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Atari Online News, Etc. Volume 15 Issue 15
Volume 15, Issue 15 Atari Online News, Etc. April 12, 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 #1515 04/12/13
~ Anonymous Hits Israel! ~ People Are Talking! ~ Facebook on Decline?
~ Hacker Pleads Guilty! ~ AMD Execs Leak Systems ~ EA Cuts Its Staff!
~ Alienware X51 Gaming! ~ What Happens in Death? ~ MS Cuts Mac Support!
~ Cybersecurity Training ~ ~ LucasArts Is Gone!
-* PC Decline Incomprehensible! *-
-* Friendships Cut Shorton Social Media *-
-* US Use Twitter, Facebook To Fight Militants *-
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->From the Editor's Keyboard "Saying it like it is!"
""""""""""""""""""""""""""
We saw opening day at Fenway Park earlier in the week. The cherry blossoms
bloomed in Washington, D.C. So what's with the temperatures in the 30's
and sleet and snow hitting the area?? C'mon, it's almost mid-April and
we should be enjoying the warmth and sunshine attributable to this time on
the calendar! So much for Spring...
Until next time...
=~=~=~=
->In This Week's Gaming Section - Electronic Arts Cuts Staff at Montreal Studio!
""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" Disney Lays Off LucasArts Staff!
Alienware X51 Gaming System Now Available!
And more!
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->A-ONE's Game Console Industry News - The Latest Gaming News!
""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""
Electronic Arts Cuts Staff at Montreal Studio
Videogame publisher Electronic Arts has begun laying off staff at its
Montreal game studio in its latest round of jobs cuts, less than a month
after former Chief Executive John Riccitiello abruptly resigned.
The company, known for its "FIFA" and "Sims" games, declined to divulge
the number of jobs affected, or how many employees it has in Montreal,
where it has developed console games like "Army of Two".
"EA is sharpening its focus to provide games for new platforms and mobile.
In some cases, this involves reducing team sizes as we evolve into a more
efficient organization," the Redwood City, California-based company said
in a statement.
The Montreal studio, which includes a team that makes mobile games, is not
closing, a spokesman said. He declined to say which teams within the
studio had been affected by the job cuts.
The layoffs come shortly after John Riccitiello stepped down as CEO on
March 30, after taking responsibility for missed operational targets.
Former CEO and Chairman Larry Probst has been appointed executive chairman
as the company begins its search for the next CEO.
EA and rivals like Activision Blizzard Inc have seen growth fall off
sharply as more gamers flock to free games on social networks or on mobile
devices. The biggest traditional games publishers have tried to buy
startups, reorganize existing studios and invest in mobile platforms but
face intense competition from entrenched players like Rovio or Zynga Inc.
EA has been reorganizing studios to embrace new game platforms and adapt
to consumer behavior. Last year, EA's PopCap unit, which makes social and
mobile games, laid off 50 of about 380 staff members in its Seattle and
Vancouver studios to focus on free-to-play social and mobile games.
The game publisher is also preparing to adopt the next-generation video
game console technology in its games. Consumers are holding back from
buying hardware and software as they wait for next-generation versions of
Sony Corp's PlayStation and Microsoft Corp's Xbox, expected later this
year.
Disney Kills Star Wars 1313, Lays Off LucasArts Staff
That noise you just heard was the other shoe dropping: Lucasfilm said
today that it will cease internal game development at LucasArts, following
the companys acquisition by Disney in November.
After evaluating our position in the games market, weve decided to
shift LucasArts from an internal development to a licensing model,
minimizing the companys risk while achieving a broader portfolio of
quality Star Wars games, read a statement issued by Lucasfilm. As a
result of this change, weve had layoffs across the organization.
Reached for comment by Wired, a representative said that internal
development on announced games, like the next-gen shooter Star Wars 1313,
had been ceased but that the company was evaluating its options as regards
having those games completed by an outside developer. However, Kotaku
quoted an anonymous source inside the company that said such options had
already been explored, and Disney found no takers. So its looking quite
unlikely that 1313 will ever come out.
Even though Disney said at the time of its $4 billion acquisition of the
Star Wars company that it would focus more on social and mobile than on
console, a Lucasfilm representative did say to Wired that future Star
Wars console games were not off the table.
Its hard to be surprised at this turn of events when Disney spelled it
all out at the time of the acquisition. Its moving away from
internally-developed console games, having shut down Warren Spectors
studio Junction Point following the release of Epic Mickey 2, and towards
social and mobile. There will still be Disney and Star Wars console
titles, but these will be produced by external developers. Lucasfilm has
been trying to turn the struggling LucasArts division around for many
years now, with a musical-chairs game of ever-changing creative leads and
executives.
I can see why Lucas, as a standalone company, would want to fix its games
division. But Disney has no such need. It has a games division already,
it doesnt need to try to fix LucasArts problems. Its sad when hundreds
of people lose their jobs, but organizations that are no longer
competitive need to die to make room for ones that are. If its Star Wars
games youre after, theres no reason an external developer cant handle
them.
And if youre nostalgic for the great old Lucas games of old, like Monkey
Island and Maniac Mansion, this is good news for you. First of all, the
people who made those games are already working at Telltale or Double Fine
making exactly what you wish Lucas was still making. If you want a new
Grim Fandango, a shift to a licensing-only model makes it more likely that
Disney will look to cash in on that latent demand.
Again, if youre in that latter group, the LucasArts youre so nostalgic
for died a long, long time ago when the company cancelled its Sam & Max
sequel and laid off the whole team. And then that team formed Telltale
Games and eventually made The Walking Dead. The LucasArts that died today
is not the one you loved, and it was never going to be again.
Xbox 720 and PlayStation 4 Secrets Allegedly Leaked
to Nvidia by Former AMD Executives
Over the last year, AMD executives have been abandoning ship for rival
Nvidia, and according to a new lawsuit, they took confidential information
about the Xbox 720 and PlayStation 4 with them. Engadget reports that AMD
has filed suit against four ex-employees, claiming that the executives
absconded with thousands of confidential documents, including sensitive
information about technologies at use in next-gen consoles. As our
well-placed sources told us last year, custom silicon based on AMD's
A8-series APU and HD 7670 GPU will be used in the PlayStation 4, while the
Xbox 720 will combine an IBM PowerPC CPU and a custom version of AMD's
6670 GPU.
The lawsuit targets the former VP of AMD's Strategic Division, Robert
Feldstein, who played a key role in developing custom hardware for game
consoles like the Xbox 360, Wii, and Wii U. AMD claims that he and others
transfered 100,000 files that contain trade secrets related to
development, based on "forensically-recovered data" that indicates the
executive used external storage devices on his company computer before
his departure. What's more, Feldstein and Richard Hagen, another AMD
executive, lured two other employees to Nvidia.
With Nvidia seemingly edged out of the upcoming console generation,
Feldstein could be the key to regaining a role in future console hardware.
Whether or not he has or will use proprietary data stolen from AMD to help
achieve that goal remains to be seen.
Alienware X51 Gaming System Now Available With Ubuntu
The Dell owned Alienware brand of gaming systems has announced a new option
available for their Alienware X51 gaming systems, which allows you to drop
Windows 8 and have Ubuntu installed instead.
Windows 8 is not the ideal operating system if you would like to use
Alienware X51 in your living rooms as Windows 8 still requires a non game
controller interface peripherals.
However Ubuntu offers a stylish, intuitive interface provides a clean and
streamlined experience that is easy to use with a games controller, and
works with music, videos, photos and files that you use on your current
PC.
Alienware explains a little more about the reasons why they have included
the option on their Alienware X51 computer system:
Users can instantly access Ubuntus Software Center and select from
thousands of free applications. You can pick the apps you want so you wont
have anything on your computer you dont need. Each application includes
user reviews and ratings to help you decide which apps you want to install.
With Ubuntu One as your personal cloud service, you get 5GB of free storage
and you can access your files on all your devices instantly.
Now you can enjoy the next level of the ultimate gaming experience in your
living room. With Big Picture, Steam has been reformatted for use with your
TV and game controller which allows you to play your Steam games from the
comfort of your couch. You can access your entire library of Steam games or
browse the Steam catalog for the latest releases and top sellers. By
connecting your PC to your TV, setup is quick and easy.
For more information on the new Alienware X51 Ubuntu system jump over to
the Alienware website for details.
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A-ONE's Headline News
The Latest in Computer Technology News
Compiled by: Dana P. Jacobson
LulzSec Hacker Pleads Guilty to Cyberattacks
A British computer hacker affiliated to the group Lulz Security pleaded
guilty Tuesday to cyberattacks on institutions including Sony, Britain's
National Health Service and Rupert Murdoch's News International.
Ryan Ackroyd admitted one count of carrying out an unauthorized act to
impair the operation of a computer.
Prosecutors say the 26-year-old accessed websites belonging to Sony, 20th
Century Fox, the NHS, Nintendo, the Arizona State Police and News
International between February and September 2011.
He will be sentenced May 14 at Southwark Crown Court in London. Other
charges against him are being dropped.
Three other British hackers 18-year-old Mustafa Al-Bassam, 20-year-old
Jake Davis and Ryan Cleary, 21 had previously pleaded guilty to
launching distributed denial of service attacks on organizations including
the CIA and Britain's Serious Organized Crime Agency. Denial of service
attacks work by overwhelming sites with traffic.
Prosecutors say Cleary's targets also included U.S. Air Force computers at
the Pentagon.
LulzSec, whose name draws on Internet-speak for "laugh out loud," shot to
prominence in mid-2011 with an eye-catching attack on U.S. television
network PBS, whose website it defaced with a bogus story claiming that the
late rapper Tupac Shakur had been discovered alive in New Zealand.
An offshoot of the loose-knit movement known as Anonymous, LulzSec and its
reputed leader, known as Sabu, had some of the highest profiles in the
movement. But last year U.S. officials unmasked Sabu as FBI informant Hector
Xavier Monsegur and officials on both sides of the Atlantic swooped in on
his alleged collaborators, making roughly half a dozen arrests.
Anonymous Hits Israel with a Massive Cyber Attack, Israel Attacks Back
To ring in this year's Holocaust Memorial Day, the classy hackers at
Anonymous took down a bunch of Israeli government websites on Sunday and
say they caused over $3 billion in damage. But they didn't totally get
away with it. Within a few hours of the attack which Anonymous says
affected 100,000 websites, 40,000 Facebook pages, 5,000 Twitter accounts
and 30,000 bank accounts, an Israeli hacker broke into the website that
Anonymous had set up for the attack, dubbed Operation Israel. Instead of
the original anti-Israel messages that were originally on the site to
protest Israel's treatment of Palestine, the Israeli hacker rejiggered
the site to play "Hatikvah," Israel's national anthem.
Israel's playing this one super cool. Despite Anonymous's claims of
massive damage, the country's cyber security officials say that the attack
caused minimal damage. "So far it is as was expected, there is hardly any
real damage," Yitzhak Ben Yisrael from the government's National Cyber
Bureau told the press. "Anonymous doesn't have the skills to damage the
country's vital infrastructure. And if that was its intention, then it
wouldn't have announced the attack ahead of time. It wants to create
noise in the media about issues that are close to its heart." This is more
or less what Anonymous always does, often with varying levels of success.
Regardless of the amount of damage done, the scale of the attack is bound
to be embarrassing for the Israeli government. This is the second time
that Anonymous has successfully taken down Israeli government websites.
The original #OpIsrael attack happened last November and affected some 600
sites and resulted in the hackers released personal information for
thousands of high-ranking officials. Israel denied then that the attack
did any damage, and some tech writers balked at the effort, saying that
Anonymous had lost its swagger.
If that was the case then, Anonymous just looks insensitive now. The
Holocaust and any holiday commemorating it is hardly a topic to goof
around about. And given Israel's allege involvement in the infamous
Stuxnet cyber attack, it's hard to believe a bunch of zany hackers with a
bad DDoSing habit could really stand up to their security teams. They
didn't either.
NYC Students, Hackers Train for Cybersecurity Jobs
Every week, a group of teenagers and 20-somethings dressed in hoodies gets
together in a tiny room on a college campus and plug in their laptops.
They turn up pulsing electronic funk music, order pizza and begin
furiously hacking into computer networks.
But they're not shadowy criminals: They're students training to become
"white-hat" hackers, experts to help business and government agencies
protect their data from cyberattacks that have become an almost daily
occurrence.
"It's the new espionage. Spies operate from behind keyboards now," says
Evan Jensen, a senior at the Polytechnic Institute of New York University
and one of the leaders of the Hack Night events where about two dozen
students hone their hacking skills.
Since actual hacking is illegal, the students can't just sneak into a
webpage and poke around for learning's sake. So industry experts,
professors and the school's very own "Hacker In Residence," Dan Guido,
collaborate to create exercises that expose the students to real-world
hacking scenarios.
Guido, who runs his own cybersecurity firm, will walk students through one
of the most common means hackers use to gain access to a computer network
attacks on the software of a browser like Internet Explorer. In June
2011, Google said it had traced to China a cyberattack that attempted to
access hundreds of Google email accounts.
Guido uses the case, much of which has been made public, to recreate the
exploit, having students map out step by step how the hacker was able to
access a desktop computer and infiltrate the company's network.
While bigger schools such as Georgia Tech, Purdue and Carnegie Mellon are
known for their cybersecurity programs, experts say Brooklyn-based
NYU-Poly is now considered among the best schools for training students
with hands on, mission-critical cybersecurity skills. That's due in part
to Hack Night, an active cybersecurity club and an annual hacking
competition each fall that the school bills as the largest in the country.
"Every one of the faculty, every one of the undergraduates and every one
of the graduate students is engaged in real-world exercises," says Alan
Paller, director of the SANS Institute, a cybersecurity training
organization. "They come out having actually developed and tested their
skills."
Paller says the need for cybersecurity experts with real world training is
severe a 2012 report he co-authored found that the Department of
Homeland Security alone needs 600 such experts. Last month, the Defense
Department announced it is establishing a series of cyber teams charged
with carrying out offensive operations to combat threats of cyberattacks
aimed at disrupting the country's vital infrastructure.
And just this week, the House Intelligence Committee voted in favor of a
bill proposing a new data-sharing program that would give the federal
government a broader role in helping banks, manufacturers and other
businesses protect themselves against cyberattacks.
"The only defense against these things are skills," Paller says. "We have
too many people in the cybersecurity field that don't have the hands-on
skills. We call them frequent fliers. We don't have enough pilots."
In the last few years, some companies have staged "bug bounty" programs,
paying cash or other prizes to cybersecurity researchers in controlled
situations who are able to breach their systems and expose flaws in their
software. Though they haven't yet won a major cash prize, NYU-Poly
students are currently participating in "bug bounty" programs for
companies like eBay, PayPal, Google Chrome and Samsung. A few months ago,
one student received a bag full of random gifts such as T-shirts, a board
game and a handwritten note after he identified a security flaw in the
software of online merchandise seller Woot.com.
NYU-Poly professor Nasir Memon, director of the Information Systems and
Internet Security laboratory, says the goal is to teach aggressive tactics
beyond the classroom, while staying inside the boundaries of the law.
"Becoming good at security involves doing these challenges, exercises that
put you in the context even if it's artificial and made up," he says.
"There's something in front of you that you have to overcome and reach
your goal very much like athletes or military soldiers."
Memon says he hasn't yet had a student get busted for hacking illegally
but every time the FBI calls to recruit a student his heart skips a
beat.
"We try and create that culture of no messing around. If we find they've
done anything we throw them out of the lab," says Memon, adding that he
knows of no students who have crossed the line.
Many of the 270 NYU-Poly cybersecurity students are already starting to
line up jobs earning lucrative salaries at private cybersecurity
consulting firms or big banks in need of people able to identify and
correct vulnerabilities in their networks.
Others, especially those with graduate degrees, will go on to careers in
law enforcement working for the National Security Administration, the
Department of Homeland Security and other federal agencies in need of
hackers with special computer skills, such as advanced programming and
digital forensics.
Because they are in such demand, cybersecurity students can pick and
choose where they want to work.
"You see all the time a lot of job descriptions for people who are trying
to hire guys like us say things like, business casual is not acceptable
here," says Julian Cohen, 22, a senior and a founder of the weekly
Wednesday evening Hack Night. "No one wants to go to work in a button-down
shirt and slacks."
US Team Using Twitter, Facebook To Fight Militants
The U.S. official who oversees American efforts to counter al-Qaida and
other militants in the online battlefield keeps a quote on his desk from a
"Most Wanted" jihadi from America's South. The Alabama native wrote that
"the war of narratives has become even more important than the war of
navies, napalm and knives."
"I keep that on my desk because that is true," Alberto Fernandez, the top
official at the State Department's Center for Strategic Counterterrorism
Communications, told The Associated Press. "It doesn't mean I think he's
a great thinker or anything. I just thought that was right."
The wanted fighter behind the quote is Omar Hammami, who joined the Somali
militant group al-Shabab about seven years ago and is a prolific user of
Twitter, where he nostalgically posts about America like the U.S.
children's television show Reading Rainbow or his grandmother's cooking
as well as analyses of al-Shabab's battlefield strategy.
Fernandez' Digital Outreach Team has had online exchanges with Hammami in
Arabic, though Fernandez says that while Hammami is engaging, silly and
flippant in English, his Arabic is "staged and formal, as if someone is
doing it for him."
One example of that flippancy: After the U.S. recently announced a $5
million reward for Hammami he responded on Twitter: "As I'm a bit low on
cash, how much is my left leg going for?"
Hammami, Fernandez says, has responded to the U.S. online efforts "in
superficial ways ... he hasn't engaged in a substantive way."
"We are focused on specifics on al-Qaida/al-Shabab actions in Somalia,
their violence and brutality against the Somali people, the disconnect
between their words and their actions," Fernandez said in a telephone
interview from Washington. "A week ago they beheaded an 80-year-old
Somali imam for disagreeing with them."
The Digital Outreach Team tweets, posts updates on Facebook and uploads
video to YouTube in Arabic, Punjabi, Somali and Urdu. The 50-member team
is comprised of Americans and foreign nationals who are native speakers of
the four languages. The unit had more than 7,000 what it terms
"engagements" postings, updates or uploads in 2012, its second full year
in operation.
For example, on Wednesday the Digital Outreach Team said on its Arabic
Facebook page that Jabhat al-Nusra, one of the most powerful Islamic
militant groups fighting alongside Syrian rebels against the regime of
Syrian President Bashar Assad, is not in Syria "to support the revolution
and the Syrian people, but to impose al-Qaida's political agenda."
Foreign fighters once mostly confined their online conversations to
militant chat rooms and forums, but they have been migrating to more
public Internet platforms in recent years, Fernandez said.
"The goal is to contest space that had previously been ceded to
extremists, to confront them, to expose the bankruptcy and contradictions,
the incoherence of al-Qaida, their friends and allies," said the
Arabic-speaking Fernandez. "Previously they could monopolize, they could
post their lies and no one was there to challenge them. And now we're
there to challenge them on whatever platform they're at."
Terrorism expert J.M. Berger said Fernandez's group faces challenges.
Tens of thousands of social media users with an interest in violent
ideologies can be identified, Berger, who published a paper last month
about countering violent extremism on social networks for the
International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation, told AP in an
email. But it's "very difficult to figure out which users are worth
watching. For students of extremist movements and those working to counter
violent extremism online, deciphering the signal amid the noise can prove
incredibly daunting."
Berger said he has a high opinion of the work of Fernandez' team, which is
working in an online environment that is both new to the government and
fraught with pitfalls.
"There's a massive amount of work needed to develop the expertise to back
such efforts up. Because it's Twitter, you don't think of it as requiring
a lot of knowledge to wade on in, but these guys need all kinds of
linguistic, regional and subject matter expertise," Berger said.
The Digital Outreach Team briefs Congress, think tanks and "others in
government," Fernandez said.
Hammami says he is unimpressed with Fernandez's team.
He regularly chats online with a group of American terrorism experts and,
in a tweet last month, said: "so far the digital outreach is quite lame.
I think being in arabic hides that fact from you guys."
Hammami's online exchanges are so colloquial and so infused with Americana
that many in the counter-terror field have formed a type of digital bond
with Hammami. Fernandez even says: "I feel pity for him."
"I feel like he's one of those young men whose life has been ruined by
getting into crimes or drugs and it turns out to be far different than
he expected and they can't get out," Fernandez said.
Devastating PC Decline Is Literally Incomprehensible to Industry Experts
Despite ill omens, the IDC report about PC volume decline hitting -14% in
the first quarter shows once again how much trouble the tech industry is
having when it comes to dealing with the ongoing computer meltdown. As I
wrote last December, IDC has been completely out to lunch about this key
trend for years. In March of 2012, IDC was still expecting desktop and
laptop sales to take off in the second half of 2012. Last December, IDC
cheerfully predicted 1.2% growth in computer sales between 2012 and 2016.
Of course, the PC industry is tucking into a majestic swan dive that
makes those projections downright surreal. How can one of the most
respected research firms in the computer sector be so disconnected from
reality? The answer is simple: Analysts from largest research firms
simply arent allowed to call major turning points.
The clients of these research outfits include the largest computer
hardware and software companies in the world. Predicting a steep downturn
that does not materialize is far more dangerous than closing your eyes
and looking away from the imminent collapse. So analysts seem to play it
safe and deliberately ignore the most negative scenarios.
The same exact pattern happened before the epic mobile handset downturn of
2001-2002 and the nasty consumer electronics recession of 2008-2009. Big
research firms simply arent in the business of calling big cycle turns;
their core business is holding the hands of major hardware vendors and
making mostly soothing noises.
The downside of this is that those companies who actually believe in the
forecasts of IDC and its ilk can get their product road map planning
disastrously wrong. It is now becoming clear that all laptop and netbook
vendors should have started planning a very aggressive shift towards
other product categories for 2013.
Fairly soon, we will discover which ones have their escape plans plotted
out and which ones will be caught in the smoldering ruins of the PC
industry.
Friendships Cut Short on Social Media as People Get Ruder
Rudeness and throwing insults are cutting online friendships short with a
survey on Wednesday showing people are getting ruder on social media and
two in five users have ended contact after a virtual altercation.
As social media usage surges, the survey found so has incivility with 78
percent of 2,698 people reporting an increase in rudeness online with
people having no qualms about being less polite virtually than in person.
One in five people have reduced their face-to-face contact with someone
they know in real life after an online run-in.
Joseph Grenny, co-chairman of corporate training firm VitalSmarts that
conducted the survey, said online rows now often spill into real life with
19 percent of people blocking, unsubscribing or "unfriending" someone over
a virtual argument.
"The world has changed and a significant proportion of relationships
happen online but manners haven't caught up with technology," Grenny told
Reuters on the release of the online survey conducted over three weeks in
February.
"What really is surprising is that so many people disapprove of this
behavior but people are still doing it. Why would you name call online but
never to that person's face?"
Figures from the Pew Research Center show that 67 percent of online adults
in the United States now use social networking sites with Facebook the
most popular while the latest figures show over half of the British
population has Facebook accounts.
The survey follows a spate of highly publicized run-ins between people who
came to virtual blows online.
British football player Joey Barton, who plays for Olympique de Marseille,
was summoned by the French soccer federation's ethics committee after
calling Paris St Germain's defender Thiago Silva an "overweight ladyboy"
on Twitter.
Boxer Curtis Woodhouse was widely praised after he tracked down a tweeter
who branded him a "complete disgrace" and "joke" after a loss, going to
his tormenter's house for an apology.
Grenny said survey respondents had their own stories such as a family not
talking for two years after an online row when one man posted an
embarrassing photo of his sister and refused to remove it, instead
blasting it to all his contacts.
Workplace tensions are also often tracked back to conversations in chat
forums when workers talked negatively about another colleague.
"People seem aware that these kinds of crucial conversations should not
take place on social media yet there seems to be a compulsion to resolve
emotions right now and via the convenience of these channels," said
Grenny.
Grenny suggested peer-to-peer pressure was needed to enforce appropriate
behavior online with people told if out of line.
He said three rules that could improve conversations online were to avoid
monologues, replace lazy, judgmental words, and cut personal attacks
particularly when emotions were high.
"When reading a response to your post and you feel the conversation is
getting too emotional for an online exchange, you're right! Stop. Take it
offline. Or better yet, face-to-face," he said.
Teens' 'Like' for Facebook on Decline
Several years ago, Facebook became the new MySpace when it rose to where
it is now: the top social networking site. But results of a survey
measuring teenage interest in social networks indicates that now Facebook
might have to be the one to figure out how to stay cool with the younger
crowd.
The new research from Piper Jaffray, which focuses on the teen market,
reports that 33 percent of 5,200 teens surveyed listed Facebook as their
most important social network. Though that number is still good enough to
make Facebook number one in the survey, the site has dropped 9 percentage
points since the fall 2012 report, in which 42 percent of teens rated it
their most important social network.
Twitter was ranked second, with 30 percent of teens saying it's their
most important social tool. Instagram and Tumblr received 17 and 4
percent of the vote, respectively. Twitter, Instagram and Tumblr also each
enjoyed increases over fall 2012. The bright spot for Facebook may be that
Instagram, which the company purchased for $1 billion last year, showed a
5 percent jump - the largest increase of all the social networks.
Besides Facebook, the only other service to show a decrease in interest
was Google+, which was down to 5 percent from 6 percent in Fall 2012.
Pinterest was unchanged at 2 percent.
Though Twitter is a close second behind Facebook in this survey, teen
interest seems to be splintering among a number of other services. A
recent Reuters report found that many teens are using messaging services
like Kik and Snapchat in lieu of Facebook.
One teen told Reuters that using Kik is faster when sharing things like
YouTube clips. "It's easy. You can flip in and out of Kik."
Piper Jaffray listed Kik and Spapchat in the top five "write-in" answers
teens gave for social media sites.
Other social networks on the horizon like Pheed are also gaining steam
with the younger set for reasons beyond just convenience. Part of the
draw of Pheed has been the service's copyright system, which allows
content creators to watermark the photos and videos they share on the
social network. Younger users also go on other networks like Pheed to
create smaller, clicker social networks. Pheed told ABC News that 84
percent of its users were between the ages of 15 and 24. In February,
Pheed's iOS app was the number one free social networking app in Apple's
App Store.
There is a bit more bad news for Facebook in Piper Jaffray's report.
Numbers show that teens prefer iOS or the iPhone or the iPad over Android
phones or tablets. In the "What O/S Is Likely To Be On Your Next Phone?"
category, 59 percent of teens said iOS and only 21 percent said Android.
Android is, of course, the operating system that runs Facebook's new
"Home" software, the immersive Facebook experience that features full
screen Cover Feed photos and a new pop-up messaging feature called Chat
Heads.
So is it time for Facebook to panic? It looks like the company is already
aware of the challenge.
In the company's public 10-K annual report with the Securities and
Exchanges Committee this February, Facebook included this statement: "We
believe that some of our users, particularly our younger users, are aware
of and actively engaging with other products and services similar to, or
as a substitute for, Facebook."
"For example, we believe that some of our users have reduced their
engagement with Facebook in favor of increased engagement with other
products and services such as Instagram," the company wrote. "In the event
that our users increasingly engage with other products and services, we
may experience a decline in user engagement and our business could be
harmed."
However, CEO of Facebook Mark Zuckerberg, isn't worried about that right
now. When asked at last week's Facebook "Home" launch about the reports of
the declining teen demographic, he said, "The engagement we see is good and
we are quite happy with it."
Microsoft: No More Support for You, Office for Mac 2008
Microsoft has reminded customers running Office for Mac 2008 that support
for the suite ends next Tuesday.
Support for Office for Mac 2008 will end April 9, 2013, Microsofts Mac
Business Unit, the firms OS X development arm, said in a post on the
teams blog Thursday.
According to the companys support lifecycle site, all versions of the
2008 suite will be retired next week. Office for Mac 2008 launched
Jan. 15, 2008, or about five years and three months ago.
The MacBUs note was yet another reminder that Microsoft shortchanges
customers running OS X. Microsoft supports the Windows versions of Office,
even those that target consumers, for 10 years, or twice as long as it
does Office for the Mac.
Office Home and Student 2007, for example, which launched in late January
2007, a full year before Office for Mac 2008 appeared, will be supported
until October 2017, more than four years from now. The older Office
Student and Teacher 2003 retires down the road, too, in April 2014,
alongside Windows XP.
Even the Mac suite thats clearly business-oriented, Office 2008 for Mac
Business Edition, loses support in a few days.
Office for Mac 2008 will not suddenly stop working next week; it will
launch, and let users create, edit and print documents. But it will not be
served with security updates after April 8.
For some reason, Microsoft considers all editions of Office for Windows
as business products, no matter that somelike Home and Studentcannot be
used for commercial purposes. At the same time it categorizes all
editions of Office on OS X as consumer products.
Thats clear from Microsofts policies. On its support lifecycle FAQ,
Microsoft explains support for business and consumer software.
Microsoft will offer a minimum of 10 years of support for Business and
Developer products, the company says. For consumer software, meanwhile,
it states: Microsoft will offer Mainstream Support for either a minimum
of 5 years from the date of a products general availability, or for 2
years after the successor product (N+1) is released, whichever is longer.
The speedy retirement of Office for Mac 2008 is not new: Users faced the
same five-year support lifespan for Office for Mac 2004, which was shut
down in January 2012.
Admittedly, that was more over two years later than the original deadline.
But Microsofts last-minute reprieve of Office for Mac 2004 was a one-time
deal, as the MacBU made plain at the time. This extension does not change
the five-year support policy for other Office for Mac products, including
future versions, a senior product manager said then.
Microsoft extended support for Office for Mac 2004 to allow its users,
many of whom relied on Visual Basic-based macros, time to migrate to the
impending Office for Mac 2011, which launched in October 2010. Office for
Mac 2008 dropped support for Visual Basic macros, but that support was
restored in Office for Mac 2011.
Thursday, MacBU recommended that customers running Office for Mac 2004
migrate to Office 365, the line of subscription plans that lets users
install Office for Mac Home & Business 2011 on up to five Macs. The
consumer subscription plan, Office 365 Home Premium, costs $100 per year.
They can also opt for a perpetual license of Office for Mac 2011, the
traditional kind that is paid for once, but can be used as long as wanted.
Office for Mac Home and Student lists for $140, while the
for-commercial-use Home and Business sells for $220.
Customers, however, have less than three more years before Office for Mac
2011 falls off Microsofts support list in January 2016.
Decide What Happens to Your Account After You Die
What happens to your e-mail, Facebook, Twitter and other digital accounts
after you die has long been a question in the tech world. Some have even
started to create a digital estates to pass on the keys to their digital
lives to an executor or trustee.
But Google is now thinking ahead and making it easier for people to plan
what happens to that digital data after you pass. The company has
announced its Inactive Account Manager.
The tool allows users to decide what happens to their data on Google's
services - Gmail, Blogger, Google Drive, Google+, Picasa Web Albums,
Google Voice and YouTube - after they pass. You can decide to share access
to those accounts with friends or family members or have the account
deleted.
"You can tell us what to do with your Gmail messages and data from several
other Google services if your account becomes inactive for any reason,"
Andreas Tuerk, the product manager of the service, wrote on Google's blog
today.
Instead of someone informing Google of your death, the service uses
inactivity as a barometer. You set the time of inactivity - three, six,
nine or 12 months - and if you don't log into your account after that
period Google will do one of two things. You can have it alert up to 10
trusted friends or contacts and choose to share your data with them or you
can also just have it set to delete your entire account.
Before the systems take any of those actions though, it will warn you via
a text message or an email to a secondary address. Of course, if you have
died you won't get that alert and it will then take action.
It might sound like a somber tool, but Google is now making it easier
than many other services when it comes to planning for your death in the
digital domain.
New Hampshire State Rep. Peter Sullivan introduced legislation in February
to allow the executor of an estate control over the social networking
pages of the dead. Five other states, including Oklahoma, Idaho, Rhode
Island, Indiana and Connecticut, have established legislation regulating
one's digital presence after death. Rhode Island and Connecticut were
first, but their bills were limited to email accounts, excluding social
networking sites. With other services, such as iTunes, some have started
to set up digital trusts.
Beyond ownership, many services have popped up over the last couple of
months that address the issue of sending messages via social media
services after death. A Facebook app called "Ifidie" lets you set up a way
to send out Facebook messages to friends after you pass.
You identify a trustee who will confirm that you have died, and the
messages will be sent. _LivesOn is a Twitter service that will analyze
your tweets, allow you to train it, and will tweet for you after you are
gone.
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