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Atari Online News, Etc. Volume 15 Issue 32
Volume 15, Issue 32 Atari Online News, Etc. August 16, 2013
Published and Copyright (c) 1999 - 2013
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 #1532 08/16/13
~ Email Security Problem ~ People Are Talking! ~ UK Porn Censorship!
~ Chrome Password Flaw! ~ Kinect: Not Required! ~ Deep Cuts at Patch!
~ Xbox One Launch Plans! ~ Holdover WinXP'ers Woes ~ Yahoo, A New Logo!
~ Mark Calendar for 8.1! ~ Win 8.1, Free Download? ~ Abandoned Web Sites?
-* Brit PM: Boycott Bully Sites *-
-* Kim Dotcom's NSA-proof Email Service *-
-* Virus Targets Social Media, New Fraud Twist *-
=~=~=~=
->From the Editor's Keyboard "Saying it like it is!"
""""""""""""""""""""""""""
Another week, another set of issues that has left me in a position of
not having the ability to work on some deep insights of some goings-on
in the world. So, as has been typical lately, we'll just dive into this
week's issue!
Until next time...
=~=~=~=
->In This Week's Gaming Section - Xbox One Launch Markets Confirmed?
""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" Kinect No Longer Required To Play Games?
=~=~=~=
->A-ONE's Game Console Industry News - The Latest Gaming News!
""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""
Xbox One Launch Markets Confirmed
Today were providing an update to our launch plans for Xbox One. At Xbox,
our goal is to provide the best games and entertainment experience
possible and the team continues to make great progress on delivering Xbox
One.
At E3, we announced that Xbox One would be available in 21 markets around
the world at launch. This was an aggressive goal and the team has been
working very hard to deliver Xbox One to as many markets as possible.
Our priority is ensuring our customers get the best Xbox One experience
the first day it is available. To do that, and in order to meet demand,
we have adjusted the number of markets that will receive Xbox One in
November to 13 markets, including Australia, Austria, Brazil, Canada,
France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Mexico, Spain, United Kingdom, United
States and New Zealand, in November.
We remain committed to launching Xbox One in Belgium, Denmark, Finland,
Netherlands, Norway, Russia, Sweden, Switzerland, as soon as possible in
2014.
While we wish we could launch Xbox One simultaneously in these markets,
there are many factors that determine the timing of specific market
launches. This includes work to localize the Xbox One dash, incorporate
additional voice and languages, and build partnerships to bring apps and
meaningful local content to each country.
We understand this will be disappointing news for our fans in the impacted
countries, and we are doing everything we can to bring Xbox One to you as
soon as possible next year.
If you are in these markets and have questions about your pre-order,
please contact the local retailer where you placed your pre-order. To show
our appreciation for your patience, if you have already preordered an Xbox
One Day One system before today in those countries, you will also receive
a pack-in game with your console when it launches.*
Thank you for your patience we are grateful for your support and remain
committed to delivering the best Xbox One experience for your market.
The Latest Xbox One Backtrack: Kinect No Longer Required To Play Games
Microsoft may have fumbled the Xbox One launch but the company has done a
good job of responding to user feedback ever since. The latest change
comes to us courtesy of Xbox One chief platform architect Marc Whitten,
who tells IGN that the Xbox One will still function if Kinect isnt
plugged in, although you wont be able to use any feature or experience
that explicitly uses the sensor. Whitten also said that users can
completely turn the sensor off so that its not collecting any
information while youre playing games.
Microsoft had originally planned to require users to have Kinect at least
plugged into the Xbox One to use it. But this raised some concerns over
user privacy, especially because Microsoft boasted that Kinect can look
at microfluctuations in the blood underneath your skin and can zoom into
your face to show if youre neutral or smiling.
It also didnt help that Microsoft revealed its original Kinect
requirements just before stories about the National Security Agencys
extensive surveillance operations started to blow up, so its probably
wise from an optics perspective that Microsoft decided to backtrack on
this particular policy.
=~=~=~=
A-ONE's Headline News
The Latest in Computer Technology News
Compiled by: Dana P. Jacobson
More Details Emerge on Kim Dotcoms NSA-proof Email Service
With secure email services such as Lavabit closing their doors, the fate
of encrypted email may lie with the worlds most infamous German-born New
Zealand resident. ZDNet reports that Kim Dotcom and his Mega team are
working on a new email service that will run on its entirely
non-U.S.-based server network and will thus will be immune from pressure
from the American government to comply with orders from the National
Security Agency. However, Mega CEO Vikram Kumar tells ZDNet that the
challenges of creating an intuitive email service with
end-to-end encryption are more difficult than many might think.
The biggest tech hurdle is providing email functionality that people
expect, such as searching emails, that are trivial to provide if emails
are stored in plain text (or available in plain text) on the server side,
he explains. If all the server can see is encrypted text, as is the case
with true end-to-end encryption, then all the functionality has to be
built client side. [That's] not quite impossible, but very, very hard.
Thats why even Silent Circle didnt go there.
Kumar said that solving such a problem will take some more months but
vowed that the company would never release a service that didnt include
Megas end-to-end encryption technology.
Virus Targets The Social Network in New Fraud Twist
In the world of cyber fraud, a fake fan on Instagram can be worth five
times more than a stolen credit card number.
As social media has become increasingly influential in shaping
reputations, hackers have used their computer skills to create and sell
false endorsements - such as "likes" and "followers" - that purport to
come from users of Facebook, its photo-sharing app Instagram, Twitter,
Google's YouTube, LinkedIn and other popular websites.
In the latest twist, a computer virus widely used to steal credit card
data, known as Zeus, has been modified to create bogus Instagram "likes"
that can be used to generate buzz for a company or individual, according
to cyber experts at RSA, the security division of EMC Corp.
These fake "likes" are sold in batches of 1,000 on Internet hacker
forums, where cyber criminals also flog credit card numbers and other
information stolen from PCs. According to RSA, 1,000 Instagram
"followers" can be bought for $15 and 1,000 Instagram "likes" go for $30,
whereas 1,000 credit card numbers cost as little as $6.
It may seem odd that fake social media accounts would be worth more than
real credit card numbers, but online marketing experts say some people
are willing to spend heavily to make a splash on the Internet, seeking
buzz for its own sake or for a business purpose, such as making a new
product seem popular.
"People perceive importance on what is trending," said Victor Pan, a
senior data analyst with WordStream, which advises companies on online
marketing. "It is the bandwagon effect."
Facebook, which has nearly 1.2 billion users, said it is in the process
of beefing up security on Instagram, which it bought last year for $1
billion. Instagram, which has about 130 million active users, will have
the same security measures that Facebook uses, said spokesman Michael
Kirkland.
He encouraged users to report suspicious activity through links on
Facebook sites and apps.
"We work hard to limit spam on our service and prohibit the creation of
accounts through unauthorized or automated means," Kirkland said.
The modified Zeus virus is the first piece of malicious software
uncovered to date that has been used to post false "likes" on a social
network, according to experts who track cyber crime.
Fraudsters most commonly manipulate "likes" using automated software
programs.
The modified version of Zeus controls infected computers from a central
server, forcing them to post likes for specific users. They could also be
given marching orders to engage in other operations or download other
types of malicious software, according to RSA.
Cyber criminals have used Zeus to infect hundreds of millions of PCs since
the virus first surfaced more than five years ago, according to Don
Jackson, a senior security researcher with Dell SecureWorks.
That the virus is now being adapted to target Instagram is a sign of the
rising importance of social media in marketing, and the increasing
sophistication of hackers trying to profit from the trend.
Online marketing consultant Will Mitchell said he sometimes advises
clients to buy bogus social-networking traffic, but only to get an early
foothold online.
When asked about the ethics of faking endorsements, Mitchell replied,
"It's fine to do for the first 100, but I always advise stopping after
that."
He said one of his clients once bought more than 300,000 "likes" on
Facebook against his advice, a move that Mitchell felt damaged the
client's reputation. "It was just ridiculous," he said. "Everybody knew
what they were doing."
Still, experts say schemes to manipulate social networks are unlikely to
go away. Creating fake social media accounts can also be used for more
nefarious purposes than creating fake "likes," such as identity theft.
"The accounts are always just a means to an end. The criminals are always
looking to profit," said computer security expert Chris Grier, a
University of California at Berkeley research scientist who spent a year
working on a team that investigated fake accounts on Twitter.
Chrome Password Flaw: How To Protect Yourself
Anyone with access to a computer running the web browser can potentially
also access, read and copy any stored passwords within it, be they for
email, social media or online retailers.
Just like Safari, Internet Explorer and Firefox, Google's Chrome web
browser can store and save passwords for frequently visited websites.
However, unlike its counterparts, the saved list of web logins can be
viewed as plain text. Just click on the browser's settings icon, choose
"show advanced settings" from the menu, followed by "managed saved
passwords." The user's list of passwords will appear, shown as dots. So
far, so good. However next to each password is a button which, when
clicked shows it as plain text, meaning that anyone with access to the
computer can copy and paste them or take a quick screenshot and email it
for later use.
This gaping security hole was discovered by developer Elliott Kember, who
was so shocked he immediately took to his blog to draw users' and
Google's attention to it. "In a world where Google promotes its browser
on YouTube, in cinema pre-rolls, and on billboards, the clear audience is
not developers. It's the mass market - the users. The overwhelming
majority. They don't know it works like this. They don't expect it to be
this easy to see their passwords. Every day, millions of normal, every-day
users are saving their passwords in Chrome. This is not okay," he wrote.
Since the initial post, he has been stuck in a back and forward argument
with the head of Google's Chrome developer team, Justin Schuh, via the
Hacker News community board which makes for entertaining reading.
So, if you've been saving web passwords in Chrome, what is the best
action to take?
Firstly, if the computer is communal, or if it's an office PC, make sure
that password-protected login and logout are enabled so that when you're
not using it, it's locked down so that no one else can either.
Secondly, if a site or service you use on a regular basis offers
two-factor authentication, enable it. Once activated, as well as entering
the password, a second pin code, usually sent to a mobile or smartphone,
is also needed for validation. Therefore, if someone has copied down all
of your passwords, unless they also steal your phone, they won't be able
to access your accounts.
Finally, don't save passwords in browsers, not just Chrome, but any of
its competitors for that matter. Consider investing in a free or paid for
password management or locker tool, such as last Pass or 1Password. They
create totally random, fiendishly difficult to crack and impossible to
remember unique logins for all websites but will store them all together
in one very secure place behind one master password. When you need to
fill in a password, as long as the management tool is open it will
automatically populate the field. It not only means that a potentially
infinite number of secure logins can be created and stored, you only have
to create and remember one password, the one that gives you access to the
password management application. For Apple users, the next version of the
Mac Operating system, Mavericks, will offer a secure cloud-based password
management and storage feature when it launches in September. Activate
it.
Why Email Security Has Always Been A Problem
Last week, two secure email providers Lavabit and Silent Circle
announced the closure of their services, citing pressures on them to
reveal user information as the key reason for the decision. The companies
offered their own encrypted email services so its no surprise National
Security Agency (NSA) whistleblower Edward Snowden was reported to be a
Lavabit customer.
While email is a source of unending frustration for many among us, with
our inboxes flooded with urgent missives, forced conversations induced by
someone hitting Reply-All, and entreaties from princes to share their
outrageous fortune, the problems with email have entered a different
dimension altogether with the ongoing revelations about the intelligence
gathering programs run by the NSA.
Emails are private communications, zealously guarded by those with the
most to lose if they were revealed. Securing emails requires securing all
the elements involved in conveying them computer, software, network and
storage.
In the early, innocent days of the internet, email servers were open
relays that is, they would forward any email they received,
irrespective of the sender, to their intended destination.
This was quickly taken advantage of by spammers, who would flood the
network and the users with marketing messages. Even more insidious were
address spoofing attacks, in which users were duped financially by
emails coming from seemingly trusted sources that were instead sent by
scamsters.
Security standards
Large enterprises run dedicated teams to host their email servers. Most
small businesses and consumers have gravitated, since the earlier
iterations of email, towards web-based email providers such as Hotmail,
Yahoo! Mail and Gmail.
These offer the convenience of having an email account operable through a
web browser, and commonly secured using a combination of a unique
username and a password (and sometimes memorised using Post-It notes).
While this provided a semblance of security, the contents of the email
were still transmitted as plain text, making it easy for anybody snooping
on the network to read them.
The need for encrypting emails in transit led to the development of Pretty
Good Privacy (PGP) by Phil Zimmermann, one of the co-founders of Silent
Circle, which used the notion of a public encryption key to scramble
messages so that only a receiver possessing a matching private decryption
key could unscramble and read them.
But PGP became confined to a niche of the technical and the paranoid due
to lack of user-friendliness, and lack of easily available
implementations. Most webmail providers soon allowed users the option of
communicating using the HTTP Secure (HTTPS) standard to gain increased
security of communications.
Web browsers display sites using HTTPS using a lock icon in the address
bar. But HTTPS increases the work to be done by the browser and,
therefore, makes emailing a tad slower. It also increases the costs borne
by the webmail providers, most of whom offer their services for free.
In 2010, Google adopted HTTPS by default for Gmail to secure user
communications in response to attacks on email accounts belonging to
Chinese human rights activists. This was soon followed by other providers,
as well as by Facebook and Twitter.
But the weakest point in this set-up happens at the point at which the
email has to be displayed to the users in a browser or in a particular
email program. This requires that the provider has to possess a master
key to unscramble the message.
Lavabit and Silent Circle went a bit further than others in this regard by
not having a master key instead they stored the users decryption keys
in a manner that was inaccessible to even the companies own personnel.
HTTPS is also undermined by so-called man-in-the-middle attacks that have
been used by at least one government to spy on its citizens.
Arm twisting
Recently, there have also been pressures on the most popular webmail
providers to provide their master encryption keys to intelligence
services as well as the username and password combinations of their
users.
This would go above and beyond the metadata currently mined by the NSA
programs such as PRISM, since that would expose the actual contents of
the emails themselves.
The widespread reach and use of email has meant that, as with any
communication medium, it is of interest to authorities. A cat-and-mouse
game between the latter and the users will only cause the technology
stakes to rise higher and could lead to more intrusive surveillance.
Its important to have a vigorous debate in the public sphere around these
programs if were to safeguard citizens rights while meeting the
reasonable needs of security agencies.
Srikumar Venugopal is a Lecturer in Computer Science and Engineering at
the University of New South Wales. He does not work for, consult to, own
shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would
benefit from this article, and has no relevant affiliations.
British PM Urges Boycott of 'Cyberbullying' Websites
British Prime Minister David Cameron on Thursday urged Internet users to
boycott certain social networking sites, after a teenage girl who was
bullied online committed suicide.
Cameron described the death of 14-year-old Hannah Smith, who hanged
herself last week after receiving abuse on the website ask.fm, as
"absolutely tragic". He blasted "vile" websites that allow bullying to
take place.
"There's something all of us can do as parents and as users of the
Internet and that is not to use some of these vile sites," Cameron told
Sky News television.
"Boycott them, don't go there, don't join them."
Ask.fm has described Hannah's suicide as a "true tragedy" and pledged to
work with police investigating her death.
It stressed that it encourages users and their parents to report any
bullying.
The website, which is popular amongst teenagers, has a
question-and-answer format and allows users to post messages without
their identity being disclosed.
Hannah's father has called for the website to face murder or manslaughter
charges.
Cameron urged website operators to do more to stop them from being used
as forums for bullying.
"The people that operate these websites have got to step up to the plate
and show some responsibility in the way that they run these websites," he
said.
"I'm very keen we look at all the action we can take to try and stop
future tragedies like this."
Created in 2010 and based in Latvia, ask.fm has some 13.2 million daily
users.
It is the ninth most popular social networking site in the world,
according to data released in June by the Internet monitor comScore.
Charities have called for tighter regulation of social networks.
Internet abuse has hit the headlines in Britain in recent weeks after
several women, including two lawmakers, received rape and death threats
on Twitter.
The U.K.s Porn Censorship Plan Has All The Makings of A Disaster
The United Kingdoms government has been taking heat for asking British
ISPs to implement pornography filters as default settings for their users,
who will have to specifically opt out of the filter to get full access to
the Internet. Quartzs Leo Mirani passes along two stories showing why
any attempts at instituting mass pornography filters will be abject
failures that will anger users and that wont even stop the distribution
of illegal content such as child pornography.
Citing two separate instances, Mirani notes that the London British
Librarys filtering system recently blocked one user from accessing Hamlet
due to its violent content and also blocked another user from accessing
a series of Tennyson poems, even though the library claims that its
filters are only meant to block access to pornographic material or
gambling websites. And while its true that the British Library wont be
in charge of instituting a nationwide porn filtering system, Mirani
doesnt see how any such system can avoid such snafus no matter who has
designed it.
The British Librarys filtering system for its public Wi-Fi is like any
filtering system: broad, blunt and incapable of nuance, he writes. A
public filtering system, designed to cover the entire online population of
Great Britain, is unlikely to be much more subtle in its approach.
And given that websites such as The Pirate Bay are already rolling out
web browsers that bypass ISP filters, it seems that a nationwide filter
wouldnt stop determined individuals from accessing unseemly content
anyway.
Hackers Seen Unleashing Torrent of Viruses on
Holdover Windows XP Users Next Year
Now might be a good time to become accustomed with Windows 8 if youre
still a holdover Windows XP user. Computerworld reports that hackers have
started storing up any fresh Windows XP exploits they find and are
preparing to unleash them on unsuspecting XP users as soon as Microsoft
stops supporting the operating system next year. Microsoft security
expert Jason Fossen tells Computerworld that hackers who discover new
exploits over the next few months may be able to charge twice what theyre
charging now if they sell them after Windows XP support ends.
This essentially leaves Windows XP users with two options: They can pay
Microsoft a high premium to continue supporting XP at their business or
they can upgrade to newer platforms such as Windows 7 or Windows 8. More
than a third of all desktop computers still use Windows XP so this could
potentially be a big problem if users dont understand that theyll have
to make some kind of change by next spring.
Mark Your Calendars for Windows 8.1!
I know a lot of folks are eager to find out when they will be able to get
Windows 8.1. I am excited to share that starting at 12:00am on October
18th in New Zealand (thats 4:00am October 17th in Redmond), Windows 8.1
and Windows RT 8.1 will begin rolling out worldwide as a free update for
consumers with Windows 8 or Windows RT devices through the Windows Store.
Windows 8.1 will also be available at retail and on new devices starting
on October 18th by market. So mark your calendars!
Windows 8.1 continues the vision we began with Windows 8 and is an example
of our commitment to continuous innovation and improvement for our
customers. And Windows 8.1 brings many improvements in areas like
personalization, Internet Explorer 11, search which is powered by Bing,
built-in apps including a few new ones, an improved Windows Store
experience, and cloud connectivity with SkyDrive (and much more) that
people will enjoy. If you havent already, you can give many of the new
features and improvements in Windows 8.1 a try with the Windows 8.1
Preview. Business customers can begin testing Windows 8.1 for deployment
in their environments with the Windows 8.1 Enterprise Preview.
Now is a great time to buy a Windows 8 device in a range of different form
factors like Microsoft Surface, the Acer Iconia W3, the Lenovo Yoga 11s,
the Toshiba KIRAbook or the Dell XPS 18 . For students going back to
school, we have Windows Chip-in which is a crowdsourcing program to help
students and parents purchase a new Windows device for school. And the
Windows Store Only at Best Buy store-within-a-store experiences will be
launching throughout August and September, just in time for the
back-to-school shopping season to check out all the latest Windows
devices! If you buy a Windows 8 device today, you can look forward to the
new features and improvements from Windows 8.1 in October.
Its very exciting to be delivering Windows 8.1 and Windows 8.1 RT to
consumers just before Windows 8 and Windows RT celebrates their 1-year
anniversary. You can expect to read more from us on Windows 8.1 leading up
to availability on October 18th!
Windows 8.1 Coming as Free Download
Windows 8 users should circle October 17 on the calendar. On that day at
7 a.m. ET / 4 a.m. PT Microsoft will release Windows 8.1 as a free upgrade
or download through the Windows Store. A day later on October 18, the new
version of the operating system will also be available at retail stores
and on new devices.
"It's very exciting to be delivering Windows 8.1 to consumers just before
Windows 8 celebrates its 1-year anniversary," Microsoft's Brandon LeBlanc
wrote in a blog post this morning. Microsoft released Windows 8, a
radical redesign and vision for Windows, on Oct. 26, 2012.
However, since that release users have pointed out some shortcomings of
the operating system, which was designed for tablets, laptops and
desktops. Microsoft has said it has directly addressed that feedback in
Windows 8.1 with the revival of the Start Button and a host of other new
features and improvements.
Microsoft has added the Start Button back to the software, which was
removed in Windows 8. Now in the left-hand corner of the traditional
Desktop screen there will be a Start tip, as Microsoft calls it. When
tapped it will bring you to the Start Screen - the main home of the
software, which is full of Microsoft's live tiles and apps. Microsoft has
also made it easier to rearrange those tiles on that screen in the
updated software.
Improvements have also been made to Internet Explorer 11. The new tabs
along the top of the browser will always be visible - no need to swipe
down from the top of the screen to see them. A more complete look at the
new Windows 8.1 features can be found here.
"We've learned a lot from customers in how they are using the product and
have received a lot of feedback," Antoine Leblond, corporate vice
president of Windows Program Management, said in a blog post earlier this
year. "We've been watching, we've been listening."
AOL Makes Deep Job Cuts at Local News Group Patch
AOL Inc said on Friday that it would cut a substantial number of jobs at
its money-losing Patch local news site business, and a source close to
the company said about half of the staff of 1,000 was being laid off.
Job cuts will reduce 10 percent of AOL's workforce, the company said in a
regulatory filing late on Friday.
AOL had 5,600 employees at the end of 2012, according to a February
regulatory filing.
The company said on Friday that it expects to incur charges of $14
million-$18 million this year related to the job cuts.
The company said it would consolidate or close some Patch sites to cut
costs and partner with other media companies in some locations. It did
not say which media companies it was speaking to or reveal which sites it
would be shutting down. It expects to keep most of the traffic to the
network of websites.
AOL has been trying to build the company into a media and entertainment
destination dependent on advertising since Chief Executive Tim Armstrong
took charge in 2009.
One of his biggest bets includes Patch, a group of local websites dotted
throughout the United States that has cost the company roughly $150
million.
Armstrong has met with the AOL board to discuss cost reductions at Patch
to reach the goal of turning the unit profitable this year.
Patch has 3.5 million newsletter subscribers and 4.7 million registered
users and is growing quickly, the company said.
Earlier this week, Armstrong said he made a mistake in publicly firing an
employee on Aug 9.
A recording had been leaked to the media in which Armstrong is heard
firing Abel Lenz, a creative director at AOL's Patch unit, after he tells
Lenz to put down his camera. Lenz remains fired, the company has said.
Yahoo Is Getting A New Logo
Internet icon Yahoo is changing its distinctive logo for the first time
in nearly two decades.
The question is: To what? And will the exclamation point stay or go?
Each day over the next four weeks the Silicon Valley company is
showcasing 30 different logos on its home page. On Sept. 4, one of them
will replace Yahoo's distinctive purple Y! logo.
The company has decided on the new logo, but wants to showcase different
looks to depict its "renaissance" under its new CEO, Marissa Mayer.
The logo change, the first major modification in Yahoo's 18-year history,
will be promoted in a "30 days of change" marketing campaign, company
officials told USA TODAY. Yahoo tweaked its logo shortly after it was
founded, but decided this time to create a bold, new look.
"The logo is your calling card, identity, manifestation," Chief Marketing
Officer Kathy Savitt says.
"The Yahoo logo is iconic; some people love it, some people hate it,"
Savitt says. "We decided to change it, to reflect new products
and
depict our next chapter."
Since Mayer took over as CEO a year ago, Yahoo has scooped up more than
20 companies including Tumblr and, last week, Rockmelt and overhauled
its existing product lineup, including its home page, Flickr and e-mail.
The charismatic Mayer has also reversed the company's flagging fortunes,
with a series of encouraging quarters, an infusion of fresh talent
through acquisitions and a 70% bump in its shares. Still, Yahoo faces
fierce competition from the likes of Google and Facebook for digital
ads.
"We've been talking about changing the logo since September," Savitt
says. "The timing is right. It will reflect our brand, which is
entertaining, fun, engaging, delightful, playful."
Yahoo tinkered with the look of its logo shortly after the company was
founded in 1995, but it has largely remained the same for years. In
changing its iconic logo, Yahoo joins Twitter, Microsoft and eBay, which
have done the same. In Yahoo's case, it' may tweak its typeface, color
(purple) and punctuation (exclamation point), but keep the yodel sound
the same, Savitt says.
"There is both risk and reward in changing a logo," says Dennis Ryan,
chief creative officer at advertising agency Olson, whose clients include
Target and General Mills. He recently redid the logo for Belize, for that
country's tourism bureau. "Good logos represent every memory consumers
have for a particular company."
"Yahoo is, in many ways, the Internet's first icon," Savitt says. "It was
the first wave for discovering content on the Web."
Albert Tan, brand director at mobile-security start-up Lookout, which
changed its logo this year, says the underlying rationale for change has
more to do with where a company is headed. A logo change also requires
updates to a company's product line and mission statement, Tan says.
Forgotten Spaces: What Will Happen to The Websites
We Abandon and Leave To Rot?
This summer the high-design frozen-yogurt shops those cute
Chlorox-bright franchises, all zillion of them are flourishing, with
maybe just a hint of darkening around the edges, like an August leaf.
But looking ahead, I cant help but ask: What will become of all the
Pinkberrys?
This is not to suggest that the current appetite for cold, chemical
non-cream consumed in acrylic décor isnt insatiable. Perhaps it is, and
all that will survive the apocalypse is styrofoam and 16 Handles.
But if, just if,a small market contraction ever affects the numberless
franchises of Pinkberry, Red Mango and Yogurtland that currently enliven
American streetscapesif that contraction happens, what will become of
the machines, and the fake-Saarinen decor, and the rows and rows of
toppings bins wherein now rest tepid kiwi and shards of offbrand Oreos?
They will be trashed. Like Cybex machines at old Curves gyms and
CD-listening stations at long-gone Tower Records. As municipalities
awaken from froyomania, the shops will be bulldozed, or repurposed, or
left to disintegrate in the way of all things. Yogurt to ashes.
And thats fine. Our world is pocked and streaked with the remnants of
old zealsoverly-optimistic dandelion-asphalt lots, forgotten Fotomats
and haunted cineplexes. Making senseor making use, better yet of
forgotten spaces has become the preoccupation of many urbanists,
landscape architects and designers who have had, in some cases, great
success: In Paris, an abandoned railway track was transformed into the
Promenade Plantée, an elevated greenbelt now covered in trellises. In
Manhattan, a similar elevated greenspace called the High Line opened,
running along the path of an obsolete railway.
But all this pertains to actual space. Will there ever be
virtual-landscape architects to address incoherent and defunct digital
spaces that proliferate like weeds this very minute? Im talking about
the promotional page for the movie Space Jam. Or John Edwards
Presidential campaign site. Or even better: Bob Doles Presidential
campaign site! Those lonely, weedy, isolated spots have been forgotten
and left for dead during the breakneck digitization of the past twenty
years. Will anything green ever grow there again? Or will they rot, and
become increasingly ridiculous and even macabre as time marches on?
The homepage of Bob Dole's presidential campaign website from 1996,
preserved online.
In his 2010 book Cognitive Surplus, Clay Shirky skillfully compared
industrialization to digitization. The same year I began to track the way
the Webs evolution had come to parallel the evolution of cities. Not
long after, Michael Wolff and Chris Anderson wrote a cover story for
Wired with a similar theme.
But none of us drew the line forward in digital history to the current
state of some of our crumbling cities. Reviving their edge spaces;
rethinking depots and infrastructure afterthoughts as habitable or arable
or worthy of art. The digital world, right now, is too busy building.
Later, the nonsensical spaces of the Internet might have to be
reconsideredor allowed to slip into malware-infested desuetude. Like
gold-rush ghost towns overrun with coyotes.
The Internet, of course, is unlike the City in an important sense: While
the limited space of the City is immediately apparent, on the Internet
it is not. The Internet is not a zero-sum space: We can build anew
without tearing down.
Still, the strangeness of the Webs abandoned lanscape abounds. This came
vividly to my attention the other day when I spotted a dim screen that
flickered meaninglessly last week on the back of the divider in a New
York City taxi. The screen was like a triangle patch of weeds left by a
Robert Moses expressway in 1980, or a banged-up, rusted Pinkberry machine
in a cineplex basement in 2030.
When the screen is working, it is supposed to show Internet TV to a
captive audience. That day, however, it featured an error message
seemingly composed without oversight. Application has generated an
exception that could not be handled, said the screen, in a Windows-style
box.
And then, lyrically: Process ID=0x134 (308), Thread ID=0x270 (624).
But this was only the most central of the symbolic snarls. Along the
bottom of the screen was something leftover from a news crawl: Getting
back to flat would be JCP victory: Analyst. This news from the financial
world was meant to be writ on water, an informational will-o-the-wisp.
But imagine that the screen never disappeared: What would our
great-great-grandchildren, were this screen to be frozen till they found
it, make of the urgency of this newsthe clever, snarky joining of
flat and victory, the letters JCP and that crawl-trademark use of
the colon?
Would they ever imagine that the retailer J.C. Penney, itself thoroughly
renovated by digitization, and perhaps by then reorganized and renamed
and acquired and ingested and shut down, was being observed by people on
the Internet who believed that the best it could hope for would be not to
lose more money? Or rather, that there were people who had a stake in
saying such pointed things, and that these pointed things merited such
urgency that they needed to be summarized in a newscrawl for taxi riders?
I had a choice. Click OK to terminate the application. Click CANCEL to
debug the application, instructed the Windows box.
An error message on the screen in the back of a taxi cab.
OK to terminate. CANCEL to debug. This wasnt human language any more
than the spaces under elevated train tracks are human spaces. And yet
theyre all around us. I read and reread the screen, thought about human,
bricks-and-mortar back-to-school shopping at a J.C. Penney in Manchester,
NH, in the 1970s.
Theres a certain kind of evocative beauty in these marginalized digital
spaces: the Space Jam websites, DoleKemp1996.com, someones old Xanga,
LiveJournal, Friendster. You see in them both the absurdity and the
possibilities of the present digital moment. For a time, I didnt OK and
I didnt CANCEL. I didnt do anything. I asked the driver to pull over
so I could pick up a handcrafted pomegranate Pinkberryshake.
=~=~=~=
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