Free utility condenses Windows Vista from 15GB to 1.4GB
Users can trim Vista to a tenth of its normal size by ditching unwanted parts
January 30, 2008 (Computerworld) A Croatian college student has created a utility that installs a seriously stripped-down Windows Vista, saying the heft of Microsoft Corp.'s biggest desktop operating system is just too big to believe.
"Who can justify a 15GB operating system?" asked Dino Nuhagic, a fifth-year student from Split, a Croatian city on the Adriatic. Not Nuhagic, or the uncounted users who have turned to his creation, vLite.
The free program lets users pick and choose which Vista components, hot fixes, drivers and even language packs are installed, then builds a disk image that can be burned to a DVD for unattended installation of the operating system.
"Why did I do it? Well, it's performance and work environment," Nuhagic said when asked why he came up with vLite. "Performance, that's easy to explain. The less things running, the more responsive the OS. But the environment part is where it gets down to personal preference."
Those preferences include options for leaving out virtually every component of Windows Vista, from the minor -- such as the bundled screensavers -- to the major, such as the firewall or Universal Plug and Play.
Some vLite users, in fact, have made it a contest of sorts to come up with the puniest-possible installation package for the operating system. While Microsoft recommends that users set aside 15GB of hard-disk space to install its pride and joy, Nuhagic's fans boast of squeezing it into an image file as small as 515MB that takes up just 1.4GB on the hard drive.
One user reported condensing Windows Vista Home Basic into a 526MB .iso file and installing it in a virtual machine that used just 1.3GB of drive space. "It worked well inside the virtual machine and since I have 1GB of RAM on the host I guess the little Vista would work well," said amocanu.
Nuhagic didn't come right out and say it, but he hinted that he -- like more critical users and pundits -- thought Vista was bloated and could use some reducing. "To be frank, I don't need 90% of Windows. But that 10%, which guarantees that you can run [the] majority of games out there, is what is worth isolating."
Crafting vLite wasn't easy, he said. But the time Nuhagic spent on its predecessor, nLite, which similarly squeezes Windows 2000 and Windows XP, paid off in spades. "Since I had four years of experience with tampering [with] older Windows, it was a lot easier than nLite," Nuhagic said of the development of vLite. "Also, it was easier than in XP because Vista does not have the old-style installation. It doesn't install components one by one, but simply extracts the image. Where XP would fail during install because a certain file was missing, that issue is not present in Vista."
Even though vLite features a simple graphical interface that lets users remove a component with a click, Nuhagic warned that the utility isn't designed for the average user: "Because of certain possible compatibility issues with the programs out there [that] expect full Windows, I'd recommend [it] only to users [that] want exactly that kind of tool. In other words, I would not recommend it to someone who installs their OS once every few years. But if you do it every few months, then it's a must."
Nuhagic couldn't say how many people use vLite, or even the number of times it's been downloaded from his Web site. "I don't have counters installed because the FTP mirrors were donated, and I would have to upgrade my hosting for some extra script processing," he said of his shoestring operation. It shouldn't be a surprise, however, that nLite, the Windows XP miniaturizer, remains four to five times more popular than vLite, based on the number of visitors to the different nLite and vLite Web sites.
Thursday, January 31, 2008
Wednesday, January 30, 2008
News on Technology
New data security breaches come in fours
Potential compromises of personal info disclosed by a quartet of organizations
January 29, 2008 (Computerworld) What do Fallon Community Health Plan, Pennsylvania State University, OmniAmerican Bank and T. Rowe Price Group Inc. all have in common?
Each of them recently joined the seemingly never-ending parade of organizations that have disclosed security breaches resulting in the potential compromise of personal data.
Leading the pack in terms of the number of data records known to be involved was T. Rowe Price. Two weeks ago, the Baltimore-based investment management firm's retirement plan services group began notifying about 35,000 current and former participants in "several hundred" plans that their names and Social Security numbers might have been compromised, a company spokesman confirmed today.
The spokesman said that the possible breach resulted from the theft of computers containing the data from the offices of CBIZ Benefits and Insurance Services Inc., a third-party services provider that was preparing tax-related forms on behalf of T. Rowe Price. The theft took place during the last week of December, he added.
T. Rowe Price is offering one year's worth of free credit monitoring services and up to $25,000 in identify theft insurance to the individuals whose personal data was on the stolen systems, the spokesman said.
Meanwhile, a similar laptop theft that also took place in late December may have compromised the names, birth dates and some health care data of about 29,800 members at Fallon Community Health Plan, a Worcester, Mass.-based medical provider and insurer.
A spokesman for Fallon said that the laptop was stolen from the offices of a third-party services provider, and that the data stored on the system doesn't appear to have been either encrypted or password-protected. But the fact that other equipment was taken along with the laptop may be an indication that the thieves were after the systems and not the data on them, the Fallon spokesman said.
Like T. Rowe Price, Fallon is offering one year's worth of credit monitoring to all of the members of its Fallon Senior Plan and Summit ElderCare health plans who were affected by the breach. In cases where it's needed, the credit monitoring services will be extended to two years, the spokesman said, adding that all of the affected plan members have been notified of the incident.
In the third incident to make the news over the past few days, Fort Worth, Texas-based OmniAmerican Bank said that it had been forced to impose unspecified restrictions on ATM and debit card transactions after hackers broke into its systems.
In a prepared statement, the bank said that it has also implemented a series of new "communications and security measures" in response to attempted fraudulent activity stemming from the break-in last week. It didn't specify what those measures were, and a call to the bank seeking further comment wasn't immediately returned.
In addition, OmniAmerican said in the statement that it is issuing new debit cards and personal identification numbers to its customers as a precaution against future fraud.
The bank didn't disclose the number of cards that are being blocked and reissued. But a story posted last Thursday by the Fort Worth Star-Telegram newspaper that quoted OmniAmerican's president said that the bank was reissuing about 40,000 cards and that the system break-in was the work of an international gang of cybercriminals.
In comparison to the other incidents, the breach reported by Penn State appears to have been much smaller in scope. According to a statement posted on the university's Web site last week, a laptop computer containing personally identifiable information on 677 individuals who attended Penn State between 1999 and 2004 was stolen from a faculty member.
The theft occurred while the faculty member was traveling and appears to have been a random theft of hardware, the statement noted. The university said that it currently is in the process of notifying the affected individuals.
Potential compromises of personal info disclosed by a quartet of organizations
January 29, 2008 (Computerworld) What do Fallon Community Health Plan, Pennsylvania State University, OmniAmerican Bank and T. Rowe Price Group Inc. all have in common?
Each of them recently joined the seemingly never-ending parade of organizations that have disclosed security breaches resulting in the potential compromise of personal data.
Leading the pack in terms of the number of data records known to be involved was T. Rowe Price. Two weeks ago, the Baltimore-based investment management firm's retirement plan services group began notifying about 35,000 current and former participants in "several hundred" plans that their names and Social Security numbers might have been compromised, a company spokesman confirmed today.
The spokesman said that the possible breach resulted from the theft of computers containing the data from the offices of CBIZ Benefits and Insurance Services Inc., a third-party services provider that was preparing tax-related forms on behalf of T. Rowe Price. The theft took place during the last week of December, he added.
T. Rowe Price is offering one year's worth of free credit monitoring services and up to $25,000 in identify theft insurance to the individuals whose personal data was on the stolen systems, the spokesman said.
Meanwhile, a similar laptop theft that also took place in late December may have compromised the names, birth dates and some health care data of about 29,800 members at Fallon Community Health Plan, a Worcester, Mass.-based medical provider and insurer.
A spokesman for Fallon said that the laptop was stolen from the offices of a third-party services provider, and that the data stored on the system doesn't appear to have been either encrypted or password-protected. But the fact that other equipment was taken along with the laptop may be an indication that the thieves were after the systems and not the data on them, the Fallon spokesman said.
Like T. Rowe Price, Fallon is offering one year's worth of credit monitoring to all of the members of its Fallon Senior Plan and Summit ElderCare health plans who were affected by the breach. In cases where it's needed, the credit monitoring services will be extended to two years, the spokesman said, adding that all of the affected plan members have been notified of the incident.
In the third incident to make the news over the past few days, Fort Worth, Texas-based OmniAmerican Bank said that it had been forced to impose unspecified restrictions on ATM and debit card transactions after hackers broke into its systems.
In a prepared statement, the bank said that it has also implemented a series of new "communications and security measures" in response to attempted fraudulent activity stemming from the break-in last week. It didn't specify what those measures were, and a call to the bank seeking further comment wasn't immediately returned.
In addition, OmniAmerican said in the statement that it is issuing new debit cards and personal identification numbers to its customers as a precaution against future fraud.
The bank didn't disclose the number of cards that are being blocked and reissued. But a story posted last Thursday by the Fort Worth Star-Telegram newspaper that quoted OmniAmerican's president said that the bank was reissuing about 40,000 cards and that the system break-in was the work of an international gang of cybercriminals.
In comparison to the other incidents, the breach reported by Penn State appears to have been much smaller in scope. According to a statement posted on the university's Web site last week, a laptop computer containing personally identifiable information on 677 individuals who attended Penn State between 1999 and 2004 was stolen from a faculty member.
The theft occurred while the faculty member was traveling and appears to have been a random theft of hardware, the statement noted. The university said that it currently is in the process of notifying the affected individuals.
Tuesday, January 29, 2008
News on Technology
Intel likely to reveal details of Silverthorne next week
By Sumner Lemon
January 29, 2008 (IDG News Service) Intel Corp. will offer a detailed look at a new processor next week during a presentation at the International Solid State Circuits Conference (ISSCC) that should set the stage for an unexpectedly close battle with Taiwan's Via Technologies Inc.
Intel's presentation will cover technical details of an unnamed low-power processor that is made using a 45-nanometer process and designed for mobile Internet devices, according to an abstract contained in the ISSCC program. That's the same general description used by Intel to describe its upcoming Silverthorne processor.
Intel executives declined to confirm whether the ISSCC presentation covers Silverthorne but said the abstract provided an accurate description of the unspecified processor. If the chip described is indeed Silverthorne, the presentation appears set to confirm many rumored details of the chip's architecture and characteristics.
Most importantly, Silverthorne is rumored to be an in-order processor, the same as the processor that Intel will detail next week, according to the abstract. In layman's terms, this means the chip functions like a factory with a single assembly line and can process one operation at a time. An in-order processor must complete that operation before it can move on to another operation. This is a different chip architecture from that used in Intel's other processors, but it's the same as Via Technologies' low-power C7 chip, which has proved popular among the portable device makers that are Silverthorne's target market.
The processor that Intel will discuss next week is also a dual-issue processor, just as Silverthorne is rumored to be. This feature -- which Intel is likely to emphasize at ISSCC -- allows two instructions to be issued at a time and should give Silverthorne a performance advantage over the C7, which can issue only one instruction at a time.
If these rumored characteristics of Silverthorne are confirmed next week, the stage will be set for an unexpectedly close contest between Intel and Via's upcoming low-power Isaiah processors, which are also designed for small, portable computers.
Tiny by comparison to Intel and Advanced Micro Devices Inc., Via has nevertheless managed to carve out a comfortable niche selling the inexpensive, low-power C7. Beset by a dying third-party chip set business, Via hopes to become a mainstream processor supplier with its upcoming Isaiah processors, which the company unveiled last week.
Unlike the C7 and Silverthorne, Isaiah uses a superscalar, out-of-order processor architecture. This architecture, which is used in high-end chips from Intel and AMD, generally offers better performance than an in-order design and is akin to a factory equipped with multiple assembly lines that can process different operations at the same time.
The performance of Isaiah is further enhanced by being superscalar, or having the ability to process multiple instructions during every clock cycle.
Centaur Technology, the Via subsidiary that handles processor design for the company, is confident that Isaiah will outperform Silverthorne, even though an accurate comparison of both chips won't be possible until the two processors can be benchmarked and assessed by independent observers.
Nevertheless, Isaiah looks good on paper. Via chips based on the new architecture will offer 1MB of L2 cache and support a front-side bus running at speeds up to 1.3 GHz. By comparison, the chip that Intel will reveal next week has 512KB of cache and a 533-MHz front-side bus.
But the ISSCC abstract raises as many questions as it appears to answer. For example, it doesn't specify how many cores the new Intel chip will use and gives no indication for how fast these cores will run.
Silverthorne, and a related processor called Diamondville, are widely expected to be available in single-core and dual-core versions. They are also expected to run at roughly the same clock speeds as the Isaiah chips, will be available in versions running from 400 MHz up to 2 GHz.
By Sumner Lemon
January 29, 2008 (IDG News Service) Intel Corp. will offer a detailed look at a new processor next week during a presentation at the International Solid State Circuits Conference (ISSCC) that should set the stage for an unexpectedly close battle with Taiwan's Via Technologies Inc.
Intel's presentation will cover technical details of an unnamed low-power processor that is made using a 45-nanometer process and designed for mobile Internet devices, according to an abstract contained in the ISSCC program. That's the same general description used by Intel to describe its upcoming Silverthorne processor.
Intel executives declined to confirm whether the ISSCC presentation covers Silverthorne but said the abstract provided an accurate description of the unspecified processor. If the chip described is indeed Silverthorne, the presentation appears set to confirm many rumored details of the chip's architecture and characteristics.
Most importantly, Silverthorne is rumored to be an in-order processor, the same as the processor that Intel will detail next week, according to the abstract. In layman's terms, this means the chip functions like a factory with a single assembly line and can process one operation at a time. An in-order processor must complete that operation before it can move on to another operation. This is a different chip architecture from that used in Intel's other processors, but it's the same as Via Technologies' low-power C7 chip, which has proved popular among the portable device makers that are Silverthorne's target market.
The processor that Intel will discuss next week is also a dual-issue processor, just as Silverthorne is rumored to be. This feature -- which Intel is likely to emphasize at ISSCC -- allows two instructions to be issued at a time and should give Silverthorne a performance advantage over the C7, which can issue only one instruction at a time.
If these rumored characteristics of Silverthorne are confirmed next week, the stage will be set for an unexpectedly close contest between Intel and Via's upcoming low-power Isaiah processors, which are also designed for small, portable computers.
Tiny by comparison to Intel and Advanced Micro Devices Inc., Via has nevertheless managed to carve out a comfortable niche selling the inexpensive, low-power C7. Beset by a dying third-party chip set business, Via hopes to become a mainstream processor supplier with its upcoming Isaiah processors, which the company unveiled last week.
Unlike the C7 and Silverthorne, Isaiah uses a superscalar, out-of-order processor architecture. This architecture, which is used in high-end chips from Intel and AMD, generally offers better performance than an in-order design and is akin to a factory equipped with multiple assembly lines that can process different operations at the same time.
The performance of Isaiah is further enhanced by being superscalar, or having the ability to process multiple instructions during every clock cycle.
Centaur Technology, the Via subsidiary that handles processor design for the company, is confident that Isaiah will outperform Silverthorne, even though an accurate comparison of both chips won't be possible until the two processors can be benchmarked and assessed by independent observers.
Nevertheless, Isaiah looks good on paper. Via chips based on the new architecture will offer 1MB of L2 cache and support a front-side bus running at speeds up to 1.3 GHz. By comparison, the chip that Intel will reveal next week has 512KB of cache and a 533-MHz front-side bus.
But the ISSCC abstract raises as many questions as it appears to answer. For example, it doesn't specify how many cores the new Intel chip will use and gives no indication for how fast these cores will run.
Silverthorne, and a related processor called Diamondville, are widely expected to be available in single-core and dual-core versions. They are also expected to run at roughly the same clock speeds as the Isaiah chips, will be available in versions running from 400 MHz up to 2 GHz.
Monday, January 28, 2008
News on Technology
IBM Turns To Linux In Desktop Campaign Against Microsoft
The company plans to ship Ubuntu and Red Hat versions of its "Open Collaboration Client," a combination of Lotus Notes 8 and Symphony.
By Paul McDougall InformationWeek January 25, 2008 02:54 PM
IBM (NYSE: IBM) has increased support for Linux with the introduction of versions of its Lotus Notes collaboration suite and Symphony productivity tools built to run on the open source OS -- and it's hoping the effort will help unseat Microsoft (NSDQ: MSFT) as the king of desktop software.
The company this week said it plans to ship what it calls its "Open Collaboration Client," made up of Lotus Notes 8 and Symphony, for Canonical's popular Ubuntu Linux distribution.
Lotus Notes 8 includes e-mail, calendaring, and contact management modules, while Symphony -- available as a free download -- features word processing, spreadsheet, and presentation applications build on the open source OpenOffice.org standard.
IBM also said this week that it's working with Red Hat to develop a version of the Open Collaboration Client for small and midsize businesses, which are increasingly a focus for IBM.
Under the plan, Red Hat will offer to its customers a version of the Red Hat Enterprise Linux Advanced Platform packaged with Lotus Notes, Symphony, and IBM's Domino messaging server.
Red Hat also will offer technical services to help resellers implement the package for customers.
IBM last year said it would offer versions of Lotus Notes and Symphony for Novell's SUSE Enterprise Linux distribution.
By porting key software to Linux, IBM is looking to give businesses one less reason to buy products from rival Microsoft -- which IBM said offers "a proprietary desktop model."
IBM's Linux efforts will "further address customer demands around choice," said Inna Kuznetsova, an IBM executive with responsibility for Linux, in a statement.
The company plans to ship Ubuntu and Red Hat versions of its "Open Collaboration Client," a combination of Lotus Notes 8 and Symphony.
By Paul McDougall InformationWeek January 25, 2008 02:54 PM
IBM (NYSE: IBM) has increased support for Linux with the introduction of versions of its Lotus Notes collaboration suite and Symphony productivity tools built to run on the open source OS -- and it's hoping the effort will help unseat Microsoft (NSDQ: MSFT) as the king of desktop software.
The company this week said it plans to ship what it calls its "Open Collaboration Client," made up of Lotus Notes 8 and Symphony, for Canonical's popular Ubuntu Linux distribution.
Lotus Notes 8 includes e-mail, calendaring, and contact management modules, while Symphony -- available as a free download -- features word processing, spreadsheet, and presentation applications build on the open source OpenOffice.org standard.
IBM also said this week that it's working with Red Hat to develop a version of the Open Collaboration Client for small and midsize businesses, which are increasingly a focus for IBM.
Under the plan, Red Hat will offer to its customers a version of the Red Hat Enterprise Linux Advanced Platform packaged with Lotus Notes, Symphony, and IBM's Domino messaging server.
Red Hat also will offer technical services to help resellers implement the package for customers.
IBM last year said it would offer versions of Lotus Notes and Symphony for Novell's SUSE Enterprise Linux distribution.
By porting key software to Linux, IBM is looking to give businesses one less reason to buy products from rival Microsoft -- which IBM said offers "a proprietary desktop model."
IBM's Linux efforts will "further address customer demands around choice," said Inna Kuznetsova, an IBM executive with responsibility for Linux, in a statement.
Thursday, January 24, 2008
News on Technology
Robert McMillan Thu Jan 24, 6:38 AM ET
San Francisco - Microsoft said Wednesday that another one of its operating system products is vulnerable to a critical vulnerability, first patched two weeks ago.
an update to its MS08-001 security bulletin, Microsoft said that the latest release of Windows Small Business Server was also critically at risk from a bug in Windows' networking software.
The flaw is also considered critical for Windows XP and Vista users. Microsoft did not say why it had initially omitted Small Business Server from its list of critically affected operating systems, but it said that the product's users were being offered patches via Microsoft's various automatic update services. "Customers with Windows Small Business Server 2003 Service Pack 2 should apply the update to remain secure," Microsoft said in its updated bulletin.
The bug lies in the way Windows processes networking traffic that uses IGMP (Internet Group Management Protocol) and MLD (Multicast Listener Discovery) protocols, which are used to send data to many systems at the same time. Microsoft said that an attacker could send specially crafted packets to a victim's machine, which could then allow the attacker to run unauthorized code on a system.
Microsoft rates the flaw as "important" for Windows Server 2003, meaning that it would be more difficult for attackers to exploit the flaw on this operating system.
Security experts are paying particular attention to this vulnerability because it could be exploited by attackers to create a self-replicating worm attack.
The flaw is not being exploited in online attacks, but last week researchers at penetration-testing-software vendor Immunity made a sample exploit available to their customers. That software causes an unpatched system to crash, but the company is close to developing code that could be used to install unauthorized software on a victim's computer, according to Immunity Chief Technology Officer Dave Aitel.
Aitel said it's no surprise that the small business version of Windows Server 2003 is at risk.
"I assumed most 2003 servers in the real world were vulnerable," he said via instant message. "Windows Server 2003 by default does not have any multicast addresses active and would not be affected by this vulnerability. However, installing applications that use multicasting could cause the operating system to become vulnerable."
He said that Microsoft could help its customers by giving them more details on how to avoid being at risk to this problem. "What features can I enable on Windows Server 2003 to become vulnerable?" he asked.
San Francisco - Microsoft said Wednesday that another one of its operating system products is vulnerable to a critical vulnerability, first patched two weeks ago.
an update to its MS08-001 security bulletin, Microsoft said that the latest release of Windows Small Business Server was also critically at risk from a bug in Windows' networking software.
The flaw is also considered critical for Windows XP and Vista users. Microsoft did not say why it had initially omitted Small Business Server from its list of critically affected operating systems, but it said that the product's users were being offered patches via Microsoft's various automatic update services. "Customers with Windows Small Business Server 2003 Service Pack 2 should apply the update to remain secure," Microsoft said in its updated bulletin.
The bug lies in the way Windows processes networking traffic that uses IGMP (Internet Group Management Protocol) and MLD (Multicast Listener Discovery) protocols, which are used to send data to many systems at the same time. Microsoft said that an attacker could send specially crafted packets to a victim's machine, which could then allow the attacker to run unauthorized code on a system.
Microsoft rates the flaw as "important" for Windows Server 2003, meaning that it would be more difficult for attackers to exploit the flaw on this operating system.
Security experts are paying particular attention to this vulnerability because it could be exploited by attackers to create a self-replicating worm attack.
The flaw is not being exploited in online attacks, but last week researchers at penetration-testing-software vendor Immunity made a sample exploit available to their customers. That software causes an unpatched system to crash, but the company is close to developing code that could be used to install unauthorized software on a victim's computer, according to Immunity Chief Technology Officer Dave Aitel.
Aitel said it's no surprise that the small business version of Windows Server 2003 is at risk.
"I assumed most 2003 servers in the real world were vulnerable," he said via instant message. "Windows Server 2003 by default does not have any multicast addresses active and would not be affected by this vulnerability. However, installing applications that use multicasting could cause the operating system to become vulnerable."
He said that Microsoft could help its customers by giving them more details on how to avoid being at risk to this problem. "What features can I enable on Windows Server 2003 to become vulnerable?" he asked.
Wednesday, January 23, 2008
News on Technology
Sony: To Delay Release Of Skype Features For PSP In Japan1-23-08 3:02 AM EST E-mail Article Print Article
TOKYO -(Dow Jones)- Sony Corp.'s (6758.TO) game division said Wednesday it would delay the introduction of Skype features on its handheld PlayStation Portable game unit in Japan.
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Sony Computer Entertainment Japan said in a press release that microphone attachments for use with the service were not up to Skype specifications. Skype, owned by eBay Inc. (EBAY), is a service for making free or low-cost calls via the Internet.
Sony had planned to begin selling the microphones in Japan on Thursday, but said it had delayed the launch and had yet to set a new date.
Rival Nintendo Corp.'s (7974.TO) handheld Nintendo DS system has outsold the PSP based on its broad appeal for uses outside of video games. Sony has been moving to make the PSP more attractive to a wider audience, launching it in colors such as pink and adding features and games that appeal to non-gamers.
-By Jay Alabaster, Dow Jones Newswires; 813-5255-2929; jay.alabaster@ dowjones.com (END) Dow Jones Newswires
01-23-080302ET
Copyright (c) 2008 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
TOKYO -(Dow Jones)- Sony Corp.'s (6758.TO) game division said Wednesday it would delay the introduction of Skype features on its handheld PlayStation Portable game unit in Japan.
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if(r0
Sony Computer Entertainment Japan said in a press release that microphone attachments for use with the service were not up to Skype specifications. Skype, owned by eBay Inc. (EBAY), is a service for making free or low-cost calls via the Internet.
Sony had planned to begin selling the microphones in Japan on Thursday, but said it had delayed the launch and had yet to set a new date.
Rival Nintendo Corp.'s (7974.TO) handheld Nintendo DS system has outsold the PSP based on its broad appeal for uses outside of video games. Sony has been moving to make the PSP more attractive to a wider audience, launching it in colors such as pink and adding features and games that appeal to non-gamers.
-By Jay Alabaster, Dow Jones Newswires; 813-5255-2929; jay.alabaster@ dowjones.com (END) Dow Jones Newswires
01-23-080302ET
Copyright (c) 2008 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
Tuesday, January 22, 2008
News on Technology
Rock Band and Guitar Hero show impressive music sales
By Erik Orejuela, TechSpot.comPublished: January 22, 2008, 10:57 AM EST
Guitar Hero and now Rock Band have people asking for an encore. The downloadable (for a fee) songs for these two games have done so well that they have made an impact on online music sales as a whole. During the first two months of sales of Rock Band, MTV and Harmonix have sold 2.5 million songs, meanwhile Activision has sold 5 million songs for Guitar Hero since November, which is quite impressive considering that the user base for these games is quite limited. Anyone who’s played Guitar Hero or Rock Band can tell you how fun and challenging these games can be. Since you really play to improve your skills as a rock star once you have perfected a song it is only natural you move on to the next one and so on until you finally conquer that last song, but thanks to the downloadable content now available there doesn’t have to be a last song.
By Erik Orejuela, TechSpot.comPublished: January 22, 2008, 10:57 AM EST
Guitar Hero and now Rock Band have people asking for an encore. The downloadable (for a fee) songs for these two games have done so well that they have made an impact on online music sales as a whole. During the first two months of sales of Rock Band, MTV and Harmonix have sold 2.5 million songs, meanwhile Activision has sold 5 million songs for Guitar Hero since November, which is quite impressive considering that the user base for these games is quite limited. Anyone who’s played Guitar Hero or Rock Band can tell you how fun and challenging these games can be. Since you really play to improve your skills as a rock star once you have perfected a song it is only natural you move on to the next one and so on until you finally conquer that last song, but thanks to the downloadable content now available there doesn’t have to be a last song.
Friday, January 18, 2008
Computer Ethics
What is computer ethics? Computer ethics is a branch of practical philosophy which deals with how computing professionals should make decisions regarding professional and social conduct.
Ethical standard for a profession: Not useing the computer to harm others.
3 Issues of Computer Ethic: Copyright Laws, harrasments, Spam.
Ethical standard for a profession: Not useing the computer to harm others.
3 Issues of Computer Ethic: Copyright Laws, harrasments, Spam.
News on Technology
The invisible computer revolution
Photo courtesy of DataDyne.org
By Dr Joel Selanikio DataDyne If I had told you ten years ago that by the end of 2007 there would be an international network of wirelessly-connected computers throughout the developing world, you might well have said it wasn't possible.
I would probably have said the same, but as it turns out we would have been wrong: it was possible, and it was created, and it continues to expand, not through Non-Governmental Organisations or charity or development grants but through the market, with much of it financed by some of the poorest people on the planet.
I am talking, of course, about the mobile phone network.
Along with the internet, with which it is rapidly merging, this is the most astonishing technology story of our time, and one that has the power to revolutionise access to information across the developing world.
Unfortunately, rich country biases limit understanding of this amazing phenomenon: for those in North America or Western Europe the cell phone is primarily or uniquely a phone designed to make voice calls.
In the rich world, even those who use the mobile for other tasks such as e-mail almost always do so as an adjunct to their "computer" (ie, the desktop or laptop in their home or office): the mobile phone is used for those tasks only when the "computer" isn't accessible.
Revolutionise education
Because those of us based in the developed world are always thinking of computers as things with 15-inch or 17-inch or 24-inch screens, it can be hard to see the potential of something much smaller, even if it's right in our pocket.
I was talking with a software developer friend of mine recently and going on as I do about the potential for cell phone software to revolutionise education, literacy, and public health in the developing world.
And he said to me "but can you really create a valuable user experience on such a small screen and with such a slow processor". So I asked him if he'd heard of the iPhone, or the Gameboy. Neither of those devices seem to have much difficulty in creating a compelling and useful user experience, and how long do you think it will it be before there's a sub-$100 iPhone or equivalent?
The whole history of consumer electronics suggests that we won't have to wait for long.
I think it's time that we recognised that for the majority of the world's population, and for the foreseeable future, the cell phone is the computer
Meanwhile, this revolution of personally-financed wirelessly-connected computers largely goes unnoticed by the international development community, and because their paradigm revolves around desktops and laptops they spend millions developing specialised laptops for schoolchildren in developing countries, which will surely only ever reach a small fraction of them, while the network of invisible computers continues its exponential penetration into those same regions, below the radar.
Of course, even in the high-growth areas of sub-Saharan Africa, the fastest growing cell phone market in the world, most people still don't have a cell phone of their own (though many have access to one via a friend or family member).
But important sub-groups in that region have much higher penetration than the general population, including knowledge workers such as teachers or healthcare providers.
The question we should be asking ourselves, then, is not "how can we buy, and support, and supply electricity for, a laptop for every schoolteacher" (much less every schoolchild), but rather "what mobile software can we write that would really add value for a schoolteacher (or student, or health worker, or businessperson) and that could run on the computer they already have in their pocket?"
Consider just one application: continuing education for clinical health workers.
Many developing country health providers get trained once, at the start of their career, and never get any additional training at all.
This is because transporting these workers to a training conference is hugely difficult in countries where roads are inadequate, or don't exist, or fuel is scarce -- and sending paper-based materials to workers is either expensive, or more likely impossible given a poorly-functioning postal mail system.
But imagine a system that lets managers at a national level, who probably do have access to the internet on a desktop computer, coordinate and transmit SMS-based continuing education messages to the computers - sorry, to the cell phones - of those health professionals. What a difference would that make to the level of up-to-date knowledge available to a clinic worker? And how would that impact the quality of care?
And what other groups might benefit from that kind of educational program? What about teachers? What about students?
Unfortunately, as of this morning a Google search for "educational software for Windows" got 41,300 results, while a search for "educational software for cell phones" got exactly 9 hits.
Banking initiatives
That doesn't mean that no one is creating innovative, useful software to run on cell phones.
In South Africa and Nigeria, for example, a variety of mobile banking initiatives have taken off and been embraced by a population that isn't going to be getting "online", in the web sense, anytime soon but who want all the advantages of cashless transactions.
And in Kenya, Sierra Leone, and Zambia, with funding from The Vodafone Group Foundation and the UN Foundation, we've successfully completed a pilot of our EpiSurveyor mobile data collection software for public health.
Based on that pilot, which dramatically increased the public health data available in those countries, the World Health Organization has adopted EpiSurveyor as the standard for mobile data collection in Africa - and we're transitioning from unconnected PDAs to wirelessly-connected phones as I write this.
Importantly, the programming staff for that EpiSurveyor software is entirely located in developing countries: India, Kenya, and South Africa.
We've done this not only because it's more cost effective, but also to promote development capacity in those countries.
After all, who is more likely to come up with innovative software based on the centrality of the cell phone, a programmer in Silicon Valley surrounded by beautiful desktops and laptops, or a programmer in Nairobi who lives in a world in which almost all contact with the network is via cellphone?
But regardless of where the developer is located, I think it's time that we recognised that for the majority of the world's population, and for the foreseeable future, the cell phone is the computer, and it will be the portal to the internet, and the communications tool, and the schoolbook, and the vaccination record, and the family album, and many other things, just as soon as someone, somewhere, sits down and writes the software that allows these functions to be performed.
Joel Selanikio is a physician and co-founder of DataDyne.org, a non-profit creating open-source software for public health and international development, including the EpiSurveyor mobile public health data collection toolkit.
Photo courtesy of DataDyne.org
By Dr Joel Selanikio DataDyne If I had told you ten years ago that by the end of 2007 there would be an international network of wirelessly-connected computers throughout the developing world, you might well have said it wasn't possible.
I would probably have said the same, but as it turns out we would have been wrong: it was possible, and it was created, and it continues to expand, not through Non-Governmental Organisations or charity or development grants but through the market, with much of it financed by some of the poorest people on the planet.
I am talking, of course, about the mobile phone network.
Along with the internet, with which it is rapidly merging, this is the most astonishing technology story of our time, and one that has the power to revolutionise access to information across the developing world.
Unfortunately, rich country biases limit understanding of this amazing phenomenon: for those in North America or Western Europe the cell phone is primarily or uniquely a phone designed to make voice calls.
In the rich world, even those who use the mobile for other tasks such as e-mail almost always do so as an adjunct to their "computer" (ie, the desktop or laptop in their home or office): the mobile phone is used for those tasks only when the "computer" isn't accessible.
Revolutionise education
Because those of us based in the developed world are always thinking of computers as things with 15-inch or 17-inch or 24-inch screens, it can be hard to see the potential of something much smaller, even if it's right in our pocket.
I was talking with a software developer friend of mine recently and going on as I do about the potential for cell phone software to revolutionise education, literacy, and public health in the developing world.
And he said to me "but can you really create a valuable user experience on such a small screen and with such a slow processor". So I asked him if he'd heard of the iPhone, or the Gameboy. Neither of those devices seem to have much difficulty in creating a compelling and useful user experience, and how long do you think it will it be before there's a sub-$100 iPhone or equivalent?
The whole history of consumer electronics suggests that we won't have to wait for long.
I think it's time that we recognised that for the majority of the world's population, and for the foreseeable future, the cell phone is the computer
Meanwhile, this revolution of personally-financed wirelessly-connected computers largely goes unnoticed by the international development community, and because their paradigm revolves around desktops and laptops they spend millions developing specialised laptops for schoolchildren in developing countries, which will surely only ever reach a small fraction of them, while the network of invisible computers continues its exponential penetration into those same regions, below the radar.
Of course, even in the high-growth areas of sub-Saharan Africa, the fastest growing cell phone market in the world, most people still don't have a cell phone of their own (though many have access to one via a friend or family member).
But important sub-groups in that region have much higher penetration than the general population, including knowledge workers such as teachers or healthcare providers.
The question we should be asking ourselves, then, is not "how can we buy, and support, and supply electricity for, a laptop for every schoolteacher" (much less every schoolchild), but rather "what mobile software can we write that would really add value for a schoolteacher (or student, or health worker, or businessperson) and that could run on the computer they already have in their pocket?"
Consider just one application: continuing education for clinical health workers.
Many developing country health providers get trained once, at the start of their career, and never get any additional training at all.
This is because transporting these workers to a training conference is hugely difficult in countries where roads are inadequate, or don't exist, or fuel is scarce -- and sending paper-based materials to workers is either expensive, or more likely impossible given a poorly-functioning postal mail system.
But imagine a system that lets managers at a national level, who probably do have access to the internet on a desktop computer, coordinate and transmit SMS-based continuing education messages to the computers - sorry, to the cell phones - of those health professionals. What a difference would that make to the level of up-to-date knowledge available to a clinic worker? And how would that impact the quality of care?
And what other groups might benefit from that kind of educational program? What about teachers? What about students?
Unfortunately, as of this morning a Google search for "educational software for Windows" got 41,300 results, while a search for "educational software for cell phones" got exactly 9 hits.
Banking initiatives
That doesn't mean that no one is creating innovative, useful software to run on cell phones.
In South Africa and Nigeria, for example, a variety of mobile banking initiatives have taken off and been embraced by a population that isn't going to be getting "online", in the web sense, anytime soon but who want all the advantages of cashless transactions.
And in Kenya, Sierra Leone, and Zambia, with funding from The Vodafone Group Foundation and the UN Foundation, we've successfully completed a pilot of our EpiSurveyor mobile data collection software for public health.
Based on that pilot, which dramatically increased the public health data available in those countries, the World Health Organization has adopted EpiSurveyor as the standard for mobile data collection in Africa - and we're transitioning from unconnected PDAs to wirelessly-connected phones as I write this.
Importantly, the programming staff for that EpiSurveyor software is entirely located in developing countries: India, Kenya, and South Africa.
We've done this not only because it's more cost effective, but also to promote development capacity in those countries.
After all, who is more likely to come up with innovative software based on the centrality of the cell phone, a programmer in Silicon Valley surrounded by beautiful desktops and laptops, or a programmer in Nairobi who lives in a world in which almost all contact with the network is via cellphone?
But regardless of where the developer is located, I think it's time that we recognised that for the majority of the world's population, and for the foreseeable future, the cell phone is the computer, and it will be the portal to the internet, and the communications tool, and the schoolbook, and the vaccination record, and the family album, and many other things, just as soon as someone, somewhere, sits down and writes the software that allows these functions to be performed.
Joel Selanikio is a physician and co-founder of DataDyne.org, a non-profit creating open-source software for public health and international development, including the EpiSurveyor mobile public health data collection toolkit.
Thursday, January 17, 2008
Jobs in Networking
In Networking one can be:
Network Administrator
Network (Systems) Engineer
Network (Service) Technician
Network Programmer/Analyst
Network/Information Systems Manager
The Network Administrator:
In general, network administrators configure and manage LANs and sometimes WANs. The job descriptions for administrators can be detailed and sometimes downright intimidating! Consider the following description that, although fictitious, represents a fairly typical posting:
NETWORK ADMINISTRATOR - HOBO COMPUTING "Candidate will be responsible for analysis, installation and configuration of company networks. Daily activities include monitoring network performance, troubleshooting problems and maintaining network security. Other activities include assisting customers with operating systems and network adapters, configuring routers, switches, and firewalls, and evaluating third-party tools."
Needless to say, a person early in their career often lacks experience in a majority of these categories. Most employers do not expect candidates to possess in-depth knowledge of all areas listed in the job posting, though, so a person should remain undeterred by the long, sweeping job descriptions they will inevitably encounter.
Requirements:
perform network management functions
ensure prescribed service-quality objectives are met
Knowledge of network and communication hardware and software
Knowledge of operating systems and applications and specific methods of network communication
Identifies and resolves complex voice and/or data communications network problems; arranges for vendor support if necessary.
Understanding of IP Telephony and Voice Over IP solutions with respect to network design characteristics and related configuration of hardware and end-user devices
Understanding and integration of Metropolitan Area Networks (MAN)
Understanding the use of point-to-point radio communications to extend Ethernet network infrastructure to outlying enterprise properties.
Understanding of video and surveillance technology
Salary:
Less than 1 year: about 41,000; 20 years or more: about 57,000.
Network Engineer:
The job function of a Network Engineer differs little from that of a Network Administrator. Company A may use one title while Company B uses the other to refer to essentially the same position. Some companies even use the two titles interchangeably. Firms making a distinction between the two often stipulate that administrators focus on the day-to-day management of networks, whereas network engineers focus primarily on system upgrades, evaluating vendor products, security testing, and so on.
General Requirements:
5+ years of network related experience in large multi-protocol LAN/WAN environments.
*At minimum, passed the written portion of the CCIE certification is strongly preferred along with expert knowledge of Cisco router/switch platforms, MPLS, BGP, EIGRP, OSPF, Frame-relay, ATM, TCP/IP, and wireless technologies.
*BS/MS in computer science, electrical engineering, or related field preferred.
*Experience with MS Office applications, especially Excel and Project.
*Experience with MS Visio a plus.
*Extensive experienced in inter-VLAN routing, Spanning-Tree Protocol, VLAN trunking with ISL and 802.1q, and VTP is also necessary.
*Network Management and Internet Connectivity/Security backgrounds are very desirable.
Salary:
less than 1 year: about 49,000; 20 years or more: about 79,000.
Network Administrator
Network (Systems) Engineer
Network (Service) Technician
Network Programmer/Analyst
Network/Information Systems Manager
The Network Administrator:
In general, network administrators configure and manage LANs and sometimes WANs. The job descriptions for administrators can be detailed and sometimes downright intimidating! Consider the following description that, although fictitious, represents a fairly typical posting:
NETWORK ADMINISTRATOR - HOBO COMPUTING "Candidate will be responsible for analysis, installation and configuration of company networks. Daily activities include monitoring network performance, troubleshooting problems and maintaining network security. Other activities include assisting customers with operating systems and network adapters, configuring routers, switches, and firewalls, and evaluating third-party tools."
Needless to say, a person early in their career often lacks experience in a majority of these categories. Most employers do not expect candidates to possess in-depth knowledge of all areas listed in the job posting, though, so a person should remain undeterred by the long, sweeping job descriptions they will inevitably encounter.
Requirements:
perform network management functions
ensure prescribed service-quality objectives are met
Knowledge of network and communication hardware and software
Knowledge of operating systems and applications and specific methods of network communication
Identifies and resolves complex voice and/or data communications network problems; arranges for vendor support if necessary.
Understanding of IP Telephony and Voice Over IP solutions with respect to network design characteristics and related configuration of hardware and end-user devices
Understanding and integration of Metropolitan Area Networks (MAN)
Understanding the use of point-to-point radio communications to extend Ethernet network infrastructure to outlying enterprise properties.
Understanding of video and surveillance technology
Salary:
Less than 1 year: about 41,000; 20 years or more: about 57,000.
Network Engineer:
The job function of a Network Engineer differs little from that of a Network Administrator. Company A may use one title while Company B uses the other to refer to essentially the same position. Some companies even use the two titles interchangeably. Firms making a distinction between the two often stipulate that administrators focus on the day-to-day management of networks, whereas network engineers focus primarily on system upgrades, evaluating vendor products, security testing, and so on.
General Requirements:
5+ years of network related experience in large multi-protocol LAN/WAN environments.
*At minimum, passed the written portion of the CCIE certification is strongly preferred along with expert knowledge of Cisco router/switch platforms, MPLS, BGP, EIGRP, OSPF, Frame-relay, ATM, TCP/IP, and wireless technologies.
*BS/MS in computer science, electrical engineering, or related field preferred.
*Experience with MS Office applications, especially Excel and Project.
*Experience with MS Visio a plus.
*Extensive experienced in inter-VLAN routing, Spanning-Tree Protocol, VLAN trunking with ISL and 802.1q, and VTP is also necessary.
*Network Management and Internet Connectivity/Security backgrounds are very desirable.
Salary:
less than 1 year: about 49,000; 20 years or more: about 79,000.
News on Technology
Poisoned websites attack visitors
Travel sites and other web shops have been hit by the attackThousands of small web shops have been unwittingly poisoned with malicious code that infects PC users who visit.
Security experts said the sophisticated attack had succeeded on a larger scale than many other similar attacks.
Once installed on a Windows machine the malicious code steals passwords, browser data as well as login names for bank accounts and online games.
The attack is proving hard to defend against for both sites being hit and PC users who are caught out.
Big hitter
Security researchers at ScanSafe, Finjan and Secure Works separately discovered the nest of poisoned websites. Estimates of how many sites have been enrolled into the attack vary. ScanSafe said it knew of about 230 but Secure Works and Finjan believe the total could be as high as 10,000.
Yuval Ben-Itzhak, chief technology officer of Finjan, said it had been following the attack since early December when it noticed an increase in the number of attacks using poisoned websites.
"It's safe to say that there are thousands of these out there," he said. He added that it was hard to get an accurate picture of just how many had been hit because security firms had limited resources to scan all potential targets.
The attack exploits loopholes in many Windows programsWriting on the ScanSafe blog Mary Landesman said many of the poisoned sites were small "mom and pop" web shops rather than large web retailers. Despite this, she wrote, many had large numbers of visitors because they did well in web searches for particular products and services.
Sites enrolled by the ongoing attack include trade papers, travel firms, ad brokers, estate agents, butchers, hotel booking sites and car spare specialists.
Although all the websites that have become poisoned hosts use the same server and remote administration software, researchers have struggled to spot all the ways they are being compromised.
"We know some of the methods," said Mr Ben-Itzhak, "they are trying to exploit known vulnerabilities in open source content management software that the sites are using."
Spotting the attack code on a site was very difficult, he said, because every time a new user visited the code got a new, random five character name. If a visitor returned the malicious code identified them and did not launch a second attack.
Open Windows
Simon Heron, managing director of security firm Network Box, said: "It looks like the rootkit type technique that we have been worried about for the last two or three years. It's very clever."
A rootkit hides itself deep inside an operating system in an attempt to avoid detection.
Mr Heron said the code injected on the websites scanned the machine of any visiting Windows user to see if any one of 13 separate vulnerabilities were present.
It looked for vulnerabilities in browsers, instant messaging programs, document readers and media players, he said.
The code installs a small trojan through any one of these loopholes then lies dormant until a user types in data that it is interested in - such as login names for online banks or games such as World of Warcraft.
As yet the trojan installed on a PC is not recognised by many widely used anti-virus programs.
Philippe Courtot, founder and head of security firm Qualys, said small web shops and companies were increasingly becoming a target for criminally-minded hackers.
"Small businesses do not have the money to protect themselves," he said.
He added that hosting firms who owned and ran the servers on which these firms place their websites, viewed security as something extra they had to do rather than build it in.
"Hosting companies, for them today, adding security is a cost," he said.
Travel sites and other web shops have been hit by the attackThousands of small web shops have been unwittingly poisoned with malicious code that infects PC users who visit.
Security experts said the sophisticated attack had succeeded on a larger scale than many other similar attacks.
Once installed on a Windows machine the malicious code steals passwords, browser data as well as login names for bank accounts and online games.
The attack is proving hard to defend against for both sites being hit and PC users who are caught out.
Big hitter
Security researchers at ScanSafe, Finjan and Secure Works separately discovered the nest of poisoned websites. Estimates of how many sites have been enrolled into the attack vary. ScanSafe said it knew of about 230 but Secure Works and Finjan believe the total could be as high as 10,000.
Yuval Ben-Itzhak, chief technology officer of Finjan, said it had been following the attack since early December when it noticed an increase in the number of attacks using poisoned websites.
"It's safe to say that there are thousands of these out there," he said. He added that it was hard to get an accurate picture of just how many had been hit because security firms had limited resources to scan all potential targets.
The attack exploits loopholes in many Windows programsWriting on the ScanSafe blog Mary Landesman said many of the poisoned sites were small "mom and pop" web shops rather than large web retailers. Despite this, she wrote, many had large numbers of visitors because they did well in web searches for particular products and services.
Sites enrolled by the ongoing attack include trade papers, travel firms, ad brokers, estate agents, butchers, hotel booking sites and car spare specialists.
Although all the websites that have become poisoned hosts use the same server and remote administration software, researchers have struggled to spot all the ways they are being compromised.
"We know some of the methods," said Mr Ben-Itzhak, "they are trying to exploit known vulnerabilities in open source content management software that the sites are using."
Spotting the attack code on a site was very difficult, he said, because every time a new user visited the code got a new, random five character name. If a visitor returned the malicious code identified them and did not launch a second attack.
Open Windows
Simon Heron, managing director of security firm Network Box, said: "It looks like the rootkit type technique that we have been worried about for the last two or three years. It's very clever."
A rootkit hides itself deep inside an operating system in an attempt to avoid detection.
Mr Heron said the code injected on the websites scanned the machine of any visiting Windows user to see if any one of 13 separate vulnerabilities were present.
It looked for vulnerabilities in browsers, instant messaging programs, document readers and media players, he said.
The code installs a small trojan through any one of these loopholes then lies dormant until a user types in data that it is interested in - such as login names for online banks or games such as World of Warcraft.
As yet the trojan installed on a PC is not recognised by many widely used anti-virus programs.
Philippe Courtot, founder and head of security firm Qualys, said small web shops and companies were increasingly becoming a target for criminally-minded hackers.
"Small businesses do not have the money to protect themselves," he said.
He added that hosting firms who owned and ran the servers on which these firms place their websites, viewed security as something extra they had to do rather than build it in.
"Hosting companies, for them today, adding security is a cost," he said.
Wednesday, January 16, 2008
News on Technology
Apple announces ultra-thin laptop
The laptop weighs 1.3 kilograms and costs £1,200
Laptop on view Apple boss Steve Jobs has unveiled the world's thinnest laptop, called the MacBook Air.
The computer, which is 0.76 inches (1.93cm) at its thickest point, was unveiled at an event in San Francisco.
The Apple head also launched online film rentals for iTunes users in the US from almost every major film studio, including Disney and Fox.
"We're dying to get this international as well," said Mr Jobs, saying it would roll-out worldwide later in the year.
Of the laptop, Mr Jobs said: "It's an amazing feat of engineering."
It does not have a CD or DVD drive in order to save space. "It was built to be a wireless machine," he added.
The laptop will compete with a range of portable devices, from companies such as Sony, Dell and Asus, which are already building so-called sub-notebooks, designed to be lighter and more mobile.
The machine goes on sale in two weeks and costs from $1,799 in the US (£1,199 in the UK) and comes with either an 80 Gigabyte hard disc drive as standard or 64 Gigabyte solid state drive for an added $999.
FROM THE DOT.LIFE BLOG
This is important because it opens a new front in Apple's battle to be as big in digital video as it is in music.
Rory Cellan-Jones, BBC technology correspondent
Read Rory's thoughts in full
Apple worked with chip maker Intel to produce a smaller version of its Core2Duo processor for the laptop.
Movie rentals from the key Hollywood movie studios will be available in the US immediately. Until now customers have had to buy movies outright but now they rent them for up to 30 days, or for 24 hours once viewing has started.
Movie lovers will be able to download films to their computers, and transfer them to the latest iPods and iPhone, in standard and high-definition, for between $3 and $5.
The company also announced it was revamping the Apple TV device so that it can now download content independently of a computer and display it on a widescreen TV.
Mr Jobs admitted that Apple's first attempt to put online video in the living room had failed.
"[Apple TV] was designed to be an accessory for iTunes and your computer.
"It is not what people wanted. What people really wanted was movies, movies, movies."
He added: "We weren't delivering that. We're back: With Apple TV Take Two."
He announced the firm had sold 125 million TV shows and seven million movies via iTunes.
"It's more than everyone else put together, but it didn't meet our expectations," said Mr Jobs. "I think we've got it right this time."
Mr Jobs also announced a wireless back-up system called Time Capsule, offering a combined wi-fi router and hard drive.
New software for the iPhone was unveiled, including an update to Maps, which can plot the phone owner's spot on a map without using GPS.
Apple announced it had sold four million iPhones in the first 200 days on sale, putting it on target to sell 10 million by the end of 2008.
The laptop weighs 1.3 kilograms and costs £1,200
Laptop on view Apple boss Steve Jobs has unveiled the world's thinnest laptop, called the MacBook Air.
The computer, which is 0.76 inches (1.93cm) at its thickest point, was unveiled at an event in San Francisco.
The Apple head also launched online film rentals for iTunes users in the US from almost every major film studio, including Disney and Fox.
"We're dying to get this international as well," said Mr Jobs, saying it would roll-out worldwide later in the year.
Of the laptop, Mr Jobs said: "It's an amazing feat of engineering."
It does not have a CD or DVD drive in order to save space. "It was built to be a wireless machine," he added.
The laptop will compete with a range of portable devices, from companies such as Sony, Dell and Asus, which are already building so-called sub-notebooks, designed to be lighter and more mobile.
The machine goes on sale in two weeks and costs from $1,799 in the US (£1,199 in the UK) and comes with either an 80 Gigabyte hard disc drive as standard or 64 Gigabyte solid state drive for an added $999.
FROM THE DOT.LIFE BLOG
This is important because it opens a new front in Apple's battle to be as big in digital video as it is in music.
Rory Cellan-Jones, BBC technology correspondent
Read Rory's thoughts in full
Apple worked with chip maker Intel to produce a smaller version of its Core2Duo processor for the laptop.
Movie rentals from the key Hollywood movie studios will be available in the US immediately. Until now customers have had to buy movies outright but now they rent them for up to 30 days, or for 24 hours once viewing has started.
Movie lovers will be able to download films to their computers, and transfer them to the latest iPods and iPhone, in standard and high-definition, for between $3 and $5.
The company also announced it was revamping the Apple TV device so that it can now download content independently of a computer and display it on a widescreen TV.
Mr Jobs admitted that Apple's first attempt to put online video in the living room had failed.
"[Apple TV] was designed to be an accessory for iTunes and your computer.
"It is not what people wanted. What people really wanted was movies, movies, movies."
He added: "We weren't delivering that. We're back: With Apple TV Take Two."
He announced the firm had sold 125 million TV shows and seven million movies via iTunes.
"It's more than everyone else put together, but it didn't meet our expectations," said Mr Jobs. "I think we've got it right this time."
Mr Jobs also announced a wireless back-up system called Time Capsule, offering a combined wi-fi router and hard drive.
New software for the iPhone was unveiled, including an update to Maps, which can plot the phone owner's spot on a map without using GPS.
Apple announced it had sold four million iPhones in the first 200 days on sale, putting it on target to sell 10 million by the end of 2008.
Tuesday, January 15, 2008
News on Technology
EU probes Microsoft again
By AOIFE WHITE, AP Business Writer Mon Jan 14, 1:29 PM ET
BRUSSELS, Belgium - European Union regulators said Monday they were again investigating software giant Microsoft Corp. this time on suspicion of abusing its market position by squeezing out competing Internet browsers and software rivals dependent on Microsoft programs.
ADVERTISEMENT
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The European Commission opened two formal probes, the first move against the company since a court four months ago backed the EU in a long-running legal battle over Microsoft's actions in using its ubiquitous Windows operating system to elbow into new software markets.
Microsoft said it would cooperate fully with the Commission's investigation and provide any and all information necessary.
"We are committed to ensuring that Microsoft is in full compliance with European law and our obligations as established by the European Court of First Instance in its September 2007 ruling," it said in a statement.
EU spokesman Jonathan Todd said he could not put a time frame on how long it would take regulators to decide whether they would file formal charges against the company, saying this usually depended on "how complicated the issues are and the level of cooperation that we receive from the company under investigation."
Although regulators did not specifically name Microsoft's latest operating system, Vista, they will look at some of its features such as desktop search.
The EU is also wading into a row between Microsoft and open source developers backed by International Business Machines Corp. by looking into Microsoft's open format for archived documents — Office Open XML.
The first new probe — triggered by a complaint from Norway's Opera Software ASA — will look at whether Microsoft illegally gives away its Internet Explorer browser for free with Windows. Opera had called on the EU to strip Internet Explorer out of Windows or carry alternative browsers.
The investigation will check also if "new proprietary technologies" held other browsers back by not following open Internet standards. Regulators said they had also received allegations that Microsoft had illegally packaged desktop search and Windows Live to its operating system.
The second investigation will examine whether Microsoft withheld information from companies that wanted to make products compatible with its software — including Office word processing, spreadsheet and office management tools, some server products and Microsoft's push into the Internet under the name of the .NET framework.
Since Microsoft supplies the software to the vast majority of home and office computers, rivals complain that refusal to give them interoperability information shuts the door on a huge potential market.
The EU said it was acting on a complaint from the European Committee for Interoperable Systems — a group representing IBM, Nokia Corp., Sun Microsystems Inc., RealNetworks Inc. and Oracle Corp. — that has asked regulators prevent Vista using Microsoft's existing monopoly power to move into the new Internet market.
"It is regrettable that despite the judgment of September 2007, Microsoft continues to use its desktop monopolies to restrict competition. That's what the ECIS and Opera complaints are about," ECIS spokesman and legal counsel Thomas Vinje said.
The EU said it will also look at whether Office Open XML — used by governments and large corporations to store older documents — "is sufficiently interoperable with competitors' products."
Microsoft said it developed the format to offer richer software than the nonproprietary OpenDocument Format created by open source developers and used by IBM.
But the open source community claims that Microsoft is trying to supplant a possible rival in ODF and stem the potential threat of open source software eating into its market share.
The EU is building on its March 2004 decision that found Microsoft had violated EU antitrust rules by trying to damage rivals for server and media player software. It told Microsoft to offer a version of Windows without the Media Player software, to share communications code with rivals and pay a record $613 million fine.
Microsoft delayed obeying the order, launching an appeal to the European Court of Justice that it lost on Sept. 17, 2007.
Although Microsoft then dropped further appeals and promised to abide by September court ruling, the EU's antitrust chief Neelie Kroes warned that a precedent had been set for future behavior in other areas.
By AOIFE WHITE, AP Business Writer Mon Jan 14, 1:29 PM ET
BRUSSELS, Belgium - European Union regulators said Monday they were again investigating software giant Microsoft Corp. this time on suspicion of abusing its market position by squeezing out competing Internet browsers and software rivals dependent on Microsoft programs.
ADVERTISEMENT
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window.yzq_d['gYuuMNGDJGU-']='&U=13blpf7ik%2fN%3dgYuuMNGDJGU-%2fC%3d619213.12054948.12500301.1442997%2fD%3dLREC%2fB%3d4919452';
The European Commission opened two formal probes, the first move against the company since a court four months ago backed the EU in a long-running legal battle over Microsoft's actions in using its ubiquitous Windows operating system to elbow into new software markets.
Microsoft said it would cooperate fully with the Commission's investigation and provide any and all information necessary.
"We are committed to ensuring that Microsoft is in full compliance with European law and our obligations as established by the European Court of First Instance in its September 2007 ruling," it said in a statement.
EU spokesman Jonathan Todd said he could not put a time frame on how long it would take regulators to decide whether they would file formal charges against the company, saying this usually depended on "how complicated the issues are and the level of cooperation that we receive from the company under investigation."
Although regulators did not specifically name Microsoft's latest operating system, Vista, they will look at some of its features such as desktop search.
The EU is also wading into a row between Microsoft and open source developers backed by International Business Machines Corp. by looking into Microsoft's open format for archived documents — Office Open XML.
The first new probe — triggered by a complaint from Norway's Opera Software ASA — will look at whether Microsoft illegally gives away its Internet Explorer browser for free with Windows. Opera had called on the EU to strip Internet Explorer out of Windows or carry alternative browsers.
The investigation will check also if "new proprietary technologies" held other browsers back by not following open Internet standards. Regulators said they had also received allegations that Microsoft had illegally packaged desktop search and Windows Live to its operating system.
The second investigation will examine whether Microsoft withheld information from companies that wanted to make products compatible with its software — including Office word processing, spreadsheet and office management tools, some server products and Microsoft's push into the Internet under the name of the .NET framework.
Since Microsoft supplies the software to the vast majority of home and office computers, rivals complain that refusal to give them interoperability information shuts the door on a huge potential market.
The EU said it was acting on a complaint from the European Committee for Interoperable Systems — a group representing IBM, Nokia Corp., Sun Microsystems Inc., RealNetworks Inc. and Oracle Corp. — that has asked regulators prevent Vista using Microsoft's existing monopoly power to move into the new Internet market.
"It is regrettable that despite the judgment of September 2007, Microsoft continues to use its desktop monopolies to restrict competition. That's what the ECIS and Opera complaints are about," ECIS spokesman and legal counsel Thomas Vinje said.
The EU said it will also look at whether Office Open XML — used by governments and large corporations to store older documents — "is sufficiently interoperable with competitors' products."
Microsoft said it developed the format to offer richer software than the nonproprietary OpenDocument Format created by open source developers and used by IBM.
But the open source community claims that Microsoft is trying to supplant a possible rival in ODF and stem the potential threat of open source software eating into its market share.
The EU is building on its March 2004 decision that found Microsoft had violated EU antitrust rules by trying to damage rivals for server and media player software. It told Microsoft to offer a version of Windows without the Media Player software, to share communications code with rivals and pay a record $613 million fine.
Microsoft delayed obeying the order, launching an appeal to the European Court of Justice that it lost on Sept. 17, 2007.
Although Microsoft then dropped further appeals and promised to abide by September court ruling, the EU's antitrust chief Neelie Kroes warned that a precedent had been set for future behavior in other areas.
Monday, January 14, 2008
Networking
A computer network is an interconnection of a group of computers. Networks may be classified by what is called the network layer at which they operate according to basic reference models considered as standards in the industry such as the four-layer Internet Protocol Suite model. While the seven-layer Open Systems Interconnection (OSI) reference model is better known in academia, the majority of networks use the Internet Protocol Suite (IP) as their network model.
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