Former Brocade Communications Systems CEO Gregory Reyes has been sentenced to 21 months in prison and a $15 million fine for fraud related to backdating of the storage networking company's stock options.
Reyes was convicted last August in the most prominent of many criminal and civil cases in the past two years related to backdating by high-tech companies. Apple, McAfee, Rambus and scores of other vendors have faced either internal or external probes. Reyes' conviction was the first by the U.S. Department of Justice in a backdating case. Reyes was found guilty on 10 charges including securities fraud, conspiracy and falsifying financial records. He could have faced as much as 20 years in prison.
The sentencing order on Wednesday from Judge Charles Breyer of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California has been stayed pending an expected appeal, which has not yet been filed, according to the court.
Backdating, which involves changing the date that stock options grants were made to certain employees so they can later get a bigger profit, is not illegal but has to be accounted for properly. Many high-tech companies used the practice during the Internet boom early in this decade to attract prized employees.
In the wake of Brocade's backdating problems, the company restated its results from 1999 to 2004. The scandal also led to charges against Stephanie Jensen, former vice president of human resources, and Michael Byrd, the company's former chief financial officer and chief operating officer.
Thursday, January 17, 2008
Mac users more open, liberal than PC users
People who prefer Apple's Macintosh computers over PCs have long been considered to be on the artsy, hip end of the personality spectrum -- and now a study proves that "Mac people" indeed are more liberal and open-minded than average folks.
<A TARGET="_new" HREF="http://ad.doubleclick.net/click%3Bh=v8/364a/3/0/%2a/g%3B130643729%3B0-0%3B0%3B18236161%3B4252-336/280%3B22315834/22333723/1%3B%3B%7Esscs%3D%3fhttp://www.computerworld.com/action/member.do?command=registerNewsletters&source=housead"><IMG SRC="http://m1.2mdn.net/743328/newslttr_sky_v2.gif" BORDER=0></A>
On this topic
Environmental protests take high-tech to the high-seas
Intel 'energy-efficient' claim debunked
Groups praise FCC's inquiries on net neutrality
Deploying Residential Wi-Fi Wireless LANs: RF Repeaters for Coverage and Reliability
Get practical tips, IT news, how-tos, and the best in tech humor.
According to Mindset Media, people who purchase Macs fall into what the branding company calls the "Openness 5" personality category -- which means they are more liberal, less modest and more assured of their own superiority than the population at large. Mindset Media helps companies with strong brands develop ads targeted to people based on personality traits or people's "mindsets," and does research to that effect.
So-called Openness 5 types tend to seek rich, varied and novel experiences, according to the company, and believe that imagination and intellectual curiosity are as important to life as more rational or pragmatic endeavors. They also are receptive to their own inner feelings and may experience life with more emotional intensity.
The company uses Nielsen Online's panel for the Mac mindset study, the results of which are based on responses from 7,500 participants.
It's no great secret that Macs have always been popular with creative types -- the computers have been the mainstay of creative agencies and video- and sound-editing houses for years. This probably has as much to do with the fact that Apple and partners have delivered popular software for graphic and multimedia designers and artists as it does with the contemporary industrial design Macs have long reflected.
Mac users are quick to agree there is definitely a mindset among their kind of people, and aren't offended by a company profiling them according to their enthusiasm for Apple computers.
MacBook Pro user Reatha Braxton said much of the Mac mindset stems from how Apple has projected the image of its products through advertising -- natch, as she runs her own New York-based media planning and buying agency, Braxton Strategic Group.
"The whole [Mac] package -- the advertising, the design, the whole image of that is creativity," she said. Braxton, who has been in the advertising business for more than 20 years, said Macs were almost exclusively used in ad agencies, from the people designing the ads to top executives like "the CFO to the CEO."
As for the idea that Mac users possess an air of superiority, Braxton was less inclined to agree. She said that Macs actually have a pragmatic draw for their faithful because "most people who use Macs will tell you they are smarter machines than PCs, and they want to take advantage of that."
Still, Braxton did acknowledge that the idea of using the PC "alternative" has an element of cool factor that lures creative types to use Macs over more run-of-the-mill PCs. "It's cooler not to be a lemming," she said.
Igor Berstein, a computer programmer for a Web-based startup in New York, also agreed there is a Mac mindset, but he doesn't think he necessarily fits into it. He started using his MacBook Pro because, with the Unix base of the OS starting with Mac OS X, it was more convenient for him as a Linux user than a PC was.
But "since Apple thinks a lot about aesthetics, style-oriented people go for [Macs]," Berstein said. Macs also are more expensive than PCs, so people in the middle-class or upper-class who have accumulated a certain amount of wealth are mostly likely the people who can afford them, he said.
Berstein also noted that people who care more about brands are also more likely to purchase Macs over PCs. While the term "PC" refers to a computer architecture tied to more than one vendor, Macs are a subbrand tied to the strong Apple brand -- which to some is a catalyst for purchasing a Mac in and of itself, he said.
<A TARGET="_new" HREF="http://ad.doubleclick.net/click%3Bh=v8/364a/3/0/%2a/g%3B130643729%3B0-0%3B0%3B18236161%3B4252-336/280%3B22315834/22333723/1%3B%3B%7Esscs%3D%3fhttp://www.computerworld.com/action/member.do?command=registerNewsletters&source=housead"><IMG SRC="http://m1.2mdn.net/743328/newslttr_sky_v2.gif" BORDER=0></A>
On this topic
Environmental protests take high-tech to the high-seas
Intel 'energy-efficient' claim debunked
Groups praise FCC's inquiries on net neutrality
Deploying Residential Wi-Fi Wireless LANs: RF Repeaters for Coverage and Reliability
Get practical tips, IT news, how-tos, and the best in tech humor.
According to Mindset Media, people who purchase Macs fall into what the branding company calls the "Openness 5" personality category -- which means they are more liberal, less modest and more assured of their own superiority than the population at large. Mindset Media helps companies with strong brands develop ads targeted to people based on personality traits or people's "mindsets," and does research to that effect.
So-called Openness 5 types tend to seek rich, varied and novel experiences, according to the company, and believe that imagination and intellectual curiosity are as important to life as more rational or pragmatic endeavors. They also are receptive to their own inner feelings and may experience life with more emotional intensity.
The company uses Nielsen Online's panel for the Mac mindset study, the results of which are based on responses from 7,500 participants.
It's no great secret that Macs have always been popular with creative types -- the computers have been the mainstay of creative agencies and video- and sound-editing houses for years. This probably has as much to do with the fact that Apple and partners have delivered popular software for graphic and multimedia designers and artists as it does with the contemporary industrial design Macs have long reflected.
Mac users are quick to agree there is definitely a mindset among their kind of people, and aren't offended by a company profiling them according to their enthusiasm for Apple computers.
MacBook Pro user Reatha Braxton said much of the Mac mindset stems from how Apple has projected the image of its products through advertising -- natch, as she runs her own New York-based media planning and buying agency, Braxton Strategic Group.
"The whole [Mac] package -- the advertising, the design, the whole image of that is creativity," she said. Braxton, who has been in the advertising business for more than 20 years, said Macs were almost exclusively used in ad agencies, from the people designing the ads to top executives like "the CFO to the CEO."
As for the idea that Mac users possess an air of superiority, Braxton was less inclined to agree. She said that Macs actually have a pragmatic draw for their faithful because "most people who use Macs will tell you they are smarter machines than PCs, and they want to take advantage of that."
Still, Braxton did acknowledge that the idea of using the PC "alternative" has an element of cool factor that lures creative types to use Macs over more run-of-the-mill PCs. "It's cooler not to be a lemming," she said.
Igor Berstein, a computer programmer for a Web-based startup in New York, also agreed there is a Mac mindset, but he doesn't think he necessarily fits into it. He started using his MacBook Pro because, with the Unix base of the OS starting with Mac OS X, it was more convenient for him as a Linux user than a PC was.
But "since Apple thinks a lot about aesthetics, style-oriented people go for [Macs]," Berstein said. Macs also are more expensive than PCs, so people in the middle-class or upper-class who have accumulated a certain amount of wealth are mostly likely the people who can afford them, he said.
Berstein also noted that people who care more about brands are also more likely to purchase Macs over PCs. While the term "PC" refers to a computer architecture tied to more than one vendor, Macs are a subbrand tied to the strong Apple brand -- which to some is a catalyst for purchasing a Mac in and of itself, he said.
Sun needs to fix what's broken at MySQL, users say
In agreeing this week to pay US$1 billion for MySQL AB, Sun Microsystems Inc. said it hopes to make MySQL's open-source database more attractive to enterprise users. But Sun has a lot of work to do, according to some MySQL users.
And it isn't just technical fixes that are needed, they said. Although Sun described MySQL as "an open-source icon," it also will have to mend fences with users who are unhappy about the database vendor's sales tactics and complain that it has ignored their development suggestions.
For instance, within hours of the proposed acquisition's announcement on Wednesday, Don MacAskill, CEO and "chief geek" at SmugMug Inc., said in a blog posting that he is "seriously considering" not renewing the online photo-sharing service's platinum-level MySQL Enterprise support contract. "I probably wouldn't pay for MySQL as it stands today," he wrote.
In an interview, MacAskill said MySQL has performance and concurrency issues when it's paired with InnoDB, the most widely used storage engine for the database. In particular, the problems affect systems with multicore processors. "That's turning out to be a pretty major scalability roadblock for a lot of us," he said.
Google Inc. and other MySQL users have created patches designed to fix the performance problems. But MacAskill said that the open-source vendor has yet to add the patches to the database, despite requests that it do so from him and other users.
"I often wonder why they haven't been accepted and just pushed into the MySQL release," he said, adding that it will be "in [Sun's] best interest to see MySQL get really good at concurrency really fast."
MySQL officials said the patch question is now Sun's to answer - even though the acquisition isn't expected to be completed until late this quarter or early in the second quarter.
A Sun spokeswoman said today via e-mail that it's "too early to discuss specific plans" for updating the database. "What we can say," she added, "is that we actively engage with both our customers and developer base to hear their feedback regarding the direction of product plans and services, and will continue to do so."
There are plenty of other things that also need fixing in MySQL, according to a blog posting by Jeremy Cole, a former user of the database at Yahoo Inc. who now is a MySQL consultant at Proven Scaling LLC.
"There are a lot of areas where MySQL has been lacking for a long time, and the power users have been either crying in their beer or doing the work themselves," Cole wrote. For instance, he cited problems with the database's replication, logging and internal memory allocation features.
In addition, Cole criticized MySQL's sales and marketing team and said that the company's development model for MySQL Enterprise is "broken."
Jonathan Schwartz, Sun's CEO and president, said during a teleconference Wednesday that the biggest impediment to MySQL's growth has been its inability "to give peace of mind to a global company that wants to put MySQL into mission-critical deployments." Schwartz added that the open-source database will benefit from Sun's broader enterprise reach.
Sun already distributes the PostgreSQL open-source database on its Solaris-based servers; on the company's Web site, it touts PostgreSQL for Solaris 10 as "the open-source enterprise database platform of choice." But Schwartz described the purchase of MySQL as "the most important acquisition" ever made by Sun -- indicating that MySQL's software likely will eclipse PostgreSQL on Sun's priority list.
In addition to the internal issues that Sun faces at MySQL, the deal could complicate its relationship with Oracle Corp., which is Sun's largest database partner. MySQL competes directly with Oracle and other database vendors. Also, Oracle owns InnoDB after buying the storage engine's developer, Innobase Oy, in late 2005.
"Now that [MySQL] is going to be supported by a major vendor, there's lots of companies that are going to give it a serious look," said Robert Lepanto, Oracle applications manager at AppCentric Solutions LLC in Stamford, Conn. "I would think that's a serious long-term threat to Oracle."
Lepanto, who also is president of the New York City Metro Oracle Applications Users Group, added that he's surprised that Oracle "didn't buy [MySQL] first to squash the competition."
Daniel Grim, executive director of networks and systems at the University of Delaware in Newark, has an enterprisewide license for Oracle databases but also sees value in the open-source alternatives.
"We've often found Oracle is more complex and more cumbersome than things like PostgreSQL and MySQL are," Grim said. "So we use those for small applications, although some of [the] applications are quite large, such as monitoring networking traffic."
In addition to Google, Yahoo and SmugMug, MySQL's wide-ranging customer list includes some of the darlings of the Web 2.0 era, such as Facebook Inc. and YouTube Inc., as well as more traditional businesses like Toyota Motor Corp. and Southwest Airlines Co.
The buyout deal ends widespread speculation about the future of MySQL. Before agreeing to sell to Sun, the company had been on track for an initial public offering, said Kevin Harvey, a partner at venture firm Benchmark Capital and chairman of MySQL's board of directors. Menlo Park, Calif.-based Benchmark has a 26% stake in MySQL, and it uses the open-source database to help power its Web site.
One of the questions that Sun continually faces is how it can improve its bottom line while offering key technologies such as Solaris and Java on an open-source basis. But Harvey said that from his perspective, open source "very clearly" can be "turned into a fantastic business model."
And it isn't just technical fixes that are needed, they said. Although Sun described MySQL as "an open-source icon," it also will have to mend fences with users who are unhappy about the database vendor's sales tactics and complain that it has ignored their development suggestions.
For instance, within hours of the proposed acquisition's announcement on Wednesday, Don MacAskill, CEO and "chief geek" at SmugMug Inc., said in a blog posting that he is "seriously considering" not renewing the online photo-sharing service's platinum-level MySQL Enterprise support contract. "I probably wouldn't pay for MySQL as it stands today," he wrote.
In an interview, MacAskill said MySQL has performance and concurrency issues when it's paired with InnoDB, the most widely used storage engine for the database. In particular, the problems affect systems with multicore processors. "That's turning out to be a pretty major scalability roadblock for a lot of us," he said.
Google Inc. and other MySQL users have created patches designed to fix the performance problems. But MacAskill said that the open-source vendor has yet to add the patches to the database, despite requests that it do so from him and other users.
"I often wonder why they haven't been accepted and just pushed into the MySQL release," he said, adding that it will be "in [Sun's] best interest to see MySQL get really good at concurrency really fast."
MySQL officials said the patch question is now Sun's to answer - even though the acquisition isn't expected to be completed until late this quarter or early in the second quarter.
A Sun spokeswoman said today via e-mail that it's "too early to discuss specific plans" for updating the database. "What we can say," she added, "is that we actively engage with both our customers and developer base to hear their feedback regarding the direction of product plans and services, and will continue to do so."
There are plenty of other things that also need fixing in MySQL, according to a blog posting by Jeremy Cole, a former user of the database at Yahoo Inc. who now is a MySQL consultant at Proven Scaling LLC.
"There are a lot of areas where MySQL has been lacking for a long time, and the power users have been either crying in their beer or doing the work themselves," Cole wrote. For instance, he cited problems with the database's replication, logging and internal memory allocation features.
In addition, Cole criticized MySQL's sales and marketing team and said that the company's development model for MySQL Enterprise is "broken."
Jonathan Schwartz, Sun's CEO and president, said during a teleconference Wednesday that the biggest impediment to MySQL's growth has been its inability "to give peace of mind to a global company that wants to put MySQL into mission-critical deployments." Schwartz added that the open-source database will benefit from Sun's broader enterprise reach.
Sun already distributes the PostgreSQL open-source database on its Solaris-based servers; on the company's Web site, it touts PostgreSQL for Solaris 10 as "the open-source enterprise database platform of choice." But Schwartz described the purchase of MySQL as "the most important acquisition" ever made by Sun -- indicating that MySQL's software likely will eclipse PostgreSQL on Sun's priority list.
In addition to the internal issues that Sun faces at MySQL, the deal could complicate its relationship with Oracle Corp., which is Sun's largest database partner. MySQL competes directly with Oracle and other database vendors. Also, Oracle owns InnoDB after buying the storage engine's developer, Innobase Oy, in late 2005.
"Now that [MySQL] is going to be supported by a major vendor, there's lots of companies that are going to give it a serious look," said Robert Lepanto, Oracle applications manager at AppCentric Solutions LLC in Stamford, Conn. "I would think that's a serious long-term threat to Oracle."
Lepanto, who also is president of the New York City Metro Oracle Applications Users Group, added that he's surprised that Oracle "didn't buy [MySQL] first to squash the competition."
Daniel Grim, executive director of networks and systems at the University of Delaware in Newark, has an enterprisewide license for Oracle databases but also sees value in the open-source alternatives.
"We've often found Oracle is more complex and more cumbersome than things like PostgreSQL and MySQL are," Grim said. "So we use those for small applications, although some of [the] applications are quite large, such as monitoring networking traffic."
In addition to Google, Yahoo and SmugMug, MySQL's wide-ranging customer list includes some of the darlings of the Web 2.0 era, such as Facebook Inc. and YouTube Inc., as well as more traditional businesses like Toyota Motor Corp. and Southwest Airlines Co.
The buyout deal ends widespread speculation about the future of MySQL. Before agreeing to sell to Sun, the company had been on track for an initial public offering, said Kevin Harvey, a partner at venture firm Benchmark Capital and chairman of MySQL's board of directors. Menlo Park, Calif.-based Benchmark has a 26% stake in MySQL, and it uses the open-source database to help power its Web site.
One of the questions that Sun continually faces is how it can improve its bottom line while offering key technologies such as Solaris and Java on an open-source basis. But Harvey said that from his perspective, open source "very clearly" can be "turned into a fantastic business model."
Firefox, Red Hat more buggy than Microsoft
Secunia has found that the number of security bugs in the open source Red Hat Linux operating system and Firefox browsers far outstripped comparable products from Microsoft last year.
In a report released this week, Secunia also criticized CA for the quality of the code in its anti-virus products, saying that "inherent" code problems are exposing CA products to ongoing security vulnerabilities.
On the other hand, "zero-day" security bugs in Firefox were patched more quickly than in Microsoft Internet Explorer, according to the Secunia 2007 Report, released this week.
In a review of the number of vulnerabilities found in enterprise anti-virus vendors' products, Secunia found that CA was by far the leader, with 187 vulnerabilities, followed by Symantec with 73. Trend Micro (34), ClamAV (15), McAfee (13) and F-Secure (6) ranked lower on the list.
The high figures for Symantec and CA are partly due to their wide range of products, some of which cover areas other than anti-virus, Secunia said.
However, the majority of the CA bugs were due to "inherent code problems with some CA products", Secunia said in the report.
Of particular concern is CA's range of ARCServe Backup products for laptops and desktops, which Secunia submitted to its Binary Analysis process after several bugs were reported and fixed. The bugs involved errors in processing particular arguments and requests.
The analysis found that about 60 reported bugs were still present in the supposedly patched versions.
What's more, the analysis found that the vulnerabilities were partly due to "the nature of the product code itself", Secunia said.
"Unless an overhaul of the code is undertaken, then the product remains susceptible to similar types of vulnerabilities," Secunia said.
However CA said in a statement that it has rigorous quality-control measures in place for its software and continues to improve those measures.
A number of the vulnerabilities found in Symantec products were due to their use of vulnerable software from third-party developers, Secunia said.
One of these is the Autonomy Keyview SDK (software development kit), used in Symantec Mail to view Lotus 1-2-3 files. The component was reported to have a "highly critical" flaw on 12 December, but hasn't yet been patched, leaving some Symantec products vulnerable.
Symantec said in a statement that it has published instructions for mitigating the problem and has issued product updates for some affected vendors. IBM, whose Lotus Notes was also affected by the Autonomy bug, has issued its own patch.
Operating systems and browsers
Out of the operating systems monitored by Secunia - Windows (98 and onwards), Mac OS X, HP-UX 10.x and 11.x, Solaris 8, 9, and 10 and Red Hat (excluding Fedora) - Red Hat was found to have by far the most vulnerabilities, at 633, with 99 percent found in third-party components. (Linux distributions are generally composed mostly of third-party software, which is integrated by the distributor.)
Red Hat has taken issue with the figures, claiming the accurate number should be 404 vulnerabilities for last year.
Solaris came next, with 252 bugs, 80 percent of which were in third-party components. Mac OS X came after that with 235, 62 percent of which were third-party.
Windows had only 123 bugs reported, but 96 percent of those were found in the operating system itself. HP-UX had 75 bugs reported, 81 percent of which were in third-party code.
Last week, a US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) bug-fixing scheme uncovered an average of one security glitch per 1,000 lines of code in 180 widely used open source software projects.
The large number of Red Hat flaws is partly due to the large number and wide variety of components it includes.
"Red Hat contains two different browsers and graphic interfaces, a number of PDF readers and image editors, and so on," the report said. "Red Hat, HP-UX, and Solaris can easily be used as servers, and as such include and support a large number of third party components, while the same cannot be said of all versions of Windows and Mac OS X."
Any consideration of relative OS security should look at factors not covered by the report, such as average patching time for vulnerabilities, Secunia said.
In the browser field, Firefox led the way with 64 bugs, compared to 43 for Internet Explorer, and 14 each for Opera and Safari.
However, in an examination of zero-day flaws - reported by third parties before a patch was available - Secunia found that Firefox tended to get more patches, sooner, compared to IE.
Out of eight zero-day bugs reported for Firefox in 2007, five have been patched, three of those in just over a week. Out of 10 zero-day IE bugs, only three were patched and the shortest patch time was 85 days.
ActiveX was hit by the largest number of browser add-on bugs in 2007, with 339 (compared to 45 last year), Secunia said.
The figure was propped up by the Month of ActiveX Controls Bugs in May 2007, and by Secunia's discovery of a vulnerable ActiveX component that was used in 40 different products.
QuickTime followed with 35 bugs and Java with 21 bugs.
In a report released this week, Secunia also criticized CA for the quality of the code in its anti-virus products, saying that "inherent" code problems are exposing CA products to ongoing security vulnerabilities.
On the other hand, "zero-day" security bugs in Firefox were patched more quickly than in Microsoft Internet Explorer, according to the Secunia 2007 Report, released this week.
In a review of the number of vulnerabilities found in enterprise anti-virus vendors' products, Secunia found that CA was by far the leader, with 187 vulnerabilities, followed by Symantec with 73. Trend Micro (34), ClamAV (15), McAfee (13) and F-Secure (6) ranked lower on the list.
The high figures for Symantec and CA are partly due to their wide range of products, some of which cover areas other than anti-virus, Secunia said.
However, the majority of the CA bugs were due to "inherent code problems with some CA products", Secunia said in the report.
Of particular concern is CA's range of ARCServe Backup products for laptops and desktops, which Secunia submitted to its Binary Analysis process after several bugs were reported and fixed. The bugs involved errors in processing particular arguments and requests.
The analysis found that about 60 reported bugs were still present in the supposedly patched versions.
What's more, the analysis found that the vulnerabilities were partly due to "the nature of the product code itself", Secunia said.
"Unless an overhaul of the code is undertaken, then the product remains susceptible to similar types of vulnerabilities," Secunia said.
However CA said in a statement that it has rigorous quality-control measures in place for its software and continues to improve those measures.
A number of the vulnerabilities found in Symantec products were due to their use of vulnerable software from third-party developers, Secunia said.
One of these is the Autonomy Keyview SDK (software development kit), used in Symantec Mail to view Lotus 1-2-3 files. The component was reported to have a "highly critical" flaw on 12 December, but hasn't yet been patched, leaving some Symantec products vulnerable.
Symantec said in a statement that it has published instructions for mitigating the problem and has issued product updates for some affected vendors. IBM, whose Lotus Notes was also affected by the Autonomy bug, has issued its own patch.
Operating systems and browsers
Out of the operating systems monitored by Secunia - Windows (98 and onwards), Mac OS X, HP-UX 10.x and 11.x, Solaris 8, 9, and 10 and Red Hat (excluding Fedora) - Red Hat was found to have by far the most vulnerabilities, at 633, with 99 percent found in third-party components. (Linux distributions are generally composed mostly of third-party software, which is integrated by the distributor.)
Red Hat has taken issue with the figures, claiming the accurate number should be 404 vulnerabilities for last year.
Solaris came next, with 252 bugs, 80 percent of which were in third-party components. Mac OS X came after that with 235, 62 percent of which were third-party.
Windows had only 123 bugs reported, but 96 percent of those were found in the operating system itself. HP-UX had 75 bugs reported, 81 percent of which were in third-party code.
Last week, a US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) bug-fixing scheme uncovered an average of one security glitch per 1,000 lines of code in 180 widely used open source software projects.
The large number of Red Hat flaws is partly due to the large number and wide variety of components it includes.
"Red Hat contains two different browsers and graphic interfaces, a number of PDF readers and image editors, and so on," the report said. "Red Hat, HP-UX, and Solaris can easily be used as servers, and as such include and support a large number of third party components, while the same cannot be said of all versions of Windows and Mac OS X."
Any consideration of relative OS security should look at factors not covered by the report, such as average patching time for vulnerabilities, Secunia said.
In the browser field, Firefox led the way with 64 bugs, compared to 43 for Internet Explorer, and 14 each for Opera and Safari.
However, in an examination of zero-day flaws - reported by third parties before a patch was available - Secunia found that Firefox tended to get more patches, sooner, compared to IE.
Out of eight zero-day bugs reported for Firefox in 2007, five have been patched, three of those in just over a week. Out of 10 zero-day IE bugs, only three were patched and the shortest patch time was 85 days.
ActiveX was hit by the largest number of browser add-on bugs in 2007, with 339 (compared to 45 last year), Secunia said.
The figure was propped up by the Month of ActiveX Controls Bugs in May 2007, and by Secunia's discovery of a vulnerable ActiveX component that was used in 40 different products.
QuickTime followed with 35 bugs and Java with 21 bugs.
Yahoo to support OpenID single sign-on
People with a Yahoo user name and password will be able to use that ID information to access non-Yahoo Web sites that support the OpenID 2.0 digital identity framework, reducing the amount of different log-in information people need to create, remember and enter online.
Already, almost 10,000 Web sites support OpenID, an open framework available for free to end users and Web site operators alike, according to the OpenID Foundation.
Yahoo's move will triple the number of OpenID accounts to 368 million by adding its 248 million active registered users to the rolls, the company said Thursday.
OpenID addresses one of several issues related to giving people more control of their online activities. Other groups are focusing on data portability, to let people move around the data and content they create online, so that they don't have to enter it manually in, say, every social-networking site they sign up for.
Yet other initiatives, like Google's OpenSocial, aim to create standard interfaces so that developers can create applications that run in multiple social-networking sites, instead of having to rewrite the same application multiple times for every site.
For all of these initiatives, it's critical for major Internet players to get involved, so that the benefits of standard technology and methods developed by groups like OpenID can have a real-world impact.
Unsurprisingly, in Thursday's statement, Scott Kveton, the OpenID Foundation's chairman, hailed Yahoo's support as a crucial validation of the framework that will help spur its adoption by other large Web site operators.
Other major players that have expressed interest and gotten involved in varying degrees with OpenID include Google, Six Apart, AOL, Sun, Novell and Microsoft.
Yahoo's announcement doesn't come as a complete surprise, since signs that it had been working on an OpenID implementation had surfaced. For example, a short message in the domain me.yahoo.com indicating the company would act as an identity provider for OpenID was spotted last week.
Yahoo participated in the development of version 2.0 of the OpenID framework, which the company said provides new security features. Yahoo users who log in to third-party OpenID sites should know that the log-in process doesn't reveal e-mail or instant-message addresses, Yahoo said Thursday.
Yahoo's initial OpenID service will be available in public beta on Jan. 30 and the company is working with several partners, including Plaxo, so that the Yahoo ID will work on their sites that day.
Already, almost 10,000 Web sites support OpenID, an open framework available for free to end users and Web site operators alike, according to the OpenID Foundation.
Yahoo's move will triple the number of OpenID accounts to 368 million by adding its 248 million active registered users to the rolls, the company said Thursday.
OpenID addresses one of several issues related to giving people more control of their online activities. Other groups are focusing on data portability, to let people move around the data and content they create online, so that they don't have to enter it manually in, say, every social-networking site they sign up for.
Yet other initiatives, like Google's OpenSocial, aim to create standard interfaces so that developers can create applications that run in multiple social-networking sites, instead of having to rewrite the same application multiple times for every site.
For all of these initiatives, it's critical for major Internet players to get involved, so that the benefits of standard technology and methods developed by groups like OpenID can have a real-world impact.
Unsurprisingly, in Thursday's statement, Scott Kveton, the OpenID Foundation's chairman, hailed Yahoo's support as a crucial validation of the framework that will help spur its adoption by other large Web site operators.
Other major players that have expressed interest and gotten involved in varying degrees with OpenID include Google, Six Apart, AOL, Sun, Novell and Microsoft.
Yahoo's announcement doesn't come as a complete surprise, since signs that it had been working on an OpenID implementation had surfaced. For example, a short message in the domain me.yahoo.com indicating the company would act as an identity provider for OpenID was spotted last week.
Yahoo participated in the development of version 2.0 of the OpenID framework, which the company said provides new security features. Yahoo users who log in to third-party OpenID sites should know that the log-in process doesn't reveal e-mail or instant-message addresses, Yahoo said Thursday.
Yahoo's initial OpenID service will be available in public beta on Jan. 30 and the company is working with several partners, including Plaxo, so that the Yahoo ID will work on their sites that day.
Environmental protests take high-tech to the high-seas
When environmental protestors boarded a Japanese whaling ship in the Southern Ocean, images of the action quickly flashed on the world's TV sets, followed by photos from the Japanese ship after the protestors were taken into custody. Getting these images out is crucial if either side is to win the global PR battle, but doing so can be problematic when you're at sea, thousands of kilometers from the nearest cell phone network or broadband connection.
To solve their problems, both sides take advantage of digital video and photo technology to get the footage, then look to the skies and tap into the global satellite communications network run by London-based Inmarsat. The company specializes in providing voice and data services to maritime vessels and other users at sea, or in remote areas that traditional telecommunications networks don't reach.
On Tuesday, as the protestors approached the Japanese whaling vessel "Yushin Maru 2," a digital video camera was rolling onboard the small inflatable craft sent from the Sea Shepard Conservation Society's ship, "Steve Irwin." The camera caught the moment when two of the conservationists jumped aboard, and within seconds the video was speeding back toward the Steve Irwin on the inflatable.
Once back onboard, the video was fed into a Macbook Pro laptop and edited into a 13M-byte MPEG2 clip that was just 12 seconds long, said Jonny Vasic, a spokesman for the society.
"One of our big tools in these whale wars is these video and digital still cameras. They really help us expose the bad guys," said Vasic.
The clip was then sent via satellite to the society's FTP server and made available to the world's media.
The ship's satellite communications system is a US$35,000 "Sailor Fleet 77" unit that was donated to the society last year by Australia's Bluetongue Brewery. It supports up to 256k bps (bits per second) transmission, although actually getting that speed depends on several factors. In calm seas, a gyro-based mount keeps the antenna pointed at the satellite, but in heavy seas, maintaining a reliable signal can be a problem. Keeping the link gets increasingly difficult as the ship goes further south because the satellite appears very low on the horizon.
"It's about 90 percent reliable," said Vasic.
Crew onboard the "Steve Irwin" are also using the satellite link to attempt to send e-mail to the Japanese ship, in addition to marine-band radio calls, in an attempt to secure the release of their two members, who remain aboard the "Yushin Maru 2."
The Institute of Cetacean Research, the Tokyo-based organization that operates the "Yushin Maru 2," declined to comment on the technology at its disposal, citing security reasons.
"I'm sorry to say, you might be Greenpeace posing as a journalist," said Gabriel Gomez, a spokesman for the group in Tokyo, when contacted by telephone on Thursday.
The systems employed by the Japanese group don't appear as sophisticated. Only a handful of still images from the ship have been released by the group to the media, and they are a relatively low VGA (640 pixels by 480 pixels) resolution. No video has been made available.
The satellite communications technology being employed by the two ships is increasingly being used by media, governmental and relief organizations in remote areas. Earlier this month, Cable News Network (CNN) won a Technology and Engineering Emmy Award for its satellite news gathering system based on Inmarsat's BGAN broadband system. The BGAN system offers a standard IP (Internet Protocol) connection as fast as 492k bps and is small enough that it can be built into a backpack.
To solve their problems, both sides take advantage of digital video and photo technology to get the footage, then look to the skies and tap into the global satellite communications network run by London-based Inmarsat. The company specializes in providing voice and data services to maritime vessels and other users at sea, or in remote areas that traditional telecommunications networks don't reach.
On Tuesday, as the protestors approached the Japanese whaling vessel "Yushin Maru 2," a digital video camera was rolling onboard the small inflatable craft sent from the Sea Shepard Conservation Society's ship, "Steve Irwin." The camera caught the moment when two of the conservationists jumped aboard, and within seconds the video was speeding back toward the Steve Irwin on the inflatable.
Once back onboard, the video was fed into a Macbook Pro laptop and edited into a 13M-byte MPEG2 clip that was just 12 seconds long, said Jonny Vasic, a spokesman for the society.
"One of our big tools in these whale wars is these video and digital still cameras. They really help us expose the bad guys," said Vasic.
The clip was then sent via satellite to the society's FTP server and made available to the world's media.
The ship's satellite communications system is a US$35,000 "Sailor Fleet 77" unit that was donated to the society last year by Australia's Bluetongue Brewery. It supports up to 256k bps (bits per second) transmission, although actually getting that speed depends on several factors. In calm seas, a gyro-based mount keeps the antenna pointed at the satellite, but in heavy seas, maintaining a reliable signal can be a problem. Keeping the link gets increasingly difficult as the ship goes further south because the satellite appears very low on the horizon.
"It's about 90 percent reliable," said Vasic.
Crew onboard the "Steve Irwin" are also using the satellite link to attempt to send e-mail to the Japanese ship, in addition to marine-band radio calls, in an attempt to secure the release of their two members, who remain aboard the "Yushin Maru 2."
The Institute of Cetacean Research, the Tokyo-based organization that operates the "Yushin Maru 2," declined to comment on the technology at its disposal, citing security reasons.
"I'm sorry to say, you might be Greenpeace posing as a journalist," said Gabriel Gomez, a spokesman for the group in Tokyo, when contacted by telephone on Thursday.
The systems employed by the Japanese group don't appear as sophisticated. Only a handful of still images from the ship have been released by the group to the media, and they are a relatively low VGA (640 pixels by 480 pixels) resolution. No video has been made available.
The satellite communications technology being employed by the two ships is increasingly being used by media, governmental and relief organizations in remote areas. Earlier this month, Cable News Network (CNN) won a Technology and Engineering Emmy Award for its satellite news gathering system based on Inmarsat's BGAN broadband system. The BGAN system offers a standard IP (Internet Protocol) connection as fast as 492k bps and is small enough that it can be built into a backpack.
Intel's Classmate PC goes on sale to consumers in India
Intel's Classmate PC isn't just for students anymore. HCL Infosystems plans to sell a version of the Classmate PC to consumers and businesses in India who want a rugged, low-cost laptop.
Priced at 13,990 rupees (US$356), HCL's MiLeap X laptop uses the same beefy case as the Classmate PC. But HCL -- which signed an agreement with Intel last year to produce the Classmate PC -- insists there is very little in common between the two computers.
"It is a totally different product," said George Paul, executive vice president at HCL Infosystems.
The specifications of the MiLeap X suggest otherwise. Both computers have a 7-inch LCD (liquid crystal display) screen with 800-pixel by 480-pixel resolution, a 900MHz Celeron M processor, Wi-Fi, and 2G bytes of flash memory for storage instead of a hard drive. They also use the same chipset, Intel's 915GMS.
The main difference between the MiLeap X and the Classmate PC appears to be a minor aesthetic change: The MiLeap X's vinyl cover more closely resembles a business folio than the blue covers typically found on the Classmate PC. The MiLeap X also comes with HCL's logo emblazoned below the display.
Paul acknowledged the MiLeap X can be considered a "derivative" of the Classmate PC since both computers use similar technologies, but said significant differences exist between the two products. He did not specify what those differences are.
Nor Badron, an Intel spokesman, confirmed the MiLeap X is based on the Classmate PC.
The basic Classmate PC systems are supplied by Intel and manufacturers such as HCL configure the computers and install software to meet the needs of their customers, Badron said, adding that Intel was "extremely supportive" of HCL's plans to develop a Classmate PC version for consumers and business users.
The MiLeap X gives HCL a start in the low-cost laptop segment, where most computer makers have yet to release products. "It's a quick and easy way of getting into that market," said Bryan Ma, director of personal systems research at IDC Asia-Pacific.
The MiLeap X, which runs a version of the Linux operating system, will go on sale in India on Jan. 26.
Developed in response to the One Laptop Per Child Project's low-cost laptop efforts, Classmate PC was designed for schools in developing countries. The computers were not originally meant to be sold to the general public, largely over fears within Intel that the low-cost laptops would cut into the company's gross margin.
Last year, Taiwan's Asustek was the first to crack open the door for wider Classmate PC sales with the introduction of its Eee PC, which uses many of the same components. Intel expected Asustek to announce a version of the Classmate PC for education customers, but the Taiwanese hardware maker instead declared the Eee PC, which uses the same processor and components as the Classmate PC, would be sold to consumers.
Intel has since embraced low-cost laptops as a product segment, despite continued resistance from some executives inside the company. The company's focus on that market will intensify later this year with the release of Silverthorne, a low-cost, energy efficient processor that will appear in a number of low-cost laptops currently under development.
(John Ribeiro, in Bangalore, contributed to this report.)
Priced at 13,990 rupees (US$356), HCL's MiLeap X laptop uses the same beefy case as the Classmate PC. But HCL -- which signed an agreement with Intel last year to produce the Classmate PC -- insists there is very little in common between the two computers.
"It is a totally different product," said George Paul, executive vice president at HCL Infosystems.
The specifications of the MiLeap X suggest otherwise. Both computers have a 7-inch LCD (liquid crystal display) screen with 800-pixel by 480-pixel resolution, a 900MHz Celeron M processor, Wi-Fi, and 2G bytes of flash memory for storage instead of a hard drive. They also use the same chipset, Intel's 915GMS.
The main difference between the MiLeap X and the Classmate PC appears to be a minor aesthetic change: The MiLeap X's vinyl cover more closely resembles a business folio than the blue covers typically found on the Classmate PC. The MiLeap X also comes with HCL's logo emblazoned below the display.
Paul acknowledged the MiLeap X can be considered a "derivative" of the Classmate PC since both computers use similar technologies, but said significant differences exist between the two products. He did not specify what those differences are.
Nor Badron, an Intel spokesman, confirmed the MiLeap X is based on the Classmate PC.
The basic Classmate PC systems are supplied by Intel and manufacturers such as HCL configure the computers and install software to meet the needs of their customers, Badron said, adding that Intel was "extremely supportive" of HCL's plans to develop a Classmate PC version for consumers and business users.
The MiLeap X gives HCL a start in the low-cost laptop segment, where most computer makers have yet to release products. "It's a quick and easy way of getting into that market," said Bryan Ma, director of personal systems research at IDC Asia-Pacific.
The MiLeap X, which runs a version of the Linux operating system, will go on sale in India on Jan. 26.
Developed in response to the One Laptop Per Child Project's low-cost laptop efforts, Classmate PC was designed for schools in developing countries. The computers were not originally meant to be sold to the general public, largely over fears within Intel that the low-cost laptops would cut into the company's gross margin.
Last year, Taiwan's Asustek was the first to crack open the door for wider Classmate PC sales with the introduction of its Eee PC, which uses many of the same components. Intel expected Asustek to announce a version of the Classmate PC for education customers, but the Taiwanese hardware maker instead declared the Eee PC, which uses the same processor and components as the Classmate PC, would be sold to consumers.
Intel has since embraced low-cost laptops as a product segment, despite continued resistance from some executives inside the company. The company's focus on that market will intensify later this year with the release of Silverthorne, a low-cost, energy efficient processor that will appear in a number of low-cost laptops currently under development.
(John Ribeiro, in Bangalore, contributed to this report.)
Mac users: MacBook Air lacks features
Steve Jobs wowed the Macworld audience when he unveiled the slim, ultraportable MacBook Air notebook, but users and analysts say its lack of some important features may make it unattractive to buyers.
The ultraportable notebook, launched at the conference and expo on Tuesday, has a 13.3-inch wide-screen display and a full-size back-lit keyboard. It uses a 1.8-inch hard drive, also found in the iPod and a smaller version of Intel's Core 2 Duo processor.
Apple has also developed a program called Remote Disk, with which users can download software from the optical drive of a nearby computer using built-in 802.11n wireless networking. At 3 pounds (1.3 kilograms), Jobs called it the lightest and thinnest notebook on the planet.
Scott Armstrong, a Mac user, was watching the Web for news from the show as Jobs unveiled the notebook, which is .076 inches at its thinnest part and from 0.8 inches to 1.2 inches high, by removing it from a business-size manila envelope. For all its impressive features, it does not meet the needs of Apple's traditional multimedia audience, said Armstrong, who is also president of the Macintosh Users Group in Kennewick, Washington.
One omission is a FireWire communications port, which is necessary to transfer big multimedia files, Armstrong said. Apple has led the effort to promote FireWire, so it's surprising it wasn't included in MacBook Air, Armstrong said. One USB (Universal Serial Bus) port isn't enough, he said.
The machine lacks storage capacity and, at 4,200 revolutions per minute, the hard drive is really slow, Armstrong said. "Most people would like to have features in their laptops. This product is for people who won't need stuff or hook stuff up," Armstrong said.
It may be targeted at students, who could sacrifice features for portability, Armstrong said. "They haven't discontinued the MacBook and MacBook Pro notebook models, so they are doing it for a niche market," Armstrong said.
The Air's novelty value could attract buyers, but the $1,799 starting price tag is too heavy for a machine lacking features.
"They won't stay with this for long, they'll come out with something more innovative with Air," Armstrong said.
The MacBook Air is a mismatch with Apple's price-sensitive customers, such as educators and those who do creative work and require significant storage for music, photos and video, Citigroup said in a research note on Wednesday. Moreover, ultraportable-laptop users are generally Windows-based PC users, not Mac users, Citigroup said.
While the product could be a long-term success, Apple will produce the laptop in small volumes until more features are added, Citigroup said.
Unlike Asus' Eee PC, the MacBook Air may sell slowly because of its high price point and overlapping functionality with the existing MacBook and MacBook Pro lines, said Shaw Wu, an analyst with American Technology Research, in a research note. However, Apple is adept with product placement, as shown by the iPhone and iPod, where there has been minimal cannibalization despite overlapping functionality, Wu said.
The MacBook Air may be niche, but Apple could be pioneering the adoption of future technologies like wireless communication between devices, said Jim Ritz, a Mac user and member of the Apple Pi user group in Rockville, Maryland.
Users were concerned when Apple got rid of the floppy drive, and now Apple is now betting that the time for wireless networking has come by removing the Ethernet port and including wireless storage, Ritz said.
Adding more wireless features establishes Apple's intent to change the way users look at ultraportable laptops, Ritz said. "I'm curious to see what the notebook looks like a year from now."
Ritz has a plan that will help him afford to buy a MacBook Air, which he wants to try out -- he says he's going to offer to sell his recently purchased MacBook to his wife.
"It's a costly little puppy no doubt, but all new things are expensive," Ritz said of the MacBook Air.
Apple officials could not be reached for comment regarding concerns with the MacBook Air that were raised by Mac enthusiasts and analysts.
The ultraportable notebook, launched at the conference and expo on Tuesday, has a 13.3-inch wide-screen display and a full-size back-lit keyboard. It uses a 1.8-inch hard drive, also found in the iPod and a smaller version of Intel's Core 2 Duo processor.
Apple has also developed a program called Remote Disk, with which users can download software from the optical drive of a nearby computer using built-in 802.11n wireless networking. At 3 pounds (1.3 kilograms), Jobs called it the lightest and thinnest notebook on the planet.
Scott Armstrong, a Mac user, was watching the Web for news from the show as Jobs unveiled the notebook, which is .076 inches at its thinnest part and from 0.8 inches to 1.2 inches high, by removing it from a business-size manila envelope. For all its impressive features, it does not meet the needs of Apple's traditional multimedia audience, said Armstrong, who is also president of the Macintosh Users Group in Kennewick, Washington.
One omission is a FireWire communications port, which is necessary to transfer big multimedia files, Armstrong said. Apple has led the effort to promote FireWire, so it's surprising it wasn't included in MacBook Air, Armstrong said. One USB (Universal Serial Bus) port isn't enough, he said.
The machine lacks storage capacity and, at 4,200 revolutions per minute, the hard drive is really slow, Armstrong said. "Most people would like to have features in their laptops. This product is for people who won't need stuff or hook stuff up," Armstrong said.
It may be targeted at students, who could sacrifice features for portability, Armstrong said. "They haven't discontinued the MacBook and MacBook Pro notebook models, so they are doing it for a niche market," Armstrong said.
The Air's novelty value could attract buyers, but the $1,799 starting price tag is too heavy for a machine lacking features.
"They won't stay with this for long, they'll come out with something more innovative with Air," Armstrong said.
The MacBook Air is a mismatch with Apple's price-sensitive customers, such as educators and those who do creative work and require significant storage for music, photos and video, Citigroup said in a research note on Wednesday. Moreover, ultraportable-laptop users are generally Windows-based PC users, not Mac users, Citigroup said.
While the product could be a long-term success, Apple will produce the laptop in small volumes until more features are added, Citigroup said.
Unlike Asus' Eee PC, the MacBook Air may sell slowly because of its high price point and overlapping functionality with the existing MacBook and MacBook Pro lines, said Shaw Wu, an analyst with American Technology Research, in a research note. However, Apple is adept with product placement, as shown by the iPhone and iPod, where there has been minimal cannibalization despite overlapping functionality, Wu said.
The MacBook Air may be niche, but Apple could be pioneering the adoption of future technologies like wireless communication between devices, said Jim Ritz, a Mac user and member of the Apple Pi user group in Rockville, Maryland.
Users were concerned when Apple got rid of the floppy drive, and now Apple is now betting that the time for wireless networking has come by removing the Ethernet port and including wireless storage, Ritz said.
Adding more wireless features establishes Apple's intent to change the way users look at ultraportable laptops, Ritz said. "I'm curious to see what the notebook looks like a year from now."
Ritz has a plan that will help him afford to buy a MacBook Air, which he wants to try out -- he says he's going to offer to sell his recently purchased MacBook to his wife.
"It's a costly little puppy no doubt, but all new things are expensive," Ritz said of the MacBook Air.
Apple officials could not be reached for comment regarding concerns with the MacBook Air that were raised by Mac enthusiasts and analysts.
US OMB pushes for software as a service
A top official with the U.S. White House's Office of Management and Budget (OMB) gave her strongest endorsement yet to software as a service, saying Wednesday it can help federal agencies cut development costs.
A speech on Wednesday at the SaaS/Gov conference in Washington, D.C., wasn't the first time Karen Evans, administrator of the OMB's Office of Electronic Government and Information Technology, endorsed software as a service. Despite Evans' continuing advocacy of the concept, adoption has been slow among government agencies, according to one vendor.
Asked whether the OMB should more strongly promote software as a service, Evans said U.S. agencies need to weigh cost, security and other factors. But the U.S. government needs to move to a more service-oriented software model, she said.
"Our track record is clear -- we are not very good at delivering our own software in the time frame set," Evans said at the conference. "We're also not very good at managing large projects."
Some agencies haven't embraced the service approach, often because they want hands-on control of software development, Evans said. But government agencies can't afford to keep developing their own software without sharing with other agencies, she said.
"We can't continue to maintain all of the things we have," she added. "We have to start shutting down some of our legacy systems. We really have to move to a ... service-oriented market."
Although there's been no prohibition against U.S. agencies using software-as-a-service models, many agencies have been reluctant to move to a service-based approach, partly because of concerns about the security of Web-based services, said Dan Burton, senior vice president of global public policy for Salesforce.com.
Evans' speech on Wednesday could create a "tipping point" for the use of software-as-a-service models in the U.S. government, Burton said. Many agencies seem to believe that they don't have the authority to take a chance on the new model, he said.
One step that service-based software vendors can take is to seek security certifications and map out how their services meet Federal Information Security Management Act (FISMA) requirements, Evans said. Some agencies are reluctant to move to software as a service without certifications, she said.
However, some agencies are already using software as a service to cut down development times. Rezaur Rahman, enterprise architect and Web services manager for the U.S. Advisory Council on Historic Preservation, said his agency began using Salesforce.com offerings in its information management systems in recent months. Budget constraints helped push the agency toward software as a service, he said.
The agency is using services to take care of many functions it would have had to write its own code for in the past, including reading and writing to databases, Rahman said. The agency can often make tweaks to its information management systems in a day or less, he added.
A speech on Wednesday at the SaaS/Gov conference in Washington, D.C., wasn't the first time Karen Evans, administrator of the OMB's Office of Electronic Government and Information Technology, endorsed software as a service. Despite Evans' continuing advocacy of the concept, adoption has been slow among government agencies, according to one vendor.
Asked whether the OMB should more strongly promote software as a service, Evans said U.S. agencies need to weigh cost, security and other factors. But the U.S. government needs to move to a more service-oriented software model, she said.
"Our track record is clear -- we are not very good at delivering our own software in the time frame set," Evans said at the conference. "We're also not very good at managing large projects."
Some agencies haven't embraced the service approach, often because they want hands-on control of software development, Evans said. But government agencies can't afford to keep developing their own software without sharing with other agencies, she said.
"We can't continue to maintain all of the things we have," she added. "We have to start shutting down some of our legacy systems. We really have to move to a ... service-oriented market."
Although there's been no prohibition against U.S. agencies using software-as-a-service models, many agencies have been reluctant to move to a service-based approach, partly because of concerns about the security of Web-based services, said Dan Burton, senior vice president of global public policy for Salesforce.com.
Evans' speech on Wednesday could create a "tipping point" for the use of software-as-a-service models in the U.S. government, Burton said. Many agencies seem to believe that they don't have the authority to take a chance on the new model, he said.
One step that service-based software vendors can take is to seek security certifications and map out how their services meet Federal Information Security Management Act (FISMA) requirements, Evans said. Some agencies are reluctant to move to software as a service without certifications, she said.
However, some agencies are already using software as a service to cut down development times. Rezaur Rahman, enterprise architect and Web services manager for the U.S. Advisory Council on Historic Preservation, said his agency began using Salesforce.com offerings in its information management systems in recent months. Budget constraints helped push the agency toward software as a service, he said.
The agency is using services to take care of many functions it would have had to write its own code for in the past, including reading and writing to databases, Rahman said. The agency can often make tweaks to its information management systems in a day or less, he added.
MacBook Air -- the day after
Steve Jobs introduced the MacBook Air during his keynote address at the Macworld Expo on Tuesday morning. And one day later the first-blush opinions are in...
Apple's MacBook Air ultra-thin could spawn improved PC
By Joel Shore, ITworld
The envelope, please. No, it's not just an awards-show phrase, it's precisely how Steve Jobs unveiled Apple's latest masterwork, the ultrathin MacBook Air computer at Macworld earlier this week. Just 0.16 inches at its thinnest point, Jobs pulled the computer from a standard-size manila interoffice envelope. I'm no Mac maven, but like the crowd packed into the Macworld keynote address, I'm duly impressed. ...continue readig 'Apple's MacBook Air ultra-thin could spawn improved PC'
Apple's MacBook Air: evolution, not revolution
Scott Bradner, Network World
There was a, for Apple, reasonable level of hype leading up to Steve Jobs' keynote at Macworld 2008. Not like last year when everyone knew that the iPhone was coming (even if they did not know what an iPhone was). Most of the buzz this time was about a possible 'ultra portable. Finally, an hour into the talk, Steve introduced the MacBook Air - the 'world's thinnest notebook.' It's not my dream machine but it's very nice - more of an incremental improvement than something that creates a whole new mold-breaking concept. ...continue reading 'Apple's MacBook Air: evolution, not revolution'
MacBook Air: How incomplete is it?
Harry McCracken, PC World
Steve Jobs is, among many other things, the great denier. But I'm not sure if he's ever denied Apple customers as many features as he will with the MacBook Air. In introducing the Air, Jobs said that manufacturers of other thin-and-light laptops made too many compromises to make their machines sleek, like using small keyboards and screens and wimpy CPUs. But nobody else in the industry would dream of making some of the compromises that the Air makes. ...continue reading 'MacBook Air: How incomplete is it?'
Ultraportable challengers to the MacBook Air
PC World Staff
The MacBook Air is Apple's first foray into a crowded ultraportable market that has seen its share of very light, very capable products from companies including Sony, Lenovo, and Fujitsu, among others. Here's a fast look at how they stack up. ...continue reading 'Ultraportable challengers to the MacBook Air'
Big '08 for Apple with MacBook Air, iTunes
Jim Dalrymple, Macworld.com
After announcing the availability of movie rentals through iTunes, Jobs ended his 101-minute Macworld keynote by taking the wraps off the MacBook Air. It would be hard to gauge from the cheers during the keynote which of the two new announcement made the bigger impression. As for which product will be bigger for Apple in the weeks and months following the keynote, that all depends on who you ask. ...continue reading 'Big '08 for Apple with MacBook Air, iTunes'
Apple's MacBook Air ultra-thin could spawn improved PC
By Joel Shore, ITworld
The envelope, please. No, it's not just an awards-show phrase, it's precisely how Steve Jobs unveiled Apple's latest masterwork, the ultrathin MacBook Air computer at Macworld earlier this week. Just 0.16 inches at its thinnest point, Jobs pulled the computer from a standard-size manila interoffice envelope. I'm no Mac maven, but like the crowd packed into the Macworld keynote address, I'm duly impressed. ...continue readig 'Apple's MacBook Air ultra-thin could spawn improved PC'
Apple's MacBook Air: evolution, not revolution
Scott Bradner, Network World
There was a, for Apple, reasonable level of hype leading up to Steve Jobs' keynote at Macworld 2008. Not like last year when everyone knew that the iPhone was coming (even if they did not know what an iPhone was). Most of the buzz this time was about a possible 'ultra portable. Finally, an hour into the talk, Steve introduced the MacBook Air - the 'world's thinnest notebook.' It's not my dream machine but it's very nice - more of an incremental improvement than something that creates a whole new mold-breaking concept. ...continue reading 'Apple's MacBook Air: evolution, not revolution'
MacBook Air: How incomplete is it?
Harry McCracken, PC World
Steve Jobs is, among many other things, the great denier. But I'm not sure if he's ever denied Apple customers as many features as he will with the MacBook Air. In introducing the Air, Jobs said that manufacturers of other thin-and-light laptops made too many compromises to make their machines sleek, like using small keyboards and screens and wimpy CPUs. But nobody else in the industry would dream of making some of the compromises that the Air makes. ...continue reading 'MacBook Air: How incomplete is it?'
Ultraportable challengers to the MacBook Air
PC World Staff
The MacBook Air is Apple's first foray into a crowded ultraportable market that has seen its share of very light, very capable products from companies including Sony, Lenovo, and Fujitsu, among others. Here's a fast look at how they stack up. ...continue reading 'Ultraportable challengers to the MacBook Air'
Big '08 for Apple with MacBook Air, iTunes
Jim Dalrymple, Macworld.com
After announcing the availability of movie rentals through iTunes, Jobs ended his 101-minute Macworld keynote by taking the wraps off the MacBook Air. It would be hard to gauge from the cheers during the keynote which of the two new announcement made the bigger impression. As for which product will be bigger for Apple in the weeks and months following the keynote, that all depends on who you ask. ...continue reading 'Big '08 for Apple with MacBook Air, iTunes'
With trials beginning, another Estonia cyberattack
With the trial starting for four ethnic Russians charged in connection with rioting last year, the Estonian news site Delfi.ee has weathered a two-week-long denial of service attack.
The attack, which ended Tuesday, was minimally disruptive, according to Hillar Aarelaid, manager of Estonia's Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT). He described it as an "ordinary DDOS" (distributed denial of service) attack in which the news agency's servers were flooded with Internet traffic, in an attempt to crash them.
"Minimum assistance was needed from our side" to deal with the attack, he said in an e-mail interview.
DDOS is one of the techniques used in May 2007 during a widely publicized -- and far more widespread -- assault on computer systems in the tiny Baltic nation. Unlike last year's attacks, there were no political messages published in coordination with the Delfi.ee attacks, Aarelaid said.
The May 2007 attacks came after Estonian officials decided to relocate the statue of a Red Army soldier erected during the Soviet era, leading to protests from ethnic Russians angered by the move and by the destruction of the graves of Russian soldiers.
Estonian authorities were quoted in the media saying that the cyberattacks were traced to government servers in Russia, causing the attacks to be viewed as cyberwarfare. At one point NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization) weighed in on the issue, saying that "tensions over the Soviet war memorial and graves in Estonia must be resolved diplomatically between the two countries."
Security experts have described the online attacks as more of an online riot than coordinated, state-sponsored cyberwarfare, but they were effective. At the height of the onslaught, parts of the country's financial system were brought down as hackers crippled servers at Estonia's banks.
This four men on trial this week are accused of involvement in the April street riots that preceded the cyberattacks, according to a Reuters report. They are Dmitri Linter, Maksim Reva, Dmitri Klenski and Mark Sirik.
The attack, which ended Tuesday, was minimally disruptive, according to Hillar Aarelaid, manager of Estonia's Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT). He described it as an "ordinary DDOS" (distributed denial of service) attack in which the news agency's servers were flooded with Internet traffic, in an attempt to crash them.
"Minimum assistance was needed from our side" to deal with the attack, he said in an e-mail interview.
DDOS is one of the techniques used in May 2007 during a widely publicized -- and far more widespread -- assault on computer systems in the tiny Baltic nation. Unlike last year's attacks, there were no political messages published in coordination with the Delfi.ee attacks, Aarelaid said.
The May 2007 attacks came after Estonian officials decided to relocate the statue of a Red Army soldier erected during the Soviet era, leading to protests from ethnic Russians angered by the move and by the destruction of the graves of Russian soldiers.
Estonian authorities were quoted in the media saying that the cyberattacks were traced to government servers in Russia, causing the attacks to be viewed as cyberwarfare. At one point NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization) weighed in on the issue, saying that "tensions over the Soviet war memorial and graves in Estonia must be resolved diplomatically between the two countries."
Security experts have described the online attacks as more of an online riot than coordinated, state-sponsored cyberwarfare, but they were effective. At the height of the onslaught, parts of the country's financial system were brought down as hackers crippled servers at Estonia's banks.
This four men on trial this week are accused of involvement in the April street riots that preceded the cyberattacks, according to a Reuters report. They are Dmitri Linter, Maksim Reva, Dmitri Klenski and Mark Sirik.
Microsoft defends Open XML work
Rather than stacking the vote, Microsoft simply wanted to allow interested organizations to participate in the Open XML standardization process, unlike other rival efforts, a company executive said Wednesday.
Critics and supporters of the competing ODF (Open Document Format) have accused Microsoft of stacking votes, particularly a preliminary vote late last year in the International Organization for Standardization regarding standardization of the Open XML format.
"We have a very different perspective" on how that process occurred, said Tom Robertson, general manager of Microsoft's corporate interoperability and standards group, speaking to a group of journalists from around the world in Kirkland, Washington. "There was an increase in participation both from ODF proponents trying to stop this and people who wanted to see it to promote choice," he said. That meant that more than the "old guard" -- such as companies like IBM that typically participate in such processes -- became involved, he said.
Microsoft wanted to involve anyone who has a stake in interoperability, including governments, technology companies, academics and enterprises, he said. "This cannot be a closed-door process," he said. "Should those who are impacted by this decision have a seat at the table? Absolutely. Should it be restricted to Open XML advocates? No, it shouldn't be."
Microsoft also defended its choice of Ecma to initially standardize the technology, rather than another standards body. "It is one of the leaders in standardization in the IT space for decades," Robertson said.
All but one member -- IBM -- of the Ecma general assembly voted to adopt the standard. The general assembly also voted to pass it on to ISO, a worldwide standardization body, for ratification.
Despite that progress, critics wonder why Microsoft built the technology in the first place when there was already an existing open file format, ODF.
"It starts with our customers," Robertson said. "Many say that ODF doesn't meet their needs."
As an example, the ODF group initially decided not to support spreadsheet formulas, said Gray Knowlton, group product manager for Microsoft Office. "When we look at customers of Excel, we can't give them a standard that doesn't recognize spreadsheet formulas," he said. However, he also noted that ODF later reversed that decision to support spreadsheet formulas.
Microsoft is hopeful that Open XML will pass an upcoming ISO vote, but if it doesn't, it won't be the end of Open XML, the executives said. "It's already an open standard and already available to the community," said Robertson. "The issue here in the ratification is: Does the global community want a voice in the evolution of Open XML going forward."
Also, if individual governments mandate the use of ODF instead of Open XML, Microsoft would adapt, Knowlton said. The company would then implement the missing functionality that ODF doesn't support. However, those extensions would be custom-designed and outside of the standard, which is counter to the idea of an open document standard, Knowlton said. "Disastrous? No. But definitely not preferable," he said.
Critics and supporters of the competing ODF (Open Document Format) have accused Microsoft of stacking votes, particularly a preliminary vote late last year in the International Organization for Standardization regarding standardization of the Open XML format.
"We have a very different perspective" on how that process occurred, said Tom Robertson, general manager of Microsoft's corporate interoperability and standards group, speaking to a group of journalists from around the world in Kirkland, Washington. "There was an increase in participation both from ODF proponents trying to stop this and people who wanted to see it to promote choice," he said. That meant that more than the "old guard" -- such as companies like IBM that typically participate in such processes -- became involved, he said.
Microsoft wanted to involve anyone who has a stake in interoperability, including governments, technology companies, academics and enterprises, he said. "This cannot be a closed-door process," he said. "Should those who are impacted by this decision have a seat at the table? Absolutely. Should it be restricted to Open XML advocates? No, it shouldn't be."
Microsoft also defended its choice of Ecma to initially standardize the technology, rather than another standards body. "It is one of the leaders in standardization in the IT space for decades," Robertson said.
All but one member -- IBM -- of the Ecma general assembly voted to adopt the standard. The general assembly also voted to pass it on to ISO, a worldwide standardization body, for ratification.
Despite that progress, critics wonder why Microsoft built the technology in the first place when there was already an existing open file format, ODF.
"It starts with our customers," Robertson said. "Many say that ODF doesn't meet their needs."
As an example, the ODF group initially decided not to support spreadsheet formulas, said Gray Knowlton, group product manager for Microsoft Office. "When we look at customers of Excel, we can't give them a standard that doesn't recognize spreadsheet formulas," he said. However, he also noted that ODF later reversed that decision to support spreadsheet formulas.
Microsoft is hopeful that Open XML will pass an upcoming ISO vote, but if it doesn't, it won't be the end of Open XML, the executives said. "It's already an open standard and already available to the community," said Robertson. "The issue here in the ratification is: Does the global community want a voice in the evolution of Open XML going forward."
Also, if individual governments mandate the use of ODF instead of Open XML, Microsoft would adapt, Knowlton said. The company would then implement the missing functionality that ODF doesn't support. However, those extensions would be custom-designed and outside of the standard, which is counter to the idea of an open document standard, Knowlton said. "Disastrous? No. But definitely not preferable," he said.
Mozilla nabs top UI developers from Humanized
Mozilla has hired three of the five top employees at Humanized, a small company known for its innovative work to provide more intuitive user interfaces, but will not reveal their identities.
Mozilla confirmed the hirings through its public relations firm on Wednesday, but would not disclose their names. On the Humanized Web site, only five people are listed on the company's "Who We Are" page: Developer Jono DiCarlo, President Aza Raskin, Web and Systems Architect Scott Robbin, Vice President Atul Varma and Treasurer Andrew Wilson.
In a statement attributed to CEO John Lily, Mozilla said that the deal bringing the three to the company is not an acquisition and no intellectual property is changing hands. The Humanized recruits joined the Mozilla Labs team on Wednesday and will be working on the Firefox browser as well as other projects in the labs, he said. Eventually, the three will start blogging and reveal their identities and the nature of their work at the company, a representative from Mozilla's PR firm added.
Both companies are intentionally close-mouthed about the exact nature of the exchange between them. Reached at the Humanized Chicago office, Wilson, who also does system architecture and programming work, said he's not at liberty to discuss the specifics of the deal or say who exactly is moving to Mozilla.
However, he offered that "all of us will remain in Chicago for the next two months to make the transition happen." He confirmed that Humanized has not actually been purchased, so it's unclear exactly what that transition entails and what the fate of the company's Enso project is, or how it might fit into Mozilla's plans.
Enso user-interface software is available free and, according to information on the company's Web site, was designed to make it easier to perform daily tasks that require the use of various applications or functions.
Enso runs in the desktop background and allows users to type in simple commands to access applications instead of leaving the window or application they are in to go to another one. For example, if a user wants to open Firefox from the current screen, instead of having to find the Firefox icon or go to the Start menu in Windows, Firefox can be opened by holding down the Caps Lock key and typing in "open firefox." Performing calculations and acquiring word definitions also can be executed in a similar way from within the user's immediate screen view.
Humanized's Raskin is handling inquiries about specifics, Wilson said, but Raskin did not return an e-mail requesting comment Wednesday.
Aside from the Firefox browser, Mozilla also has an open-source e-mail client, Thunderbird. But the browser is more popular and has been more influential in the industry, igniting the first spark of competition in many years against Microsoft's Internet Explorer browser when it was launched in November 2004.
No matter who from Humanized has joined Mozilla, it's apparent the company is getting some brilliant young minds to help them galvanize any future UI innovations the company may be plotting. If their Web-site bios are any indication, Humanized is run by wunderkinds. DiCarlo, for instance, graduated from college at the age of 17 with a degree in physics before earning another degree in computer science from the University of Chicago, while co-founder Raskin started the company when he was 21 after co-authoring a physics textbook at 19.
Mozilla confirmed the hirings through its public relations firm on Wednesday, but would not disclose their names. On the Humanized Web site, only five people are listed on the company's "Who We Are" page: Developer Jono DiCarlo, President Aza Raskin, Web and Systems Architect Scott Robbin, Vice President Atul Varma and Treasurer Andrew Wilson.
In a statement attributed to CEO John Lily, Mozilla said that the deal bringing the three to the company is not an acquisition and no intellectual property is changing hands. The Humanized recruits joined the Mozilla Labs team on Wednesday and will be working on the Firefox browser as well as other projects in the labs, he said. Eventually, the three will start blogging and reveal their identities and the nature of their work at the company, a representative from Mozilla's PR firm added.
Both companies are intentionally close-mouthed about the exact nature of the exchange between them. Reached at the Humanized Chicago office, Wilson, who also does system architecture and programming work, said he's not at liberty to discuss the specifics of the deal or say who exactly is moving to Mozilla.
However, he offered that "all of us will remain in Chicago for the next two months to make the transition happen." He confirmed that Humanized has not actually been purchased, so it's unclear exactly what that transition entails and what the fate of the company's Enso project is, or how it might fit into Mozilla's plans.
Enso user-interface software is available free and, according to information on the company's Web site, was designed to make it easier to perform daily tasks that require the use of various applications or functions.
Enso runs in the desktop background and allows users to type in simple commands to access applications instead of leaving the window or application they are in to go to another one. For example, if a user wants to open Firefox from the current screen, instead of having to find the Firefox icon or go to the Start menu in Windows, Firefox can be opened by holding down the Caps Lock key and typing in "open firefox." Performing calculations and acquiring word definitions also can be executed in a similar way from within the user's immediate screen view.
Humanized's Raskin is handling inquiries about specifics, Wilson said, but Raskin did not return an e-mail requesting comment Wednesday.
Aside from the Firefox browser, Mozilla also has an open-source e-mail client, Thunderbird. But the browser is more popular and has been more influential in the industry, igniting the first spark of competition in many years against Microsoft's Internet Explorer browser when it was launched in November 2004.
No matter who from Humanized has joined Mozilla, it's apparent the company is getting some brilliant young minds to help them galvanize any future UI innovations the company may be plotting. If their Web-site bios are any indication, Humanized is run by wunderkinds. DiCarlo, for instance, graduated from college at the age of 17 with a degree in physics before earning another degree in computer science from the University of Chicago, while co-founder Raskin started the company when he was 21 after co-authoring a physics textbook at 19.
XO's new VoIP pricing model may save small companies money
In a move that could help small and medium-size businesses save money, telecom carrier XO Communications has rolled out a new pricing model for VoIP (voice over Internet Protocol) services based on the bandwidth a business uses, instead of the number of lines.
The pricing model, announced Wednesday along with expansion of XO's VoIP offerings, allows U.S. business customers to set a price based on an IP port speed ranging from 1.5M bps (bits per second) to 45M bps, instead of the number of lines used. There are additional costs for long-distance calling plans and additional features.
"With IP, voice is just another application over the IP backbone," said Nic Jackson, XO's director of voice and converged services. "When we put a T1 [connection] out to the customer premise, it really doesn't matter to us, or to the customer really, how they use that T1, as long as they have enough bandwidth to manage their voice and data needs. Why would we price differently for a voice channel vs. a data channel? It just doesn't make sense in this new IP world."
Pricing starts at about $400 to $550 a month for 1.5M-bps service, depending on location and based on a three-year contract, Jackson said. A basic long-distance calling plan would cost an additional $60 a month. XO also offers one-year and five-year contracts.
The new pricing model could cut costs for companies, particularly small and medium-size businesses, said Lisa Pierce, an analyst with Forrester Research. For a T1 line, a business with volume of about 54 calls per hour would be necessary for the XO pricing to make sense, she said.
"It looks like a pretty good deal," Pierce said.
However, businesses interested in the plan should inquire whether the service is being provided over XO's own backbone or whether the carrier is buying access from others, Pierce said. In some cases, the rented network access can cause outages, she said.
In addition, businesses should have a good idea about their current and future voice use before signing a contract based on bandwidth, Pierce recommended. "They need to really have a handle on their traffic to do that," she said. "And a lot of companies don't."
XO will help customers determine their bandwidth needs, Jackson said. The bandwidth pricing can help simplify customer decisions about what kind of calling services they need, she said.
In addition, XO, in Herndon, Virginia, announced it has expanded two of its VoIP offerings.
The company has launched its XO IP Flex service, which allows customers to use traditional PBXes or multiline, key telephone systems to connect to XO's VoIP services. The new service, which replaces XO's XOptions Flex offering, includes unlimited site-to-site calling, voicemail and dynamic bandwidth allocation, allowing full use of the IP circuit for data when voice lines are idle. IP Flex also offers bandwidth of up to 10M bps, compared to 3M bps under the old service, Jackson said.
XO also announced the nationwide availability of its IP SIP VoIP service, which delivers voice and data services to businesses with IP PBX systems over a single connection. XO launched IP SIP in October in six U.S. markets.
"What this means is a much broader portfolio than we had, say 18 months ago," Jackson said.
The pricing model, announced Wednesday along with expansion of XO's VoIP offerings, allows U.S. business customers to set a price based on an IP port speed ranging from 1.5M bps (bits per second) to 45M bps, instead of the number of lines used. There are additional costs for long-distance calling plans and additional features.
"With IP, voice is just another application over the IP backbone," said Nic Jackson, XO's director of voice and converged services. "When we put a T1 [connection] out to the customer premise, it really doesn't matter to us, or to the customer really, how they use that T1, as long as they have enough bandwidth to manage their voice and data needs. Why would we price differently for a voice channel vs. a data channel? It just doesn't make sense in this new IP world."
Pricing starts at about $400 to $550 a month for 1.5M-bps service, depending on location and based on a three-year contract, Jackson said. A basic long-distance calling plan would cost an additional $60 a month. XO also offers one-year and five-year contracts.
The new pricing model could cut costs for companies, particularly small and medium-size businesses, said Lisa Pierce, an analyst with Forrester Research. For a T1 line, a business with volume of about 54 calls per hour would be necessary for the XO pricing to make sense, she said.
"It looks like a pretty good deal," Pierce said.
However, businesses interested in the plan should inquire whether the service is being provided over XO's own backbone or whether the carrier is buying access from others, Pierce said. In some cases, the rented network access can cause outages, she said.
In addition, businesses should have a good idea about their current and future voice use before signing a contract based on bandwidth, Pierce recommended. "They need to really have a handle on their traffic to do that," she said. "And a lot of companies don't."
XO will help customers determine their bandwidth needs, Jackson said. The bandwidth pricing can help simplify customer decisions about what kind of calling services they need, she said.
In addition, XO, in Herndon, Virginia, announced it has expanded two of its VoIP offerings.
The company has launched its XO IP Flex service, which allows customers to use traditional PBXes or multiline, key telephone systems to connect to XO's VoIP services. The new service, which replaces XO's XOptions Flex offering, includes unlimited site-to-site calling, voicemail and dynamic bandwidth allocation, allowing full use of the IP circuit for data when voice lines are idle. IP Flex also offers bandwidth of up to 10M bps, compared to 3M bps under the old service, Jackson said.
XO also announced the nationwide availability of its IP SIP VoIP service, which delivers voice and data services to businesses with IP PBX systems over a single connection. XO launched IP SIP in October in six U.S. markets.
"What this means is a much broader portfolio than we had, say 18 months ago," Jackson said.
Intel 'energy-efficient' claim debunked
After Intel CEO Paul Otellini bragged that Intel's Xeon chip was the most energy-efficient processor Neal Nelson compared it to AMD's offering and found that Intel wasn't being exactly truthful.
Recent tests by Neal Nelson & Associates, an independent computer performance consulting firm, have reported that in 36 of the 57 cases tested an AMD Opteron-based server delivered better power efficiency than a comparably configured Intel Xeon-based server.
The tests were performed on servers configured with 2, 4, 6 and 8 gigabytes of main memory at various transaction processing load levels. The results show that for certain configurations and at certain load levels the Intel Xeon based server was 2.4 to 11.7 percent more power efficient while in other cases the AMD Opteron based server was 9.2 to 23.1 percent more power efficient. In addition, when the systems were idle and waiting for transactions to process, the AMD server was 30.4 to 53.1 percent more power efficient.
Power consumption while the servers are idle is particularly significant since many servers spend most of their time waiting for work. A November 16, 2006 press release from IBM quotes a report by the Robert Frances Group which states that on average servers in data centers are idle 80 to 85 percent of the time.
The test results also showed that:
-- Larger memory configurations deliver both higher throughput and better power efficiency
-- Intel's power efficiency advantages decrease as memory size increases,
-- AMD's power efficiency advantages increase as memory size increases,
-- For CPU-intensive workloads, the Xeon delivers 8.0 to 14.0 percent higher peak throughput,
-- For primarily I/O intensive workloads the Opteron delivers 11.3 to 19.4 percent higher peak throughput
Neal Nelson conducted these tests in response to a statement made by Intel CEO Paul Otellini in a July 18, 2007 analyst conference call. During that call Mr Otellini referred to Intel's "lead in power efficiency". Neal Nelson decided to use his company's benchmark toolset to determine if Intel actually had a lead in power efficiency.
In a somewhat dry comment, Neal Nelson said: "It appears that Mr. Otellini's statement is inconsistent with the test results."
The tests were not financed or sponsored by any company or group.
Recent tests by Neal Nelson & Associates, an independent computer performance consulting firm, have reported that in 36 of the 57 cases tested an AMD Opteron-based server delivered better power efficiency than a comparably configured Intel Xeon-based server.
The tests were performed on servers configured with 2, 4, 6 and 8 gigabytes of main memory at various transaction processing load levels. The results show that for certain configurations and at certain load levels the Intel Xeon based server was 2.4 to 11.7 percent more power efficient while in other cases the AMD Opteron based server was 9.2 to 23.1 percent more power efficient. In addition, when the systems were idle and waiting for transactions to process, the AMD server was 30.4 to 53.1 percent more power efficient.
Power consumption while the servers are idle is particularly significant since many servers spend most of their time waiting for work. A November 16, 2006 press release from IBM quotes a report by the Robert Frances Group which states that on average servers in data centers are idle 80 to 85 percent of the time.
The test results also showed that:
-- Larger memory configurations deliver both higher throughput and better power efficiency
-- Intel's power efficiency advantages decrease as memory size increases,
-- AMD's power efficiency advantages increase as memory size increases,
-- For CPU-intensive workloads, the Xeon delivers 8.0 to 14.0 percent higher peak throughput,
-- For primarily I/O intensive workloads the Opteron delivers 11.3 to 19.4 percent higher peak throughput
Neal Nelson conducted these tests in response to a statement made by Intel CEO Paul Otellini in a July 18, 2007 analyst conference call. During that call Mr Otellini referred to Intel's "lead in power efficiency". Neal Nelson decided to use his company's benchmark toolset to determine if Intel actually had a lead in power efficiency.
In a somewhat dry comment, Neal Nelson said: "It appears that Mr. Otellini's statement is inconsistent with the test results."
The tests were not financed or sponsored by any company or group.
More than half of H-1B visas go to India nationals
More than half of H-1B visas issued are issued to Indian nationals, who received 54% of the total number of temporary visas approved in 2006, according to a government study released Tuesday. And an increasing number of foreign workers who hold these visas -- more than half -- are in computer-related occupations.
China ranked a distant second, at 9%, among H-1B recipients. The next largest group of countries, all with 3% each, were from Canada, South Korea, and the Philippines, the report said.
Authored by the National Science Board, which oversees the National Science Foundation, the 588-page "Science and Engineering Indicators 2008" report examines the state of science and engineering training as well as the ability of the U.S. to compete globally, and includes an analysis of H-1B visa trends.
Some of its key takeaways concern education and research. The U.S. spent about US$340 billion in research and development in 2006, a record high. But federal support for basic and applied research has been on a multi-year decline, and the report also warned that U.S. grade school students continue to lag behind other developed countries in science and math.
Report meshes with other observations
The report's gloomy conclusions echo those reached by other observers. The Association for Computing Machinery, in its policy blog, recently looked at federal spending earmarked for research this year. It concluded that Congress is approving increases that do not match the inflation rate, and including earmarks for construction projects that are outside of its basic research funding mission. It charged that Congress has "abandoned its commitment to lead in science and technology."
The NSB report warns that the growth of the U.S. science and engineering labor force "may decline rapidly over the next decade because of the aging of individuals with science and engineering applications." The number of baby boomer-aged individuals eligible for retirement is expected to triple.
"If this slowdown occurs, the rapid growth in R&D employment and spending that the United States has experienced since World War II may not be sustainable," the report said.
Regarding the H-1B program, this study said 51% of the approximately 110,000 H-1B visa recipients in 2006 were employed in computer-related occupations. In 2002 about 25% were employed in computer-related occupations, a shift that may be indicative of the rise of offshore outsourcing in the U.S.
Offshore firms are the largest users of the H-1B. In the 2006 fiscal year, the top three employers of H-1B holders were India-based Infosys Technologies, at 4,908 visas; Wipro Ltd., at 4,002; and Tata Consultancy Services at 3,046, according to data released by U.S. Sens Dick Durbin (D-Ill) and Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) last year.
The bigger, dimmer picture
The H-1B data is just one aspect of various issues related to the science and engineering workforce, but underlying the analysis is the question of whether the U.S. will remain competitive in a global economy. Citing the economic output in China, India and South Korea, what may be happening is "a slow shift of the epicenter of the world economic growth toward that region."
But the U.S. remains far ahead today, and among the points made is that U.S. output per worker "increased more steeply" over the last 20 years "than that of any other economy."
The visa cap, which includes a special allotment for master's degree holders, is set at 85,000. The NSB report also included H-1B visas issued to universities and academic research exempt from the cap.
The education level of people receiving H-1B visas is generally high, with 44% of those receiving visas in 2006 holding a master's degree. But when it comes to starting salaries, having a master's degree doesn't appear to deliver any special advantage. The salaries reported to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services were different and generally higher than those reported to the U.S. Department of Labor. The starting salary for both bachelor's and master's degree holders was approximately $56,000, according to the report.
China ranked a distant second, at 9%, among H-1B recipients. The next largest group of countries, all with 3% each, were from Canada, South Korea, and the Philippines, the report said.
Authored by the National Science Board, which oversees the National Science Foundation, the 588-page "Science and Engineering Indicators 2008" report examines the state of science and engineering training as well as the ability of the U.S. to compete globally, and includes an analysis of H-1B visa trends.
Some of its key takeaways concern education and research. The U.S. spent about US$340 billion in research and development in 2006, a record high. But federal support for basic and applied research has been on a multi-year decline, and the report also warned that U.S. grade school students continue to lag behind other developed countries in science and math.
Report meshes with other observations
The report's gloomy conclusions echo those reached by other observers. The Association for Computing Machinery, in its policy blog, recently looked at federal spending earmarked for research this year. It concluded that Congress is approving increases that do not match the inflation rate, and including earmarks for construction projects that are outside of its basic research funding mission. It charged that Congress has "abandoned its commitment to lead in science and technology."
The NSB report warns that the growth of the U.S. science and engineering labor force "may decline rapidly over the next decade because of the aging of individuals with science and engineering applications." The number of baby boomer-aged individuals eligible for retirement is expected to triple.
"If this slowdown occurs, the rapid growth in R&D employment and spending that the United States has experienced since World War II may not be sustainable," the report said.
Regarding the H-1B program, this study said 51% of the approximately 110,000 H-1B visa recipients in 2006 were employed in computer-related occupations. In 2002 about 25% were employed in computer-related occupations, a shift that may be indicative of the rise of offshore outsourcing in the U.S.
Offshore firms are the largest users of the H-1B. In the 2006 fiscal year, the top three employers of H-1B holders were India-based Infosys Technologies, at 4,908 visas; Wipro Ltd., at 4,002; and Tata Consultancy Services at 3,046, according to data released by U.S. Sens Dick Durbin (D-Ill) and Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) last year.
The bigger, dimmer picture
The H-1B data is just one aspect of various issues related to the science and engineering workforce, but underlying the analysis is the question of whether the U.S. will remain competitive in a global economy. Citing the economic output in China, India and South Korea, what may be happening is "a slow shift of the epicenter of the world economic growth toward that region."
But the U.S. remains far ahead today, and among the points made is that U.S. output per worker "increased more steeply" over the last 20 years "than that of any other economy."
The visa cap, which includes a special allotment for master's degree holders, is set at 85,000. The NSB report also included H-1B visas issued to universities and academic research exempt from the cap.
The education level of people receiving H-1B visas is generally high, with 44% of those receiving visas in 2006 holding a master's degree. But when it comes to starting salaries, having a master's degree doesn't appear to deliver any special advantage. The salaries reported to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services were different and generally higher than those reported to the U.S. Department of Labor. The starting salary for both bachelor's and master's degree holders was approximately $56,000, according to the report.
Prize for zero-day Windows flaws set at $20,000
A security research company is offering $20,000 for information on undisclosed security flaws in Microsoft's Windows OS.
Digital Armaments, which doesn't list a phone number or a headquarters address on its Web site, is offering the money as part of the "Hacker's Challenge" through midnight EST, Feb. 29. The company is also soliciting for flaws in what they term "Windows Diffuse Applications."
Submitters need to illustrate a working exploit and document it, according to the company's Web site, which is filled with misspelled words.
There's nothing illegal about paying security researchers for flaws, but it does tend to annoy software companies whose products are affected.
Wabisabilabi, based in Switzerland, took the idea of compensating researchers a step further last year by opening a site for them to sell vulnerabilities in auctions. In response to criticism, company officials countered that researchers could sell zero-day vulnerabilities on the black market.
Microsoft, whose security vulnerabilities are generally high profile, advocates that researchers discretely alert it to software problems so users aren't put at risk. Companies generally refuse to pay for software vulnerabilities.
Digital Armaments says on its Web site its research team was founded in 2003, and offices were opened in the U.S. later that year.
In addition to paying money for vulnerabilities, Digital Armaments will also apparently pay in stock or credits that can be exchanged for stock under its Digital Armaments Contribution Program.
Efforts to reach Digital Armaments on Wednesday morning by e-mail were unsuccessful.
Digital Armaments, which doesn't list a phone number or a headquarters address on its Web site, is offering the money as part of the "Hacker's Challenge" through midnight EST, Feb. 29. The company is also soliciting for flaws in what they term "Windows Diffuse Applications."
Submitters need to illustrate a working exploit and document it, according to the company's Web site, which is filled with misspelled words.
There's nothing illegal about paying security researchers for flaws, but it does tend to annoy software companies whose products are affected.
Wabisabilabi, based in Switzerland, took the idea of compensating researchers a step further last year by opening a site for them to sell vulnerabilities in auctions. In response to criticism, company officials countered that researchers could sell zero-day vulnerabilities on the black market.
Microsoft, whose security vulnerabilities are generally high profile, advocates that researchers discretely alert it to software problems so users aren't put at risk. Companies generally refuse to pay for software vulnerabilities.
Digital Armaments says on its Web site its research team was founded in 2003, and offices were opened in the U.S. later that year.
In addition to paying money for vulnerabilities, Digital Armaments will also apparently pay in stock or credits that can be exchanged for stock under its Digital Armaments Contribution Program.
Efforts to reach Digital Armaments on Wednesday morning by e-mail were unsuccessful.
Sun to acquire MySQL for $1 billion
Sun Microsystems will pay $1 billion for Swedish software company MySQL, whose open-source database is used for some of the most widely visited Web sites in the world.
Sun said the deal will augment its position in the enterprise IT market, including the $15 billion database market.
Sun said MySQL's product line will help it give further support to the open-source Web application platform known as LAMP, the acronym for the Linux OS, Apache Web server, MySQL database and the PHP/Perl programming languages.
MySQL's strength in software-as-a-service offerings -- where applications are delivered over the Internet through a Web browser -- are also a plus, Sun said.
Databases are crucial for Internet-based applications in sites offering a range of services, from e-commerce to social networking.
Sun will pay $800 million in cash and $200 million in options, and the deal is expected to close by the end of Sun's 2008 fiscal year, which will end June 30.
Sun's acquisition ends speculation that MySQL might become a public company.
MySQL has become a formidable competitor to other relational database management systems from companies such as Oracle and IBM. The database itself is free for people to download, and MySQL makes money by offering subscription support packages.
MySQL CEO Marten Mickos -- whose business cards list him as "Open Sourcerer"-- will join Sun's executive team. MySQL will be folded into Sun's Software, Sales and Service organizations.
Sun said it plans to create a joint team to integrate MySQL, which has 400 employees in 25 countries, into its operations.
For Sun, the acquisition marks another phase in its turnaround after foundering following the dot-com bubble burst.
Since being appointed in April 2006, CEO Jonathan Schwartz has helped revive Sun's software and storage businesses and returned the company to a more stable financial footing.
For its first fiscal quarter of 2008 that ended Sept. 30, Sun reported net income of $89 million. It lost $56 million for the same period a year before.
Since Sun's server software and OS are free, the 32,000-employee company depends on revenue from hardware sales and support services.
In a conference call, Schwartz said while MySQL is used by companies such as Google and Facebook, it's not widely deployed in mission-critical environments due to support concerns.
Sun, however, is in a good position to build enterprise confidence in MySQL support, Schwartz said. "That's exactly what we will be focused on immediately as we prepare to put the two companies together," he said, calling the deal the most important in Sun's history.
Further, Sun will have an opportunity to offer more of its services and products, such as applications and authentication technology, to MySQL users, Schwartz said.
Mickos said MySQL has gone from "frugal" beginnings to the enterprise market, and is gaining traction in industries such as telecom operators. "We are the world's most popular open-source database," Mickos said.
The pending acquisition of MySQL will not dim Sun's support for another open-source database, PostgreSQL, as well as its Java DB, said Rich Green, Sun's executive vice president of software. Java DB is Sun's supported distribution of the open-source Apache Derby database.
One of the major deciding factors in acquiring MySQL was its use of pluggable components, which allows it to be customized for network operators and developers of embedded database applications, Green said.
Sun said MySQL will gain new distribution through companies such as Intel, IBM and Dell via existing relationships Sun has with those vendors.
Sun also said it will also work on optimizing the LAMP stack to run on GNU/Linux, Microsoft's Windows OS and its OpenSolaris OS.
Sun is in need of a database management system, one analyst said. It's choice of MySQL "makes sense with Sun's open-source orientation," said James Kobielus, senior analyst with Forrester Research.
MySQL's acquisition may also help convince people that open-source software isn't about a few developers working "in a garage with a lava lamp," said David Mitchell, senior vice president for IT research at Ovum.
Ovum values the open-source services market between $5 billion to $6 billion, and believes it is an area that is prime for a major player to step in, Mitchell said.
"This just proves there is money to be made in open-source software," he said.
(Peter Sayer in Paris contributed to this story).
Sun said the deal will augment its position in the enterprise IT market, including the $15 billion database market.
Sun said MySQL's product line will help it give further support to the open-source Web application platform known as LAMP, the acronym for the Linux OS, Apache Web server, MySQL database and the PHP/Perl programming languages.
MySQL's strength in software-as-a-service offerings -- where applications are delivered over the Internet through a Web browser -- are also a plus, Sun said.
Databases are crucial for Internet-based applications in sites offering a range of services, from e-commerce to social networking.
Sun will pay $800 million in cash and $200 million in options, and the deal is expected to close by the end of Sun's 2008 fiscal year, which will end June 30.
Sun's acquisition ends speculation that MySQL might become a public company.
MySQL has become a formidable competitor to other relational database management systems from companies such as Oracle and IBM. The database itself is free for people to download, and MySQL makes money by offering subscription support packages.
MySQL CEO Marten Mickos -- whose business cards list him as "Open Sourcerer"-- will join Sun's executive team. MySQL will be folded into Sun's Software, Sales and Service organizations.
Sun said it plans to create a joint team to integrate MySQL, which has 400 employees in 25 countries, into its operations.
For Sun, the acquisition marks another phase in its turnaround after foundering following the dot-com bubble burst.
Since being appointed in April 2006, CEO Jonathan Schwartz has helped revive Sun's software and storage businesses and returned the company to a more stable financial footing.
For its first fiscal quarter of 2008 that ended Sept. 30, Sun reported net income of $89 million. It lost $56 million for the same period a year before.
Since Sun's server software and OS are free, the 32,000-employee company depends on revenue from hardware sales and support services.
In a conference call, Schwartz said while MySQL is used by companies such as Google and Facebook, it's not widely deployed in mission-critical environments due to support concerns.
Sun, however, is in a good position to build enterprise confidence in MySQL support, Schwartz said. "That's exactly what we will be focused on immediately as we prepare to put the two companies together," he said, calling the deal the most important in Sun's history.
Further, Sun will have an opportunity to offer more of its services and products, such as applications and authentication technology, to MySQL users, Schwartz said.
Mickos said MySQL has gone from "frugal" beginnings to the enterprise market, and is gaining traction in industries such as telecom operators. "We are the world's most popular open-source database," Mickos said.
The pending acquisition of MySQL will not dim Sun's support for another open-source database, PostgreSQL, as well as its Java DB, said Rich Green, Sun's executive vice president of software. Java DB is Sun's supported distribution of the open-source Apache Derby database.
One of the major deciding factors in acquiring MySQL was its use of pluggable components, which allows it to be customized for network operators and developers of embedded database applications, Green said.
Sun said MySQL will gain new distribution through companies such as Intel, IBM and Dell via existing relationships Sun has with those vendors.
Sun also said it will also work on optimizing the LAMP stack to run on GNU/Linux, Microsoft's Windows OS and its OpenSolaris OS.
Sun is in need of a database management system, one analyst said. It's choice of MySQL "makes sense with Sun's open-source orientation," said James Kobielus, senior analyst with Forrester Research.
MySQL's acquisition may also help convince people that open-source software isn't about a few developers working "in a garage with a lava lamp," said David Mitchell, senior vice president for IT research at Ovum.
Ovum values the open-source services market between $5 billion to $6 billion, and believes it is an area that is prime for a major player to step in, Mitchell said.
"This just proves there is money to be made in open-source software," he said.
(Peter Sayer in Paris contributed to this story).
Oracle fixes critical flaws in quarterly update
Oracle has released 26 fixes across its product line in its latest critical patch update, nine of which repair flaws that are remotely exploitable.
In an advisory listing the problems, Oracle advised administrators to patch their machines as quickly as possible.
Five of the six vulnerabilities in Oracle's Application Server can be exploited over a network without the need for a username or password, the company said.
The same danger applies to three of seven vulnerabilities in the E-Business Suite and Applications and one of four problems in PeopleSoft Enterprise PeopleTools, Oracle said.
In other products, the update includes one patch for Oracle's Collaboration Suite and eight for various Database products.
Oracle fixed a total of 51 vulnerabilities in its last critical patch update in October.
In an advisory listing the problems, Oracle advised administrators to patch their machines as quickly as possible.
Five of the six vulnerabilities in Oracle's Application Server can be exploited over a network without the need for a username or password, the company said.
The same danger applies to three of seven vulnerabilities in the E-Business Suite and Applications and one of four problems in PeopleSoft Enterprise PeopleTools, Oracle said.
In other products, the update includes one patch for Oracle's Collaboration Suite and eight for various Database products.
Oracle fixed a total of 51 vulnerabilities in its last critical patch update in October.
Microsoft's SenseCam keeps memories in mind
A digital camera developed by Microsoft is undergoing testing, but you won't see it in any stores soon.
Over the past several years at its research facility in Cambridge, England, the company created a wearable digital camera called the SenseCam. The camera's software is designed to take a low-resolution photo every 30 seconds while dangling from its wearer.
The SenseCam has received increasing attention in the medical field as an experimental tool to help those with memory problems, such as Alzheimer's disease. In 2005 the first trials began, and over time, the SenseCam has been used to help those with more severe memory problems, said Emma Berry, a neuropsychologist at Addenbrooke's Hospital in Cambridge.
Berry has been working recently with a 68-year-old Cambridge woman, "Mrs. F," who was diagnosed 12 years ago with severe memory impairment. For example, if Mrs. F goes to an art exhibit in the morning, she will not remember the activity the next day, Berry said.
Mrs F. wears the SenseCam on a lanyard around her neck when she and Berry do an activity. The SenseCam will take hundreds of images with its fish-eye lens, which provides a wide-angle view. Then, every two days for two weeks, Mrs. F reviews the images.
"At the end of the two weeks, she has a fantastic recollection of the event," Berry said. "What seems to happen is that when she looks at the images, some images don't bring to mind the events at all, but one or two of the images or maybe 10 of the images will bring it all back to her."
A key factor seems to be the quantity of images, since different images and scenes are more significant for some people than others, Berry said. For one person, the color of another person's shoes captured in an image may be enough to trigger wider recollections, she said.
SenseCam can take plenty of images. It has a 1 G-byte SD memory card and can shoot as many as 30,000 640-by-480 pixel images at Video Graphics Array quality. That spec isn't very impressive compared to today's digital cameras, but it's enough to be useful to jog memory, said Steve Hodges, who manages the SenseCam project at Microsoft Research in Cambridge.
"It's remarkable how it appears to trigger your memory for that event," Hodges said. "It seems to bring you back to that original moment."
SenseCam holds advantages over video recorders, Hodges said. The device is less intrusive for the user to wear, and the snapshots can be viewed at a faster pace later, allowing a person to get to the significant images rather than watching a video clip in real time. SenseCam's battery will last more than a day, and its user must download the images every couple of days.
SenseCam's image-viewing software is easy enough for elderly people to manage and designed to display images in a flip-book fashion, Hodges said. Similar to other photo-viewing software, a person can choose how quickly they want to play back the photos, he said.
The device has other features tailored to its purpose. It will interrupt its 30-second intervals to take a photo when it senses a sudden change in lighting or heat. It's equipped with a passive infrared sensor that can detect when another person is close and can take a photo.
So far, Microsoft isn't working on advancing the hardware specifications and instead is concentrating on engaging the medical community, Hodges said. Microsoft has no plans to commercialize SenseCam, but it has provided US$550,000 in funding for medical research projects using it.
Researchers are still a long way from understanding how memory works. Duke University in Durham, North Carolina, and the University of Leeds in England have a research project underway using the SenseCam to study autobiographical memory, or how people remember events over their lifetime.
"The jury is out over what part of our brains are involved in autobiographical memory," Berry said.
Over the past several years at its research facility in Cambridge, England, the company created a wearable digital camera called the SenseCam. The camera's software is designed to take a low-resolution photo every 30 seconds while dangling from its wearer.
The SenseCam has received increasing attention in the medical field as an experimental tool to help those with memory problems, such as Alzheimer's disease. In 2005 the first trials began, and over time, the SenseCam has been used to help those with more severe memory problems, said Emma Berry, a neuropsychologist at Addenbrooke's Hospital in Cambridge.
Berry has been working recently with a 68-year-old Cambridge woman, "Mrs. F," who was diagnosed 12 years ago with severe memory impairment. For example, if Mrs. F goes to an art exhibit in the morning, she will not remember the activity the next day, Berry said.
Mrs F. wears the SenseCam on a lanyard around her neck when she and Berry do an activity. The SenseCam will take hundreds of images with its fish-eye lens, which provides a wide-angle view. Then, every two days for two weeks, Mrs. F reviews the images.
"At the end of the two weeks, she has a fantastic recollection of the event," Berry said. "What seems to happen is that when she looks at the images, some images don't bring to mind the events at all, but one or two of the images or maybe 10 of the images will bring it all back to her."
A key factor seems to be the quantity of images, since different images and scenes are more significant for some people than others, Berry said. For one person, the color of another person's shoes captured in an image may be enough to trigger wider recollections, she said.
SenseCam can take plenty of images. It has a 1 G-byte SD memory card and can shoot as many as 30,000 640-by-480 pixel images at Video Graphics Array quality. That spec isn't very impressive compared to today's digital cameras, but it's enough to be useful to jog memory, said Steve Hodges, who manages the SenseCam project at Microsoft Research in Cambridge.
"It's remarkable how it appears to trigger your memory for that event," Hodges said. "It seems to bring you back to that original moment."
SenseCam holds advantages over video recorders, Hodges said. The device is less intrusive for the user to wear, and the snapshots can be viewed at a faster pace later, allowing a person to get to the significant images rather than watching a video clip in real time. SenseCam's battery will last more than a day, and its user must download the images every couple of days.
SenseCam's image-viewing software is easy enough for elderly people to manage and designed to display images in a flip-book fashion, Hodges said. Similar to other photo-viewing software, a person can choose how quickly they want to play back the photos, he said.
The device has other features tailored to its purpose. It will interrupt its 30-second intervals to take a photo when it senses a sudden change in lighting or heat. It's equipped with a passive infrared sensor that can detect when another person is close and can take a photo.
So far, Microsoft isn't working on advancing the hardware specifications and instead is concentrating on engaging the medical community, Hodges said. Microsoft has no plans to commercialize SenseCam, but it has provided US$550,000 in funding for medical research projects using it.
Researchers are still a long way from understanding how memory works. Duke University in Durham, North Carolina, and the University of Leeds in England have a research project underway using the SenseCam to study autobiographical memory, or how people remember events over their lifetime.
"The jury is out over what part of our brains are involved in autobiographical memory," Berry said.
Nashville laptop theft may cost $1 million
The theft of a laptop containing Social Security numbers of Nashville, Tennessee, area voters is expected to cost local officials about $1 million as they roll out identity-theft protection to those affected.
County officials say that thieves broke into Davidson County Election Commission offices on the weekend before Christmas, smashing a window with a rock and then making off with a $3,000 router, a digital camera and a pair of Dell Latitude laptops containing names and Social Security numbers of all 337,000 registered voters in the county.
County election officials began notifying residents of the breach on Jan. 2, and the local government is offering victims one year of free identity theft protection from Debix Identity Protection Network.
Debix says that 25 percent to 35 percent of victims of this type of breach typically request this service. With the city paying Debix just under $10 per account, the price tag for the laptop theft is expected to be in the $1 million range.
Since state data breach disclosure laws went into effect a few years ago, the theft of an unencrypted laptop computer can become a major problem for any organization that stores sensitive data.
"It is a very bad information-handling practice to keep sensitive information about individuals including their Social Security numbers on an unencrypted laptop or any other device that is removable," said Paul Stephens director of policy and advocacy with Privacy Rights Clearinghouse, a privacy advocacy group that has tracked the exposure of 217 million records in the U.S. over the past three years.
Laptop thefts have been the source of privacy breaches at AT&T, The Gap, and the Chicago Public School system recently.
The Metropolitan Government of Nashville and Davidson County's IT services department is now working with the Commission to make changes to protect residents from this type of incident and has already come up with 19 recommendations, said Janel Lacy, a spokeswoman for Nashville Mayor Karl Dean.
County officials say that thieves broke into Davidson County Election Commission offices on the weekend before Christmas, smashing a window with a rock and then making off with a $3,000 router, a digital camera and a pair of Dell Latitude laptops containing names and Social Security numbers of all 337,000 registered voters in the county.
County election officials began notifying residents of the breach on Jan. 2, and the local government is offering victims one year of free identity theft protection from Debix Identity Protection Network.
Debix says that 25 percent to 35 percent of victims of this type of breach typically request this service. With the city paying Debix just under $10 per account, the price tag for the laptop theft is expected to be in the $1 million range.
Since state data breach disclosure laws went into effect a few years ago, the theft of an unencrypted laptop computer can become a major problem for any organization that stores sensitive data.
"It is a very bad information-handling practice to keep sensitive information about individuals including their Social Security numbers on an unencrypted laptop or any other device that is removable," said Paul Stephens director of policy and advocacy with Privacy Rights Clearinghouse, a privacy advocacy group that has tracked the exposure of 217 million records in the U.S. over the past three years.
Laptop thefts have been the source of privacy breaches at AT&T, The Gap, and the Chicago Public School system recently.
The Metropolitan Government of Nashville and Davidson County's IT services department is now working with the Commission to make changes to protect residents from this type of incident and has already come up with 19 recommendations, said Janel Lacy, a spokeswoman for Nashville Mayor Karl Dean.
MySpace, states team up for children's safety
An agreement between MySpace and most U.S. state attorneys general will significantly increase the safety of minors on the popular social network and boost the ability of police to catch and prosecute sexual predators who use the Web, said MySpace and several participating attorneys general Monday.
MySpace and attorneys general from 49 U.S. states and the District of Columbia announced on Monday a set of principles for social-networking safety that they hope will be broadly adopted by companies that operate these sites.
The announcement comes at a time when MySpace and social-networking sites in general are being closely monitored and sometimes sharply criticized by law enforcement agencies worldwide, which charge they aren't doing enough to protect minors on their sites.
Called the Joint Statement on Key Principles of Social Networking Sites Safety, the document states among its goals the development of a truly effective tool that social-networking sites can use to verify the age of members and potential members.
As part of the agreement, MySpace also pledged to develop a registry to which parents can submit their children's e-mail addresses to have them barred from social-networking sites.
MySpace will also make profiles of members under 18 years of age private by default and make it harder for adults to contact children via the site. The minimum age to have a MySpace profile is 14 years old.
In conjunction with the participating state attorneys general, MySpace has also committed to organizing an industry-wide Internet Safety Technical Task Force.
MySpace will also improve its tools and methods to identify and delete inappropriate images, obtain and constantly update a list of pornographic Web sites and break links between them and its site.
The joint statement is the result of about two years of ongoing discussions between the attorneys general and MySpace, said North Carolina Attorney General Roy Cooper and Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal during a news conference.
Calling the agreement "remarkable" and vowing that it will set "a new standard" for protecting minors online, Cooper said it's crucial for other social-networking sites like Facebook to support this effort.
"I urge other social-networking sites to follow this lead to participate in the task force and adopt the safety principles in this agreement," Cooper said.
Blumenthal predicted that the task force will begin generating concrete results in months, not years, and stressed that the attorneys general believe that it's key for the safety of minors to have effective age-verification tools and methods.
This way, children who aren't old enough to join a social network will be prevented from doing so, and teens under 18 years of age will get special protection, he said.
The attorneys general participating in the call, which also included those from Ohio and Pennsylvania, agreed that parents must also get involved in this effort.
MySpace was happy to engage in these discussions with the attorneys general, said MySpace Chief Security Officer Hemanshu Nigam, adding that he hopes others in the industry will join the effort.
MySpace and attorneys general from 49 U.S. states and the District of Columbia announced on Monday a set of principles for social-networking safety that they hope will be broadly adopted by companies that operate these sites.
The announcement comes at a time when MySpace and social-networking sites in general are being closely monitored and sometimes sharply criticized by law enforcement agencies worldwide, which charge they aren't doing enough to protect minors on their sites.
Called the Joint Statement on Key Principles of Social Networking Sites Safety, the document states among its goals the development of a truly effective tool that social-networking sites can use to verify the age of members and potential members.
As part of the agreement, MySpace also pledged to develop a registry to which parents can submit their children's e-mail addresses to have them barred from social-networking sites.
MySpace will also make profiles of members under 18 years of age private by default and make it harder for adults to contact children via the site. The minimum age to have a MySpace profile is 14 years old.
In conjunction with the participating state attorneys general, MySpace has also committed to organizing an industry-wide Internet Safety Technical Task Force.
MySpace will also improve its tools and methods to identify and delete inappropriate images, obtain and constantly update a list of pornographic Web sites and break links between them and its site.
The joint statement is the result of about two years of ongoing discussions between the attorneys general and MySpace, said North Carolina Attorney General Roy Cooper and Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal during a news conference.
Calling the agreement "remarkable" and vowing that it will set "a new standard" for protecting minors online, Cooper said it's crucial for other social-networking sites like Facebook to support this effort.
"I urge other social-networking sites to follow this lead to participate in the task force and adopt the safety principles in this agreement," Cooper said.
Blumenthal predicted that the task force will begin generating concrete results in months, not years, and stressed that the attorneys general believe that it's key for the safety of minors to have effective age-verification tools and methods.
This way, children who aren't old enough to join a social network will be prevented from doing so, and teens under 18 years of age will get special protection, he said.
The attorneys general participating in the call, which also included those from Ohio and Pennsylvania, agreed that parents must also get involved in this effort.
MySpace was happy to engage in these discussions with the attorneys general, said MySpace Chief Security Officer Hemanshu Nigam, adding that he hopes others in the industry will join the effort.
iPhone briefly becomes number-one Google user
Google released an update to its offerings for the iPhone, hoping to continue a trend that recently saw the iPhone briefly become the number-one mobile phone hitting Google sites.
Despite its small share of the overall mobile phone market, the iPhone spiked to number one on Dec. 25 among phones using Google's services, beating out mobile makers that have been selling smartphones for many years.
Google revealed a chart showing that around the middle of November, iPhone users began to surpass BlackBerry customers in accessing Google, though they were still behind Symbian and Windows Mobile users. But on Dec. 25, iPhone users shot above them all, then quickly settled into the second-largest Google user base.
By the end of September, the last quarter in which Apple reported numbers, Apple had sold more than 1.3 million iPhones. By comparison, Nokia has sold 50 million of its N series line of phones, said Avi Greengart, an analyst at Current Analysis. At the end of December, there were 12 million subscribers using BlackBerry devices.
"One thing this does is shows that Apple has done a remarkable job of publicizing some of these capabilities, even if they're not the first to bring the capability to market," Greengart said. Some of Google's mobile services, like Google Maps, were already available on mobile phones before the iPhone hit the market. Yet, clearly, iPhone customers are using the services more frequently. "Either because of the design or PR or brand, or in all possibility because of the implementation ... Apple has popularized the notion that you can do more on the phone than you might have tried to do previously," he said.
iPhone customers will indeed be able to do more using Google services, with the updated offerings unveiled Monday.
iPhone users can now customize Google services through the menu bar and iGoogle home page. When iPhone users visit Google.com, they can choose Google applications to appear as links in a menu bar that runs across the top of the page. Signing in once, users can then access a variety of Google services, including Gmail, Calendar, Reader, Docs and Picasa.
In addition, iPhone users can also visit their customized iGoogle page from their phones. iGoogle is a page that users can arrange to include widgets of their choosing, including news, weather, games and recent Gmail mails.
Other changes to Google's iPhone service include an updated user interface and a monthly view on the calendar. In addition, users won't have to hit refresh to see new e-mails in Gmail because Gmail will automatically show new messages.
The new Google services for the iPhone keep pace with some new services that Yahoo introduced just last week. Yahoo began letting mobile users, including iPhone customers, choose widgets to arrange on their mobile Yahoo home pages. On its mobile Web site, Yahoo claims to offer the only e-mail service that pushes new messages to the iPhone as soon as they come in.
The new mobile services from Yahoo and Google demonstrate the eagerness both companies have to win over mobile users.
Despite its small share of the overall mobile phone market, the iPhone spiked to number one on Dec. 25 among phones using Google's services, beating out mobile makers that have been selling smartphones for many years.
Google revealed a chart showing that around the middle of November, iPhone users began to surpass BlackBerry customers in accessing Google, though they were still behind Symbian and Windows Mobile users. But on Dec. 25, iPhone users shot above them all, then quickly settled into the second-largest Google user base.
By the end of September, the last quarter in which Apple reported numbers, Apple had sold more than 1.3 million iPhones. By comparison, Nokia has sold 50 million of its N series line of phones, said Avi Greengart, an analyst at Current Analysis. At the end of December, there were 12 million subscribers using BlackBerry devices.
"One thing this does is shows that Apple has done a remarkable job of publicizing some of these capabilities, even if they're not the first to bring the capability to market," Greengart said. Some of Google's mobile services, like Google Maps, were already available on mobile phones before the iPhone hit the market. Yet, clearly, iPhone customers are using the services more frequently. "Either because of the design or PR or brand, or in all possibility because of the implementation ... Apple has popularized the notion that you can do more on the phone than you might have tried to do previously," he said.
iPhone customers will indeed be able to do more using Google services, with the updated offerings unveiled Monday.
iPhone users can now customize Google services through the menu bar and iGoogle home page. When iPhone users visit Google.com, they can choose Google applications to appear as links in a menu bar that runs across the top of the page. Signing in once, users can then access a variety of Google services, including Gmail, Calendar, Reader, Docs and Picasa.
In addition, iPhone users can also visit their customized iGoogle page from their phones. iGoogle is a page that users can arrange to include widgets of their choosing, including news, weather, games and recent Gmail mails.
Other changes to Google's iPhone service include an updated user interface and a monthly view on the calendar. In addition, users won't have to hit refresh to see new e-mails in Gmail because Gmail will automatically show new messages.
The new Google services for the iPhone keep pace with some new services that Yahoo introduced just last week. Yahoo began letting mobile users, including iPhone customers, choose widgets to arrange on their mobile Yahoo home pages. On its mobile Web site, Yahoo claims to offer the only e-mail service that pushes new messages to the iPhone as soon as they come in.
The new mobile services from Yahoo and Google demonstrate the eagerness both companies have to win over mobile users.
10,000 Web sites rigged with advanced hacking attack
A sophisticated hacking scheme seen early last year is affecting an increasing number of Web servers, including one owned by a major online advertising company, the chief technology officer of Finjan Software said Monday.
It appears that a single gang is behind the attacks, since the malicious software it spreads is storing login and password details on one server in Spain, said Yuval Ben-Itzhak. Finjan is trying to get the ISP (Internet service provider) to shut it down, he said.
A Web server of an online advertising company that serves 14 million banner ads to other Web sites has also been hacked, Ben-Itzhak said. That means that the PC of anyone who visits a legitimate site hosting a malicious banner ad could potentially be infected if their computer isn't patched, he said.
"You can imagine the magnitude," Ben-Itzhak said.
Ben-Itzhak declined to identify the company, but said Finjan contacted it last week about the problem. At least 10,000 other Web sites were serving up malicious code in December, although Finjan stopped counting, Ben-Itzhak said.
The latest problems show that the power of this particular hacking gang appears to be growing since it was identified early last year. At that time, Finjan said it found a number of Web servers that had been hacked in order to serve malicious code to visitors. The attackers used several methods to hide their tracks and infect a maximum number of PCs.
The attack is structured using JavaScript so that the malicious code is only served up once to a PC, which helps avoid repeated tests by security scanning services.
Further, hackers also record the IP (Internet Protocol) addresses of crawlers used by search engines and reputation services, which evaluate the risk in visiting certain Web sites. Those page requests are then served with legitimate content.
The JavaScript that starts the exploit also dynamically changes, which makes it more difficult to detect with security software, Finjan said. Once hacked, a Web server hosting hundreds of Web sites will serve up the attack code.
The code looks for at least 13 software vulnerabilities in order to place a Trojan horse program on the PC.
The hackers also regularly change the vulnerabilities that the attack looks for in order to increase the chances a computer can become infected, Ben-Itzhak said. After the PC is infected, the malware can start collecting data on the machine, such as documents and passwords. Finjan has dubbed the attack "random js Trojan."
Finjan asserts that antivirus software isn't as effective since the attack code can change so frequently. The company has a browser plug-in, called SecureBrowsing, that analyzes the content of a Web page as it's being served, looking for traces of malicious code and then warning users. It also sells an enterprise-level appliance with scanning technology.
Finjan isn't the only company with that kind of technology. Exploit Prevention Labs, which was recently acquired by security company AVG, also has a product called LinkScanner that analyzes Web page content for malware, and McAfee has a service called SiteAdvisor that ranks the health of a Web site. All three companies offer free versions of their products.
It appears that a single gang is behind the attacks, since the malicious software it spreads is storing login and password details on one server in Spain, said Yuval Ben-Itzhak. Finjan is trying to get the ISP (Internet service provider) to shut it down, he said.
A Web server of an online advertising company that serves 14 million banner ads to other Web sites has also been hacked, Ben-Itzhak said. That means that the PC of anyone who visits a legitimate site hosting a malicious banner ad could potentially be infected if their computer isn't patched, he said.
"You can imagine the magnitude," Ben-Itzhak said.
Ben-Itzhak declined to identify the company, but said Finjan contacted it last week about the problem. At least 10,000 other Web sites were serving up malicious code in December, although Finjan stopped counting, Ben-Itzhak said.
The latest problems show that the power of this particular hacking gang appears to be growing since it was identified early last year. At that time, Finjan said it found a number of Web servers that had been hacked in order to serve malicious code to visitors. The attackers used several methods to hide their tracks and infect a maximum number of PCs.
The attack is structured using JavaScript so that the malicious code is only served up once to a PC, which helps avoid repeated tests by security scanning services.
Further, hackers also record the IP (Internet Protocol) addresses of crawlers used by search engines and reputation services, which evaluate the risk in visiting certain Web sites. Those page requests are then served with legitimate content.
The JavaScript that starts the exploit also dynamically changes, which makes it more difficult to detect with security software, Finjan said. Once hacked, a Web server hosting hundreds of Web sites will serve up the attack code.
The code looks for at least 13 software vulnerabilities in order to place a Trojan horse program on the PC.
The hackers also regularly change the vulnerabilities that the attack looks for in order to increase the chances a computer can become infected, Ben-Itzhak said. After the PC is infected, the malware can start collecting data on the machine, such as documents and passwords. Finjan has dubbed the attack "random js Trojan."
Finjan asserts that antivirus software isn't as effective since the attack code can change so frequently. The company has a browser plug-in, called SecureBrowsing, that analyzes the content of a Web page as it's being served, looking for traces of malicious code and then warning users. It also sells an enterprise-level appliance with scanning technology.
Finjan isn't the only company with that kind of technology. Exploit Prevention Labs, which was recently acquired by security company AVG, also has a product called LinkScanner that analyzes Web page content for malware, and McAfee has a service called SiteAdvisor that ranks the health of a Web site. All three companies offer free versions of their products.
HP fattens midmarket server line
Hewlett-Packard has announced four entry-level servers for small and midsize companies, along with updates to its remote management software.
The servers are part of HP's ProLiant 100 series, aimed at companies with 100 to 500 employees. They are all two-processor rack-mount servers, with two 1U machines and two 2U machines. (The 1U refers to the height of the machine and is equal to 1.75 inches.)
Rack-mount servers have lost the limelight lately to trendy blade servers, sales of which are growing at a faster clip, and even HP's vice president of marketing, Paul Gottsegen, who was charged with promoting the new rack-mount servers, advised customers to look closely at blades.
"When they see the blades, customers tell us there's an advantage in cooling, in cabling, in reduced power consumption and overall density, so the rack customers typically transition to blades, it's just a matter of customers in this market becoming aware of them," he said.
Still, rack-mount servers account for a high proportion of sales despite their slower growth, and smaller companies tend to be more comfortable sticking with what they are used to, said Gordon Haff, principal IT adviser at Illuminata.
Two of the HP servers are available now. One is the DL185 G5, a 2U system designed for high-capacity jobs like mail serving and video capture. It comes with up to 14 large-form factor drives and 10.5 terabytes of storage, and runs on one or two Opteron 2200 processors from Advanced Micro Devices. Pricing starts at US$1,749.
The other machine on sale now is the DL160 G5, a 1U server that can act as a node in a high-performance computing cluster as well as a standard business server. It has two PCI-Express x16 2.0 slots and support for a faster front-side bus, and runs one or two of Intel's quad-core 5400 "Harpertown" chips. Pricing starts at $1,399.
The other two machines won't ship for another three months, HP said. They are the DL180, a general-purpose 2U server with three PCI-E slots and up to 12 large form factor drives, and the DL 165, which will be the first rack-mount server that can hold four 3.5-inch disk drives, according to HP. Pricing for those servers was not announced.
HP has been doing well in the server market lately. In the third quarter last year it sold more machines than second-place Dell or third-place IBM, although IBM earned the most revenue, research company Gartner said.
Low-end servers are fairly commoditized and there isn't a great deal that distinguishes one vendor's hardware from another, Haff said. "Certainly, there are some differences, in areas like management software, but for the most part it's about the channels and the partners and what's offered around the server," he said.
HP announced two Lights-Out management packages for the servers. They allow users to install software remotely and monitor the health of fans, power supplies and other components. A Lights-Out 100i Advanced Pack is $199 per license and a Select Pack is $99. Customers must also buy a Remote Management Card for $219.
HP also announced two updated software packages for the machines. They are Citrix Access Essentials, for remote access to applications, and Exchange Server 2007, the latest version of Microsoft's e-mail server software.
The servers are part of HP's ProLiant 100 series, aimed at companies with 100 to 500 employees. They are all two-processor rack-mount servers, with two 1U machines and two 2U machines. (The 1U refers to the height of the machine and is equal to 1.75 inches.)
Rack-mount servers have lost the limelight lately to trendy blade servers, sales of which are growing at a faster clip, and even HP's vice president of marketing, Paul Gottsegen, who was charged with promoting the new rack-mount servers, advised customers to look closely at blades.
"When they see the blades, customers tell us there's an advantage in cooling, in cabling, in reduced power consumption and overall density, so the rack customers typically transition to blades, it's just a matter of customers in this market becoming aware of them," he said.
Still, rack-mount servers account for a high proportion of sales despite their slower growth, and smaller companies tend to be more comfortable sticking with what they are used to, said Gordon Haff, principal IT adviser at Illuminata.
Two of the HP servers are available now. One is the DL185 G5, a 2U system designed for high-capacity jobs like mail serving and video capture. It comes with up to 14 large-form factor drives and 10.5 terabytes of storage, and runs on one or two Opteron 2200 processors from Advanced Micro Devices. Pricing starts at US$1,749.
The other machine on sale now is the DL160 G5, a 1U server that can act as a node in a high-performance computing cluster as well as a standard business server. It has two PCI-Express x16 2.0 slots and support for a faster front-side bus, and runs one or two of Intel's quad-core 5400 "Harpertown" chips. Pricing starts at $1,399.
The other two machines won't ship for another three months, HP said. They are the DL180, a general-purpose 2U server with three PCI-E slots and up to 12 large form factor drives, and the DL 165, which will be the first rack-mount server that can hold four 3.5-inch disk drives, according to HP. Pricing for those servers was not announced.
HP has been doing well in the server market lately. In the third quarter last year it sold more machines than second-place Dell or third-place IBM, although IBM earned the most revenue, research company Gartner said.
Low-end servers are fairly commoditized and there isn't a great deal that distinguishes one vendor's hardware from another, Haff said. "Certainly, there are some differences, in areas like management software, but for the most part it's about the channels and the partners and what's offered around the server," he said.
HP announced two Lights-Out management packages for the servers. They allow users to install software remotely and monitor the health of fans, power supplies and other components. A Lights-Out 100i Advanced Pack is $199 per license and a Select Pack is $99. Customers must also buy a Remote Management Card for $219.
HP also announced two updated software packages for the machines. They are Citrix Access Essentials, for remote access to applications, and Exchange Server 2007, the latest version of Microsoft's e-mail server software.
Study: Small businesses moving to Vista fastest
Nearly half of businesses are in some phase of preparing to update desktops to Windows Vista, with small businesses moving the fastest to implement the OS, according to a new report released Monday.
The number of organizations evaluating and testing Vista increased from 29 percent in February 2007 to 48 percent by early November 2007, found the report, commissioned by reseller CDW and based on information collected by Walker Information from 772 IT decision makers. Moreover, about 35 percent of companies are currently implementing or have implemented Vista already, compared to 12 percent last February, the report said.
The report is the third of a wave of reports on Vista adoption that CDW has done since the OS was in its final testing phases in October 2006. In the latest phase of release, which tracked Vista adoption from October 31 until Nov. 7, 2007, small businesses comprised 53 percent of those companies either using or evaluating Vista. The higher-education segment came in second, with 49 percent reporting that they are evaluating or using the OS, while medium-to-large businesses were third, with 48 percent.
Because of lingering hardware and application compatibility issues between existing company IT assets and Vista, CDW still advises customers to move to Vista on a case-by-case basis, said David Cottingham, director of product and partner management at CDW. In the case of small businesses, they may not have the application or hardware dependencies on Windows XP that larger businesses have.
"There are still definitely concerns when you get into custom applications in industries that will run on XP," he said. "If [companies] have custom applications that don't run on Vista yet, they're going to stay on XP."
CDW is still selling both XP and Vista, but Cottingham said the company does not have data on which version of the OS is selling more now that Vista has been available to businesses for more than a year. In September, Microsoft had to extend the OEM (original equipment manufacturer) license for XP for five more months through June 30, 2008, because of customer demand for the OS. Microsoft had planned to stop selling XP through OEMs and retailers on Jan. 31.
For its part, Microsoft has made strides to resolve compatibility issues with updates to Vista, and the numbers from CDW's survey seem to reflect that. In February, 50 percent of companies said they were buying additional hardware and software assets to migrate to Vista; by November, that number was down to 44 percent.
Many believe it's inevitable that any businesses currently running XP will eventually move to Vista; it's just a matter of when. The release of Vista Service Pack 1 (SP1), which is scheduled to be generally available by the end of March, should serve to increase the numbers of companies adopting Vista. Microsoft on Friday issued a public refresh of the first release candidate for SP1, which suggests the software update will be in its final release according to schedule.
However, there is some belief among industry watchers that if Microsoft releases the next version of Windows, code-named Windows Vista 7, by its target of late next year to early 2010, some businesses may opt to skip Vista and move directly from XP to Windows 7 instead.
The number of organizations evaluating and testing Vista increased from 29 percent in February 2007 to 48 percent by early November 2007, found the report, commissioned by reseller CDW and based on information collected by Walker Information from 772 IT decision makers. Moreover, about 35 percent of companies are currently implementing or have implemented Vista already, compared to 12 percent last February, the report said.
The report is the third of a wave of reports on Vista adoption that CDW has done since the OS was in its final testing phases in October 2006. In the latest phase of release, which tracked Vista adoption from October 31 until Nov. 7, 2007, small businesses comprised 53 percent of those companies either using or evaluating Vista. The higher-education segment came in second, with 49 percent reporting that they are evaluating or using the OS, while medium-to-large businesses were third, with 48 percent.
Because of lingering hardware and application compatibility issues between existing company IT assets and Vista, CDW still advises customers to move to Vista on a case-by-case basis, said David Cottingham, director of product and partner management at CDW. In the case of small businesses, they may not have the application or hardware dependencies on Windows XP that larger businesses have.
"There are still definitely concerns when you get into custom applications in industries that will run on XP," he said. "If [companies] have custom applications that don't run on Vista yet, they're going to stay on XP."
CDW is still selling both XP and Vista, but Cottingham said the company does not have data on which version of the OS is selling more now that Vista has been available to businesses for more than a year. In September, Microsoft had to extend the OEM (original equipment manufacturer) license for XP for five more months through June 30, 2008, because of customer demand for the OS. Microsoft had planned to stop selling XP through OEMs and retailers on Jan. 31.
For its part, Microsoft has made strides to resolve compatibility issues with updates to Vista, and the numbers from CDW's survey seem to reflect that. In February, 50 percent of companies said they were buying additional hardware and software assets to migrate to Vista; by November, that number was down to 44 percent.
Many believe it's inevitable that any businesses currently running XP will eventually move to Vista; it's just a matter of when. The release of Vista Service Pack 1 (SP1), which is scheduled to be generally available by the end of March, should serve to increase the numbers of companies adopting Vista. Microsoft on Friday issued a public refresh of the first release candidate for SP1, which suggests the software update will be in its final release according to schedule.
However, there is some belief among industry watchers that if Microsoft releases the next version of Windows, code-named Windows Vista 7, by its target of late next year to early 2010, some businesses may opt to skip Vista and move directly from XP to Windows 7 instead.
Motorola offers lightweight handheld for retail use
Motorola Inc. Monday announced the CA50, a lightweight handheld that combines VoIP over Wi-Fi with a bar code scanner. The device is targeted to retail, hospitality and health-care workers.
Workers would use the device to check prices and inventory in stores or to request immediate delivery of equipment at hospitals, said Tom Esposito, senior director of advanced data capture at Motorola's enterprise mobility unit.
Available sometime this quarter, the device sells for $540. It weighs only 3.7 ounces, and is light enough to carry in a pocket or on a lanyard for easy access. The CA50 fills a gap in handheld products, since it is light and inexpensive compared to ruggedized scanners on the market, Esposito said.
It is 4.37 by 1.81 by 1.01 inches in size and includes a five-line monochrome display, according to Motorola. It runs the Windows CE 5.0 mobile operating system, has 64MB of RAM and 32MB of flash memory. An internal antenna connects to 802.11a/b/g Wi-Fi networks.
The voice over Wi-Fi capability can be connected to a user's desktop, so that incoming calls to a store or hospital could be redirected to the CA50 to ensure a call isn't missed. The connection would be achieved with additional software from Avaya Inc. or other vendors that Motorola did not name.
Workers would use the device to check prices and inventory in stores or to request immediate delivery of equipment at hospitals, said Tom Esposito, senior director of advanced data capture at Motorola's enterprise mobility unit.
Available sometime this quarter, the device sells for $540. It weighs only 3.7 ounces, and is light enough to carry in a pocket or on a lanyard for easy access. The CA50 fills a gap in handheld products, since it is light and inexpensive compared to ruggedized scanners on the market, Esposito said.
It is 4.37 by 1.81 by 1.01 inches in size and includes a five-line monochrome display, according to Motorola. It runs the Windows CE 5.0 mobile operating system, has 64MB of RAM and 32MB of flash memory. An internal antenna connects to 802.11a/b/g Wi-Fi networks.
The voice over Wi-Fi capability can be connected to a user's desktop, so that incoming calls to a store or hospital could be redirected to the CA50 to ensure a call isn't missed. The connection would be achieved with additional software from Avaya Inc. or other vendors that Motorola did not name.
Microsoft faces two new European antitrust cases
The European Commission has opened two new antitrust investigations of Microsoft's activities.
The first case is in response to a complaint from the European Committee for Interoperable Systems, a Brussels-based trade group of which Opera Software is a member, and concerns the interoperability of Windows with other software, the Commission said Monday.
The second investigation is looking into Microsoft's tactic of bundling software products with its Windows operating system. This follows a complaint to the Commission by Opera, a Norwegian browser developer.
Both issues featured in the Commission's landmark March 2004 antitrust decision against Microsoft, which the company unsuccessfully challenged in court.
Microsoft said it would cooperate with the investigations. "We are committed to ensuring that Microsoft is in full compliance with European law and our obligations as established by the European Court of First Instance in its September 2007 ruling," the company said in a statement.
Both new probes build on the findings of the 2004 ruling, which were upheld last September by Europe's second highest court, the Court of First Instance (CFI). Microsoft decided not to appeal the CFI decision, so the precedent value of the 2004 ruling remains intact.
The first of the new probes will examine whether Microsoft withheld information from companies that wanted to make products compatible with its software. This includes word processing, spreadsheet and office management tools contained in Microsoft's Office suite of software applications. It also includes some server products and Microsoft's .NET Internet software framework.
ECIS filed a complaint to the Commission in 2006, arguing that Microsoft's failure to share interoperability information amounted to an abuse of its dominant position in the market. ECIS members include IBM, Nokia, Sun Microsystems, RealNetworks and Oracle.
In addition to ECIS' complaint, the Commission said it will also look at whether Microsoft's open format for archived documents -- Office Open XML -- "is sufficiently interoperable with competitors' products."
"ECIS welcomes the Commission's announcement as a necessary step towards ensuring Microsoft's compliance with competition rules," the group said in a statement Monday.
"It is regrettable that despite the judgment of September 2007, Microsoft continues to use its desktop monopolies to restrict competition," said Thomas Vinje, ECIS' spokesman.
The second probe, sparked last month by Opera's complaint, will look at whether Microsoft illegally bundles the Internet Explorer browser for free with Windows.
Opera wants the Commission to strip Explorer out of Windows or carry alternative browsers. It claims that new proprietary technologies in Explorer hold other browsers such as Opera back, by not following open Internet standards.
The Commission is also looking into whether Microsoft has illegally packaged desktop search and Windows Live into Vista, the latest version of Windows.
The first case is in response to a complaint from the European Committee for Interoperable Systems, a Brussels-based trade group of which Opera Software is a member, and concerns the interoperability of Windows with other software, the Commission said Monday.
The second investigation is looking into Microsoft's tactic of bundling software products with its Windows operating system. This follows a complaint to the Commission by Opera, a Norwegian browser developer.
Both issues featured in the Commission's landmark March 2004 antitrust decision against Microsoft, which the company unsuccessfully challenged in court.
Microsoft said it would cooperate with the investigations. "We are committed to ensuring that Microsoft is in full compliance with European law and our obligations as established by the European Court of First Instance in its September 2007 ruling," the company said in a statement.
Both new probes build on the findings of the 2004 ruling, which were upheld last September by Europe's second highest court, the Court of First Instance (CFI). Microsoft decided not to appeal the CFI decision, so the precedent value of the 2004 ruling remains intact.
The first of the new probes will examine whether Microsoft withheld information from companies that wanted to make products compatible with its software. This includes word processing, spreadsheet and office management tools contained in Microsoft's Office suite of software applications. It also includes some server products and Microsoft's .NET Internet software framework.
ECIS filed a complaint to the Commission in 2006, arguing that Microsoft's failure to share interoperability information amounted to an abuse of its dominant position in the market. ECIS members include IBM, Nokia, Sun Microsystems, RealNetworks and Oracle.
In addition to ECIS' complaint, the Commission said it will also look at whether Microsoft's open format for archived documents -- Office Open XML -- "is sufficiently interoperable with competitors' products."
"ECIS welcomes the Commission's announcement as a necessary step towards ensuring Microsoft's compliance with competition rules," the group said in a statement Monday.
"It is regrettable that despite the judgment of September 2007, Microsoft continues to use its desktop monopolies to restrict competition," said Thomas Vinje, ECIS' spokesman.
The second probe, sparked last month by Opera's complaint, will look at whether Microsoft illegally bundles the Internet Explorer browser for free with Windows.
Opera wants the Commission to strip Explorer out of Windows or carry alternative browsers. It claims that new proprietary technologies in Explorer hold other browsers such as Opera back, by not following open Internet standards.
The Commission is also looking into whether Microsoft has illegally packaged desktop search and Windows Live into Vista, the latest version of Windows.
CES: Reactrix, Samsung show off Wii-like game system for TVs
Software developer Reactrix Systems showed off a gaming system made for LCD TVs that mimics the Wii game console in that people punch in the air to hit a boxing opponent or swing their arms to return the ball in a game of volleyball.
The system is actually designed for large advertising displays, to draw in people to become part of the advertisement by playing an interactive game. The Reactrix technology is called WaveScape, and it was demonstrated on Samsung's large-format 570DX display at the International Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas. Above the display was a sensor that kept track of a person's hand and body movements so they could interact with an on-screen game. The sensor can cover five meters.
"Our first application is going to be advertising and interactive signage," said Matt Bell, who is chief scientist at Reactrix and developed the system. "Our first roll-out of these displays will be in the second half of this year in 150 Hilton hotels. They'll be a mixture of fun, interactive games and information about hotel services."
Demonstrating the technology at CES, Bell first beat up on a panda in a boxing game and then played volleyball against a Samsung presenter.
Coming up with new games should be a snap. It only took a month to create the two games shown at CES, Bell said. Mini-games can be finished in a matter of weeks.
Despite the technology's almost universal appeal, Reactrix has no plans to launch a version for consumers.
"We wish we did, because we want to get this to as many people as possible, but rest assured we will get there. At the very least, you should see one in a mall, a theater or a hotel near you in the next few months," Bell said. The company's initial systems and those for Hilton are destined for North America only.
Pricing of the systems was not disclosed.
Reactrix is best known for its StepScape products that project an interactive image onto floors and can often be found in shopping malls and movie theaters.
The system is actually designed for large advertising displays, to draw in people to become part of the advertisement by playing an interactive game. The Reactrix technology is called WaveScape, and it was demonstrated on Samsung's large-format 570DX display at the International Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas. Above the display was a sensor that kept track of a person's hand and body movements so they could interact with an on-screen game. The sensor can cover five meters.
"Our first application is going to be advertising and interactive signage," said Matt Bell, who is chief scientist at Reactrix and developed the system. "Our first roll-out of these displays will be in the second half of this year in 150 Hilton hotels. They'll be a mixture of fun, interactive games and information about hotel services."
Demonstrating the technology at CES, Bell first beat up on a panda in a boxing game and then played volleyball against a Samsung presenter.
Coming up with new games should be a snap. It only took a month to create the two games shown at CES, Bell said. Mini-games can be finished in a matter of weeks.
Despite the technology's almost universal appeal, Reactrix has no plans to launch a version for consumers.
"We wish we did, because we want to get this to as many people as possible, but rest assured we will get there. At the very least, you should see one in a mall, a theater or a hotel near you in the next few months," Bell said. The company's initial systems and those for Hilton are destined for North America only.
Pricing of the systems was not disclosed.
Reactrix is best known for its StepScape products that project an interactive image onto floors and can often be found in shopping malls and movie theaters.
IBM Q4 results boosted by exchange rates
IBM on Monday said fourth-quarter revenue, aided by exchange rates and sales outside the U.S., stood at $28.9 billion, an increase of 10 percent over the same period in 2006.
The figure, which topped predictions of $27.82 billion by analysts polled by Thomson First Call, was helped by the ongoing weakness in the dollar, IBM said.
Samuel J. Palmisano, IBM's chairman, president and chief executive officer, said in a statement that the results were also helped by strong sales in Asia, Europe and emerging markets.
IBM said it earned $2.80 per share in the quarter, handily beating the analysts' forecast of $2.60 per share. The results represent a 24 percent increase over the same period in 2006, when IBM earned $2.26 per share.
Total revenue for 2007 was $98.6 billion, an 8 increase from 2006. Overall earnings for 2007 were $7.18 per share, a rise of 18 percent over 2006, according to IBM.
The company also said it had more than $16 billion in cash on hand at the end of 2007.
Shares of IBM shot up nearly 8 percent on the news in premarket trading Monday, to $105.36.
IBM plans to provide a full earnings report during a webcast on Thursday.
The figure, which topped predictions of $27.82 billion by analysts polled by Thomson First Call, was helped by the ongoing weakness in the dollar, IBM said.
Samuel J. Palmisano, IBM's chairman, president and chief executive officer, said in a statement that the results were also helped by strong sales in Asia, Europe and emerging markets.
IBM said it earned $2.80 per share in the quarter, handily beating the analysts' forecast of $2.60 per share. The results represent a 24 percent increase over the same period in 2006, when IBM earned $2.26 per share.
Total revenue for 2007 was $98.6 billion, an 8 increase from 2006. Overall earnings for 2007 were $7.18 per share, a rise of 18 percent over 2006, according to IBM.
The company also said it had more than $16 billion in cash on hand at the end of 2007.
Shares of IBM shot up nearly 8 percent on the news in premarket trading Monday, to $105.36.
IBM plans to provide a full earnings report during a webcast on Thursday.
Tech companies share environmental patents
A group of technology companies is offering to share some of its patents to encourage the development of environmentally friendly technologies.
Click here to find out more!
On this topic
Data centers take to the high seas
CES: Vendors look to ease recycling costs on users
IBM dishes five predictions for future
Deploying Residential Wi-Fi Wireless LANs: RF Repeaters for Coverage and Reliability
Get practical tips, IT news, how-tos, and the best in tech humor.
IBM, Nokia, Sony and bulk-mailing equipment manufacturer Pitney-Bowes have together donated patents to the Eco-patent Commons, an organization set up to share the patents for technology with environmental benefits.
Any organization willing to donate a patent for environmentally friendly technology to the commons can join the group. The patents are made available for use by members and nonmembers alike.
So far, patents pledged to the commons cover fields such as waste water treatment, air purification, cell-phone recycling and reducing printer ink consumption. IBM has pledged 27 patents, Pitney Bowes two, and Nokia and Sony one each.
The Eco-patent Commons will be administered by the World Business Council for Sustainable Development, a group which brings together CEOs in industries such as cement, electrical utilities, timber, mining and transport.
The group wants businesses to donate patents for technologies that have a positive environmental impact, but that are not related to their core business.
It hopes that access to patents in the Commons will enable businesses facing environmental challenges that have already been solved by others to develop cleaner, less energy-intensive products as a result.
The move is inspired by the success of the free and open-source software sector, where the sharing information has resulted in the creation of many new products, the group said.
Together, the companies apply for thousands of patents each year. IBM in particular regularly tops the league tables for most filings with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.
Click here to find out more!
On this topic
Data centers take to the high seas
CES: Vendors look to ease recycling costs on users
IBM dishes five predictions for future
Deploying Residential Wi-Fi Wireless LANs: RF Repeaters for Coverage and Reliability
Get practical tips, IT news, how-tos, and the best in tech humor.
IBM, Nokia, Sony and bulk-mailing equipment manufacturer Pitney-Bowes have together donated patents to the Eco-patent Commons, an organization set up to share the patents for technology with environmental benefits.
Any organization willing to donate a patent for environmentally friendly technology to the commons can join the group. The patents are made available for use by members and nonmembers alike.
So far, patents pledged to the commons cover fields such as waste water treatment, air purification, cell-phone recycling and reducing printer ink consumption. IBM has pledged 27 patents, Pitney Bowes two, and Nokia and Sony one each.
The Eco-patent Commons will be administered by the World Business Council for Sustainable Development, a group which brings together CEOs in industries such as cement, electrical utilities, timber, mining and transport.
The group wants businesses to donate patents for technologies that have a positive environmental impact, but that are not related to their core business.
It hopes that access to patents in the Commons will enable businesses facing environmental challenges that have already been solved by others to develop cleaner, less energy-intensive products as a result.
The move is inspired by the success of the free and open-source software sector, where the sharing information has resulted in the creation of many new products, the group said.
Together, the companies apply for thousands of patents each year. IBM in particular regularly tops the league tables for most filings with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.
Microsoft trained 200,000 teachers in India
Microsoft has trained 200,000 teachers in India on the use of computers, ahead of its original target to train 80,000 teachers in the country during the five-year period ending December this year, it said.
The company introduced the program, called project Shiksha, in 2003 with the objective of raising the computer literacy of Indian teachers and students in government-run schools. The 200,000 teachers trained so far have in turn trained about 10 million students, a spokeswoman for Microsoft India said on Monday.
The moves by Microsoft to offer free or subsidized software in India have however come in for criticism from the Free Software Foundation, which compared Microsoft's philanthropy to that of a cigarette manufacturer handing out free samples of cigarettes to students.
The communist-run state of Kerala in south India is actively promoting open-source software in schools, but most other states and the federal government are beneficiaries of Microsoft's programs.
Microsoft works with state governments to help teachers use its technology in school administrations and also to include it in their curriculum and teaching methods, she said. While the state governments provide the classrooms, Microsoft provides the hardware and software, and a team of trainers for the teachers.
Although the company has reached its training target, it's not stopping the program yet. It did not say how many more teachers and students it plans to cover under the program, though.
The company has introduced low-cost, starter editions of its Vista operating system, as well as local language versions of its Office suite to target both the academic and e-governance markets.
The company introduced the program, called project Shiksha, in 2003 with the objective of raising the computer literacy of Indian teachers and students in government-run schools. The 200,000 teachers trained so far have in turn trained about 10 million students, a spokeswoman for Microsoft India said on Monday.
The moves by Microsoft to offer free or subsidized software in India have however come in for criticism from the Free Software Foundation, which compared Microsoft's philanthropy to that of a cigarette manufacturer handing out free samples of cigarettes to students.
The communist-run state of Kerala in south India is actively promoting open-source software in schools, but most other states and the federal government are beneficiaries of Microsoft's programs.
Microsoft works with state governments to help teachers use its technology in school administrations and also to include it in their curriculum and teaching methods, she said. While the state governments provide the classrooms, Microsoft provides the hardware and software, and a team of trainers for the teachers.
Although the company has reached its training target, it's not stopping the program yet. It did not say how many more teachers and students it plans to cover under the program, though.
The company has introduced low-cost, starter editions of its Vista operating system, as well as local language versions of its Office suite to target both the academic and e-governance markets.
EMC will replace some disks with solid-state drives
EMC plans to introduce a line of solid-state drives using flash memory as an option to replace some disk drives in the company's high-end Symmetrix storage arrays, a company spokesman said Monday.
EMC will offer solid-state drives with capacities of 73G bytes and 146G bytes, said Abhrajit Bhattacharjee, an EMC spokesman in Singapore. The drives, which will ship this quarter, will only be available as an option with Symmetrix storage arrays, and will not be available with other products, he said.
Pricing for the solid-state drives was not immediately available, but using four 73G-byte solid-state drives to replace four of the 146G-byte hard disk drives in a Symmetrix 100-disk array would increase the cost by less than 10 percent compared to a comparable system using only hard disk drives, Bhattacharjee said.
Solid-state drives use memory chips instead of magnetic platters to store information. These types of drives are generally faster and consume less power than traditional disk drives, but they are also significantly more expensive.
The solid-state drives are aimed at customers willing to pay a premium for the significantly faster response times these drives offer, Bhattacharjee said.
EMC plans to use single-cell flash memory in its solid-state drives, which will allow for higher performance but costs more than multicell flash memory.
Single-cell flash memory stores one bit of information in each memory cell, while multicell flash memory stores two. The greater density of multicell flash makes it perfect for music players and digital cameras. But multicell flash is significantly slower, making single-cell flash more suitable for high-performance applications such as solid-state drives. Single-cell flash memory is also more durable that multicell flash. Each cell on a multicell flash chip is generally good for 10,000 write/erase cycles, while the cells on single-cell chips can last for 100,000 write/erase cycles. The durability of a flash memory chip can be increased with the use of wear leveling, a technique that writes data equally to all of the memory cells on a chip instead of using the same cells repeatedly.
Drives based on magnetic platters are capable of enduring unlimited write/erase cycles, but they have moving parts which can break down. Solid-state drives do not have moving parts.
STEC -- the maker of the solid-state drives that EMC plans to offer -- said its solid-state drives, which use wear leveling, last more than 2 million write/erase cycles. There was no indication of how many write/erase cycles the EMC solid-state drives will be capable of sustaining.
EMC will offer solid-state drives with capacities of 73G bytes and 146G bytes, said Abhrajit Bhattacharjee, an EMC spokesman in Singapore. The drives, which will ship this quarter, will only be available as an option with Symmetrix storage arrays, and will not be available with other products, he said.
Pricing for the solid-state drives was not immediately available, but using four 73G-byte solid-state drives to replace four of the 146G-byte hard disk drives in a Symmetrix 100-disk array would increase the cost by less than 10 percent compared to a comparable system using only hard disk drives, Bhattacharjee said.
Solid-state drives use memory chips instead of magnetic platters to store information. These types of drives are generally faster and consume less power than traditional disk drives, but they are also significantly more expensive.
The solid-state drives are aimed at customers willing to pay a premium for the significantly faster response times these drives offer, Bhattacharjee said.
EMC plans to use single-cell flash memory in its solid-state drives, which will allow for higher performance but costs more than multicell flash memory.
Single-cell flash memory stores one bit of information in each memory cell, while multicell flash memory stores two. The greater density of multicell flash makes it perfect for music players and digital cameras. But multicell flash is significantly slower, making single-cell flash more suitable for high-performance applications such as solid-state drives. Single-cell flash memory is also more durable that multicell flash. Each cell on a multicell flash chip is generally good for 10,000 write/erase cycles, while the cells on single-cell chips can last for 100,000 write/erase cycles. The durability of a flash memory chip can be increased with the use of wear leveling, a technique that writes data equally to all of the memory cells on a chip instead of using the same cells repeatedly.
Drives based on magnetic platters are capable of enduring unlimited write/erase cycles, but they have moving parts which can break down. Solid-state drives do not have moving parts.
STEC -- the maker of the solid-state drives that EMC plans to offer -- said its solid-state drives, which use wear leveling, last more than 2 million write/erase cycles. There was no indication of how many write/erase cycles the EMC solid-state drives will be capable of sustaining.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)