Shadz... A Techie freak

2011-11-14T18:50:00.001+05:30

Nokia's first Windows Phone handsets - Nokia Lumia 800/710.

Nokia's highly anticipated Windows Phone 7 handsets, the Lumia 800 and Lumia 710, have finally been unveiled and we managed to get a hands-on sneak peek of both of them at Nokia World in London. These two new models aren't just another pair of smartphones though – they're part of Nokia's efforts to stay relevant in a smartphone market dominated by Apple and Google.

It's been just eight months since Nokia announced it was abandoning its home grown Symbian and MeeGo operating systems in favour of Windows Phone 7. It's therefore no surprise that the Lumia 800 bears a strong resemblance to the N9, the Finnish giant's sole and ill-fated MeeGo phone. The injection-moulded polycarbonate design feels light yet rigid and well made with a soft, almost velvety touch to it. The micro USB port and micro SIM card are hidden under a pair of small flip-up panels on the top of the phone which were a bit fiddly to pry open.

The Lumia 800 will have an eight-megapixel camera, an 800x480 pixel 3.7in AMOLED screen and 16GB of on-board, non-expandable storage. These specifications are to be expected though given Microsoft's fairly rigid hardware guidelines. Nokia therefore downplayed them in favour of emphasising the quality of the camera in low-light conditions, the operating system's ease of use and its own apps.

Nokia showed off its two exclusive Windows Phone apps, Nokia Music and Nokia Drive. The Nokia Music app has a feature called Mix Radio which lets you listen to several pre-determined mixes of full-length songs that can also be cached offline. It bears more of a resemblance to the radio-like Last.fm service than a true on-demand listening service like Spotify.

iPhone overtakes BlackBerry, closes in on Nokia

2010-10-28T18:46:00.000+05:30

Apple shipped 14.1 million smartphones in the last quarter, overtaking BlackBerry manufacturer RIM, figures from Strategy Analytics have shown.

The Cupertino company achieved a record 18 per cent market share, as Nokia’s share dropped from 37.8 per cent in the third quarter of 2009 to 34.4 per cent in the same period this year.

This was despite Nokia shipping a record number of smartphones with more 26 million units during the period.

The Finnish company has been experiencing some turbulence lately and yesterday announced it will let 1,800 workers go in the coming months.

RIM’s market share, meanwhile, fell from 19.6 per cent to 16.1 per cent and, according to Strategy Analytics, the manufacturer is suffering due to its limited presence in the touchscreen market.

Meanwhile, worldwide smartphone shipments grew 78 per cent to reach a record 77 million units in the third quarter of 2010.

However, Neil Mawston, director at Strategy Analytics, had some words of warning for the expanding market.

“The surging volumes are placing heavy demands on component suppliers and moderate shortages of select components are emerging ahead of the Q4 holiday season,” Mawston added.

A Gartner report released this week suggested Symbian’s market share was going to be eroded over the coming four years by both Google’s Android and Apple’s iOS.

The analyst firm also predicted the mobility market will be worth more than $1 trillion (£638 billion) a year by 2014.

New Technology - Use One card for Credit and Debit card

2010-10-25T20:03:00.000+05:30

Citibank will begin testing a new type of credit card, one with buttons and lights, that will allow consumers to choose to take on credit card debt when making a purchase, or to use their rewards points, according to a New York Times report. To follow suit, other lenders may soon begin issuing cards that can carry information for both credit and debit accounts, or some with additional security features embedded in them.

The report said that European consumers have been taking on credit card debt with advanced pieces of plastic for several years now. The continental standard there is "chip and pin" cards, which store data on an embedded microchip and require users to input a code before using it.

Many consumers have become concerned about the security of their credit card accounts as instances of fraud involving credit card debt have increased across the country over the last several years.

Change your Google passwords twice a year

2010-10-19T17:35:00.002+05:30

Security has been on Google’s mind and the company has added an advice section to its website.

The five point checklist and two ancillary advisories contain basic information to help keep its users safe. On the page, the company said: “We take account security very seriously, and we regularly provide our users with tips to help protect their Google account and their computer.”

Unfortunately the hyperlink within this sentence is to a blog written last November by Eric Davis, accredited as Google’s head of anti-malvertising.

Notwithstanding, the advice given on the new page is sound. Google said passwords for its services should be changed at least twice a year and passwords for each service should all be different. It also recommended mixing numbers, characters and upper and lower case to create a strong defence from hackers using brute force software.

The hints and tips have all been given before by security experts but the number of breaches over the years that are still occurring witness the fact Google is right to hammer the point home.

Of particular use is the advice given for using browsers on shared computers and internet cafe PCs. It holds advice for all the browsers that may have been included on a shared computer: Google, Internet Explorer, Firefox, Safari and Opera.

A general checklist would have been useful to remind people that the browsing history, temporary file cache, and cookies should all be cleared. Unfortunately there was no mention of clearing the “wastebin” and ensuring not to clicking on features such as “Remember me on this computer” – though it did not omit to mention signing out of any accounts before quitting the station.

A printout facility would have been useful because remembering all of the processes for all browser versions is a lot to ask of most users who would benefit from the advice.

The problem Google has made for its users is the hidden access to the security advice when the need is probably greatest. A quick view of sign-up pages for Gmail, AdWords and AdSense did not turn up a link. A search through the Help facility seems the only way.

Disney explores dying format with new CD technology

2007-07-21T10:49:00.000+05:30

Disney recently launched a new audio CD technology called CDVU+, hoping it can create a stay of execution for the flagging audio format.

Disney's Hollywood Records label will kick off the new technology. The idea is to put a bunch of bonus content on the disc that is organized in a "digital magazine" format.

It sounds a lot like "enhanced CDs", which embed photos, videos, and lyrics on the CD and can be unlocked via a PC. Instead of just presenting the content in a file-by-file Windows Explorer view, CDVU+ discs will cue up a more stylish view of the supplemental features.

CNBC reports one exclusive feature of CDVU+ technology is the ability for users to upload pictures of themselves to be integrated into a poster of the band.

While physical CDs still account for the vast majority of album sales, according to Nielsen Soundscan, the outlook for the format is bleek. The first half of 2007 saw a 15% year-to-year decrease for CD sales, while digital music grew nearly 50% in the same time frame.

Hollywood Records' flagship CDVU+ title will be a new Jonas Brothers' album slated for an August 7 release date.

RIM launches Wi-Fi BlackBerry 8820

2007-07-21T10:29:00.000+05:30

Following the lead of the iPhone, new BlackBerry model boasts integrated wireless LAN support as well as cellular, but is still only a 2G phone rather than 3G.

Research In Motion, maker of the BlackBerry range of mobile email devices, has launched a new model that can operate on both conventional mobile phone networks and 802.11 a/b/g Wi-Fi.

The BlackBerry 8820 will be launched by AT&T in the US later this summer, before appearing in the UK if well received, the company said.

However, the device remains only a quad-band GSM/GPRS and EDGE-enabled smartphone, underlining the lack of interest in moving the BlackBerry range to 3G.

"The BlackBerry 8820 is an extraordinary business phone for people who really care about mobile communications and productivity. It features all the power and usability of the BlackBerry platform with unprecedented connectivity features" claimed Mike Lazaridis, co-chief executive of RIM.

Other features includes built-in GPS, a microSd flash card slot, stereo Bluetooth support, a new higher-capacity battery, support for WEP, WPA, WPA2, as well as Cisco Compatible Extensions for wireless LAN security. The BlackBerry 8820 also supports UMA, enabling wireless carriers to offer a fixed-mobile convergence service for both business and home use.

RIM is trying to broaden the market for its smartphones by adding consumer-oriented features to the traditionally business-centric devices. Although the BlackBerry has become a staple of executives, it has yet to make any significant impact on the consumer market in the same way as devices like the Sidekick and the iPhone, which is expected to go on sale in the UK in October.

Despite this, RIM forecast a rosy outlook for its future last month, apparently unfazed by the iPhone launch. And Jim Balsillie, RIM's other co-chief executive, has repeatedly said the company isn't worried about the iPhone denting its sales.

Magnetic "wobbles" cause disk failure

2007-07-20T17:35:00.000+05:30

New research could lead to more reliable hard disks

According to researchers working at the University of California and Hitachi Global Storage Technologies, understanding certain types of disk drive failures, called magnetic avalanches, could help disk drive manufacturers produce more reliable storage.

Magnetic avalanches occur when a magnetic head hovers over a patch of disk drive causing the polarity of that part of the drive to change its alignment or spin. The patch's polarity in many magnetic materials changes in a haphazard series of large and small jumps that physicists liken to an avalanche - though the scientist's research showed it often behaves more like an explosion or runaway fire. These avalanches can cause sections of hard drive to lose data.

Research was carried by Joshua Deutsch, professor of physics at the University of California, Santa Cruz, and Andreas Berger, who did the research while at Hitachi Global Storage Technologies.

Deutsch said that the research paper, published in 13 July edition of Physical Review Letters, that the findings advanced knowledge of magnetic spin in drives.

"The big advance in this paper is that in previous models of avalanches, the spin just flips from up to down as soon as they apply a magnetic field, and they're done. But that's not the way spin behaves in the real world," Deutsch said.

The scientists said that previous models overlooked an effect called "spin precession", which each magnetic field exerts on its neighbours. The scientists likened each individual bit of information on a platter to a "tiny pincushion bristling with individual magnetic fields."

As the head of the drive nears, each pin wobbles in a widening circle - pointing neither up or down but somewhere in between - before it settles on its new polarity. They called that wobbling "precession" and said it resembled the way a spinning top draws out circles as it rotates.

"It takes around a few nanoseconds for a precession to die down," said Deutsch. "That's not that fast compared to computers today. It's not as fast as the timescale you get for a transistor to switch." During that brief time, each magnetic field contributes forces that affect the precession of neighbouring fields. Each of these spins

Combining all those wobbles adds up to a lot of energy that changes the polarity of neighbouring bits and spreads across the surface, causing sections of disk drive to be wiped out.

The researchers suggested that the reason these avalanches die out is that the magnetic material can dampen the wobbles. They said that materials that good damping abilities would make candidates for use in hard drives.

"Obviously, disk drive makers have already learned by an enormous amount of ingenuity and trial and error what materials make good disks," Deutsch said. "But now we understand a lot better one of the reasons why - because the materials are good at damping, and we can quantify how damping will stop runaway avalanches. We still can't calculate their damping, but at least we can measure it."

SunSeeker banking on solar technology

2007-07-19T16:25:00.000+05:30

SunSeeker Energy (Australasia) (SSE) didn't raise any capital as part of its listing but quietly went ahead and listed with a market cap of just over $18 million. The company's motto is "To save the planet for our children's children", and it describes itself as "an ethical green business in renewable energy committed to exploiting solar technology to help fight global warming and rescue the planet for our children's children".

Looks as though there is nothing like starting as you mean to go on. In fact, the company's reason for being looks like the ultimate think-global, act-local strategy.
As the name suggests the company is about using the sun to generate energy, via a new technology called segmented parabola energy (SPE), whatever that is. A search on Google using that term yielded a rare singularity – only one result and it was from the SunSeeker Energy Australasia website.

So not much information to go on about what the technology does or its benefits. Of course this may come, but as yet, the information doesn't appear to be available.
SSE's only asset is a 32 per cent shareholding in a company called Sun Seeker Energy (UK) Ltd, a British-based company that holds the rights for the marketing and manufacture of SunSeeker's products in Australasia, and is negotiating to acquire the rights for the British market.

SunSeeker Energy (UK) is looking to list on the AIM market in London in order to raise capital to develop SunSeeker's products for the British market.
SSE plans to manufacture and market the same types of products for the New Zealand market.

However, looking through the company's website and the website of the ultimate rights holder, SunSeeker Energy Ltd of Hong Kong, there isn't even a picture of what one of these units might look like. SSE claims that these units have several advantages and positive attributes, but it is hard to know if the units are any good based on the information publicly available.

Frankly, there is hardly any information available and that makes any assessment of the company's prospects, even at the most basic level, difficult.
Clearly, the plan is to raise capital to build manufacturing capacity, sales and marketing channels and the necessary company and administration facilities, but how much is an open question.

The SPE product is a new technology and there is no information as to how this might be received by potential purchasers.

All that appears to have happened to date is that the Hong Kong-based company has sold some territory licenses and will be paid a royalty stream, presumably to fund further research and development. Australia and New Zealand seem to be at the forefront of the licence sales.
The directors of SSE must have had some level of information about the product and its prospects, but have chosen or been unable to share it with potential investors.

There is also a lack of market information about the demand for solar power in general. The demand for non-fossil fuel energy is growing, but what does that mean for solar power?
It has always been a bit on the margin of power generation because of the cost per kilowatt-hour to generate electricity. Does SSE have something new that will create a new paradigm for electricity generation?

Don't know. Can't tell. According to the licence agreements that are available on the company's page on the NZX website, SSE will have to start paying royalties in October, at the rate of A$30,000 a month. This is almost $400,000 per annum, and the money will have to come from somewhere as SSE doesn't appear to have much in the bank at all. The company will have to get about raising its profile with investors and brokers if it wants to raise capital from the market in the next few months.

It is good to see companies with ideas using the NZAX market, but it has to be asked whether SSE has decided to list too early. The company has one asset, a significant, but minority position in another company that holds the rights to the licences that the company has signed up to. It doesn't appear to have any cash, and its prospects are difficult to get to grips with simply because information is hard to come by. It is a true speculative investment. It would have been better perhaps to wait till SSE had developed a bit further before going ahead with a listing.

IE makes Firefox execute "dangerous" code

2007-07-14T16:52:00.000+05:30

Security experts unsure over cause of unusual flaw in Microsoft's browser.

An unusual vulnerability in Microsoft's Internet Explorer could allow the browser to pass a URL to rival browser Firefox, a security researcher claimed.

When installed on a PC, Firefox registers a protocol handler to deal with "firefoxurl://" URLs. But Thor Larholm found that if IE is then used to visit a webpage that tries to call a firefoxurl, IE will launch Firefox with no further prompting, passing it the URL.

This URL could be used by an attacker to make Firefox execute dangerous JavaScript code.

Firefox's developer, Mozilla, notes there is some dispute over where the fault lies: "is it IE for passing untrusted data to another application or Firefox for not validating input properly?".

Security firms are also split. SecurityFocus puts the blame on IE, Secunia fingers Firefox.

Whoever is responsible, Mozilla will include a fix in the forthcoming Firefox 2.0.0.5 update. In the meantime, Jesper Johansson has posted instructions for IE 0-day" href="http://msinfluentials.com/blogs/jesper/archive/2007/07/10/blocking-the-firefox-gt-ie-0-day.aspx" target=_blank>removing the firefoxurl handler.

As well as patching Firefox 2, Mozilla is also progressing with version 3, codenamed Gran Paradiso. The latest alpha 7 build integrates what was previously a third-party add-on aimed at better identifying fraudulent and phishing websites.

The feature dims out all the information in the URL, save the domain sub-domain, in order to provide a clearer identification of the precise origins of a website.

Of course its effectiveness relies on users actually taking notice of the content of the address bar. One, albeit controversial study, has suggested that this rarely occurs.

The first Firefox 3 beta had been scheduled for release this month, but the revised roadmap indicates that the earliest date is 18 September.

Sun to inject key parts of Linux into Solaris

2007-07-10T17:14:00.000+05:30

Sun will add Linux features into Solaris to woo developers of the open source operating system.

Sun is to put important parts of the Linux operating system into its Solaris OS in a bid to gain more support from Linux developers.

Solaris is one of the main varieties of the Unix family of operating systems, known for their ability to safely and securely handle major computing tasks rather than for ease of use.

Sun is known for its business computers that can handle major corporate loads and it has courted programmers who cooperatively develop Linux and other so-called open source software for a long time, with mixed success.

The revamped Solaris system will have features borrowed from Linux that could make it easier to use, according to details posted on Sun's website.

"This is a big deal to the extent that it lowers the barrier for adoption of Solaris," said IDC software analyst Al Gillen.

The new system will keep the Solaris kernel, which is a basic group of code at the heart of the operating system that controls the way other programs interact with each other as well as the computer's hardware.

"Solaris is hard to set up. It doesn't have good hardware support," said Ladislav Bodnar, founder of Distrowatch.com, a website that reviews open source software. "The hope is that things may change."

Sun executives declined to comment in advance of a formal unveiling next week of the plans, called Project Indiana.

Sun competes in high-end computers and operating systems with IBM and Hewlett Packard, as well as old rival.

Linux also has spawned a market for companies like Red Hat and Novell, which sell support and services to back free, open-source software.

"Everything that the Linux developer likes to have at their fingertips, I think they would like to have for Solaris," said George Weiss, an analyst with Gartner who follows open-source software.

Researchers cram 500GB onto a single DVD

2007-07-10T17:05:00.000+05:30

Scientists from the Technical University of Berlin use holographic technology to shoehorn half a Terabyte of data onto one DVD disc.

German scientists have devised a way of recording up to 500 GB of data storage onto a single DVD using holographic techniques.

The Microholas Project - run in conjunction with the Institute of Optics and Optical Technologies at the Technical University of Berlin - aims to to double that capacity to 1TB by 2010.

The high storage density is achieved using a technique called microholographic recording. This adds a third dimension to the physical disc media, creating holographic grids that can be used for the reading and writing of data.

"The implementation of microholography for digital data storage on a disc has the potential to become a major breakthrough in realising Terabyte optical storage," the Microholas Project claimed. "The main advantage of the microholographic approach is that it takes bit-oriented storage to the third dimension: by using holographic multiplexing tracks can be overlapped in the same volume."

The Microholas disc far exceeds today's optical storage capacities. Dual layer Blu-ray discs currently top out at 50GB, whilst HD DVD has a maximum capacity of 30GB. However, both are expected to increase over time.

Yet, with both of the new disc formats currently embroiled in an expensive dog fight for supremacy, the Microholas project may have to offer more than vastly superior capacity to have any chance of commercial success.

EU to look into Blu-Ray exclusivity deals

2007-07-07T23:19:00.000+05:30

European Commission to investigate why so many content providers went for Blu-Ray over its rival HD-DVD.

The European Commission is setting up a probe into the activities of companies supporting the next generation disc format Blu-Ray in a bid to find out if the backers of the format broke EU competition rules.

A spokeswoman for competition commissioner Neelie Kroes said that the Commission is seeking information from content providers and manufacturers over their reasons for backing either Blu-Ray or its rival HD-DVD disc format. The Commission is particularly interested as to why most major film studios went for the Blu-Ray format exclusively.

"We want more information about whether the studios have arrangements with the Blu-ray format, and if so what those arrangements are," the spokeswoman told IT PRO's sister publication PC Pro.

Both formats hold much more data than DVDs. Blu-Ray discs hold 50GB of data on a dual-layer disc while its rival HD-DVD only hold 30GB of data on a dual-layer disc. Blu-Ray discs are similar to Sony's PDD discs, which are aimed at business data archiving.

According to reports from the Wall Street Journal, backers of the rival HD-DVD format, which include Toshiba, Microsoft and Intel, asked the commission to look into the tactics of members of the Blu-Ray camp, which is led by Sony.

The Commission has asked to be provided with emails, phone records and any other supporting documents related to the probe.

Microsoft set to issue six critical updates

2007-07-07T13:07:00.000+05:30

Patch Tuesday will target flaws in Word and Excel.

Microsoft has confirmed it will release six groups of security patches next week in its monthly "Patch Tuesday" release, including three critical updates for Windows and Excel users.

The vendor said these critical updates will fix bugs in many different versions of Microsoft's products including the latest versions of Excel, Windows XP, Vista and Windows Server 2003, Microsoft said in a note on its website.

Online criminals have used flaws in Excel and other Microsoft Office products in limited attacks over the past year. The attacker will typically send the victim an email containing a maliciously encoded Office attachment. If the document is opened, unauthorized software is installed that allows the hacker then gains access to the victim's computer.

Three other, less critical updates are also planned for next week's Patch Tuesday security fixes. These include "important" updates for Microsoft Publisher 2007 and Windows XP Service Pack 2, as well as a fix for Windows Vista.

But Microsoft wouldn't release any further details on the flaws Tuesday's updates will address as part of its regular, monthly set of security patches. But it usually rates an update 'critical' if it is designed to fix a vulnerability that could be used by a hacker to remotely install unauthorized software on a victim's computer.

Thomson, Nokia Siemens Networks to develop new 3G home access technology

2007-07-07T12:34:00.000+05:30

Thomson and Nokia (nyse: NOK - news - people )Siemens (nyse: SI - news - people ) Networks said they have joined forces to develop new 3G access technology for residential consumers to provide enhanced mobile services and improved indoor coverage.

In a joint statement, the companies said the new technology will use 'femto cells' -- small cellular access points that provide enhanced coverage in residential areas and enable operators to provide fixed-mobile convergence services and others such as internet TV.

Trials of the 3G technology will start at the beginning of 2008, and commercial deployments are planned for the third quarter of 2008.

While no financial details were provided, the companies said, according to estimates by market research firms, the femto market could reach 10-12 mln units by 2010.

Timo Hyppola, head of Nokia Siemens Networks' indoor product line, said the technology 'will greatly benefit operators who seek to launch new and innovative services and will open up new markets for both companies'.

Nokia Siemens Networks is a communications services company that combines Nokia's Networks Business Group and the carrier-related businesses of Siemens Communications.

Intel Core 2 Duo Has 'Non-Fixable' Bugs, OpenBSD Founder Alleges

2007-07-02T16:42:00.000+05:30

With the recent release of a microcode reliability update on Microsoft's site that addresses a handful of Intel Core 2 processors, concern over the pervasiveness of bugs in some of the company's latest processors is growing, especially now that OpenBSD founder Theo de Raadt released his own rundown of outstanding, fixed, and what he deems as "non-fixable bugs."

Details are still lacking about what, precisely, the June 22 patch fixes—not to mention how severe the actual bugs were—but in de Raadt's own words, some of the Intel's latest processors "are buggy as hell."

Additionally, "…some of these bugs don't just cause development/debugging problems," according to a de Raadt posting on a mailing list, "but will *ASSUREDLY* be exploitable from userland code."

If true, that could spell trouble for Intel on multiple fronts. As de Raadt notes, some of the errors found on Intel's latest errata (or error) list cannot be fixed via the standard microcode updates the chipmaker usually releases.

According to de Raadt, there are 20 to 30 of such bugs in Intel's latest errata list that cannot be worked around by operating systems and will be potentially exploitable.

DDR3 Memory Standard Set

2007-07-01T00:23:00.000+05:30

Memory standards association confirms a spec that it says will boost performance and reduce power.

The new DDR3 -- Double Data Rate 3 -- standard, gives a big performance improvement and should reduce power compared with to the DDR1 and DDR2 memory schemes, according to the standards group which made it.

JEDEC, the memory standards association, expects the new standard to be widely adopted. DDR3 is a standard for SDRAM -- Synchronous Dynamic Random Access -- memory and specifies a 1.5 volt power supply. DDR1 drew 1.8 volts and DDR2 2.5 volts. DDR2 clocked the memory bus at twice the memory cell speed to trade off an increase in memory cell latency against an overall increase in memory throughput. DDR3 clocks the memory bus at four times the memory cell speed to make the same trade-off but this time with a lower power consumption. DDR3 has an 8-bit wide prefetch buffer; DDR2's is 4 bit; and DDR's is 2 bit. DDR3 should win out over DDR2 where large amounts of data have to be transferred in and out of memory.

Joe Macri of AMD, the relevant JEDEC group chairman, said: "The DDR3 standard represents the culmination of countless hours of collaboration between memory device, system, component and module producers. This standard will permit emerging systems to achieve greater performance, storage and functionality, consistent with the needs of an increasingly information-intensive world community."

The DDR3 standard is intended to operate over a performance range from 800 to 1600 MT/s (million transfers per second) and device densities from 512 Mb to 8 Gb in monolithic and stacked packages. These could dramatically increase RAM capacities in PCs and mobile phones, better supporting, for example, a move to 64-bit PCs.

DDR3 represents an extension of DRAM's applicability to a far richer multimedia world and wider range of intelligent electronic devices. Paul Fahey, a JEDEC board member and Intel's platform memory operations director, said: "The DDR3 standard will serve as the lynchpin for developing a new generation of memory solutions that address demands for both lower power and high performance. DDR3 will be an essential ingredient in future mobility platforms and those applications requiring the highest performance, such as video-on-demand, encoding and decoding, gaming and 3D visualization." These will span the gamut form servers, high-end PCS and workstations to mobile phones and other hand-held devices.

JEDEC is completing publication and release of a range of DDR3-based memory modules, including Registered DIMMs (Dual Inline Memory Module) , Unbuffe,PLL'sred DIMMs, SO (Small Outline) DIMMs and other module types and configurations intended for use in desktop, mobile and server computer systems, telecommunications, point of sale and a wide range of other electronic products. Support devices have also been developed and include registers, PLL's (phase-locked loops) and other interface devices optimized for use with the new technology.

JEDEC is the leading developer of standards for the solid-state industry. Almost 3,100 participants, appointed by some 290 companies, work together in 50 JEDEC committees to meet the needs of every segment of the industry, manufacturers and consumers alike. The publications and standards that they generate are accepted throughout the world. All JEDEC standards are available online, at no charge at www.JEDEC.org.

The iPhone: 10 Things Apple Did Right, 10 Things They Did Wrong

2007-07-01T00:05:00.000+05:30

10 Things Apple Did Right in the iPhone

The display, the display, the display. Everything looks good on it.
The menu design: It's simple and clean, and the home screen icons look like so much eye candy.

Fingertip navigation, zooming and scrolling that's intuitive, effective and fast.

Video playback that's so good you can tell when you've done a sub-par job of ripping your movies.

Visual voicemail lets you get to the calls you care about faster.

Great integrated applications, including Google Maps, YouTube, and a world clock that packs a timer, stopwatch and multiple alarms.

Cover Flow. It's incredibly fun to choose your music by visually flipping through album art.

It's tough: Our initial stress tests suggest that the iPhone is more durable than you might expect for such a sleek handset.

The first Apple music player with a built-in speaker--and it's not half bad for a phone.

No disconcerting "do not disconnect" messages when syncing with a PC.

10 Things They Did Wrong

We want our AOL Instant Messaging--and Yahoo and MSN IM clients, too. What about MMS support for sending picture mail?

No voice recording--and more importantly, no voice dialing support. How are you supposed to use an iPhone with a hands-free car kit?

It's the most locked-down phone we've ever seen. Not only can you not swap out the AT&T SIM card for one from another network, you can't even swap it out for another AT&T SIM card.

AT&T is building out its mobile broadband network, but iPhone users are stuck with older EDGE technology--or battery-consuming Wi-Fi.

You know those great headphones you already own? They won't fit the iPhones headset jack, so your first iPhone accessory will be a bulky, ugly $10 adapter.

The software keyboard invites typos--but when you're entering passwords there's no way of telling whether you've got them right.

It's great that the iPhone can reorient pages in Safari, CoverFlow, and the photo album, but why not extend that capability to other apps such as e-mail? Some messages could benefit from a widescreen display. And even when it does reorient, it doesn't always follow through with all features: CoverFlow loses access to the volume slider, for example.

No support for custom ringtones, surprising in a music phone.

The camera's rudimentary, with no audio/video or even zoom capability.

No to-do list support, a basic in most calendar applications.

Phishing scam spreading via Yahoo IM

2007-07-01T00:01:00.000+05:30

A phishing scam was circulating on Friday through Yahoo Messenger that directs people to a malicious Web site where they are prompted to enter their Yahoo user name and password. The malicious instant message automatically forwards itself to the victim's IM contacts.

The IM arrives from someone in your contact list with a link to a Geocities Web page and smiley face emoticons surrounding the link. When clicked on, the link opens a page that looks like a legitimate Yahoo 360 sign-in page.

Yahoo is investigating the matter and will take down the Geocities Web site if it is perpetrating a scam, a Yahoo spokeswoman said. Geocities is Yahoo's free Web space service. Yahoo also will add filters to the Messenger system to prevent the malicious link from being propagated, she said.

Phishers often use smiley faces and other emoticons to make the victim feel that the IM is safe. Geocities sites are often used in phishing scams. Such scams are not new and are becoming increasingly more common.

IM users should not blindly trust links they receive even if the link comes from a trusted source or friend. Users should confirm that the person behind the IM account actually sent the link and that it is legitimate.

If you are duped, immediately change your password and notify your Yahoo IM contacts about the malicious IM. Yahoo users also can customize their Yahoo log-in page with a security seal so they will know that the site is legitimate

The iPhone gets ripped apart

2007-06-30T18:22:00.000+05:30

Barely a few hours into the launch of the iPhone, and already a few very brave souls have torn apart the $600 phone to reveal its precious innards to all. Both the folks over at Think Secret and iFixit have taken apart the phone, but only the iFixit guys managed to open up the logic board without ruining it (Oops!). Judging from their gratuitous shots of the iPhone getting ripped apart, it looks like disassembling the phone was quite a difficult task. From what I can see, it looks like the battery is huge, there are about 16 screws total, and it's loaded with a Skyworks GSM/EDGE Power amplifier, an ARM 339S0030 processor, and something called a Samsung K9HBG08U1M, which is presumed to be a video processor. No word if they were able to put the phone back together again (I'm guessing not). Don't try this at home folks, unless you have the money to burn and don't mind voiding your warranty. But if you wish to see what really makes the iPhone tick, or just watch in horror as the device gets torn apart, then head on over to either of these sites to see it all happen in gory detail.

Qualcomm hopes new technology can open up cell phone download market

2007-06-30T16:25:00.000+05:30

If Qualcomm has its way, cell phone users won't be limited to buying ring tones, games and other applications only from their wireless providers.

Instead, they'll be able to browse the Internet from their home computers to find downloads for their cell phones and have them installed directly to their handsets.

The San Diego wireless technology giant Wednesday announced its new technology, called BrandXtend, which will make it easier for companies to offer cell phone applications on their Web sites - and for consumers to buy them.

"You could be on a Web site and see an interesting wallpaper or ring tone and download it to your handset, whatever handset you have available," said Peggy Johnson, executive vice president and president of Qualcomm Internet Services.

Major League Baseball plans to announce today (June 21) at Qualcomm's annual BREW conference in downtown San Diego that it will be the first company to employ the BrandXtend technology to offer cell phone content directly to the public on the Web.

The BREW Conference, named for Qualcomm's binary run-time environment for wireless that enables games and other applications to operate on cell phones, continues through tomorrow. This year, it's expected to draw 2,700 wireless industry executives from around the world.

In its seventh year, the conference brings developers of cell phone applications that use Qualcomm's BREW technology together with wireless carriers, such as Verizon.

As the industry has traditionally worked in the United States, cell phone users find new games or ring tones by browsing the offerings provided by the wireless carrier on the handset.

About 75 percent of the revenue from mobile content in the United States comes from sales made directly on cell phones, or "on deck," as it's known in the industry. Developers of that content scramble to get wireless carriers to offer their wares.

Some observers describe the U.S. wireless marketplace as a "walled garden" because cell phone users are largely limited to the choices their carriers offer. But with Qualcomm's introduction of BrandXtend, the industry is now focusing on ways that consumers can look beyond the walled garden.

In other countries, cell phone users are used to buying applications for their handsets "off deck." In the United Kingdom, more than 70 percent of the revenue from cell phone downloads comes from off-deck transactions, said Nick Lane, principal analyst at the Informa market research firm in London.

The U.S. market for sales of cell phone content on the Web is expected to grow.

By 2010, off-deck sales of content for cell phones are expected to grow to 40 percent of the market, according to Frost & Sullivan, a San Antonio, Texas, market research firm.

Qualcomm said its BrandXtend technology isn't meant to cannibalize on-deck sales enabled by the company's BREW technology. Instead, BrandXtend complements the applications that wireless carriers offer, Johnson said.

As it stands, Verizon is the nation's only major wireless carrier to use Qualcomm's BREW technology to sell applications for cell phones. With BrandXtend, any U.S. cell phone user can buy an application, no matter the carrier, Johnson said.

For content providers, BrandXtend gives them the chance to sell their applications directly to the consumer.

For Qualcomm, it opens up a potential new stream of revenue. The company takes a percentage of sales, just as it does with BREW applications.

With BrandXtend, consumers will be able to to browse for applications on the Web using their computers. When they make a purchase, they'll be asked to provide their cell phone number, their carrier and the model of the phone. Their purchase will be sent to the phone.

The BREW Conference continues today with a keynote speech by Qualcomm Chief Executive Paul Jacobs, who is expected to discuss the use of BREW applications in health care and for tracking small children.

Apple’s iPhone Launch day on June 29 in US

2007-06-29T16:05:00.000+05:30

Apple’s iPhone Launch day on June 29 in US. For most of this week, scores of individuals have been camping out in front of Apple and AT&T retail stores across the US, intent on becoming the first to own Apple’s shiny new gizmo.

As with previous Apple product launches, the introduction of the iPhone has been nothing short of a marketing masterclass. The simple fact that I am writing this news about it is proof alone that this MP3 player/mobile phone hybrid device – hardly an innovation in itself – has managed to get the whole world talking and desperate to own one.

As one of the few people outside of Apple to have had access to an iPhone, albeit briefly, I can say that first impressions are good. I can also see the iPhone serving as a significant tool for the business user, thanks to its good email implementation with support for IMAP, and web browser that allows you to access proper web pages without them being reformatted into a mess to fit a small screen.

For more information with a video of Steve Jobs of iPhone

As always, time will tell on this one. The iPhone is not scheduled to hit our shores until at least October, only then can we really decide if it is fit for purpose, let alone fit for business.

Free Software Foundation may ban Novell from selling Linux

2007-06-29T15:40:00.000+05:30

Open source software body is reviewing Novell's rights and position as fallout from its deal with Microsoft continues.

The Free Software Foundation, the body responsible for protecting intellectual property rights for open source and free software, is reviewing Novell's right to sell new versions of Linux.

The announcement comes as another blow to Novell after the open-source community reacted angrily to its decision to agree a wide-reaching intellectual property deal with Microsoft designed to counter claims that Microsoft IP was being infringed.

"The community of people wants to do anything they can to interfere with this deal and all deals like it. They have every reason to be deeply concerned that this is the beginning of a significant patent aggression by Microsoft," said Eben Moglen, the Foundation's general counsel.

The foundation controls intellectual property rights to key parts of the open-source Linux operating system.

Novell angered members of the open-source community that develops Linux and other free software programs in November when it entered a wide-ranging business deal with Microsoft.

Critics called on the board to punish Novell by banning it from distributing new versions of Linux software, said Moglen.

Linux is the most popular variant of open-source software. Unlike proprietary software such as Microsoft Windows, open-source software lets developers share code and add functions and is generally available at no cost.

Moglen said the board has not made a decision on the matter but that he expects it to announce a ruling within two weeks.

If the foundation decides to take action, the ban would apply to new versions of Linux covered under a licensing agreement due to take effect in March.

John Dragoon, senior vice president and chief marketing officer at Novell, declined to comment saying it would be premature to speculate on how the issue would be resolved.

"We'll take a look at the final determination and we'll react accordingly," he said.
Software companies such as Novell sell standardized versions of open-source programs with custom features, maintenance plans and technical support.

Linux sales accounted for five per cent of the $967 million in revenue that Novell reported last year. The deal with Microsoft has turned into a far bigger cash generator as it calls for Microsoft to make two upfront payments worth a total of $348 million.

The two companies agreed to jointly sell their products and also develop technologies to make it easier for businesses to use Linux alongside Windows software. They will also license each other's intellectual property.

Members of the open-source community have called on Novell to pull out of the pact, saying it would undermine the patent position of Linux software and also give Microsoft an edge in persuading businesses to use Microsoft products over Linux and other types of open-source software.

Jefferies & Co analyst Katherine Egbert said Novell's business was likely to suffer if it was prevented from using the new versions of Linux.

It would have to boost spending on research and development to upgrade its software without access to the latest versions of the open-source code provided by the Foundation.

Novell shares ended down two cents at $7.16 on the Nasdaq.

The stock is likely to trade down before the Foundation discloses its ruling as investors stay on the sidelines to avoid the worst-case scenario, analysts said.

"Investors don't like uncertainty," Egbert said. "This isn't good to the extent that it creates uncertainty around the technical road map."

Red Hat chief had patent talks with Microsoft

2007-06-29T00:18:00.000+05:30

Matthew Szlukil said his firm discussed a patent agreement with Microsoft before the software giant signed its deal with Novell.

Red Hat held talks with Microsoft over a patent agreement that broke down before the software giant signed a deal with rival Novell, Red Hat's chief executive Matthew Szulik has said.

The developer of Linux software, has yet to sign such a deal which could see Novell, its biggest rival, woo customers away from Red Hat and work on product development and sales with the world's No.1 software maker.

In an interview with Reuters, Szulik declined to say whether his company is now in negotiations with Microsoft over signing such a patent agreement.

"I can't answer the question," he said.

Officials with Microsoft couldn't be reached for comment.

In May of this year, Microsoft made a broad claim that open-source programs, including Linux programs from Novell and Red Hat, violate 235 of the world's largest software maker's patents.

As part of their November 2006 business partnership, Microsoft agreed not to sue Novell customers for any patent violations that might come up as a result of their use of Novell's Linux software.

Microsoft has since urged other open-source software companies to enter into similar patent agreements and signed deals with at two of them, privately held Xandros and Linspire.
If Red Hat, a distributor of Linux software for business computers and the world's largest open-source software company, were to enter into a patent agreement with Microsoft it would risk losing the right to distribute key parts of the Linux operating system.

Much of the code in its flagship product, Red Hat Enterprise Linux, is distributed under the terms of a licensing agreement known as the General Public License, version 2.

An update to that license, version 3, is about to be implemented. It will forbid companies from distributing Linux software if they enter into patent agreements like the ones that Microsoft signed with Novell.

The Free Software Foundation, which authored the General Public License and owns rights to much of the code at the heart of Red Hat Enterprise Linux, inserted that clause into the agreement in an effort to discourage other open-source software developers from signing patent deals with Microsoft.

The authors of that license have said they believe that such patent deals will help Microsoft back claims that its intellectual property is being violated by code in Linux and other open source software, eventually giving the company ammunition to seek billions of dollars in license fees from users of open-source software.

Linux is the biggest rival to Microsoft Windows and also the most popular type of open-source software.

GNU GPLv3 Lanching Today

2007-06-29T00:10:00.000+05:30

On Friday, June 29, at 12 noon (EDT), the Free Software Foundation will officially release the GNU GPL version 3. Please join us in celebration as we bring to a close eighteen months of public outreach and comment, in revision of the world's most popular free software license.

Beyond the creation of an improved license, the process of drafting version 3 has helped highlight vital issues for the community of free software users. This is a moment to thank the thousands who participated by commenting on the license, and those that represented stakeholders through the GPLv3 committee process.

Now with the release of GPLv3, we will see new defenses extended to free software. These defenses will continue the long history of fighting all efforts to make free software proprietary.
Please join us as we stream live footage of Richard Stallman announcing GPLv3 from Noon (EDT) at www.fsf.org.

IBM claims new supercomputer hits three petaflops

2007-06-29T00:04:00.000+05:30

Big Blue announces new Blue Gene, claiming it's three times fastest than its predecessor, the previous world-leader supercomputer.

IBM claims it has tripled the speed of the world's fastest supercomputer.

The company's last effort, the Blue Gene/L, was named the fastest supercomputer in the world earlier this week for the third year in a row, claiming the number one spot on the Top500 list at the International Supercomputing Conference in Dresden, for a system based in California running at 280 teraflops..

The new Blue Gene/P is designed to operate continuously at one petaflop, but IBM claims it can be configured to top three petaflops.

"Blue Gene/P marks the evolution of the most powerful supercomputing platform the world has ever known," said Dave Turek, vice president of deep computing at IBM, in a statement.

The Blue Gene/P is based on racks which can be added to as necessary to expand its power. Each chip features four IBM 850 MHz processors, capable of 13.6 billion operations per second. Each six-foot rack, which has 32 boards with 32 chips, can run 13.9 trillion operations per second.

In order to get a petaflop, it would require 72 racks on a high-speed network. Increasing the power to three teraflops will take a 216-rack cluster.

IBM isn't just claiming breakthrough speeds for the Blue Gene, but said that the new version is seven times more energy efficient than any other supercomputer. The new Blue Gene will also feature programming and software upgrades.

The advances in energy efficiency and simplified programming means such high performance computing may be of interest to more commercial users, rather than research, Turek said.
"A new group of commercial users will be able to take advantage of its new, simplified programming environment and unrivaled energy efficiency," said Turek. "We see commercial interest in Blue Gene developing now in energy and finance, for example. This is on course with an adoption cycle -- from government labs to leading enterprises - that we've seen before in the high-performance computing market."