Many companies running BlackBerry Enterprise Server (BES) could be inadvertently opening a door to attackers, a penetration testing company has found.
Penetration testing consultancy NTA Monitor found that most of its customers running the BlackBerry Server with Microsoft Exchange were taking the path of least resistance by opening unencrypted ports from the heart of their network to service providers. The providers, in turn, opened a return back to the BES that would pass through firewalls without any policies being applied.
This left the network open on several levels, including session hijacking, IP spoofing, or just the interception of unencrypted traffic.
"A hacker could potentially use this back channel to move around inside an organization undetected, removing confidential information or installing malware on to the network," said Roy Hills, NTA's technical director.
According to NTA Monitor's technical manager, Adrian Goodhead, the open configuration was no accident of poor implementation, accounting for a sizeable 10-15 of the company's enterprise-level customers using BlackBerry handhelds (roughly 70-80 percent of the total base they surveyed). The commonest cause was simply cost.
The company recommends implementing a BES in a demilitarized zone (DMZ), which would isolate attacks against the sever from the wider network. However, this added complexity, and added complexity added expense.
"You have to add various software and hardware. People are trying to keep costs down," said Goodhead.
He characterized the flaw as low-to-medium in severity because "it requires a fair amount of knowledge" to exploit, but nevertheless one that needed to be addressed.
Goodhead criticized the service providers for not explaining that a more expensive implementation was usually necessary for security reasons. BlackBerry, for its part, gave details of how to implement its technology securely, he said, and so couldn't be blamed.
NTA Monitor, which recently found holes in VPNs offers several general security recommendations for clients using BES. These include using SSL encryption, enabling content protection on the handheld, disallowing non-approved applications -- including P2P messaging -- and turning off Bluetooth on the handheld.
Monday, March 10, 2008
Virtualization hampered by memory prices
Memory maker Kingston Technology has claimed that memory in industry standard servers is causing virtualization projects to become unnecessarily expensive and that fears over warranties are stopping users upgrading.
"Not having enough memory restricts the number of virtual machines, and also restricts the overall performance. Not having enough memory is either down to improper planning, or in most cases, the inability to purchase enough memory due to the higher cost of OEM memory," it said.
In the US the Magnuson Moss Act restricts vendors from scaring customers into purchasing expensive OEM memory, the company said. "However, in the UK such constraints do not yet exist, and therefore there is a need to educate customers that they can use (third party) memory without voiding their warranty."
Rhys Austin, who runs the virtualization practice for industry standard servers at HP agreed that too little memory will affect virtualization performance but strongly rejected Kingston's assertion that users were worried about price or warranties.
Austin said that while there may be "instances in time" where HP memory is over 20 percent more expensive than other memory products, HP's server market share indicated that users did not feel overcharged for their memory products.
"Adding third party warranty in no way violates the warranty on that server. Naturally HP can't warranty third party memory and we work hard to ensure that the configuration of the memory we supply is correct. We have never underspecified system memory to sell a server," said Austin.
"Not having enough memory restricts the number of virtual machines, and also restricts the overall performance. Not having enough memory is either down to improper planning, or in most cases, the inability to purchase enough memory due to the higher cost of OEM memory," it said.
In the US the Magnuson Moss Act restricts vendors from scaring customers into purchasing expensive OEM memory, the company said. "However, in the UK such constraints do not yet exist, and therefore there is a need to educate customers that they can use (third party) memory without voiding their warranty."
Rhys Austin, who runs the virtualization practice for industry standard servers at HP agreed that too little memory will affect virtualization performance but strongly rejected Kingston's assertion that users were worried about price or warranties.
Austin said that while there may be "instances in time" where HP memory is over 20 percent more expensive than other memory products, HP's server market share indicated that users did not feel overcharged for their memory products.
"Adding third party warranty in no way violates the warranty on that server. Naturally HP can't warranty third party memory and we work hard to ensure that the configuration of the memory we supply is correct. We have never underspecified system memory to sell a server," said Austin.
Study: H-1Bs go with job creation
U.S. companies that apply for controversial H-1B visas create additional jobs beyond the positions filled by foreign workers, according to a study released Monday by a pro-immigration think tank.
For every H-1B position requested, tech companies listed on the S&P 500 stock index increased their employment by five workers in an analysis of 2002 to 2005, according to a study by the National Foundation for American Policy (NFAP). For tech firms with fewer than 5,000 employees, each H-1B request corresponded with an average increase of 7.5 workers, the group said.
In addition, NFAP looked at the number of job openings at tech firms and defense contractors and found 140,000 job openings at S&P 500 firms in January, including more than 4,000 job openings at Microsoft, more than 1,600 openings at both IBM and CSC, and more than 1,500 openings at Cisco Systems. After Microsoft, the company with the most job openings, were defense contractors Northrup Grumman and Lockheed Martin, each with more than 3,900 job openings, according to a second study by NFAP.
Tech companies in particular are seeing huge shortages of qualified workers, said Christopher Hansen, president and CEO of the American Electronics Association (AEA), a large trade group. "The reality is that this nation is today the leader in technology and the technology industries," he said. "To be able to maintain that lead, our companies need access to a highly educated workforce."
These job shortages could continue without a change in the U.S. government's H-1B visa policy, added Stuart Anderson, NFAP's executive director. Currently, the yearly cap on H-1Bs is 65,000, not including an additional 20,000 set aside for foreign students with advanced degrees at U.S. universities, and in recent years, the yearly cap has been filled within days after applications are available.
"We don't see these types of job openings as a temporary phenomenon," Anderson said. "They really should be seen as a longer term trend ... of U.S. skill level stagnating, particularly relative to many other countries in the world."
The studies come out as Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates heads to Washington, D.C. Gates is scheduled to testify about innovation and competitiveness before the House of Representatives Science and Technology Committee Wednesday, and the H-1B issue is likely to come up.
But the NFAP studies ignore the fact that many H-1B visas are taken by offshore outsourcing firms, said Ron Hira, a public policy professor at the Rochester Institute of Technology and vice president for career activities at the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers-USA (IEEE-USA). Eight of the top H-1B recipients in 2007 were offshore outsourcing firms, according to figures from the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service.
"These firms hire almost no Americans and their entire business model rests on shifting as many American jobs overseas as fast as possible," he said. "When eight of the top 10 H-1B recipients are the who's who of offshoring then I think it's an understatement to say the program is worse than a complete failure."
Infosys, the Indian outsourcing company, received more than 4,500 H-1B visas in 2007, about 40 times the number Oracle received and 18 times the number Google received, Hira said.
Hira also questioned the NFAP study suggesting companies receiving H-1B visas hired additional workers. "The reports take fanciful leaps of logic to draw strong conclusions from weak or non-existent models," he said.
The NFAP didn't examine most of the top H-1B recipients in its reports, because only three of the top recipients in 2007, Intel, Microsoft and Cognizant, are in the S&P 500, Hira said.
The job creation study also looked at worldwide hiring, not U.S. hiring, when H-1Bs would most closely affect U.S. hiring Hira said. Many major tech companies in the U.S., including top-10 H-1B recipient Intel, have been cutting their workforce, Hira added. "So in Intel's case the numbers would be negative," Hira said. "Few technology companies are growing their workforce rapidly."
Asked if the job creation study looked at whether the tech companies were hiring high-paying tech workers in addition to filling H-1B visa, Anderson said the study looked at total jobs, not just tech jobs.
But AEA's Hansen dismissed criticism that many H-1Bs go to outsourcing companies. NFAP surveyed members of three tech trade groups, and 65 percent of respondents said they have hired people outside of the U.S. because of a lack of H-1B visas, he said. NFAP found nearly 19,000 job openings among 29 members of the TechNet trade group.
"There is a huge, huge demand for these kinds of jobs, and there's a huge competition for them," Hansen said. "There's going to be a major push [for more visas] because there has to be. You have companies that are simply trying to operate, and they need this talent pool to be able to operate."
For every H-1B position requested, tech companies listed on the S&P 500 stock index increased their employment by five workers in an analysis of 2002 to 2005, according to a study by the National Foundation for American Policy (NFAP). For tech firms with fewer than 5,000 employees, each H-1B request corresponded with an average increase of 7.5 workers, the group said.
In addition, NFAP looked at the number of job openings at tech firms and defense contractors and found 140,000 job openings at S&P 500 firms in January, including more than 4,000 job openings at Microsoft, more than 1,600 openings at both IBM and CSC, and more than 1,500 openings at Cisco Systems. After Microsoft, the company with the most job openings, were defense contractors Northrup Grumman and Lockheed Martin, each with more than 3,900 job openings, according to a second study by NFAP.
Tech companies in particular are seeing huge shortages of qualified workers, said Christopher Hansen, president and CEO of the American Electronics Association (AEA), a large trade group. "The reality is that this nation is today the leader in technology and the technology industries," he said. "To be able to maintain that lead, our companies need access to a highly educated workforce."
These job shortages could continue without a change in the U.S. government's H-1B visa policy, added Stuart Anderson, NFAP's executive director. Currently, the yearly cap on H-1Bs is 65,000, not including an additional 20,000 set aside for foreign students with advanced degrees at U.S. universities, and in recent years, the yearly cap has been filled within days after applications are available.
"We don't see these types of job openings as a temporary phenomenon," Anderson said. "They really should be seen as a longer term trend ... of U.S. skill level stagnating, particularly relative to many other countries in the world."
The studies come out as Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates heads to Washington, D.C. Gates is scheduled to testify about innovation and competitiveness before the House of Representatives Science and Technology Committee Wednesday, and the H-1B issue is likely to come up.
But the NFAP studies ignore the fact that many H-1B visas are taken by offshore outsourcing firms, said Ron Hira, a public policy professor at the Rochester Institute of Technology and vice president for career activities at the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers-USA (IEEE-USA). Eight of the top H-1B recipients in 2007 were offshore outsourcing firms, according to figures from the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service.
"These firms hire almost no Americans and their entire business model rests on shifting as many American jobs overseas as fast as possible," he said. "When eight of the top 10 H-1B recipients are the who's who of offshoring then I think it's an understatement to say the program is worse than a complete failure."
Infosys, the Indian outsourcing company, received more than 4,500 H-1B visas in 2007, about 40 times the number Oracle received and 18 times the number Google received, Hira said.
Hira also questioned the NFAP study suggesting companies receiving H-1B visas hired additional workers. "The reports take fanciful leaps of logic to draw strong conclusions from weak or non-existent models," he said.
The NFAP didn't examine most of the top H-1B recipients in its reports, because only three of the top recipients in 2007, Intel, Microsoft and Cognizant, are in the S&P 500, Hira said.
The job creation study also looked at worldwide hiring, not U.S. hiring, when H-1Bs would most closely affect U.S. hiring Hira said. Many major tech companies in the U.S., including top-10 H-1B recipient Intel, have been cutting their workforce, Hira added. "So in Intel's case the numbers would be negative," Hira said. "Few technology companies are growing their workforce rapidly."
Asked if the job creation study looked at whether the tech companies were hiring high-paying tech workers in addition to filling H-1B visa, Anderson said the study looked at total jobs, not just tech jobs.
But AEA's Hansen dismissed criticism that many H-1Bs go to outsourcing companies. NFAP surveyed members of three tech trade groups, and 65 percent of respondents said they have hired people outside of the U.S. because of a lack of H-1B visas, he said. NFAP found nearly 19,000 job openings among 29 members of the TechNet trade group.
"There is a huge, huge demand for these kinds of jobs, and there's a huge competition for them," Hansen said. "There's going to be a major push [for more visas] because there has to be. You have companies that are simply trying to operate, and they need this talent pool to be able to operate."
Judge rules against accused spyware distributor
A U.S. judge has granted a request by the U.S. Federal Trade Commission for a judgment against a company accused of distributing spyware and adware onto people's computers.
A judge in the U.S. District Court for the District of Nevada has ordered Timothy P. Taylor to give up US$4,595.36, the money he made from a scheme that "tricked" consumers into downloading spyware by offering free screensavers and videos on his TeamTaylorMade.com Web site, the FTC said Monday.
Software on Taylor's site included spyware called Media Motor from ERG Ventures that changed consumers' home pages, tracked their Internet activity, altered browser settings, degraded computer performance and disabled antispyware and antivirus software, the FTC said.
ERG Ventures, based in Nevada, agreed to pay $330,000 as part of a settlement with the FTC last September. The default judgment against Taylor, who has lived in Tennessee, ends the November 2006 lawsuit the FTC filed against ERG Ventures, its owners and Taylor.
The FTC had accused ERG Ventures and Taylor of distributing spyware that infected 15 million computers. Many of the malware programs were "extremely difficult or impossible" for consumers to remove from their computers, the FTC said.
The judgment entered against Taylor bars him from distributing software that interferes with consumers' computers, including software that tracks consumers' Internet activity or collects other personal information; generates disruptive pop-up advertising; tampers with or disables other installed programs; or installs other advertising software onto consumers' computers.
The judgment also requires Taylor to disclose the name and function of all software he installs on consumers' computers in the future, and to provide consumers with the option to cancel the installation after viewing the disclosure.
A judge in the U.S. District Court for the District of Nevada has ordered Timothy P. Taylor to give up US$4,595.36, the money he made from a scheme that "tricked" consumers into downloading spyware by offering free screensavers and videos on his TeamTaylorMade.com Web site, the FTC said Monday.
Software on Taylor's site included spyware called Media Motor from ERG Ventures that changed consumers' home pages, tracked their Internet activity, altered browser settings, degraded computer performance and disabled antispyware and antivirus software, the FTC said.
ERG Ventures, based in Nevada, agreed to pay $330,000 as part of a settlement with the FTC last September. The default judgment against Taylor, who has lived in Tennessee, ends the November 2006 lawsuit the FTC filed against ERG Ventures, its owners and Taylor.
The FTC had accused ERG Ventures and Taylor of distributing spyware that infected 15 million computers. Many of the malware programs were "extremely difficult or impossible" for consumers to remove from their computers, the FTC said.
The judgment entered against Taylor bars him from distributing software that interferes with consumers' computers, including software that tracks consumers' Internet activity or collects other personal information; generates disruptive pop-up advertising; tampers with or disables other installed programs; or installs other advertising software onto consumers' computers.
The judgment also requires Taylor to disclose the name and function of all software he installs on consumers' computers in the future, and to provide consumers with the option to cancel the installation after viewing the disclosure.
Security must evolve, CERT official says
Security has to evolve into something that supports business, rather than the other way around, according to Lisa R. Young, senior member of the technical staff at Carnegie Mellon University's Computer Emergency Response Team.
Security has gotten a bad rap in today's enterprises, said Young, in Stockholm to speak at the European Computer Audit, Control and Security Conference.
The tendency is to want to start locking things down, so security is something that disables, not enables, business, according to Young.
It's still an area where boxes and technology rule, she said.
"Solving your security problems by buying another box is just wishful thinking. But security is bigger than that," Young said.
"As security managers it's up to us to elevate the profession, and include both people, processes, not just technology," she said.
Today, security processes are often not mapped to business processes
"People just haven't thought of security as a discipline that can be measured, managed and mapped. It's a new way of looking at it," Young said.
Security requirements have to spring from business-process needs, she stressed. "Requirements should be driven by owners of business processes, not the caretakers of technology," Young said.
For companies that learn to evolve, rewards are plentiful.
To simplify efforts to make changes to security strategy, Young's development team at CERT has developed the Resiliency Engineering Framework (REF), which was launched last year.
It doesn't compete with other frameworks, such as ITIL. REF identifies enterprise-wide processes for managing operational resiliency -- including everything from training to compliance management -- and provides a structure from which an organization can start to improve.
"You can reduce cost, eliminate duplicate efforts and improve compliance efforts, for example," Young said.
Security has gotten a bad rap in today's enterprises, said Young, in Stockholm to speak at the European Computer Audit, Control and Security Conference.
The tendency is to want to start locking things down, so security is something that disables, not enables, business, according to Young.
It's still an area where boxes and technology rule, she said.
"Solving your security problems by buying another box is just wishful thinking. But security is bigger than that," Young said.
"As security managers it's up to us to elevate the profession, and include both people, processes, not just technology," she said.
Today, security processes are often not mapped to business processes
"People just haven't thought of security as a discipline that can be measured, managed and mapped. It's a new way of looking at it," Young said.
Security requirements have to spring from business-process needs, she stressed. "Requirements should be driven by owners of business processes, not the caretakers of technology," Young said.
For companies that learn to evolve, rewards are plentiful.
To simplify efforts to make changes to security strategy, Young's development team at CERT has developed the Resiliency Engineering Framework (REF), which was launched last year.
It doesn't compete with other frameworks, such as ITIL. REF identifies enterprise-wide processes for managing operational resiliency -- including everything from training to compliance management -- and provides a structure from which an organization can start to improve.
"You can reduce cost, eliminate duplicate efforts and improve compliance efforts, for example," Young said.
Rise in Gmail spam indicates more solved CAPTCHAs
Spam originating from Google's Gmail domain doubled last month, indicating that spammers are still defeating the CAPTCHA, the distorted text used as a security test to thwart mass registration of e-mail accounts and other Web site abuse.
Gmail spam went from 1.3 percent of all spam e-mail to 2.6 percent in February, according to data released by e-mail security vendor MessageLabs on Monday.
The new statistics are another nail in the coffin for CAPTCHA, which stands for Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart.
Google is the latest free Web mail provider to be victimized by spammers' efforts to create software to solve the codes, or at times, also employ people to solve the codes en masse.
"It's only a matter of time before [CAPTCHAs] are comprehensively defeated," said Paul Wood, senior analyst at MessageLabs.
Last month, security vendor Websense ascertained that spammers were using two hosts to crack Gmail's CAPTCHAs. The method appeared to be successful only 20 percent of the time. But if the procedure is repeated thousands of times, many new accounts can be generated and used to send spam.
Most of the messages use links and images to advertise adult entertainment sites, Wood said.
While other spammy domains can simply be blocked by antispam software, businesses are reluctant to cut off the domains of free Web mail providers because of their legitimate use, he said. Spam from Web mail providers comprises 4.2 percent of all spam.
Google's CAPTCHA system is considered hard to crack, but so was Yahoo's, which is also regularly beaten. MessageLabs said 88.7 percent of the spam from free Web mail providers comes from Yahoo's domains.
Microsoft's CAPTCHA, used for registering accounts on its Windows Live Mail service, has also been cracked. Websense believes the same group of spammers are responsible for breaking both Google and Microsoft's system.
Wood said MessageLabs provides Google as well as other companies with data that helps fight spam. Google could not be reached for comment.
MessageLabs sells a security service to companies, filtering e-mail before passing it to their 17,000 customers. Per day, the company snags 2.5 billion spam messages from a total of more than 3 billion messages.
Gmail spam went from 1.3 percent of all spam e-mail to 2.6 percent in February, according to data released by e-mail security vendor MessageLabs on Monday.
The new statistics are another nail in the coffin for CAPTCHA, which stands for Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart.
Google is the latest free Web mail provider to be victimized by spammers' efforts to create software to solve the codes, or at times, also employ people to solve the codes en masse.
"It's only a matter of time before [CAPTCHAs] are comprehensively defeated," said Paul Wood, senior analyst at MessageLabs.
Last month, security vendor Websense ascertained that spammers were using two hosts to crack Gmail's CAPTCHAs. The method appeared to be successful only 20 percent of the time. But if the procedure is repeated thousands of times, many new accounts can be generated and used to send spam.
Most of the messages use links and images to advertise adult entertainment sites, Wood said.
While other spammy domains can simply be blocked by antispam software, businesses are reluctant to cut off the domains of free Web mail providers because of their legitimate use, he said. Spam from Web mail providers comprises 4.2 percent of all spam.
Google's CAPTCHA system is considered hard to crack, but so was Yahoo's, which is also regularly beaten. MessageLabs said 88.7 percent of the spam from free Web mail providers comes from Yahoo's domains.
Microsoft's CAPTCHA, used for registering accounts on its Windows Live Mail service, has also been cracked. Websense believes the same group of spammers are responsible for breaking both Google and Microsoft's system.
Wood said MessageLabs provides Google as well as other companies with data that helps fight spam. Google could not be reached for comment.
MessageLabs sells a security service to companies, filtering e-mail before passing it to their 17,000 customers. Per day, the company snags 2.5 billion spam messages from a total of more than 3 billion messages.
Meet the whiz kids: 10 overachievers under 21
Mark Zuckerberg, watch your back. Sergey and Larry? Consider early retirement.
The next generation is coming up fast, and they aren't waiting for you Web 2.0 geezers to step aside. Here are 10 serious overachievers--20 years old or younger--with more ambition, energy, tech smarts, and business savvy than you'll find in most entire high-tech companies, let alone most adults.
Like various graying legends of the PC revolution (Bill Gates, Paul Allen, Michael Dell), these ten didn't wait until they were of age before starting their meteoric careers. Some are already millionaires; others seem destined to achieve greatness in other ways.
Catch them now while they're still young and relatively innocent. And maybe, if you're lucky, one of them will someday offer you a job.
1. The Serial Entrepreneur
Ben Casnocha, 19
Few people of any age have started a software company and written a book--and considerably fewer 19-year-olds have. But Ben Casnocha is one of them.
Inspired by a teacher who made him memorize Apple's Think Different ads, Casnocha founded Comcate, which sells software designed to help local governments resolve citizen complaints. The specific impetus came from having "a personal experience where I realized how poor some local governments were at dealing with customer service." It was the second company Casnocha had started; he was 14 years old.
At age 17, Casnocha was named one of the nation's top 25 entrepreneurs under 25 by Business Week for his work running Comcate, yet he also found time to be captain of his San Francisco University High School basketball team and editor of Devil's Advocate, the school newspaper.
After finishing high school, Casnocha took a year off to travel and write a book about his experiences called My Start-Up Life: What a (Very) Young CEO Learned on His Journey Through Silicon Valley. His personal blog--where he opines on topics from technology to spirituality to politics--has been named one of the top 25 in Silicon Valley by the Silicon Valley Business Journal.
Casnocha enrolled at California's Claremont McKenna college last fall and seems almost irrationally modest about his success so far.
"I don't believe in long-term plans," he says. "Most good things that happen to me are unexpected. Certainly, you can cultivate 'positive, bulk randomness' (a topic I discuss in my book), but some of it is just sheer luck and timing."
2. The Youngest 'Old Pol'
Stephen Yellin, 19
Talk to Stephen Yellin about his favorite subject--politics--and he sounds like a seasoned veteran of the political wars. And he is. Heck, he's been talking and writing about politics since he was 13.
A highly respected liberal blogger at Daily Kos, Yellin advises candidates on how to reach out to the Net community. At age 15 he was called "the Trippi of the future," a reference to Joe Trippi, who brought Democratic fund raising into the Internet age for Howard Dean's campaign. Yellin deflects the compliment, however. "I hope to one day be as good as Joe Trippi," he says.
Unlike most political bloggers, Yellin emerges from behind the keyboard and gets his hands dirty, too. He's currently a Democratic Committeeman for Union County, New Jersey, and he worked on several New Jersey State Senate campaigns last year.
At one time, Yellin thought he might run for office himself one day. But now that he's seen how the sausage is made, he's lost some of his appetite.
"Candidates are on the phone 8 hours a day, five days a week, asking for money," he says. "You end up running around talking to people you don't know and making deals with people you don't like. I'm not saying to be a candidate you have to sell your soul, but I think you have to compromise what you truly believe in."
Yellin's new goal: To teach history at the college level.
"I'd like to believe in a world full of good people working together to build a better society," he says. "The best defense against tyranny is to have a strong democratic society where people take their responsibility seriously."
3. The MySpace Millionaire
Ashley Qualls, 17
Here's a riddle: How do you take $8 and turn it into a $1 million? Put it in the hands of Ashley Qualls. Three years ago, Ashley borrowed $8 from her mother, purchased the domain Whateverlife.com, and began posting her own MySpace backgrounds, free to download.
Heavy on hearts, frills, and lyrics from popular songs, the designs were a huge hit with MySpace's massive female population. Attracting hundreds of thousands of hits each day from 14- to 17-year-old girls, the site was a natural for advertisers. Last year, Whateverlife.com brought in $1 million in ad revenue and 7 million unique visitors each month.
It wasn't quite as easy as it sounds, says Qualls. With the profits from the site, she bought her mother a house and set up Whateverlife's Detroit headquarters in the basement. Long days and nights followed. The demands of running the business forced Ashley to quit high school, leaving behind a 3.8 GPA. She hired her mother to help her run the site, which produced its own set of tensions. Despite her success as an entrepreneur, she couldn't sign contracts by herself because she was too young.
"The biggest challenge I've had is my age being a big factor in anything and everything I do," she says. "It sometimes can be difficult to have business owners take a 17-year-old seriously. I'm glad I'm finally legally turning 18 this year."
Her age hasn't limited her ambitions. Whateverlife has branched out into an online magazine and a virtual store (though Ashley turned down an offer to star in a reality show based on her life). Nevertheless, she's still a girl at heart.
"I do miss the fact that I won't be graduating with my friends this year," she says. "They're all getting excited, and it's sad to know I won't be a part of that exact moment. But they are here with me, and I'm still going to my prom!"
4. The Quiz Master
Andrew Sutherland, 17
It started with a French test. Andrew Sutherland, then a 15-year-old high school freshman in Albany, California, had to memorize 111 French terms for animals (including "winnie l'ourson," better known to us as Winnie the Pooh). Most kids would write up flash cards or badger their parents into helping them prep. Instead, Sutherland created a software program that ultimately turned into Quizlet, a Web-based tool that anyone can use to memorize vocabulary terms.
Users enter the terms they need to memorize and the correct definitions, and Quizlet does the rest--logging their correct answers and retesting them on any they miss. Since Sutherland publicly launched Quizlet in January 2007, some 130,000 users have taken more than 12 million quizzes on subjects ranging from Animal Farm to Zoroaster.
To handle the business aspects of the endeavor, Sutherland formed a company called Brainflare, with his father Howard as CFO/Secretary. But Quizlet fans may have to wait awhile before Sutherland rolls out the company's second product. The first one took 450 days to build before he unveiled it. And Sutherland, who was recently accepted to MIT, says becoming a software magnate was never one of his career goals.
"I wanted to be a firefighter, an astronaut, a zookeeper; you know, all the typical things," he says. "I never really thought out a choice to make a career out of computers. I just got more and more into it, and now here I am."
5. The Junkyard Genius
Garrett Yazzie, 16
Garret Yazzie wasn't trying to become a teenage celebrity when he invented a solar home heater out of a 1967 Pontiac radiator and 69 aluminum soda cans. The then-13-year-old was merely trying to heat his family's trailer on Arizona's Navajo Indian Reservation, which had no running water and limited electricity.
That invention garnered Yazzie national attention. He won first place at the 2005 Arizona American Indian Science and Engineering Fair and was one of 40 finalists (out of 7500 applicants) to attend the Discovery Channel Young Scientist Challenge in Washington, D.C. Arizona State University created a scholarship in his name; and last April, ABC's Extreme Makeover TV show presented his family with a new house.
But Garrett wasn't done. The next year, he invented a water wheel using an industrial-size cable spool connected to a 10-speed bicycle and an alternator. The wheel produced enough electricity to power a refrigerator or light up a mountain cabin. Once again, he won the American Indian science fair and placed as a semifinalist in the Discovery Channel challenge.
At the challenge, Garrett met the Pierz family, who offered to take him in and provide a better education than he could get at home. Now 16, he's a sophomore at a private prep school in Clarkston, Michigan. But he hopes to return to Arizona and build a business that designs and sells alternative energy devices.
"I also want to build my business on the reservation to create jobs and futures for other kids just like me," says Yazzie. "I want those kids to know that if they get a good education they can find a good job on the reservation, near their families. I want to also remind people that living in harmony with our environment, with Mother Earth and Father Sky is not only a good idea; it is the only way that is sustainable long-term."
6. The Alchemist
Anshul Samar, 14
Like Quizlet's Andrew Sutherland, Anshul Samar began his entrepreneurial career by seeking an alternative to soporific study techniques--in this case, mastering chemistry. So he created Elementeo, a card game based on chemical elements in which players battle to reduce their opponents' electrons (and ultimately their in-game IQ) to zero.
Anshul started his company with a $500 grant from the California Association of the Gifted and is shooting for revenues of $1 million by the end of this school year. As founder and CEO of Alchemist Empire, Inc., Anshul says he spends most of his time "designing, engineering, R&D, corresponding with designers and artists, giving pitches to people that are interested, marketing, testing, and doing a lot of brainstorming." That's in addition to chatting up venture capitalists and lawyers, giving talks to parents and teachers, doing presentations at conferences, talking to the media, and finishing his homework. Because, after all, he's only an 8th-grader.
Last May, Anshul was the hit of TIEcon, a annual gathering of tech entrepreneurs, outshining such luminaries as Salesforce.com's Marc Benioff and eBay's former CEO, Meg Whitman.
"Living in Silicon Valley, I have seen all of these people starting their own businesses, showing the world their product, and being entrepreneurs," says Samar. "Since 4th grade, I've dreamed of being the CEO of my own business. And now, in 8th grade, I am finally one."
If Elementeo doesn't catch on, Anshul says, he's not worried. "If this business fails, I can still come home and have a nice dinner. I will still have my basketball hoop in my backyard and my skateboard in the garage."
7. The Chair Man
Sean Belnick, 20
At age 20, Sean is the oldest wunderkind in our group, but he takes a back seat to no one. And why should he? Six years ago, he started an online furniture business that grossed $38 million in 2007.
At age 14, Sean Belnick was already making $1000 a month selling Pokemon cards and other collectibles on eBay. He figured that the same model could work with almost anything. And with a stepfather who worked for a furniture maker, that market seemed like the most logical place to start. Investing $600 in Web hosting and online advertising, he launched BizChair.com to sell office furniture direct to businesses. Now, six years later, Belnick occupies the number 2 spot on Inc. Magazine's list of America's "30 coolest young entrepreneurs," and his customer list includes Microsoft, Google, and the Pentagon.
Now a junior at Emory University in Atlanta, studying business (naturally), Belnick leaves the day-to-day operations to his stepdad, Gary Glazer. After graduation, he plans to climb behind the CEO's desk once more. And when he does, he'll be sitting on more than just his laurels.
8. The Master of Domains
Matt Wegrzyn, 19
You've got to get up pretty early in the morning to get the better of Matt Wegrzyn, of Bodis.com. In fact, you might not want to go to bed at all. The creator of Bodis.com says that "a typical day probably starts at 10 a.m. for me and lasts until 5 a.m. There's just too much to do in order to sleep. I feel like I need to work every hour possible on the weekdays in order for this company to be successful."
Bodis is a domain-name parking service. If you invest in a domain name but don't want to create a site for it, you can park it with Bodis. It will place click-through ads on a page bearing your domain name, then split the revenues with you. In 2007, Bodis split enough ad revenues to pull in $1 million.
It was a natural venture for Matt, who bought his first domain name at 17 for $120 and sold it a few weeks later for $500. Eventually he became a premier "domainer," selling some plum names for as much as six figures. But he considers himself a developer first and an entrepreneur second.
"In my opinion, developers have the biggest advantage," says Wegrzyn, who mastered the ColdFusion programming language by age 15 and has done all of the development work on Bodis. "They can easily start their own company, sell their own software, develop their own code. And there's always something that you can develop that is not out there. There's nothing better than knowing your own service/product inside-out--literally."
It also helps if you keep a schedule that would turn most people into zombies. But Matt has vowed to start taking it easier very soon. "By 2009 I [will] work normal hours, no more all-nighters," he says. "And by 2010 I plan on showing up only a few hours per week. It's not because I will lose dedication. I believe with all the hard work I am putting in right now, there won't even be a need for me to show up two years from now."
9. The iPhone Hacker
George Hotz, 18
Most hacking exploits earn their creator at best notoriety, and at worst, a prison sentence. But when George Francis Hotz became the first person to unlock Apple's iPhone last August, enabling it to work with any GSM wireless carrier, he got a $50,000 Nissan 350Z and three more iPhones. The car was courtesy of Certicell, a Louisville-based firm that resells used handsets; Certicell also took the opportunity to hire the then-17-year-old as a consultant.
But Hotz is no one-trick wonder. Before he ever touched the innards of an iPhone, he had won a $20,000 prize in a national science competition sponsored by Intel. The title of his project--"I Want a Holodeck"--proves he's nothing if not ambitious.
These days, the New Jersey teen is studying biotechnology at the Rochester Institute of Technology. For fun, he hacked the magnetic stripe on his student ID card, enabling him to unlock any door on the RIT campus. But he still finds time to play with iPhones. In February, Hotz published another exploit that permits a full software unlock of the latest iPhone software, earning him an additional $1182 from a Web-sponsored unlocking contest.
Memo to Steve Jobs: Hire this kid now, before he puts you out of business.
10. The Social Director
Catherine Cook, 18
Imagine a cross between MySpace and Facebook, only operated by the teenagers who dominate those sites. Now imagine that it's the fastest-growing social network on the planet. That's myYearbook.com.
Not bad for a couple of New Jersey high school students.
In 2005 Catherine Cook was a 15-year-old sophomore tired of her high school yearbook and unimpressed by its online equivalents. "Friendster was boring, MySpace was creepy, and Classmates was a rip-off," she wrote. At the time, Facebook was open only to college students. Why not create something she and her friends would actually use?
So she brought in her 16-year-old brother Dave and her 26-year-old brother Geoff, already a successful Web entrepreneur with a company called CyberEdit, Inc., and started myYearbook.com. With more than 5 million members, it's the world's seventh-largest social network and is growing at a rate of more than 400 percent per year, according to Hitwise.
"I grew up watching my oldest brother Geoff start and run his company, and I knew I didn't want to have a normal job like my parents--I wanted something cooler, more creative, and just more fun," says Cook. "I didn't necessarily see myself starting a social networking site, but I think I've always seen myself as an entrepreneur."
Unlike many of our other wonderkids, Cook says her age was an asset to her.
"When you're a teenager, it's virtually risk-free to start a business: You're still dependent on your parents, so really there are no major risks," says Cook. "Even if you fail, you'll still have a really really great college admissions essay, so just do it already."
The next generation is coming up fast, and they aren't waiting for you Web 2.0 geezers to step aside. Here are 10 serious overachievers--20 years old or younger--with more ambition, energy, tech smarts, and business savvy than you'll find in most entire high-tech companies, let alone most adults.
Like various graying legends of the PC revolution (Bill Gates, Paul Allen, Michael Dell), these ten didn't wait until they were of age before starting their meteoric careers. Some are already millionaires; others seem destined to achieve greatness in other ways.
Catch them now while they're still young and relatively innocent. And maybe, if you're lucky, one of them will someday offer you a job.
1. The Serial Entrepreneur
Ben Casnocha, 19
Few people of any age have started a software company and written a book--and considerably fewer 19-year-olds have. But Ben Casnocha is one of them.
Inspired by a teacher who made him memorize Apple's Think Different ads, Casnocha founded Comcate, which sells software designed to help local governments resolve citizen complaints. The specific impetus came from having "a personal experience where I realized how poor some local governments were at dealing with customer service." It was the second company Casnocha had started; he was 14 years old.
At age 17, Casnocha was named one of the nation's top 25 entrepreneurs under 25 by Business Week for his work running Comcate, yet he also found time to be captain of his San Francisco University High School basketball team and editor of Devil's Advocate, the school newspaper.
After finishing high school, Casnocha took a year off to travel and write a book about his experiences called My Start-Up Life: What a (Very) Young CEO Learned on His Journey Through Silicon Valley. His personal blog--where he opines on topics from technology to spirituality to politics--has been named one of the top 25 in Silicon Valley by the Silicon Valley Business Journal.
Casnocha enrolled at California's Claremont McKenna college last fall and seems almost irrationally modest about his success so far.
"I don't believe in long-term plans," he says. "Most good things that happen to me are unexpected. Certainly, you can cultivate 'positive, bulk randomness' (a topic I discuss in my book), but some of it is just sheer luck and timing."
2. The Youngest 'Old Pol'
Stephen Yellin, 19
Talk to Stephen Yellin about his favorite subject--politics--and he sounds like a seasoned veteran of the political wars. And he is. Heck, he's been talking and writing about politics since he was 13.
A highly respected liberal blogger at Daily Kos, Yellin advises candidates on how to reach out to the Net community. At age 15 he was called "the Trippi of the future," a reference to Joe Trippi, who brought Democratic fund raising into the Internet age for Howard Dean's campaign. Yellin deflects the compliment, however. "I hope to one day be as good as Joe Trippi," he says.
Unlike most political bloggers, Yellin emerges from behind the keyboard and gets his hands dirty, too. He's currently a Democratic Committeeman for Union County, New Jersey, and he worked on several New Jersey State Senate campaigns last year.
At one time, Yellin thought he might run for office himself one day. But now that he's seen how the sausage is made, he's lost some of his appetite.
"Candidates are on the phone 8 hours a day, five days a week, asking for money," he says. "You end up running around talking to people you don't know and making deals with people you don't like. I'm not saying to be a candidate you have to sell your soul, but I think you have to compromise what you truly believe in."
Yellin's new goal: To teach history at the college level.
"I'd like to believe in a world full of good people working together to build a better society," he says. "The best defense against tyranny is to have a strong democratic society where people take their responsibility seriously."
3. The MySpace Millionaire
Ashley Qualls, 17
Here's a riddle: How do you take $8 and turn it into a $1 million? Put it in the hands of Ashley Qualls. Three years ago, Ashley borrowed $8 from her mother, purchased the domain Whateverlife.com, and began posting her own MySpace backgrounds, free to download.
Heavy on hearts, frills, and lyrics from popular songs, the designs were a huge hit with MySpace's massive female population. Attracting hundreds of thousands of hits each day from 14- to 17-year-old girls, the site was a natural for advertisers. Last year, Whateverlife.com brought in $1 million in ad revenue and 7 million unique visitors each month.
It wasn't quite as easy as it sounds, says Qualls. With the profits from the site, she bought her mother a house and set up Whateverlife's Detroit headquarters in the basement. Long days and nights followed. The demands of running the business forced Ashley to quit high school, leaving behind a 3.8 GPA. She hired her mother to help her run the site, which produced its own set of tensions. Despite her success as an entrepreneur, she couldn't sign contracts by herself because she was too young.
"The biggest challenge I've had is my age being a big factor in anything and everything I do," she says. "It sometimes can be difficult to have business owners take a 17-year-old seriously. I'm glad I'm finally legally turning 18 this year."
Her age hasn't limited her ambitions. Whateverlife has branched out into an online magazine and a virtual store (though Ashley turned down an offer to star in a reality show based on her life). Nevertheless, she's still a girl at heart.
"I do miss the fact that I won't be graduating with my friends this year," she says. "They're all getting excited, and it's sad to know I won't be a part of that exact moment. But they are here with me, and I'm still going to my prom!"
4. The Quiz Master
Andrew Sutherland, 17
It started with a French test. Andrew Sutherland, then a 15-year-old high school freshman in Albany, California, had to memorize 111 French terms for animals (including "winnie l'ourson," better known to us as Winnie the Pooh). Most kids would write up flash cards or badger their parents into helping them prep. Instead, Sutherland created a software program that ultimately turned into Quizlet, a Web-based tool that anyone can use to memorize vocabulary terms.
Users enter the terms they need to memorize and the correct definitions, and Quizlet does the rest--logging their correct answers and retesting them on any they miss. Since Sutherland publicly launched Quizlet in January 2007, some 130,000 users have taken more than 12 million quizzes on subjects ranging from Animal Farm to Zoroaster.
To handle the business aspects of the endeavor, Sutherland formed a company called Brainflare, with his father Howard as CFO/Secretary. But Quizlet fans may have to wait awhile before Sutherland rolls out the company's second product. The first one took 450 days to build before he unveiled it. And Sutherland, who was recently accepted to MIT, says becoming a software magnate was never one of his career goals.
"I wanted to be a firefighter, an astronaut, a zookeeper; you know, all the typical things," he says. "I never really thought out a choice to make a career out of computers. I just got more and more into it, and now here I am."
5. The Junkyard Genius
Garrett Yazzie, 16
Garret Yazzie wasn't trying to become a teenage celebrity when he invented a solar home heater out of a 1967 Pontiac radiator and 69 aluminum soda cans. The then-13-year-old was merely trying to heat his family's trailer on Arizona's Navajo Indian Reservation, which had no running water and limited electricity.
That invention garnered Yazzie national attention. He won first place at the 2005 Arizona American Indian Science and Engineering Fair and was one of 40 finalists (out of 7500 applicants) to attend the Discovery Channel Young Scientist Challenge in Washington, D.C. Arizona State University created a scholarship in his name; and last April, ABC's Extreme Makeover TV show presented his family with a new house.
But Garrett wasn't done. The next year, he invented a water wheel using an industrial-size cable spool connected to a 10-speed bicycle and an alternator. The wheel produced enough electricity to power a refrigerator or light up a mountain cabin. Once again, he won the American Indian science fair and placed as a semifinalist in the Discovery Channel challenge.
At the challenge, Garrett met the Pierz family, who offered to take him in and provide a better education than he could get at home. Now 16, he's a sophomore at a private prep school in Clarkston, Michigan. But he hopes to return to Arizona and build a business that designs and sells alternative energy devices.
"I also want to build my business on the reservation to create jobs and futures for other kids just like me," says Yazzie. "I want those kids to know that if they get a good education they can find a good job on the reservation, near their families. I want to also remind people that living in harmony with our environment, with Mother Earth and Father Sky is not only a good idea; it is the only way that is sustainable long-term."
6. The Alchemist
Anshul Samar, 14
Like Quizlet's Andrew Sutherland, Anshul Samar began his entrepreneurial career by seeking an alternative to soporific study techniques--in this case, mastering chemistry. So he created Elementeo, a card game based on chemical elements in which players battle to reduce their opponents' electrons (and ultimately their in-game IQ) to zero.
Anshul started his company with a $500 grant from the California Association of the Gifted and is shooting for revenues of $1 million by the end of this school year. As founder and CEO of Alchemist Empire, Inc., Anshul says he spends most of his time "designing, engineering, R&D, corresponding with designers and artists, giving pitches to people that are interested, marketing, testing, and doing a lot of brainstorming." That's in addition to chatting up venture capitalists and lawyers, giving talks to parents and teachers, doing presentations at conferences, talking to the media, and finishing his homework. Because, after all, he's only an 8th-grader.
Last May, Anshul was the hit of TIEcon, a annual gathering of tech entrepreneurs, outshining such luminaries as Salesforce.com's Marc Benioff and eBay's former CEO, Meg Whitman.
"Living in Silicon Valley, I have seen all of these people starting their own businesses, showing the world their product, and being entrepreneurs," says Samar. "Since 4th grade, I've dreamed of being the CEO of my own business. And now, in 8th grade, I am finally one."
If Elementeo doesn't catch on, Anshul says, he's not worried. "If this business fails, I can still come home and have a nice dinner. I will still have my basketball hoop in my backyard and my skateboard in the garage."
7. The Chair Man
Sean Belnick, 20
At age 20, Sean is the oldest wunderkind in our group, but he takes a back seat to no one. And why should he? Six years ago, he started an online furniture business that grossed $38 million in 2007.
At age 14, Sean Belnick was already making $1000 a month selling Pokemon cards and other collectibles on eBay. He figured that the same model could work with almost anything. And with a stepfather who worked for a furniture maker, that market seemed like the most logical place to start. Investing $600 in Web hosting and online advertising, he launched BizChair.com to sell office furniture direct to businesses. Now, six years later, Belnick occupies the number 2 spot on Inc. Magazine's list of America's "30 coolest young entrepreneurs," and his customer list includes Microsoft, Google, and the Pentagon.
Now a junior at Emory University in Atlanta, studying business (naturally), Belnick leaves the day-to-day operations to his stepdad, Gary Glazer. After graduation, he plans to climb behind the CEO's desk once more. And when he does, he'll be sitting on more than just his laurels.
8. The Master of Domains
Matt Wegrzyn, 19
You've got to get up pretty early in the morning to get the better of Matt Wegrzyn, of Bodis.com. In fact, you might not want to go to bed at all. The creator of Bodis.com says that "a typical day probably starts at 10 a.m. for me and lasts until 5 a.m. There's just too much to do in order to sleep. I feel like I need to work every hour possible on the weekdays in order for this company to be successful."
Bodis is a domain-name parking service. If you invest in a domain name but don't want to create a site for it, you can park it with Bodis. It will place click-through ads on a page bearing your domain name, then split the revenues with you. In 2007, Bodis split enough ad revenues to pull in $1 million.
It was a natural venture for Matt, who bought his first domain name at 17 for $120 and sold it a few weeks later for $500. Eventually he became a premier "domainer," selling some plum names for as much as six figures. But he considers himself a developer first and an entrepreneur second.
"In my opinion, developers have the biggest advantage," says Wegrzyn, who mastered the ColdFusion programming language by age 15 and has done all of the development work on Bodis. "They can easily start their own company, sell their own software, develop their own code. And there's always something that you can develop that is not out there. There's nothing better than knowing your own service/product inside-out--literally."
It also helps if you keep a schedule that would turn most people into zombies. But Matt has vowed to start taking it easier very soon. "By 2009 I [will] work normal hours, no more all-nighters," he says. "And by 2010 I plan on showing up only a few hours per week. It's not because I will lose dedication. I believe with all the hard work I am putting in right now, there won't even be a need for me to show up two years from now."
9. The iPhone Hacker
George Hotz, 18
Most hacking exploits earn their creator at best notoriety, and at worst, a prison sentence. But when George Francis Hotz became the first person to unlock Apple's iPhone last August, enabling it to work with any GSM wireless carrier, he got a $50,000 Nissan 350Z and three more iPhones. The car was courtesy of Certicell, a Louisville-based firm that resells used handsets; Certicell also took the opportunity to hire the then-17-year-old as a consultant.
But Hotz is no one-trick wonder. Before he ever touched the innards of an iPhone, he had won a $20,000 prize in a national science competition sponsored by Intel. The title of his project--"I Want a Holodeck"--proves he's nothing if not ambitious.
These days, the New Jersey teen is studying biotechnology at the Rochester Institute of Technology. For fun, he hacked the magnetic stripe on his student ID card, enabling him to unlock any door on the RIT campus. But he still finds time to play with iPhones. In February, Hotz published another exploit that permits a full software unlock of the latest iPhone software, earning him an additional $1182 from a Web-sponsored unlocking contest.
Memo to Steve Jobs: Hire this kid now, before he puts you out of business.
10. The Social Director
Catherine Cook, 18
Imagine a cross between MySpace and Facebook, only operated by the teenagers who dominate those sites. Now imagine that it's the fastest-growing social network on the planet. That's myYearbook.com.
Not bad for a couple of New Jersey high school students.
In 2005 Catherine Cook was a 15-year-old sophomore tired of her high school yearbook and unimpressed by its online equivalents. "Friendster was boring, MySpace was creepy, and Classmates was a rip-off," she wrote. At the time, Facebook was open only to college students. Why not create something she and her friends would actually use?
So she brought in her 16-year-old brother Dave and her 26-year-old brother Geoff, already a successful Web entrepreneur with a company called CyberEdit, Inc., and started myYearbook.com. With more than 5 million members, it's the world's seventh-largest social network and is growing at a rate of more than 400 percent per year, according to Hitwise.
"I grew up watching my oldest brother Geoff start and run his company, and I knew I didn't want to have a normal job like my parents--I wanted something cooler, more creative, and just more fun," says Cook. "I didn't necessarily see myself starting a social networking site, but I think I've always seen myself as an entrepreneur."
Unlike many of our other wonderkids, Cook says her age was an asset to her.
"When you're a teenager, it's virtually risk-free to start a business: You're still dependent on your parents, so really there are no major risks," says Cook. "Even if you fail, you'll still have a really really great college admissions essay, so just do it already."
Analyst endorses Siemens' 802.11n power claims
A leading wireless analyst has vindicated Siemens' surprising claims to have cracked an 802.11n problem which has stumped other Wi-Fi vendors. But how Siemens achieved its feat remains secret.
All other enterprise Wi-Fi vendors, including Cisco, Aruba and Trapeze, maintained that the new standard -- running at full power, with two radios each of which can deliver multiple streams of data -- will take more electrical power than industry-standard power-over-Ethernet can deliver.
This is critical in offices, where access points are powered over Ethernet, because pulling new power cables is expensive. So most Wi-Fi vendors have offered different work-arounds that either reduce performance or boost the power on the cable.
Siemens challenged this with HiPath access points announced in January, that it says can give full 802.11n wireless performance without exceeding the power limits of IEEE 802.3af power-over-Ethernet, but declined to explain how.
Now independent analyst Craig Mathias of the Farpoint Group has verified the claim, although he still had no explanation.
Mathias took a HiPath AP3620 802.11n access point and powered it from various industry standard switches and injectors. Two laptops were linked by wireless to the access point, each of which could generate up to four streams of traffic, verifying that multiple streams of data were being carried, using MIMO (multiple input multiple output).
"We saw outstanding performance," said Mathias. Both radios were delivering high throughput consistent with 3x3 MIMO (three antennas in use at both client and access point). Mathias used a full 100m of Cat 5E cable to connect the AP, and used +20dB pads on the antennas to compensate for the fact that the laptops were within a Faraday cage about a meter from the AP.
"While we were sceptical of Siemens' claim that 802.3af power would be sufficient for dual-radio, 3x3 MIMO operation, they have clearly achieved this feat," said Mathias in his report. "Enquiries to their engineering staff as to how they managed this were met with polite smiles.
"We expect Siemens to gain some real market advantage from this for some time," says Mathias. The achievement could allow Siemens' installations to be cheaper, or give higher performance than others.
Cisco requires a proprietary power injector for full 802.11n performance. Trapeze suggests using two Ethernet cables for power. Aruba suggests that the full performance might work, but offers the chance to fall back on less than 3x3 MIMO.
The HiPath Wireless AP3620 has also just received a certificate form the Wi-Fi Alliance for complying with the 802.11n draft standard.
Peter has spent nearly 20 years writing about IT from a business perspective. He has worked as Network Editor on the leading enterprise IT weekly, IT Week, and on ZDNet UK as Enterprise Editor. He also spent a year as a telecoms analyst, for Infonetics Research. Outside tech writing he has degrees in Fine Art and Nuclear Physics, neither of which he practises to any great extent (which is probably just as well), and a few other hobbies. With two rabbits, two cats, three daughters, wouldn't want to work anywhere but at home - at least that's what he says in term time.
All other enterprise Wi-Fi vendors, including Cisco, Aruba and Trapeze, maintained that the new standard -- running at full power, with two radios each of which can deliver multiple streams of data -- will take more electrical power than industry-standard power-over-Ethernet can deliver.
This is critical in offices, where access points are powered over Ethernet, because pulling new power cables is expensive. So most Wi-Fi vendors have offered different work-arounds that either reduce performance or boost the power on the cable.
Siemens challenged this with HiPath access points announced in January, that it says can give full 802.11n wireless performance without exceeding the power limits of IEEE 802.3af power-over-Ethernet, but declined to explain how.
Now independent analyst Craig Mathias of the Farpoint Group has verified the claim, although he still had no explanation.
Mathias took a HiPath AP3620 802.11n access point and powered it from various industry standard switches and injectors. Two laptops were linked by wireless to the access point, each of which could generate up to four streams of traffic, verifying that multiple streams of data were being carried, using MIMO (multiple input multiple output).
"We saw outstanding performance," said Mathias. Both radios were delivering high throughput consistent with 3x3 MIMO (three antennas in use at both client and access point). Mathias used a full 100m of Cat 5E cable to connect the AP, and used +20dB pads on the antennas to compensate for the fact that the laptops were within a Faraday cage about a meter from the AP.
"While we were sceptical of Siemens' claim that 802.3af power would be sufficient for dual-radio, 3x3 MIMO operation, they have clearly achieved this feat," said Mathias in his report. "Enquiries to their engineering staff as to how they managed this were met with polite smiles.
"We expect Siemens to gain some real market advantage from this for some time," says Mathias. The achievement could allow Siemens' installations to be cheaper, or give higher performance than others.
Cisco requires a proprietary power injector for full 802.11n performance. Trapeze suggests using two Ethernet cables for power. Aruba suggests that the full performance might work, but offers the chance to fall back on less than 3x3 MIMO.
The HiPath Wireless AP3620 has also just received a certificate form the Wi-Fi Alliance for complying with the 802.11n draft standard.
Peter has spent nearly 20 years writing about IT from a business perspective. He has worked as Network Editor on the leading enterprise IT weekly, IT Week, and on ZDNet UK as Enterprise Editor. He also spent a year as a telecoms analyst, for Infonetics Research. Outside tech writing he has degrees in Fine Art and Nuclear Physics, neither of which he practises to any great extent (which is probably just as well), and a few other hobbies. With two rabbits, two cats, three daughters, wouldn't want to work anywhere but at home - at least that's what he says in term time.
Ericsson predicts demise for hotspots
As mobile broadband takes off, Wi-Fi hotspots will become as irrelevant as telephone booths, Ericsson Chief Marketing Officer Johan Bergendahl said Monday.
Mobile broadband is growing faster than mobile or fixed telephony ever did, Bergendahl said.
"In Austria they are saying that mobile broadband will pass fixed broadband this year. It's already growing faster, and in Sweden, the most popular phone is a USB modem," said Bergendahl, who was the keynote speaker at the European Computer Audit, Control and Security Conference in Stockholm.
As more people start using mobile broadband, hot spots will no longer be needed. "Hotspots at places like Starbucks are becoming the telephone boxes of the broadband era," said Bergendahl.
A couple of factors will accelerate the move to mobile broadband. In countries such as Austria, Denmark and Sweden, the average price for a mobile broadband subscription is only €20 (US$31) per month, Bergendahl said.
Also, support for HSPA (High Speed Packet Access), favored by Ericsson, is being built into more and more laptops. Ericsson recently signed a deal to put HSPA technology in some Lenovo notebooks.
"In a few years, it [HSPA] will be as common as Wi-Fi is today," Bergendahl said.
But challenges still remain. Coverage, availability and price -- especially when someone is roaming on other networks -- are all key factors for success.
"Industry will have to solve the international roaming issue," Bergendahl said. "Carriers need to work together. It can be as simple as paying €10 per day when you are abroad."
Not knowing how high the bill will be after a business trip is not acceptable for professional users, according to Bergendahl.
Coverage will also have to improve. In the room where Bergendahl spoke, there was no 3G (third generation) coverage. However, operators are looking at ways to provide better signal coverage, particularly indoors and in rural areas.
But Ericsson's CMO also suspects a conspiracy.
"They would never admit it, but I think hotels are stopping the radio signals. They see data access as a business opportunity," he said.
Mobile broadband is growing faster than mobile or fixed telephony ever did, Bergendahl said.
"In Austria they are saying that mobile broadband will pass fixed broadband this year. It's already growing faster, and in Sweden, the most popular phone is a USB modem," said Bergendahl, who was the keynote speaker at the European Computer Audit, Control and Security Conference in Stockholm.
As more people start using mobile broadband, hot spots will no longer be needed. "Hotspots at places like Starbucks are becoming the telephone boxes of the broadband era," said Bergendahl.
A couple of factors will accelerate the move to mobile broadband. In countries such as Austria, Denmark and Sweden, the average price for a mobile broadband subscription is only €20 (US$31) per month, Bergendahl said.
Also, support for HSPA (High Speed Packet Access), favored by Ericsson, is being built into more and more laptops. Ericsson recently signed a deal to put HSPA technology in some Lenovo notebooks.
"In a few years, it [HSPA] will be as common as Wi-Fi is today," Bergendahl said.
But challenges still remain. Coverage, availability and price -- especially when someone is roaming on other networks -- are all key factors for success.
"Industry will have to solve the international roaming issue," Bergendahl said. "Carriers need to work together. It can be as simple as paying €10 per day when you are abroad."
Not knowing how high the bill will be after a business trip is not acceptable for professional users, according to Bergendahl.
Coverage will also have to improve. In the room where Bergendahl spoke, there was no 3G (third generation) coverage. However, operators are looking at ways to provide better signal coverage, particularly indoors and in rural areas.
But Ericsson's CMO also suspects a conspiracy.
"They would never admit it, but I think hotels are stopping the radio signals. They see data access as a business opportunity," he said.
iPhone is 'new era in gaming'
Gameloft has announced plans to introduce over 15 iPhone/iPod touch games by the end of 2008. The mobile gaming company's developers have already begun using Apple's newly-released beta iPhone SDK. It's a natural fit, as the company already produces games for the iPod.
"The iPhone gaming environment opens a new era in mobile gaming and is exactly what we've been waiting for," said Michel Guillemot, president of Gameloft. "The Apple iPhone has changed the way consumers perceive and interact with their mobile phones, and the release of the SDK is a tremendous opportunity for Gameloft to apply its creative and innovative approach to mobile gaming."
Apple has won major support from various games developers, with Electronic Arts, ID Software, Sega and Freeverse already engaged in producing titles using the new SDK.
"The iPhone gaming environment opens a new era in mobile gaming and is exactly what we've been waiting for," said Michel Guillemot, president of Gameloft. "The Apple iPhone has changed the way consumers perceive and interact with their mobile phones, and the release of the SDK is a tremendous opportunity for Gameloft to apply its creative and innovative approach to mobile gaming."
Apple has won major support from various games developers, with Electronic Arts, ID Software, Sega and Freeverse already engaged in producing titles using the new SDK.
Gartner warns of rising chip inventories
Global inventories of semiconductors, the building blocks of electronic devices, spiked in the fourth quarter due to lackluster fourth quarter gadget sales and lower expectations for sales in the first quarter, Gartner said Monday.
The market researcher's chip inventory index rose to 1.16 in the fourth quarter, compared to 1.04 in the third quarter of last year. The figure is designed to assess normal chip inventory levels throughout the global technology supply chain.
The report comes amid growing worries over the health of the U.S. and global economies. Last Friday, the U.S. Labor Department said employers cut 63,000 jobs in February, the second straight month of declines. Some analysts interpreted the data as proof that the U.S. is in a recession.
For the global technology industry, a U.S. recession could send demand for electronics products into a decline, especially if economic troubles spread to other countries.
Gartner's inventory report highlights potential problems in the chip industry. Rising inventories are a sign orders are falling or being cancelled, and that chip makers need to slow production to stave off a glut.
Chip makers should reduce inventories as a cautionary measure against further troubling economic and financial news, Gartner said. The company expects its inventory index to remain in the "caution zone" in the first quarter of this year and possibly the second quarter, according to Gerald Van Hoy, analyst at Gartner, in the company's Semiconductor DQ Monday Report.
The market researcher's chip inventory index rose to 1.16 in the fourth quarter, compared to 1.04 in the third quarter of last year. The figure is designed to assess normal chip inventory levels throughout the global technology supply chain.
The report comes amid growing worries over the health of the U.S. and global economies. Last Friday, the U.S. Labor Department said employers cut 63,000 jobs in February, the second straight month of declines. Some analysts interpreted the data as proof that the U.S. is in a recession.
For the global technology industry, a U.S. recession could send demand for electronics products into a decline, especially if economic troubles spread to other countries.
Gartner's inventory report highlights potential problems in the chip industry. Rising inventories are a sign orders are falling or being cancelled, and that chip makers need to slow production to stave off a glut.
Chip makers should reduce inventories as a cautionary measure against further troubling economic and financial news, Gartner said. The company expects its inventory index to remain in the "caution zone" in the first quarter of this year and possibly the second quarter, according to Gerald Van Hoy, analyst at Gartner, in the company's Semiconductor DQ Monday Report.
Atom-based notebooks to cost between $250 and $300
More than 25 low-cost notebooks based on Intel's upcoming Atom processor are in the works, including models from multinational PC vendors, according to the chip maker's top executive in Asia.
These Atom-based notebooks will be available in the middle of this year for about US$250 to $300, said Navin Shenoy, general manager of Intel's Asia-Pacific operations, in an interview. "We'll see some slightly richer configurations that get up to $350," he said.
The Atom processor, formerly called Diamondville, is a small, low-power chip designed for inexpensive notebooks, a class of device that Intel and others refer to as netbooks. These machines are intended for first-time computer buyers in emerging markets as well as users in mature markets willing to trade performance for a low-cost notebook that complements their existing computers -- a market that until now has been largely dominated by Asustek's Eee PC.
Atom will offer lower performance than Intel's Core 2 Duo processors for mainstream notebooks, but the Atom's performance will be good enough for browsing the Internet and sending e-mails, Shenoy said.
Intel Chief Technology Officer Justin Rattner was more specific about the processor's capabilities last month, telling reporters that a related chip, called Silverthorne, offers performance similar to Banias, the first version of Intel's Pentium M processor released in 2003. Silverthorne is designed for small, handheld computers that Intel calls Mobile Internet Devices, and will be available as part of the Centrino Atom chip package set for release during the second quarter.
The introduction of the Atom and the rush of vendors to build the chip into low-cost notebooks could mark the emergence of a new type of device, expanding on the early success of Asustek's Eee PC. But not everyone is convinced there is much demand for low-cost notebooks, either as a secondary computing device or a substitute for a more capable, and more expensive, notebook PC.
Bryan Ma, the director of personal systems research at IDC Asia-Pacific, is a self-described skeptic and doubts that low-cost notebooks will have more than a limited impact on the market for portable computing devices so long as performance and features are traded for lower prices. "I was never convinced that price was the best way to sell these products," he said.
But the marketing clout of Intel and top-tier PC vendors could alter this equation by creating additional demand among customers in both emerging markets and developing countries. "Intel, pushing this, gives it more legs," Ma said.
"There's going to be some experimentation," Shenoy said.
Most Atom-based notebooks will have screens ranging in size from 7 inches up to 10 inches, Shenoy said, adding that some models will be equipped with screens that can swivel and lay flat against the keyboard, turning the device into a tablet computer. Devices will ship with either hard disks or solid-state drives that use flash memory and offer battery life ranging from three to five hours, he said.
"Some will be really sleek and thin, some will be a bit more ruggedized," Shenoy said, adding that Wi-Fi will likely be a common feature.
On the software side, Atom-based notebooks will ship with either Windows XP or some version of Linux. "I don't think you'll see a lot of Vista in this space for cost reasons," he said.
The availability of Windows XP on low-cost notebooks set to arrive during the middle of the year is noteworthy because Microsoft has stated previously that Windows XP licenses will not be sold after June 30. Microsoft officials in Singapore reaffirmed the June 30 deadline in a statement released through the company's public-relations agency. But that doesn't necessarily mean that Windows XP will completely disappear after June 30.
"There are probably going to be certain exceptions here and there," IDC's Ma said.
These Atom-based notebooks will be available in the middle of this year for about US$250 to $300, said Navin Shenoy, general manager of Intel's Asia-Pacific operations, in an interview. "We'll see some slightly richer configurations that get up to $350," he said.
The Atom processor, formerly called Diamondville, is a small, low-power chip designed for inexpensive notebooks, a class of device that Intel and others refer to as netbooks. These machines are intended for first-time computer buyers in emerging markets as well as users in mature markets willing to trade performance for a low-cost notebook that complements their existing computers -- a market that until now has been largely dominated by Asustek's Eee PC.
Atom will offer lower performance than Intel's Core 2 Duo processors for mainstream notebooks, but the Atom's performance will be good enough for browsing the Internet and sending e-mails, Shenoy said.
Intel Chief Technology Officer Justin Rattner was more specific about the processor's capabilities last month, telling reporters that a related chip, called Silverthorne, offers performance similar to Banias, the first version of Intel's Pentium M processor released in 2003. Silverthorne is designed for small, handheld computers that Intel calls Mobile Internet Devices, and will be available as part of the Centrino Atom chip package set for release during the second quarter.
The introduction of the Atom and the rush of vendors to build the chip into low-cost notebooks could mark the emergence of a new type of device, expanding on the early success of Asustek's Eee PC. But not everyone is convinced there is much demand for low-cost notebooks, either as a secondary computing device or a substitute for a more capable, and more expensive, notebook PC.
Bryan Ma, the director of personal systems research at IDC Asia-Pacific, is a self-described skeptic and doubts that low-cost notebooks will have more than a limited impact on the market for portable computing devices so long as performance and features are traded for lower prices. "I was never convinced that price was the best way to sell these products," he said.
But the marketing clout of Intel and top-tier PC vendors could alter this equation by creating additional demand among customers in both emerging markets and developing countries. "Intel, pushing this, gives it more legs," Ma said.
"There's going to be some experimentation," Shenoy said.
Most Atom-based notebooks will have screens ranging in size from 7 inches up to 10 inches, Shenoy said, adding that some models will be equipped with screens that can swivel and lay flat against the keyboard, turning the device into a tablet computer. Devices will ship with either hard disks or solid-state drives that use flash memory and offer battery life ranging from three to five hours, he said.
"Some will be really sleek and thin, some will be a bit more ruggedized," Shenoy said, adding that Wi-Fi will likely be a common feature.
On the software side, Atom-based notebooks will ship with either Windows XP or some version of Linux. "I don't think you'll see a lot of Vista in this space for cost reasons," he said.
The availability of Windows XP on low-cost notebooks set to arrive during the middle of the year is noteworthy because Microsoft has stated previously that Windows XP licenses will not be sold after June 30. Microsoft officials in Singapore reaffirmed the June 30 deadline in a statement released through the company's public-relations agency. But that doesn't necessarily mean that Windows XP will completely disappear after June 30.
"There are probably going to be certain exceptions here and there," IDC's Ma said.
IBM, Hitachi team up to advance chip research
IBM and Hitachi are expected to announce a research agreement on Monday in which the companies will collaborate to improve semiconductor technology, including shrinking the features on silicon chips.
IBM, Hitachi team up to advance chip research
IDG News Service 3/10/08
Agam Shah, IDG News Service, San Francisco Bureau
IBM and Hitachi are expected to announce a research agreement on Monday in which the companies will collaborate to improve semiconductor technology, including shrinking the features on silicon chips.
Click here to find out more!
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Get practical tips, IT news, how-tos, and the best in tech humor.
Researchers from the companies will try to accelerate the miniaturization of chip circuitry by researching at the atomic level for 32-nanometer and 22-nm semiconductors. Making chip circuits smaller should allow computing devices to deliver power savings and performance gains. It will also make manufacturing more efficient, IBM said.
By combining research capabilities and intellectual property, the companies also hope to reduce the costs of developing advanced chip technologies, IBM said.
The tie-up with Hitachi is not linked to the Cell processor, which is the result of a separate development partnership between IBM, Sony and Toshiba, IBM said. Though IBM and Hitachi work together on enterprise servers and other products, this is the first time they are collaborating on semiconductor technology.
Engineers from the companies will conduct research at IBM's Thomas J. Watson Research Center in Yorktown Heights, New York, and at the College of Nanoscale Science and Engineering's Albany NanoTech Complex, also in New York. Though the research does not apply directly to manufacturing, it could contribute to IBM's manufacturing processes as they relate to future silicon devices, IBM said.
Financial details of the two-year agreement were not disclosed. IBM officials declined comment on when products resulting from the research would hit the market.
Chip makers such as IBM, Intel and Advanced Micro Devices are constantly upgrading their manufacturing technologies to shrink chips. Intel began switching its manufacturing process to 45-nanometer chips last year, and AMD is scheduled to make a similar move later this year. Intel recently said it hopes to shrink the features on its chips to 22-nm by 2011.
A nanometer is equal to about one billionth of a meter. In chip manufacturing, the figure refers to the smallest features etched onto the surface of the chips. As chip makers build smaller and smaller transistors, they are dealing with features that are in some cases just a few atoms thick.
IBM already has a strong profile in advancing semiconductor technology. It is developing silicon nanophotonics technology, which could replace some of the wires on a chip with pulses of light on tiny optical fibers for quicker and more power-efficient data transfers between cores on a chip. It is also working with U.S. universities to develop carbon nanotubes, smaller transistors that could deliver better performance than current transistors.
IBM, Hitachi team up to advance chip research
IDG News Service 3/10/08
Agam Shah, IDG News Service, San Francisco Bureau
IBM and Hitachi are expected to announce a research agreement on Monday in which the companies will collaborate to improve semiconductor technology, including shrinking the features on silicon chips.
Click here to find out more!
On this topic
Cloudbooks may include Intel's Diamondville processor
Intel to deliver six-core Xeon processor this year
AMD launches 780 chipset for Puma, Cartwheel
Get practical tips, IT news, how-tos, and the best in tech humor.
Researchers from the companies will try to accelerate the miniaturization of chip circuitry by researching at the atomic level for 32-nanometer and 22-nm semiconductors. Making chip circuits smaller should allow computing devices to deliver power savings and performance gains. It will also make manufacturing more efficient, IBM said.
By combining research capabilities and intellectual property, the companies also hope to reduce the costs of developing advanced chip technologies, IBM said.
The tie-up with Hitachi is not linked to the Cell processor, which is the result of a separate development partnership between IBM, Sony and Toshiba, IBM said. Though IBM and Hitachi work together on enterprise servers and other products, this is the first time they are collaborating on semiconductor technology.
Engineers from the companies will conduct research at IBM's Thomas J. Watson Research Center in Yorktown Heights, New York, and at the College of Nanoscale Science and Engineering's Albany NanoTech Complex, also in New York. Though the research does not apply directly to manufacturing, it could contribute to IBM's manufacturing processes as they relate to future silicon devices, IBM said.
Financial details of the two-year agreement were not disclosed. IBM officials declined comment on when products resulting from the research would hit the market.
Chip makers such as IBM, Intel and Advanced Micro Devices are constantly upgrading their manufacturing technologies to shrink chips. Intel began switching its manufacturing process to 45-nanometer chips last year, and AMD is scheduled to make a similar move later this year. Intel recently said it hopes to shrink the features on its chips to 22-nm by 2011.
A nanometer is equal to about one billionth of a meter. In chip manufacturing, the figure refers to the smallest features etched onto the surface of the chips. As chip makers build smaller and smaller transistors, they are dealing with features that are in some cases just a few atoms thick.
IBM already has a strong profile in advancing semiconductor technology. It is developing silicon nanophotonics technology, which could replace some of the wires on a chip with pulses of light on tiny optical fibers for quicker and more power-efficient data transfers between cores on a chip. It is also working with U.S. universities to develop carbon nanotubes, smaller transistors that could deliver better performance than current transistors.
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