Japanese electronics giant Panasonic has agreed to buy Sanyo Electric, the Nikkei business daily reported Monday. Panasonic and Sanyo will hold board meetings by the end of this week to approve the deal and a formal announcement could come as early as Friday, according to the report, which did not cite sources for the information. The resulting company will be Japan's largest electronics maker, the Nikkei said. The deal may come as a relief to Sanyo, which has been struggling to turn around its business for the past few years. The world's largest manufacturer of lithium-ion batteries posted its first profit in four years in its most recent fiscal year, which ended in March 2008. Sanyo also makes a range of electronics products including digital video cameras, as well as green energy devices such as solar cells. Reference : http://www.pcworld.com/article/153184/panasonic_buy_sanyo.html?tk=rss_news
Developers get new tools and a glimpse into future of robotics, Surface, other Microsoft innovations designed to address societal issues and change the computing experience.Los Angeles – Oct. 29, 2008 – At Microsoft’s Professional Developers Conference 2008, Rick Rashid, senior vice president of Microsoft Research, today showed developers how Microsoft is applying software’s power to tough technological and societal challenges. Rashid announced the limited release of the first software development toolkit (SDK) for Microsoft Surface, new features for Worldwide Telescope, and the Microsoft CCR and DSS Toolkit 2008, which will make it easier to develop loosely coupled concurrent and distributed applications. “Advances in software hold the key to progress in multiple fields,” said Rashid. “The modern world generates massive data sets - online search, astronomical phenomena, the climate, particle physics, and the human genome, to name a few areas. With software, we can capture, analyze, and make sense of this data to help combat global warming, develop life-saving vaccines, and enrich our kids’ education.” In his keynote address, Rashid highlighted the news announcements plus initiatives spearheaded by more than 800 researchers in Microsoft Research’s six global labs that are aimed at easing societal problems society and changing the computing experience: Microsoft Surface SDK Microsoft Surface is a computing platform that opens a new chapter in the way people interact with computers by connectng them to digital content through natural gestures, touch, and devices such as wireless phones or even tagged drink glasses. The platform is being opened up to the developer community for the first time at PDC2008 with the limited release of the Microsoft Surface software development kit (SDK). The SDK enables developers to build groundbreaking applications that take advantage of the attributes of Microsoft Surface, which include: | • | Direct interaction: the ability to execute commands through gesture or touch, rather than via a mouse or keyboard. | | • | Multi –touch: the ability to manipulate multiple on-screen items at once. Surface can read more than 52 individual touches. | | • | Multi-user: new collaborative computing scenarios made possible by Surface’s horizontal form factor. | | • | Object recognition: digital responses to objects placed on Surface – functionality that will ultimately permit the transfer of digital content. |
Additional highlights from Rashid’s keynote included a wide range updates and announcements, including: | WorldWide Telescope Developed by Microsoft Research, WorldWide Telescope is a “Web browser for the sky”, bringing together images from the best ground- and space-based telescopes so people can explore the cosmos from their PC screen. Since its launch in May 2008, more than one million people have downloaded the web application. Several new features are now available for WorldWide Telescope, including a 3-D Solar System, more than 1,000 new images, and a tool that allows people to upload and share their own images of space. Existing users will be prompted to download the new features the next time they open the program. Others can download WorldWide Telescope at http://www.worldwidetelescope.org/ |
| The Microsoft CCR and DSS Toolkit 2008 The Microsoft CCR and DSS Toolkit 2008 delivers a set of .NET- and Compact Framework-class libraries and tools that enable developers to better deal with the inherent complexities of creating looselycoupled concurrent and distributed applications. The Toolkit is designed to help developers take advantage of the Concurrency and Coordination Runtime (CCR) and Decentralized Software Services (DSS) originally released as part of Microsoft Robotics Developer Studio. Microsoft CCR and DSS Toolkit 2008 provide early adopters with access to select technologies today; transitioning to Microsoft’s .NET Framework in the future. To learn more about Microsoft CCR and DSS Toolkit 2008, visit: http://www.microsoft.com/ccrdss Related Links |
| Tiny devices, big impact Scarce energy resources and worries about climate change create challenges and opportunities for computing. The advent of large datacenters that underpin cloud-based computing services make energy-efficient computing is increasingly important. Using technology developed by Microsoft Research, Microsoft is deploying tiny sensors throughout its datacenters to capture data that will allow it to better regulate energy consumption and reduce their carbon footprint. Sensors can also be deployed in the wild to help scientists monitor and track environmental changes. Rashid demonstrated the sensor technology in the auditorium at PDC. Related Links: |
| Boku: turning programming into play Boku is a fun, intellectuallystimulating game, developed by Microsoft Research, that introduces youngsters to programming while they play. Through programming Boku, a virtual robot, children learn the basic principles of programming logic, analysis, and design. The 3-D interactive game is designed to demystify programming and spark interest in a career in science. Youngsters as young asnine years old have already used Boku in trials to create their own games. Related links: |
| DryadLINQ Developed by a team from Microsoft Research, DryadLINQ is a powerful programming environment that enables ordinary programmers to write large-scale data parallel applications to run on large PC clusters. The platform comprises Dryad, a distributed execution engine that allows reliable, distributed computing across thousands of servers for large-scale data parallel applications, and the .NET Language Integrated Query, or LINQ, which allows developers to write and debug applications in a SQL-like query language, using the entire .NET library and Microsoft Visual Studio. Related link: |
| SecondLight: a magic lens that goes beyond the surface The brainchild of Microsoft Researchers, SecondLight is a rear-projection technology that extends and enriches the Microsoft Surface device through the ability to project images both through and beyond the surface display, such as onto a translucent piece of plastic. With SecondLight, the translucent piece of plastic can also function as a “magic lens.” For instance, if it is” passed over an image displayed on the primary surface – suchas a car – it provides a view of the “inner workings” behind the image. In another application of this so-called “layering effect”, the transparency could register images of constellations when passed over a surface displaying the night sky. The technology also permits gesture-based interactions with the surface from farther away than rear- projected systems allow. Related Links: |
Microsoft ESP extends simulation innovation to government, enabling immersive, game-like training solutions on a public-sector budget.NASHVILLE — Oct. 29, 2008 — As with many industries today, governments are increasingly affected by the rising cost of goods, unprecedented environmental issues and increasing demand for services amid economic turbulence. That puts pressure on tight budgets and increases scrutiny of how that money is spent. According to Bruce Harris, Technical Evangelist in Microsoft’s Institute for Advanced Technology in Government, training government works presents even more challenges. Agencies must consider a growing and young workforce that is far more digitally advanced than older generations, and that has new learning styles. “All of this contributes to the problem of how to plan, predict, train and respond quickly and efficiently while achieving a better return on training dollars,” Harris says. “For governments, especially in critical sectors like defense and homeland security, the need to expand the quality and reach of existing training solutions to retain and better equip employees is vital.” As public agencies worldwide search for new and better ways to train employees, Harris says one solution may lie in what is increasingly known as the “spatial web” – platforms and technologies such as mobile devices, location-based Web services, search engines, social networking sites, and other services that consider the user’s location in space and time. Spatial web applications are now supporting everything from real estate companies to oil companies, city planners to first responders, law enforcement and the military. Harris sees a natural extension of these technologies to create simulations that allow people to “virtually” work with one another as they would in everyday life. Nowhere is this kind of evolution more needed than in the public sector. Recognizing the value that simulation brings, over the past several years the U.S. government alone has invested tens of billions in simulation technologies and systems. In 2007, for example, the U.S. government spent more than $9 billion on modeling and simulation. Harris says the needs reflected by that spending are continuing to grow. “Governments have an increasing need to model and simulate a wide range of environments that include transportation models, first responder exercises, military training and operational deployments,” he says. “Microsoft ESP has the potential to play a major role here, because the current state of modeling and simulation is similar to the early days of word processing, database management and desktop publishing — when it was very costly and only a few people in an organization had access to these tools. ESP makes simulation affordable to broad audiences of users, thus increasing the availability of simulation as a training aid to new sets of users who had been priced out of the market previously.” Based on Microsoft technologies and open industry standards, ESP brings “plug and play” capabilities to commercial off-the-shelf PC-based computer hardware platforms and devices, putting the entire spectrum of training simulations within reach by making them much more affordable and faster to develop or modify. | | | | |
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Microsoft ESP renders the world from 100 million feet out to 3 meters DEM (digital elevation model) on the surface |
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“Today, Microsoft is positioned to create a real change in public sector training programs, and we are leading the effort to provide affordable modeling and simulation technology for workers at all levels and skills,” Harris says. “With Microsoft ESP’s powerful capabilities, affordable pricing and flexible licensing, these simulations can be deployed across entire organizations, just like word processors and databases are today.” Simulating Chaos: Real World Limitations in Training Harris notes that traditional simulations require so much investment they have been out of reach for all but the most critical applications. “If you have a multi-billion dollar platform like a submarine, and you only have a handful of them, it makes sense to build a simulation solution so that people don’t mistakenly drive them into sea mountains,” says Harris. “However, simulation technologies have traditionally been beyond the budgets for agencies and organizations whose missions put fewer lives or expensive assets at risk. There has also been no way to accurately simulate a large disaster response, because there was no way to simulate a crowd of people acting like they would under those circumstances. Nor can current simulations create factors such as traffic, weather, and injury. Today, disaster response rehearsals are often done via “table top exercises” which identify best practices and proper chains of command, but lack any sense of realism or urgency. “How do you model chaos realistically?” Harris says. “You can’t just shut the Amtrak station down for a day and displace thousands of people. The economic impact is untenable, and getting all the police and fire departments and everyone else to divert their resources to the training exercise is not feasible.” Harris sees the Holy Grail of training as exercises that help the organization examine and rehearse every component of an emergency accurately and effectively, without shutting down transportation nodes, without redirecting police and fire departments, and without the astronomical expense and logistics of trying to conduct such an exercise with people. “These entities need to prove out the processes and contingency plans they’ve got in place, the phone numbers, the directions, the chain of command,” he says. “What happens if a certain arterial street or bridge becomes unusable? A simulation is really the only practical way to go through all that.” Within Reach: New Technologies Bring Virtual World Down to Earth According to David Boker, senior director of Business Development for Microsoft’s ACES Studio (publishers of Microsoft ESP), a number of factors have combined in recent years to make simulation technology more affordable and more practical. Factor in the relentless rise in available computing power and much more can now be done at the desktop instead of on large mainframes or in simulator training centers. “It’s really the next generation of employee training productivity,” Boker says. “With a couple of developers, a few weeks’ time and a few thousand dollars, you can now do what had formerly taken a roomful of developers many months and hundreds of thousands of dollars to do. And the simulations they’re able to create are much more realistic, flexible, affordable, and portable.” Another benefit: because the Microsoft ESP platform is easily reprogrammed, users can more quickly update their environments to run multiple simulations. That’s a big improvement over the expensive, proprietary platforms of the past, which were developed for specific purposes and were costly, difficult to modify, and lacked hardware scalability. “You no longer have the case where a particular military component may have to pay $10 or $20 million to run one training simulation that’s got a few scenarios built into it,” he says. “Today you can go in and very rapidly add scenarios or change out variables in the environment to deliver a whole new way of looking at problems and rehearsing scenarios.” Microsoft ESP’s ability to tie into a number of different technologies can also drastically change the way simulations are run. Historically there has been no realistic, low-cost, flexible means to integrate simulations across disciplines and allow users to experience the simulation in concert. But Harris says that is changing, and Microsoft is leading the change. “We need to be able to land the aircraft, disembark the troops and deploy them into an operational environment, and then provide after action reviews as part of the next planning and training scenarios,” he says. “And it needs to be scalable from the small tactical teams up to the large integrated organizational efforts, such as large disaster preparedness relief work.” Boker says numerous existing Microsoft products can be used in conjunction with ESP to drive realistic simulations with real geospatial data and compelling simulated environments that can scale from small desktop trainers to large distributed simulation environments. Where today there are only pieces of this vision available in the existing, large, expensive simulation platforms, Microsoft’s products are playing a significant role in bringing it all together. “Along with ESP, Microsoft has technologies that play into all of these scenarios,” he says. “Our proven ability to populate a simulated environment with geospatially accurate 3D data from Virtual Earth, our ability to manage the data with SQL Server 2008, to enhance security with Windows Vista, and to expand the access and distribution such as we see with mobile devices — we have everything in place to provide these capabilities quickly, and to develop and deploy virtual, “mirror world” environments with accurate and realistic data and scenarios.” It’s All About Partners: Making the Vision a Virtual Reality Despite these advances in technology, there remain business and human challenges in bringing virtual training to the mainstream. The modeling and simulation market needs to be thought of in an entirely new way: No longer limited to small numbers of simultaneous users, centralized locations, limited data sets, and interactive options, or highly complex and costly infrastructures. “Augmenting these more traditional approaches with lighter weight, powerful and more affordable solutions will transform simulation-based training by bringing it to more people in more places on more devices,” Boker says. “Microsoft has the technology and the ability to knit it together, but it’s going to require a significant partner ecosystem to really bring the power of our new open simulation platform to the public sector.” Harris says Microsoft is not set up to meet the large demands of various government organizations, especially those dealing with classified data systems or large numbers of personnel, “So we’re working with partners to deploy and maintain the technical tools and platforms we bring to the table.” Harris believes that by making the simulations readily available, easily reconfigurable, and relevant to a broad mission set, Microsoft and its partners will bring sweeping changes to a very traditional industry. “The ultimate potential is not in replacing what already exists, but broadening the use of games-based technology to transform how people and organizations plan, prepare and execute their mission directives,” Harris says. The difference is that Microsoft is providing the tools for organizations to build their own environments, or mirror worlds, with real world data, so they can interact with it in a realistic manner. Says Boker, “If you look at how far and how fast the first-person and multi-person gaming has come in the past few years, you begin to get an idea of where we’re headed with simulation.” Reference : http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/features/2008/oct08/10-29ESP.mspx?rss_fdn=Top%20Stories
Financial reports from vendors including Motorola, Sun Microsystems, SAP and STMicroelectronics, along with economic and IT sector surveys, this week are confirming market watchers' fears that the U.S. is heading into recession, dragging the global tech industry down with it. The U.S. Commerce Department on Thursday said that GDP (gross domestic output) in the third quarter fell at an annual rate of 0.3 percent. If the current quarter suffers another decline, the U.S. will officially be in recession. But whatever it's called, a slowdown in business and consumer spending is hitting the tech industry. Worldwide semiconductor sales rose only 1.6 percent in September as growth slowed due to a 38 percent plunge in memory-product sales, according to a report from the Semiconductor Industry Association on Wednesday. Also on Wednesday, STMicroelectronics, the largest European chipmaker, announced a third-quarter loss of US$289 million, compared with a profit of $187 million last year. For the tech sector, the worst survey this week was IDC's report on Thursday that global mobile-phone shipments in the third quarter were down by 0.4 percent from the second quarter, and up just 3.2 percent from the year earlier. Third-quarter handset shipments often increase by as much as 20 percent year over year, as manufacturers gear up for the holiday season. "Handset vendors felt the pressures of the dismal economy in the third quarter of 2008, and as a result, shipments and revenues were down almost across the board," said IDC research analyst Ryan Reith in the report. Against this backdrop, Motorola on Thursday said it skidded to a $397 million quarterly loss. The company said it would cut 3,000 jobs to curb expenses while a restructuring plan and a new platform strategy kick in. On a conference call, co-CEO Sanjay Jha said Motorola will dump the Symbian UIQ OS, develop mobile phones for Google's open-source Android platform, and also embrace Microsoft's Windows Mobile. But analysts on the call questioned whether Motorola would be able to quickly differentiate its own offering on these platforms, especially since Motorola does not plan to come out with an Android phone until the holiday season next year. Its plan to split off the company's manufacturing arm, warmly embraced by analysts, has been postponed beyond next year. Company shares fell by $0.29 to close the day at $5.17. Sun on Thursday said it suffered a quarterly loss of $1.68 billion due to a sales decline of 7 percent and a goodwill impairment charge of $1.45 billion. Goodwill represents intangible assets such as a respected company name, customer relations and employee morale, which can render a company's total value to a third party greater than the worth of its concrete assets. Accounting rules require goodwill to be written down over time. Sun's goodwill impairment has been affected by the collapse of Wall Street -- a Sun customer stronghold. Wall Street, including investment banks, accounted for about 6 percent to 8 percent of all U.S. IT spending, according to IDC. Sun shares fell by $0.01 to $5.28 in after-hours trading within an hour of the announcement. In the software sector, SAP, the world's largest business applications vendor, on Tuesday reported a 5 percent quarterly decline in earnings, to €388 million (US$485 million). Though profit was down mainly because of charges related to its acquisition of Business Objects, the company pulled back its annual operating margin forecast to 28 percent, down from a prior estimate of 28.5 percent to 29 percent. The company said it will hit the new forecast only if it can increase software and service revenue. But the company also said the economic outlook was too uncertain to give a software sales forecast. Amid the gloom there were some bright patches. Network-gear giant Alcatel-Lucent on Thursday reported a quarterly loss of €40 million, a much better result than its €345 million loss one year earlier. The smaller loss and growth in the company's enterprise and services business helped buoy company shares, which rose by $0.22 on the New York Stock Exchange Thursday to close at $2.53. The company's market capitalization -- the value of its share price multiplied by all outstanding shares -- has plunged to $6 billion from about $35 billion before the merger of Alcatel and Lucent in 2006. Security software results this week were mixed. McAfee on Thursday said revenue rose 7 percent to $409.7 million, beating analyst estimates of $395 million. Symantec reported Wednesday that net income rose $50 million to $140 million. But company executives said that they see a consumer spending decline and anticipate a slow holiday quarter in retail. Despite the strong quarter, that was enough to cause investors to flee, and company shares dropped by $2.61 Thursday to close at $12.20. Stock market indexes have experienced history-making ups and downs over the past month. Despite the overall poor tech results this week, though, the U.S. GDP report was not quite as bad as expected -- the drop of 0.3 percent was better than expectations of a 0.5 percent decline. As a result, the tech-heavy Nasdaq index rose Thursday by 41 points to close at 1698. Reference : http://www.pcworld.com/article/153106/.html?tk=rss_news
Microsoft is putting the Windows client OS on a diet as a way to bring the PC OS into the age of cloud computing. Windows 7, Vista's follow-up, already will be a thinner, more streamlined OS, replacing some of the software Microsoft previously included with the OS with Web-based Windows Live Services. And if comments made by Chief Software Architect Ray Ozzie at Microsoft's Professional Developers Conference (PDC) this week are any indication, Windows will slim down even further in the future, returning to the original intent of an OS -- a way to optimize the hardware it runs on -- instead of being a bloated piece of software whose performance and value rely on compatibility with installed applications. "The purpose of the OS on the device is to have the best value on that device," Ozzie said at PDC in an interview with the IDG News Service, adding that there is still "tremendous opportunity for innovation" for using the OS to leverage device hardware. He said that in the future Windows will have "base connections to the Internet" so people can connect to the Web through a browser and services like Windows Update. But Microsoft won't rely too heavily on the Internet to achieve its goal to support innovative hardware features -- such as touchscreen capability -- so people in places without reliable connections to the Web can still reap the benefits of the OS, he said. This slimming down of the client OS is as much a way for Microsoft to keep Windows relevant as a hardware OS as it is for the company to concede to the new cloud-computing and services paradigm that Google, Amazon and other companies are pioneering. Vista might have been a good place to start this evolution, but Microsoft missed the opportunity, said Brian Madden, an independent technology analyst in San Francisco. He said Vista "would have been great" if it had come out in the late 1990s or even in the early part of the 21st century, the height of the trend to use client-side applications on PCs that is rapidly becoming obsolete as hosted services evolve. "Vista to me is the culmination of the old way of thinking as the desktop should be," he said, and the fact that it came out in 2007, as the industry was shifting from packaged software to Web-based applications, was "a huge disaster." Madden called the company's plan to evolve Windows to be lighter and nimble a "reluctant" one. "Microsoft is not leading the way down this path, they're being dragged kicking and screaming by companies like Google," he said. Andrew Brust, chief, new technology at consulting firm TwentysixNew York, a Microsoft technology partner, has a different take on Microsoft's planned evolution for Windows. He said that the company is trying to re-emphasize the value of having a strong client powered by Windows in combination with the opportunity Web-based applications provide, rather than giving customers the choice between one or the other. Microsoft calls this its "software-plus-services" strategy. "Unlike Google, which is trying to take AJAX/browser apps and make them look like they're running on the desktop, Ozzie is making the point that the combined value of the Windows OS and assets on the Web -- including, but not limited to, [Windows] Azure and Windows Live -- is Microsoft's play, and a winning play at that," he said. AJAX, or asynchronous Javascript plus XML, is a development language for creating interactive Web applications. Windows Azure, which Microsoft revealed at PDC, is its cloud-based application development environment that competes with Amazon's Elastic Compute Cloud. Still, there is no denying Microsoft knows Windows must change as the industry moves away from running software on the client to using Web-based applications. The company's decision not to include Windows Photo Gallery, Windows Mail and Windows Movie Maker as part of Windows 7 in favor of Web-based versions of those applications is part of this trend. Microsoft is even planning to release a hosted version of the Office productivity suite, which is Microsoft's top software seller next to Windows -- another acknowledgement of the move to hosted services, as well as a nod to competition from Google's Web-based productivity suite, Google Docs. Google Docs is beginning to gain some traction not only with consumers, but also enterprises. Microsoft plans to release a lightweight hosted version of Office called Web Applications for Office around the same time it releases the next version of the productivity software code-named Office 14, Microsoft revealed at PDC. Decisions to offer hosted Office and an overall thinner Windows client OS also are in line with the move to offer Windows on low-cost PCs in emerging markets that Microsoft is keen to reach. These PCs have less memory and CPU power, so they can't support an OS with a footprint as big as the premium version of Windows Vista. Reference : http://www.pcworld.com/article/153100/.html?tk=rss_news
The Tubes are atwitter with discussion of the news from PDC this week, not least of which was the announcement of Microsoft's new Windows Azure cloud computing platform. Details about the offering remain scant at this point -- the SDKs and developer programs are "by invitation only" -- but what I've heard so far sounds promising. I'm particularly interested in Live Services, which finally lifts the lid off the inner workings of Live Mesh (of which I am a devoted user). But while I'm fairly rah-rah about the potential of cloud computing platforms in theory, I remain skeptical about their efficacy for enterprise software development in practice. By comparison, Microsoft is nothing if not gung-ho. Where Amazon and Google have tread carefully, unveiling their cloud services first as pilot programs with limited applications, Microsoft seems determined to deliver its version of the cloud to its entire ISV community on a plate. While the geek in me is itching to play around with this stuff, my instinct says "caution." Let's dispense with the "Microsoft is evil" argument for the moment: Who wants to get in bed with Microsoft for something like this? Windows developers, that's who. You Microsoft ISV partners out there all recognize that a certain amount of vendor lock-in goes with the territory. It might be nice not to have to keep that revenue stream going from your accounts into Microsoft's, but for you the benefits outweigh the costs -- and the risks. And if you think about it, who makes for a better cloud-computing partner than Microsoft? They're already expanding their datacenters, up there in Redmond, to support the new hosted platforms. That's exactly the kind of thing you want from a cloud vendor. Microsoft reaches into its deep pockets so you don't have to have deep pockets of your own. So what if your applications will be tied to Microsoft's services and APIs? For Windows developers that's true already. I believe, however, that the kind of lock-in you get with a cloud-computing service is different than the lock-in you get with the Windows developer ecosystem as it exists today. For the sake of argument, let's suppose that you have developed a traditional Windows application for your business. One day, Microsoft releases a new version of a key framework, and the updated API breaks some of your code. You now have several options. One is to rewrite your code, introducing a certain amount of cost and risk. Another option is to do nothing, and continue to run your software with the older version of the framework. That will doubtless work for a while, but eventually the older framework might not work with a new version of Windows, or even a new Service Pack. These sorts of compatibility issues are a fact of life with all forms of software. The important thing is that they are always manageable. Even if you have to find an aging MS-DOS computer to run your legacy code, that is still an option -- for a while, at least. But where are you going to find an old version of the Microsoft's cloud computing platform to run your legacy Windows Azure code? With the cloud computing model, when you buy a ticket, you're in for the ride. When Microsoft says it's time to update your code to suit the latest version of its platform, you'd better do it. Think that kind of thing won't happen? I believe it's more than likely, particularly as the market for cloud-computing services heats up. Let's suppose that tomorrow some clever graduate student comes up with a way to scale cloud services more cheaply and effectively than any other method before. Do you think Microsoft will ignore this method if it thinks it needs it to stay competitive? Even if all of its customers will have to adjust their code to work with the new method, do you think Microsoft will be deterred? Cloud computing environments create a whole new kind of developer partner. In traditional ISV relationships, the customer pays the fees for the necessary tools and then the sky is the limit. With cloud computing, the customer's capabilities are directly influenced by the vendor's bottom line. If the vendor decides it can no longer afford to provide certain services -- or service levels, or security, or guarantees of privacy -- then henceforth that will be the new deal. My nightmare scenario is that we'll end up with application hosting services offered up on the same terms as credit cards. Every few months, a slim brochure will arrive in the mail explaining the new terms and what we'll need to do to remain in the program. Even if it never comes to that, the fact that the vendor has its hand on the on/off switch is what makes the cloud computing model seem so troubling. The day that the vendor -- be it Microsoft or anyone else -- decides that your applications are no longer going to run on its platform is the day that they stop running, period. If you raised an eyebrow at the revelation that Google has reserved the option to terminate applications running on Android phones remotely, this fact of life of cloud computing should give you even more pause. OK, so I can't keep you from harping on Microsoft forever. I'm sure some of you are already itching to say, "It's Microsoft, what do you expect?" But my question is this: Given these realities, just what cloud computing vendor would you trust to host your apps? Reference : http://www.pcworld.com/article/153063/cloud_computing_azure.html?tk=rss_news
Western Digital (WD) on Thursday announced the addition of a FireWire 800 interface to its My Passport Studio external portable hard disk drive. The drive is available starting at US$199.99. My Passport Studio is aimed specifically at Mac users -- it's a Mac-formatted drive (though it works in Windows too), but up until now it's only had FireWire 400 and USB 2.0. With this announcement, the My Passport Studio is now equipped with FireWire 800 as well, making it more suitable for MacBook Pros and other systems equipped with the faster FireWire connection. Features include an illuminated capacity gauge that shows you how much space is available; support for FireWire or USB power; and Time Machine support. A drawstring carrying bag and cables are included. The My Passport Studio is available with 500GB for $249.99, 400GB for $229.99 and 320GB for $199.99. Reference : http://www.pcworld.com/article/153074/.html?tk=rss_news
Asus this week announced yet another Asus Eee PC laptop - the Asus Eee PC 1002HA. The Asus Eee PC 1002HA netbook shares a similar chassis and styling to the Asus Eee PC S101, with a 10in screen. Like many of is Eee PC brethren, the Asus Eee PC 1002HA is a very small laptop with a large touchpad. In terms of connectivity the Asus Eee PC 1002HA has three USB 2.0 ports, as well as headphone and microphone sockets. It also features an SDHC card reader, VGA out and RJ45 ports, a Kensington lock for physical security, and twin front-facing speakers. Asus Eee PC 1002HA: small form, small battery The Asus Eee PC 1002HA is powered by a 1.6GHz N270 Atom CPU, boasts 1GB of RAM and has a 160GB hard drive. However, this feature set and lightweight netbook form factor come at a price: battery life. The Asus Eee PC 1002HA measures 264x181x276mm and weighs 1.2kg, but has only a two-cell 4200mAh battery. The Asus Eee PC 1002HA will cost around £359 (US$576). Reference : http://www.pcworld.com/article/152992/new_asus_eeePC.html?tk=rss_news
Reports have Motorola announcing as soon as Thursday a big push to build new Android phones, but the more important move would be a potential plan by the handset maker to reduce the number of mobile operating systems it uses, analysts said. On Wednesday, a Wall Street Journal report suggested that during Motorola's Thursday morning third quarter earnings call, the handset maker might unveil plans to focus development on Android and reduce the number of operating systems it uses. Android is the operating system developed by Google that first appeared just last week on the G1 phone built by HTC. Analysts agreed that choosing to concentrate on just a few platforms would be a good change for the struggling Chicago-area company. "Over the last several years, they've had a one-off of everything," said Jack Gold, an analyst at J. Gold Associates. "If you're trying to do that it's hard to concentrate and get it right." If Motorola is planning to back Android in a big way, that could happen at the expense of Symbian, said Gold. It doesn't make sense for Motorola to build phones long term based on both platforms, which target generally the same market, he said. Motorola might choose Android over Symbian because Symbian is likely to be unstable in the near future as it goes through its stated plan to become open source, he said. In addition, Gold is predicting that Symbian and Android might somehow merge. "It makes sense not to have multiple open operating systems," Gold said. Motorola has a stormy history of developing iconic, cutting edge phones followed by prolonged dry spells that threaten the company's existence. Most recently, it built the wildly successful Razr, but in the four years since its launch Motorola has failed to come out with another hot seller. Phone sales for the company have plummeted, from 35 million handsets in the second quarter of 2007 to 28 million in the second quarter this year. Quarterly financial losses have accompanied the drop in sales. Narrowing its focus could help. Motorola currently makes handsets based on Windows Mobile, Symbian and Linux in addition to several proprietary platforms for low-end phones. Overall, the more that handset makers focus, the more likely they are to be profitable, said Bill Hughes, an analyst with In-Stat. Nokia, BlackBerry and until recently HTC, all essentially use just one operating system and they are all profitable companies, he noted. LG, Samsung and Motorola all support multiple platforms and none is profitable. "It's hard to say if that's a cause or an effect, but it's an interesting observation," Hughes said. The analysts did not expect Motorola to support just one operating system, however. The handset maker is likely to continue making Windows Mobile phones targeted at high-end enterprise users and perhaps consolidate down to just one platform for very low-end feature phones. "But that leaves a big chunk in the middle. Android could provide focus there," Gold said. Android is a likely choice given clear indications that Motorola is staffing up a new group to build phones based on the operating system. One recent job posting on the handset maker's Web site seeks a senior software engineer to work on an Android smartphone. The posting describes a new division within Motorola "with the mindset of a startup, executive level sponsorship and deep funding." If Motorola does decide to focus on just a few platforms, the move will be challenging and will require a significant cultural shift, said Hughes, who worked for the giant a decade ago, although not in the handset division. Traditionally, Motorola has believed in volume, so when an operator asks the company to make a phone based on a specific operating system, the company has "culturally been unable to say no," Hughes said. "When someone says to them, 'I want to order X million units if you use this OS,' they don't have it within them to turn it down." Reducing the number of operating systems it supports and turning away some orders would be a big undertaking, he said. "It would be something very Motorola-like to try, but whether they succeed or not... If they announce this and succeed I'll believe they have a different culture. And by the way, the last four CEOs at Motorola have come in planning to change the culture and they were unsuccessful," Hughes said. In August, Motorola hired Sanjay Jha, a former Qualcomm executive, to serve as co-CEO of Motorola and run the handset business, which the company plans to spin off next year. He fills in for Greg Brown, president and co-CEO for Motorola, who had been temporarily running the handset business after Stu Reed quit the job in February. Motorola declined to comment on any planned announcements regarding Android.
Shrugging off its ongoing legal dispute with Apple, unauthorized Mac clone maker Psystar this week trounced Apple, introducing OS X-compatible PCs with Blu-ray drives and the Nvidia 9800GT graphics card. Apple offers neither peripheral on a Mac. Psystar notes that Mac OS X Blu-ray support is limited to read/write data capabilities only and there is no Blu-ray software capable of playing back Blu-ray video on the Mac. Psystar president Rudy Pedraza said: ""Blu-ray has already won the format war. Not only is there fully functional and mature support for Blu-ray in other operating systems but you can now rent Blu-ray discs from almost any rental chain. Blu-ray has become pervasive technology that is being widely adopted by consumers everywhere." The peripherals are available as build-to-order upgrades.
At WePC.com, Consumers Spark Global Conversations to Dream Up the Ideal Notebook, Netbook and Gaming PCs SANTA CLARA, Calif., Oct. 29, 2008 - Consumers become product designers at WePC.com, a Web site launched today by Intel Corporation and ASUS. WePC.com is where consumers can collaborate with each other and with Intel and ASUS to design innovative new products. The plan is for the two companies to deliver to market what could be the world's first community-designed PCs. WePC.com will enable a global conversation about the ideal elements of PCs. Visitors to the site can share ideas, vote on submitted concepts and engage in discussions with other community members about the qualities of the "dream" PC. "Intel believes the spark for innovation can come from anywhere," said Mike Hoefflinger, general manager of Intel's Partner Marketing Group. "That's why Intel is working with ASUS to tap into the creative energy of consumers as they share ideas on designing their ideal PC. Intel is committed to encouraging conversations with consumers and giving people a voice in the design of technology they use every day." "ASUS and Intel have created WePC.com in an effort to bridge innovation and technology with consumers' wishes," said Lillian Lin, director of ASUS' Marketing Planning Division. "ASUS strives to provide the best user experience with our products. By empowering WePC.com users to play a role in the design process, we expect to deliver cutting-edge community-designed products that address a consumer vision of the dream PC." The community will be divided into three conversation groups, addressing three of the most popular consumer PC categories: netbooks, notebooks and gaming notebooks. Intel and ASUS hope to bring to market a consumer-inspired product that simplifies and enhances computing needs with Intel and ASUS technology in each category. The PCs will be powered by Intel® Atom™, Intel® Centrino® 2 and Intel® Centrino® 2 Extreme processors. Prizes will be rewarded to select participants for their creative role in this project. Details on prizes will be announced at a later date.
Microsoft on Monday offered a software development kit for its tabletop computer to about 1,000 people at its Professional Developers Conference in Los Angeles, opening the door to a variety of new applications for the table. Most people I talked to at two Seattle hotels that have Surface computers would probably agree that's a good thing. The first one I stopped in, Hotel 1000, had a sleepy lobby, where just one person sat quietly reading a book at 11:30 a.m. on Monday. When I sat down to play around with the Surface, a hotel employee wandered by to comment on how cool it is and to say that it has limited apps now but that should change. She said it is quite popular with guests and that she tries to stop by when she sees people using it to make sure they've got the hang of it. The Surface at Hotel 1000 had similar apps to those at the bigger and busier Sheraton, which has two Surface computers in its lobby, where a steady stream of people sat down to check them out. All the Surface tables I saw had three main applications: one with maps and area attractions, a photo collection and a music program. The last app was a bit odd given that both lobbies had music piped in over speakers; I felt bad for people sitting nearby me in the Sheraton when I played a Johnny Cash song in competition with the house music. The photo collection was also pretty lame. At the Sheraton, it included photographs of Sheraton hotels around the world. At Hotel 1000, it had photos of Seattle sites. While visitors I talked to at the Sheraton thought the maps looked great and were easy to navigate, one wondered why he couldn't actually search for directions to a place nearby that he wanted to visit. You can only locate destinations from a short list of restaurants and stores that are in a prepopulated list. That made Sherry Russ, a visitor from Evansville, Indiana, suspicious that the stores and restaurants are in the lists because they have some sort of deal with the hotels. Russ, who like the others said the Surface was pretty cool, also thought it odd that she could find a list of nearby movie theaters and directions there, but couldn't view a list of what's playing and when. Initially, she expected the entertainment item within the maps and attractions application to include games or some other form of entertainment, not simply a list of a couple of museums and parks nearby. I overheard another woman say to her companion that it'd be great if she could play solitaire on the table. One of the Surface tables I played with at the Sheraton seemed to be too sensitive. Sometimes when my fingers were still hovering over the tabletop, items on the screen would start to move. Other times, drag as I might, I couldn't get items to turn around so that I could read the text right side up. The other tables worked nicely and were fun to play with. With Microsoft opening up the computers to more developers, more useful applications are likely to appear, although surely not by people who develop for fun. Developers at the PDC conference are being offered a package that includes a Surface, five licenses and developer support for the "discounted" price of US$13,500, Microsoft said. In the meantime, Microsoft has already worked with a couple of design studios that have been developing some fun projects. For example, designers at Vectorform have built a timely application: People can "carve" a jack-o'-lantern on the Surface by using their fingers to trace a design in an image of a pumpkin. Vectorform's development of a trivia game and the Chinese game Go should also please some of the people I talked to at the Sheraton. Designers are also working on a Flickr viewer so users can see their own photos. In addition to Vectorform's apps, a couple of internal Microsoft developers are out to solve the tough problems with Surface. "One of the most important questions in the hospitality industry is when to offer a refill," said Paul Dietz, a Microsoft research and development program manager, in a video describing SurfaceWare, an application he helped develop that could be used in bars and restaurants. When a user sets her drink on the Surface, SurfaceWare detects how much liquid is in the glass. When there's just the right amount left -- not too much that an offer of a drink is annoying or too little so that the customer decides to stop drinking -- SurfaceWare sends an alert to a server. The drinks-sensing application comes with a bit of a catch -- after buying the pricey Surface computer, a bar would have to buy new glasses. SurfaceWare works by shining an infrared light into the bottom of a glass that contains a prism that juts like a finger a couple inches up into the center of the glass. When liquid is covering the prism, most of the light escapes. When most of the liquid is gone from the glass and the top of the prism is in the air, it reflects the light, triggering the application to send an alert to the server. Another application developed by Vectorform is being used on air in the MSNBC news room for election coverage. In a clip I saw, the news reporter interacted with a map of the U.S. on the Surface, and his actions were projected onto a screen behind him. That clip wasn't nearly as entertaining as one that aired in a recent Saturday Night Live skit. Microsoft missed a potentially good marketing opportunity when SNL used a competitive product from Perceptive Pixel in a spoof news report. Perceptive Pixel makes large touch screens that have been used by CNN and some military customers. In the SNL skit, the news reporter changes the colors of states on a map and zooms into satellite-view maps of neighborhoods for no apparent purpose. He then drags Oregon off the map into the ocean, commenting: "It's going to be surrounded by water. That's very, very dangerous." New applications for the Surface also might quiet some of the criticisms in a parody video on YouTube that features a sarcastic voiceover on stock video released by Microsoft about Surface. "One day, your computer will be a big-ass table with pictures of other people's kids all over it," the parody explains. It goes on to show someone looking at the map on the Surface and says: "Instead of using one of today's popular, more compact devices to get directions where you're going, why not use a device the size of a small car to do the same job?" Reference : http://www.pcworld.com/article/152900/.html?tk=rss_news
SanDisk has stepped up its efforts to convince corporates that USB sticks are a secure medium, adding built-in antivirus capability to its latest Cruzer drive. Any files copied or saved to the latest Cruzer Enterprise will automatically be scanned by a McAfee heuristics and antivirus engine that loads every time the drive is used. If it detects infected files being copied from a PC, all further transfers will be disallowed form that machine, stopping their spread. The feature addresses the oft-made accusation that USB sticks can act like the floppy drives of old, allowing malware to circumvent firewalls and gateways if an infected drive is brought back into the network. SanDisk itself warned of the related issue of data loss from USB drives issue earlier this year in a study of user behavior. All Cruzer Enterprise drives already feature enforced 256-bit AES encryption, which can be managed with a central server for smooth key recovery and policy-based security. Anti-malware is unheard of, however, and part of the reason is that it adds complexity and expense. The drive has to carry around with it a database of malware signatures and rules, both of which need to be regularly updated to remain a viable means of defense. The licensing of McAfee's portable antivirus engine inevitably adds to the price. "Cruzer Enterprise is an ideal solution for the mobile workforce and for IT departments concerned with data security, because it allows employees to have access to data everywhere and yet be fully protected," said SanDisk's Roy Ramati. "Adding McAfee's technology to our security solutions for the enterprise enables our customers to extend their security perimeter to mobile storage." At the time of going to press, SanDisk had yet to confirm the nature of the signature updating process, but it would presumably be similar to that used by McAfee's existing USB-based scanning product, VirusScan USB, which works using the U3 software environment. Updates to this are made each time the device is plugged in on the U3 is up and running, and don't interfere with any security programs already running on the host PC. McAfee's success with this product is unknown though the U3 environment has struggled since its inception in 2005 to achieve popularity. It is possible that the advent of antivirus security on mainstream USB drives could give it a new lease of life if it catches on more widely. Prices for the anti-malware SanDisk Cruzer should be announced in the coming days. McAfee USB sells for £12.99 (approx $20) per user, per year. Reference : http://www.pcworld.com/article/152788/sandisk_antivirus.html?tk=rss_news
PGP Corporation has become the first company to offer full disk encryption on a software-as-a-service (SaaS) subscription, which it claims brings the technology within the reach of small businesses for the first time. Selling through Managed Service Provider Network (MSPN) channel partners in the U.K. and the U.S., enterprises will be offered PGP's Windows or Mac Whole Disk Encryption software on a month-by-month 'pay as you grow' contract, increasing or decreasing the number of seats as they please. The service includes the PC encryption software, a key recovery service should that be necessary, plus reports on the encryption status of each machine for compliance and auditing. Laptops using the software can only be accessed by providing a key, which means that should they be lost or stolen, hard drive data remains encrypted an inaccessible. The costs themselves are comparable over a year to buying the software on a stand-alone basis, PGP admitted, but this removed the obstacle of deployment and ongoing management that has, up to now, put off many smaller enterprises with around 100 mobile users. Pricing is straightforward, with monthly billing in arrears and volume discounts. Deployment is probably the biggest advantage of the SaaS model because it means that companies don't have to commit staff and infrastructure to getting full disk encryption projects off the ground. Using either one of the appointed partners - Gradian in the U.K., and Aurora and ANI Direct in the U.S. - it should be possible to get the technology into a small enterprise within days or weeks, instead of months as might otherwise be the case. "Market data shows that customers, such as small businesses, branch offices and departmental groups, are becoming more comfortable consuming security technology as a service offering as it greatly simplifies set-up and ongoing infrastructure maintenance," said Phillip Dunkelberger, PGP's president and CEO. "End-user customers and channel partners of the PGP Managed Service Provider Network can now more easily get started and quickly reduce IT expenditures by using PGP Whole Disk Encryption in a SaaS environment," he said. Lost laptops containing unencrypted data have become an almost routine way for enterprises of all sizes lose sensitive data, a frequency IDC's Charles Kolodgy was quoted by PGP as having recently described as "obscene". Monthly prices and volume discounts had yet to be confirmed at the time of going to press, but were said to be in line with the annual per-seat prices already quoted for stand-alone use. This is £95 (approx $160) per annum. Reference : http://www.pcworld.com/article/152769/disk_encryption.html?tk=rss_news
RFID tags used in two new types of border-crossing documents in the U.S. are vulnerable to snooping and copying, a researcher said on Thursday. United States Passport Cards issued by the U.S. Department of State and EDLs (enhanced driver's licenses) from the state of Washington contain RFID (radio-frequency identification) tags that can be scanned at border crossings without being handed over to agents. Both were introduced earlier this year for border crossings by land and water only, and can't be used for air travel. New York is the only other U.S. state with an EDL, though others are in the works. The information in these tags could be copied on to another, off-the-shelf tag, which might be used to impersonate the legitimate holder of the card if a U.S. Department of Homeland Security agents at the border didn't see the card itself, the researchers said. Another danger is that the tags can be read from as far as 150 feet away in some situations, so criminals could read them without being detected. Although the tags don't contain personal information, they could be used to track a person's movements through ongoing surveillance, they said. Another danger is that hackers could cause EDLs to self-destruct by sending out a certain number, they said. "It would be relatively easy for someone to read your passport card or EDL," said Tadayoshi Kohno, an assistant professor of computer science and engineering at the University of Washington. Though there's no reason for panic, "Our hearts should start to beat a little faster," Kohno said. The risk to individual passengers is low, but the problems create systemic weaknesses in the border-crossing system, according to a summary of the report. Retail, shipping and other businesses are increasingly using RFID tags as wireless bar codes that can contain more information than traditional printed ones. The growth of the technology is making the tools of RFID hacking more easily available, Kohno said. In a cloning attack, a hacker could read the information off a card's RFID tag, either while the cardholder was passing by or as the official card reader was picking up the data. The attacker could then encode a generic RFID tag with that same data, Kohno said. With that newly encoded tag, someone could slip through the border by appearing to the RFID reader to have a legitimate identification card, as long as no one asked to look at the actual card. By themselves, the RFID vulnerabilities don't mean someone will get away with cloning or other attacks, Kohno pointed out. "In reality, the system involved in border crossings is much greater than just the technical aspect," Kohno said. For example, authorities are likely to interview drivers and passengers crossing the border and look at their identification cards, he said. They may also use other measures against card-cloning near border crossings. However, Kohno and three fellow researchers believe there are mechanisms available for the RFID tags that the U.S. and Washington governments aren't using. For example, each tag has two specialized numbers: an access PIN (personal identification number) and a kill PIN. (These are larger than bank-card PINs and aren't chosen by the cardholders.) The access PIN can be used to verify that a tag is legitimate and the kill PIN can be used to render the tag unreadable. The access PINs are used on both the passport cards and the EDLs, but there are additional security measures that the researchers don't think authorities are using. For example, they could test the access PIN using information from a database, Kohno said. In addition, the kill PIN is not set up on the Washington EDLs, which could make them vulnerable to an attack that would make all such cards at a certain site unreadable, he said. Such an attack could cause a nuisance or undermine travelers' confidence, the summary said. The researchers have given recommendations to both U.S. and Washington authorities, Kohno said. Full-size U.S. passports, which are booklets instead of cards, aren't affected by these vulnerabilities because their RFID tags have cryptographic protections and the booklets have metallic covers that protect against snooping, the researchers said. For self-protection, the researchers suggest consumers use the protective sleeves that come with both cards, which can help to prevent clandestine scanning. Travelers can also use the safer full-size U.S. passports instead. Reference : http://www.pcworld.com/article/152750/.html?tk=rss_news
Illustration: Harry CampbellMicrosoft fixed a critical bug in its Windows operating system Thursday, saying that it is being exploited by online criminals and that it could eventually be used in a widespread "worm" attack. Microsoft took the unusual step of issuing an emergency patch for the flaw, several weeks ahead of its regularly scheduled November security updates, saying that it is being exploited in "limited targeted attacks." "It is possible that this vulnerability could be used in the crafting of a wormable exploit. If successfully exploited, an attacker could then install programs or view, change, or delete data; or create new accounts with full user rights," Microsoft said in a bulletin released Thursday morning. The flaw lies in the Windows Server service, used to connect different network resources such as file and print servers over a network. By sending malicious messages to a Windows machine that uses Windows Server, an attacker could take control of the computer, Microsoft said. Although firewalls would typically prevent this type of attack from spreading across the Internet, it could wreak havoc within corporate local area networks, much as the Zotob computer worm did back in 2005. Zotob affected Windows 2000 systems, but this bug is rated critical for three versions of Windows: Windows 2000, Windows XP and Windows Server 2003 systems. It is rated as a less-serious flaw for the Windows Vista and Server 2008 systems, which require additional authentication from computers on the network. Although the attack code used to exploit this flaw has not been publicly released, Microsoft felt that the bug was serious enough that it needed to rush out a patch, said Andrew Storms, director of security operations at nCircle, who has been briefed on the issue with Microsoft's security team. "The exploits that Microsoft found were found on systems running their Microsoft security software. This is how they became aware of it," he said. "It is a successful attack, but it is not spreading like a worm at this point." Although the attack code seems to have been used in only very targeted attacks, it could become a more widespread problem, according to Marc Maiffret, director of professional services with The DigiTrust Group. "It will really depend on whether or not someone wants to cause a bit of chaos and make a ... name for themselves," he said via instant message. "The reality is that bad guys do not like worms because they cause more people to patch." Reference : http://www.pcworld.com/article/152688/Bug.html?tk=rss_news
Other World Computing (OWC) on Wednesday introduced its Mercury Pro Blu-ray "Quad Interface" external drives. They're priced starting at US$499. The new drives feature 4X Blu-ray disc write speed and a data transfer rate of up to 150 megabytes per second. They're compatible with both Windows and Macintosh systems. The quad-interface drives feature FireWire 800, FireWire 400, USB 2.0 and external Serial ATA (eSATA) ports. The new drives work with 50GB Blu-ray discs, and also support HD-DVD, DVD-RAM, various DVD formats and CD-R/W. They read and write "virtually all optical media," according to OWC, all with write performance up to twice as fast as previous-generation Blu-ray drives. The $499.99 package nets you the OWC Mercury Pro SW-5583 model, connection cables and two 25GB BD-R discs. For $579.99, the SW-5583T model adds Roxio Toast 9 Titanium for Mac OS X. The drives are supported by iDVD, iTunes, Apple Finder disc burning and Roxio Toast 9 Titanium. Although the drives can be used to burn videos and data, please note that at this point. Blu-ray Disc movie playback is not supported by the operating system. Reference : http://www.pcworld.com/article/152637/owc_bluray_storage.html?tk=rss_news
Take Microsoft Surface, sprinkle it with fairy dust, and you might have something close to Microsoft's SecondLight, a new technology in the works from Microsoft Research. The experimental SecondLight technology adds a second dimension to Surface, allowing users to slide "magic lenses" over the display to provide a second surface that can be linked to the first. In one example, Microsoft researchers projected a picture of a car on the Surface display. But add separate, portable pieces of glass that can be moved across the display, and presto! the glasses are transformed into "X-ray specs" allowing a wireframe model to be viewed. It's all sleight of hand, of course. But if history is any guide, SecondLight will eventually be part of future Surface displays. The research is being presented as part of the User Interface Software and Technology conference this week. In addition to SecondLight, Microsoft's touchless SideSight "touchscreen" for PDAs was presented, as well as "tap" and "caress" movements for cell phones, plus a a new way to interact with images. How does SecondLight work? As a trick of the light. Surface projects images onto a display, and Microsoft hasn't abandoned that with SecondLight; the display still detects and interacts with objects or fingers that touch it. Full Story At Source http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2332945,00.asp?kc=PCRSS03069TX1K0001121
Excel Software released QuickLicense 3.0, an application to help developers ensure only licensed customers use their software.According to the company, QuickLicense can protect any software application written in any programming language including desktop applications, plug-ins, spreadsheets or multi-media content. QuickLicense also includes an API to give developers complete control without additional programming. Developers can configure licenses for perpetual applications, limited trial editions or software subscriptions that support a variety of human controlled or web automated activation procedures, according to Excel Software. QuickLicense 3.0 costs $595 for a Single User License on Windows or Mac OS X, or $995 for both platforms. Reference : http://www.macworld.com/article/136289/2008/10/quicklicense.html?lsrc=rss_main
Researchers have created an optical network component that they say can encrypt data traveling at 100G bps (bits per second), far outpacing current electronic encryption technologies. The component, a passive optical coder that can be programmed remotely to change the encryption key, could allow carriers and large enterprises to secure all the data that travels over a high-speed WAN (wide-area network) connection, according to Shahab Etemad, chief scientist director in the Advanced Technology Solutions division of Telcordia. The company, which traces its roots back to the Bellcore research operation for U.S. carriers, is looking for manufacturing partners to commercialize the technology as soon as two to three years from now. Large enterprises are making increasing use of WDM (wavelength-division multiplexing), in which a beam of light can be divided into different colors, or wavelengths, with a different stream of data being sent over each one as pulses of light. WDM is more efficient than sending electrons over wires, and it offers speeds as high as 40G bps per wavelength, with 100G bps on the way. Companies typically lease a wavelength from a carrier that owns the fiber. That wavelength becomes the physical medium for a high-bandwidth connection that can link one data center to another, or to a backup facility, over a long distance. But encryption still is typically done electronically, at a top speed of about 10G bps, Telcordia's Etemad said. Without the high-speed optical encryption, enterprises that wanted to carry 100G bps of traffic couldn't take advantage of the efficiency of putting it all on one wavelength. They would need 10 wavelengths, each carrying just 10G bps and using its own electronic encryption system, he said. In addition to leasing more wavelengths, they would have to manage 10 different encryption keys. Telcordia's optical coder is a component about the size of a U.S. dime (17mm across) that alters the frequency of the light pulses going onto the network, Etemad said. The light pulses traveling across a fiber normally indicate a "one" with a light pulse and a "zero" with no pulse, but with the frequency altered by the coder, someone who tapped into the fiber couldn't see any of those pulses, Etemad said. At the other end of the network, another coder alters the frequency back again to decrypt the data. An IT administrator can reprogram each coder -- physically reconfigure it -- by passing a current through it using a local or remote command. Although the optical encryption works differently, it could be made as strong as typical electronic encryption systems, according to Etemad. The coder has successfully encrypted and decrypted traffic going over a 40G-bps connection that was 400 kilometers (248 miles) long, and has been demonstrated at 100G bps in the lab, he said. Telcordia announced the results in a peer-reviewed paper for a conference last year, but said for the first time Monday that it will seek to commercialize the technology. Reference : http://www.pcworld.com/article/152529/.html?tk=rss_news
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