness.
=~=~=~=
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