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US tech tools still fall short of European privacy standards

Written By Unknown on Senin, 31 Desember 2012 | 16.00

The European Union's top data protection watchdog expects that only a select band of U.S. technology companies will meet E.U. data protection standards for the foreseeable future.

Under the E.U. Data Protection Directive, personal data cannot be transferred out of the E.U. unless the destination country's data protection laws are deemed adequate. To date, only a tiny number of jurisdictions have been deemed adequate: Argentina, Canada, Guernsey, the Isle of Man, Israel, Switzerland, and Uruguay.

However, U.S. companies get an exception if they agree to abide by seven "safe harbor privacy principles" for the protection of E.U. citizens' personal data. Such data includes sensitive information such as patient records required for telemedicine.

The U.S. Ambassador to Europe, William Kennard, called for the U.S. to be given "adequate" status in a recent speech at the Annual European Data Protection and Privacy Conference in Brussels.

But European Data Protection Supervisor Peter Hustinx said at the same event that, although he would not exclude the possibility that may happen in the future, the ambassador was being a little optimistic.

Hustinx should know: He chairs the body that recommends whether a country's legal system provides adequate protection to personal data from the E.U.

After Hustinx and the E.U. member states' national data protection commissioners, collectively the Article 29 Working Party, have drawn up an opinion on a country, then the Article 31 management committee must reach a majority decision on the adequacy of data security in the destination country. The European Parliament then has 30 days to scrutinize those opinions and only when it is satisfied can the decision to award a country data-secure status be adopted by the College of Commissioners.

Hustinx said that rather than declaring a company's laws adequate outright, a sectoral approach to data adequacy might be more useful, suggesting something along the lines of the existing safe harbor plan.

Changes in U.S. legislation could also advance the country's cause. Hustinx noted that, with the re-election of President Obama, a U.S. Privacy Bill of Rights looked closer. Many U.S. privacy advocacy groups have pointed to the European practices as a model.

Follow Jennifer on Twitter at @BrusselsGeek or email tips and comments to jennifer_baker@idg.com.


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Malware targets Java servers

Security researchers from antivirus vendor Trend Micro have uncovered a piece of backdoor-type malware that infects Java-based HTTP servers and allows attackers to execute malicious commands on the underlying systems.

The threat, known as BKDR_JAVAWAR.JG, comes in the form of a JavaServer Page (JSP), a type of Web page that can only be deployed and served from a specialized Web server with a Java servlet container, such as Apache Tomcat. (See also "Security in 2013: The rise of mobile malware and fall of hacktivism.")

Once this page is deployed, the attacker can access it remotely and can use its functions to browse, upload, edit, delete, download or copy files from the infected system using a Web console interface. This is similar to the functionality provided by PHP-based backdoors, commonly known as PHP Web shells.

"Aside from gaining access to sensitive information, an attacker gains control of the infected system thru the backdoor and can carry out more malicious commands onto the vulnerable server," Trend Micro researchers said last week in a blog post.

This JSP backdoor can be installed by other malware already running on the system that hosts the Java-based HTTP server and Java servlet container or can be downloaded when browsing to malicious websites from such a system.

According to Trend Micro's technical notes, the malware targets systems running Windows 2000, Windows Server 2003, Windows XP, Windows Vista, and Windows 7.

"Another possible attack scenario is when an attacker checks for websites powered by Apache Tomcat then attempts to access the Tomcat Web Application Manager," the Trend Micro researchers said. "Using a password cracking tool, cybercriminals are able to log in and gain manager/administrative rights allowing the deployment of Web application archive (WAR) files packaged with the backdoor to the server."

In order to protect their servers from such threats, network administrators should use strong passwords that cannot be easily cracked by using brute force tools, should deploy all security updates available for their systems and software and should avoid visiting unknown and untrusted websites, the Trend Micro researchers said.


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Intel prepares to launch combo cable and streaming TV service

Could 2013 be the year of the TV for the high-tech industry?

With Apple chomping at the bit to revolutionize TV and Google renewing its efforts in the market, now Intel appears to have its ducks in a row to launch its own TV offering.

Intel is ready to start marketing a set-top box built on its chips that will deliver a mix of streaming and cable programming to subscribers in selected markets, according to TechCrunch.

intel tv

The service will be aimed at viewers who want to stream content to their TVs but don't want to entirely slash the tether to cable, where they night want to still to watch programming such as live sports.

A major barrier to entry into the TV market by the chipmaker—reluctance of content owners to relax their iron grip over their goodies—has been surmounted by Intel, TechCrunch reports, citing a source in the video distribution industry familiar with Intel's plans. The source said the service will be announced "soon."

That raises the likelihood that Intel could be planning a splash event about the service at CES next week.

If that's the case, Intel will share the spotlight with Google TV, which will be getting a buzz bounce when LG introduces seven new HDTV models in five screen sizes that will sport Google's TV technology.

To make Intel's offering more palatable to the content industry, the chip maker has agreed to roll out its service on a city-by-city basis, TechCruch reports. Content providers are reportedly more willing to give Intel more control over how content is distributed in select markets where the providers may have more flexible deals with entrenched distributors.

The plan also allows Intel to work around holdouts in key markets which will prevent them from blocking the chip maker from launching  its service.

Intel's desire to become a "virtual cable operator" has been rumored for months. Initial reports pegged the launch date at the end of 2012, but Intel, no doubt, discovered, as Apple has, that the content nut is a tough one to crack.

It has been reported that one of the major hangups to the Apple TV set has been resistance by content providers to give the hardware maker the control it believes it needs to revolutionize the medium.

If Intel has discovered a strategy to vault the content hurdle to high-tech companies expanding their beachhead in the nation's living rooms, everyone in the industry could benefit, including Apple.

google tv

Intel has been trying to make headway for its chips in the TV realm for years. In 2009, for instance, it announced "Sodaville," an integrated chip with the power to run 3D graphics and 1080p high definition video.

The chip maker also joined the cadre of companies behind the launch of Google TV in 2010. Over the years, though, Intel has become increasing dissatisfied with Google TV implementations by television makers so, as Microsoft did with its Surface tablet, the chip maker decided to create its own hardware path into the market.


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China orders Internet users to disclose their real names

Written By Unknown on Minggu, 30 Desember 2012 | 16.01

China's government will require Internet users to identify themselves to service providers when they sign up for Internet access, according to the official Xinhua news agency.

Lawmakers in the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress, China's top legislative body, approved the Internet identity rules on Friday, according to a Xinhua report on the website of the China Daily newspaper. The rules, which have the effect of law, are intended to help protect personal information and "safeguard public interests," the report said.

Requiring Internet users to give their real identities has been one of the methods used to control Internet use in China. In March, Beijing's city government started requiring users of Chinese microblogging sites to provide their state-issued identification numbers when signing up for accounts that let them post entries on the sites.

social networks

The microblogging sites, such as the popular Sina Weibo, are similar to Twitter, which has been blocked in China. Identity regulations have been promoted as steps to protect users and eliminate rumors on the sites. However, identity requirements have also been seen as another way to control social networking services in China, which in some cases have become forums for criticizing the government. When the Beijing government imposed its rules, some users criticized the new requirements.

The rules approved on Friday go beyond social networking sites to include all users of the Internet. The Xinhua report did not give details on how the or when the rules will be imposed.

The rules say that any wireline or mobile service provider should demand that users provide true information about their identities when setting up new service agreements or confirming the provision of services, according to a report in The New York Times. Users would still be allowed to use pseudonyms on Internet-based services, the report said.

Stephen Lawson covers mobile, storage and networking technologies for The IDG News Service. Follow Stephen on Twitter at @sdlawsonmedia. Stephen's e-mail address is stephen_lawson@idg.com


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US Justice Department looks into HP's Autonomy acquisition

Hewlett-Packard said in a legal filing last week that the U.S. Department of Justice is investigating its $10.3 billion acquisition of enterprise search company Autonomy, which HP alleges inflated its value through accounting tricks.

HP also said it has provided information to the U.K.'s Serious Fraud Office and the SEC related "to the accounting improprieties, disclosure failures and misrepresentations at Autonomy" prior to the acquisition, according to HP's 10-K filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

The company said last month it had shared its allegations with those agencies, urging them to open civil and criminal investigations. The DOJ advised HP on November 21 of its investigation, the filing said.

HP disclosed an $8.8 billion write-down in November, around $5 billion of which was attributed to accounting improprieties by Autonomy. The write-down was for impairment of goodwill, a term covering intangible assets such as the value of a brand and good customer relations.

Autonomy's founder, Mike Lynch, who left HP in May, has fiercely contested HP's claims. He published a stern rebuke on Friday.

"We continue to reject these allegations in the strongest possible terms," Lynch wrote. "Autonomys financial accounts were properly maintained in accordance with applicable regulations, fully audited by Deloitte, and available to HP during the due diligence process."

Lynch wrote that he and his Autonomy colleagues have not yet been contacted by regulators. "We will cooperate with any investigation and look forward to the opportunity to explain our position," he wrote.

HP looked closer into the Autonomy acquisition, completed in October 2011, after a senior member of its former management team came forward following Lynch's departure.

Send news tips and comments to jeremy_kirk@idg.com. Follow me on Twitter: @jeremy_kirk


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Microsoft battles pirated software as a security risk

Microsoft has launched a new anti-piracy campaign in China, which intends to highlight the security risks of buying counterfeit software.

In a recent investigation, Microsoft purchased 169 PCs from shops in China and found that all were installed with pirated versions of Windows, with 91 percent of them containing malware or deliberate security vulnerabilities.

"What we are finding is that increasingly cybercriminals are targeting both businesses and consumers right here in China," said Nick Psyhogeos, vice president of Microsoft's original equipment manufacturer (OEM) business solutions group.

The U.S. company has long battled China's software piracy, which is among the highest in the world. Last year China's illegal software market was valued at close to US$9 billion, while the legal market was valued at $2.7 billion, according to a study by the Business Software Alliance.

Microsoft last week said users of the counterfeit Windows software are often saddled with unreliable PCs running malware that can steal users' credit card and bank account information. The anti-piracy campaign was launched during a busy holiday season in the country.

Over an 18-month period, Microsoft said it conducted its "most extensive forensic survey" of PCs bought in China, by purchasing computers from Chinese shops and "IT malls," which can feature dozens of different small vendors in one building. Of the 169 PCs running pirated versions of Windows, 59 percent were already infected with malware, and 72 percent featured altered Internet browsing settings that intentionally sent users to scam and phishing websites.

Some of these PCs contained a malware known as "Nitol," which when activated through a preinstalled music player can remotely log user keystrokes and spy on users through the computer's webcam. More than 70 percent of the systems also had their Windows update, Windows firewall, and user account control warning functions disabled, making them vulnerable to cyber attack.

"Counterfeiters have pitched this story to consumers that software piracy or pirated products themselves don't cost anything, they're free. They've also pitched the story that it works just fine, it's good enough," said Psyhogeos in a media briefing. "Neither of those statements are accurate."

The PC brands that were found preinstalled with counterfeit Windows software include big names such as Acer, Asus, Dell, HP, Lenovo, along with smaller Chinese vendors. But Microsoft said the piracy is believed to come from further downstream in the supply chain, through resellers who are loading the counterfeit software and malware into the products in order to lower the cost of PCs sold.

OEMs that make the PCs will often install a non-Windows operating system such as FreeDOS on the product, Psyhogeos said. This makes it highly likely that a third-party will later install a pirated version of Windows on the PC during its distribution.

As part of Microsoft's new "Keep it Real" campaign, the company has notified 16 Beijing-based resellers, who were found repeatedly selling PCs pre-installed with counterfeit Windows versions, to stop the piracy. Microsoft will consider legal action as a last resort.


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Why 2013 is RIM's BlackBerry year

Written By Unknown on Sabtu, 29 Desember 2012 | 16.00

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How companies keep us buying new stuff, and how to recycle the rest

When was the last time a broken DVD player lead to a trip to the repair shop? If you can even find a repair shop near you, the odds are good the cost to fix your DVD player will be more than the price of a new one. The reality is we don't fix electronics anymore, we replace them.

Post-Xmas is when most old gear gets tossed, feeding what experts call a growing throw-away electronics culture. While tech company's benefit from shorter products lifecycles by encouraging the sale of replacement gear, the byproduct can be harmful to household budgets and the planet.

Barbara Kyle, national coordinator for the Electronics TakeBack Coalition in San Francisco, says the drive for smaller thinner products with increasingly harder to replace components, is partly to blame. But also, companies making delicate electronics with short warranty periods are pushing people to trash their digital gear, not fix it.

"It's almost always cheaper to buy a new printer than to fix the old one, if you can even find a place to make the repairs," Kyle says. The end result is electronics - that contain toxic substances, including lead, nickel, cadmium, mercury, brominated flame retardants - ending up in landfills around the world. The environmental group called E-Stewards estimates only 11 to 14 percent of e-waste is sent to recyclers — the rest ends up in landfills or is burned resulting in soil, water, and air pollution.

To find a list of places to recycle your old tech gear near you, find free recycle-by-mail programs, or how to easily sell your used gear online, skip to the end of this article.

Hard to fix gadget trend

"We are seeing more (electronics) parts being glued into place, like the touchscreens on many smartphones, or the batteries on ultra-thin notebooks," says Kyle. For example, Apple was criticized by some earlier this year for gluing its lithium polymer battery cells directly to the aluminum unibody shell of the Retina MacBook Pro in order to reduce its size. Teardown site iFixit blasted Apple saying the design made repairs nearly impossible and battery replacements would cost 54 percent more than other MacBooks. While some recyclers said the glued-in battery made it harder to recycle, other recyclers disagreed.

iFixitThe lithium polymer battery cells glued to unibody shell of the Retina MacBook Pro cost 54 percent more to replace than other MacBook Pro models.

When it comes to tablet and smartphone owners, according to Best Buy Geek Squad agent Derek Meister, these gadget owners are more likely to buy new gear rather than mess with a repair. "Our most common requested repair for tablets and smartphones is cracked screens and battery replacements," he says. But when it comes to actually fixing gear, if the warranty or service plan has expired, consumers just upgrade, says Meister.

Kyle calls this type of product manufacturing, that make product repairs costly "designing for the dump."

The cost to repair the original Kindle Fire's screen is $110, at the repair service site IFixYouri.com, compared to the $160 price tag of a new Kindle Fire from Amazon. IFixYouri charges $280 to repair an Samsung Glalaxy Tab 10.1's glass and LCD screen, and the same model costs $350 new at Best Buy.

Gear to garbage in record time

storyofstuff.org

Experts like Kyle say inexpensive gadgets are increasingly showing up in discount, grocery, and drug stores at prices people can't resist. "It's a printer for $22 or a $30 camcorder, how can I pass that up?" Kyle says when electronics are priced to be impulse buys too often gadgets don't meet consumer expectations, or break, and end up in the trash. (See related: What's cheaper: Replacement ink, or a new printer?)

Instead of mindless buying and chucking, people should have greater reverence for stuff, believes Annie Leonard, founder of The Story of Stuff Project, a consumer awareness campaign promoting sensible gadget consumption. In Leonard's 2010 Story of Electronics video, she points to a possible solution where manufacturers shoulder the responsibility for recycling their gear in an environmentally responsible way.

" Making companies deal with their e-waste is called Extended Producer Responsibility or Product Takeback . If all these old gadgets were their problem, it would be cheaper for them to just design longer lasting, less toxic, and more recyclable products in the first place. They could even make them modular, so that when one part broke, they could just send us a new piece, instead of taking back the whole broken mess. "

There is no federal legislation pending to establish a federal e-waste take back program by consumer electronics companies, however 25 states have passed legislation mandating statewide e-waste recycling, according to the Electronics TakeBack Coalition.


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Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance: Slicing, dicing, fun.

The Metal Gear series is known for its long cutscenes, crazy antics, and unapproachable gameplay. Based on the time that I spent with Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance earlier this month in Los Angeles, the collaboration between Kojima Productions and Platinum Games is the most interesting departure to date for the series, and a welcome one at that.

Sitting down with Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance, I wasn't exactly sure what to expect. I had played the game during E3 and seen the initial reveals, but there wasn't really any context of how these limited instances would play out in the context of an actual game. My recent, extended look at the first three chapters of the game prove that it pulls together quite well, and much differently than any past Metal Gear title. In Revengeance, there's a stronger focus put on player involvement in the story and character development.

Unlike past Metal Gear games, where you'd sit through a 30-minute cutscene only to crawl a few feet and watch another, Revengeance focuses on moving the story forward through gameplay and quicktime events, with the longest cutscene clocking in around ten to fifteen minutes. This is clearly a deliberate choice by the team at Platinum Games, and it's one that I appreciate; Revengeance seems less like an interactive film and more like a game with a fun story.

Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance focuses on Raiden, the main protagonist from Metal Gear Solid 2, as he seeks revenge on Jetstream Sam (who dismembers and nearly kills Raiden) and stop a group of organ harvesters kidnapping and killing children on the black market. He's rebuilt and comes back stronger than ever, but transformed into this all-out rage-filled shell of a man. 

The gameplay is what really sets Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance apart. Instead of relying on a gun like most modern gaming heroes, Raiden uses a really sharp sword to slice his enemies into countless tiny pieces of flesh in glorious slow motion. It plays just like any other action game, in that you have to wear them down with a few light or heavy attacks before you can cut them to pieces, but it works better that way.

Attacking enemies will fill up your blade meter that, once filled, allows you to enter Blade Mode, the slow motion free-aim mode that allows you to slice your enemies into as many pieces as you possibly can. If you slide down their spine it will pop out, allowing you to harvest it and refill your health and blade meter. If you manage to get multiple enemies in the same sequence you can chain-harvest spines, crushing multiple enemies at the same time. There's no benefit to crushing multiple enemies as your meters fill after the first, but sure looks cool. That might sound a bit over the top, but they're cyborgs, not humans, so the action doesn't feel quite so gruesome.

Perhaps the most notable difference in Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance is the inclusion of humor throughout, and not in the same way that past Metal Gear games could be so crazy that they were funny, but there's actual jokes peppered throughout. It's even clear that Platinum Games had a weird (read: awesome) obsession with Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. At first this seemed like nothing more than a random shot in the dark, but it soon became clear that it was more overt than anything as a child spouted "Go Ninja, Go Ninja, Go!" as Raiden ran through the sewers. This was only further confirmed as each one of the bosses uses the same style of weapons as the Turtles.

While all this might seem a bit out of place for the series, it fits the tone of the game well. Everything is completely over the top, and just plain fun. It's very reminiscent of Asura's Wrath, not in that it's all cutscenes and quicktime events, but rather the feeling that I couldn't stop smiling from how over-the-top and exciting everything was. That's not something that we see much of these days, especially in a Metal Gear game, and I think it makes for a refreshing take on the series from Platinum Games.

It's still a few months before the promised February 19th launch, but from what I've played so far, Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance is one of my most anticipated games of 2013.


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Five reasons 2012 was a great year for Linux

Written By Unknown on Jumat, 28 Desember 2012 | 16.00

The end of the year is always a good time to take stock of where things stand in any niche or field, and Linux is no exception.

There's no doubt that there have been challenges for the free and open source operating system over the course of 2012—the Secure Boot challenge  comes immediately to mind—but so, too, have there been numerous successes.

All in all, I believe the good has outweighed the bad for Linux this past year. Here are five specific reasons.

1. One *billion* dollars

Perhaps most obvious among Linux's accomplishments this year was the fact that Red Hat finally and officially attained its long-anticipated status as the first billion-dollar open source company. That's a testament not just to Red Hat's own business acumen, but also the fact that Linux can be profitable—and that's a big deal for increasing future business interest in the platform.

2. The Digital Divide

Those of us in the tech industry can argue over the merits and penetration of desktop Linux until we're blue in the proverbial face, but meanwhile a momentous shift has quietly begun.

I'm talking about the wave of tiny, inexpensive, Linux-powered PCs that flooded the market this year, putting significant computing power within closer reach not just for enthusiasts but also for those who would not otherwise be able to afford it.

It's truly a revolution in computing, as I've said before, and it's expanding Linux's reach even beyond the countless Android-using masses. Not only that, but it's surely going a long way toward bridging the Digital Divide.

3. Gaming acceptance

Gaming platforms may not matter much to many in the business world, but the fact is, gaming is extremely important to a whole lot of PC users. Over the years, in fact, a relative lack of games has been a key reason held up by many to explain why they didn't make the switch to Linux.

Well, this year all that changed when Valve announced that it was porting Steam to Linux, citing the Windows 8 "catastrophe" as a big part of its reason.

More recently, THQ is considering making a similar move, according to reports.

What it means: Linux users are increasingly being viewed as a market worth catering to, and that will only mean more and better applications across the board in the future.

4. Preloaded prevalence

This past year has also seen a dramatic increase in the number of hardware options offering Linux preloaded. Over the course of 2012, in fact, we saw machines from not just specialty makers ZaReason, System76, and ThinkPenguin offer this option, but also Asus, Dell, and more.

With every new entry that arrives, consumers' choices expand, and that can only be a good thing.

5. An open window

Finally, it's become patently obvious that Windows 8 has encountered a cooler reception than Microsoft might have liked, and that means nothing but opportunity for Linux. With Ubuntu 12.10 "Quantal Quetzal," in fact, Canonical's popular Linux distribution has actually surpassed Windows 8 in many respects, particularly from a business user's perspective.

Tremendous inertia will allow Windows' dominance to continue for years to come, of course.

Still, with Windows 8 the landscape shifted, I believe, and desktop Linux has begun to compete on an even footing. I can't wait to see where that leads in 2013 and beyond.


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Marvell ordered to pay $1.17 billion in patent case

A jury in Pennsylvania has ordered chip maker Marvell Technology to pay $1.17 billion for patent infringement in one of the largest awards of its kind.

The jury found that Marvell infringed two patents related to hard disk drive technology held by Carnegie Mellon University, court papers show. Marvell infringed the patents knowingly, the jury found, meaning the damages could potentially be tripled.

The jury reached its decision Wednesday at the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania.

The award is one of the largest ever granted in a patent case. It follows an award of $1.05 billion against Samsung earlier this year in a patent case brought by Apple over smartphone technologies.

Marvell said it believes there are strong grounds for appeal and that it will seek to have the jury's findings overturned.

As well as infringing the patents itself, Marvell was found to have contributed to infringement by its customers as well.

Marvell makes chips used in hard disk drives, wireless equipment and other products. Like other component suppliers, it's financial results have been hit lately by the slowdown in the PC market.

Carnegie filed its lawsuit in early 2009. The patents cover a "method and apparatus for correlation-sensitive adaptive sequence detection" and "soft and hard sequence detection in ISI memory channels." They are U.S. Patent numbers 6,201,839 and 6,438,180, awarded in 2001 and 2002, respectively.

"We appreciate the willingness of the jurors to give us their time and attention during this holiday season to hear our case," Carnegie said in a statement.

The case involved "fundamental technology for increasing the accuracy with which hard disk drive circuits read data from high speed magnetic disks," Carnegie said. The technology was developed by Jose Moura, a professor in the University's Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, and Aleksandar Kavcic, a former student of Moura who is now a professor at the University of Hawaii.

The award was against Marvell Technology and its U.S. subsidiary, Marvell Semiconductor Inc., known as MSI. In its statement Thursday, Marvell maintained that its products do not use the technology described in the patents.

"Marvell and MSI strongly believe the theoretical methods described in these patents cannot practically be built in silicon even using the most advanced techniques available today, let alone with the technology available a decade ago," it said. "Rather, Marvell and MSI use their own patented read channel technology developed in house."


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Windows 8's uptake falls behind Vista's pace

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Domestic calls through Gmail to remain free in 2013

Written By Unknown on Kamis, 27 Desember 2012 | 16.00

Philip Michaels

Philip MichaelsEditor, PCWorld

Philip has covered the Mac market since 1999, with a focus on the iPhone, iPad and iOS in recent years. In all that time, he has never tested a fart app.
More by Philip Michaels

In what's rapidly becoming a holiday tradition, Google announced Wednesday that it's extended free calling in Gmail for another year.

First added as a feature to Gmail in 2010, the Call Phone option lets Gmail users place calls to landlines and mobile phones from within the web-based email client.

In a Wednesday blog post, Google said that U.S. and Canadian Gmail users can continue to make free domestic calls through 2013. (Google does charge for international calls).

If Wednesday's announcement sounds familiar, that's because it echoes similar extensions offered last year and in 2010. At the time calling features were added to Gmail two years ago, Google had said that it would start charging for domestic calls at some point. But that point appears to be pushed farther into the future once more.


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Ransomware scammers push panic button with bogus claims

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Microsoft unveils future retail store plans

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U.S. mobile buyouts may meet their end in 2013

Written By Unknown on Rabu, 26 Desember 2012 | 16.00

After starting amid the smoldering ruins of AT&T and T-Mobile USA's failed merger, 2012 ended as a big year for mobile carrier deals in the U.S., and possibly a final changing of the guard for a long time.

If all the reshuffling that operators agreed to in 2012 becomes a reality, 2013 will see a competitive second-tier carrier absorbed, the country's struggling No. 3 carrier rescued by a foreign suitor, the world's biggest WiMax operator swallowed up and a venerable brand name banished to the history books.

The complicated U.S. mobile market needs some consolidation in order to keep AT&T and Verizon Wireless in check, according to industry analysts. Their biggest rivals, Sprint Nextel and T-Mobile USA, are now on a path to greater strength that is likely to continue in 2013, and that should be good news for consumers, they said. That's why the Justice Department and Federal Communications Commission are likely to bless carrier consolidation in 2013.

"What all of this is aiming at is strengthening T-Mobile and Sprint," Recon Analytics analyst Roger Entner said. "The FCC is afraid of the two larger carriers being too dominant." AT&T and Verizon, with about 106 million and 96 million subscribers, respectively, far outweigh the smaller players. Sprint has about 56 million subscribers and T-Mobile has about 33 million.

The biggest deals of 2012 came close together: In early October, T-Mobile USA agreed to merge with flat-rate carrier MetroPCS. Just days after, Sprint announced it planned to merge with Japanese carrier Softbank, which would invest a total of $20 billion and acquire 70 percent of Sprint. Several weeks later, Sprint said it would pay $2.2 billion for the remainder of network partner Clearwire that it doesn't already own.

It's likely that none of those deals will change the average consumer's life much in 2013. T-Mobile plans to keep the MetroPCS brand, at least at first. The merger will help T-Mobile strengthen its network, but not immediately. Sprint will also keep its primary brand and will continue to build out its growing LTE network, while Clearwire's planned LTE deployment will also go forward. Clearwire's system will boost Sprint's service in areas with high demand, but most subscribers won't see that until 2014, when devices that can use both networks are widely available, according to the companies.

But one other change could affect thousands of longtime mobile users, as Sprint plans to fully shut down the former Nextel network by the end of June. That move was planned before the Softbank deal, but the fine print of that agreement brings a symbolic change. In the middle of the year, around the same time that Sprint shuts down the proprietary iDEN system that dates back to the 1990s, Sprint is set to drop the Nextel name as it completes the Softbank merger.

Those may be the last significant shifts in the U.S. mobile market for years, as Sprint gains much-needed financial strength and spectrum, and T-Mobile doubles down on reaching cost-conscious consumers with another major low-price operator under its wing. As the FCC auctions off more spectrum bands in the years to come, the market might be reshaped by new entrants, though much of that spectrum isn't ideal and may just go to supplement existing networks. For now, there simply isn't much more consolidation to do, some analysts said.

The national carriers will continue buying smaller, regional operators for their spectrum licenses, in order to fill out their geographic coverage or their data capacity, Ovum analyst Daryl Schoolar said. This trend is already ongoing and reflects the reality of the mobile industry, which now depends more on having fast, expensive new networks and the latest phones, analysts said. "A small business cannot compete and cannot build a successful wireless network today," Entner said.

Carrier mergers themselves are partly an artifact of the U.S. approach to mobile spectrum licenses, which mostly are allocated for individual markets rather than the country as a whole, Entner said.

In many countries including China, Japan, South Korea, Mexico, and parts of Europe, governments determine the number of national carriers through the number of national licenses they auction or otherwise award.

However, choices in the U.S. market may have to further shrink in the next year or two, some analysts said.

"I think T-Mobile is in the most precarious spot," analyst Jack Gold of J. Gold Associates said. Even with the spectrum it would gain from buying MetroPCS, the company will find it hard to compete with the top two carriers plus a stronger Sprint, he said.

Further consolidation to three carriers may even be inevitable, according to Chetan Sharma, at Chetan Sharma Consulting. He believes T-Mobile will be acquired in the next two years, possibly by a foreign operator or private investment group, but probably by Sprint. Neither of the two ultimately will be able to compete on their own, he said. In other countries where the mobile business is relatively open, such as the U.K., market forces eventually have led to greater consolidation, according to Sharma.

"Every time, in any market, you have multiple operators, they always whittle down to three," Sharma said.


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U.S. Congress may not have stomach for another SOPA/PIPA fight

As a new session of the U.S. Congress convenes in early 2013, don't expect lawmakers to rush out a new version of the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) or the Protect IP Act (PIPA).

While some groups representing copyright holders still want to see stronger online enforcement, U.S. lawmakers don't seem to have the collective will to reintroduce similar bills and potentially face another massive online protest. In January 2012, more than 10 million Web users signed petitions, 8 million attempted calls to Congress and 4 million sent email messages, and more than 100,000 websites went dark in protest as the Senate scheduled a vote on PIPA.

Lawmakers supporting the two bills baled out in droves, Senate leaders cancelled the PIPA vote, and SOPA's sponsor in the House of Representatives withdrew his legislation.

"That was an avalanche they've never seen," said Ed Black, president and CEO of the Computer and Communications Industry Association, a trade group that had opposed the two bills. "They're going to tiptoe in this area very carefully."

In Black's recent conversations, lawmakers have expressed wariness about moving forward on copyright enforcement legislation, he said. Even stripped down versions of the bills, affecting only advertisers and payment processors doing business with suspected infringing websites, are likely nonstarters, he said.

Early versions of SOPA and PIPA would have allowed the U.S. Department of Justice and U.S. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement to order domain-name registrars to stop providing service and search engines to stop linking to websites accused of online piracy and counterfeiting U.S. products. The court orders requested by the two agencies would have targeted online advertisers and payment processors as well.

Nearly a year after the online protests, a spokeswoman for Representative Lamar Smith, a Texas Republican and main sponsor of SOPA, said he has no plans to reintroduce similar legislation in 2013. Smith will defer to Representative Bob Goodlatte, a Virginia Republican replacing Smith as chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, she said.

Goodlatte, a long-time member of the Congressional Internet Caucus, was an original cosponsor of SOPA. He wasn't available for comment on his plans for the next Congress.

A spokeswoman for Senator Patrick Leahy, a Vermont Democrat and main sponsor of PIPA, also didn't respond to a request for comments on his plans for PIPA. Leahy recently turned down the opportunity to be chairman of the powerful Senate Appropriations Committee to return as chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, where he will again have jurisdiction over copyright issues.

The spokesman for another lawmaker who opposed SOPA said he sees little momentum for similar legislation in 2013.

Meanwhile, a representative of the Recording Industry Association of America, which pushed for passage of the two bills, said the trade group's focus will be elsewhere moving forward.

"The music business now earns more than half its revenues from an exciting array of digital formats," Jonathan Lamy, an RIAA spokesman, said in an email. "Our core mission is promoting that dynamic marketplace. Beyond that, our attention will be entirely focused on music licensing issues and voluntary, marketplace initiatives."

Opponents of the two bills are looking to engage the public in a dialog about copyright in the coming year, said Tiffiniy Cheng, co-founder of Fight for the Future, a digital rights group. and OpenCongress.org, a congressional watchdog site.

In November, the Republican Study Committee, a group of conservative House Republicans, first published, then retracted, a paper advocating the weakening of some copyright protections, Cheng noted.

"It seems like the SOPA protests and blackout has created an opening for a discussion on copyright reform," she said by email. "We'll be working with groups and the public on a plan in 2013. We're glad there is an opportunity."


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When Netflix goes down: streaming video alternatives

Netflix's streaming service went down about midday Christmas Eve, depriving thousands of their Christmas (or anything-but-Christmas) video fix for about 20 hours. Our Christmas gift to you: our latest video-streaming tips, tricks, and alternatives, so you'll be ready the next time this happens.

Find the best Yule logs on Apple TV.

You don't need a Mac to have Apple TV. The latest improvements to Apple TV include the ability to subscribe to non-iTunes content such as to Hulu Plus, as well as Netflix. Other improvements include better customization of the increasingly crowded interface, and an app for turning an iOS device into a remote control for Apple TV. And just in time for the holidays, we found the best ways to create a digital Yule log with your Apple TV.

Other box-based Netflix alternatives: You can use Roku to stream your music and personal video with a new Plex app, as well as access Hulu, Netflix, and Amazon Prime. Amazon Prime users who also own a Xbox 360 can use the Amazon Instant Video App to stream media through their game console.

NBCFind your favorite holiday specials online.

Some holiday specials are meant to be watched over and over and over again. David Daw searched high and low for favorite holiday specials and Christmas episodes online and found the classic A Charlie Brown Christmas along with more recent favorites, like The Office and a Mythbusters episode that looks into the truth (or not) behind holiday traditions.

Creating a DVD backup of a favorite movie or show (legally, of course) means you won't be caught out if your online service dies again. Here are some tips for streaming video to DVD. You can also upgrade your entertainment experience with third-party clients, system or software tweaks, and other handy streaming video tips for power users.

NimbleTVWas this the last straw for you and Netflix? Beta testing recently began in New york for NimbleTV. This new service is like Slingbox, but with no box. It can stream cable or satellite TV to any Internet-connected device. Other Netflix competitors gearing up: Vimeo recently previewed a pay-to-rent movie-streaming service, and Hulu launched a major makeover late in the summer.

Streaming media is evolving so quickly, there's always a competitor waiting to catch your eye. Even if you weren't stuck without Netflix on Christmas Eve, this could be a good time to review what's out there and improve the quality or variety of your choices.


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2012: The year cloud computing took a bite out of IT

Written By Unknown on Selasa, 25 Desember 2012 | 16.01

When we started talking about cloud computing five years ago, it meant one thing: Services such as Amazon or Salesforce that customers could self-provision over the Internet and pay as they go.

That's what we call the "public cloud" today, as opposed to the "private cloud," which refers to the application of public cloud technologies and practices to one's own data center. And guess what? The public cloud was where the action was in 2012 -- and it's where much of the action is going to be in 2013. According to IDC, businesses will spend $40 billion on the public cloud this year, rising to nearly $100 billion in 2016.

[ Download InfoWorld's special report, "Cloud computing in 2012." | Also check out our "Private Cloud Deep Dive" and "Cloud Applications Deep Dive." | Stay current on the cloud with InfoWorld's Cloud Computing Report newsletter. ]

Despite that rapid growth, public cloud dollars still represent a small fraction of the trillions of dollars devoted to IT globally every year. The data center isn't going anywhere -- but it needs the greater efficiency and agility the private cloud offers. The question of the day is whether the private cloud will evolve quickly enough to stop an accelerated exodus to public cloud services.

The rush to infrastructure in the cloud
In 2012, the biggest thing to happen to the cloud was the arrival of three major new IaaS (infrastructure as a service) players: Google Compute Engine, HP Cloud, and Microsoft Windows Azure. All three entrants face an uphill battle competing against the incumbent leader Amazon Web Services -- and even against Rackspace, long the distant No. 2 IaaS provider.

Why the surge in providers? IaaS revenue continues to grow, of course, but I think the real driver is anticipation of a long-awaited tipping point: when enterprises start moving their production workloads -- as opposed to dev and test or batch processing jobs -- to IaaS platforms.

Up until now production IaaS workloads have tended to originate with other tech players, from consumer companies like Netflix to small PaaS (platform as a service) players such as Engine Yard. I think 2013 could be the year when that changes. I've had several off-the-record conversations over the past few months that convince me we'll see a number of large enterprises move core applications -- including ERP -- to IaaS providers in the coming year.

It's no surprise, then, that Google, HP, and Microsoft are positioning their offerings as much more tailored to enterprise needs than Amazon Web Services, which the insurgents like to dismiss as generic and ill-suited to run enterprise production workloads. That might have been true a few years ago. But today, Amazon has a tremendous lead -- in virtual machine configuration options, in the native services it offers, and in the huge partner ecosystem it has developed. Amazon continues to expand its enterprise sales and support, bulk up its SLAs, and now offers "virtual private cloud" services that provide greater isolation among customer workloads.


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Microsoft's chief researcher takes new role; will retire in 2014

Craig Mundie has left his role as Microsoft's chief research and strategy officer to become senior adviser to the CEO, as he winds down before retirement.

Mundie had led strategy since founder Bill Gates stepped down from full-time work at the company in 2006.

Ina Fried of All Things D first reported the move Monday morning, noting that it was announced in an internal memo from CEO Steve Ballmer on Dec. 14, which also included news that Mundie plans to retire in 2014.

Chief Technical Strategy Officer Eric Rudder has taken over most of Mundie's former duties, including overseeing Microsoft research.

Craig Mundie, MicrosoftCraig Mundie

Mundie, who will turn 65 in 2014, joined Microsoft in 1992 in the consumer platforms division, where he managed production of Windows CE. Before then, he had co-founded Alliant Computer Systems, which filed for bankruptcy in 1992, and previously was director of Data General's advanced development facility at Research Triangle Park, North Carolina.

"Over his career, Craig has brought great value to the groups and initiatives he has started and overseen and now brings that wealth of experience to his new role," Ballmer said in the email, according to All Things D. "Craig has also been instrumental in building relationships with governments and policymakers around the world."

Mundie has been the company's primary technology-policy liaison to the U.S. and other governments, according to his biography on the Microsoft website, which was updated Dec. 17 to reflect his new role. Mundie has particularly focused on China, India and Russia in the liaison role, and also served on the U.S. National Security Telecommunications Advisory Committee and the Markle Foundation Task Force on National Security in the Information Age. President Barack Obama appointed Mundie to the President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology in April 2009.

As senior adviser, Mundie works on "key strategic projects within the company, as well as with government and business leaders around the world on technology policy, regulation and standards," according to his biography.


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Review: Epson WorkForce WF-2540 All-in-One Printer

The $130 (as of 12/24/2012) Epson Workforce WF-2540 All-in-One Printer (copy/fax/print/scan) has a 30-page automatic document feeder, it outputs nice text and graphics, and it has triple-threat USB, Ethernet, and Wi-Fi connectivity. Those are attractive features on any color inkjet multifunction, but there's bad news: Ink costs are high, and glossy photos print at some of the slowest times we've ever seen. Scan speed is nothing to write home about, either.

Setting up the WF-2540 is a breeze. With USB, Ethernet, and Wi-Fi all on board, you're free to attach it to a PC or network in any location you wish. The WF-2540's smallish non-operational footprint: 15.4 inches wide, by 14.8 inches deep, by 8.7-inch high also aids in the versatile placement. However, those numbers (shown in a photo on Epson's Web site), are a tad misleading. When you extend the guide for the 100-sheet rear vertical feed (there is no flat input tray), the height climbs to 11 or so inches. With both the guide and control panel in operating position, the depth is more like 17 inches. That's still relatively compact, but not as small as it would be with a bottom-mounted tray.

The WF-2540's software bundle is basic, but capable. The Epson Scan program is intuitive and mature, and it will handle any scanning task you throw at it. That would be everything except automatic two-sided scanning, which the WF-2540 does not support. Abbyy FineReader Sprint 9.5 is on hand to take care of OCR chores and there's also the full gamut of Web and local wireless printing options.

I didn't find using the WF-2540 quite as intuitive as many printers. The 2.5-inch LCD display, buttons, and keypad are fine; there's just something a little off in the implementation. You're forced to hit the OK button at times when the menu/home button would normally function, and there are just enough other little oddities to make the experience less than top-shelf. You'll get used to it, but it could be done better.

Manual duplexing is never intuitive. For the WorkForce WF-2540, onscreen prompts help--for PC users. Unfortunately you'll get no such assistance if you're using a Mac.

I also had some issues replacing the ink cartridges. Perhaps it was my ham-handedness, but several times I received "invalid" cartridge messages. Re-seating (several times) cured this, but the unit can be finicky about the replacement operation. Talk to it nicer than I did, and you might do better with it.

While the WF-2540 gets you into an inkjet multifunction for a relatively small initial investment, ongoing costs will hit you hard if you print in any sort of volume. That's a roundabout way of saying that per-page ink costs are very high. The standard $17/175-page black is a whopping 7.4 cents per page (cpp) and the $9/165-page cyan, magenta, and yellow cartridges are 5.45 cpp apiece. A 23.75 cent four-color page is not a bargain. The $30/500-page XL black, and $13/450-page color cartridges reduce that to 6 cents per black page and 17.3 per four-color page--still well above average.

Melissa Riofrio

Performance-wise, the Workforce WF-2540 also proved a disappointment. Normal documents and copies exit quickly enough for home use, but scans are pokey, and the unit is very slow with glossy photos. Monochrome pages output on the PC at 6.7 pages per minute (ppm) and 6.5 ppm on the Mac. Snapshot-sized (4-inch by 6-inch) photos print at almost 4 ppm to plain paper.

The problem with glossy prints varies by settings. When using photo paper we normally test in the highest-quality mode, but this slowed the pace of the WF-2540's output drastically. Snapshot photos printed in the mode to glossy paper took over 2 minutes, and full-page photos printed on the Mac an incredible 10 minutes. The full-page photo's print time improved to approximately 6 minutes by stepping down one grade to High-Quality mode, and to about 3 minutes going down yet one more grade to Quality mode. There was no perceptible loss of fidelity in High-Quality mode compared to Best mode, and only a modest one when we used Quality mode, so stick with those on the WF-2540 unless you're looking to kill time.

On the plus side, though you'll have plenty of time to go to the store for more expensive ink during some of its operations, the WF-2540 produces very nice output. Virtually everything that comes out of it is top-notch. Text is sharp and black, and color prints are nice. Shadows are a bit dark, and the colors colder than originals, but overall the output sports a classy feel for a four-color (cyan, magenta, yellow, black) system.

The Epson WorkForce WF-2540 All-in-One Printer is attractively priced, and the triple USB/Ethernet/Wi-Fi connectivity is appealing, but taken as a whole--Epson missed the mark with this one. Ink costs are high, and photo output is slothful and then some. Look instead to the Dell V525w or HP Officejet 6600 e-All-in-One Printer . Both units have cheaper ink and comparable features at roughly the same price. Better yet, spend another $50 and get something more feature-complete.


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After claiming Verizon attack, hacker and the spoils disappear

Written By Unknown on Senin, 24 Desember 2012 | 16.00

Hours after boasting about the theft of 3 million records from Verizon Wireless, the hacker claiming responsibility for the attack and the purloined data posted to Pastebin have disappeared from the Web.

A search for the hacker's Twitter handle, @TibitXimer, produced a "Sorry, that page doesn't exist!" message.

Meanwhile, the data claimed to belong to Verizon Wireless appears to have been removed from Pastebin, a popular site for hackers to post stolen data.

Verizon Wireless is denying that the file that was posted to the Internet contained information from its customers. "We have examined the posted data and we have confirmed that it is not Verizon Wireless customer data," Verizon spokesperson Alberto Canal told ZDNet. "Our systems have not been hacked."

The hacker later revised his story about the origin of the data, telling ZDNet the data was from Verizon FiOS files, not Verizon Wireless.

Old hack?

Security researcher Adam Caudill, who viewed the data before it disappeared from Pastebin, wrote on Twitter that the information was posted months ago to the Internet. "The file that's going around is one of the files that we discussed back in August," he tweeted. "Nothing new."

"It's part of a set of files that was posted in August; I strongly suspect it's a telemarketing file or similar," he added.

ZDNet broke the theft story on Saturday, reporting that a hacker had posted 300,000 database entries belonging to Verizon Wireless.

The hacker told ZDNet that he'd breached the Verizon database on July 12 and downloaded an estimated 3 million records containing names, addresses, mobile serial numbers, the opening date of each account, and account passwords.

The hacker added that he decided to post a portion of the pilfered information to Pastebin because Verizon had not fixed the vulnerability since the hacker had exploited it.

Although sympathetic with the hacktivist collective Anonymous, the Verizon hacker told ZDNet he had no affiliation with that organization.

Verizon spokesman Canal confirmed to ZDNet that a breach had taken place months ago and had been reported to law enforcement authorities.

Many of the details about the incident claimed by the hacker were incorrect or exaggerated, he added. All customers affected by the incident were notified at the time, and safeguards were taken to protect their data and privacy.

Twitter tries to tame boasts

It's believed that Twitter suspended the hacker's account after learning about his claims.

Twitter has been fighting its "dark side" for years with mixed success.

It has also attempted to add more transparency to enforcement actions it takes on members' accounts. For example, Twitter launched a new policy in November calling for takedown messages to be posted to a member's tweet feed when one of their tweets had been removed for an alleged copyright violation.

Before the policy change, such tweets just disappeared from a feed stream without explanation, making it more difficult for whomever posted the tweet to challenge the takedown.


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RIM licenses Nokia technology to settle patent claim

Nokia has signed a new patent license agreement with Research In Motion, which will end all existing patent litigation between the two companies.

RIM will make a one-time payment and ongoing payments to Nokia, but the specific financial terms of the agreement are confidential, Nokia said in a statement on Friday.

The deal seems to have come together quickly.

In November, Nokia asked a California court to enforce an arbitration award that could have prevented RIM from selling products with wireless LAN capabilities until the companies agreed on patent royalty rates, according to documents obtained by IDG News Service.

Nokia said it was happy with the deal, and will look for other ways to make money from its patent portfolio in future. RIM declined to comment.

RIM reported falling unit sales for its fiscal third quarter last week, further highlighting the importance of its upcoming BlackBerry 10 operating system.

Both RIM and Nokia have an important year in front of them; Nokia needs to sell more smartphones based on Microsoft's Windows Phone platform than it managed this year and RIM will have to turn BlackBerry 10 into a hit.

"Doing that is absolutely critical for their survival. If RIM and Nokia are going to continue to exist in their current forms they need their respective platforms to be a success," said Ben Wood , director of research at CCS Insight.


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Windows 8 underwhelms European businesses

Adoption of Windows 8 by business users has been slow across Western Europe, analyst figures have shown, with the consumer-friendly operating system lacking wider appeal.

In the month following its launch, figures released by analysts Context show that sales of hardware using Windows 8 made up 52 percent of all Windows OS sales across the region. This meant that sales of devices to retailers and resellers were six points lower than Windows 7 during the same period following its launch in the autumn of 2009.

However, the figures highlight that the difference is even more marked when comparing the sales directly to business users.

Related Articles on Techworld

Following the launch of the well received Windows 7, the operating system quickly accounted for almost a third of all sales to businesses, accounting for 31 percent during November 2009.  In comparison, Windows 8 sales to businesses in the month after its release amounted to just 8 percent.

"We know that PC sales overall declined over the last few months and it looks like Windows 8 has so far not had the boosting effect that many in the business had been hoping for," commented Jeremy Davies, CEO and co-founder at CONTEXT.

The good news for Microsoft is that its overtly consumer focused Windows 8 'Metro' interface appears to have had more success away from business users.  During November sales of Windows 8 to consumers accounted for 68 percent of purchases, compared to 65 percent for Windows 7 during the same period.

Reports on the initial success of Windows new operating system have so far been conflicting. Microsoft itself has claimed that it had sold 40 million Windows 8 licenses shortly after the release of the software, with top staff heralding the most important launch since Windows 95.

However, hardware vendors have indicated that sales of Windows 8 devices are lower than were expected on the launch, while analysts have not been optimistic of the outlook for the platform.


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After BlackBerry 10, RIM will let customers cherry-pick services

Written By Unknown on Minggu, 23 Desember 2012 | 16.00

Research In Motion will let its customers pick and choose individual BlackBerry services such as security and mobile device management after it introduces the long-awaited BlackBerry 10 platform next month.

Thorsten HeinsThorsten Heins

Offering different tiers of service and letting users choose from a menu will help to better suit the needs of individual customers, President and CEO Thorsten Heins said during announcement of RIM's fiscal third-quarter financial results last week. For example, smaller businesses may only need basic BlackBerry e-mail capability and not more advanced services, he said.

Today, RIM's services come in a bundle and are paid for monthly, either directly or through a carrier. Enterprise customers who use several services will continue to generate monthly services revenue for RIM, while some consumer BlackBerry users won't pay anything, Heins said.

RIM will add a variety of new services, including mobile device management for BlackBerry and other devices, when it comes out with BlackBerry 10, Heins said. Enterprises will be able to buy a "platinum" package with all of them or just choose a selection of services.

"We feel our strategy will help broaden the BlackBerry ecosystem over time," Heins said. He declined to say whether users of the current BlackBerry 7 platform would be shifted to the new services model or whether the services would be sold under a contract.

RIM's low quarter

For the fiscal third quarter, which ended December 1, RIM posted revenue and phone unit sales that were down from the previous quarter and from a year earlier, though the company said sales of its PlayBook tablet rose to about 255,000 from 130,000 the previous quarter with the help of promotions.

RIM suffered financially in recent years as it fell behind Apple and other smartphone rivals, but layoffs and other cost-cutting measures have already slashed its annual expenses by more than $1 billion, Heins said.

"We believe the company has stabilized and will turn the corner in the next year," Heins said.

Awaiting BlackBerry 10

Much rides on the success of BlackBerry 10, which will be introduced at an event in New York on January 30. Carriers that will sell BlackBerry 10 devices will announce dates for availability of the new phones at that time, Heins said on the earnings call.

Carriers and enterprises around the world have responded enthusiastically to the BlackBerry 10 platform, especially its user interface, RIM said. BlackBerry 10 phone are being evaluated at more than 150 carriers and are in beta testing at more than 120 enterprises, according to the company.

However, after the launch, RIM won't stop development of the current BlackBerry 7 platform and may even introduce a few more phones that use the system, Heins said. BlackBerry 7 is popular for entry-level phones in certain markets, especially in Asia, he said. "We will maintain BlackBerry 7," Heins said.

While BlackBerry unit sales fell to 6.9 million in the quarter from 7.4 million in the previous quarter, sales rose outside the U.S., U.K., and Canada and generated 65 percent of device revenue, RIM said. Indonesia, South Africa and Venezuela were among the markets with strong phone sales, the company said.

Stephen Lawson covers mobile, storage and networking technologies for The IDG News Service. Follow Stephen on Twitter at @sdlawsonmedia. Stephen's email address is stephen_lawson@idg.com


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Foxconn plans camera gadgets with GoPro investment

Taiwanese manufacturing giant Foxconn Electronics said it could integrate more camera features into its devices after making a US$200 million investment in a U.S. company that makes cameras for action sports enthusiasts.

Foxconn's investment, announced last week, buys the company a 8.88 percent stake in GoPro, a company that sells wearable cameras to take video and pictures of outdoor activities such as skydiving, surfing, and skiing.

Foxconn's major clients include Apple, Microsoft, Sony, and other electronics vendors, and the company is a producer of smartphones, tablets, TVs, and video game systems. The company foresees the consumer tech industry moving toward more products capable of "content creation," and expects GoPro can help Foxconn better tap into this market, said Foxconn spokesman Simon Hsing.

The investment will also pave the way for GoPro to expand U.S. sales by leveraging Foxconn's manufacturing capacity, he added.


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Security researchers identify malware infecting U.S. banks

Security researchers from Symantec have identified an information-stealing Trojan program that was used to infect computer servers belonging to various U.S. financial institutions.

Dubbed Stabuniq, the Trojan program was found on mail servers, firewalls, proxy servers, and gateways belonging to U.S. financial institutions, including banking firms and credit unions, Symantec software engineer Fred Gutierrez said Friday in a blog post.

"Approximately half of unique IP addresses found with Trojan.Stabuniq belong to home users," Gutierrez said. "Another 11 percent belong to companies that deal with Internet security (due, perhaps, to these companies performing analysis of the threat). A staggering 39 percent, however, belong to financial institutions." (Also see "How to Avoid Malware.")

Based on a map showing the threat's distribution in the U.S. that was published by Symantec, the vast majority of systems infected with Stabuniq are located in the eastern half of the country, with strong concentrations in the New York and Chicago areas.

Compared to other Trojan programs, Stabuniq infected a relatively small number of computers, which seems to suggest that its authors might have targeted specific individuals and organizations, Gutierrez said.

The malware was distributed using a combination of spam emails and malicious websites that hosted Web exploit toolkits. Such toolkits are commonly used to silently install malware on Web users' computers by exploiting vulnerabilities in outdated browser plug-ins like Flash Player, Adobe Reader, or Java.

Once installed, the Stabuniq Trojan program collects information about the compromised computer, like its name, running processes, OS and service pack version, assigned IP (Internet Protocol) address and sends this information to command-and-control (C&C) servers operated by the attackers.

"At this stage we believe the malware authors may simply be gathering information," Gutierrez said.


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Three New Year's resolutions for PC users

Written By Unknown on Sabtu, 22 Desember 2012 | 16.00

A new year is upon us, and that can mean only one thing: resolutions. For most folks, these tend to be of the "get in shape" or "quit smoking" variety. But if you're a PCWorld reader, consider adding some PC-specific resolutions to the mix.

I have three suggestions for improving the quality of your computing life in 2013.

1. Make regular backups: I know you've heard it before. Like flossing your teeth and emptying the cat box, backing up your PC is one of life's annoying necessities. Consider what the consequences would be if all your data—your Word files, photo library, Quicken data, and everything else—were to vanish suddenly. It's a chilling thought, but it happens to unprepared people all too often.

It doesn't have to happen to you, though. Make 2013 the year you sign up for a cloud service—CrashPlan, Mozy, or SugarSync, for example—and configure it to archive your most important files and folders automatically. Once the configuring is done, you'll never have to worry about it again.

Sure, a local, whole-system backup is important, too. But your data is what's most critical, and a cloud-based approach to backing up protects you from home-based disasters like fire, flood, theft, and virus infestations. Don't wait another year to safeguard your data.

2. Look before you click: Fake download buttons. Toolbars and other junkware. Phishing links. Users get into trouble with these things all the time because they click without thinking. So in 2013, my advice is to look before you click.

It's all too easy to whisk through a software installer, clicking Next over and over just to get through it quickly, but that's one way to end up with unwanted toolbars in your Web browser (among other shovelware). And by clicking fake downoad buttons or important-looking links that arrive via email, you may end up with spyware, viruses, or even an identity-theft situation.

Before clicking anything that's unfamiliar to you, pause for a second. Look more closely at the link. Consider the circumstances. That little bit of precaution can save you from hassles—and maybe even disasters.

3. Keep it clean: I wrote about this just the other day in "How to clean your laptop's cooling fans": Dust can kill a PC, clogging the works and causing everything to overheat, with potentially disastrous results. And if you have a pet in the house, the hair it sheds can exacerbate the situation.

Luckily, the fix is simple: Schedule regular cleaning sessions where you use a can of compressed air to blow dust and pet hair off your cooling-fan blades and out of your case. This goes for laptops and desktops alike.

The easiest way to keep this resolution is to set a recurring reminder in your calendar. I recommend performing this kind of cleaning every three months.

Have you come up with other PC-related resolutions for the new year? Tell me about them in the comments!

Contributing Editor Rick Broida writes about business and consumer technology. Ask for help with your PC hassles at hasslefree@pcworld.com, or try the treasure trove of helpful folks in the PCWorld Forums. Sign up to have the Hassle-Free PC newsletter e-mailed to you each week.


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