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Atari Online News, Etc. Volume 16 Issue 17
Volume 16, Issue 17 Atari Online News, Etc. April 25, 2014
Published and Copyright (c) 1999 - 2014
All Rights Reserved
Atari Online News, Etc.
A-ONE Online Magazine
Dana P. Jacobson, Publisher/Managing Editor
Joseph Mirando, Managing Editor
Rob Mahlert, Associate Editor
Atari Online News, Etc. Staff
Dana P. Jacobson -- Editor
Joe Mirando -- "People Are Talking"
Michael Burkley -- "Unabashed Atariophile"
Albert Dayes -- "CC: Classic Chips"
Rob Mahlert -- Web site
Thomas J. Andrews -- "Keeper of the Flame"
With Contributions by:
Fred Horvat
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=~=~=~=
A-ONE #1617 04/25/14
~ Russia's VK CEO Flees! ~ People Are Talking! ~ State of the Hack!
~ Brazil Passes Privacy! ~ 12 Spammiest Countries! ~ Game Boy Turns 25!
~ Net Neutrality FlipFlop ~ OpenOffice Milestone! ~ Ad-free Bing Ploy?
~ Apple OS, Try Before Out ~ Apple Fixes Serious Bug ~ Google Glass Fiasco!
-* Putin: Internet Is CIA Project! *-
-* Diggers Ready To Unearth Atari's ET! *-
-* What You Don't Know About Heartbleed, Scary *-
=~=~=~=
->From the Editor's Keyboard "Saying it like it is!"
""""""""""""""""""""""""""
This weekend, fans of Atari folklore will finally find out the answer
to one of the iconic game company's most famous urban legend - did
Atari bury a ton of Atari 2600 E.T. game cartridges in a New Mexico
landfill? The story has been talked about for decades. but the question
has gone unanswered, until now.
This weekend, that same rumored landfill will be dug up to determine
whether or not the rumors are true. Personally, I hope that the dig
is successful. And, I hope, perhaps there will be other "historical"
discoveries that get unearthed.
I'm anticipating that next week's issue will contain the answers to
these rumors. If you're as curious as I am, you'll be looking forward
to reading the news of the dig!
Until next time...
=~=~=~=
->In This Week's Gaming Section - Happy 25th Birthday, Game Boy!
""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" 2k Games Announces Temporary Shutdown!
Diggers Ready To Unearth Ataris E.T.!
And more!
=~=~=~=
->A-ONE's Game Console Industry News - The Latest Gaming News!
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Happy 25th Birthday, Game Boy!
Game Boy, youre a Game Man now.
Nintendos trailblazing Game Boy marks its 25th anniversary on Monday
with the portable devices legacy living on in cutting-edge smartphone
games and among legions of nostalgic fans.
The Japanese firm released its 8-bit Game Boy on April 21, 1989 the
same year Soviet troops pulled out of Afghanistan, the Chinese army
violently cracked down on protesters in Tiananmen Square, and the Berlin
Wall fell.
Billed as a handy game machine, few knew it would turn the
console-based industry on its head, starting a revolution that did for
portable gaming what Sonys Walkman had done for mobile music.
It also helped turn Super Mario Bros. and Donkey Kong into global
franchises, allowing gamers to change their favorite games on the go just
by inserting small cartridges into the device.
Kyoto-based Nintendo, which started life as a games and card maker that
morphed into a global videogame giant, did not invent portable gaming.
But Game Boys discount price and popular software blew away the
competition at the time and pushed mobile gaming into the mainstream.
At one point, portable gaming was synonymous with the Game Boy, said
Serkan Toto, a Tokyo-based games industry consultant. It laid the
foundation for what we call portable gaming today, regardless of whether
it is console or smartphone games, because the basic concept is the
same. Thats the legacy of Game Boy.
Mobility was crucial, remembers one Japanese man, if he wanted to escape
his parents wrath.
With a standing console, I needed to play in the living room where my
parents were watching television they got angry at me for playing it
all the time, the man, who did not wish to give his name, told AFP as
he browsed inside Super Potato, a Tokyo store dedicated to retro gaming
gadgets.
The device also allowed gamers to connect through a link cable, setting
off the beginnings of online gaming networks that now number in the
millions of players.
It made gaming portable, but whats great was it was built on the
concept of networking, enabling users to connect and battle each other,
said Hirokazu Hamamura, managing director at games research firm and
magazine publisher Kadokawa Corp. in Tokyo.
A quarter century later, the companys financial fortunes have suffered.
Nintendo has no commemorative events planned for the Game Boy, which
ironically foreshadowed the creation of portable smartphone and tablet
computer games that have offered up stiff competition to stationary
consoles such as Nintendos Wii, the Sony PlayStation and Microsofts
Xbox.
The Game Boy was discontinued years ago. But in its heyday, Nintendo
sold almost 119 million original Game Boy consoles and shifted another
81.5 million units of the next-generation Game Boy Advance series,
which was launched in 2001.
The original devices red buttons and cross-shaped directional pads may
look clunky these days, but they evoke a sense of nostalgia for many
fans, including Spaniard Jesus Mera, who was 12 years old when he began
playing with his Game Boy Color.
It was a revolution you could play video games anywhere, said the
26-year-old Madrid native during a visit to Tokyo.
Mera was delighted to spot the same type of Game Boy he used to play for
hours on end in the gaming store in Tokyos bustling Akihabara
electronics district.
He acknowledged that the small screen and games seem outdated, but in
the past what we had was enough.
Nowadays we have so many possibilities, Mera said.
That isnt necessarily a good thing for people like 21-year-old student
Lin Yuki, who sometimes struggles with todays hyper-fast world of 3D
offerings where movement is limitless and tricky to master.
Recent games have become so complicated that you can be totally lost on
what youre supposed to be doing, he said, admitting he sometimes feels
nostalgic for simple games with black dots and horizontal scrolls.
2k Games Announces Temporary Shutdown of 'Borderlands' and 'Civilizations'
2K Games announced Tuesday, April 22, that online services for
"Borderlands" and "Civilizations" will be temporarily unavailable to make
way for a seamless transition into the Steamworks platform.
With GameSpy's servers set for permanent shutdown on May 31, 2K Games'
biggest franchises are slated for transfer to the Steamworks servers. The
company, however, did not specify a timetable for the transition.
The temporary downtime will affect the original "Borderlands,"
"Civilization 3" and "Civilization 4", along with the all expansions of
the Sid Meier titles. 2K Games is also assessing the feasibility of
migrating "Civilization Revolution" and "Borderlands" PS3 version to
other servers.
"During the transition, players will experience interruption of several
features, including online play, matchmaking and voice over Internet
protocol (VoIP)," the company said in a statement posted on the 2K Games
blog.
It added that offline play will not be affected by the transition.
While "Borderlands" and "Civilizations" will not lose functionality with
GameSpy closing down, 2K Games announced that a handful of its legacy
games for PC will be going with Game Spy, including "Rune," "Close Combat
First to Fight" and "Stronghold 2."
It will also discontinue online services for "NHL 2K10" for Wii and "Sid
Meier's Civilization Revolution" for Nintendo DS.
The full list of affected titles can be viewed on the 2K Games website.
Other game developers, including Electronic Arts, Activision, Epic Games,
Gearbox and Bohemia Interactive have also announced that many of their
games will survive the GameSpy shutdown.
Crytek, however, said that Crysis and Crysis 2 multiplayer mode will no
longer be available starting May 31.
"The conclusion of online multiplayer support comes as a result of
GameSpy Technology shutting down all their hosting services," said the
company in a statement on its official forum.
"GameSpy have been providing multiplayer functionality for Crysis and
Crysis 2 since they launched. The single-player campaigns in both games
are unaffected by this transition, and the multiplayer mode in the Xbox
360 and PlayStation 3 versions of Crysis 2 remain playable," Crytek
added.
GameSpy is a matchmaking middleware for online games. Around 800 game
studios have hosted their titles on GameSpy since it was launched in
1996. In 2000, IGN acquired GameSpy, whose new owner decided to
discontinue all secondary websites including the newly acquired company.
"Effective May 31st, 2014, GameSpy will cease providing all hosted
services for all games still using GameSpy. If you have any questions
about how this impacts your favourite title, please contact the game's
publisher for more information. Thanks for a great ride!" reads a
statement on the GameSpy website.
GameStop Corp. Seeking Future Growth Beyond Video Games
Paul Raines, chief executive officer of GameStop Corp., indicated that
the largest multichannel video game and entertainment software retailer
worldwide is seeking other future growth opportunities beyond video
games.
The management of GameStop Corp. discussed the further evolution of the
company, which was referred to as GameStop 3.0, during the 2014
Investor Day held at Dallas, Texas on Tuesday, April 21.
According to Raines, video games are a huge business for GameStop Corp.,
and he noted that the growth of the segment will be driven by the Xbox
One from Microsoft Corporations, PlayStation 4 from Sony Corporation
and the Wii U from Nintendo Co., Ltd.
He also emphasized that the company is focusing its attention on larger
markets for future growth aside from physical and digital games,
including the e-commerce market for non-gaming tech devices, the Apple
Inc. ecosystem and the wireless market.
Raines emphasized that GameStop Corp. has already made investments in the
Apple Inc. ecosystem. The video games and entertainment software retailer
is currently buying, selling and accepting trade-ins for different iOS
devices at its stores.
In addition, Raines said GameStop also owns Simply Mac, a sales and
service specialist for all Apple products including Mac computers,
iPhone, iPad, iPod, and Apple TV, etc., and the company is planning to
expand the Simply Mac brand with the support of Apple Inc.
Furthermore, Raines said, the opportunities for GameStop Corp. in the
wireless market are just starting. According to him, the market for
connected devices is expected to grow from $8 billion to $50 billion
over the next five years.
Spring Mobile, a wireless solutions retailer, is a wholly-owned
subsidiary of GameStop Corp., and it also operates Cricket Wireless
stores, which were recently acquired by AT&T Inc. GameStop also has an
exclusive distribution deal with AT&T Inc. and plans to expand with up
to 250 new Spring Mobile stores.
Raines also pointed out that the management of GameStop Corp. are
students of of extraordinary business transformation stories.
=~=~=~=
->A-ONE Gaming Online - Online Users Growl & Purr!
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Atari Landfill in New Mexico To Be Dug Up on Saturday; Ars Will Be on Scene
The site in Alamogordo, New Mexico, where Atari is rumored to have buried
some 3.5 million copies of the video game cartridge E.T. the
Extra-Terrestrial is set to be dug up this Saturday.
Never wanting to miss an excavation, we've packed our bags, cashed in our
frequent flyer miles, and booked our budget motel room to be on the scene
when whatever is down there is dredged upbe it hunks of plastic housing
and cartridge chips or distilled evil sent to us by a superior alien race
and hidden by the ghost warriors employed by Atari, which was really a
front for a supernatural crime-fighting ring all along.
Fuel Entertainment Studios secured the rights to dig up the landfill with
the help of local garbage contractor Joe Lewandowski, who told a TV news
station that he witnessed the Atari dump in question back in 1983. Fuel
then asked Microsoft's Xbox Entertainment Studios to help it make a
documentary on Atari, which will be directed by Simon Chinn and produced
by Jonathan Chinn.
The city of Alamogordo just recently gave the OK for the dig to proceed.
So what's the likelihood that we'll find something down there once the
cement poured over the landfill has been removed and the pit is dug up?
Several prominent Atari employees have denied that millions of E.T. games
were buried at Alamogordo, but it seems certain that anywhere from nine
to 20 trucks dumped parts from an Atari factory in nearby El Paso,
Texas, into the New Mexico landfill in 1983. Still, whether those parts
are intact cartridges or just cruft from a factory in transition is a
mystery until we see them.
This weekend, former Atari employee and E.T. programmer Howard Scott
Warshaw will be on the scene, along with a number of Hollywood-types who
will be filming the dig and a team of archaeologists who will sift
through whatever the dig contractors find down there. Fans are invited to
come down as well, so if you live in the area, drop by and say hi!
Diggers Ready To Unearth Ataris E.T. Games
Hidden for three decades in a landfill deep in the New Mexico desert lie
thousands of Atari cartridges from what is widely believed to be worst
video game ever made or so the urban legend goes.
A group of filmmakers hopes to get to the bottom of the mystery Saturday
by digging up the concrete-covered landfill in search of up to a million
discarded copies of E.T. The Extraterrestrial that the games maker
wanted to hide forever. The game and its contribution to the demise of
Atari have been the source of fascination for video game enthusiasts for
30 years, and the search for the cartridges will be featured in an
upcoming documentary about the biggest video game company of the early
80s.
Bottom line, this is just trash. But there is a legend in it, we want to
unlock that legend, that mystery, a spokeswoman for the public relations
firm working on behalf of Xbox Entertainment Studios, one of the companies
developing the film. The documentary is expected to be released later this
year on Microsofts Xbox game consoles.
The event is expected to draw hundreds of video game enthusiasts, pop
culture fans and self-described geeks to Alamogordo, a small town in
southeastern New Mexico that is home to an Air Force base and White Sands
National Monument. A pre-dig party is planned for Friday night with Atari
games and free T-shirts for the first 250 people at the site.
Whether - and most importantly, why - Atari decided to bury thousands or
millions of copies of the failed game is part of the urban legend and
much speculation on Internet blog posts and forums.
Kristen Keller, a spokeswoman at Atari, said nobody here has any idea
what thats about. The company has no corporate knowledge about the
Alamogordo burial. Atari has changed hands many times over the years, and
Keller said, Were just watching like everybody else. Atari currently
manages about 200 classic titles such as Centipede and Asteroids. It was
sold to a French company by Hasbro in 2001.
A New York Times article from Sept. 28, 1983, says 14 truckloads of
discarded game cartridges and computer equipment were dumped on the site.
An Atari spokesman quoted in the story said the games came from its plant
in El Paso, Texas, some 80 miles south of Alamogordo.
Local news reports from the time said that the landfill employees were
throwing cartridges there and running a bulldozer over them before
covering them with dirt and trash.
The city of Alamogordo agreed to give the documentarians 250 cartridges
or 10 percent of the cartridges found, whichever is greater, according to
local media reports.
The E.T. game is among the factors blamed for the decline of Atari and
the collapse in the U.S. of a multi-million dollar video game industry
that didnt bounce back for several years.
Tina Amini, deputy editor at gaming website Kotaku, says the game tanked
because it was practically broken. A recurring flaw, she said, was that
the character of the game, the beloved extraterrestrial, would fall into
traps that were almost impossible to escape and would appear constantly
and unpredictably.
The company produced millions of cartridges and although sales were not
initially bad, the frustrating gameplay prompted an immense amount of
returns. They had produced so many cartridges that were unsold that even
if the game was insanely successful I doubt theyd be able to keep up,
Amini says.
Joe Lewandowski, who became manager of the 300-acre landfill a few months
after the cartridge dump and has been a consultant for the documentarians,
told The Associated Press that they used old photographs and dug
exploratory wells to find the actual burial site. A spokeswoman for Xbox
said they*ve dug to remove the upper layers of trash in preparation for
Saturdays dig.
Lewandowski says he remembers how the cartridge dump was a monstrous
fiasco for Atari, at least from the perspective of a small desert town.
The company, he says, brought truckloads from El Paso, where at the time
scavenging was allowed in the citys landfills. Here, they didnt allow
scavenging. It was a small landfill, it had a guard.
The guard, however, was either away or unable to stop scores of teenagers
from rummaging through the Atari waste and showing up in town trying to
sell the discarded products and equipment from the backs of pickup
trucks, Lewandowski, said. Thats when they decided to pour concrete
over.
The incidents following the burial remained as part of Alamogordos local
folklore, he said. For him E.T. the game did not stir any other
memories than an awful game he once bought for his kid.
I was busy merging two garbage companies together, he said. I didnt
have time for that.
Museum Acquires 'Virtually Complete' Source Code from Atari's Arcade Heyday
Acquiring the source code to virtually every coin-op game Atari made when
it dominated the early 1980s arcade scene Asteroids, Missile Command,
Centipede would seem to be enough of a coup. Yet for Jeremy Saucier,
the most intimate contact with that era comes in the thousands and
thousands of pages of paperwork, much of it routine.
Test-market reports. Focus group results. Written intel on what someone
at Atari, for example, thought of Williams' Joust, how that was going to
do as a competitor, and what Atari should do in reply.
"You see how this critical company worked at a critical time," Jeremy
Saucier, assistant director of the International Center for the History
of Electronic Games (ICHEG), told Polygon, "and how they saw the
industry."
ICHEG and its home, the Strong National Museum of Play, today announced
the acquisition of what is practically the corporate archive for Atari
Games' coin-operated division: Twenty-two palettes' worth of material,
bought some 15 years ago by a collector in California, and trucked to
Rochester, N.Y.
The obvious jewels including the code and original cabinet silkscreens
for a test game that only produced two units will likely go on display
in some form. The bulk of what was acquired may have little impact as an
exhibition but should provide critical context to researchers studying
the advent of video games in the 1970s and 1980s.
The fact a company hung on to these kinds of workaday documents, and
someone saw fit to buy it all up as an historical record, is a lucky
break for researchers, said Jon-Paul Dyson, ICHEG's director and the vice
president for exhibits at The Strong.
"The video game industry has always moved so fast, it's always
forward-looking 'What is the next game? What do we do for the next
quarter?'" Dyson said. "But I think Atari, because it is the company that
more or less founded the industry, it had this interest, in how it
operated, in this preservation of its legacy."
"All of this stuff was bought up when Midway Games, after acquiring Atari
Games (the coin-op division spun off from the main company after the
mid-1980s home console crash) shut it down in 2003. A man named Scott
Evans, who worked in electronics recycling and salvaging, bought the
material from a liquidation sale. "He recognized the importance of it all
when he saw people were tossing out this stuff," Saucier said.
Evans kept the material in storage for years. He'd made donations to ICHEG
before, and that relationship led to a long conversation that culminated
with today's donation.
One of the specimens included is Maze Invaders, an unreleased Atari
coin-op game from 1981 heavily inspired by Namco's Pac-Man and Stern
Electronics' Berzerk. Ed Logg, the programmer of Asteroids and, later,
Gauntlet, was assigned to build it. "They put it on a test program and it
didn't do well," Dyson said. "It only produced a couple of units. You can
see how it took tons of games to get to an Asteroids, and how one of the
most successful designers of the 20th century, even he had his failures."
The code is stored on 8-inch floppy disks when floppy really meant
floppy. Saucier and Dyson said they are confident that they will have "a
high rate of success" recovering that code to more stable media. "Some of
it will be a challenge to get at," Saucier said, "but I know the collector
[Evans] has read some of the discs."
Just as critical to the understanding of these games' development are the
numerous binders charting their development, Saucier said. The one for
Asteroids, for example, begins with Logg's handwritten notes on the
control setup (Asteroids was a button-only game) and the sound effects.
"These binders include production schedules, what will be done at what
time, cost estimates," Saucier said.
It's like 'if we were able to get Gutenberg's business records, and tell
how he was able to create the printing press.'
"It may be like, if we were able to get Gutenberg's business records, and
tell completely how he was able to create the printing press," Dyson
explained. "Coin-op is what launched the video game industry, and it
still has reverberations to this day."
Other materials acquired include 2,800 videos on a number of formats of
the day Betamax and VHS, for example showing things from focus group
reactions, to game demonstrations, Atari's participation in industry
expos, and even office parties.
"I don't know what those will look like," joked Saucier, "but we'll let
you know."
Saucier said even with many of the specimens identified and their
importance well known, it will take some time to catalog everything and
curate an exhibit for the public. Much, much more will be held in an
archive for researchers to access.
The Strong recently acquired the games collection and business records of
Broderbund Software, the publisher of Myst and the original publisher of
Prince of Persia. And last year, it exhibited "Atari By Design," which
showcased concept documents of several Atari games next to playable
versions. Some 50 Atari cabinets already are in The Strong's collection
of arcade pinball and video games.
So it's not necessarily the games, but maybe something more mundane,
that makes this acquisition so valuable.
"It's the kind of thing that is very ephemeral," Saucier said. "It's hard
to find this sort of thing in an archive. The things you see here are
actual field reports from field tests. There are reports coming back,
saying how Asteroids did when it was on its first field tests. There are
reports where Atari representatives went to a game show, and they're
writing a report on what they think of Joust, and what they think it's
going to do.
"It's a body of information not just about Atari, but about the industry
as well."
=~=~=~=
A-ONE's Headline News
The Latest in Computer Technology News
Compiled by: Dana P. Jacobson
What You Don't Know About Heartbleed Should Scare You
Eighteen days ago, the world first learned of the Heartbleed bug, a flaw
in open-source software code commonly used to protect information held
behind passwords online.
It's a big, big problem. The initial media frenzy rightly focused on the
implications for mass-market consumer tools, such as Gmail, Facebook,
Twitter and LinkedIn, but it's caused real headaches in medium and large
business enterprises as well.
We're all paying a lot less attention to that part, but of course it's
more complicated and arguably more dangerous, if any given company's
security is seriously compromised. So now that the initial buzz has died
down, I spoke with Fairfield, Conn.-based enterprise IT consultant Tim
Reed about what business is doing or not doing about Heartbleed.
Fundamentally, do executives really understand the problem?
No, executives do not understand the problem, nor do they understand the
ramifications of the issue. In the rush to introduce new capabilities and
drive more business, most organizations have not been paying attention to
the risks of third-party tools, open source code or increased areas of
exposure. Heartbleed is a massive security bug that has been found in
OpenSSL, which is open source code. The OpenSSL code is a communication
protocol that contains secure keys, which encrypt the data flowing
between companies. This virus has been able to actively ping a service
and obtain active data. Today, the OpenSSL code is widely used in web
browsing, email, VOIP and instant messaging.
Entrepreneurism thrives, in part, because third-party applications and
open source code makes it cheap. Do you expect any real reconsideration
of the trade-offs?
Yes, my view is that most organizations have not had a legitimate
discussion about the trade-offs and the impact to their business models.
In most cases, the discussion has been "after the fact" or the result of
a production issue that has impacted business delivery.
The reality is that today's IT market place contains a number of
game-changing capabilities, via open source code, third-party
applications and other services that internal IT organizations cannot
build or replicate on their own. To effectively use the market place
and make it a competitive advantage, organizations have to improve
their approaches, use IT best practices to pro-actively address service
delivery, security, risk and exposure.
What are clients demanding of you in light of the problem? Business
leadership is demanding to understand the current exposure and what is it
doing to their business. Business leadership is rapidly changing its view
on IT security and privacy, demanding to understand the current exposure
and redefine what should be done going forward. At the same time,
technology leadership is attempting to explain how OpenSSL contained a
virus for over two years.
What needs to happen right now to respond to Heartbleed? What should
happen in the next 6 weeks?
Right now, the focus needs to on remediating the current exposure and
imbedding best practices to pro-actively address the risk and limit
exposure. Leadership should be focusing on:
Expose the use of open source code. Organizations need to understand where
open source is being used, how it is embedded throughout current
applications, internal development and third-party services. Few companies
have an accurate view of what has been used and its current state. New
views of the extended enterprise via IT must be created and monitored.
Reset internal IT and third-party service requirements. In most cases,
contractual security requirements are not accurate nor setup to address
this exposure. Contractual language, and operating requirements should be
examined, defined and reset to clarify the roles and responsibilities of
vendors and third-party applications.
Strengthen the focus on risk. In addition to rapidly communicating the
need to remediate the current issue, and take action (e.g., strengthen
passwords) , there is a ton of work to be done to strengthen the focus
on risk and compliance.
F.C.C., in Net Neutrality Turnaround, Plans To Allow Fast Lane
The Federal Communications Commission will propose new rules that allow
Internet service providers to offer a faster lane through which to send
video and other content to consumers, as long as a content company is
willing to pay for it, according to people briefed on the proposals.
The proposed rules are a complete turnaround for the F.C.C. on the subject
of so-called net neutrality, the principle that Internet users should have
equal ability to see any content they choose, and that no content
providers should be discriminated against in providing their offerings to
consumers.
The F.C.C.'s previous rules governing net neutrality were thrown out by a
federal appeals court this year. The court said those rules had
essentially treated Internet service providers as public utilities, which
violated a previous F.C.C. ruling that Internet links were not to be
governed by the same strict regulation as telephone or electric service.
The new rules, according to the people briefed on them, will allow a
company like Comcast or Verizon to negotiate separately with each content
company like Netflix, Amazon, Disney or Google and charge different
companies different amounts for priority service.
That, of course, could increase costs for content companies, which would
then have an incentive to pass on those costs to consumers as part of
their subscription prices.
Proponents of net neutrality have feared that such a framework would
empower large, wealthy companies and prevent small start-ups, which might
otherwise be the next Twitter or Facebook, for example, from gaining any
traction in the market.
The F.C.C. plans were first reported online Wednesday by The Wall Street
Journal.
The new proposals, drafted by the F.C.C.'s chairman, Tom Wheeler, and his
staff, will be circulated to the other four commissioners beginning
Thursday, an F.C.C. spokeswoman said. The details can be amended by
consensus in order to attract support from a majority of the
commissioners. The commission will then vote on a final proposal at its
May 15 meeting.
FCC To Lay Out New 'Net Neutrality' Rules
The Federal Communications Commission is set to propose on Thursday a new
set of rules governing Internet access, according to The Wall Street
Journal.
The new rules would prevent Internet service providers from blocking or
disrupting traffic to specific Web sites, but they would also let
companies pay for special access directly to customers, allowing for
superior service.
The proposal could irk supporters of Net Neutrality, who believe that all
access to the Internet should be equal, and that charging for special
access benefits larger companies over smaller ones.
The Journal said the deals would have to be struck on "commercially
reasonable" terms for all parties, noting that the terms would be decided
by the FCC on a case-by-case basis.
Such a plan would allow media-streaming sites such as Netflix or sports
Web site ESPN to pay extra to ensure that their traffic would get to
customers in a speedy, unobstructed manner. Any agreement would affect
traffic only at the last part of the network, which directly touches the
customer. Netflix, for instance, struck a deal with Comcast for better
access in the interchange part of the network that isn't affected by Net
Neutrality rules.
An FCC spokesman wasn't immediately available for comment.
The FCC was widely expected to propose new rules after a federal appeals
court threw out FCC's Open Internet rules in a case filed by Verizon.
But in doing so, the court also sided with the FCC in reaffirming its
ability to regulate broadband services.
Rather than go through the courts again, FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler said
the commission would take a different path toward the open Internet.
The FCC has decided not to reclassify broadband as a public utility,
which would enable a new set of more rigorous rules, the Journal said.
Proposed US Rules Leave Open Internet Fast Lanes
Internet fast lanes that defy the ideal of "net neutrality" would be
allowed under rules proposed by US regulators eager to keep broadband
service providers from abusing their power.
The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) on Thursday laid out a
proposal to make sure Internet service providers don't discriminate when
it comes to data coursing through online pipes.
The rules wouldn't prevent Internet service providers (ISPs) from letting
technology titans such as Netflix or Google pay for faster data speeds
but would require competing traffic move at "reasonable" speeds.
The "open Internet notice of proposed rule making" sent from FCC chief
Tom Wheeler to the full commission was pounced on by critics as a
betrayal of the goal of keeping the Internet "neutral" by preventing some
online traffic from getting priority over other content.
"FCC proposed rules create incentives for discrimination," read a Twitter
post by Stacey DePolo. "Fight back. Demand real net neutrality."
The post linked to an online petition urging Wheeler to scrap the
proposed rules in favor of a non-discrimination stance that involves
reclassifying broadband providers as telecommunications services subject
to FCC authority.
The FCC was adamant that it remains committed to net neutrality and is
trying to create rules that can withstand legal scrutiny.
Two prior attempts, the most recent in 2010, by the FCC to hold broadband
service providers to standards were stymied by US District Court
decisions that such moves were outside the agency's scope of authority.
Wheeler seized on part of the most recent court decision that suggests
the FCC has power to take action if ISPs act in "commercially
unreasonable" ways.
The proposed rules "follow the roadmap established by the court as to how
to enforce rules of the road that protect an open Internet," Wheeler said
in a blog post.
"To be very direct, the proposal would establish that behavior harmful to
consumers or competition by limiting the openness of the Internet will
not be permitted," the FCC chairman maintained.
Lobbying Efforts Intensify After F.C.C. Tries 3rd Time on Net Neutrality
In the nine weeks since the Federal Communications Commission said it
would try, for a third time, to write new rules to secure an open
Internet, at least 69 companies, interest groups and trade associations
over one a day have met with or otherwise lobbied commission
officials on what the rules should specify.
That effort does not count the more than 10,000 comments that
individuals have submitted to the F.C.C.
Now the flood of lobbying efforts is likely to increase after the
disclosure Wednesday evening that the F.C.C. would soon release
preliminary rules allowing for the creation of special, faster lanes for
online content to flow to consumers for content providers willing to
pay for it.
The F.C.C. had previously warned against those types of deals, saying they
could unfairly discriminate against companies that could not or were not
willing to pay. But after a federal appeals court struck down, for a
second time, the commissions earlier regulations, the F.C.C. is trying
again.
Reaction was swift to the proposed new rules, as consumer groups accused
the commission of betraying its promise to maintain net neutrality, or
equal treatment for both providers to and users of the Internet. That
prompted an immediate rebuttal from the F.C.C. chairman, Tom Wheeler, who
said late Wednesday that speculation that the commission was gutting the
open Internet rule was flat out wrong.
The jockeying continued on Thursday. Verizon, which brought the court
challenge that prompted the last set of open Internet rules to be struck
down in January, issued a statement warning against unnecessary and
harmful new rules. Consumer advocates reiterated their opposition.
Mr. Wheeler stepped up his defense of the commissions plans. The
proposal would establish that behavior harmful to consumers or
competition by limiting the openness of the Internet will not be
permitted, he wrote in a post on the F.C.C.'s blog.
The sparring will be closely watched by every company that depends, even
peripherally, on the Internet which is to say, just about every
company. Businesses that use Internet connections to provide consumer
services obvious ones like Google and Netflix but also home alarm
system providers, medical equipment companies and even makers of washers
and dryers will thrive or fail based on how much it costs them to
maintain easy online contact with households and businesses.
As such, the lobbying ahead of the release of the proposed new rules on
May 15 is certain to be intense. As recently as Tuesday, officials from
the National Cable and Telecommunications Association, which represents
cable and broadband companies and is led by Michael K. Powell, a former
F.C.C. chairman, met with commission staff members to discuss the pending
proposals.
For Internet service providers, video distributors, movie studios and
even medical companies, lobbying efforts will center on what it means for
a broadband provider to favor some content over another in a
commercially reasonable way the standard that the F.C.C. says will
determine whether a practice is acceptable.
The F.C.C. says its proposal will show that it is trying to accomplish
most, if not all, of the same goals that it pursued in its 2010 Open
Internet Order, which the appeals court struck down.
The court of appeals made it clear that the F.C.C. could stop harmful
conduct if it were found to not be commercially reasonable,' Mr.
Wheeler wrote in his post. The commission will propose rules that
establish a high bar for what is commercially reasonable, he said.
In addition, he wrote, the commission believes it has the authority
under Supreme Court precedent to identify behavior that is flatly
illegal.
For years, many advocates of a free Internet have said that information
should never have to pay a toll to ride on the web. But as traffic and
competition has increased, much of it from big video providers like
Netflix, the Internet has been becoming more congested and regulators
have struggled to catch up with new digital realities.
Brazil Passes Bill on Internet Privacy
Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff on Wednesday ratified a bill
guaranteeing Internet privacy and enshrining access to the Web during a
major conference in Sao Paulo on the future of Internet governance.
The legislation, which was passed by the Senate late Tuesday, puts limits
on the metadata that can be collected from Internet users in Brazil. It
also makes Internet service providers not liable for content published by
their users and requires them to comply with court orders to remove
offensive material.
Brazil has cast itself as a defender of Internet freedom following
revelations last year that Rousseff was the object of surveillance by the
U.S. National Security Agency. She cancelled a state visit to the United
States last October over the revelations, which came out of leaks by
former NSA analyst Edward Snowden and showed Brazil's state-run Petrobras
was also the object of American spying.
Rousseff had championed a measure requiring Internet companies to store
the data of Brazilian users inside the country, as a way of protecting
citizens from further U.S. spying, but clause was cut from the final bill
amid fears it would prove too challenging to implement.
Rousseff signed the bill into law early Wednesday ahead of her opening
remarks at the NETmundial conference in Sao Paulo. Representatives from
dozens of countries were in attendance, as were top Internet figures
including a Google vice president and the head of the U.S.-based
organization that coordinates the Internet naming system.
Rousseff praised Congress for passing the legislation, which she said
"guarantees the neutrality of the Web, which is fundamental to maintaining
the Internet's free and open nature."
"Our legislation can influence the worldwide debate aimed at finding a way
to guarantee real rights in a virtual world," Rousseff's official blog
quoted her as saying.
The blog also quoted Justice Minister Jose Eduardo Cardozo as hailing the
legislation as "historic" and a "victory for Brazilian society, for the
Brazilian government and for the Brazilian legislature."
"I believe that neutrality, privacy, freedom and the absence of
discrimination that the text guarantees are really going to put Brazil in
the vanguard, as a model for various other countries that are going to
want to recreate the same principles, the same condition that are
enshrined in our law," Cardozo was quoted as saying.
Russian Social Media CEO Quits, Flees Country
The founder of Russia's leading social media network a wunderkind often
described as Russia's Mark Zuckerberg has left his post as CEO and fled
the country as cronies of President Vladimir Putin have made steady
inroads into the company's ownership.
The slow-motion ouster of Pavel Durov from the network known as
VKontakte, or "In Contact," is the latest sign that independent media
outlets in Russia have become increasingly imperiled.
Although months in the making, the loss of Durov's leadership in
VKontakte means that the space for free speech on the Russian web could
shrink even further.
Users on VKontakte were even spreading jokes this week that the new
nickname for the "In Contact" website should be "In Censorship."
As one of his final acts of defiance, Durov posted online last week what
he said were documents from the security services, demanding personal
details from 39 Ukraine-linked groups on VKontakte, also known as VK.
Kremlin pressure on VK has been accompanied by increasing enforcement of
Russia's law against extremism, which took some prominent opposition and
pro-Ukraine sites off the web in March.
On Tuesday, the Russian parliament passed a law requiring social media
websites to keep their servers in Russia and save all information about
their users for at least half a year. The same law, which will go into
effect in August if signed by Putin, gave bloggers the same legal status
and responsibilities as media outlets, making them more vulnerable to
accusations of libel or extremism.
Since the protests began in Ukraine, Putin and much of Russian media have
amplified the patriotic rhetoric, proclaiming the need to secure Russia
from enemies both foreign and domestic. In a televised call-in show last
week, Putin equated those critical of Kremlin policy in Ukraine with
Bolshevik revolutionaries who rooted for Russia's defeat in World War I,
and discussions about the country's traitorous Fifth Column have become
the fare of state television.
VK, which largely resembles an older version of Facebook, attracts about
60 million users daily, primarily from countries in the former Soviet
Union, vastly outstripping Facebook's reach in the region. It played an
instrumental role in bringing hundreds of thousands of protesters into
the streets in late 2011 in the wake of widely manipulated parliamentary
elections, and it has played a part in drawing crowds to the Kiev protest
movement that helped oust Ukraine's pro-Russian president in February.
"There's been a trend that started with the protests of December 2011,
when the authorities started fearing the crowd and especially the online
crowd," said Anton Nossik, Russia's leading Internet entrepreneur. "The
pressure of censorship is mounting on Russian websites from lawmakers who
think that the Internet is their foe."
The 29-year-old Durov has cultivated a reputation as a rebel willing to
stand up to Kremlin pressure, ostentatiously refusing to shut down VK
groups linked to the Russian opposition movement or to give out personal
information on its leaders.
He also has become known for more eccentric stunts, like throwing paper
airplanes made of 5,000 ruble notes (about $140 each) out of his office
window, or posting a picture of his middle finger online after breaking
up a major deal with a pro-Kremlin investor.
Since opening in 2006, VK has thrived on the same devil-may-care
reputation as its founder. While much of the website's success was thanks
to Facebook's sluggish adaptation to the Russian market, VK cemented its
status as a Russian staple by hosting thousands of pirated video and music
files, which users can watch for free.
It didn't take long for VK to attract the attention of investors as well
as the government. In 2010, one major investor who was friendly with Durov
handed his stake in the company over to Mail.ru Group, a holding company
owned by Russia's richest man and Putin crony Alisher Usmanov.
That move was followed by a large sell-off by Durov's old allies in April
2013 to UCP, a company reportedly owned by Igor Sechin, the chief of
Russian oil giant Rosneft and a member of Putin's inner circle.
That left Durov himself, who only learned of the deal after it had been
signed, as the last remaining holdout in the company ownership. He stayed
on as CEO, but increasingly found himself in standoffs with its new
stakeholders.
"A shareholder war started," said Nikolai Kononov, who wrote the book
"Durov's Code" about VK. "It seems that Durov already understood at that
moment that he should sell his shares. But at the same time, he wanted to
preserve the project he built, as well as his reputation. Hence why it's
taken so long."
That same month, a criminal investigation was opened into Durov's alleged
participation in a hit-and-run incident with a St. Petersburg police
officer a case that Durov's supporters said was fabricated and linked
to political pressure on the organization.
In June 2013, the case against Durov was quietly closed, but the message
it sent was clear. In January, he sold his remaining 12 percent share in
the company to Ilya Tavrin, another businessman linked to Usmanov. He
also moved to diversify his portfolio outside Russia: With the help of
his brother, he developed the messenger service Telegram, a Berlin-based
company that he marketed as a completely hack-resistant communication
tool, impenetrable even to the prying eyes of the National Security
Agency.
If Durov wanted to develop Telegram and cultivate a name for himself as
an uncompromising businessman abroad, that would mean keeping VK free of
Kremlin influence as long as he was CEO of the company. Kononov said.
But Durov's timing couldn't have been worse: After Putin returned to the
presidency in 2012 amid the large anti-Kremlin street protests, he tried
to consolidate his power by passing a series of laws clamping down on the
opposition.
Many deemed social media, which had provided a platform for protest
leaders, a likely next casualty. This spring, the Livejournal blog of
opposition leader and anti-corruption activist Alexei Navalny was wiped
off the web. For VK, which continued to allow groups in support of
Navalny or Ukraine's protest movement to exist, it appeared it would
only be a matter of time before its pro-Kremlin investors would start
cracking down.
Durov's exit from the company was drawn out and chaotic. After selling
his shares in January, Durov posted a message April 1 that he was
quitting the company only to say two days later it had been an April
Fool's joke.
On Tuesday, he said he had been fired from the company and only found out
through the media. One of the pro-Kremlin stakeholders claimed Durov had
signed his own resignation letter a month ago and never withdrew it,
while another insisted that Durov had no right to quit. Durov is being
sued by one of the stakeholders, UCP, which accuses him of diverting
money and programming talent from VK and using them to develop Telegram
instead.
Durov told the technology magazine Techcrunch that he had left Russia and
had no plans to return in the near future.
"In this way, today VKontakte will be transferred to the full control of
Igor Sechin and Alisher Usmanov," he wrote on his VK page Monday night.
"Under the conditions in Russia something like this was probably
inevitable, but I am happy that we held out for seven and a half years.
We did a lot."
Putin Calls Internet 'CIA Project'
Russian President Vladimir Putin on Thursday called the Internet a "CIA
project" and warned Russians against making Google searches.
Putin assured a group of young journalists that the Internet was
controlled from the start by the CIA and its surveillance continues.
"That's life. That's how it's organised by Americans. You know all of this
started during the dawn of the Internet as a special project of the CIA.
And it keeps on developing," Putin said in televised comments.
Responding to questions from a young pro-Kremlin blogger, Putin warned
that information entered on Google "all goes through servers that are in
the States, everything is monitored there".
He also made ominous comments on Russia's most popular search engine
Yandex, suggesting it could become more tightly controlled.
Yandex is "partly registered abroad and not just for tax reasons, but for
other reasons too", Putin said, mentioning it is partly owned by
international investors and reiterating his fear of foreign control of the
Internet.
When Yandex was starting out, Putin said, they were "pressured" to have
"that many Americans and this many Europeans among the executives".
"We must fight determinedly for our own interests. This process is
happening. And we will support it from the government side, of course," he
said without explaining what he means in detail.
Yandex handles some 60 percent of search queries in Russia and has a
presence in several other countries. It allows users to search blogs and
rates the most popular entries.
Yandex's shares fell over 4.3 percent on the NASDAQ after Putin's
comments.
The company said in a statement quoted by news agencies that registration
abroad is not done to dodge taxes but due to issues of corporate law,
while foreign investment is a common feature of any Internet startup.
"Since our main business is in Russia, we pay almost all taxes in
Russia," Yandex said.
While the Internet remains the main sphere for political discussion,
Russia has recently cracked down on debate, with a new law allowing the
government to block blacklisted sites without a court order.
Opposition leader Alexei Navalny had his popular blog blocked and a widely
read news site that covered opposition causes sacked its long-term editor
and changed its stance after a warning on extremism from the state
watchdog.
Russia this week passed in its initial stage new legislation that would
force popular bloggers to register their sites and comply with similar
regulations as mass media.
The 61-year-old president has frequently been scathing about the Internet,
which he once described as "half pornography", unlike Prime Minister
Dmitry Medvedev, who posts snaps on Twitter.
Putin's spokesman Dmitry Peskov insisted this month that the president is
a regular Internet user and even sometimes laughs at jokey Photoshopped
images.
State of the Hack: 43% of All DDoS Attacks in Q4 Originated in China
The threat from hackers is very real and a new report shows that things
are only getting worse. We recently told you about a terrifying new
interactive map that shows global cyberattacks happening in real time. If
that map seemed surprisingly busy to you, its because it is a new
study from Akamai shows that hackers attacked websites 75% more
frequently in the fourth quarter last year than in the previous quarter.
The study, which was picked up on Wednesday by Engadget, covers DDoS
attacks launched against websites around the world. Akamai says that
business websites were the most likely targets and the odds of a repeat
attack are now one in three.
A disconcerting 43% of all DDoS attacks in the fourth quarter originated
in China, with the U.S. and Canada representing the No. 2 and No. 3
points of origin for attacks. Akamai notes that attacks originating in
Canada were up a shocking 2,500% over the same quarter in 2012.
On the plus side, Akamai also observed that average Internet speeds were
up 5.5% globally to 3.8Mbps in the fourth quarter, and Internet
penetration climbed 3% over the third quarter last year.
The 12 Spammiest Countries on Earth
Americans like to associate their spam with other countries. They joke
about Chinese spammers, or Nigerians or Russians. Its a time-honored
nativist tradition.
But, according to the new quarterly report from the security and spam
monitoring company Sophos, computers inside the United States relay by
far the most spam. And we have in every quarter of the past year.
To be clear, Sophos doesnt measure the point of origin for the spam, but
something more embarrassing and troubling. Spam is relayed by compromised
computers strung into vast networks called botnets. So what we really see
here is the deeply insecure state of American computing, more than the
number of neer-do-wells.
According to the 2013 spam trend report by Kaspersky security, nearly
70 percent of email traffic flow is now spam. (Its worth looking at
Kasperskys list of spammy countries by email point of origin: China is
number one, but were number two.)
Apple Fixes Serious Bug: Download the Update Now
Yet another serious security bug has been located and patched, this time
in Apples iOS mobile platform and two versions of its desktop
counterpart OS X. Updates to iOS and OS X, released yesterday (April 22)
patch a flaw that leaves some data transmissions wide open to snoops,
along with several other software flaws particular to each platform.
The Triple Handshake bug, as its called, affects all versions of iOS,
plus OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion and 10.9 Mavericks. The patch is part of
Apples latest update, which also includes patches for several other more
minor issues in Safari, Apple TV, and other Apple products. Mobile users
should upgrade to iOS 7.1.1 (up from 7.1), and OS X users should install
the available updates.
The bug is located in the secure transport mechanism, which regulates the
Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) and Transport Layer Security (TLS) encryption
that protects inbound and outbound traffic. It affects only applications
that use client certificates to establish secure connections with
verified users.
The name Triple Handshake comes from the way the bug operates:
Attackers could create two encrypted connections, or handshakes, on an
affected device, and then insert their own data into one of the
connections, thereby creating a handshake between the attackers
device and the target, entirely circumventing SSL encryption and proper
authentication.
By exploiting this bug, cybercriminals could conduct man-in-the-middle
attacks, capturing unprotected data in transit to and from affected
devices.
Because it affects only certain Apple applications that use certificates,
experts say the Triple Handshake bug is less serious than the Goto Fail
bug, a separate flaw in Apple SSL connections discovered and patched in
February. Its far less severe than the Heartbleed bug discovered earlier
this month, which was also SSL-based, because Heartbleed affected so many
websites and networking devices, and exploits based on it would have been
difficult to detect.
Still, Triple Handshake is serious for the people affected, and the end
result is the same as Goto Fail and Heartbleed: Supposedly protected
information is laid bare. Owners of iOS devices should update to the new
version, iOS 7.1.1, which contains the Triple Handshake patch. The OS X
versions, 10.8 Mountain Lion, or 10.9 Mavericks, dont get a new number
in their names, but they do get patches that fix the issue.
OS X Lion (10.7), Mountain Lion (10.8), and Mavericks (10.9) all received
other security updates and patches, including a Safari upgrade to 7.0.3,
which patches a few remote execution bugs in the browser. So if you
missed the Safari upgrade, installing the OS X upgrade will also patch
Safari.
OS X Snow Leopard 10.6 once again received no patches, which has led
security experts to hypothesize that Apple is, at least unofficially, no
longer supporting the 5-year-old operating system. Apple TV set-top boxes
also got an upgrade, from 6.1 to 6.1.1.
Now YOU Can Try the Latest Apple Operating System Before It's Released
Want to be the first on your block to try Apples latest and greatest?
Well, we cant get you an iPhone 6. On Tuesday, however, Apple did
announce something neat: a new initiative that will allow regular folks
like you and me to try out the latest versions of OS X before theyre
released to the general public. Usually, this privilege is granted only
to Apple-sanctioned developers, who had to pay $99 per year for the
honor. Now, however, Apple has opened the program wider, to less
technically savvy computer owners, and made it free to boot.
Those who are curious will get to try out beta releases of OS X in the
weeks and months leading up to an official release, helping Apple find
bugs and improve its software. TechCrunchs Darrell Etherington points
out that we are a little over a month away from Apples Worldwide
Developers Conference, where the company could unveil its latest version
of OS X.
The OS X Beta Seed Program, also known as Appleseed, let in its first
non-developers on Tuesday and was first spotted by MacRumors.
The program is free to join, though you do have to sign a nondisclosure
agreement (shhhh), possess an Apple ID, and agree to submit feedback to
Apple. Youre also potentially inconveniencing yourself, as early
versions of operating systems can be buggy, slow, or nonfunctional at
times. Updates are made available in the Mac App Store.
Microsoft, you might remember, ran a similar program for its Windows 8
operating system last year. And Google lets web surfers try out
unstable, in-the-works versions of its web browser Chrome by clicking a
box in the Settings menu.
The Appleseed program probably isnt the right path for non-techies to
take. But if youre confident in yourself, and in Apple, you can find
more information on Apples website.
Apache OpenOffice Hits Major 100 Million Downloads Milestone in Under 2 Years
Microsoft's Office may be the go-to productivity suite in the business
world, but there's apparently plenty of room out there for challengers
to thrive: On Thursday, the Apache Software Foundation announced that
the Apache OpenOffice suite has been downloaded a whopping 100 million
times.
OpenOffice offers free and open-source document, spreadsheet,
presentation, vector graphics, and database creation tools, along with a
mathematical formula editor. More than 750 extensions and over 2,800
templates are available for the productivity suite at SourceForge.
Apache OpenOffice was born out of the ashes of the iconic OpenOffice.org.
Oracle donated the OpenOffice.org code and trademark to the Apache
Incubator in 2011, and OpenOffice became an Apache top-level project in
late 2012.
"I'm extremely pleased to see us reach this major milestone in less than
two years," Andrea Pescetti, vice president of Apache OpenOffice, said in
a blog post announcing the milestone. "This is a testament to our
community volunteers: the hundreds of talented individuals who make
Apache OpenOffice what it is, who write the code, test for bugs,
translate the user interface, write documentation, answer user
questions, and manage our servers."
PCWorld found the suite to be a somewhat quirky yet completely viable
Microsoft Office alternative when we reviewed OpenOffice 4.0 last
September, and hey, you can't beat the price. But it's not the only
open-source Office alternative in town.
Before OpenOffice.org was donated to the Apache Software Foundation, the
open-source community feared for the project's future under Oracle.
LibreOffice another full-fledged, fully open, and downright wonderful
productivity suite was forked from OpenOffice and is considered by many
to be the true continuation of the OpenOffice.org project, complete with
the same core features as OpenOffice. Since its
release, LibreOffice has
become the default productivity installation of choice for a number of
Linux distributions, including Ubuntu, Debian, and Fedora.
Considering LibreOffice's success and widespread community admiration,
Apache OpenOffice's 100 million downloads in less than two years seems
even more impressive. No matter which open-source suite you prefer, one
thing's for certain: Microsoft Office may be the gorilla in the room, but
productivity buffs don't have to break the bank to get things done.
LibreOffice and OpenOffice both rock.
Ad-free Bing for The Classroom, But Is It Just A Marketing Ploy by Microsoft?
Microsoft wants to be the go-to online search engine for students and is
offering an ad-free version of Bing to K-12 educational institutions that
it claims provides a safer web search experience for youths.
The program, "Bing in the Classroom," was initially deployed in a pilot
program at five large school districts. It features a strict filtering
feature to block any racy or inappropriate content.
So far, according to Microsoft, the program is now being used by hundreds
of school districts and accessible to 4.5 million students.
The news comes as Microsoft continues its quest to be on par with Google
and other longtime search players. Just last week Microsoft rolled out a
new Bing feature, personalized information cards customized to a user's
preferences and interests. Bing, formerly known as Live Search then
Windows Live Search and then MSN Search, debuted in 2009 and also powers
Yahoo! Search through a 10-year deal between Yahoo and Microsoft.
As part of the Bing educational strategy students can earn credits for
their school using a rewards program if they use Bing on home and mobile
computing devices.
"We created Bing in the Classroom because we believe students deserve a
search environment tailored for learning," said Matt Wallaert, creator of
the program, in a statement.
Wallaert claims the Bing program is purely altruistic, as Microsoft
believes school and learning environments should be an ad-free Internet
zone.
Google Updates Terms of Service To Reflect Its Scanning of Users' Emails
Google has updated its terms of service to reflect that it analyzes user
content including emails to provide users tailored advertising,
customized search results and other features.
The Internet giants scanning of users email has been controversial with
privacy groups describing it as an intrusion into user privacy.
Competitor Microsoft claims in its Dont Get Scroogled by Gmail
campaign that its Outlook.com email service is superior to Gmail as
unlike Google it does not go through email looking for keywords to target
users with paid advertisements.
In a case in California over Googles interception of email, District
Judge Lucy H. Koh said that Googles terms of service and privacy polices
did not explicitly notify the plaintiffs that Google would intercept
users emails for the purposes of creating user profiles or providing
targeted advertising. Googles decision to change its terms of service
may have been prompted by these comments.
In the consolidated multi-district litigation brought by users in the
U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, San Jose
division, the users alleged that Google had violated state and federal
wiretapping laws by scanning the content of messages sent through Gmail,
to serve ads to users among other things.
Google contended that Gmail and all Google Apps end users had explicitly
consented to its alleged interceptions, relying on various terms of
service and privacy polices in effect between 2008 and 2013, according
to court records.
Judge Koh, however, denied class action status to the petitioners to the
consolidated lawsuit. The plaintiffs have sought permission to appeal.
The new Google terms of service that went into effect on Monday adds the
provision that Our automated systems analyze your content (including
emails) to provide you personally relevant product features, such as
customized search results, tailored advertising, and spam and malware
detection. This analysis occurs as the content is sent, received, and
when it is stored.
Google has amended its terms of service previously and its last such
change was in November last year.
The company did not immediately comment on why it had changed its terms
of service again.
Google Glass Was Not Available To Everyone
It appears the site that made Glass available to anyone without an invite
was a page that was created to accommodate potential Explorers from a
one-day open sale last week. Google responded to an AndroidCommunity
query saying the link quoted below was one that had gone unedited since
the Apr. 15 sale. Links on the page are now grayed-out and you can no
longer process an order.
It looks like Google may be close to finally releasing a consumer version
of its heads-up display. Right now, anyone in the U.S. can get a unit of
Glass for $1,500 via Google's website, without an invite. Plus, Google is
waving the prescription frames fee of $225. It is unclear how long this
sale will last.
The version of Glass that's available is still the Explorer edition.
However, oddly Google has made no formal announcement about this change
in policy, that reverses the previous policy that Explorers had to be
invited to spend the cash.
Shoppers can choose to get Glass in one of five colors - Charcoal,
Tangerine, Cotton (white), Shale (grey) or Sky (blue). You can also
select one of four titanium frame designs that you can have fit with or
without a prescription or one of three frames. Each Glass comes with a
mono earbud, pouch, cable and charger, plus the frame you selected with
a protective case.
This comes after a series of initiatives from the Glass team that made
the previously exclusive device available to more and more people,
including a one-day sale to everyone on Apr. 15 and a free
try-before-you-buy initiative.
Google also rolled out an update (XE 16.1) last week to upgrade Glass
firmware to Android KitKat and boost battery life. Sadly the update seems
to have caused more problems than it solved. The company is still in the
process of pushing through an XE 16.1.1 update to fix problems caused by
XE 16.1, which bricked several Glasses.
The device's marketing head recently revealed that the initial limited
availability was a deliberate move by Google to get passionate Explorers
to test out the product and provide feedback. As a result, the device
received plenty of criticisms about its polarizing design, poor battery
life and steep price tag.
=~=~=~=
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