An early municipal Wi-Fi network in Tempe, Arizona, has only 500 subscribers, but it may have a buyer.
A mobile operator, Telscape, wants to buy the 40-square-mile network, which consists of about 1,000 access points in a mesh. With the proper marketing, the system could draw 10,000 users, according to Telscape Chairman Tad Neeley.
The network's poor adoption is the latest embarrassment for municipal wireless, which EarthLink and some smaller companies were aggressively pursuing just months ago. Builders and operators have found that the networks required more nodes than expected, and residents haven't turned out in large numbers to subscribe. EarthLink has effectively put its Wi-Fi program on hold, and one of the country's biggest planned networks, in Silicon Valley, is stalled because of fundraising problems.
The Tempe network, serving a city of more than 165,000, is run by Kite Networks, a division of Gobility, in Richardson, Texas. It was launched in March 2006 with fewer than 400 access points by Neoreach Networks, but Kite took over the network soon after and added about 600 nodes to improve coverage, said Alan Crancer, Kite's vice president of sales and marketing. Users can log in for rates ranging from US$19.95 to $29.95 per month based on speed and added features, he said. Hourly and daily rates are also available. To use the network for residential broadband, Kite recommends and sells a $69.95 access device.
Telscape thinks the network is sound and Kite has simply failed to get the word out about it.
"The real cost of deploying this was not the network itself. It's about customer acquisition," said Telscape's Neeley, who is also a principal at investment company Gemini Partners, which is a backer of Telscape. After turning on the network, Kite neglected to develop compelling products and services, he said.
Telscape is a mobile virtual network operator (MVNO), a company that buys cellular services wholesale from a carrier and resells them with a set of added features that appeals to a particular market. It targets the Hispanic market in the U.S. The Tempe network raises the possibility of a combined cellular and Wi-Fi service using dual-mode phones, Neeley said.
The company isn't getting a distressed network at a bargain-basement price, Neeley said. It's interested in the potential.
"These networks need to stand on their own ... based on their business case," Neeley said. "If I looked at this from the ground up and it didn't make sense, I wouldn't invest in it."
Telscape is in negotiations with Gobility to buy the network and also needs to make a deal with the city of Tempe for access to light poles and other mounting locations for radios. If the deal goes through, Telscape's service should be available in the near future, Neeley said. Gobility Chairman and CEO Gary Brown declined to comment.
Monday, December 10, 2007
MSN puts ads on mobile phones
Microsoft began displaying advertisements to mobile users of its MSN site in the U.S. on Monday.
Paramount Pictures and Jaguar Cars North America are among the first companies to advertise on MSN Mobile in the U.S.
Microsoft already displays mobile ads in Belgium, France, Japan, Spain and the U.K. The technology that presents the ads comes from ScreenTonic, a company that Microsoft acquired earlier this year.
Microsoft trails its biggest competitors in the PC-based online advertising market in bringing ads to mobile users, but its late start may not have any significant effect. "AOL and Yahoo have previously introduced display ads, but the mobile user base is still on the small side compared to the Net, so they're not truly late," said Greg Sterling, an analyst following mobile search as part of a joint venture between Sterling Market Research and Opus Research. "It's not like there's a huge opportunity cost here or revenue lost." Google also supports ads for mobile users.
So far, it looks like the mobile environment is echoing the PC world in terms of mobile advertising market share from the search leaders, Sterling said. However, because it's such a small and changing market, any of the participants could take the lead. "It'll continue to be fluid for the foreseeable future," he said.
In addition to the new display ads, Microsoft also introduced some new features to its MSN Mobile offering. Users can now buy movie tickets on their phones through a deal that MSN Mobile has with MovieTickets.com.
Users will also be able to buy ringtones, wallpaper, games and video clips on MSN Mobile via an agreement Microsoft has with Thumbplay. MSN also now offers horoscopes to mobile users.
Paramount Pictures and Jaguar Cars North America are among the first companies to advertise on MSN Mobile in the U.S.
Microsoft already displays mobile ads in Belgium, France, Japan, Spain and the U.K. The technology that presents the ads comes from ScreenTonic, a company that Microsoft acquired earlier this year.
Microsoft trails its biggest competitors in the PC-based online advertising market in bringing ads to mobile users, but its late start may not have any significant effect. "AOL and Yahoo have previously introduced display ads, but the mobile user base is still on the small side compared to the Net, so they're not truly late," said Greg Sterling, an analyst following mobile search as part of a joint venture between Sterling Market Research and Opus Research. "It's not like there's a huge opportunity cost here or revenue lost." Google also supports ads for mobile users.
So far, it looks like the mobile environment is echoing the PC world in terms of mobile advertising market share from the search leaders, Sterling said. However, because it's such a small and changing market, any of the participants could take the lead. "It'll continue to be fluid for the foreseeable future," he said.
In addition to the new display ads, Microsoft also introduced some new features to its MSN Mobile offering. Users can now buy movie tickets on their phones through a deal that MSN Mobile has with MovieTickets.com.
Users will also be able to buy ringtones, wallpaper, games and video clips on MSN Mobile via an agreement Microsoft has with Thumbplay. MSN also now offers horoscopes to mobile users.
Microsoft details Vista SP1 changes
Microsoft Corp. has posted a detailed account of the changes to Windows Vista in the service pack it is scheduled to roll out as a public beta this week.
The 17-page Word document details what Microsoft called "notable changes" in Vista SP1 Release Candidate 1 (RC1), the preview version that has been seeded to thousands of invitation-only testers in recent weeks and soon will be opened to all comers.
Microsoft touted scores of additions, improvements and enhancements to Vista in areas ranging from hardware support and reliability to security and synchronization with the also-upcoming Windows Server 2008.
The "performance and power consumption improvements" category, which sported the largest number of bullet-point items, promised that Vista would copy files locally 25% faster than before and copy files from a remote PC also running Vista SP1 50% faster. Vista SP1 will also read large images faster, and the bundled Internet Explorer 7 has been tweaked so that it renders JavaScript-intensive sites as fast as earlier versions of IE.
On the security front, Vista SP1 includes all the Vista-related security updates issued from the operating system's debut through November, as well as several more general, behind-the-scenes changes. One item in the pack's security improvements list, for example, hints at bug fixes that the company is not calling out as such and won't elucidate. "SP1 includes Secure Development Lifecycle process updates, where Microsoft identifies the root cause of each security bulletin and improves our internal tools to eliminate code patterns that could lead to future vulnerabilities," the document reads.
Microsoft is also making good on a deal it struck over a year ago with Symantec Corp., McAfee Inc. and the European Union, which complained before Vista launched that Microsoft was locking down access to the kernel in the 64-bit edition. In the fall of 2006, Symantec and McAfee objected to Microsoft's Kernel Patch Protection, also known as PatchGuard, and claimed that it stymied existing technologies, such as host-based intrusion prevention and tamper prevention. They, along with the EU, also accused Microsoft of using the technology to stifle competition in the security market.
The application programming interfaces that Microsoft first revealed last December are part of SP1, the "change-log" document says. "These APIs have been designed to help security and non-security [independent software vendors] develop software that extends the functionality of the Windows kernel on 64-bit systems, in a documented and supported manner, and without disabling or weakening the protection offered by Kernel Patch Protection," it reads.
The Vista SP1 changes can be viewed as an HTML page or by downloading the Word document.
Vista SP1 RC1 will be offered to user this week via manual download from the Microsoft Web site, but the company has not set a definite date.
The 17-page Word document details what Microsoft called "notable changes" in Vista SP1 Release Candidate 1 (RC1), the preview version that has been seeded to thousands of invitation-only testers in recent weeks and soon will be opened to all comers.
Microsoft touted scores of additions, improvements and enhancements to Vista in areas ranging from hardware support and reliability to security and synchronization with the also-upcoming Windows Server 2008.
The "performance and power consumption improvements" category, which sported the largest number of bullet-point items, promised that Vista would copy files locally 25% faster than before and copy files from a remote PC also running Vista SP1 50% faster. Vista SP1 will also read large images faster, and the bundled Internet Explorer 7 has been tweaked so that it renders JavaScript-intensive sites as fast as earlier versions of IE.
On the security front, Vista SP1 includes all the Vista-related security updates issued from the operating system's debut through November, as well as several more general, behind-the-scenes changes. One item in the pack's security improvements list, for example, hints at bug fixes that the company is not calling out as such and won't elucidate. "SP1 includes Secure Development Lifecycle process updates, where Microsoft identifies the root cause of each security bulletin and improves our internal tools to eliminate code patterns that could lead to future vulnerabilities," the document reads.
Microsoft is also making good on a deal it struck over a year ago with Symantec Corp., McAfee Inc. and the European Union, which complained before Vista launched that Microsoft was locking down access to the kernel in the 64-bit edition. In the fall of 2006, Symantec and McAfee objected to Microsoft's Kernel Patch Protection, also known as PatchGuard, and claimed that it stymied existing technologies, such as host-based intrusion prevention and tamper prevention. They, along with the EU, also accused Microsoft of using the technology to stifle competition in the security market.
The application programming interfaces that Microsoft first revealed last December are part of SP1, the "change-log" document says. "These APIs have been designed to help security and non-security [independent software vendors] develop software that extends the functionality of the Windows kernel on 64-bit systems, in a documented and supported manner, and without disabling or weakening the protection offered by Kernel Patch Protection," it reads.
The Vista SP1 changes can be viewed as an HTML page or by downloading the Word document.
Vista SP1 RC1 will be offered to user this week via manual download from the Microsoft Web site, but the company has not set a definite date.
Oops! Skype forgets to tell users of bug or patch job
Skype Ltd. on Monday blamed an "unintentional communication oversight" for not notifying users a month ago that it had patched the Windows version of its voice-over-IP client software against a critical bug.
Company spokesman Villu Arak apologized for the blunder. "We strive to inform the public of vulnerabilities and malware that may affect Skype software," said Arak on the company's security blog Monday. "While this particular vulnerability was fixed, there was an unintentional communication oversight and we failed to bring the case to the public's attention. All we can do now is to apologize."
Arak was reacting to an advisory published last Thursday by 3Com Corp.'s TippingPoint division and its bounty-for-bugs Zero Day Initiative. The bug, said TippingPoint, was in a Skype uniform resource identifier (URI) protocol handler that could be exploited to hijack a Windows machine by duping its owner into steering to a malicious Web site.
TippingPoint reported the bug to Skype on Nov. 2; Skype patched it Nov. 15, less than two weeks later, Arak said Monday. "The issue was fixed in the public release of Skype 3.6 for Windows," he said. "All versions of Skype for Windows updated or installed as of Nov. 15 include the patch."
In a separate alert, Symantec Corp. spelled out how users can tell if they're running a vulnerable version of Skype. "Customers can check ... by clicking 'Help' > 'About Skype.' If you are running a version earlier than 3.6.0.216, then you should upgrade," the advisory read.
The vulnerability wasn't the first URI protocol-handler bug that Skype has had to patch, nor is it the only application that has faced the issue this year. In May 2006, Skype fixed a command-line parsing flaw in the URI handler of the Windows client, for example.
And other developers, including Mozilla Corp. and Adobe Systems Inc., have patched their software against protocol-handler errors multiple times since July. Mozilla Corp. fixed a Firefox URI bug as recently as two weeks ago. After a contentious debate over responsibility, Microsoft Corp. also issued its own fix for Windows on Nov. 13.
The current, patched version of Skype for Windows can be downloaded from the company's site.
Company spokesman Villu Arak apologized for the blunder. "We strive to inform the public of vulnerabilities and malware that may affect Skype software," said Arak on the company's security blog Monday. "While this particular vulnerability was fixed, there was an unintentional communication oversight and we failed to bring the case to the public's attention. All we can do now is to apologize."
Arak was reacting to an advisory published last Thursday by 3Com Corp.'s TippingPoint division and its bounty-for-bugs Zero Day Initiative. The bug, said TippingPoint, was in a Skype uniform resource identifier (URI) protocol handler that could be exploited to hijack a Windows machine by duping its owner into steering to a malicious Web site.
TippingPoint reported the bug to Skype on Nov. 2; Skype patched it Nov. 15, less than two weeks later, Arak said Monday. "The issue was fixed in the public release of Skype 3.6 for Windows," he said. "All versions of Skype for Windows updated or installed as of Nov. 15 include the patch."
In a separate alert, Symantec Corp. spelled out how users can tell if they're running a vulnerable version of Skype. "Customers can check ... by clicking 'Help' > 'About Skype.' If you are running a version earlier than 3.6.0.216, then you should upgrade," the advisory read.
The vulnerability wasn't the first URI protocol-handler bug that Skype has had to patch, nor is it the only application that has faced the issue this year. In May 2006, Skype fixed a command-line parsing flaw in the URI handler of the Windows client, for example.
And other developers, including Mozilla Corp. and Adobe Systems Inc., have patched their software against protocol-handler errors multiple times since July. Mozilla Corp. fixed a Firefox URI bug as recently as two weeks ago. After a contentious debate over responsibility, Microsoft Corp. also issued its own fix for Windows on Nov. 13.
The current, patched version of Skype for Windows can be downloaded from the company's site.
Beware of 'blended threats,' phishing zombies in 2008
"Blended threats" – online security attacks that combine several techniques – are likely to become more pervasive in 2008, security industry insiders say.
Such threats are already "gaining momentum", according to security managed services provider MX Logic Inc. in Englewood, Col.
Blended threats reveal how malware distribution has become a "business model in the underground community," says the security firm in its '2008 Cyber Threats Predictions' document.
These threats are particularly insidious because they use multiple strategies to exploit known vulnerabilities – for instance, combining facets of hacking, computer-worm and denial-of-service attacks.
This "combo" approach enables the attack to spread quickly and cause a huge damage in a short time.
MX Logic cites an example of how this could work in practice.
"A cyber criminal using a blended threat [could] install a key logger on to a PC that captures personal information while he or she simultaneously turns the machine into a spam zombie that pumps out thousands of unsolicited messages claiming to be from brands like Viagra and Rolex."
In this scenario personal information can be sold for a profit, while the hacker also makes money selling time on a captured PC to spammers.
Another security expert, though, takes a different view on the issue.
"By our definition, almost every threat is a blended threat," said Marc Fossi, manager of security response at Cupertino, Calif.-based security products vendor Symantec Corp. "It's like when Trojans from a malicious Web site install themselves on a user's PC."
He said this phenomenon is not new but it would continue. "And we'll see greater numbers of this."
Zombies go phishing
Increased sophistication among hacker gangs are likely to manifest itself in other ways as well.
For instance, Symantec Corp. in a document titled 'Trends to Watch in 2008' has predicted a "bot evolution" where we're likely to see phishing sites hosted by bot zombies.
"It's basically about automating [the process of] setting up phishing sites," said Symantec's Fossi.
In this scenario, he said, a bot master would use the bot to host the actual phishing Web pages and relay phishing e-mail messages out because of the automated nature of bots. "They could easily have several phishing sites set up simultaneously."
He said today, typically, many cyber crooks would compromise a computer or find free Web hosting to set up their phishing site. "When the site is taken down they would compromise another computer or a new Web host to set up an account on."
But Fossi said if scamsters use a bot-compromised computer, it's very easy for them to set up multiple sites at once, or to set up one site, and as soon as that gets taken down, to automatically set up a new one on another bot. "It's the redundancy factor for them. It's almost like a failover mechanism."
Both MXLogic and Symantec have predicted the increase in Web services will pave the way for advanced cyber attacks via the Web browser.
"The Web browser is an appealing alternative for cyber crooks to push malware through email because it prompts the user to pull malware from a Web site," the MX Logic Cyber Threat predictions report notes.
It says the social engineering possibilities are countless, as vulnerabilities within Internet Explorer and Firefox continue to be exploited. "This year," it says, "the MX Logic Threat Operations Centre has recorded dramatic spikes in the number of Web-based threats."
Symantec too expects the number of new Web-based threats to increase, as browsers continue to converge on a uniform interpretation standard for scripting languages, such as Java.
Fossi explains why.
Browser blast
"Say every Web browser is using the same Web code to interpret Java off a range of Web sites. Then a single vulnerability in that interpreter would affect all the browsers. The attacker would then be able to compromise a wide variety of hosts with a single exploit."
He contrasted that with the infamous MPack attack from earlier this year, involving a kit of professionally written PHP software components (dubbed MPack) designed to be hosted and run from a PHP server with a database backend.
MPack, Fossi recalled, implemented different exploit modules. "When users would go to the Web site it would try them one by one. The idea was really to affect the most users that it could."
But if there's more of a convergence that site would only need to have used one exploit that it would use for every visitor.
2.0 jeopardy
As the media spotlight today is on new and compelling Web 2.0 applications, security insiders say in 2008, social networking sites will continue to serve as a breeding ground for a range of security threats.
MX Logic predicts cyber criminals will "seek new and more sophisticated ways to exploit social networking sites such as Facebook and MySpace."
The company's threat research team is already seeing instances of this new direction via blog spam and phishing. It predicts "information looting through interactive communities" will become a common practice next year.
“In 2007, cyber criminals firmly established their intentions to focus on Web 2.0 applications," noted Sam Masiello, director of threat management at MX Logic.
"This trend, coupled with combined threats distributed through botnets, will reach critical mass in 2008.”
Security – a balancing act
At least one Canadian analyst, however, questions the relevance of such prognostications.
"How meaningful is it to say the threat landscape is changing this way or that when many Canadian organizations still need to take care of the fundamentals?" asked David Senf, director of Canadian security and software research at IDC Canada in Toronto.
For instance he said there are basic things companies here need to do. "For instance, if you have USB keys left around your company with all sorts of unencrypted, and unprotected data, that's one gaping holes that needs to be closed."
He said organizations need to look at the internal threats first, while also exercising vigilance against external threats.
Part of the problem, Senf said, is that security is not a high priority overall among Canadian firms.
"Ask senior business execs and they would tell you their priority is reaching out to that next customer, getting the product features right." CIOs too are attempting to balance a bunch of different priorities.
While it wouldn't be realistic to say organizations should focus entirely on security, it's clear that they should devote more attention to it, at least from a risk-assessment perspective, the IDC Canada analyst said.
Senf said, of necessity, there would be huge differences in the security policies, practices and priorities of companies.
He said companies need to first identify which assets they are defending and where those assets sit, and that would tell them what they need to be concerned about.
"Just because you learn about the latest attack vector doesn't mean your organization needs to change its security policies, and strategy," he said.
"The number one should be around employee training – and effective policy riding on how data is handled by employees. That's certainly where a lot of the problems come from."
Such threats are already "gaining momentum", according to security managed services provider MX Logic Inc. in Englewood, Col.
Blended threats reveal how malware distribution has become a "business model in the underground community," says the security firm in its '2008 Cyber Threats Predictions' document.
These threats are particularly insidious because they use multiple strategies to exploit known vulnerabilities – for instance, combining facets of hacking, computer-worm and denial-of-service attacks.
This "combo" approach enables the attack to spread quickly and cause a huge damage in a short time.
MX Logic cites an example of how this could work in practice.
"A cyber criminal using a blended threat [could] install a key logger on to a PC that captures personal information while he or she simultaneously turns the machine into a spam zombie that pumps out thousands of unsolicited messages claiming to be from brands like Viagra and Rolex."
In this scenario personal information can be sold for a profit, while the hacker also makes money selling time on a captured PC to spammers.
Another security expert, though, takes a different view on the issue.
"By our definition, almost every threat is a blended threat," said Marc Fossi, manager of security response at Cupertino, Calif.-based security products vendor Symantec Corp. "It's like when Trojans from a malicious Web site install themselves on a user's PC."
He said this phenomenon is not new but it would continue. "And we'll see greater numbers of this."
Zombies go phishing
Increased sophistication among hacker gangs are likely to manifest itself in other ways as well.
For instance, Symantec Corp. in a document titled 'Trends to Watch in 2008' has predicted a "bot evolution" where we're likely to see phishing sites hosted by bot zombies.
"It's basically about automating [the process of] setting up phishing sites," said Symantec's Fossi.
In this scenario, he said, a bot master would use the bot to host the actual phishing Web pages and relay phishing e-mail messages out because of the automated nature of bots. "They could easily have several phishing sites set up simultaneously."
He said today, typically, many cyber crooks would compromise a computer or find free Web hosting to set up their phishing site. "When the site is taken down they would compromise another computer or a new Web host to set up an account on."
But Fossi said if scamsters use a bot-compromised computer, it's very easy for them to set up multiple sites at once, or to set up one site, and as soon as that gets taken down, to automatically set up a new one on another bot. "It's the redundancy factor for them. It's almost like a failover mechanism."
Both MXLogic and Symantec have predicted the increase in Web services will pave the way for advanced cyber attacks via the Web browser.
"The Web browser is an appealing alternative for cyber crooks to push malware through email because it prompts the user to pull malware from a Web site," the MX Logic Cyber Threat predictions report notes.
It says the social engineering possibilities are countless, as vulnerabilities within Internet Explorer and Firefox continue to be exploited. "This year," it says, "the MX Logic Threat Operations Centre has recorded dramatic spikes in the number of Web-based threats."
Symantec too expects the number of new Web-based threats to increase, as browsers continue to converge on a uniform interpretation standard for scripting languages, such as Java.
Fossi explains why.
Browser blast
"Say every Web browser is using the same Web code to interpret Java off a range of Web sites. Then a single vulnerability in that interpreter would affect all the browsers. The attacker would then be able to compromise a wide variety of hosts with a single exploit."
He contrasted that with the infamous MPack attack from earlier this year, involving a kit of professionally written PHP software components (dubbed MPack) designed to be hosted and run from a PHP server with a database backend.
MPack, Fossi recalled, implemented different exploit modules. "When users would go to the Web site it would try them one by one. The idea was really to affect the most users that it could."
But if there's more of a convergence that site would only need to have used one exploit that it would use for every visitor.
2.0 jeopardy
As the media spotlight today is on new and compelling Web 2.0 applications, security insiders say in 2008, social networking sites will continue to serve as a breeding ground for a range of security threats.
MX Logic predicts cyber criminals will "seek new and more sophisticated ways to exploit social networking sites such as Facebook and MySpace."
The company's threat research team is already seeing instances of this new direction via blog spam and phishing. It predicts "information looting through interactive communities" will become a common practice next year.
“In 2007, cyber criminals firmly established their intentions to focus on Web 2.0 applications," noted Sam Masiello, director of threat management at MX Logic.
"This trend, coupled with combined threats distributed through botnets, will reach critical mass in 2008.”
Security – a balancing act
At least one Canadian analyst, however, questions the relevance of such prognostications.
"How meaningful is it to say the threat landscape is changing this way or that when many Canadian organizations still need to take care of the fundamentals?" asked David Senf, director of Canadian security and software research at IDC Canada in Toronto.
For instance he said there are basic things companies here need to do. "For instance, if you have USB keys left around your company with all sorts of unencrypted, and unprotected data, that's one gaping holes that needs to be closed."
He said organizations need to look at the internal threats first, while also exercising vigilance against external threats.
Part of the problem, Senf said, is that security is not a high priority overall among Canadian firms.
"Ask senior business execs and they would tell you their priority is reaching out to that next customer, getting the product features right." CIOs too are attempting to balance a bunch of different priorities.
While it wouldn't be realistic to say organizations should focus entirely on security, it's clear that they should devote more attention to it, at least from a risk-assessment perspective, the IDC Canada analyst said.
Senf said, of necessity, there would be huge differences in the security policies, practices and priorities of companies.
He said companies need to first identify which assets they are defending and where those assets sit, and that would tell them what they need to be concerned about.
"Just because you learn about the latest attack vector doesn't mean your organization needs to change its security policies, and strategy," he said.
"The number one should be around employee training – and effective policy riding on how data is handled by employees. That's certainly where a lot of the problems come from."
Microsoft fixes bug in Windows Live file-sharing service
Microsoft confirmed it has fixed a bug in its online file storage and sharing service Windows Live FolderShare after users reported problems that the service was deleting files without user authorization.
Microsoft sent an e-mail to users Friday alerting them that it has fixed a bug that may have "accidentally moved" user files from their original folders into the FolderShare Trash folder, and that users should not delete files in Trash until they ensure they were meant to be deleted. It also advised users how to retrieve deleted files from the Trash folder.
A copy of the information sent to users has been posted on the FolderShare Web site.
In a Microsoft statement e-mailed by its public relations firm Monday, the company said it is working to assist users who have lost files on how to retrieve them. It also said that another online storage service that is also in beta, Windows Live SkyDrive, had not been affected by the bug.
Windows Live FolderShare, which allows users to store files online and then download and synchronize files to and between different devices and computers, is currently available in beta release.
Prior to being notified by Microsoft, users had been posting about the strange behavior of Windows Live FolderShare on a Microsoft online discussion board last week.
Microsoft also sent out a notification via the discussion board to let users know about the problem and how to handle it.
Even after Microsoft said the problem with moving files to the Trash had been fixed, users on the discussion board still were reporting buggy behavior from the service. Users noted that they were having trouble synchronizing files between computers and locating directories when using the service on Windows Vista.
Microsoft sent an e-mail to users Friday alerting them that it has fixed a bug that may have "accidentally moved" user files from their original folders into the FolderShare Trash folder, and that users should not delete files in Trash until they ensure they were meant to be deleted. It also advised users how to retrieve deleted files from the Trash folder.
A copy of the information sent to users has been posted on the FolderShare Web site.
In a Microsoft statement e-mailed by its public relations firm Monday, the company said it is working to assist users who have lost files on how to retrieve them. It also said that another online storage service that is also in beta, Windows Live SkyDrive, had not been affected by the bug.
Windows Live FolderShare, which allows users to store files online and then download and synchronize files to and between different devices and computers, is currently available in beta release.
Prior to being notified by Microsoft, users had been posting about the strange behavior of Windows Live FolderShare on a Microsoft online discussion board last week.
Microsoft also sent out a notification via the discussion board to let users know about the problem and how to handle it.
Even after Microsoft said the problem with moving files to the Trash had been fixed, users on the discussion board still were reporting buggy behavior from the service. Users noted that they were having trouble synchronizing files between computers and locating directories when using the service on Windows Vista.
CIA no role model for CIOs
The recent news that the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency destroyed videotapes of interrogations of two terrorist suspects may offer a timely reminder for CIOs at private companies in the U.S., tasked with electronic evidence preservation rules since last December.
The e-discovery rules, amendments to U.S. courts' Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, don't apply to the CIA, but the agency's decision to destroy videotapes showing harsh interrogation techniques may show private companies how not to handle evidence, some e-discovery experts said.
The e-discovery rules require U.S. companies to keep electronic records when they're faced with a civil lawsuit or the likelihood of a lawsuit. In effect, what this means is that companies should archive e-mail and other electronic records, said Ralph Harvey, CEO of Forensic & Compliance Systems, an e-mail archiving vendor based in Dublin, Ireland. "The lesson learned is you keep everything for a finite period," he said.
In the CIA case, several lawmakers have called for an investigation into the destruction of the videotapes. The tapes, recorded in 2002, were destroyed in November 2005, when there was a heated debate about the use of harsh interrogation techniques on terrorism suspects. Some former staff members at the government-created 9/11 Commission have also questioned whether the tapes were evidence that the CIA withheld from the group, which was investigating the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on the U.S.
In the e-discovery rules, companies can be subject to significant fines for not producing electronic evidence they're required to keep. In May 2006, even before the new e-discovery rules went into effect, Morgan Stanley agreed to pay a US$15 million fine for failing to produce e-mail linked to several legal investigations.
"Ultimately, the issue is you don't know how important that e-mail is to someone else," Harvey said.
One of the most tricky issues with e-discovery is the security of the evidence a company is supposed to preserve, Harvey added. Companies need to be able to find the electronic records, and in some cases, they may need to be able to prove that they didn't receive a certain e-mail message, he said. In nearly every case, they'll need to assure the court that their record is accurate.
"You can't say you're in compliance when Bob from administration, with a slight slipup, can delete all e-mails," he said.
Another issue the CIA case brings up is that electronic evidence can come in many forms, said Chris O'Brien, vice president of operations for Xerox Litigation Services. Right now, e-mail is the focus of e-discovery rules, but instant messages, electronic voice mail, and Web-based video conferencing could fall under e-discovery preservation rules, he said. "Anything that's electronically preserved could theoretically be subject to discovery," he said.
O'Brien said he'd be surprised, however, if many companies are archiving their video conferences in order to meet e-discovery rules.
Perhaps the biggest lesson is not to destroy evidence when it's part of an ongoing investigation -- in the CIA's case, the 9/11 Commission inquiry, said Patrick Egan, a white-collar criminal defense lawyer based in the Philadelphia office of the Fox Rothschild law firm. "Always tell the truth," he said.
The e-discovery rules, amendments to U.S. courts' Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, don't apply to the CIA, but the agency's decision to destroy videotapes showing harsh interrogation techniques may show private companies how not to handle evidence, some e-discovery experts said.
The e-discovery rules require U.S. companies to keep electronic records when they're faced with a civil lawsuit or the likelihood of a lawsuit. In effect, what this means is that companies should archive e-mail and other electronic records, said Ralph Harvey, CEO of Forensic & Compliance Systems, an e-mail archiving vendor based in Dublin, Ireland. "The lesson learned is you keep everything for a finite period," he said.
In the CIA case, several lawmakers have called for an investigation into the destruction of the videotapes. The tapes, recorded in 2002, were destroyed in November 2005, when there was a heated debate about the use of harsh interrogation techniques on terrorism suspects. Some former staff members at the government-created 9/11 Commission have also questioned whether the tapes were evidence that the CIA withheld from the group, which was investigating the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on the U.S.
In the e-discovery rules, companies can be subject to significant fines for not producing electronic evidence they're required to keep. In May 2006, even before the new e-discovery rules went into effect, Morgan Stanley agreed to pay a US$15 million fine for failing to produce e-mail linked to several legal investigations.
"Ultimately, the issue is you don't know how important that e-mail is to someone else," Harvey said.
One of the most tricky issues with e-discovery is the security of the evidence a company is supposed to preserve, Harvey added. Companies need to be able to find the electronic records, and in some cases, they may need to be able to prove that they didn't receive a certain e-mail message, he said. In nearly every case, they'll need to assure the court that their record is accurate.
"You can't say you're in compliance when Bob from administration, with a slight slipup, can delete all e-mails," he said.
Another issue the CIA case brings up is that electronic evidence can come in many forms, said Chris O'Brien, vice president of operations for Xerox Litigation Services. Right now, e-mail is the focus of e-discovery rules, but instant messages, electronic voice mail, and Web-based video conferencing could fall under e-discovery preservation rules, he said. "Anything that's electronically preserved could theoretically be subject to discovery," he said.
O'Brien said he'd be surprised, however, if many companies are archiving their video conferences in order to meet e-discovery rules.
Perhaps the biggest lesson is not to destroy evidence when it's part of an ongoing investigation -- in the CIA's case, the 9/11 Commission inquiry, said Patrick Egan, a white-collar criminal defense lawyer based in the Philadelphia office of the Fox Rothschild law firm. "Always tell the truth," he said.
Mobile Linux group releases first specification
While Google's Linux mobile phone platform, Android, has been stealing the spotlight, another longer-standing mobile Linux group is also moving ahead.
The Linux Phone Standards Forum (LiPS), comprised of companies including Orange, France Telecom, MontaVista and Access, completed the first release of its mobile Linux specification, it announced Monday. The group released half of the specification in June and has now added components including APIs (application programming interfaces) for telephony, messaging, calendar, instant messaging and presence functions, as well as new user interface components.
The specification covers all the key components for building a feature phone or a smart phone but is not meant to be a specification for a complete phone stack, said Bill Weinberg, general manager for LiPS. The idea is to allow developers to create applications that will work on all phones that use the LiPS specification.
The telephony API is a particularly important feature of the specification because it allows developers to create applications around the voice telephony functionality of the device, he said. That's a capability developers won't have with some other phone platforms like Apple's iPhone, which isn't expected to support development around telephony, he said.
LiPS expects to see multiple implementations of the standard in commercial phones, possibly quite soon, he said. In the next six months, the group should release some revisions to the specification based on real world experience. Beyond that, LiPS should begin releasing additional enabling technologies to the specification, he said.
The market greeted the launch of LiPS in 2005 with some fanfare, but nothing like the excitement around Google's recent announcement of Android. LiPS is different from the Open Handset Alliance, the group supporting Google's Android, because it is a specification that allows users to create different interoperable implementations while Android is itself one implementation of Linux, Weinberg said. "The basic notion of what OHA and Android put forth is an implementation of a phone stack that is Java-based and a given implementation," he said. "If that implementation is broadly accepted and devices are built on it, it could constitute a de facto standard. Our approach is a traditional one of standardization."
The various mobile Linux groups are essentially after the same thing, he said. "I'd say [LiPS] and OHA and for that matter LiMo are all attempting to unify what some people say is a fragmented market, but we're going about it in different fashions," Weinberg said. LiMo is a group founded by Motorola, NTT DoCoMo, Vodafone, Samsung and others to build a mobile Linux platform.
Weinberg admitted that the groups are competitive in at least one sense: They're all competing for resources to work on their respective projects. "They aren't competitive outright, they're just different approaches to the same problem," he said.
The Linux Phone Standards Forum (LiPS), comprised of companies including Orange, France Telecom, MontaVista and Access, completed the first release of its mobile Linux specification, it announced Monday. The group released half of the specification in June and has now added components including APIs (application programming interfaces) for telephony, messaging, calendar, instant messaging and presence functions, as well as new user interface components.
The specification covers all the key components for building a feature phone or a smart phone but is not meant to be a specification for a complete phone stack, said Bill Weinberg, general manager for LiPS. The idea is to allow developers to create applications that will work on all phones that use the LiPS specification.
The telephony API is a particularly important feature of the specification because it allows developers to create applications around the voice telephony functionality of the device, he said. That's a capability developers won't have with some other phone platforms like Apple's iPhone, which isn't expected to support development around telephony, he said.
LiPS expects to see multiple implementations of the standard in commercial phones, possibly quite soon, he said. In the next six months, the group should release some revisions to the specification based on real world experience. Beyond that, LiPS should begin releasing additional enabling technologies to the specification, he said.
The market greeted the launch of LiPS in 2005 with some fanfare, but nothing like the excitement around Google's recent announcement of Android. LiPS is different from the Open Handset Alliance, the group supporting Google's Android, because it is a specification that allows users to create different interoperable implementations while Android is itself one implementation of Linux, Weinberg said. "The basic notion of what OHA and Android put forth is an implementation of a phone stack that is Java-based and a given implementation," he said. "If that implementation is broadly accepted and devices are built on it, it could constitute a de facto standard. Our approach is a traditional one of standardization."
The various mobile Linux groups are essentially after the same thing, he said. "I'd say [LiPS] and OHA and for that matter LiMo are all attempting to unify what some people say is a fragmented market, but we're going about it in different fashions," Weinberg said. LiMo is a group founded by Motorola, NTT DoCoMo, Vodafone, Samsung and others to build a mobile Linux platform.
Weinberg admitted that the groups are competitive in at least one sense: They're all competing for resources to work on their respective projects. "They aren't competitive outright, they're just different approaches to the same problem," he said.
Toshiba launches its first tablet PC with LED screen
Toshiba on Monday launched its first tablet PCs with LED screens, taking some thunder away from Dell, which later in the day is expected to launch Latitude XT, its convertible PC with an LED screen.
Targeted at "mobile professionals," Portege M700 Tablet PCs come with 12.1-inch LED (light-emitting diode)-backlit displays and antiglare coating that display rich colors both indoors and outdoors, Toshiba said in a statement.
The touchscreen supports both finger and stylus input, the company said.
The tablet PCs are available in multiple configurations, with prices starting at US$1,449. The $1,449 Portege M700-S7008X is powered by Intel Core 2 Duo Processor T7250 running at 2GHz, and includes 1G byte of RAM, 80G-byte hard drive, graphics accelerator, wired and wireless a/b/g/n networking, DVD drive, webcam and Bluetooth support. It runs the Windows XP Tablet PC Edition 2005 OS.
Depending on configuration, weight for the systems starts at 4.4 pounds (2 kilograms).
Tablet PCs are trickling into the consumer space as touchscreen technology develops, showing signs of breaking away from its traditional presence in vertical markets like education and health, said Ben Bajarin, an analyst at Creative Strategies. Companies like Microsoft and Apple have invested money in developing touch technology and want to ensure it reaches multiple form-factor devices like ultramobile PCs, cell phones and notebooks, Bajarin said.
Screens with LED technology make Tablet PCs more attractive to consumers, Bajarin said. Compared to LCDs (liquid crystal displays), LED-backlit displays are brighter, save energy and have better contrast, Bajarin said.
Though OEMs have managed to drive down LED display prices, they remain expensive for the average consumer, Bajarin said. As more PC manufacturers adopt LED, prices may fall.
The system is available in the U.S. through Toshiba's Web site. Toshiba wasn't available for comment on worldwide availability.
Targeted at "mobile professionals," Portege M700 Tablet PCs come with 12.1-inch LED (light-emitting diode)-backlit displays and antiglare coating that display rich colors both indoors and outdoors, Toshiba said in a statement.
The touchscreen supports both finger and stylus input, the company said.
The tablet PCs are available in multiple configurations, with prices starting at US$1,449. The $1,449 Portege M700-S7008X is powered by Intel Core 2 Duo Processor T7250 running at 2GHz, and includes 1G byte of RAM, 80G-byte hard drive, graphics accelerator, wired and wireless a/b/g/n networking, DVD drive, webcam and Bluetooth support. It runs the Windows XP Tablet PC Edition 2005 OS.
Depending on configuration, weight for the systems starts at 4.4 pounds (2 kilograms).
Tablet PCs are trickling into the consumer space as touchscreen technology develops, showing signs of breaking away from its traditional presence in vertical markets like education and health, said Ben Bajarin, an analyst at Creative Strategies. Companies like Microsoft and Apple have invested money in developing touch technology and want to ensure it reaches multiple form-factor devices like ultramobile PCs, cell phones and notebooks, Bajarin said.
Screens with LED technology make Tablet PCs more attractive to consumers, Bajarin said. Compared to LCDs (liquid crystal displays), LED-backlit displays are brighter, save energy and have better contrast, Bajarin said.
Though OEMs have managed to drive down LED display prices, they remain expensive for the average consumer, Bajarin said. As more PC manufacturers adopt LED, prices may fall.
The system is available in the U.S. through Toshiba's Web site. Toshiba wasn't available for comment on worldwide availability.
Facebook partners quiet on Beacon fallout
Many partners in Facebook's Beacon seem reticent to address the raging privacy controversy surrounding the ad program, resorting to terse, vague statements or opting for outright silence when asked for comment.
The partners seem to be betting that the furor over Beacon's broad ability to track visitors to their sites will die down, and that they don't need to elaborate on their participation in a program many see as intrusive.
IDG News Service attempted to contact most Beacon partners via e-mail, phone or both, but many either never responded or limited their remarks to prepared statements that ignored the privacy questions posed.
The lack of comment contrasts sharply with the Beacon launch a month ago, when the partner companies expressed support for an ad system that has since been pelted with criticisms from privacy watchdog groups and concerned individuals.
More than 30 organizations, including Blockbuster, Sony Online Entertainment, eBay, The New York Times and IAC, pledged to implement Beacon in 44 of their Web sites.
Over the past week or so, IDG News Service asked most partners whether they have implemented Beacon, and, if so, which actions Beacon tracks on their site or sites. They were also asked whether the privacy controversy has caused them to alter their original plans for Beacon, and, if so, how. Finally, partners were asked how comfortable they are with Beacon's broad scope of user tracking on their sites and whether they alert their users that some of their actions will be captured by Beacon and transmitted back to Facebook.
Based on the responses of partners who cared to comment, it seems partners' views of Beacon range from cautious optimism to open disappointment. Those who have turned on Beacon have started with very simple implementations. None seem to be embracing it wholeheartedly at this point, which brings up the question of whether Beacon will ever truly deliver the benefits to advertisers that Facebook has promised.
Part of what Facebook calls Social Ads, Beacon tracks certain actions of Facebook users on partner sites in order to report those actions back to users' Facebook friends network. For Facebook, these notices represent what it considers an innovative and ultimately more effective form of online advertising that leverages the deep social connections of its users.
Soon after its launch, Beacon got blasted by privacy advocates who charged that the program was too confusing to manage and opt out of. As a result, Facebook has modified Beacon twice to make its workings more explicit and simplify the process of opting out.
However, Facebook hasn't indicated that it intends to address what is probably the biggest privacy concern with Beacon right now: That Beacon tracks all users in the affiliate external sites, including logged-off and former Facebook members and even non-Facebook members, and sends data back to Facebook without alerting users nor asking for their permission. Beacon also reports back to Facebook in the case of logged-in Facebook users who declined having their actions broadcast to their friends.
These findings, later confirmed by Facebook, were initially disclosed by a CA security researcher who has been conducting independent tests on Beacon. The findings contradicted Facebook's previous responses regarding questions about Beacon's extent of user tracking and data reporting.
The CA findings expanded the scope of Beacon privacy concerns beyond Facebook members to potentially all visitors to the partner sites. As such, the CA research has prompted questions of whether Beacon partners have a responsibility to alert visitors to their Web sites that some of their actions will be captured by Beacon, even if they aren't Facebook members.
"The affiliate sites have a responsibility to their own users to inform them that certain actions will result in Facebook receiving information, even if they do not have a Facebook account," wrote CA researcher Stefan Berteau in one of his notes about Beacon.
Although the CA findings have been broadly reported for a week now, many Beacon partners contacted said they were either unaware of them or simply declined to address them.
Some partners even declined to say whether they have turned on Beacon on their sites or not, and what actions they track or intend to track. That's the case of shoes site Zappos.com and gaming site GameFly.com.
Zappos.com provided an e-mailed prepared statement saying it has been "actively working" with Facebook on Beacon and that it has made and will make changes based on customer feedback. It didn't reply to several requests for clarification on the changes or on the status of its Beacon implementation.
Without addressing any questions specifically, GameFly.com e-mailed a statement saying the company values its members' privacy and security, and understands these issues are important. "We applaud Facebook's actions to make Beacon an opt-in feature as well as the introduction of a privacy control to turn Beacon off," the statement reads.
Meanwhile, the following partners were contacted and either didn't reply or declined to comment on the record about Beacon: Fandango, AllPosters.com, Blockbuster, ExpoTV, Hotwire, Joost, Live Nation, The Knot, Yelp, National Basketball Association, (RED), Conde Nast's Epicurious and WeddingChannel.com.
Among those that did offer comment, one of the most forthcoming was Overstock.com. The online retailer turned off Beacon on Nov. 21, said Judd Bagley, a spokesman for the company. "We have a specific threshold that the program needs to meet, in terms of privacy, before we'll be turning it back on," he said via e-mail. Until Beacon supports an opt-in both on Overstock as well as Facebook, Overstock won't begin using it again, he said.
When contacted last week, Overstock was just learning about the CA findings, Bagley said, adding that previously the company wasn't aware that Beacon had the ability to capture the actions of non-Facebook users.
Another company distancing itself from Beacon is online retailer Bluefly, which hasn't deployed Beacon and isn't committed to it, said a spokeswoman for the company. She said the company is analyzing the program to decide whether to move forward with it due to privacy concerns.
On the other end of the spectrum are partners that report satisfaction with Beacon so far. Jim Greer, CEO of Kongregate.com, a gaming site, turned Beacon on about a month ago to track one action -- games people play -- and has received mostly positive feedback from its members, Greer said in a phone interview.
Still, since a small percentage of users objected to the Beacon broadcasts, Kongregate.com now gives its registered users the option to turn Beacon off by modifying its privacy preferences accordingly, Greer said. In the future, Kongregate may enable the reporting of other actions besides the game a user played, such as the achievement of a high score, but it is keeping it simple for now, he said.
Regarding the tracking of non-Facebook users, Greer said that he considers it similar to what many online ad networks do, specifically those designed to do behavioral targeting of users. He is comfortable with Facebook's pledge that it deletes the data it gets about the actions of logged-off Facebook users, former Facebook members and nonmembers.
Some companies, like Six Apart, say their deployments of Beacon are unique, and thus avoid privacy issues. "The way we implemented Beacon on [blog publishing services] TypePad and LiveJournal that makes it truly opt-in is that until the user checks the box that opts them into the program, we don't insert the Facebook Beacon JavaScript into the page that appears when a user saves a new entry," said Michael Sippey, vice president of products at Six Apart, which runs TypePad and LiveJournal, in an e-mail exchange. For users who don't opt in, nothing changes on their sites, so "there is no chance of any data being sent to Facebook," he said. Six Apart sold LiveJournal last week to Russian online media company SUP.
EBay also said its implementation, scheduled for next year's first quarter, will avoid privacy issues. EBay will not embed any Facebook code onto eBay pages and only applies Beacon to selling activity, said Usher Lieberman, a spokesman for eBay. An eBay seller may opt in to the program so that their for-sale items will appear on their Facebook newsfeed, he said.
Other sites that were part of the original Beacon launch are somewhat cautious, if not optimistic. "Our position right now is that we think the Beacon program has tremendous potential in advancing social networking," Dan Toporek, a spokesman for Travelocity, said in an e-mail. "We will be evaluating consumer opinions towards the new user choices and privacy protections to determine when we're ready to launch the feature." He said that widely repeated reports saying that Travelocity had pulled out of the program in reaction to the privacy uproar were incorrect.
"We have not launched Beacon. It was on briefly in a very limited capacity during some testing, but was never fully turned on across our site," Toporek said via e-mail.
Another travel company, STA Travel, plans to wait to use Beacon until the latest changes to the program are made. "In light of Facebook's recent decision to update and improve the Beacon product, we have opted to put our involvement on hold until such changes have been implemented," said Amanda Webb, a spokeswoman for STA Travel. STA hasn't received any complaints or concerns from customers about Beacon, she said.
Others are moving forward with their Beacon implementations as planned. The travel section of the New York Times Web site is currently using Beacon in the user ratings section, and soon the review feature on the Movies section will also use the technology, said Diane McNulty, a spokeswoman for the company.
"We are using Beacon in a very limited way," she wrote via e-mail. "We are implementing it slowly." The privacy controversy hasn't altered the New York Times' original plans for Beacon, she said. McNulty didn't reply to additional questions sent via e-mail seeking comment about the privacy concerns.
Meanwhile, online retailer Mercantila had some unrelated technical issues that delayed its launch of Beacon, said Tom Fallows, a company spokesman. Those issues should be worked out in about two months, and in the meantime, the company will be watching the situation with plans to re-evaluate it "after the dust has settled," he said.
IAC, which said that several of its Web sites would use Beacon, plans to continue with its efforts to implement the program, said Leslie Cafferty, a spokeswoman for IAC.
Sony Online Entertainment has also implemented Beacon and tied it to the free-play trial of its Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy games in its Station.com site, said Courtney Simmons, a company spokeswoman. She declined to comment further and didn't immediately reply to a set of additional questions sent via e-mail.
TripAdvisor is currently running Beacon, but didn't answer further questions about privacy implications.
The partners seem to be betting that the furor over Beacon's broad ability to track visitors to their sites will die down, and that they don't need to elaborate on their participation in a program many see as intrusive.
IDG News Service attempted to contact most Beacon partners via e-mail, phone or both, but many either never responded or limited their remarks to prepared statements that ignored the privacy questions posed.
The lack of comment contrasts sharply with the Beacon launch a month ago, when the partner companies expressed support for an ad system that has since been pelted with criticisms from privacy watchdog groups and concerned individuals.
More than 30 organizations, including Blockbuster, Sony Online Entertainment, eBay, The New York Times and IAC, pledged to implement Beacon in 44 of their Web sites.
Over the past week or so, IDG News Service asked most partners whether they have implemented Beacon, and, if so, which actions Beacon tracks on their site or sites. They were also asked whether the privacy controversy has caused them to alter their original plans for Beacon, and, if so, how. Finally, partners were asked how comfortable they are with Beacon's broad scope of user tracking on their sites and whether they alert their users that some of their actions will be captured by Beacon and transmitted back to Facebook.
Based on the responses of partners who cared to comment, it seems partners' views of Beacon range from cautious optimism to open disappointment. Those who have turned on Beacon have started with very simple implementations. None seem to be embracing it wholeheartedly at this point, which brings up the question of whether Beacon will ever truly deliver the benefits to advertisers that Facebook has promised.
Part of what Facebook calls Social Ads, Beacon tracks certain actions of Facebook users on partner sites in order to report those actions back to users' Facebook friends network. For Facebook, these notices represent what it considers an innovative and ultimately more effective form of online advertising that leverages the deep social connections of its users.
Soon after its launch, Beacon got blasted by privacy advocates who charged that the program was too confusing to manage and opt out of. As a result, Facebook has modified Beacon twice to make its workings more explicit and simplify the process of opting out.
However, Facebook hasn't indicated that it intends to address what is probably the biggest privacy concern with Beacon right now: That Beacon tracks all users in the affiliate external sites, including logged-off and former Facebook members and even non-Facebook members, and sends data back to Facebook without alerting users nor asking for their permission. Beacon also reports back to Facebook in the case of logged-in Facebook users who declined having their actions broadcast to their friends.
These findings, later confirmed by Facebook, were initially disclosed by a CA security researcher who has been conducting independent tests on Beacon. The findings contradicted Facebook's previous responses regarding questions about Beacon's extent of user tracking and data reporting.
The CA findings expanded the scope of Beacon privacy concerns beyond Facebook members to potentially all visitors to the partner sites. As such, the CA research has prompted questions of whether Beacon partners have a responsibility to alert visitors to their Web sites that some of their actions will be captured by Beacon, even if they aren't Facebook members.
"The affiliate sites have a responsibility to their own users to inform them that certain actions will result in Facebook receiving information, even if they do not have a Facebook account," wrote CA researcher Stefan Berteau in one of his notes about Beacon.
Although the CA findings have been broadly reported for a week now, many Beacon partners contacted said they were either unaware of them or simply declined to address them.
Some partners even declined to say whether they have turned on Beacon on their sites or not, and what actions they track or intend to track. That's the case of shoes site Zappos.com and gaming site GameFly.com.
Zappos.com provided an e-mailed prepared statement saying it has been "actively working" with Facebook on Beacon and that it has made and will make changes based on customer feedback. It didn't reply to several requests for clarification on the changes or on the status of its Beacon implementation.
Without addressing any questions specifically, GameFly.com e-mailed a statement saying the company values its members' privacy and security, and understands these issues are important. "We applaud Facebook's actions to make Beacon an opt-in feature as well as the introduction of a privacy control to turn Beacon off," the statement reads.
Meanwhile, the following partners were contacted and either didn't reply or declined to comment on the record about Beacon: Fandango, AllPosters.com, Blockbuster, ExpoTV, Hotwire, Joost, Live Nation, The Knot, Yelp, National Basketball Association, (RED), Conde Nast's Epicurious and WeddingChannel.com.
Among those that did offer comment, one of the most forthcoming was Overstock.com. The online retailer turned off Beacon on Nov. 21, said Judd Bagley, a spokesman for the company. "We have a specific threshold that the program needs to meet, in terms of privacy, before we'll be turning it back on," he said via e-mail. Until Beacon supports an opt-in both on Overstock as well as Facebook, Overstock won't begin using it again, he said.
When contacted last week, Overstock was just learning about the CA findings, Bagley said, adding that previously the company wasn't aware that Beacon had the ability to capture the actions of non-Facebook users.
Another company distancing itself from Beacon is online retailer Bluefly, which hasn't deployed Beacon and isn't committed to it, said a spokeswoman for the company. She said the company is analyzing the program to decide whether to move forward with it due to privacy concerns.
On the other end of the spectrum are partners that report satisfaction with Beacon so far. Jim Greer, CEO of Kongregate.com, a gaming site, turned Beacon on about a month ago to track one action -- games people play -- and has received mostly positive feedback from its members, Greer said in a phone interview.
Still, since a small percentage of users objected to the Beacon broadcasts, Kongregate.com now gives its registered users the option to turn Beacon off by modifying its privacy preferences accordingly, Greer said. In the future, Kongregate may enable the reporting of other actions besides the game a user played, such as the achievement of a high score, but it is keeping it simple for now, he said.
Regarding the tracking of non-Facebook users, Greer said that he considers it similar to what many online ad networks do, specifically those designed to do behavioral targeting of users. He is comfortable with Facebook's pledge that it deletes the data it gets about the actions of logged-off Facebook users, former Facebook members and nonmembers.
Some companies, like Six Apart, say their deployments of Beacon are unique, and thus avoid privacy issues. "The way we implemented Beacon on [blog publishing services] TypePad and LiveJournal that makes it truly opt-in is that until the user checks the box that opts them into the program, we don't insert the Facebook Beacon JavaScript into the page that appears when a user saves a new entry," said Michael Sippey, vice president of products at Six Apart, which runs TypePad and LiveJournal, in an e-mail exchange. For users who don't opt in, nothing changes on their sites, so "there is no chance of any data being sent to Facebook," he said. Six Apart sold LiveJournal last week to Russian online media company SUP.
EBay also said its implementation, scheduled for next year's first quarter, will avoid privacy issues. EBay will not embed any Facebook code onto eBay pages and only applies Beacon to selling activity, said Usher Lieberman, a spokesman for eBay. An eBay seller may opt in to the program so that their for-sale items will appear on their Facebook newsfeed, he said.
Other sites that were part of the original Beacon launch are somewhat cautious, if not optimistic. "Our position right now is that we think the Beacon program has tremendous potential in advancing social networking," Dan Toporek, a spokesman for Travelocity, said in an e-mail. "We will be evaluating consumer opinions towards the new user choices and privacy protections to determine when we're ready to launch the feature." He said that widely repeated reports saying that Travelocity had pulled out of the program in reaction to the privacy uproar were incorrect.
"We have not launched Beacon. It was on briefly in a very limited capacity during some testing, but was never fully turned on across our site," Toporek said via e-mail.
Another travel company, STA Travel, plans to wait to use Beacon until the latest changes to the program are made. "In light of Facebook's recent decision to update and improve the Beacon product, we have opted to put our involvement on hold until such changes have been implemented," said Amanda Webb, a spokeswoman for STA Travel. STA hasn't received any complaints or concerns from customers about Beacon, she said.
Others are moving forward with their Beacon implementations as planned. The travel section of the New York Times Web site is currently using Beacon in the user ratings section, and soon the review feature on the Movies section will also use the technology, said Diane McNulty, a spokeswoman for the company.
"We are using Beacon in a very limited way," she wrote via e-mail. "We are implementing it slowly." The privacy controversy hasn't altered the New York Times' original plans for Beacon, she said. McNulty didn't reply to additional questions sent via e-mail seeking comment about the privacy concerns.
Meanwhile, online retailer Mercantila had some unrelated technical issues that delayed its launch of Beacon, said Tom Fallows, a company spokesman. Those issues should be worked out in about two months, and in the meantime, the company will be watching the situation with plans to re-evaluate it "after the dust has settled," he said.
IAC, which said that several of its Web sites would use Beacon, plans to continue with its efforts to implement the program, said Leslie Cafferty, a spokeswoman for IAC.
Sony Online Entertainment has also implemented Beacon and tied it to the free-play trial of its Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy games in its Station.com site, said Courtney Simmons, a company spokeswoman. She declined to comment further and didn't immediately reply to a set of additional questions sent via e-mail.
TripAdvisor is currently running Beacon, but didn't answer further questions about privacy implications.
CNBC taps Microsoft for banner, contextual ads
CNBC has picked Microsoft to be the exclusive provider of display and contextual advertising in the U.S. for the CNBC.com Web site.
The companies are not disclosing the length or financial terms of the deal, but said that Microsoft will now take over the bulk of selling banner and contextual advertising for the site. The deal is similar to the one Microsoft has with both Facebook globally and Digg in the U.S., said Jon Tinter, general manager, strategy and business development at Microsoft.
Microsoft plans to package ad sales from its MSNMoney site with sales for CNBC.com, which focuses on providing real-time financial news and stock market information, he said.
Contextual advertising delivered by Microsoft is expected to begin appearing later this month on the CNBC.com site, while display advertising will begin in March 2008.
Though CNBC's parent company NBC Universal has a relationship with Doubleclick that will continue, CNBC, which had been selling all of the banner and contextual ads on its site, will now turn the bulk of that business over to Microsoft, said Elizabeth Sami, senior vice president of business development at CNBC.com. The company has not decided if it will use a third-party advertising partner for the international portions of CNBC.com, which are being sold by in-house staff, she said.
Google announced its intent to purchase Doubleclick in April, but the deal has not closed pending regulatory approval. It is currently under scrutiny by federal regulators and lawmakers.
Microsoft's strength in selling advertising on its MSNMoney site was part of the draw of teaming with the company over other providers of online advertising, Sami said. She added that the company believes that Microsoft has the best technology to provide this kind of advertising.
The deal with CNBC.com and others are some evidence that Microsoft's US$6 billion purchase of digital services agency aQuantive in May may be starting to pay off. Tinter said it will be a combination of Microsoft's adCenter platform and technology from that acquisition that will be driving ad sales on the CNBC.com site.
In the last two years Microsoft has added services and content for its online brands Windows Live and MSN to boost the revenue of its Online Services Business (OSB) segment, particularly from online advertising. So far, however, financial analysts have said they are unimpressed by the growth of the group despite this investment. Revenue from online services grew only 8.7 percent from 2.3 million to 2.5 million for Microsoft's fiscal year 2007, ended June 30.
The companies are not disclosing the length or financial terms of the deal, but said that Microsoft will now take over the bulk of selling banner and contextual advertising for the site. The deal is similar to the one Microsoft has with both Facebook globally and Digg in the U.S., said Jon Tinter, general manager, strategy and business development at Microsoft.
Microsoft plans to package ad sales from its MSNMoney site with sales for CNBC.com, which focuses on providing real-time financial news and stock market information, he said.
Contextual advertising delivered by Microsoft is expected to begin appearing later this month on the CNBC.com site, while display advertising will begin in March 2008.
Though CNBC's parent company NBC Universal has a relationship with Doubleclick that will continue, CNBC, which had been selling all of the banner and contextual ads on its site, will now turn the bulk of that business over to Microsoft, said Elizabeth Sami, senior vice president of business development at CNBC.com. The company has not decided if it will use a third-party advertising partner for the international portions of CNBC.com, which are being sold by in-house staff, she said.
Google announced its intent to purchase Doubleclick in April, but the deal has not closed pending regulatory approval. It is currently under scrutiny by federal regulators and lawmakers.
Microsoft's strength in selling advertising on its MSNMoney site was part of the draw of teaming with the company over other providers of online advertising, Sami said. She added that the company believes that Microsoft has the best technology to provide this kind of advertising.
The deal with CNBC.com and others are some evidence that Microsoft's US$6 billion purchase of digital services agency aQuantive in May may be starting to pay off. Tinter said it will be a combination of Microsoft's adCenter platform and technology from that acquisition that will be driving ad sales on the CNBC.com site.
In the last two years Microsoft has added services and content for its online brands Windows Live and MSN to boost the revenue of its Online Services Business (OSB) segment, particularly from online advertising. So far, however, financial analysts have said they are unimpressed by the growth of the group despite this investment. Revenue from online services grew only 8.7 percent from 2.3 million to 2.5 million for Microsoft's fiscal year 2007, ended June 30.
Paris on Rails welcomes Ruby on Rails 2.0
Organizers of the Paris on Rails conference that opened Monday were so busy preparing over the weekend that they hadn't heard the good news: Version 2.0 of the Ruby on Rails software development framework was released Friday.
Rails had already reached version 2.0.1 by the time they heard the news, as its creator David Heinemeier Hansson released an update for a glitch discovered after launch. Rails offers a framework of tools for developing Web sites using Ruby, a programming language invented in 1995 by Yukihiro Matsumoto.
Hansson, of Web application developer 37signals, joined the conference by video-link to present the changes.
"In 2.0 we're making a really strong statement about RESTful application design," he said, referring to the new version's preference for REST (Representational State Transfer) rather than SOAP (Simple Object Access Protocol) for passing messages in Web applications.
Developers here are ready for the change, said Richard Piacentini, founder and associate director of Nuxos SARL, a French software systems integrator working with Ruby on Rails, and also one of the conference organizers.
With the new version, Rails has become a technology for ensuring continuity, whereas previous versions were more about breaking free from the past, he said.
That continuity comes in part from the support Ruby now has from industry stalwarts like Sun Microsystems and Microsoft.
Sun recently hired the developers of JRuby, an implementation of Ruby for the Java virtual machine that allows Ruby on Rails developers to make use of the work enterprises have already put into developing Java application frameworks. Microsoft, for its part, hired the developer of RubyCLR, a bridge between Ruby and Microsoft's .Net framework, allowing Rails developers to similarly leverage businesses' .Net legacy.
Nevertheless, Ruby on Rails 2.0 is making some breaks from the past, dropping a certain number of functions that had been carried over from the very first version.
"We wanted to get some of that cruft out," said Hansson. Some of the dropped elements have been moved to plugins: Include the plugin and your application will continue to work just fine, he said.
Version 1.2.6 logs warnings when applications use soon-to-be-eliminated functions. Hansson advised users to test their applications in 1.2.6 first before upgrading to 2.0 for information about whether their application will still work.
The no-surprises approach has helped companies like Nuxos. "The things that changed were announced six months ago," Nuxos' Piacentini said, adding that his company has already begun developing for Version 2.0.
More than the code changes, the move to Version 2.0 marks a rite of passage for many developers present.
"Release 2.0 is a sign of maturity," said Yann Lugrin of Liquid Concept, a Web site creator in Lausanne, Switzerland. After working with PHP and Python, Lugrin now works entirely in Ruby on Rails.
That apparent maturity may make businesses take a second look at Ruby on Rails, said Lugrin.
Lugrin's customers, most of them small and medium-size businesses, don't care what he uses to build their sites, they just want something that fits their budgets. He finds Rails a big help with that.
One of its attractions is that the framework takes care of many of the elements that are common between projects.
"Rails lets us concentrate our development efforts on what makes our application different," he said, pointing to one of the guiding principles of Rails development: "Don't repeat yourself."
Another attraction is that Rails embodies many of the principles of agile software development, said Lugrin. With its focus on writing tests before code, it helps programmers working on projects where the requirements are changed and refined during the course of development.
At the Paris on Rails event, two businesses presented projects developed in Ruby on Rails.
Aurélien Géron of Wi-Fi hotspot operator WiFirst explained how his company had chosen Ruby on Rails over Python to develop a site offering e-mail, photo hosting and contact management. "There were already lots of libraries available for Python," he said, but in the end it was the dynamic development community around Ruby on Rails that carried the day.
RBC Dexia Investor Services, a bank, explained how it is using Ruby on Rails to make better use of its existing Java application infrastructure.
The conference, now in its second year, drew 240 developers and project managers. That's about half the number that attended a conference aimed at users of rival Web programming language PHP here last month, the Forum PHP Paris.
The difference underscores a complaint common among businesses using Rails here -- there aren't enough available Ruby on Rails programmers around.
"France is historically one of the countries where PHP is strongest," said Piacentini.
Getting Rails into the hearts and minds of more developers will be the next challenge, then.
That might happen with the attention being paid by big players such as Sun and Microsoft -- or even Apple, which included the software in Leopard, the latest version of Mac OS X.
"When you buy a new Mac, Rails is right on the development tools CD," said Hansson.
Some will take little persuading. Many of the speakers, and most of the front row of the audience at Paris on Rails, were already carrying either a MacBook or an iPhone.
Rails had already reached version 2.0.1 by the time they heard the news, as its creator David Heinemeier Hansson released an update for a glitch discovered after launch. Rails offers a framework of tools for developing Web sites using Ruby, a programming language invented in 1995 by Yukihiro Matsumoto.
Hansson, of Web application developer 37signals, joined the conference by video-link to present the changes.
"In 2.0 we're making a really strong statement about RESTful application design," he said, referring to the new version's preference for REST (Representational State Transfer) rather than SOAP (Simple Object Access Protocol) for passing messages in Web applications.
Developers here are ready for the change, said Richard Piacentini, founder and associate director of Nuxos SARL, a French software systems integrator working with Ruby on Rails, and also one of the conference organizers.
With the new version, Rails has become a technology for ensuring continuity, whereas previous versions were more about breaking free from the past, he said.
That continuity comes in part from the support Ruby now has from industry stalwarts like Sun Microsystems and Microsoft.
Sun recently hired the developers of JRuby, an implementation of Ruby for the Java virtual machine that allows Ruby on Rails developers to make use of the work enterprises have already put into developing Java application frameworks. Microsoft, for its part, hired the developer of RubyCLR, a bridge between Ruby and Microsoft's .Net framework, allowing Rails developers to similarly leverage businesses' .Net legacy.
Nevertheless, Ruby on Rails 2.0 is making some breaks from the past, dropping a certain number of functions that had been carried over from the very first version.
"We wanted to get some of that cruft out," said Hansson. Some of the dropped elements have been moved to plugins: Include the plugin and your application will continue to work just fine, he said.
Version 1.2.6 logs warnings when applications use soon-to-be-eliminated functions. Hansson advised users to test their applications in 1.2.6 first before upgrading to 2.0 for information about whether their application will still work.
The no-surprises approach has helped companies like Nuxos. "The things that changed were announced six months ago," Nuxos' Piacentini said, adding that his company has already begun developing for Version 2.0.
More than the code changes, the move to Version 2.0 marks a rite of passage for many developers present.
"Release 2.0 is a sign of maturity," said Yann Lugrin of Liquid Concept, a Web site creator in Lausanne, Switzerland. After working with PHP and Python, Lugrin now works entirely in Ruby on Rails.
That apparent maturity may make businesses take a second look at Ruby on Rails, said Lugrin.
Lugrin's customers, most of them small and medium-size businesses, don't care what he uses to build their sites, they just want something that fits their budgets. He finds Rails a big help with that.
One of its attractions is that the framework takes care of many of the elements that are common between projects.
"Rails lets us concentrate our development efforts on what makes our application different," he said, pointing to one of the guiding principles of Rails development: "Don't repeat yourself."
Another attraction is that Rails embodies many of the principles of agile software development, said Lugrin. With its focus on writing tests before code, it helps programmers working on projects where the requirements are changed and refined during the course of development.
At the Paris on Rails event, two businesses presented projects developed in Ruby on Rails.
Aurélien Géron of Wi-Fi hotspot operator WiFirst explained how his company had chosen Ruby on Rails over Python to develop a site offering e-mail, photo hosting and contact management. "There were already lots of libraries available for Python," he said, but in the end it was the dynamic development community around Ruby on Rails that carried the day.
RBC Dexia Investor Services, a bank, explained how it is using Ruby on Rails to make better use of its existing Java application infrastructure.
The conference, now in its second year, drew 240 developers and project managers. That's about half the number that attended a conference aimed at users of rival Web programming language PHP here last month, the Forum PHP Paris.
The difference underscores a complaint common among businesses using Rails here -- there aren't enough available Ruby on Rails programmers around.
"France is historically one of the countries where PHP is strongest," said Piacentini.
Getting Rails into the hearts and minds of more developers will be the next challenge, then.
That might happen with the attention being paid by big players such as Sun and Microsoft -- or even Apple, which included the software in Leopard, the latest version of Mac OS X.
"When you buy a new Mac, Rails is right on the development tools CD," said Hansson.
Some will take little persuading. Many of the speakers, and most of the front row of the audience at Paris on Rails, were already carrying either a MacBook or an iPhone.
Iona upgrades open, closed source SOA technologies
On Monday, Iona Technologies is updating its Artix and Fuse SOA product lines, which feature the Artix closed source enterprise service bus and the Fuse open source technologies.
Iona offers a distributed approach to SOA that supports combinations of open source and closed source software. "We could call that the hybrid approach," said Eric Newcomer, Iona CTO.
A key addition to the Fuse product line is Fuse HQ, which serves as a management console for managing open source products from one console. It also can manage software such as Web servers. Fuse HQ is based on Hyperic Enterprise technology.
"It's a single management console" that also can monitor Artix software, said Debbie Moynihan, director of product management for open source at Iona.
With Artix, Iona is adding enhanced governance in the Artix registry and repository. Enhancements include versioning support, customized metadata, and improved visualization of deployed Web services.
Also featured in Artix is additional support for enterprise integration patterns, with capabilities offered such as message splitting and message validation. This simplifies the use of common patterns for integration developers, Newcomer said.
Artix features an SOA infrastructure suite, Iona said. With the update, ActiveBPEL 4.0, which is embedded in the Artix Orchestration software product, now supports BPEL (Business Process Execution Language) 2.0, which offers capabilities for message attachments and additional security. Artix Orchestration provides for workflow and service orchestrations.
Iona also has upgraded the mainframe edition of its Artix ESB, enabling users to get back entire result sets from DB2 stored procedures and better memory management for PL1 and Cobol.
Other improvements in Monday's rollout include bug fixes and minor enhancements.
Other Fuse products being rolled out include:
-- Fuse ESB 3.3, based on Apache ServiceMix 3.3.
-- Fuse Message Broker 5.0, based on Apache ActiveMQ 5.0.
-- Fuse Services Framework 2.0.3, based on the Apache CXF 2.0.3 project.
-- Fuse Mediation Router 1.3, which is based on Apache Camel 1.3.
New Artix offerings offered as part of Artix 5.1 Advanced SOA Infrastructure Suite include:
-- Artix ESB 5.1.
-- Artix Orchestration 5.1.
-- Artix Registry/Repository 1.5.
-- Artix Data Services 3.6.3.
Iona offers a distributed approach to SOA that supports combinations of open source and closed source software. "We could call that the hybrid approach," said Eric Newcomer, Iona CTO.
A key addition to the Fuse product line is Fuse HQ, which serves as a management console for managing open source products from one console. It also can manage software such as Web servers. Fuse HQ is based on Hyperic Enterprise technology.
"It's a single management console" that also can monitor Artix software, said Debbie Moynihan, director of product management for open source at Iona.
With Artix, Iona is adding enhanced governance in the Artix registry and repository. Enhancements include versioning support, customized metadata, and improved visualization of deployed Web services.
Also featured in Artix is additional support for enterprise integration patterns, with capabilities offered such as message splitting and message validation. This simplifies the use of common patterns for integration developers, Newcomer said.
Artix features an SOA infrastructure suite, Iona said. With the update, ActiveBPEL 4.0, which is embedded in the Artix Orchestration software product, now supports BPEL (Business Process Execution Language) 2.0, which offers capabilities for message attachments and additional security. Artix Orchestration provides for workflow and service orchestrations.
Iona also has upgraded the mainframe edition of its Artix ESB, enabling users to get back entire result sets from DB2 stored procedures and better memory management for PL1 and Cobol.
Other improvements in Monday's rollout include bug fixes and minor enhancements.
Other Fuse products being rolled out include:
-- Fuse ESB 3.3, based on Apache ServiceMix 3.3.
-- Fuse Message Broker 5.0, based on Apache ActiveMQ 5.0.
-- Fuse Services Framework 2.0.3, based on the Apache CXF 2.0.3 project.
-- Fuse Mediation Router 1.3, which is based on Apache Camel 1.3.
New Artix offerings offered as part of Artix 5.1 Advanced SOA Infrastructure Suite include:
-- Artix ESB 5.1.
-- Artix Orchestration 5.1.
-- Artix Registry/Repository 1.5.
-- Artix Data Services 3.6.3.
EMC adds VMware support to Invista SAN tools
EMC Corp. today announced that the first upgrade of its EMC Invista networked storage virtualization tool will feature the ability to integrate with VMWare virtual servers.
The upgrade, which comes more than two years after Invista was first introduced, has been certified for use with VMware's ESX virtual server in VMWare Infrastructure 3 environments, EMC officials said.
The new Invista 2.0 software is currently available and is priced from $100,000, EMC said.
A slightly different version of the software, dubbed Invista 2.1, which adds heterogeneous mirroring and storage pooling capabilities, will be released before the end of 2007, said Colin Bailey, director of software product marketing for Hopkinton, Mass.-based EMC.
Bailey said Invista 2.0 offers improved I/O throughput and scalability compared to the initial version. He said the upgraded technology doubles the number of virtual volumes - or what's presented to the host machine - from 4,000 to 8,000 and can support 40 simultaneous mobility sessions, five time more than the previous version.
Invista 2.0 also adds new links to EMC's Replication Manager to automate and provide context around Invista clones in VMWare deployments. "We want to bring together the virtualization of servers combined with the virtualization of storage," remarked Bailey.
Mike Rubesch, executive director of IT systems and operations at Purdue University, in West Lafayette, Indiana, has been running Invista 2.0 in tandem with VMware virtualization software since August. Purdue runs 150 VMware virtual servers and about 350 physical Microsoft Windows and Unix-based servers.
Rubesch said the upgraded Invista software has eased the process of managing the school's 220TB and 600 fabric switch port architecture by its two storage administrators.
"As we grew, our system administrators had to pick up more and more storage activity." he said. "That required zoning new storage to servers, doing server copies and redoing applications so you're looking at new storage. [Now] you zone it once to Invista and it takes care of" assigning storage.
Rubesch estimated Purdue's storage needs are growing by about 40% a year, which forced IT officials to re-think how physical storage is managed, and how it could better utilize virtualization technology.
"We didn't have a rational tiered storage approach," he said. "We didn't have the tools to move things around easily. That's going to be very important to us. I look at [Invista] as a way to make this a lot less painful."
Rubesch said, however, that the new version does not let EMC Control Center recognize Invista virtual targets. "That's something [EMC] will have to address," he added.
The distributed Cluster Control Path (CPC) of Invista 2.0 has been tweaked to enhance availability and failover by separating the CPC's physical components by up to 1000 feet, Bailey said. Additionally, RAID-1 mirroring has been added to the virtualization tool, he added.
The Invista framework also leverages SAN switches from Cisco Systems Inc. and Brocade Communications Systems Inc. to push IOs to multi-vendor storage environments through what is described as a split path architecture. Bailey said about 200 customers are currently running Invista.
The upgrade, which comes more than two years after Invista was first introduced, has been certified for use with VMware's ESX virtual server in VMWare Infrastructure 3 environments, EMC officials said.
The new Invista 2.0 software is currently available and is priced from $100,000, EMC said.
A slightly different version of the software, dubbed Invista 2.1, which adds heterogeneous mirroring and storage pooling capabilities, will be released before the end of 2007, said Colin Bailey, director of software product marketing for Hopkinton, Mass.-based EMC.
Bailey said Invista 2.0 offers improved I/O throughput and scalability compared to the initial version. He said the upgraded technology doubles the number of virtual volumes - or what's presented to the host machine - from 4,000 to 8,000 and can support 40 simultaneous mobility sessions, five time more than the previous version.
Invista 2.0 also adds new links to EMC's Replication Manager to automate and provide context around Invista clones in VMWare deployments. "We want to bring together the virtualization of servers combined with the virtualization of storage," remarked Bailey.
Mike Rubesch, executive director of IT systems and operations at Purdue University, in West Lafayette, Indiana, has been running Invista 2.0 in tandem with VMware virtualization software since August. Purdue runs 150 VMware virtual servers and about 350 physical Microsoft Windows and Unix-based servers.
Rubesch said the upgraded Invista software has eased the process of managing the school's 220TB and 600 fabric switch port architecture by its two storage administrators.
"As we grew, our system administrators had to pick up more and more storage activity." he said. "That required zoning new storage to servers, doing server copies and redoing applications so you're looking at new storage. [Now] you zone it once to Invista and it takes care of" assigning storage.
Rubesch estimated Purdue's storage needs are growing by about 40% a year, which forced IT officials to re-think how physical storage is managed, and how it could better utilize virtualization technology.
"We didn't have a rational tiered storage approach," he said. "We didn't have the tools to move things around easily. That's going to be very important to us. I look at [Invista] as a way to make this a lot less painful."
Rubesch said, however, that the new version does not let EMC Control Center recognize Invista virtual targets. "That's something [EMC] will have to address," he added.
The distributed Cluster Control Path (CPC) of Invista 2.0 has been tweaked to enhance availability and failover by separating the CPC's physical components by up to 1000 feet, Bailey said. Additionally, RAID-1 mirroring has been added to the virtualization tool, he added.
The Invista framework also leverages SAN switches from Cisco Systems Inc. and Brocade Communications Systems Inc. to push IOs to multi-vendor storage environments through what is described as a split path architecture. Bailey said about 200 customers are currently running Invista.
NTT DoCoMo updates kid-friendly cell phone
NTT DoCoMo is launching a new cell phone for children that has a loud "panic" alarm and a location-tracker to help parents find their kids quickly if they get lost.
The F801i is due to go on sale in Japan later this month and will be NTT DoCoMo's second handset for children. The first was launched in 2006 and has sold just under 500,000 units, according to Takeshi Natsuno, senior vice president and managing director of NTT DoCoMo's Multimedia Services division.
Like its predecessor, the F801i has several child safety features, including a 100-decibel panic alarm that the child can activate by pulling on a cord. When the alarm sounds the phone flashes and sends an email to the child's parents, at a preregistered address, that includes GPS (Global Positioning System) information with the child's location. Children can also send their location without triggering the alarm, by pressing a button on the side of the handset.
New to the F801i is a remote controller that children can wear on their wrist like a watch. The cell phone will lock if it is separated from the controller by more than a certain distance, if the child has forgotten it somewhere, for example. It will also ring when it gets within 10 meters of the controller, to help find it again. The phone will also notify the parents via email if it is separated from the controller for more than 5 minutes.
The F801i blocks access to adult Web sites, and can be programmed to block access to the Internet altogether between 10pm and 6am. At other times the phone shows a special children's version of the I-mode home page.
Like the first version, the new phone requires a screwdriver to remove the battery, to prevent children from removing it to disable the phone's tracking ability.
The WCDMA (wideband code division multiple access) handset measures 10.5 centimeters by 4.8cm by 1.8cm and weighs 120 grams. It has a stand-by time of about 400 hours, talk-time of 185 minutes and video call time of 110 minutes. The phone is manufactured by Fujitsu, and there are no current plans to offer it outside Japan.
The F801i is due to go on sale in Japan later this month and will be NTT DoCoMo's second handset for children. The first was launched in 2006 and has sold just under 500,000 units, according to Takeshi Natsuno, senior vice president and managing director of NTT DoCoMo's Multimedia Services division.
Like its predecessor, the F801i has several child safety features, including a 100-decibel panic alarm that the child can activate by pulling on a cord. When the alarm sounds the phone flashes and sends an email to the child's parents, at a preregistered address, that includes GPS (Global Positioning System) information with the child's location. Children can also send their location without triggering the alarm, by pressing a button on the side of the handset.
New to the F801i is a remote controller that children can wear on their wrist like a watch. The cell phone will lock if it is separated from the controller by more than a certain distance, if the child has forgotten it somewhere, for example. It will also ring when it gets within 10 meters of the controller, to help find it again. The phone will also notify the parents via email if it is separated from the controller for more than 5 minutes.
The F801i blocks access to adult Web sites, and can be programmed to block access to the Internet altogether between 10pm and 6am. At other times the phone shows a special children's version of the I-mode home page.
Like the first version, the new phone requires a screwdriver to remove the battery, to prevent children from removing it to disable the phone's tracking ability.
The WCDMA (wideband code division multiple access) handset measures 10.5 centimeters by 4.8cm by 1.8cm and weighs 120 grams. It has a stand-by time of about 400 hours, talk-time of 185 minutes and video call time of 110 minutes. The phone is manufactured by Fujitsu, and there are no current plans to offer it outside Japan.
Australia leads Asia's push into SOA
The Asia region's market for service-oriented architecture is estimated to be worth $810 million, according to Springboard Research, but it's growing fast and a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 40 percent will lift its value to US$2.2 billion by 2010.
Springboard's research further showed that Australia was the largest SOA market in the region at $205 million.
"SOA continues to gain traction in the market as more companies are either implementing SOA or are planning to do so," said Balaka Baruah Aggarwal, senior analyst of emerging software for Springboard. "Awareness has increased substantially in the last year, and we are now seeing that translate into healthier adoption levels across Asia," Aggarwal added.
The primary SOA drivers in Asia are improved service delivery in increasingly competitive markets and improved integration at both the data and application levels. The leading service delivery improvements enabled by SOA cited by respondents included reducing the time and cost of delivering services, making services sharable across the enterprise, and more flexible and reusable services. Although equally important, integration appears to be emerging as an enabler supporting the improved service delivery objective.
Mergers and acquisitions (M&As) are also strong drivers for SOA deployment, with 49 percent of the surveyed companies that had experienced M&A deploying SOA to integrate the IT systems of the merged companies.
Governance is also becoming more important with 85 percent of survey respondents instituting governance in SOA deployments and 40 percent having a structure integrated from the beginning of implementation.
"While SOA continues to do well in the region, users still have some challenges. The main challenge with SOA deployment as named by survey respondents is managing performance and scalability, and 21 percent mentioned this difficulty as their number one area of concern," said Aggarwal.
"Additionally, SOA is still largely a technology initiative led by IT managers, as indicated by 68 percent of our surveyed respondents; as such, SOA has mainly been a technology-driven investment instead of an investment focused on addressing clear-cut business goals," Aggarwal added. "This presents an opportunity for vendors."
In Springboard's analysis, IBM remained the leading SOA vendor in the region, followed other strong SOA players such as Microsoft, BEA, Hewlett-Packard, SAP, Tibco, and Oracle.
From its end-user survey, Springboard found that respondents named "proven products and solutions" as the most important reason for choosing an SOA vendor, followed by "clearly defined roadmap for deployment" and "vendor reputation".
Springboard's research further showed that Australia was the largest SOA market in the region at $205 million.
"SOA continues to gain traction in the market as more companies are either implementing SOA or are planning to do so," said Balaka Baruah Aggarwal, senior analyst of emerging software for Springboard. "Awareness has increased substantially in the last year, and we are now seeing that translate into healthier adoption levels across Asia," Aggarwal added.
The primary SOA drivers in Asia are improved service delivery in increasingly competitive markets and improved integration at both the data and application levels. The leading service delivery improvements enabled by SOA cited by respondents included reducing the time and cost of delivering services, making services sharable across the enterprise, and more flexible and reusable services. Although equally important, integration appears to be emerging as an enabler supporting the improved service delivery objective.
Mergers and acquisitions (M&As) are also strong drivers for SOA deployment, with 49 percent of the surveyed companies that had experienced M&A deploying SOA to integrate the IT systems of the merged companies.
Governance is also becoming more important with 85 percent of survey respondents instituting governance in SOA deployments and 40 percent having a structure integrated from the beginning of implementation.
"While SOA continues to do well in the region, users still have some challenges. The main challenge with SOA deployment as named by survey respondents is managing performance and scalability, and 21 percent mentioned this difficulty as their number one area of concern," said Aggarwal.
"Additionally, SOA is still largely a technology initiative led by IT managers, as indicated by 68 percent of our surveyed respondents; as such, SOA has mainly been a technology-driven investment instead of an investment focused on addressing clear-cut business goals," Aggarwal added. "This presents an opportunity for vendors."
In Springboard's analysis, IBM remained the leading SOA vendor in the region, followed other strong SOA players such as Microsoft, BEA, Hewlett-Packard, SAP, Tibco, and Oracle.
From its end-user survey, Springboard found that respondents named "proven products and solutions" as the most important reason for choosing an SOA vendor, followed by "clearly defined roadmap for deployment" and "vendor reputation".
CRM to lead SaaS growth across Asia Pacific
The Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) Customer Relationship Management (CRM) market in Asia (excluding Japan) will grow at a compound annual growth rate of 61 percent between 2006 and 2010, according to Springboard Research.
The research firm pegged the SaaS CRM market in Asia at US$69 million in 2006, and expects it to reach US$460 million by 2010.
Australia, Singapore, Hong Kong, Korea, India, and China are the key SaaS CRM markets in Asia Pacific. Of these, Australia remains the top market, accounting for 35 percent of all SaaS CRM sales generated in the region.
Springboard's senior manager for emerging software, Balaka Baruah Aggarwal, said SaaS CRM has gained mainstream acceptance and higher adoption rates by enterprise can be expected in the coming year.
"At the same time, the market is set to witness unprecedented growth in the SME sector as a spate of new initiatives by vendors such as SAP, Microsoft, and Oracle promote their CRM offerings," Aggarwal said.
Increased adoption among larger enterprises will be the turning point in the uptake of SaaS CRM and will bring the model a legitimacy that it did not have when it was mainly used by small and medium enterprises (SMEs).
Already, leading vendors like Salesforce.com, who had traditionally targeted the SME market, are now eyeing larger enterprises.
Aggarwal said as traditional software players step up their activities by offering proprietary SaaS CRM applications, large enterprises will be lured to the market, creating an entirely new base of customers who had previously been fence sitters.
Springboard Research also forecasts that the SaaS CRM market is set for consolidation as the number of players increase and bigger players make serious forays into the marketplace.
"We currently estimate SaaS CRM represents the largest segment of SaaS application expenditures in Asia at 45 percent, followed by collaboration, ERP/PLM/SCM applications, and human resource applications," she said.
"Within the SaaS CRM segment in Asia, Salesforce.com has captured a very dominant position in the market. Other prominent vendors in the region include RightNow, Oracle, and Netsuite. "Springboard Research believes that a substantial portion of the growth in Asia Pacific's SaaS CRM market will come from the SME segment.
"We expect SMEs in Asia Pacific to go for simpler CRM solutions that are not too complex," Aggarwal said.
"This will drive CRM vendors, especially the traditional licensed software companies, to sell stripped-down versions of on-premise offerings or to develop SME-specific applications for distribution via the SaaS model." Aggarwal described SaaS as a disruptive innovation that has the potential to transform the software industry.
Many new players are entering the SaaS market, while established software companies are scrambling to compete against these new entrants by developing SaaS products themselves.
However, one problem that has accompanied the rise of SaaS is that business unit managers tend to be the buyers rather than IT managers.
Gartner research vice-president Ben Pring predicts three quarters of the SaaS purchasing decisions are being made by business unit managers.
Pring urged IT managers to "get involved in the decision" warning that it is "happening in your organizations whether you like it or not."
The SAAS model was gaining currency because it attacked the "unsustainable world" of traditional client-server enterprise software, Pring said.
"There are some inconvenient truths in our industry," he said, describing the "very high levels of unused software" in enterprises as the "guilty secret of the IT industry".
Pring said 65 percent of Siebel licences sold before Oracle took over the vendor "were never put into use", while server utilization was also low -- at an average 18 percent in large organizations. He added that companies were spending 10 times as much on implementation and systems integration as on software licences had "really got out of alignment".
SaaS offered a challenge to this "era of profitable dysfunction", Pring said.
- with Tash Tifrin
The research firm pegged the SaaS CRM market in Asia at US$69 million in 2006, and expects it to reach US$460 million by 2010.
Australia, Singapore, Hong Kong, Korea, India, and China are the key SaaS CRM markets in Asia Pacific. Of these, Australia remains the top market, accounting for 35 percent of all SaaS CRM sales generated in the region.
Springboard's senior manager for emerging software, Balaka Baruah Aggarwal, said SaaS CRM has gained mainstream acceptance and higher adoption rates by enterprise can be expected in the coming year.
"At the same time, the market is set to witness unprecedented growth in the SME sector as a spate of new initiatives by vendors such as SAP, Microsoft, and Oracle promote their CRM offerings," Aggarwal said.
Increased adoption among larger enterprises will be the turning point in the uptake of SaaS CRM and will bring the model a legitimacy that it did not have when it was mainly used by small and medium enterprises (SMEs).
Already, leading vendors like Salesforce.com, who had traditionally targeted the SME market, are now eyeing larger enterprises.
Aggarwal said as traditional software players step up their activities by offering proprietary SaaS CRM applications, large enterprises will be lured to the market, creating an entirely new base of customers who had previously been fence sitters.
Springboard Research also forecasts that the SaaS CRM market is set for consolidation as the number of players increase and bigger players make serious forays into the marketplace.
"We currently estimate SaaS CRM represents the largest segment of SaaS application expenditures in Asia at 45 percent, followed by collaboration, ERP/PLM/SCM applications, and human resource applications," she said.
"Within the SaaS CRM segment in Asia, Salesforce.com has captured a very dominant position in the market. Other prominent vendors in the region include RightNow, Oracle, and Netsuite. "Springboard Research believes that a substantial portion of the growth in Asia Pacific's SaaS CRM market will come from the SME segment.
"We expect SMEs in Asia Pacific to go for simpler CRM solutions that are not too complex," Aggarwal said.
"This will drive CRM vendors, especially the traditional licensed software companies, to sell stripped-down versions of on-premise offerings or to develop SME-specific applications for distribution via the SaaS model." Aggarwal described SaaS as a disruptive innovation that has the potential to transform the software industry.
Many new players are entering the SaaS market, while established software companies are scrambling to compete against these new entrants by developing SaaS products themselves.
However, one problem that has accompanied the rise of SaaS is that business unit managers tend to be the buyers rather than IT managers.
Gartner research vice-president Ben Pring predicts three quarters of the SaaS purchasing decisions are being made by business unit managers.
Pring urged IT managers to "get involved in the decision" warning that it is "happening in your organizations whether you like it or not."
The SAAS model was gaining currency because it attacked the "unsustainable world" of traditional client-server enterprise software, Pring said.
"There are some inconvenient truths in our industry," he said, describing the "very high levels of unused software" in enterprises as the "guilty secret of the IT industry".
Pring said 65 percent of Siebel licences sold before Oracle took over the vendor "were never put into use", while server utilization was also low -- at an average 18 percent in large organizations. He added that companies were spending 10 times as much on implementation and systems integration as on software licences had "really got out of alignment".
SaaS offered a challenge to this "era of profitable dysfunction", Pring said.
- with Tash Tifrin
World of Warcraft helps boy survive moose attack
According to Nettavisen (via Wired), 12-year-old Hans Jørgen Olsen and his sister encountered a troubled moose while walking in the forest near their Norwegian home.
After diverting the beast's attention away from his younger sister, Hans played possum, "just like you learn at level 30 in World of Warcraft," to avoid being attacked.
"Feign death" is a skill acquired by level 30 hunters in Blizzard's massively popular MMO which recently surpassed 9 billion paying subscribers worldwide.
Hans, his sister, and the moose all reportedly walked away from the incident without injury.
After diverting the beast's attention away from his younger sister, Hans played possum, "just like you learn at level 30 in World of Warcraft," to avoid being attacked.
"Feign death" is a skill acquired by level 30 hunters in Blizzard's massively popular MMO which recently surpassed 9 billion paying subscribers worldwide.
Hans, his sister, and the moose all reportedly walked away from the incident without injury.
NetSuite IPO auction begins
NetSuite on Monday said the auction period for its first initial public offering has begun and that it expects the price will be finalized after the stock market's close on Dec. 19.
NetSuite, which sells a range of hosted business software, intends to sell 6.2 million shares of common stock. Last week, the company said it expected the price to end up between US$13 to $16. That would raise a maximum of $99.2 million.
But the auction-style process means the stock's initial price could end up being higher. Scott Sweet, managing director of IPOBoutique.com, said he expects ample interest from investors in the IPO: "I like the deal. I do believe it will do well."
Sweet declined to make any concrete predictions, however. "I really can’t legitimately go on the record with a number, other than clearly stating that interest will be very large," he said.
NetSuite, which targets small and medium-size businesses, is mimicking Google in conducting an online, auction-style IPO, instead of having underwriters set the price.
It has set up a Web site for the IPO at www.netsuiteipo.com. A NetSuite spokeswoman said the company would not comment Monday beyond the news release.
NetSuite had a net loss of $35.7 million in 2006 and in 2007 has so far lost $20.6 million for the nine months ended Sept. 30. Also, its accumulated deficit stood at $241.6 million as of Sept. 30, NetSuite said.
However, revenue has grown from $17.7 million in 2004 to $67.2 million in 2006. NetSuite took in $76.8 million for the nine-month period ended Sept. 30 and had 5,400 customers as of that date, according to the company.
NetSuite said it plans to use revenue generated by the IPO to pay off an $8 million balance on a line of credit with Tako Ventures, an entity controlled by Oracle CEO Larry Ellison [cq], and to possibly make acquisitions.
Ellison controls about 60 percent of NetSuite's outstanding stock, which works out to about 31.9 million shares. He intends to place those shares into a "lockbox" limited-liability company, a move that would "effectively eliminate" his voting control and thereby avoid potential conflicts of interest, NetSuite said last week.
NetSuite, which sells a range of hosted business software, intends to sell 6.2 million shares of common stock. Last week, the company said it expected the price to end up between US$13 to $16. That would raise a maximum of $99.2 million.
But the auction-style process means the stock's initial price could end up being higher. Scott Sweet, managing director of IPOBoutique.com, said he expects ample interest from investors in the IPO: "I like the deal. I do believe it will do well."
Sweet declined to make any concrete predictions, however. "I really can’t legitimately go on the record with a number, other than clearly stating that interest will be very large," he said.
NetSuite, which targets small and medium-size businesses, is mimicking Google in conducting an online, auction-style IPO, instead of having underwriters set the price.
It has set up a Web site for the IPO at www.netsuiteipo.com. A NetSuite spokeswoman said the company would not comment Monday beyond the news release.
NetSuite had a net loss of $35.7 million in 2006 and in 2007 has so far lost $20.6 million for the nine months ended Sept. 30. Also, its accumulated deficit stood at $241.6 million as of Sept. 30, NetSuite said.
However, revenue has grown from $17.7 million in 2004 to $67.2 million in 2006. NetSuite took in $76.8 million for the nine-month period ended Sept. 30 and had 5,400 customers as of that date, according to the company.
NetSuite said it plans to use revenue generated by the IPO to pay off an $8 million balance on a line of credit with Tako Ventures, an entity controlled by Oracle CEO Larry Ellison [cq], and to possibly make acquisitions.
Ellison controls about 60 percent of NetSuite's outstanding stock, which works out to about 31.9 million shares. He intends to place those shares into a "lockbox" limited-liability company, a move that would "effectively eliminate" his voting control and thereby avoid potential conflicts of interest, NetSuite said last week.
How four airlines plan to connect fliers to the Web
With the announcement Friday morning that JetBlue will be teaming up with Research in Motion and Yahoo to provide free e-mail and instant messaging on its flights, there are now at least four airlines with announced plans to experiment with in-flight broadband connectivity. In this overview of in-flight Internet capabilities, we take a look at what various airlines say they'll be offering to their customers in the future, which companies are building their networks, and when we can expect to get full Web connections during those long cross-country flights.
American Airlines
What they'll be offering: Nationwide in-flight broadband Internet access that extends from the coast to coast. American Airlines passengers will be able to connect to the Web during their flights using any device that has 802.11a/b/g Wi-Fi capabilities.
When it will be offered: American Airlines began testing Wi-Fi capabilities on its fleet of Boeing 767-200 aircraft in August. The goal is to provide broadband service to all passengers starting in 2008.
Who's building out the network: Aircell, a global airline telecom provider based in Itasca, Ill. Last year, bidding company and Aircell affiliate AC BidCo won the rights to 3-MHz on the 800-MHz spectrum to deliver Wi-Fi connection to airlines. AirCell first demonstrated in-flight WLAN capabilities in 2005.
Alaska Airlines
What they'll be offering: A satellite-based 802.11b/g Wi-Fi connection for any laptops, smart phones and PDAs. These devices, says Alaska Airlines, will have access to the Internet, e-mail and VPNs, as well as stored in-flight entertainment. The in-flight system will connect to a satellite through an antenna placed atop the aircraft.
When it will be offered: The airline is still testing the Wi-Fi connection on its Boeing 737 aircraft. Ideally, the company hopes to have Wi-Fi connections on all 144 of its planes up and running by spring 2008.
Who's building the network: Row 44, a Westlake Village, Calif.-based airline telecom provider, which says it can offer in-flight downlink speeds of 81Mbps and uplink speeds of 1.6 Mbps. Because Row 44's system uses satellite technology, says the company, it will not be limited by international borders and will be available to planes throughout the North American continent. In addition to its Wi-Fi connection services, Row 44 is planning to roll out in-flight entertainment services, such as more than 100 channels of live television.
Virgin America
What they're offering: Air-to-ground broadband Internet connection for 802.11a/b/g Wi-Fi enabled devices. Additionally, the airline's Red Inflight Entertainment network will allow customers to use a wide variety of instant messaging services on their seatbacks, including MSN messenger, Google talk, Yahoo! messenger, Skype and AIM.
When it will be offered: Virgin America first announced its in-flight broadband service plan in September, and the company hopes to have its all of its planes connected "sometime in 2008."
Who's building the network: Virgin America will be the second major U.S. airline to employ Aircell to build its in-flight network.
JetBlue
What they're offering: Currently, the airline is running a trial that will give passengers free e-mail and instant-messaging service on one of its Airbus A320 planes starting on Dec. 11. Run through a partnership between JetBlue, Yahoo! and Research in Motion, the trial will allow passengers with Yahoo! e-mail accounts, as well as Blackberry users, to access e-mail and send instant messages. Blackberry users will have to connect to the network through Wi-Fi, however, as the FCC doesn't allow mobile calls to take place on planes.
When it will be offered: If the trial goes well, JetBlue is expected to begin working toward giving its customers full Wi-Fi enabled Internet access some time over the next year.
Who's building the network: LiveTV, a wholly owned subsidiary of JetBlue that won rights to 1 MHz of the 800-MHz spectrum last year.
American Airlines
What they'll be offering: Nationwide in-flight broadband Internet access that extends from the coast to coast. American Airlines passengers will be able to connect to the Web during their flights using any device that has 802.11a/b/g Wi-Fi capabilities.
When it will be offered: American Airlines began testing Wi-Fi capabilities on its fleet of Boeing 767-200 aircraft in August. The goal is to provide broadband service to all passengers starting in 2008.
Who's building out the network: Aircell, a global airline telecom provider based in Itasca, Ill. Last year, bidding company and Aircell affiliate AC BidCo won the rights to 3-MHz on the 800-MHz spectrum to deliver Wi-Fi connection to airlines. AirCell first demonstrated in-flight WLAN capabilities in 2005.
Alaska Airlines
What they'll be offering: A satellite-based 802.11b/g Wi-Fi connection for any laptops, smart phones and PDAs. These devices, says Alaska Airlines, will have access to the Internet, e-mail and VPNs, as well as stored in-flight entertainment. The in-flight system will connect to a satellite through an antenna placed atop the aircraft.
When it will be offered: The airline is still testing the Wi-Fi connection on its Boeing 737 aircraft. Ideally, the company hopes to have Wi-Fi connections on all 144 of its planes up and running by spring 2008.
Who's building the network: Row 44, a Westlake Village, Calif.-based airline telecom provider, which says it can offer in-flight downlink speeds of 81Mbps and uplink speeds of 1.6 Mbps. Because Row 44's system uses satellite technology, says the company, it will not be limited by international borders and will be available to planes throughout the North American continent. In addition to its Wi-Fi connection services, Row 44 is planning to roll out in-flight entertainment services, such as more than 100 channels of live television.
Virgin America
What they're offering: Air-to-ground broadband Internet connection for 802.11a/b/g Wi-Fi enabled devices. Additionally, the airline's Red Inflight Entertainment network will allow customers to use a wide variety of instant messaging services on their seatbacks, including MSN messenger, Google talk, Yahoo! messenger, Skype and AIM.
When it will be offered: Virgin America first announced its in-flight broadband service plan in September, and the company hopes to have its all of its planes connected "sometime in 2008."
Who's building the network: Virgin America will be the second major U.S. airline to employ Aircell to build its in-flight network.
JetBlue
What they're offering: Currently, the airline is running a trial that will give passengers free e-mail and instant-messaging service on one of its Airbus A320 planes starting on Dec. 11. Run through a partnership between JetBlue, Yahoo! and Research in Motion, the trial will allow passengers with Yahoo! e-mail accounts, as well as Blackberry users, to access e-mail and send instant messages. Blackberry users will have to connect to the network through Wi-Fi, however, as the FCC doesn't allow mobile calls to take place on planes.
When it will be offered: If the trial goes well, JetBlue is expected to begin working toward giving its customers full Wi-Fi enabled Internet access some time over the next year.
Who's building the network: LiveTV, a wholly owned subsidiary of JetBlue that won rights to 1 MHz of the 800-MHz spectrum last year.
LinkedIn opens site to developers, jazzes up design
LinkedIn will let developers build applications for its professional networking site, an approach recently undertaken by social networking competitor Facebook, to make its site more interactive, the company said Monday.
The move is one of several LinkedIn is making, including launching a beta version of a redesigned home page, to keep its less flashy but more business-minded contacts network site vibrant alongside rivals MySpace and Facebook. LinkedIn said it wants to be a hub for business information.
"When we look forward to 2008, we see people and professionals more and more going beyond the connections and actually using LinkedIn to make themselves more productive on a daily basis," said Adam Nash, senior product director, in a video on LinkedIn's blog.
LinkedIn has made a deal with BusinessWeek magazine to provide content to the site. A feed has been added that will show news stories on LinkedIn users' profiles that are related to their companies, as well as highlight other stories their colleagues are reading, Nash said.
LinkedIn said its Intelligent Application Platform will let developers build applications that appear on LinkedIn as well as applications for their own Web sites that use information from consenting LinkedIn users, the company said on its blog.
LinkedIn said that developers can use its APIs (application programming interfaces) to build widgets, or small applications. The widgets can, for example, be integrated with a job-hosting Web site and let users see how many connections they have within that company.
LinkedIn said it will support the APIs for Google's OpenSocial development platform, which is designed to make it easier to create applications that are compatible with multiple social networking sites.
LinkedIn, which counts 17 million registered users, is purely focused on establishing professional connections, and its site appears more static that other social networking Web sites. It lets users "connect," and then see each others' contacts, as well as information such as job histories.
LinkedIn is also trying to round out its site with other features to give it more pizazz. The site only just a few months ago allowed people to upload their own photos, and the site is devoid of catchy features, such as the ability to post songs and share photo albums, seen on Facebook and MySpace.
But the redesigned home page now has a "network update" feature that lists what changes other users have made to their profiles. LinkedIn also added e-mail capabilities, as well a feature to import contacts from Web-based e-mail services such as Yahoo, AOL and Google.
Users can now also add modules to a so-called "professional dashboard" on their profile. The modules enable searches for other users or jobs, or participation in a community question-and-answer forum.
The move is one of several LinkedIn is making, including launching a beta version of a redesigned home page, to keep its less flashy but more business-minded contacts network site vibrant alongside rivals MySpace and Facebook. LinkedIn said it wants to be a hub for business information.
"When we look forward to 2008, we see people and professionals more and more going beyond the connections and actually using LinkedIn to make themselves more productive on a daily basis," said Adam Nash, senior product director, in a video on LinkedIn's blog.
LinkedIn has made a deal with BusinessWeek magazine to provide content to the site. A feed has been added that will show news stories on LinkedIn users' profiles that are related to their companies, as well as highlight other stories their colleagues are reading, Nash said.
LinkedIn said its Intelligent Application Platform will let developers build applications that appear on LinkedIn as well as applications for their own Web sites that use information from consenting LinkedIn users, the company said on its blog.
LinkedIn said that developers can use its APIs (application programming interfaces) to build widgets, or small applications. The widgets can, for example, be integrated with a job-hosting Web site and let users see how many connections they have within that company.
LinkedIn said it will support the APIs for Google's OpenSocial development platform, which is designed to make it easier to create applications that are compatible with multiple social networking sites.
LinkedIn, which counts 17 million registered users, is purely focused on establishing professional connections, and its site appears more static that other social networking Web sites. It lets users "connect," and then see each others' contacts, as well as information such as job histories.
LinkedIn is also trying to round out its site with other features to give it more pizazz. The site only just a few months ago allowed people to upload their own photos, and the site is devoid of catchy features, such as the ability to post songs and share photo albums, seen on Facebook and MySpace.
But the redesigned home page now has a "network update" feature that lists what changes other users have made to their profiles. LinkedIn also added e-mail capabilities, as well a feature to import contacts from Web-based e-mail services such as Yahoo, AOL and Google.
Users can now also add modules to a so-called "professional dashboard" on their profile. The modules enable searches for other users or jobs, or participation in a community question-and-answer forum.
CES: Toshiba to make flash-based notebook drives
Toshiba will begin manufacturing flash-based solid-state drives for laptops early next year, which the company said will offer faster boot times and lower power consumption than hard disk drives.
The drives, which use NAND flash memory rather than a rotating magnetic storage disc, will initially come in three capacities: 32G bytes, 64G bytes and 128G bytes, Toshiba said on Monday.
High prices for flash memory has limited adoption of the drives so far, but Toshiba and other memory manufacturers such as Samsung are expected to ramp up production, which should lower prices and spur wider use. Solid state-drives are also said to be more durable than hard disks and make no noise.
Toshiba will start production of module SATA (Serial Advanced Technology Attachment) drives in the first three months of next year, it said. Production of 1.8- and 2.5-inch SATA drives will begin in May.
The maximum read speed for the drives will be 100M bytes per second, Toshiba said. The maximum write speed will be 40M bytes per second using a SATA II interface with a transfer rate of 3G bps (bits per second). The drives' life expectancy is around 1 million hours, Toshiba said.
It will show the drives at the Consumer Electronics Show, which starts Jan. 7 in Last Vegas.
Samsung announced last month that it had started producing sample 1.8-inch and 2.5-inch solid-state drives, but did not say when the drives would be commercially available. SanDisk is also making 1.8 and 2.5-inch solid-state drives.
Last month, SanDisk introduced a PCI Express card with flash memory that's used to boot a PC's operating system. The product, called Vaulter, comes in 6G-byte and 8G-byte capacities. The card works in parallel with a PC's hard drive to boost performance of the OS and applications.
The drives, which use NAND flash memory rather than a rotating magnetic storage disc, will initially come in three capacities: 32G bytes, 64G bytes and 128G bytes, Toshiba said on Monday.
High prices for flash memory has limited adoption of the drives so far, but Toshiba and other memory manufacturers such as Samsung are expected to ramp up production, which should lower prices and spur wider use. Solid state-drives are also said to be more durable than hard disks and make no noise.
Toshiba will start production of module SATA (Serial Advanced Technology Attachment) drives in the first three months of next year, it said. Production of 1.8- and 2.5-inch SATA drives will begin in May.
The maximum read speed for the drives will be 100M bytes per second, Toshiba said. The maximum write speed will be 40M bytes per second using a SATA II interface with a transfer rate of 3G bps (bits per second). The drives' life expectancy is around 1 million hours, Toshiba said.
It will show the drives at the Consumer Electronics Show, which starts Jan. 7 in Last Vegas.
Samsung announced last month that it had started producing sample 1.8-inch and 2.5-inch solid-state drives, but did not say when the drives would be commercially available. SanDisk is also making 1.8 and 2.5-inch solid-state drives.
Last month, SanDisk introduced a PCI Express card with flash memory that's used to boot a PC's operating system. The product, called Vaulter, comes in 6G-byte and 8G-byte capacities. The card works in parallel with a PC's hard drive to boost performance of the OS and applications.
Dutch government threatens to sideline Microsoft
Proposed legislation that would mandate the use of the Open Document Format (ODF) across the entire Dutch government has infuriated Microsoft. A group promoting open standards sees no threat, however, and has invited Microsoft to join its ranks.
On Wednesday the Dutch parliament will discuss a plan to mandate use of the Open Document Format (ODF) at government agencies. The proposal is part of a wider plan to increase the sustainability of information and innovation, while lowering costs through the reuse of data.
Policy makers see interoperability as the key to achieving these goals and therefore recommend that open standards should be used whenever possible. Bodies that wish to deviate from the open standards policy can request a temporary stay, but have to show a timeline showing a planned implementation date -- a policy described as "comply or explain."
The proposal recommends the use of open source software if that's a viable alternative over closed-source applications, which could give a major boost to applications like OpenOffice. Implementing the plan is expected to cost 8.45 million euros between 2008 and 2011.
By mandating ODF, however, the plan could disqualify Microsoft products. The software vendor doesn't support ODF but instead backs its OpenXML format, which is pending approval as an open standard before the International Organization for Standardization.
Microsoft Netherlands has engaged in fierce lobbying in an attempt to derail the plan. The company argues that the current definition is too narrow, specifically by mandating ODF rather than open standards in general. "I wonder if you would be allowed to use standards like PDF, Wifi, GSM, XML, Bluetooth and mp3 within the government or if you would be bound to a comply or explain as well," Theo Rinsema, general manager of Microsoft Netherlands, said to Webwereld, an IDG affiliate.
Although approval of OpenXML as an open standard is pending, Rinsema argued that the format should be treated as an equal alternative to ODF.
Rinsema fears that the current proposal could lead to discrimination against Microsoft products ranging from Office 12 to .Net, even though they offer a proper solution at a cost that is comparable to competing products.
The ban would also affect other IT vendors that partially base their products on Microsoft technologies, Microsoft cautioned. Rinsema singled out local partner company Orange Hill, which delivers open-source software based on Microsoft Windows.
"There is an ecosystem around our products that employs 170,000 people. They deliver all sorts of services," said Rinsema. "With the uncertainty in the program, I wonder if they still have a license to operate."
The OpenDoc Society, an organization that promotes the adoption of open standards and backer of ODF, claims that Microsoft is crying wolf.
"The choice in favor of ODF doesn't exclude anybody. I fail to see why authorities cannot use Microsoft Office" said Ruud Vriens, CEO of RedNose and a founding member of the OpenDoc Society.
He points to plug-ins such as one developed by Sun Microsystems that enable the use of ODF in Office 12. Microsoft and Novell are working on another plug-in. "There is also no reason not to use .Net with this plan, since ODF-compatibility has been ensured with software.”
"This plan is not about Microsoft, it's about ensuring the perpetual availability of data without any obstacles. Currently there are issues with OpenXML, they aren't an official ISO-standard yet. And the way they tried to get the specification certified is questionable at least," charged Vriens. "We would like to encourage Microsoft to join our ranks by becoming a participating member of our society. That would enable us to work with them to ensure an innovative and durable future so they can remain open for business."
On Wednesday the Dutch parliament will discuss a plan to mandate use of the Open Document Format (ODF) at government agencies. The proposal is part of a wider plan to increase the sustainability of information and innovation, while lowering costs through the reuse of data.
Policy makers see interoperability as the key to achieving these goals and therefore recommend that open standards should be used whenever possible. Bodies that wish to deviate from the open standards policy can request a temporary stay, but have to show a timeline showing a planned implementation date -- a policy described as "comply or explain."
The proposal recommends the use of open source software if that's a viable alternative over closed-source applications, which could give a major boost to applications like OpenOffice. Implementing the plan is expected to cost 8.45 million euros between 2008 and 2011.
By mandating ODF, however, the plan could disqualify Microsoft products. The software vendor doesn't support ODF but instead backs its OpenXML format, which is pending approval as an open standard before the International Organization for Standardization.
Microsoft Netherlands has engaged in fierce lobbying in an attempt to derail the plan. The company argues that the current definition is too narrow, specifically by mandating ODF rather than open standards in general. "I wonder if you would be allowed to use standards like PDF, Wifi, GSM, XML, Bluetooth and mp3 within the government or if you would be bound to a comply or explain as well," Theo Rinsema, general manager of Microsoft Netherlands, said to Webwereld, an IDG affiliate.
Although approval of OpenXML as an open standard is pending, Rinsema argued that the format should be treated as an equal alternative to ODF.
Rinsema fears that the current proposal could lead to discrimination against Microsoft products ranging from Office 12 to .Net, even though they offer a proper solution at a cost that is comparable to competing products.
The ban would also affect other IT vendors that partially base their products on Microsoft technologies, Microsoft cautioned. Rinsema singled out local partner company Orange Hill, which delivers open-source software based on Microsoft Windows.
"There is an ecosystem around our products that employs 170,000 people. They deliver all sorts of services," said Rinsema. "With the uncertainty in the program, I wonder if they still have a license to operate."
The OpenDoc Society, an organization that promotes the adoption of open standards and backer of ODF, claims that Microsoft is crying wolf.
"The choice in favor of ODF doesn't exclude anybody. I fail to see why authorities cannot use Microsoft Office" said Ruud Vriens, CEO of RedNose and a founding member of the OpenDoc Society.
He points to plug-ins such as one developed by Sun Microsystems that enable the use of ODF in Office 12. Microsoft and Novell are working on another plug-in. "There is also no reason not to use .Net with this plan, since ODF-compatibility has been ensured with software.”
"This plan is not about Microsoft, it's about ensuring the perpetual availability of data without any obstacles. Currently there are issues with OpenXML, they aren't an official ISO-standard yet. And the way they tried to get the specification certified is questionable at least," charged Vriens. "We would like to encourage Microsoft to join our ranks by becoming a participating member of our society. That would enable us to work with them to ensure an innovative and durable future so they can remain open for business."
Via shrinks the PC with Artigo do-it-yourself kit
Via Technologies is shipping a do-it-yourself computer kit, called Artigo, that's based on the credit card-sized Pico-ITX motherboard announced by the company earlier this year.
Measuring 15 centimeters (5.9 inches) by 11 cm by 4 cm, Artigo is among the smallest computers on the market. The $300 price tag is on the expensive side, but the kit will appeal to PC enthusiasts willing to pay a little extra for a tiny computer.
Via has long been ahead of the curve when it comes to small computers, but system makers haven't been always kept pace with the company's efforts to reduce the size of computers. As a result, PC enthusiasts have largely been on their own when it comes to using Via's small motherboard designs inside PCs.
In the past, that meant users had to buy the motherboard, a case, and other components on their own, referring to Web sites like Mini-ITX.com, which has close links with Via and stores a wealth of information about building your own small computers, as well as offering key components for sale.
With Artigo, Via made this process a little simpler. The kit contains a Pico-ITX motherboard with a 1GHz Via C7 processor, a case, and other components. Users need to add a 2.5-inch hard disk, RAM, monitor, keyboard and mouse to complete the system.
Users will also have to install their own operating system, since the Artigo kit doesn't include software.
Measuring 15 centimeters (5.9 inches) by 11 cm by 4 cm, Artigo is among the smallest computers on the market. The $300 price tag is on the expensive side, but the kit will appeal to PC enthusiasts willing to pay a little extra for a tiny computer.
Via has long been ahead of the curve when it comes to small computers, but system makers haven't been always kept pace with the company's efforts to reduce the size of computers. As a result, PC enthusiasts have largely been on their own when it comes to using Via's small motherboard designs inside PCs.
In the past, that meant users had to buy the motherboard, a case, and other components on their own, referring to Web sites like Mini-ITX.com, which has close links with Via and stores a wealth of information about building your own small computers, as well as offering key components for sale.
With Artigo, Via made this process a little simpler. The kit contains a Pico-ITX motherboard with a 1GHz Via C7 processor, a case, and other components. Users need to add a 2.5-inch hard disk, RAM, monitor, keyboard and mouse to complete the system.
Users will also have to install their own operating system, since the Artigo kit doesn't include software.
Fraud charges for former Microsoft employee
The former Microsoft employee associated with the company's notorious December 1999 Hotmail outage has been charged with fraud.
Carolyn Gudmundson was indicted Thursday on charges that she raked in over US$1 million during a four-year period by falsifying expense reports she filed for domain name registration charges.
Gudmundson, a former program manager at Microsoft's MSN division, is charged with using her position within the company to run a number of different scams between 2000 and 2004. According to U.S. attorneys, she would use her corporate American Express charge for domain name registration fees, but then submit copies of invoices that carried inflated charges.
In another alleged scam, she is charged with convincing a Microsoft contractor, Marksmen Inc., to send checks to her attention at Microsoft, claiming they were being used to repay a Microsoft employee, G.M. Lossman, for transferring domain names into Microsoft's control. Those checks were cashed in Gudmundson's mother's account, according to the U.S. Department of Justice.
Marksmen's president declined to comment for this story.
She is also accused of billing Microsoft for domain name registrations that had already been paid for its Expedia online travel service. Microsoft sold off Expedia in 2001.
Gudmundson was arrested Thursday night and is set to appear in federal court in Seattle on Friday afternoon. She faces up to 20 years in prison and a $250,000 fine on the fraud charges.
Microsoft was not immediately available to comment on Gudmundson's arrest.
This is not her first time in the spotlight. In December 1999 Gudmundson was listed as the administrative contact responsible for Microsoft's Passport.com domain when the service stopped working, knocking 60 million Hotmail users offline. The cause? Someone forgot to renew the domain name registration.
Carolyn Gudmundson was indicted Thursday on charges that she raked in over US$1 million during a four-year period by falsifying expense reports she filed for domain name registration charges.
Gudmundson, a former program manager at Microsoft's MSN division, is charged with using her position within the company to run a number of different scams between 2000 and 2004. According to U.S. attorneys, she would use her corporate American Express charge for domain name registration fees, but then submit copies of invoices that carried inflated charges.
In another alleged scam, she is charged with convincing a Microsoft contractor, Marksmen Inc., to send checks to her attention at Microsoft, claiming they were being used to repay a Microsoft employee, G.M. Lossman, for transferring domain names into Microsoft's control. Those checks were cashed in Gudmundson's mother's account, according to the U.S. Department of Justice.
Marksmen's president declined to comment for this story.
She is also accused of billing Microsoft for domain name registrations that had already been paid for its Expedia online travel service. Microsoft sold off Expedia in 2001.
Gudmundson was arrested Thursday night and is set to appear in federal court in Seattle on Friday afternoon. She faces up to 20 years in prison and a $250,000 fine on the fraud charges.
Microsoft was not immediately available to comment on Gudmundson's arrest.
This is not her first time in the spotlight. In December 1999 Gudmundson was listed as the administrative contact responsible for Microsoft's Passport.com domain when the service stopped working, knocking 60 million Hotmail users offline. The cause? Someone forgot to renew the domain name registration.
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