The PC Answer

Computer Hardware Information : What Makes a Computer Work?

2011-11-27T20:33:00.000-08:00

Yes..!!! This is how a computer work..Enjoy it...

'Project Triforce': How Facebook tested its new data center

2011-05-17T19:47:00.000-07:00

The company provisioned a huge cluster of servers in Virginia to simulate its new Oregon data center

When Facebook built its first company-owned data center in Prineville, Oregon, designing and managing the facility was only part of the challenge. In a blog post Monday, the company explained how it had to stress-test its entire software infrastructure by commandeering a giant cluster of production servers on the other side of the country.

The Oregon data center marked a change of tack for Facebook, which had relied exclusively on two leased facilities in Northern California and Virginia. The Prineville data center was the first to be designed and built from scratch especially for Facebook.

That it could afford to build its own data center at all shows how big Facebook has become. It also shows the pressure that fast-growing social-networking sites are under to keep outages to a minimum. Twitter is also moving into its won date center, citing a need for more control over its infrastructure.

Facebook had never tested its News Feed, search engine and ad network outside of the two-data-center configuration. The company needed to ensure that "our entire software stack would be able to evolve and work smoothly in the new region, without interrupting what our users do every day on Facebook,"

"The solution was to simulate a third region of data centers, even before the new servers in Prineville came online. We called this effort and the simulated third region 'Project Triforce,'" he wrote.

Facebook took over a cluster of production servers in Virginia and configured them to look like its new "third region." To do so it built a software suite, called Kobold, that allowed it to "build up and tear down clusters quickly, conduct synthetic load and power tests without impacting user traffic, and audit our steps along the way," Kumar wrote.

Kobold enabled it to provision and image tens of thousands of servers, and bring them online, in less than 30 days.

"Production traffic was served within 60 days. Traditionally, companies turn up production traffic manually with many people over a period of weeks. Now it takes one person less than ten minutes to turn up production traffic," Kumar wrote.

He didn't say if Kobold could be useful to other companies or if Facebook might release the tools for use by others.

With online service providers under some pressure for the environmental impact of their operations, Facebook has been more open lately about how it operates its data centers.

SAP revs up mobile application strategy

2011-05-17T19:39:00.001-07:00

New applications, an SDK and a partnership with Accenture were announced Tuesday

SAP is giving its ongoing push into mobile applications an extra shove with a series of new products aimed at verticals such as utilities, energy, retail and manufacturing, the company announced Tuesday during the Sapphire Now conference in Orlando.

As was expected, the company also announced a version of the Sybase Unwired Platform for mobile application development, which it gained through last year's acquisition of Sybase. A new SDK (software development kit) for Unwired will be released in the next few months, according to a statement.

Among the new mobile applications is Field Service, a product aimed at technicians and other workers who are frequently away from a central location, servicing customers. The application will deliver these employees alerts about new assignments and provide mapping services, among other features.

A related product, EAM Work Order, gives technicians information about work orders, parts inventory and customer histories.

Another new product, Retail Execution, gives access to product lists and customer contact information, and allows employees to track and store information about visits to retail locations.

Roughly 20 mobile applications will be generally available in the next few months, according to SAP. Other areas tackled include human resources, supplier relationship management and customer relationship management.

SAP is not planning to build out a mobile portfolio by itself. Instead, the company has combined its own development efforts with an aggressive outreach to partners.

Many of those companies already have familiarity with Sybase Unwired and the related Afaria mobile management platform. SAP is hoping to spur even more interest in Unwired with the new SDK.

SAP's mobile development technologies include support for iOS, BlackBerry and Windows Mobile, with Android support coming soon, SAP said. Certified connectors can tie the mobile applications to back-end SAP systems, and security features include encrypted HTML5 Web storage and encrypted data transportation, SAP said.

The company also announced a major new partnership around mobility with systems integrator Accenture on Tuesday.

Under the pact, Accenture's Mobility Services division and SAP will jointly use Unwired to develop new mobile applications, with initial ones targeting oil and gas, utilities and consumer products, according to a statement.

Mobility is one of three strategic areas SAP is pushing of late, along with in-memory computing and SaaS (software as a service).

SAP executives are expected to discuss all three topics during a keynote address Tuesday.

Yahoo! wins verdict in Bedrock patent trial

2011-05-13T20:20:00.000-07:00

Jury finds no infringement on the part of Yahoo!

You remember that lawsuit Google recently lost against patent portfolio company Bedrock Technologies, LLC in the United States District Court Eastern District of Texas?

You know the one. That's when Bedrock, which holds patents over processes that are allegedly infringed by Linux, decided to sue two local Texas users of Linux (Softlayer Technologies, Inc. and CitiWare Technology Solutions, LLC) as well as some decidedly non-local users: Google Inc., Yahoo! Inc., MySpace Inc., Amazon.com Inc., PayPal Inc., Match.com, Inc., AOL Inc., and CME Group Inc.

It's the one where Bedrock actually won a jury verdict against the first defendant up in the trial, Google, and was awarded damages of $5 million. This was a paltry amount compared to the original $183 million Bedrock was originally seeking, but this did not stop a lot of people from gleefully predicting the end for Linux was nigh.

I think the doom and gloomers will be a bit tempered this week.

"First off, Bedrock had a stronger case against Google. Cawley put on evidence that Google used Bedrock's Linux code on its servers (although Google got rid of the code before trial). Yahoo, on the other hand, used a different form of Linux, and its lead trial lawyer, Yar Chaikovsky and Fay Morisseau of McDermott Will, were able to argue that Yahoo never executed the Bedrock code."

"Yahoo!, the story adds, "also benefited mightily from going to trial second."
And that's certainly true. By watching the Google trial, Yahoo!'s defense lawyers were able to tailor their defense more strategically against a plaintiff that could not change its witness testimony.

Unfortunately, while Bedrock lost this particular round, it appears they may have gotten their greedy hands on what they were probably really after: licensing agreements.

The court docket indicates that on April 29, Bedrock settled its claims against MySpace and AOL and then on May 9, just one day before the Yahoo! verdict came through, also settled its claims against Amazon.com and SoftLayer Technologies. Match.com had already settled with Bedrock on March 28. By my score card, then, that leaves just PayPal, CME, and CitiWare still defending against Bedrock's claims.

Too bad the other defendants didn't wait just a bit longer before settling.

That may not be entirely fair, since the amount of settlement each defendant made with Bedrock in their respective settlements was undisclosed. I am assuming Bedrock gave out some sort of license to each defendant to use the hashing technique with external chaining and on-the-fly removal of expired data asserted in US patent 5,893,120. But that's just an assumption, albeit one very likely to be true.

And the trial is not over. The other defendants are still waiting their respective turns, and Red Hat filed its own declaratory judgment (DJ) suit against Bedrock in December 2009 to get 5,893,120 declared invalid. In June 2010, Red Hat tried to unsuccessfully intervene in this case, too, which Bedrock fought, claiming "this case isn't about Red Hat" and besides, Red Hat had already filed the Dec. 2009 DJ suit. But while Bedrock was successful in its attempts to stave off Red Hat, that DJ suit against 5,893,120's validity could still blow this whole thing out of the water.

In the end, Yahoo!'s win is a sign that patent plaintiffs don't have it entirely their way in the Eastern Texas district, and that this particular infringement claim isn't the slam-dunk people thought it would be after Google's loss.

The whole abuse of the patent system still leaves a bad taste in the mouth, even with a win.

Cloud-based security as a service: It's catching on and here's why

2011-05-13T20:14:00.000-07:00

When technology manager Lincoln Cannon wants to give his company's employees and business partners controlled access to various internal resources or cloud-based services the company uses, he goes to one cloud-based single sign-on security service to assign access privileges.

"Our users have a portal for single sign-on access," says Cannon, director of sales and marketing technology for medical-device manufacturer Merit Medical Systems, who notes both employees and distributors can gain access to this portal via PC or mobile devices such as the Apple iPad. "You just load up our single sign-on app."

The cloud security service for single sign-on is provided by Symplified and today about 350 employees and more than 50 distributors for the medical-device manufacturer log on to designated internal resources or external cloud services, such as Google Docs or eLeap training, through the one portal. In use for several months, it's proven reliable and fast to deploy, Cannon says.

Cloud-based security services, as they're known, are catching on as technology managers find them to provide more flexibility than they found when running their own network and security equipment.
NetSpend Corp., the Austin, Texas-based business that provides reloadable payment cards and other financial services, recently migrated from running its own Web proxy to using a service from Actiance (formerly Facetime Communications) to set controls on how its 500 or so employees use social networking sites such as Facebook.

"We deal with confidential information quite a bit," says Denis Brooker, NetSpend's vice president of information security, who notes that it's critical to set controls on how information is shared. The company's policy also prohibits speaking on behalf of NetSpend online unless it's part of a work effort. "And nobody is allowed to play games, like Farmville," Brooker says.

"Actiance gives us very granular controls on what happens on a social-networking site," says Brooker. For instance, not only does the company establish controls for read-only groups, but it also has moderators working with managers in departments to review each posting. If it's approved, it gets posted. Using the Actiance service was a very fast way to deploy, Brooker says.

Troy, Mich.-based auto parts manufacturer Inteva Products, with 8,000 employees, is shifting gears into a cloud-based service to secure and manage smartphone devices. The company is expected to soon start migrating from use of BlackBerries to Android devices for a number of reasons, one being that the company's workflow approval application is easier to see and use on it, says Dennis Hodges, chief information officer at Inteva.

Inteva Products, which already uses cloud-service provider Virtela for services that range from URL filtering to ordering wide-area network circuits for its offices, will now turn to Virtela for security and management controls on both BlackBerries and Androids. The cost per month per user is about $5, says Hodges, which he sees as quite reasonable.

The security service, based on an agent running on the Virtela device, will continuously monitor that password policy is enforced, will provide the ability to remotely wipe or lock the device, and will keep unwanted apps off the smartphones, as well as facilitate configuration management.

And also important for the firm, which does business internationally in 18 countries, the Virtela service will be able to spot when someone falls into the trap of roaming charges. "International roaming is a huge piece of our cellphone costs," says Hodges, adding that the managed service from Virtela could be a way to hold down costs. With monitoring round-the-clock, Virtela will be able to send alerts within 15 minutes of when it detects mobile activities that fall afoul of the established corporate policies.

Intel, partners push for cloud standards

2011-05-13T20:09:00.000-07:00

Chip maker's strategy is to let big users drive change, while it builds underlying technology in lockstep

There is no shortage of criticism about the cloud, about its lack of interoperability, fear of vendor lock-in as well as the security risks.
Its critics include Vinton Cerf , a father of the Internet and Google's chief Internet evangelist, who compares the status of cloud computing today to the early days of email.
"Today, cloud computing is like the email of the 1980s, [when] things were not interconnected, you couldn't interchange things between email (systems). {Now] you can't interchange things between clouds - that is going to change," said Cerf, at the Interop conference this week. "There will be the same pressures to get cloud systems to interoperate."
Mark Deibert, who is responsible for global enterprise architecture at a pharmaceutical firm that he asked not be identified, agreed with Cerf.
The cloud is "either going to mature or it's going to fade away," said Deibert. "I think it's going to mature - I think the cost promise is going to prove to be increasingly compelling and I think the marketplace will drive it to maturity," he said.
Deibert said his firm is creating a private cloud as a proof of concept. "It gives us a chance to get our feet wet in a measured way," he said.
But how will the market force cloud providers to interoperate?
One effort is Open Data Center Alliance, whose members include BMW, Deutsche Bank, JPMorgan Chase, Lockheed, Marriott, Shell, Terremark, UBS, Baidu, eBay and Kraft Foods.
The alliance was formed late last year and its membership has since doubled to more than 150 firms, representing, in total, about $85 billion in annual IT spending, according to Kirk Skaugen, a vice president at Intel and general manager of its data center group.
Intel helped to create the alliance, but Skaugen says the chip maker serves in an advisory, non-voting, role. The roadmaps and recommendations that come out of this group will be software and hardware agonistic, he said.
The alliance isn't creating standards, but what it will do is work with existing standards organizations, such as Distributed Management Task Force, to help develop them, said Skaugen.
Some of the alliance members are contributing senior IT staff to help create a roadmap, said Skaugen.
What Intel appears to gain by its close working relationship with the alliance is an understanding of user needs.
"We want to be on the forefront of standards, and we want to lead the industry as standards evolve," said Skaugen, in an interview, "so once we understand the requirements, our desire is to be on the front end of those requirements."
Intel has also created a Cloud Builders program for vendors, who are working with Intel to ensure their products meet emerging technology requirements. The vendors are "trying to do it in parallel" what will emerges from the alliance, said Skaugen.
The role of chip technology will be through things such as Intel's Trusted Execution Technology, a hardware-based security feature to ensure code is executing in a protected environment.

"We want to make sure that data can be protected both at rest and in flight - whether you are moving from a private cloud to a public cloud or between public clouds," said Skaugen, as well as being "independent of which vendor is the underlying infrastructure within those clouds," he said.

Upgrade offer boosts Firefox 4 share by 30%

2011-05-11T08:31:00.000-07:00

Mozilla coordinator boasts 'IE9 will never catch up'

Firefox 4's share shot up 11% the first day after Mozilla started offering users the upgrade last week, and climbed 30% in four days.

The boost moved a long-time Mozilla employee to compare the gains of Firefox and Microsoft's Internet Explorer 9 (IE9) since the two browsers debuted last March.

"IE9 will never catch up to Firefox," said Asa Dotzler, Mozilla's community coordinator for Firefox marketing, on his personal blog . "It will be a year or two before [Microsoft] can move the bulk of their IE7 and IE8 users forward."

According to Irish Web metrics company StatCounter, Firefox 4 usage share jumped from 10.3% to 11.4% on the day after Mozilla began asking existing users if they wanted to upgrade to the new edition. The 1.1-point gain represented an 11% increase.

By Monday, Firefox 4 accounted for 13.2% of all browsers, a 30% increase from the previous Thursday.

IE9's progress has been slower: In the first four days after Microsoft turned on the Windows Update upgrade April 18, IE9's share climbed by 20%. Since then the browser has gradually grown its share, breaking the 4% mark for the first time last weekend.

Microsoft and Mozilla have been skirmishing over browser share since the former launched IE9 March 14 and the later released Firefox 4 on March 22.

After Mozilla boasted of the early download tallies of Firefox 4 -- 7.1 million the first day, 8.8 million the next day -- Microsoft argued that the comparisons between the browsers were "premature at best, and misleading at worst" because IE9 had yet to hit Windows Update.

Microsoft has said that all IE7 and IE8 users on Windows Vista and Windows 7 will have seen the upgrade offer by the end of June.

It shouldn't surprise anyone that Firefox 4 has a much larger share than IE9, even if Mozilla turned on its upgrade offer two weeks after Microsoft. Unlike IE9, which runs only on Windows Vista and Windows 7, Firefox also works on Windows XP, Mac and Linux.

Microsoft made the decision to leave Windows XP behind because it did not want to create a new browser for what one executive called the "lowest common denominator, the 10-year-old XP.

"[Supporting XP would have been] optimizing for the lowest common denominator. It's 10-years-old. That's not what developers need to move the Web forward," said Ryan Gavin, senior director of IE, in a March interview with Computerworld.

That same day, Dean Hachamovitch, who heads the IE group, said, "Other browsers dilute their engineering investments across systems" as he argued during IE9' launch event that Microsoft's browser was best because it ran only on Windows.

Mozilla has taken exception with that claim as well.

For all their individual gains, neither Firefox 4 or IE9 has managed to stem the overall decline of their makers. By StatCounter's data, both Firefox and Internet Explorer lost share in the first week of May compared to April's average.

All versions of Firefox accounted for 29.6% of the browsers used in the first seven days of May, compared to 29.7% during April. Meanwhile, IE's total share dropped from 44.5% in April to 43.8% in the first week of May.

Microsoft's Skype acquisition may impact Linux users

2011-05-11T08:29:00.000-07:00

Countdown for Skype for Linux's end of life begins

After a week of rumors about Skype being heavily courted by buyers such as Google and Facebook, it looks like the winning bidder may be Microsoft.

According to a story the Wall Street Journal broke late Monday evening (and later confirmed early Tuesday morning),Microsoft has closed a nearly $8billion deal for the popular voice-over-IP company.

(In the video below, Keith Shaw talks with CIO.com's Shane O'Neill about Microsoft's $8.5 billion offer to buy Skype, and what it means for Microsoft's consumer and enterprise voice offerings.)

This deal will represent a pretty big sea change for not only the VoIP sector, but also the broader Software as a Service (SaaS) industry. Microsoft has not gained a lot of ground in the cloud, with Bing still behind Google, and not much success reported for Office 360 in comparison to other cloud services like Google Docs, either. Getting a hold of Skype, though, would be a big brand-name acquisition for Microsoft and put it right into the middle of the cloud game.

Skype has been a hot little property in the cloud market for some time, since eBay, the former owners of Skype, sold a majority share to an investment consortium in late 2009. For most industry watchers, it was only a matter of time before the consortium polished Skype up and trotted it out on the open market again. Now it looks like Microsoft may be the winning suitor.

The WSJ article speculates that Microsoft may be acquiring Skype to bolster their lagging Windows Phone offerings. It certainly couldn't hurt, since Google's Android and Apple's iOS are effectively kicking Windows Phone's metaphorical butt. But, the article adds, Microsoft would have to be careful, if indeed this was the plan.

"Microsoft will likely need to tread carefully, though, in integrating Skype into its mobile software because of the potential for pushback from wireless carriers, whose support Microsoft badly needs. Skype could give consumers a way to make cheap phone calls over the Internet from mobile phones, without paying higher rates to the carriers," the article states.

More carefully, perhaps, than even the article suggests, since Microsoft is already receiving grumblings from mobile device vendors about it's oh-so-cozy partnership with Nokia.

That Nokia partnership may worry a lot of Linux and open source users. Nokia didn't waste alot of time dropping Symbian and before that off-loading commercial licensing and support of the open source Qt library to Digia.Nokia denies these actions were taken on behalf of its new partner, and that these moves made sense given Nokia's new focus on the Windows Phone platform. That may well be, but I, for one, am skeptical.

And I am skeptical on the continued health of the Skype for Linux application. Skype for Linux has never seemed a high priority for the Skype team, with features and support lagging behind Windows, OS X, and even mobile platforms. Still, Skype for Linux is a perfectly usable application, and I personally used it to keep a single VoIP service across all my machines.

Now, though, I am wondering how long Skype for Linux has to live. Since the application is decidedly not open source, if Skype's new owners decide to kill it, then it will certainly die. Such is the curse of proprietary software.

I may be overly pessimistic, of course. Microsoft could decide to keep Skype for Linux alive after all is said and done.

But I doubt it.

Google plug-in links Android mobile devices with App Engine cloud

2011-05-11T08:25:00.000-07:00

The Google Plugin for Eclipse makes it easier to build native Android apps that can take data with them wherever they go

Google on Tuesday at the Google I/O conference in San Francisco detailed an upgrade to its Google Plugin for Eclipse (GPE), which assists with linking Android mobile devices and data residing on the Google App Engine cloud platform.

Previously referred to as App Engine Tooling For Android, version 2.4 of GPE provides RPC tooling and C2DM (Cloud to Device Messaging) capabilities for App Engine and Android, said Brad Adams, Google's product manager for cloud developer tooling.

[ Google also gave a sneak peak of its upcoming "Ice Cream Sandwich" release of the Android OS, which accommodates multiple device form factors. |

GPE 2.4 is currently in what Adams characterized as an early beta stage of development. He said the plug-in saves users from manually wiring App Engine to Android. "The tooling just makes it significantly easier."

Chris Ramsdale, product manager for Google Web Toolkit and GPE, said in a blog post that "with GPE 2.4 it's much easier to build native Android apps that can take data with them wherever they go. And there's no better place to host your back-end service and store your data than Google's cloud service, App Engine."

Version 2.4 also features the ability to develop App Engine-connected Android projects, with an Eclipse project wizard generating Android and GWT clients capable of talking to the same App Engine back end using the same RPC code and business logic.

The beta release of GPE 2.4 is now available. The Android Developer Tools plug-in will need to be installed first.

Apple defection would be slap in the face to Intel

2011-05-09T22:43:00.000-07:00

Speculation swirls that Apple might ditch Intel for ARM-based chips

Online speculation is starting to pick up speed that Apple is looking to ditch Intel chips and move to ARM-based processors for its Mac line of laptops.

While this rumor has surfaced before, if there's actual fire behind the smoke, it could mean trouble and a real loss of face for Intel , which is increasingly confronted with a burgeoning ARM effort.

"An Apple defection from the Intel processor would be more of a slap to Intel's rep than to their bottom line," said Dan Olds, an analyst with The Gabriel Consulting Group. " Apple is selling a lot of systems, but Windows-based PCs still account for 90% or more of the total market."

The Web site SemiAccurate started the latest round of rumors Thursday, reporting that "Apple is going to show Intel the door, at least as far as laptops are concerned." The Web site added that this won't happen for two to three years, but that it is a "done deal."

And Apple, the story reports, is moving straight to ARM-based processors.

Intel would not comment on the report, and Apple could not be reached.

Meanwhile, Intel announced this week that it has developed 3D Transistor technology that should position the chip maker to better take on ARM in the lucrative tablet and smartphone markets.

Tablets have been cannibalizing the PC market, with consumers and some enterprises so enthralled with the smaller gadgets that they're not as inclined to buy laptops and desktops. Intel hasn't been able to get solid footing in the tablet market, where ARM-based processors are gobbling up the lion's share of it.

That means Intel is seeing more competition from more directions than it has in quite some time, according to Charles King, a principal analyst with Pund-IT. Suddenly, Intel doesn't have to just worry about AMD , but also has increased competition from Samsung on the memory side, and now ARM.

King noted that with ARM-based chips getting more attention, if Apple decided to trade in Intel for ARM chips, it would be an embarrassment, if not a tremendous business loss.

"The idea of ARM supplanting x86 has been around for awhile," King said. "Nvidia's been pushing it for awhile, and Microsoft's announced intention to support ARM caused a small firestorm at CES in January, so it's reasonable to assume that Apple may be mulling the idea ... But overall, the rumor emerging less than 48 hours after Intel announced Ivy Bridge makes it suspect to me."

Olds also is skeptical of the speculation.

"What people seem to be overlooking is that current ARM processors are 32-bit, meaning that they can only address a max of 4GB memory," he explained. "This is a showstopper in terms of system performance and user experience. A move to ARM would require every ISV in the Apple software and hardware ecosystem to port their code to the new processor, just like they did when Apple moved from Power to Intel chips -- except they had Intel helping out with that change. "

Others, such as Computerworld blogger Jonny Evans, suggest the claims could be a bargainingchip by Apple, as it negotiates new contracts with its suppliers.

Rob Enderle, an analyst with the Enderle Group, said now is the time for Intel to move to keep Apple exactly where it is.

"They need to prevent this move, and barring that, they will have to aggressively discredit Apple and their products to keep the industry from following them," he said. "Even in their very powerful 'Intel Inside' days and before Steve Jobs came back, [Intel was] reticent to take Apple on directly. But if they don't successfully challenge Apple's position as the market leader in terms of technology and they lose Apple, most of their desktop business will be lost and folks are already starting to experiment with ARM servers."

Mozilla building on Firefox's dominant share in Indonesia

2011-05-09T22:39:00.000-07:00

The organization is drumming up support from volunteers for higher localization of its browser

Mozilla is building an army of volunteers in Indonesia to help customize Firefox and recommend add-ons, as the U.S.-based non-profit organization seeks to retain its massive share of the browser market in the country.

Community groups in eight cities and drawing about 1,000 tech-savvy volunteers, with more expected, are meeting this month to brainstorm ways Firefox can be further localized, said Gen Kanai, Mozilla’s contributor engagement director for Asia.

They will do some of the work themselves in line with Mozilla’s tradition of using inputs from its users, Kanai said.

Mozilla wants that input so it can retain the high market share that Firefox already has in the country. Web statistics company, StatCounter, puts the share at 75 to 80 percent, the browser's highest in Asia. The worldwide share of Firefox, which competes with Internet Explorer and Google Chrome, is just over 30 percent.

Outreach matters because technology spreads fast by word of mouth in Indonesia, a possible cause of Firefox's market share, Kanai said. Technology favorites can also lose ground very fast in the country, as was seen in the mobile phone market, he added.

Mozilla does not fully understand why Firefox has caught on in Indonesia, Kanai said. But analysts and users say local Web developers benefit from Firefox's do-it-yourself plug-ins and extensions, which other browsers may not offer except for fees that not everyone in the developing nation of 238 million can afford.

"It's because people can design it however they want, however they need to," said Yofie Setiawan, a web designer and member of a community group in the capital Jakarta. "Then they will tell their friends, who (will) use it also."

Word of mouth as well as hands-on design options may explain why so many Indonesians use Firefox, said Ray Valdes, an analyst with market research firm Gartner.

"Often the reason (for popularity) is not technical but social," Valdes said. "The other possibility is that the ecosystem is propagating it."

Although nothing will be decided until the community group meetings, the 13-year-old Mozilla may try to solidify its position in Indonesia by encouraging new browser add-ons, such as toolbars, expressly for Indonesian websites and web services.

It is also considering new localized versions of Firefox in languages such as Sundanese, which is used by some 30 million people in the western part of the Indonesia island of Java.

"More Indonesian Mozilla developers could lead to new localizations," Kanai said. "These would be developed by Mozilla community members in Indonesia."

Android Continues Taking Blackberry Share

2011-05-09T22:38:00.000-07:00

Android Continues Taking Blackberry Share

Google Android continued its trend of luring US smartphone subscribers from RIM Blackberry in March 2011, according to comScore MobiLens data. Blackberry retained its number two position.

Android Gains, Blackberry Loses Share

Android gained about 21% marketshare from December 2010, rising from 28.7% to 34.7%. Meanwhile, Blackberry lost about 14%, dropping from 31.6% to 27.1%.

The other three platforms on the top five list held their positions from December 2010, with Apple slightly gaining share and Microsoft and Palm slightly losing share. MobiLens data indicates 72.5 million people in the US owned smartphones during the three months ending in March 2011, up 15 percent from the preceding three-month period.

Music Listening Most Increased Mobile Activity

In March, 68.6% of US mobile subscribers used text messaging on their mobile device, roughly flat with 68% in December and making it the most common mobile activity. While listening to music was the least commonly performed activity of the six tracked by comScore, performed by 17.9% of subscribers, it had the highest growth rate, rising about 14% from 15.7% participation in December.

In addition, browsers were used by 38.6% of subscribers (up 6%), while downloaded applications were used by 37.3% (up 8%). Accessing of social networking sites or blogs increased 10.5%, representing 27.3% of mobile subscribers, and playing games comprised 25.7% of the mobile audience, up 10%.

Samsung Stays on Top of OEMs

For the three-month average period ending in March, 234 million Americans ages 13 and older used mobile devices. Device manufacturer Samsung ranked as the top OEM with 24.5% of U.S. mobile subscribers. LG ranked second with 20.9% share, followed by Motorola (15.8%) and RIM (8.4%). Apple continued to gain share following the launch of the Verizon iPhone, up 16% to reach 7.9% of subscribers.

Google Growth Strong Since Jan.

Google’s share of the US smartphone market (primarily representing the Android platform) climbed 27% between the three months ending November 2010 and three months ending February 2011, according to previous comScore MobiLens data. Google increased its smartphone platform share in that time period from 26% to 33%.

Google gained most of its smartphone platform marketshare at the expense of RIM, which lost almost 14% of its share between November 2010 and February 2011, dropping from 33.5% to 28.9%. RIM maintained a narrowing lead over number three Apple. There were no other significant changes in marketshare among the other three smartphone platforms in the top five.

However, Google built on a trend begun in January 2011, when for the first time it displaced RIM, claiming the top spot with a 31.2% share, up almost 33% from 23.5% in October 2010. Meanwhile, RIM lost 15% of its US smartphone platform share in the same time period, dropping from 35.8% to 30.4%. The other leading US smartphone platform provider, Apple, remained almost flat in percentage by going from 24.6% to 24.7% market share. However, this incremental increase was not enough to keep Apple from dropping from second to third place.

Xmarks bookmark sync passwords safe, says LastPass

2011-05-08T21:33:00.000-07:00

LastPass said Thursday that hackers did not obtain passwords linked to Xmarks, the browser synchronization service the company acquired last December.

Earlier in the day, LastPass forced customers to reset their master passwords after detecting a "traffic anomaly" that may have been a hacker intrusion.

But Xmarks passwords were not affected, and users of the browser plug-in -- available for Internet Explorer, Firefox, Chrome and Safari -- were not required to come up with a new password.

"Xmarks users are not impacted that we can see," said LastPass CEO Joe Siegrist in an email reply to questions Thursday. "Different machines, networks, databases."

LastPass, an online password management company that bills its free and for-pay service as "The Last Password You'll Have to Remember," acquired Xmarks late last year.

Before selling to LastPass for an undisclosed sum, Xmarks, which synchronizes browser bookmarks across multiple computers, browsers and operating systems, was ready to pull the plug on its service. In September 2010, Xmarks said it could no longer compete with the sync services built into Chrome and Firefox.

Later, Xmarks ran a pledge drive that asked users to promise to pay $10 annually for the service.

After buying Xmarks, LastPass retained the free service but also added a $12 per year premium service that offered bookmark synchronization toiPhone,ipad,Android and BlackBerry users.

In an interview late Thursday with PCworld -- like Computerworld, an IDG publication -- Siegrist said that at the worst, the danger to LastPass users was "a one in a million kind of a risk."

Brocade gives a reality check on IPv6

2011-05-08T21:30:00.000-07:00

"IPv4 diehards" and "IPv6 purists" are both wrong: The transition will be long and hard, Brocade said

The looming depletion of Internet addresses has split the networking world into "IPv4 diehards" and "IPv6 purists," but the real needs of businesses lie somewhere in between the views of these extremists, a Brocade Communications Systems executive said this week.

Speaking on Tuesday to the Brocade Technology Day Summit on the company's campus in San Jose, California, Director of Product Management Keith Stewart said many Brocade customers are grappling with the issue of IP (Internet Protocol) address migration.

"As organizations embarked upon that journey, we found many felt that there was a lack of a pragmatic point of view on how to manage that transition. The market was dominated by conversations at opposite ends of the spectrum," Stewart said.

IPv4, the addressing scheme used in most of the Internet today, is limited to about 4.3 billion unique Internet addresses, and most of those have already been assigned. PCs, servers, phones and other devices that use the Internet need an IP address to communicate, and soon they may only be able to get addresses from the next-generation protocol, IPv6. The announcement in February that the global Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) had assigned its last large block of IPv4addresses to regional registries placed this fact in sharp relief. However, reaction to the trend has come down on two extremes, according to Stewart.

The "IPv4 diehards" think that the current addressing scheme can be extended forever through NAT (network address translation) and there is no economic incentive to move to IPv6, he said. The "IPv6 purists" believe all organizations should move to the new protocol in the next 18 months. "That's simply not economically viable," Stewart said. It's also not realistic to think NAT will take care of all the IPv6-only client devices that enterprises will want to reach in the coming years, he said.

"We believe that exhaustion is real, but that most organizations have time to plan and execute their strategies," Stewart said. And administrators should get ready for a long transition, broken into several stages. "A two-protocol world is the world in which we will live for the next decade," Stewart said.

Stewart summed up the debate well, according to analyst Michael Howard of Infonetics Research, who saw the presentation. Moving to IPv6 while remaining visible to IPv4 users involves a lot of unanswered questions and unknown costs, Howard said. While some enterprises and service providers are already taking the plunge, most are scared of what the move will entail, he said.

Not surprisingly, Brocade said it has some tools to help customers navigate the transition. For example, the Brocade ServerIron ADX Series, which it calls an "application delivery switch," can be used to present an organization's existing sites and services to IPv6 users. Brocade also has a NAT gateway for translating IPv4 to IPv6 addresses, which it developed for a cable operator that needs to deliver IPv6-based video-on-demand products over existing set-top boxes that can only use IPv4. These products are available now, Stewart said.

Brocade claims it is the first and only major technology vendor to make its Web presence, mail presence and DNS (domain name system) presence on the Internet available via both IPv4 and IPv6. Economics helped drive the company to this point, Stewart said. The U.S. government, a big Brocade customer, is starting to give preference to IT vendors that have proved their IPv6 capability by implementing the new protocol themselves, he said.

Anonymous not off the hook for the Sony PlayStation Network attack

2011-05-05T22:10:00.000-07:00

The worldwide hacker group Anonymous may have played a role - even unwittingly - in the theft of personal data from 77 million Sony PlayStation Network customers, according to a letter from Sony's chairman to a Congressional committee.

Forensics teams have tracked the attack that netted the information to a file named "Anonymous" on an internal Sony server including the words "We are Legion", which is part of the hacker group's motto.

"Just weeks before, several Sony companies had been the target of a large-scale, coordinated denial of service attack by the group called Anonymous," says Kazuo Hirai, Sony's chairman, in the letter.

PAST DDOS DEBACLES: DDos Hall of Shame

That attack and the threat of more had Sony network security staff focused on DDoS defense, which might have distracted them from discovering the breach earlier, the letter says, "perhaps by design."

"Whether those who participated in the denial of service attacks were conspirators or whether they were simply duped in to providing cover for a very clever thief, we may never know. In any case, those who participated in the denial of service attacks should understand that - whether they knew it or not - they were aiding in a well planned, well executed, large scale theft that left not only Sony a victim, but also Sony's many customers around the world."

Anonymous earlier issued a statement that it wasn't responsible, but acknowledged that individual members might have acted independently to break in and steal the data.

The letter to Congress was prompted by a set of questions sent from a Congressional committee to Sony seeking information about the breach, how it happened and what Sony was doing about it.

The letter says that the attackers exploited a software vulnerability in one of the applications in the network that supports PlayStation Network, the online gaming site for Sony PlayStation customers.

The network consists of 130 servers, 50 software programs and 77 million registered accounts, the letter says. In all, Sony came to believe 10 of those servers had been compromised.

The letter says Sony knows the personal data was compromised because it found records of queries being made for it and large data transfers being made out in response. There were no logs of request for credit card information or corresponding outbound transfers, which is why Sony says credit card information might have been compromised but it just doesn't know.

"Among other things, the intruders deleted log files in order to hide the extent of their work and activity within the network," the letter says, which led Sony to conclude that "very sophisticated and aggressive techniques to obtain unauthorized access, hide their presence from system administrators, and escalate privileges inside the servers" had been used.

"At the same time that the experienced attackers were carrying out their attack, they also attempted to destroy the evidence that would reveal their steps."

The worst moments in network security history

The company says it has taken six steps to prevent future breaches:

* Added automated software monitoring and configuration management to help defend against new attacks;

* Enhanced levels of data protection and encryption;

* Enhanced ability to detect software intrusions within the network, unauthorized access and unusual activity patterns;

* Implementation of additional firewalls;

* Expediting a planned mover of the system to a new data center in a different location with enhanced security;

* Naming of new chief information security officer directly reporting to the chief information officer of Sony Corp.

To make up to its customers, Sony plans to offer U.S. members complementary identity theft protection services.

It is creating a Welcome Back program including selected PlayStation entertainment content for free. All consumers returning to PSN will get 30 days free membership in PlayStation Plus premium subscription service. Current PlayStation Plus customers will have subscriptions extended for the number of days PSN and Qriocity services were unavailable and get an additional 30 days of free service, Sony says.

EMC's Iomega launches NAS storage line for smaller businesses

2011-05-05T22:04:00.000-07:00

The disk storage arrays support both file and block level data transfers

EMC subsidiary Iomega today unveiled a new series of simple disk storage arrays aimed at small-to-medium sized businesses and remote offices.

Known for its small office and home office products, Iomega is trying to sell upstream with its new StorCenter PX Series of network storage products. The company said the new arrays are its most advanced series of desktop and rackmount NAS devices.

The Iomega StorCenter PX desktop NAS box

The StorCenter PX Series features four-bay and six-bay desktop models and a four-bay rackmount model, each available in scalable configurations. Prices for the NAS range from $799 for a diskless, four-bay StorCenter desktop version to $3,999.99 for a six-bay, 18TB StorCenter px6-300d model.

The NAS arrays are optimized for 3.5-in., 7,200rpm, serial ATA (SATA) hard disk drives, but they can also use 2.5-in drives. The devices are also the first for Iomega that can use solid-state drives (SSDs).

Another first for Iomega: the StorCenter PX series arrays can replicate data between each other for business continuity and disaster recovery purposes, according to Marc Tanguay, Iomega's general manager of network storage products.

Tanguay said Iomega plans to demonstrate streaming multiple virtual desktop image files from SSDs in a StorCenter PX box next week at EMC World. "Virtualization is a real target application for these products," he said. "They have great performance for things like call centers with boot storms in the morning and for streaming video."

A StorCenter PX series NAS box with a drive removed

The StorCenter PX series features hot-swappable drives and several levels of RAID disk protection. Iomega also included an iSCSI port for block-level data transfers.

he arrays are certified for VMware vSphere 4.0, Citrix XenServer, and Windows Server 2003/2008/2008 R2 HyperV environments.

"With new software features, we think this will help us expand into the remote office of larger enterprise customers," Tanguay said. For example, the NAS boxes offer Microsoft Active Directory Domain Services for distributed networks, allowing the boxes to replicate back and forth to a main corporate data center.

Brocade developing 32-Gigabit Fibre Channel

2011-05-04T17:43:00.000-07:00

The company is also planning a massive data-center chassis switch for next year

Brocade Technologies, which announced 16G bps (bit-per-second) Fibre Channel products on Monday, is already working on a 32G bps version and expects to have it on the market within three years.

Other vendors are moving toward Ethernet as a common storage and LAN interconnect, with 40G bps and 100G bps generations recently standardized. But while Brocade offers a growing range of Ethernet products, it also plans to continue developing Fibre Channel, a specialized protocol for storage in which the company has a dominant market position.

Brocade's customers like and trust Fibre Channel, CTO Dave Stevens said at a press and analyst event on the Brocade campus on Tuesday, after he was asked why his company is pushing ahead with faster iterations.

Customers tell Brocade that Fibre Channel is tested, cost-efficient and resilient, Stevens said. Earlier in the day, Brocade executives had said that demand for FCOE (Fibre Channel Over Ethernet), which is designed for unified networks across storage and computing, is still very thin. Brocade also offers FCOE. Executives said Brocade believes it is important to give customers choices.

In addition to 16G bps Fibre Channel products, which will be backward compatible to the earlier 8G bps, 4G bps and 2G bps versions of the technology, Brocade announced a variety of products for enterprise and service-provider networks on Tuesday. The company is focused on extending the predictable and solid characteristics of data center networks across entire networks, all the way out to client devices and remote locations.

Brocade also unveiled an architecture called CloudPlex, which will guide the company in developing infrastructure for private, public and hybrid clouds. Ultimately, this architecture will provide a way for enterprises to easily and quickly shift virtual machines between public and private clouds over long distances, Stevens said. The architecture for doing this, called Starlifter, will hit the market in 2012, CEO Mike Klayko said in an interview after the event.

Also on Tuesday, Stevens gave a few details about a large, chassis-based version of the company's VDX 10G bps switch. The current VDX models are designed for the tops of server racks. The chassis-based model will be able to accommodate more than 750 ports of 10-Gigabit Ethernet and more than 100 ports of 100-Gigabit Ethernet, he said. It will also support 40-Gigabit Ethernet. The switch will be based on the same software stack and Brocade ASICs (application-specific integrated circuits) as the current VDX line.

As a networking specialist competing against companies such as Cisco Systems and Hewlett-Packard that are building product lines spanning the data center, Brocade emphasized its interoperability with other vendors' products.

"The problem with the virtual enterprise is that it's too big a problem for any one company to solve," Stevens said.

The company is developing what it calls "virtual compute blocks" that will combine Dell servers and storage with Brocade network adapters and VDX switches, with the VMware hypervisor for virtualization. The blocks will carry Brocade's brand, but customers will be able to order them from Dell beginning later this year.

Business, IT collaboration drives new BI system at Toyota

2011-05-04T09:03:00.000-07:00

System provides common view of six years of data

LOS ANGELES -- A recently implemented business intelligence project at Toyota Motors challenges a growing perception that IT organizations are no longer able to keep up with the BI demands of their business units.

The new Product Quality Analytics system is being used by Toyota's Technical Information & Diagnostics Group and was built largely in response to the crisis stemming from a massive product recall last year.

The system provides a common view of six years' worth of product and quality data from multiple internal systems across the company.

It allows Toyota's quality engineers to search through, drill down, mash up and analyze data from sources as disparate as its vehicle configuration system, customer call centers, warranty claims system, customer mediation group and service centers.

The system supports both structured and unstructured data, a search-engine like interface and filters that allow users to view product quality data in a manner that was not previously possible, said Tom Trisdale, manager of Toyota's Technical Information & Diagnostics Group. The group is part of Toyota's product quality and support organization.

"The great thing is, everything is available from one source," said Trisdale during a session detailing the project at the Gartner Business Intelligence conference held here this week.

"We can have results very quickly," ensuring significant productivity gains, he said. Importantly, the system allows its quality engineers to filter, visualize and explore multiple years' worth of quality data for patterns that they wouldn't even have known to look for previously.

The system was developed in partnership with Toyota's IT organization at a time when business groups in many companies are increasingly taking the lead on such efforts.

For instance, in a recent survey of 575 BI professionals by software vendor LogiXML, more than half said they were dissatisfied with IT's ability to deliver business intelligence functionality. More than one in four respondents said their organizations did not have the IT staff needed to deliver BI functionality.

In Toyota's case, a couple of factors contributed to the successful partnership, said Mike Burkes, manager of the auto maker's information management group. One was technology.

Toyota's IT group was able to deliver the BI system much faster than it would have been able to normally by taking advantage of technology from Endeca, Burkes said.

Endeca's software allows users to quickly and easily search for, view and analyze data from multiple enterprise data repositories. It allows users to design reports and dashboards in minutes using both structured and unstructured data from numerous sources.

The software can be implemented in a fraction of the time it would take to develop a BI system with similar capabilities -- a factor that has led to the explosive growth of companies such as Endeca and rivals such as QlikView.

In several cases, the ones deploying BI systems based on such technologies are the business units. Contrary to perception, IT is involved in a vast majority of such efforts, said Donald Farmer, former Microsoft BI guru and an advocate at QlikView.

However, in a growing number of cases, its role is more about providing and governing the data that feed BI systems, rather than building out the BI system, he said. "They have become the providers of information," rather than developers of BI systems, in a growing number of instances, he said.

In Toyota's case, the IT group was able to play a more direct role. Endeca's Latitude software allowed Toyota's IT department to deliver the BI capability that its quality group was looking for much more quickly than it would have been able to otherwise, Burkes said. "We have never delivered anything in less than 12 months," he said.

Another factor that contributed to the success of the project was the effort that both sides put into explaining and understanding business requirements, managing expectations and establishing trust, Burkes said.

Almost 45% of the time and budget on the project was also spent on improving data quality to ensure that the data being used by the BI system was as useful and consistent as possible.

"We were able to do this because we had both business and IT saying we want this," Burkes said.

What Does Sony Owe Consumers After PSN Nightmare?

2011-04-28T08:26:00.000-07:00

The massive data security mop-up is up to individual consumers but Sony may still be on the hook

What responsibility does Sony have to the 77 million Playstation Network customers who found out this week - days after the fact - that their personal data,online account info and credit card information were stolen by identity thieves?

"When I see something like this, I want to scream," says Florida identity theft expert Denise Richardson. "It's like a goldmine of information."

Companies in Sony's position typically respond by offering affected users a year of free credit monitoring--something any consumer in the U.S. is entitled to already. "To me, that's nothing," Richardson says. "Thieves are sitting back laughing at that."

Sophisticated data thieves have moved beyond stolen credit cards and use personal info like birthdates and home addresses to open bank accounts, obtain medical services or collect other people's unemployment checks. The fact that many of Sony's 77 million compromised accounts likely include teenagers and young adults makes it worse, she says, because they may not know their data was compromised for years, compounding Sony's potential liability.

"What happens next depends on how much damage comes from it," Richardson predicts. "It's going to cost Sony billions, is my guess."

Sadly, it falls to individuals to cancel credit cards, change passwords and watch their email and other communications carefully, and perhaps think twice about typing in reams of personal info on each website that asks for it. If you're looking for help try our PSN hack Survival guide.

Sony says the data thieves may have collected credit card numbers and expiration dates along with users' names, physical and email addresses, PSN online handle and password, birthdate and purchase history, and password hints.

So yeah, they know your mom's maiden name, favorite musician and what elementary school you attended. And they know your password, so if you're the kind of person who uses the same passwords over and over, you might be in for a series of unpleasant surprises over the coming months.

But no worries, the consumer electronics giant said today--the three-digit security code found on the back of your credit card was NOT included in the breach!

"That," said computer law expert Mike Godwin, "is like the weakest defense ever."

Adding a second 3-digit code to a 16-digit credit card number is "relying on security practices that are a couple of decades old," said Godwin, who was the first staff counsel at the Electronic Frontier Foundation. Assuming that is enough to wave off info thieves is symptomatic of a larger issue: "The entire system is broken."

Sony will have to admit that it violated its customers' trust and "start from the ground up," Godwin said. "They have to revamp their entire privacy system and not just paper over their mistake."

In the wake of the breach, Sony is facing multiple legal and regulatory challenges. Godwin adds, "A hugely comprehensive government action would actually help," although Sony's worldwide customer base complicates the possibility that regulatory action could do any good.

TSMC Q1 revenues reflect growth in tablet appetite

2011-04-28T08:23:00.000-07:00

Demand for tablets helped Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC) grow its first quarter revenues by 14.3 percent over the same period last year.

This demand is expected to drive growth in the second quarter as well, and is also influencing TSMC’s plans for technology upgrades.

The world's largest semiconductor foundry reported Thursday that revenue for the first quarter was NT$105.38 billion (US$3.67 billion), and said it expected revenue to go as high as NT$111 billion in the second quarter.

Net profit of NT$36.28 billion was 7.8 percent higher than in the first quarter last year.

Market research firm Gartner forecasts shipments of 54.8 million tablets this year, up 181 percent over 2010.

TSMC expects to expand capacity by 20% in 2011, mainly to meet demand for chips for mobile devices. It said it would allocate $7.8 billion over the year to support an expansion in manufacturing capacity.

TSMC now can produce 13.5 million eight-inch equivalent wafers per year from the factories that it owns or manages.

Its 65-nanometer and 40-nanometer chip-making technology accounted for just over half its revenue, the company said on Thursday. But TSMC expects to be ready for a 20-nanometer process by next year to handle demand for chips for mobile devices, though it did not specify when it the process would be available at its foundries.

The company will develop 14-nanometer technology after that, and eventually go down to 7-nanometer.

The finer geometries mean smaller tools and more transistors per chip, and as a result more can be packed into a small device, which would in turn run faster, TSMC said.

"Technology people can always give you a solution," TSMC acting spokeswoman Elizabeth Sun said. "The only question is how much it costs."

PlayStation Network Security Breach: A Survival Guide

2011-04-27T20:04:00.000-07:00

If you're a registered PSN user, the implications of the breach for you and your online information is serious.

Sony has admitted that account details, logins and online IDs for registered Sony PlayStation Network users, as many as 77million people, have been compromised. The information was stolen sometime between April 17 and 19, according to a Sony Blog Post, as early as nine days before Sony notified its users of the breach. Even worse, the company says it can't be sure whether credit card information was stolen.

The admission came nearly a week after Sony pulled the plug on PSN and its Qriocity music service, blaming the outage on an "external intrusion" into Sony's network. Sony says that it is rebuilding the PSN and Qriocity server system with improved security. Both services are expected to be operational within the next week.

Sony has quite the security disaster on its hands, and the fact that it took the company almost 10 days to figure out and then admit that user data had been stolen is troubling to say the least. If you're a registered PSN user, the implications for you and your online information is quite serious. Here's what you need to know:

What the bad guys know about you

Sony said the following user information was compromised: your name, address (city, state, zip), country, e-mail address, birth date, PlayStation Network/Qriocity password and login, and handle/PSN online ID.

It's also possible, according to Sony, that hackers obtained your PSN purchase history, billing address (city, state, zip), and password security answers.

If that wasn't bad enough, it's also possible your credit card information was stolen, including your card number and expiration date. "While there is no evidence at this time that credit card data was taken," Sony said, "we cannot rule out the possibility." Your credit card's security code (typically a three-digit number on the back of your card) was not compromised, according to Sony.

Your kids' account is compromised, too

Sony also warns that if you have a sub-account for a minor attached to your PSN credentials, that account is probably toast as well.

What to do

There are several measures you should take to ensure the integrity of your data. First, considering how long it took Sony to warn its users, it's probably best to assume that all of your information needs to be changed as soon as possible. This isn't meant as a scare tactic, but the fact that hackers may have obtained your PSN data nearly 10 days ago means they have a huge head start on using that data for malicious purposes.

Sony is also warning users to be wary of people calling or e-mailing you for extra information such as your Social Security number or other personal information. Sony says it will never call you asking you to verify your information. You should also be wary of people claiming to be from other companies or services looking to verify your personal data.

Next, you'll want to decide what measures you want to take to secure your credit card information. You can either monitor your card for suspicious activity, or, if you can manage without your card for a few days, you may want to consider canceling it and getting a new one.

Sony also advises that you may want to place a fraud alert on your credit record with the three major U.S. credit bureaus. This will make it harder for someone to open a new credit card in your name (remember they may have your name, billing address and birth date). To find out how to contact the credit bureaus see Sony's blog post.

Review your online accounts

Next, you'll want to review your online passwords to see whether you are using the same password and login ID across multiple accounts. If, for example, your PSN and e-mail logins are the same, change your e-mail address password immediately.

Many people often use one difficult password across multiple online accounts, because it's easier to memorize just one set of credentials. If that sounds like you, I highly recommend you try a password manager such as LastPass (my personal preference) or KeePass. That way you can use as many difficult passwords as you want without having to memorize all of them. If you use multiple devices during the day such as a laptop, desktop, tablet (iPad or Xoom) and smartphone, you may want to look for a password manager that has software available on all the platforms you use.

Consider two-factor authentication

For an added dose of security, you can also use two-factor authentication on accounts that support them. Two-factor authentication basically means your account requires a randomly generated password in addition to your regular password before you can access your account. The second password is usually generated by an extra piece of software, authenticated by you, on a keychain dongle or smartphone app. This makes it harder for hackers to break into your online accounts.

Google recently released two-factor authentication for Google accounts, and Facebook has announced that it intends to roll out the security feature to users. Symantec also provides a free two-factor authentication service called VeriSign VIP Access for Mobile.

When PSN comes back

Sony hasn't detailed if it will require extra authentication steps from you the first time you login to PSN after it comes back online. But make sure that you login as soon as the service becomes available and change your password.

When security breaches like this happen, it's best to play it safe and take precautions to safeguard your data in case it has fallen into the wrong hands. And if nothing bad happens to you, at least you took the time to review your online security management practices, which is never a bad thing to do from time to time.

Investigation on after Amazon's cloud nightmare

2011-04-27T19:57:00.000-07:00

Several days after Amazon.com's cloud outage knocked some high-profile Web sites offline, the company said its cloud service was largely back up and running. Now Amazon is trying to track down the root of the problem.

The outage partially disabled or knocked out popular websites including Quora, Foursquare and Reddit.

On Saturday, two days after Amazon suffered a failure in its Web Hosting services , the company announced that it had fixed most of the problem. However, the latest update on Amazon's Service Health Dashboard noted that engineers are still working on some remaining issues with its EBS, or Elastic Block Storage.

At 10:35 p.m. ET on Sunday, Amazon reported, "We're in the process of contacting a limited number of customers who have EBS volumes that have not yet recovered and will continue to work hard on restoring these remaining volumes.

Users still having problems with their hosted Web sites should contact Amazon on their Web Services site. Users should select Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud in the "Services" field. And in the description field, they should list the instance and volume IDs and describe the issue they're experiencing.

The company also noted on its dashboard that workers are "digging deeply into the root causes of this event" and will post their findings in a post mortem.

The trouble started a little after 5 a.m. Eastern on Thursday when the company's Service Health Dashboard reported connectivity problems that were affecting its Relational Database Service, which is used to manage a relational database in the cloud, across multiple zones in the eastern U.S.

Because of server problems at Amazon's data center, which handles the company's EC2 Web hosting services, some websites, including popular Web2.0 sites, were left staggering or disabled.

Web sites Reddit, Foursquare, Quora and HootSuite, which suffered through Amazon's outage, are back up today.

SARbot Dives In to Save Japanese Tsunami Victims' Lives

2011-04-27T19:55:00.000-07:00

Another robot has been sent out to hep with the Japanese relief effort, and this one can swim underwater.

More than a month after Japan's devasting 9.0 magnitude easthquake and massive tsunami, there's still a lot of work to be done to relieve the victims. While many robots have been sent in to help deal with the high radiation issues in Fukushima, one machine is contributing by being able to film underwater and also potentially save lives.

The SARbot by the Center for Robot-Assisted Search and Rescue (CRASAR) in Texas can dive down 150 meters to film underwater, and is protected by a polyethylene bumper. In the case of the Japanese tsunami, while a humanoid remains above the surface with a video-enabled PC, SARbot can swim through the wreckage and film clearly through the dirty water. That long claw on the front of the robot is there to grab arms or legs if it happens to find a living thing in need of assistance.

SARbot was tested recently in the Rikuzen-Takada area alongside Japanese Coast Guard divers, as they are forbidden to go through rubble or houses under the water, so cannot look for bodies or survivors. The good thing is SARbot didn't find any dead bodies, but sadly also didn't find anyone trapped.

China to punish search giant Baidu for illegal music

2011-04-26T08:55:00.000-07:00

China's Ministry of Culture is punishing a total of 14 websites for providing illegal music downloads

China's Ministry of Culture will punish the country's largest search engine Baidu for providing illegal music downloads, according to a report from the state-run Xinhua news agency.

There were no details on what kind of punishment the Chinese search giant would receive. The ministry could not be reached for comment. A total of 14 websites will be punished for providing illegal music downloads, according to the XinHua report.

Baidu's MP3 search service has long been criticized for providing links to troves of pirated music downloads hosted from third-party sites. In the past, lawsuits have been filed against the Chinese company, but often with minimal results.

However, Baidu has started to change the way it offers online music. Earlier this month, the company announced it would start paying a group representing songwriters for every music download made from the site. Baidu has also said it is working out partnerships with recording agencies to provide music downloads.

But according to the Xinhua news report, Baidu's MP3 search continued to provide illegal music services, even after it was warned repeatedly not to do so.

Baidu said in a statement that the company would remove the links that have been identified by the ministry. "We are aware that songs require approval and have sought to comply with previous notifications from the Ministry of Culture. But search engine indexing is a continuous process and some files may have reappeared in results," the company added.

The crackdown, however, may also have less to do with piracy and more to do with the content of the music.

In January, the ministry issued a notice, providing a list of 100 songs that had not been approved by authorities. Christina Aguilera, Eminem and Bruno Mars were among the artists whose songs were included in the list. The ministry demanded all music sites operating in the country to observe the law and remove the songs.

The end of February was the deadline for removing the songs. In mid-March, the ministry investigated and prosecuted 54 music websites that were still providing the songs.

PlayBook's first-day sales outdo Galaxy Tab and Xoom, analyst says

2011-04-26T08:52:00.000-07:00

50,000 units sold on Tuesday, says RBC analyst

BlackBerry PlayBook sales hit 50,000 for the first day of sales on April 19, including pre-sales, an analyst at RBC Capital Markets estimated.

Overall, Research in Motion (RIM) is on track to sell 500,000 PlayBooks in its first fiscal quarter ending in May, analyst Mike Abramsky wrote in a note to his clients that was reported in the Montreal Gazette.

Abramsky's staff checked 70 retails stores and found 11% of the locations that stocked the device had sold out. "The launch appears to have been stronger than the launch of Motorola's Xoom or the Samsung Galaxy Tab, although it's too early to judge sustainability," Abramsky wrote.

In suburban Boston, one Best Buy outlet had only one 16GB PlayBook on sale for $499.99 the first day; it was also being used as a demonstration model. A nearby Radio Shack sold all three PlayBooks it had on the first day, a clerk said.

Several analysts said that RIM was probably relying on pre-sales of the device to business customers, although business sales were said to be direct from RIM to customers and not through retailers.

The PlayBook has been criticized for not including a native email client, forcing users to rely on a Web-based email account. Users can also tether to a BlackBerry smartphone for access to corporate mail through BlackBerry Bridge software on the PlayBook and its connection through the phone to a BlackBerry Enterprise Server.

AT&T is still testing the BlackBerry Bridge software, meaning that tethering through an AT&T BlackBerry phone is not yet supported. AT&T, Verizon Wireless and Sprint have not announced when they will sell the PlayBook, but Wimax (Sprint), LTE (Verizon) and HSPA+ (AT&T) versions of the tablet are expected from RIM this summer.

RIM is also planning to offer a free over-the-air update to PlayBook with a native email client this summer.

Even though Verizon spokeswoman Brenda Raney told Computerworld on Tuesday that Verizon has "not announced when we will sell the PlayBook," she told CNET on Wednesday: "We are still evaluating the Blackberry Playbook and have not made a determination as to whether or not we're going to distribute it."

In comments today, Raney confirmed that Verizon has not yet decided whether it will carry the PlayBook.

Reviewers have criticized RIM for not providing enough apps for the PlayBook as well.