This article is about the latter of the above descriptions. A topic that was the beginning of me contributing to BagelTech, back in May of 2011.

F-Secure, a well known and respected computer security company, released a report last week, detailing the growth of malware on the Mac OS platform. Sadly they only reveal data from April of 2011 to December, but their findings were quite interesting from a number of perspectives all the same and what I said back in May is very much true today too. Throughout the year there were some spikes when they found more malware, and some dips in activity when there were very few new variants of malware found. For 2011 the two biggest spikes in malware detections were in June and October, with 12 new variants in June and 11 new variants in October respectively. A grand total of 58 new variants of malware were found during the course of the whole year.

The different types of malware in the wild, targeting Mac OS X, that F-Secure found were Backdoors, Trojans, Trojan-Downloaders and Rouge. I will explain the differences between these different types of malware soon, but I would like to point your attention towards that F-Secure never mentions finding any kind of virus for Mac OS X during entire 2011. If there is one type of malware that even the most novice of computer users know of, it’s the virus. So far, there have been none for Mac OS X in the wild and I have a feeling that if one were to pop up, we will hear about it either we want to or not!

A backdoor is essentially a way for someone who as managed to compromise any given computer system to more easily slip back in, whenever they please to do so. The backdoor will bypass any layer of security that might exist on the system in question, leading to the very apt name, of being a backdoor that one can take in order to avoid the big lock and chain on the front, so to speak.

Trojans are apps masquerading as something they are not, just like the famous Trojan horse of ancient mythology held a small army inside while posing to be a trophy. If you for instance downloaded a copy of Pixelmator, the famous image editing application, from a file-sharing site, chances are you got something completely different. While the app you downloaded pretended to be Pixelmator, this was not the case at all and instead you installed a trojan on your Mac.

A Trojan-Downloader is essentially a Trojan, but it downloads more malware in the background, without you knowing it, and runs them as well. The old case of going from bad situation to even worse situation since there is nearly no limit to what other apps can get downloaded and installed.

The last kind of malware mentioned in the report is Rouge, which is the perhaps nastiest kind of malware in that it pretends to be anti-virus or anti-malware, while in reality it might not at all have any kind of functionality that such an app should have. While not all of them are completely without function, many are. They serve to lull users into a fake sense of security while they fork over money for something that does nothing of what the user really needs.

The one thing all these different forms of malware have in common is that the user of the computer must in one way or another be active in getting them onto the system. For these types of malware to “just infect” your Mac is not possible, since they are not designed in that way. Again, these are not viruses, they are malware of different classification all together. The user is the way in which the manage to bypass security, either by pretending to be an app that it is not, comes along for the ride with an app or that is pretends to be anti-malware of some kind.

Essentially the malware creators have decided to attack the weakest link in the security chain of most computer systems these days; the user! Many of those now using Macs are converts from many years of using a Windows machine, and probably think in slightly different terms and ways that someone who has been a Mac user for some time. Someone who has used Windows for years is conditioned into doing a lot of things that make sense in the Windows world, such as always having some kind of an anti-virus (sometimes anti-malware) installed and running maintenance apps regularly. While these things are not in themselves bad, they are often misunderstood in what they do and why they should be run or even installed,

As with most things, it’s best to pay attention to what is going on, regardless of what operating system you are running and who has built the hardware. At any given time there might be that nearly magical security hole found, which enables the most dastardly of malware to slip into your machine. It might sound far off to some, but I prefer to take security very seriously personally, while I hope the company behind the product does everything in their power to make the device as secure as they can from their end. Assuming that you are sitting in the impenetrable fortress might be fun for a while, but after a while I’m fairly sure you will suffer, one way or the other.

We still don’t see many malware variants for Mac OS X, compared to the threat seen for Windows users, but the ones that do exist are very real and should be taken seriously. Better safe than sorry, if you ask me!

Robert Falck

Robert is a freelance tech journalist from Sweden. You can follow his posts here on Bagel Tech and on his site streakmachine.com or you can follow him on twitter @streakmachine.

Hey Everyone. I know that Rumours will abound in the coming weeks over iPad 3 etc and the ideas that Apple will do a second sized tablet are nothing new…but we have some news from our contact inside Apple. On June 26th Apple will deliver a 7 inch ‘tablet’

The device will have a stripped down version of iOS and carry a ‘lower grade processor’ than iPad. The device will however have a ‘Retina Display’ and be incredibly easy to read. The price is yet to be finally decided but suspicions are that the device will be in the $250 – $299 price range. This won’t be a rival iPad but will be more focussed on complimenting the iBooks store and creating a more ‘eReader’ like experience

The Name on the Table at the moment is the ‘The iReader’ but others have still not been discounted including ‘The iBook’. With the date being just 2 weeks after WWDC its also highly plausible that this is the delivery date after an announcement to developers who will no doubt have concerns over upscaling and resolution issues with current iPhone and iPad Apps

Given the success of the iBooks Text Book Launch last week and the need for a more ‘Text Book’ like size, this move is certainly plausible and with the Retina Display packing all the clarity you would need, its certainly worth considering. iPad 3 is likely to make its Debut at the same time.

With the portability that a 7 inch device would bring, this is likely to chime well with existing ‘Apple Commuters’ who have often expressed to our shows, the frustration of a smaller iPhone and an iPad which is just that bit too big for the handbag, pocket or small pouch.

I’d buy one for sure. Apple…put me down for one

Ewen Rankin

Apple commenced by stating the problems with the old system of the printed books. They are heavy, they are expensive, they wear out, they are not searchable, they are not up-dateable and yet their content is amazing in that they impart knowledge.

A few years ago there was no obvious alternative to even think about changing the way textbooks were made available, fortunately we are no longer living a few years in the past, for today we have the iPad. A piece of technology that apparently was the number one item on kids wish list this past holiday season (I assume they meant Christmas).

It was only a matter of time before these two fields converged and today was that day.

Firstly with the introduction of iBook2. iBooks 2 allows publishers to present highly interactive, colourful and engaging text books that I could have only dreamed of as a school kid. Suddenly kids will be able to explore their subject matters with interactive diagrams, zoomable pictures, video and various other features.

Students will be able to easily add notes too which I always recall my teachers telling me specifically not to do in our books or doodle in them in anyway, shape or form. I always thought this was a little ironic (I assumed I knew what ironic meant back then) as the pages were invariably already adorned with many intricate drawings are various bodily parts or the suspected sexuality of many of the school teachers (as you can tell I went to a top notch London school).

Of course all these new flashy books have to be created and anyone who has had to deal with desktop publishing will know what a pain this can be. Having to reformat text and resize pictures. Well Apple thinks it has solved this problem with it’s new app, iBooks Author.

iBooks Author is primarily focused on textbooks but it is reported you could make any kind of book with it. Simply open the app, choose a template and start dragging your content right into the book. Add text, photos, video and Word files that will automagically create sections and headers based on the content. Decide to add more pictures afterwards and the words will simply flow around the image dynamically.

You can also add widgets such as an image gallery to add a little interaction into your creation. The ability to import a Keynote is also included simply by dragging and dropping. However, for the more gifted programers out there they can also write their own widgets using Javascript and HMTL.

Once your book is created you can publish it to your iPad to check the layout and proof your creative masterpiece. Apparently you will also be able to send it off to iBooks to be published but I am presently not sure how that approval process will work.

With the introduction of iBooks Author many teachers and writers will have at their hands a very powerful way of easily creating an ebook, but what is the cost of this rather powerful piece of software? Free….Totally free.

To show Apple means business they have partnered with a number of important publishers in the textbook world for this launch. Pearson, McGraw Hill and Houghton Mifflin Harcourt have all produced textbooks that are available today all for under $15.

To further the educational aspect of todays event Apple also released the iTunes U App for the iPad. Now students (or anyone else) can subscribe to the many free courses available through iTunes U and have them all neatly organised in one app.

Once subscribed to a courses you can get full details of the teacher, the syllabus and option things like office hours and credits available. The teacher can post notes to subscribed students including assignments and to-do lists. These assignments can link you to the relevant book in your iBooks section. The teacher can also make videos available also accessable through the app. Once again notes can be easily taken and stored for later reference. A Materials tab makes it a breeze to link out to any required or suggested books, videos, documents are other material required for the course.

So that wraps up pretty much everything from the Apple Educational event. Already I have heard a few rumours that people have been disappointed with the presentation and the tools offered but in all honesty I cannot understand why? Apple made it clear that this was to be an educational event and that is what they delivered. The iBooks Author app alone I can see as having the potential to being a major game changer. If the production of books becomes a simple case of drag and drop I can see far more authors dabbling with self publishing than ever before.

There are times when I am so jealous of the kids of today. They have grown up with with technology around them and to them it is all second nature. I have no idea if the existence of the modern internet would have helped me out when I was at school but I am pretty sure, judging by the way kids love to engage with the iPad, that its inclusion within any educational field will sure to be an viewed as an added bonus….well, until the kid wants a quick game of angry birds at least.

Karl Madden
@claw0101 

While this was taking place, up here in the somewhat nippy northern parts of Europe, things are not quite as rosy and lovely. Amazon is to the common person on the street an unheard of company, Netflix is something people use in movies and tv-series and Lovefilm only recently started offering streaming. With a pretty abysmal selection of available titles, even in comparison to the DVDs they mail back and forth.

As you can see, the situation is not exactly great. Consider also that we have to travel in harsh winter conditions for a good portion of year when we want to rent movies, so it’s even worse for us… Actually, I’m kidding. Things are not as gloomy as I made them out to be.

One of the options available for some time is the service Voddler, by the Swedish company bearing the same name. While having made some strange choices over the years, like making a desktop client completely void of mouse interaction, they have managed to improve considerably during 2011. Personally I prefer to stay away from watching movies on the desktop, simply because it depends on Adobe Flash and my old MacBook is not fond of that. The iOS apps are pretty good and do deliver a rather nice experience as far as it is possible on a mobile device. Library of movies is not too bad either, with new titles popping up at least as fast as they do in any rental place I have seen. The bad part is that there is no good way of sending the movie to the big screen, as Voddler does not have any interaction on for instance an Apple TV or any other media device that hooks up to your TV. Advantage: Netflix

Another option is the late-comer to the game in these parts; Apple! Yes, during 2011 they finally let us too join in on the joy of buying and renting movies via iTunes. The technology is far more integrated into existing options for getting the movie up on your TV, but only if you bought into the Apple ecosystem, of course. Here the real annoyance I have found is the somewhat slim offering of available titles. Could be that this is due to trouble getting all the various companies to sign on the dotted line or just that this region is not viewed as important in terms of making an effort to supply more titles. Prices are far from as bad as I have heard people say they are in other regions, compared to the alternatives there, but I’m not exactly impressed either. And there is no subscription service. Advantage: Netflix

Then there is the other Swedish service named Headweb, which offer roughly the same service as Voddler, sans the apps for Android, but there are apps for iOS. On the other hand, there is the option to use the service with your Playstation 3, which offers an alternative I have yet to see other companies have. Similar to Apple, Headweb does not use any kind of DRM on their wares anymore, but rather a form of digital watermarking that can be traced back to the buyer, should the file find its way to the general populace somehow. Gets titles about as fast as Voddler, but suffer from the same issue of not having quite the same library in the back as Netflix. Headweb does have some other interesting social interaction and awarding system built in, so at least there is that. Advantage: Netflix

So all in all, there are indeed a bunch of options available up here in the cold north known as Sweden. They just aren’t up to the same level as Netflix, regardless of what way I choose to look at it. Granted, they are not necessarily bad and they do offer a compelling option to rolling out the door and moseying along to the nearest place where they let you borrow a plastic disc in exchange for some hard earned cash. I hope Amazon will crawl its way up here before long and give the existing companies a run for their collective money, as that would probably be needed right now. It’s not bad as it is, but it can indeed get a fair bit better, at least in my mind!

Robert Falck

Robert is a freelance tech journalist from Sweden. You can follow his posts here on Bagel Tech and on his site streakmachine.com or you can follow him on twitter @streakmachine.

I have so far installed Netflix on my 360, Apple TV2, iPhone and iPad and can say I am very impressed with the results. The pictures look crisp and clean on even older standard definition files. HD with 5.1 looked and sounded fantastic on my 42″ screen with very little noticeable pixelation. The media started streaming almost immediately and looked perfect compared to other streaming media I have tried in the past. However I must admit I currently enjoy a 50MB Broadband connection but according to Netflix’s website they only require a connection of 500kbps (0.5MB) to allow you to watch media instantly.

Obviously this kind of service will live and die by it’s content though, so what does Netflix have to offer right out of the bag. At the moment Netflix seems to be pretty cagey as to how many films they are currently offering but they have said the total is due to rapidly increase over the coming months.

A quick perusal of their library revels such gems as Pirates of the Caribbean, Sneakers, National Treasure, Sin City, Kill Bill, Face Off and Con Air. Ok, these are all guilty pleasures so don’t judge me too harshly. There are many more but I can’t do an exhaustive list.

TV shows are also well represented with series of Doctor Who, Torchwood, Dexter, Breaking Bad, Poirot, Arrested Development, Twin Peaks, Faulty Towers, The IT Crowd and many more.

When you compare the system that Netflix is offering it is very easy to compare it to the similar streaming service offered by Lovefilm. I have unfortunately used LoveFilm and although the recent addition of the LoveFilm app to the Xbox360 is far from terrible the rest of its streaming strategy as often left much to be desired with poor quality streams and a limited library even after several months.

Netflix appears to be offering a cleaner, simpler interface with an initial library that is satisfactory if not stellar. Hopefully time and licensing deals will rectify this in the future but for it’s first day out in the UK Netflix is an impressive service and I look forward to see how it develops…and how the ISP’s cope with the inevitable strain on their systems.

Karl Madden
@claw0101 

Foto Photo Walk

Alex Fox from BagelTech Foto was our guest professional for the day and he was soon engaging us all in techniques, settings and compositions that we could try to bring out the best in the subjects we were photographing.

Foto Photo Walk

Next we moved to the South-bank in search of a local tavern that would supply us with much needed liquid refreshment. Once inside the warm we were able to chat and swap stories and ask further questions from Alex who was more than happy and willing to share his expertise.

By now the sun had finally set leaving us with the glorious sites of the River Thames at night. We filed across Blackfriars Bridge and all tried our hands at prolonged exposures to capture the night views. Again Alex has on hand to share techniques and we all managed to get some stunning shots.

Foto Photo Walk

The day turned out to be a total pleasure. I met some wonderful people and had a fantastic time while learning lots of new things that I will be using again in my future photography. We eventually parted ways but not before expressing an eagerness for our next photo walk excursion. Hopefully next time you may be joining us.

Karl Madden
@claw0101

I’ve had enough – only this week on the Big show I had to defend Research In Motion (RIM) – then I read Paul Thurott’s blog post on RIM, even the BBC are at it. It just seems like a cheap shot. RIM shows no signs of bankruptcy, or poor business practices, yet the tech media insists they’re done finished and gone. I frankly think all these normally wise heads are swayed by these pretty glass rectangles made by fruit themed toy makers and a popular search engine company, and are missing the point completely.

Are Blackberry’s the best business phone? maybe not … they’ve had some misses with some recent handsets as they stepped away from what they know to sell pretty glass rectangles. However the simple curve/bold qwerty keyboard phones are best in class without a doubt. Not convinced Nokia, HTC, Motorola, Samsung and others all have a designs that looks similar, imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. Why make one if the markets dead?

Yet, this is only the tip of the iceberg, the Blackberry infrastructure is superb, offering end to end e-mail encryption. You can start with a 50 user Blackberry Enterprise Server (BES) for free, and all you loose over the paid version, is some granular control. BES Express still has end to end e-mail encryption, remote wipe, application control and and all the other essential features you need. The recent outage in the UK only affected users of blackberry’s web-based BIS service. The rest of us with BES’s just carried on. 2011 outage was the first since 2009 each earlier outage was pretty minor.

The level of security up to recently has been ironclad, the encryption keys were closely guarded by RIM, and government’s were generally told to get stuffed if they asked for them. However in this “terrorist under the bed” post 9/11 world, RIM has released the keys to selected governments and security services after some arm twisting. But, its still the first choice for civil servants, drug dealers, spies and most recently rioters as a secure method of communication. What better recommendation is there….

Paul Thurrott’s recent hatchet job on RIM, was in some places well observed. The playbook was ill advised and they should have ignored the tablet fad and watched the market a bit longer before diving in. No one would have cared if just they carried on making qwerty keyboard phones, that’s what businesses the world over trust RIM to do . But, he missed the point in laughing at the playbook and the model of the month release schedule thats always been a “feature” of blackberry ownership. All thats small beer, RIM still provides reliable business class messaging services with fleets of Blackberries out there to prove it.

I’m sad to say lazy tech journalists seem blinded by the wizzy flash touch screen phones that are so trendy at the minute. They miss what the rest of the world is doing. Across the world now millions of blackberries are beeping and providing safe secure business critical email to everyone from CEO’s to engineers in oil fields. Thats the sound of success not of a company in trouble.

Ian Grant

Ian can be found on twitter @tioaboa and soon on his blog…. Ian is a system administrator with 15 years experience in the IT industry, and is a messaging and virtualisation specialist.

OS X remained virtually unaffected from most forms of malware for a number of years, having the odd blip of suspicious code here and there, but not more. I would surmise that it was several factors that led this to happen.

In the early days of Mac OS X there weren’t really that many users. Even today if we compare the amount of people using OS X, even Windows XP is by far more common and widespread. Since it was both statistically unlikely that the user would have it as well as that many malware makers were already very familiar with Windows, made the Mac a much less interesting target for attack.

As the number of Mac users have increased greatly in the last 5 years, the situation has changed. Given the knowledge most windows users have and in some cases the lack of knowledge, a new opportunity has arisen. Now there are a ton of “normal users” who have been conditioned for many years to have certain ideas about how a computer behaves and what it needs to function. These people won’t be able to tell a real dialog box from a fake one on a website and they are more likely to enter their administrator password when prompted to do so. While the system itself has a very strong secure foundation, the bad guys just exploit the one true weakness: the user!

More people on a platform means it’s more tempting to “mine” that potential gold and make a profit from it. We shouldn’t kid ourselves into believing that the Mac is now huge, since a PC is far more likely to be running any variant of Windows than Mac OS X. But the numbers are great enough to attract attention from the darker recesses of the Internet.

One misconception is that it’s a virus outbreak that’s next on the security agenda for the Mac, but I highly doubt that. While there are indeed lots of new viruses discovered every day, viruses are not as much in the future as other, more modern threats. Trojans for instance.

A version of Pixelmator was recently discovered to contain a rather nasty payload called DevilRobber. In fact the download didn’t contain Pixelmator at all, just the malware. After duping the user into running the fake program, DevilRobber would be installed and hidden in the background of your system. Particularly nasty is the fact that this particular malware not only uses your computing power to create bitcoins, but also to steal any bitcoin information already on your machine as well as a keystroke logger. Say goodbye to your passwords as soon as you have typed them! They’re now on their way to the malware creator.

Trusting the source of the download is critical nowadays and downloading pirate copies of software is not a good option. This is not the first time this has happened either, as pirate copies of iWork has been found to contain Trojans in the past. Expect this to be frequent in the future to come, if the recent past is any indication of things.

Security is reality and we must all take responsibility for how we use our computers, regardless of what kind, be it laptop, desktop, smartphone or tablet. Nothing matters unless we can trust our devices and we take the necessary steps to stay safe!

My quick and easy advice to everyone who uses a computer, no matter the brand and what software you are using, is to download software only from trusted sources and think twice about giving away your administrative password. Common sense will take you far, you should exercise that ability as much as you possibly can.

Robert Falck

Robert is a freelance tech journalist from Sweden. You can follow his posts here on Bagel Tech and on his site streakmachine.com or you can follow him on twitter @streakmachine.

It still seems crazy to me that in this hyper connected, fibre optic world we are still governed by these outdated modes of business. I know the music took a massive hit from the likes of Napster when it first exploded onto the scene and ever since then they have been on the defensive when it comes to the digital world but come on guys, join the rest of us here in 2011.

I know you may be sick of reading this by now but I recently read the Steve Job biography and even he was constantly shocked and dismayed that these music industry types just didn’t understand the world had changed and they could no longer cling to their outmoded forms of thinking.

The very idea of giving the consumer a choice to legally purchase just one or two songs from an album filled them with dread, possibly because they knew that around 80% of most albums are just filler. If people could just buy the few tracks they wanted the world would fall apart, mass hysteria would follow and we’d all fall into the fiery pits of hell.

Obviously none of these things happened and once presented with a cheap, legal and easy means to obtain music the vast majority soon bought into the iTunes service.

The next move was to streaming. Many companies have dabbled in this service, probably the most successful being Spotify. For a monthly fee you gain access and can stream from over 15 million songs to various devices. However there are still limitations. Not all artists are available on Spotify and so it is still a less than perfect situation. Of course as you are only ‘renting’ the content once you stop paying the subscription all the music is no longer available.

I know it must be scary for these record executives to just release their grip on what they perceive to be their only stream of revenue. However it must be remembered that this is the same industry that funds such services as the RIAA for millions of dollars to lobby on its behalf in Washington. It is this industry that usually only pays the actual artists a pittance from any sales. It is this industry that for better or worse (worse in my case) has unleashed shows like X-Factor upon us, reducing music to nothing more than a commodity with plug and play plastic-popstars.

With that all said maybe it is no surprise that these executives still fail to see the opportunities that are standing before them in this digital age. They fail to see cheaper logistics and cheaper prices spurring on bigger sales. They fail to see how their artists can engage with their audiences and raise their interest across social networks. They fail to see how sharing music can build an audience and reach a new people.

Maybe one day a new breed of executives will reach the boardrooms and effect change. Ones that have grown up in this modern era. Ones that have shared the frustration of Digital Right Management systems. Ones that have discovered new music because their friends shared it with them. Until this day comes however I feel we are all destined to live with these draconian licensing laws that govern how we are able to enjoy our various forms of digital entertainment.

-Karl (@claw0101)

As a resident of London I am often forced to endure the special kind of hell that is our underground system. When it is not being held hostage by its union leader it is the fastest form of transport in this great city. Naturally once you venture down to this subterranean world and hurtle along in steel tube canisters you cannot help to look around at your fellow travellers to see what they have brought along to entertain themselves.

In the old days this was a simple choice. A book. It was small, personal and fitted easily into your pocket or handbag. Some did try newspapers but they mainly annoyed fellow passengers with the constant folding and page turning, which often resulted in said fellow passengers doing that typically English thing of not saying anything in annoyance.

With the advent of Smartphones these soon started to take precedence. Many passengers would stare into their small screened worlds while hurtling along the tracks. Naturally the only downside to this was a complete lack of signal on much of the underground network.

Then the e-reader started to appear. Slowly at first but soon gaining traction. Without much ado passengers would whip out the small grey Kindle and start reading. Fellow passengers would look across, as we do when we have yet again forgotten to bring anything to relieve the boredom, and see the small device with the grey screen but really great display.

Soon the item started to proliferate with all kinds of travellers loosing themselves in their latest reading material. Slowly the vast number that used to read paperbacks were being usurped by this new breed of electronic readers. Naturally some of the newspaper readers still persisted and as a result were still being ignored.

It’s easy to see why so many have made the e-reader choice. The Kindle is a lightweight item that feels so comfortable in your hand. The display uses an e-ink system that results in pin sharp resolution that is very comfortable to read, assuming you have a source of light of course. The devices internal memory can hold thousands of books at once and the device remembers where you are when you stop reading.

Another great advantage is there are many books out there that are free and legal to download. You can often find some classic literature that may has passed you by but now is just a quick download away.

Finally the biggest advantage is the price which has continued to fall since the Kindle’s introduction. This fact is opening the Kindles availability to an ever increasing market and consumer level.

As I mentioned at the start of my piece the Kindle Fire will soon be joining the line up from Amazon. This will only be in the great US of A with no stated plans as yet for a global rollout. The Fire will allow the downloading of music, movies, TV shows, apps, books and allows you to browse the net. With it’s colour display and a pixel density slightly higher than the iPad will it be able to slow the adoption of Apple’s device as many are claiming?

I am sure there will be consumers out their that will see the Kindle Fire and the iPad as one and the same with the only difference being the price. However the limitations of the Fire might soon become noticeable. The Fire is definitely a consumption device, something that the iPad was previously labeled as. Both have their own stores and appear to be quite strict what can and can’t play on their systems. However I think they are very different beasts and I’m not sure the Fire will dent anyone’s desire to have an iPad. Unfortunately I cannot say the same for the rest of the Android tablets out there. I can see the Fire causing all kinds of problems for these manufacturers who were already struggling to compete with the iPads price and are now having to face another competitor at a much lower price point.

However no matter what potential purchasers decide to spend their hard earned cash on there is still one inevitable result. The poor old book will face yet another competitor vying to finally banish it to history and although it might not be the Firemen from Bradbury’s story making it go up in flames the result might well be the same as the physical book is banished to the pages of the history books, naturally in e-book format.

-Karl Madden (@claw0101)

A lot of games are given a new life on the various online stores available on many platforms these days. For some games moving to some platforms, there are some problematic conversions and compromises to be done, just to make them function on said platform. As brilliant as the touch screen is for interfaces, it’s not ideal for a lot of games, and specially not for games that were originally designed to work with a physical controller of some sort. The experience will be sub-par, unless some really good way has been found to compensate for this. So far, I have not been too impressed with how conversions have been carried out.

One review I read on the app store simply stated that the game was too difficult, for what I could discern as that it simply didn’t “hold the hand of the player” enough. Many older video games pretty much tossed you straight into the action without giving you a tutorial or instructions in the actual game. Comparably, modern games are littered with sections meant only to teach the basic mechanics of the game to the new player. Add to the mix that the controls of this game are not as responsive or exact as could be desired.

Have kids these days gotten so “spoiled” by the culture of tutorials and “go here, do that, then go here” mentality of gaming that they are unable to understand and get into the older games that lack these mechanics? I honestly don’t know the answer to that one, but I would like to find out. Hopefully my worst fears are completely unfounded and kids are still able to grasp the simple complexity of retro games, even in this day and age.

The games of the NES, SNES, Master System and the MegaDrive were indeed difficult games more often than not. Those of us who started playing video games back then wrapped around brains around those limitations and created strategies for how to deal with them. Exploration and trying everything imaginable was one of those strategies and I still play games by it today, even though games nowadays follow a much more linear path. For my taste, even a bit too linear.

There is an exactness, an eye for crucial details that sometimes leaves the player breathless, when you think about the details of some games. They excel at being artistic and pushing the hardware to its absolute limits, while having a soundtrack that keeps you going and exploiting every possible feature of the limited sound chip. Not to mention the pixel-perfect controls and relentlessly unforgivable gameplay style. So many of these games have nothing to be blamed in terms of how you interface with it and failure is a feature exclusive to the player. Except if you are playing it on an aforementioned sub-par port to a different platform.

Much of the same style and general mechanics still exist, but you won’t find it in the mainstream titles by big names in the business. Instead, aim your attention towards the indie scene, where brutal difficulty and pixel graphics still reign supreme. Often times these games are developed by people who grew up with the old games, so I guess the hope is not completely gone.

Like with Growl on the Mac, it could be a case of either loving it or hating it. Either you love the old games with everything that is their style and function, or you simply just despise it for all what it is worth. Everything can impossibly cater to every taste under the sun, so it would make sense that not all gamers like or even can appreciate the old games. I just hope for a future where they are remembered as the marvels of technology, interactive art and entertainment that they are, not being tossed on the garbage pail of the past, only to be forgotten by choice.

Robert Falck

Robert is a freelance tech journalist from Sweden. You can follow his posts here on Bagel Tech and on his site streakmachine.com or you can follow him on twitter @streakmachine.

Japanese IT giant Fujitsu and the government-funded RIKEN research lab announced that the supercomputer they’ve built in Kobe can speed through 10.51 quadrillion floating point operations per second and going under the name the “K Computer”.

The K is named for the Japanese word “kei”, which represents 10 quadrillion. The super computer spans 864 server racks and over 88,000 interconnected CPUs, all able to work towards a common task. The last of the racks were installed at the RIKEN lab in Kobe, Japan this past August.

According to the industry standard Linpack benchmark, the K Computer’s average performance is about 93 percent of its peak 10 petaflop speed. In June, it topped the Top 500 list with a peak performance of 8.162 petaflops.

Earlier in the week, the Chinese uncloaked a world-class supercomputer built entirely with homegrown processors. The K Computer however is ten times faster, yet proving that not everything in this world is made in China.

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Lots and lots of column inches have been devoted to the pros and cons of which one offers what benefit and which provides for what drawback. I hope you read all those articles because I wont be wasting my time repeating them here.

The long and the short of this post is that RAW v JPEG is a CHOICE not a WAR! Too many people who write articles, feel the need to draw a conclusion as to which format they have finally settled on and then blindly shoot that format going forward.

I recently lent a camera to a young aspiring photographer at my cricket club and forgot to switch the capture to JPEG from RAW. She spent the afternoon taking 1-3 images of most of the cricket shots from our batsmen and then she handed me back the camera.

I was distraught to find that all 600+ images had been taken in RAW. Why ever would you want to shoot local amateur sport in RAW. There are bound to be any number of good shots available and for 99% of those, the camera will have done a great job exposing the result. The results were going on the Cricket Clubs Flickr Page and even if a ‘magic image’ been missed because of exposure issues…so what? Its Local Amateur Sport.

I however had an afternoon of wading through each image and then having to process each one through Adobe Bridge and in 100% of cases clicked ‘auto’ in the settings selection…what a waste of time!

RAW is a Tool for the photographer to use just as much as a Tripod is a tool. Use it when you need it or feel that it would be helpful in creating a great image and avoid it when you don’t need it and feel it would be cumbersome in either the time it takes you to process the images, or in the file size that it consumes on your storage media and backup media.

The Conclusion is…Make an educated choice based on the pros and cons of each image type and use the one which suits the setting and the opportunity, JUST like you would a tripod. Carry it if you’ll need it, leave it in the trunk if you don’t. It’s SIMPLE!

Stop listening to all the static that is talked over RAW and start listening to your own skill and judgement. THAT’S what sets pros apart from amateurs.

Regards

Ewen Rankin (JPEG & RAW User)

If this is what some people define as a jail, I’m quite impressed by these facilities! You can come and go as you please, something I sure wasn’t aware of was standard for jails. There are also a large number of tools available to enable you to do all kinds of things, from sprucing up photos to writing or perhaps just play a game for a while. Then we have the aesthetics, which in my opinion are some of the best available on the market, both in terms of hardware and software.

So basically the Apple jail is something along the lines of this:

• You can come and go as you please

• You have a very large choice of things to do

• It looks good on the outside as well as the inside

• Your information can be taken to other places without too much trouble

• The jailers apparently want you to be able to do what you want while you are there

While I can understand it from some perspectives, it puzzles me that people define the whole experience as a jail. It’s far too free to be a jail, since I’m allowed to do what I please when I please to do so, and using any tool I desire. Sure, the tools available (the apps, in this metaphor) are limited to what Apple selects, but that is not too much more different than what stores to all the time. Yet, we do not call stores for prisons or jails.

Quite the opposite of a jail, if you ask me. I may not be able to see the source code, that which makes all the programs in the whole system, nor do I get the hardware specifications along with design diagrams for how to build my own. But on the other hand, how many people of all those who buy any kind of a computing device would really need, want or understand how to use such things?

I keep burping the same thing over and over, but it’s just a fact we cannot escape: nerds are not the ones computers are built for anymore! These days they are designed for anyone to be able to use, not just those who have an interest in them. Should we fundamentally deny people this for the sake of having everything available to everyone? I’m not saying it’s a bad idea necessarily, but if we just face some realistic facts; there are some people who just don’t give a darn.

It’s not like we are without alternatives either. There has never been as much free software available as there is now and there are some truly great tools out there so that you never ever have to touch anything that would even remotely remind you of a jail. Instead of whining about how closed Apple is and how secretive their products are, why not go out there and build something that so far exceeds what Apple does and beat them at it? Making something that just works so much better in every single aspect, with all the source code completely available for all the magic behind the scenes. And it would be nice if it was an aesthetic experience where you can do what you want while enjoying the experience as a whole. But maybe it’s more fun to use wget to download websites and stare at them in lynx? You can do that if you want, I sure won’t call you anything and I won’t say you are in any kind of institution, but just don’t expect other people to enjoy it as much as you do.

If some people still want to call what Apple builds a jail, then fine by me, I won’t stop you. I merely want to invite some reflection on the term itself and what it means in comparison to the real life institution, and how that refers to Apple services and products. By the same definition you are in a jail whenever you choose any product by any manufacturer, be it milk or a car. Only remember that just because something doesn’t conform to your personal view of the world or your opinions of how it should work, doesn’t make it a jail that cripples the imagination and enslaves millions of people all over the world.

Am I blessed with an insight into Steve’s Health Records which allowed me to be right? No, I’m not. The sad fact is that I recognise the ups and downs of dying from Cancer and thats due having lost far too many friends and family to a condition which is the most insidious and loathsome affliction of the human species. And I am Angry

But sad as I am, I am also respectful of the achievement of a man who didn’t have the easiest of starts in life and certainly didn’t follow the ‘classic path’ to a successful life. But thats what made him a Dude.

He was no ones ‘man’ but his own and he carved a path through life that made everyone who was washed in its wake proud and he groomed those around him to follow their OWN paths and pursue their own greatness. He was a Dude.

However, in my respect for him I am also careful to ensure that my respect and applause for the man is for ‘The Man’ and not ‘The Myth’ and in watching twitter today and looking at the Candle Lit Vigils outside Apple stores and the outpouring of ‘Shock’ I feel that the actions I see and the endless ‘grief’ is inadvertently beginning to destroy ‘The Man’ and promote ‘The Myth’

Steve Jobs was no Messiah and the messianic outpouring from those who cannot adequately temper their surprise or emotions needs to be quelled or they will rip apart everything the guy really was. Eventually, ‘The Myth’ will not enhance ‘The Man’ but serve only to destroy him

Thanks Steve, You were a Dude. An innovator, an inventor, a mentor, a philanthropist, an industrialist and a billionaire. Thank you for my computer and the operating system and my iPhone. I’m truly grateful, you changed the way I want to live and do live.

Rest in Peace…and I hope that everyone will do the same and shut up and let your great history tell itself.

Ewen

Where others toot their horns loudly and proudly “Yes, sir, we have an Android tablet today” and pack their devices to the brim with all kinds of pre-installed apps and customizations, Amazon did something quite different. In their presentation of the Fire you won’t find the word “Android” plastered all over the place like some kind of branding of perceived excellence. In fact, the only real suggestion that the Fire is a device that runs Android in some way, shape or form is that you can get apps via the Amazon Appstore for Android. I’t not quite right to think about the Fire as another Android-based tablet, because it isn’t!

While a lot of the mainstream media and some tech pundits are screaming “iPad killer” from the top of their lungs, I think there are some problems with painting the Fire as a iPad killer, at least at this given point in time. Not only that I despise the “X killer” nonsense, but for some other, much better reasons than that.

I don’t doubt that the Fire will be quite successful in the market and I do believe a lot of people will both buy and enjoy it, but those things does not an “iPad killer” make. One thing that people love to forget is what a massive ecosystem Apple has at their disposal and where said ecosystem is available. Comparably Amazon is a fairly unknown brand in the minds of normal people who don’t spend their day immersed in tech stuff. Depending on what geographical market we are talking about, there is little to no Amazon presence. In the US and UK, as well as a few more places Amazon is fairly well known, sure. But for an awful lot of places where you can get an iPad and the Apple ecosystem, there simply is no Amazon and certainly not access to the movies and music that they currently offer only in the US.

Another problem is that right now we have no date for when the Fire will be available anywhere besides the US. Seeing as it is their main market I can understand this and it only makes sense to throughly test a product out before deployment on a global scale. This doesn’t remove the fact that for an unknown amount of time the Kindle Fire will be exclusive to the US.

Also, there are some privacy concerns that have yet to be discussed and addressed in conjunction with the otherwise impressive Amazon Silk system. If all your web-surfing goes through Amazon’s servers, isn’t that a rather creepy proposition? All of a sudden they are more or less actively looking at every single thing you do online as long as you are going to different web pages.

Amusingly enough, the Fire is apparently very similar to the RIM PlayBook in terms of hardware. Difference being that Amazon loaded it full of their software and tweaked the heck out of Android to do all the heavy work under the hood. And would you look at that! It does e-mail, something that the PlayBook to this day sorely misses, unless I didn’t catch the memo.

Now don’t get me wrong, I do think this is the best and perhaps only real serious competition to the iPad we have seen so far. What Amazon has done with the Fire greatly impresses me and I think it proves that they know how the market works. It’s not just something you can butt in on at random without too much afterthought. To be successful, it appears that Amazon understands that you need to be able to offer something that actually makes a big difference. That you are able to get books, movies, music and apps right on your device, without jumping through too many hoops to get there. Seeing it as that, I’m hoping Amazon goes global sooner than later.

Robert Falck

Robert is a freelance tech journalist from Sweden. You can follow his posts here on Bagel Tech and on his site streakmachine.com or you can follow him on twitter @streakmachine.

I’m a teacher in training, so to speak, and I have seen the way schools work from both sides of the fence. There are a great deal of challenges in how this scenario can play out and how it is most likely going to play out, mostly for the teachers but to a good degree also for the students.

Computers have been in schools for roughly some 20 to 25 years now, depending on where you live and what kind of an interest the school has had in them. In all this time the way in which they have been used and incorporated into the teaching process has practically stayed the same. Or perhaps more correctly said, the way in which they have not been incorporated into the teaching process. They are still regarded as this thing that sits on a table in the computer lab, used for “learning IT” or “learning computers”. A description I throughly despise and that in no way reflects how the tool can be used as an aid to learning.

Teachers are woefully undereducated in the ways of using a computer for educational purposes and quite overburdened with bureaucratic paperwork. There is very little time available for existing teachers to get a firm grasp of how computers are able to enhance teaching, unless they have been very interested personally and kept up-to-date on their own time. If a teacher cannot see the potential greatness that can come from using a computer in a creative and innovative way, the usage of the device in teaching is probably doomed from the start.

Materials for learning are still analogue paper and books, more often than not. The educational software I have seen is often ancient, ugly or not made by someone with knowledge or experience in teaching and how learning works. Or a combination of them all. It’s far from what the machine is able to serve up in terms of engaging learning materials, rich in not only text but also in video and sounds. Something that seems to have escaped 99% of those who built “educational software”. Hopefully this has already changed or at the very least is changing. If there is an intent of using computers in education as have been proposed, the materials have to be available in some manner of digital format. Otherwise the laptop won’t be anything more than a glorified notepad for the students.

When we do finally “teach IT” or whatever other moronic term is being used at the moment, we teach the kids how to use products, applications from a certain company, not a concept or an idea of how to use something. Utterly dangerous as we cement their expectations of what you should use and what to expect from a computer in general. If anything, there should be a multitude of different systems and applications available and good directions by the teachers in how to deal with the differences. I have yet to find a single instance of this happening in real life and not even at the fine institution known as a university.

And lest we forget that computers are not really well suited for schools, in all honesty. There are a lot of distractions readily available for students to spend their time with instead of learning what we as a society have decided they should learn. Then there are the dangers of students knowing more about them than the teachers, which is the most common scenario I would imagine. Although I have started seeing tendencies that kids are fairly computer-illiterate as well, being able to log into Facebook or whatnot and not too much more.

I’m not arguing that students shouldn’t get a laptop of their own to do their studies on, absolutely not. I’m just voicing my concern that this might be a half-though through project that won’t really change much in the way teaching is being carried out and have been carried out for some time. I’m carefully hoping for the best, but expecting no real change at all. That way I can only be positively surprised later on.

Robert Falck

Robert is a freelance tech journalist from Sweden. You can follow his posts here on Bagel Tech and on his site streakmachine.com or you can follow him on twitter @streakmachine.

What has been shown is in no doubt a radical departure from the previous versions of Windows. So different that it might as well ship with a different product name than “Windows”, since those are no longer the prevalent features of the user interface. There will be backwards compatibility for the X86, or regular old Intel- and AMD-based computers you find everywhere, but apparently not so much for the version running on ARM chips. Makes sense to me and I applaud Microsoft for chucking out old baggage once and for all, even if it’s just in one of the versions.

But Microsoft is not Apple and Windows is far more common than Mac OS X for an awful lot of people. That puts things in a quite interesting perspective. There are a lot of people out there who don’t have any interest in computers, how they work or what makes them tick. They just use what they have because that is a part of their job. Period. Tossing a very different, radically different, user interface in their direction and I don’t doubt that there will be a lot of friction in the world of corporate IT. For consumers and enthusiasts, this is a great move. For corporate, not so much.

With these huge changes there will arise a rather big need for education and there will doubtlessly be complaining and whining about how things are different and not what they are used to. Sound familiar? If you have worked in IT, I’m sure it is. It doesn’t matter what minor change or alteration you make, there will be voices raised and complaints filed. Imagine how this will be with Metro instead of the old Windows.

In the department of hardware requirements, on the other hand, things are looking much better. Almost any old or relatively under-powered machine will be able to run Windows 8 and the user interface will largely depend on the screen resolution. A sensible way to make things work, at least for the most part. In this department I really can’t complain too much about what Microsoft has done so far. Being a very early preview into how the system will work, though, I’m sure some requirement will change over time.

This is the more jolly side of the coin, compared to what problems that will probably arise in the human-computer interactions department. No huge investments will be needed in order to run the new system. I do wish there had been more talk about the ARM-version of Windows 8, as I can finally see something that will be a real option and alternative to the iPad. At least in the software department of things, assuming Microsoft manages to pull all the bits together at some point in the future.

I won’t call it a winner or a looser at this point, just promising. Judging an unfinished product is not unfair but just plain wrong. I like what I have seen so far and think Microsoft have finally got their stuff together and are moving towards a better destination. But boy will there be some bumps along the way! I for one can’t wait to see how all this plays out!

Robert Falck

Robert is a freelance tech journalist from Sweden. You can follow his posts here on Bagel Tech and on his site streakmachine.com or you can follow him on twitter @streakmachine.

It’s not that hard to figure out really. Since we are probably all tech geeks reading this it makes some sort of sense that we are constantly looking to the future. We want to know what shiny piece of kit will soon be trying to entice us to part with our hard earned cash or make the Apple naysayers turn their nose up in disgust (let’s end the hate people). The fact that we seem to willingly swallow up these rumours and never hold the reporters to account when their stories turn out to be insubstantial is a bit more troublesome.

I am sure, just like me, you have your favourite tech blogs that report they have people ‘in the know’ who leak these juicy pieces of information and then manage to somehow fill an entire blog entry discussing the many possibilities that such a rumour could entail. This blog is usually accompanied by a juicy headline that is invariably nothing but link bait that I’m sure just helps boost the sites advertising revenue. Really, is this the kind of tech press we want? Surly the cold hard facts are what we should be seeking and demanding?

I know this sounds like a lofty goal and rest assured dear reader that I am just as guilty as you may be in seeking out these titbits of so called news and it shames me to say I suffer from amnesia and forget all of the reported rumours once the real product hits the market. I never once recall who blurted out which rumour and then mark them down as a source that no longer requires or deserves my attention.

Of course there are certain news organisations where it is believed are virtually an Apple mouthpiece when it comes to rumour and hype. However, these sources have also been wide of the mark on certain occasions. Whether that is due to misunderstanding or deliberate false information is anyones guess but the fact we are willing to listen and lap up any small detail is a worrying sign.

The problem is further compounded with the almost incestuous nature of the tech press of late in that as soon as one site reports on the latest rumour the rest seem to blog and comment, further compounding the issue and expanding the rumours reach.

I understand that everyone wants to be the first person to blog about a tasty piece of new information but very few seem willing to stop and consider what it is they are actually reporting on.

It has often been said that ‘we get the press we deserve’ so if we are all willing to chase the rumour be it from Apple or any other tech company, then we shouldn’t be surprised by the amount of web-space dedicated to these rather pointless iRumours.

Please feel free to follow me on Twitter: @claw0101