Friday Fishbowl
February 18, 2005 by dane · Leave a Comment
I‘m hopping a plane to Orlando this morning for the PMA conference. I’ll be covering digital photography announcements there for DigitalCameraInfo.com. Watch for my video pieces. Meanwhile, here are today’s top tech stories.
- Microsoft is planning to give away its new anti-spyware program, cleverly named Microsoft AntiSpyware. The beta is free right now, and according to Bill Gates at this week’s RSA security conference in San Francisco, it’s going to stay that way. Unfortunately, it only works for XP and Windows 2000. Gates also announced a new anti-virus product by year end and an update to Internet Explorer for Windows XP SP2. IE7 will go beta this summer with improved phishing protection.
- Meanwhile, Microsoft is recalling 14.1 million Xbox power cords, saying that there’s a fire risk. The recall applies to Xboxes manufactured before Oct. 23, 2003. I’ll live dangerously.
- Former US cybersecurity and counterterrorism advisor, Richard Clarke, also at RSA, when asked his opinion of the new Microsoft security products replied, “Given their record in the security area, I don’t know why anybody would buy from them.”
- Panelists speaking at RSA said that cryptography is good at protecting the content of messages, but can’t be counted on to protect content for very long. , Carter Laren, security architect at Cryptographic Research noted,
“Anyone designing content protection should design for failure and if it fails update it.” - The next two stories underscore Laren’s point. The SHA-1 hash algorithm, used for digital signatures (I use it to sign all my eamil via PGP), has apparently been cracked.
- According to the LA Times, Apple and Napster are taking potshots at their respective digital rights management technologies. Steve Jobs sent recording company executives an email Tuesday morning pointing out that Napster’s new all-you-can-eat music service, Napster-To-Go had been cracked. Napster CEO Chris Gorog replied with an email Tuesday afternoon that linked to a site offering a crack for the iTunes Music Store’s DRM. Gorog wins this round. All protected music is susceptible to the Napster-To-Go crack – it’s essentially recording the analog output as you listen to the song. iTunes FairPlay has been cracked fair and square by DVD Jon and software to strip out the copy protection is widely available.
- The New York Times is buying About.com for $410 million – that’s 23 time earnings.
- The creators of the TCP/IP protocol that powers the Internet won the computer industry’s Nobel Prize. Vint Cerf and Robert Kahn were given the ACM Turing Award and a $100,000 prize.
- The European Parliament has rejected software patents and called on national parliaments to debate the subject for another year to come up with a better proposal. The EC now decides whether to accept Parliament’s recommendation.
Listen in Friday at 7:45a Pacific for my weekly news commentary on KFI 640 AM in Los Angeles. Tune in Saturday at 7:40a Eastern for my weekly visit with John Donabie on 1010 CFRB Toronto. And, of course, listen to my show live from Orlando this Saturday and Sunday, 11a to 2p Pacific on KFI, Los Angeles.
Tuesday’s Twitterings
February 8, 2005 by dane · Leave a Comment
N ewslicious.
Finally, I know how to get where I’m going, thanks to the new Google Maps.
Friedleib F. Runge, father of paper chromatography, was born on this day in 1795. Science fiction author Jules Verne was born in Nantes, France, 1828.
- Watch out Intel and AMD. Forget the G5. IBM, Sony and Toshiba unveiled details yesterday of a new microprocessor that contains the equivalent of eight CPU cores around a central coordinating core based on PowerPC. The Cell processor, in development since 2001, starts at over 4 gigahertz, has nearly twice the transistors of the Pentium 4 and can deliver 10 times the performance. Look for it in the new Sony Playstation 3, TVs from Toshiba, and IBM high-end workstation computers coming later this year. Apparently there are several operating systems already running on the Cell in the labs, including Linux. With its PowerPC heritage, it shouldn’t be hard to port OS X to it – now that would be a killer product.
- The FCC released a list of web sites that send cell phone spam on Monday. The sites have 30 days to stop or face fines of $11,000 per violation.
- The Superbowl spurred the sales of 1.4 million TVs according to the TV Retail Advertising and Marketing Association, many of them high-end flat screens.
- Microsoft will release 13 patches for Windows XP today, including nine critical updates. Make sure to run Windows Update.
- But don’t believe an email claiming to be from Microsoft with an attached “security” program. It’s spyware from Romania, one of many scams circulating the net right now taking advantage of Microsoft’s announced “Windows Genuine Advantage” program. Microsoft says it never sends out updates via email.
- The record industry has hit a new low. They’re suing a dead woman. According to her daughter, the 83-year-old West Virginia woman hated computers. According to the RIAA, she traded 700 pop, rap, and rock songs online under the screen name smittenedkitten. The RIAA says they’ll drop the case.
- University of Calgary students will be learning how to create spam and spyware. The university already has a course on virus creation. Now why didn’t they teach that kind of stuff when I was in school. Oh, yeah. Because you can’t create spam with a slide rule.
Monday in the Middle
January 10, 2005 by Leo · Leave a Comment
Post CES and pre-MacWorld. Is there anything more to say? Well I’m going to say it anyway.
Indian tea first arrives in the UK on this day in 1836. The first subway opens in London in 1863. Oil is discovered in Texas in 1901. The 45 was introduced in 1949 (ask your parents). First passenger jet flight in 1951. Clara Peller first asks “where’s the beef” in 1984.
- Microsoft says that patches for the three critical Windows flaws I told you about last week will hit Windows Update next week.
- Mozilla and Firefox have security problems of their own. One hole makes phishing schemes easier, another allows a buffer overflow exploit in the newsreader, and a third involves predictable temp file names in Thunderbird and Firefox.
- There will be no live coverage of Steve Jobs’s keynote address tomorrow at MacWorld. Apple will delay the webcast until 6p Pacific and it’s rumored that no reporters will be allowed to transmit comments during the speech. This might kill our planned chat, but I’ll file here immediately after.
- The iHome media center is one rumor that’s clearly a hoax, but lawsuit against Think Secret seems to confirm the rumor of a sub-$500 Mac and solid state iPod. The suit claims that the information posted on Think Secret in November and December of this year, and earlier, could only have been obtained by someone who had signed a confidentiality agreement with Apple. I’m looking for the iWork package featuring a new word processor and Keynote 2.
- In the blogger world this counts as a massive merger. Six Apart, aka, the people who wrote Movable Type, aka Ben and Mena, have purchased Live Journal.
- According to the Wall St. Journal, Comcast is planning to offer voice over Internet service to 15 million of its cable customers this year, and to all 40 million customers within 18 months.
- Forget the moo-cow, I want a µcard. The Mu-Card alliance of Taiwanese solid state storage companies is promoting a new format that will hold two terabytes of data. The spec should be final next month with production beginning shortly after.
Listen in tomorrow at 6:45a Pacific for my weekly news commentary on KGO 810 AM in San Francisco.
Monday’s Misteps
December 14, 2004 by dane · Leave a Comment
I‘m off to Vancouver BC for the Vicki Gabereau Show, but before I go… the news!
Those iPod ads are good, but home made iPod ads are better.
Dickens’ A Christmas Carol was first published on this day in 1843. The clip-on tie was released in 1928. The Susan B Anthony dollar was released in 1978. Saddam Hussein was captured in his spider hole one year ago today.
- Oracle has successfully concluded its long-delayed takeover of PeopleSoft, heading off what could have been a bitter fight. Oracle shareholders will get $26.50/share – more than $10 more than Oracle’s first offer. PeopleSoft’s employees will get Larry Ellison as a boss. Doesn’t seem fair somehow.
- Microsoft has released desktop search software – wait doesn’t Windows do that already? – to compete with Google and Yahoo. The free software comes with the new MSN Toolbar Suite and works with Windows XP and 2000 only.
- Sony’s PSP shipped in Japan yesterday and promptly sold out. The first 200,000 units were gone in hours. Sony plans to ship three million by March. The portable gaming device sports console quality graphics and can also play movies and DVDs. It’s selling in Japan for 19,800 yen – about $188 US dollars. 21 games will be ready before the end of this year. Sony will offer the PSP in North America sometime next spring.
- Firefox use rose 34% in the US last month according to WebSideStory. Internet Explorer still has 90% market share web wide, although it’s now below 50% on this site.
- The US Supreme Court has agreed to decide whether P2P file sharing services like Kazaa and Grokster are liable for aiding copyright infringement. The court agreed to hear the music industry’s appeal of a Ninth Circuit court decision that Grokster and Streamcast were not liable because they didn’t exercise control over the music swapped using their service. This is gonna be the big one.
- A Manhattan housing court judge has been offered for sale on eBay, with free worldwide shipping included. The posting, from a disgruntled former litigant, was quickly pulled, but not before 21 bidders raised the judge’s price to $127.50.
- Robbers in Texas were scared off from a home invasion by sounds from Grand Theft Auto. “The police in the game were staying, ‘Stop, we have you surrounded. This is the police.’ The burglar, unknowingly, thought this was the actual police and panicked,” according to the Galveston DA.
Listen in Tuesday at 6:45a Pacific for my weekly news commentary on KGO 810 AM in San Francisco.
Friday midday I’ll be on The Vicki Gabereau Show on CTV in Canada. (We only tape on Tuesday.)
Friday’s Foot In Mouth
December 10, 2004 by Leo · Leave a Comment
According to my Lego grandfather clock, it’s news time…
The metric system was established in France on this day in 1799. The first Nobel prizes were awarded in 1901.
- IBM has, in fact, sold its PC division to Chinese manufacturer Lenovo for $1.4 billion and $500 million in debt. Lenovo is now the number three PC maker after Dell and HP. There’s a good history of the IBM PC at Internet News.
- Oh crap. Even though four other movie companies have decided on the HD-DVD format for their movies, Disney has opted for Sony’s Blu-Ray, ensuring that there will be a Beta/VHS style format war in the new Hi-Def DVDs. Disney said they’ll start putting out Blu-ray DVDs as soon as the players are available in 2006. That’s just Mickey Mouse.
- Yahoo is going to copy Google. Again. The Yahoo desktop search tool (based on the excellent X1) will be released in the New Year.
- The Inquirer says console games are in short supply this holiday season. The Nintendo DS is very hard to find, although Nintendo is planning to add an additional 400,000 units to the 1 million shipped to the US this year. Surprisingly, it’s very hard to find Sony’s two year old Playstation 2, too. Sony lauches the PSP in Japan next week, and that’s going to be a quick sell out no doubt – reports are that only 100,000 will be available at launch.
- Careful where you put your laptop. According to a study published Thursday in Human Reproduction, the habit of keeping your laptop in your lap can cause permanent sterility in men. It’s the heat generated by the laptop and the positioning of the thighs. How many times have I said that?
- A Gameboy is better at relaxing kids before surgery than tranquilizers, according to research from University Hospital in Newark. The study said “We find that the children are just so happy with the Game Boy that they actually do forget where they are.”
- Where was I? Oh yeah. Another reason to hate pop-ups: they’re security risks. According to Secunia, any browser that displays pop-ups, including Internet Explorer, Mozilla, Firefox, Opera, Konqueror, Safari and Netscape, is vulnerable to an injection attack that could make a malicious site look like a secure site. Turn on pop-up blocking and breath a sigh of relief.
- The December Windows XP patches will hit Microsoft Windows Update December 14. There will be five fixes, none of them critical – how long has it been since we’ve been able to say that?
- As one of its last actions before recessing for the holidays, Congress has passed a law prohibiting cell phone voyeurism. Upskirters will face heavy fines and prison time if caught. The bill only applies to Federal jurisdictions. President Bush is expected to sign it.
- Federal regulators will meet next week to consider revising rules to allow cell phone usage aboard commercial airline flights. It’s not the safety issue that concerns me, it’s the annoyance factor.
- AOL has accidentally deleted an unknown (but apparently large) number of screen names in an attempt to purge unused names from its database. The company says it will take until Monday to restore the accounts.
- Vonage is going to follow Packet8 in adding video to its Voice over IP (VoIP) service next year.
Sun CEO Scott McNealy was fooled by a hoax photo that’s been circulating on the net for years. Claiming the photo came from a 1954 Popular Science article on the “home computer” he noted how far we’ve come in 50 years. More like how far Photoshop has come in 50 years.
Listen in Friday at 8:35a Pacific for my weekly commentary on KFI 640 AM in Los Angeles.
Tuesday’s TO Twingle
December 7, 2004 by Leo · Leave a Comment
It’s snowing in Toronto, so I’m staying indoors and doing the news.
Today is a day that will live in infamy. Pearl Harbor was bombed on this day in 1941. The Model A was discontinued in 1931. Happy birthday Noam Chomsky, Tom Waits, and Larry Bird.
- A study released Monday by the Pew Internet and American Life Project finds that musicians do not see online file sharing as a threat to their livelihood. According to the study, “artists and musicians are more likely to say that the Internet has made it possible for them to make more money from their art than they are to say it has made it harder to protect their work from piracy or unlawful use.” Nor do most musicians agree with the RIAA’s tactics. Around half still think it should be illegal, however.
- Lycos Europe has dropped its plans to use an anti-spam screen saver to launch denial of service attacks against accused spammers. Lycos’s Make Love Not Spam screen saver was taken offline on Friday. There’s apparently no law against launching distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks in the UK.
- The Pennsylvania Attorney General has sued two men for advertising an online diploma mill. The two allegedly sent out spam offering graduate degrees in less than 72 hours. Among the recipients, a cat who got an MBA. The men face only civil penalties, not jail time.
- MessageLabs says online phishing scams have increased tenfold this year. The company has intercepted 20 million phony emails so far this year.
- A German online ad firm, Adtech, says Internet Explorer users are four times more likely to click on banner ads than Firefox users. This is based on actual clickthrough on the 1,000 European sites that use Adtech. I hear Firefox users are better looking too.
- Another German study says computers hinder learning. Researchers at the University of Munich studied 175,000 15-year-old students and found that performance in math and reading had suffered significantly among those who had more than one computer at home.
- Former President Bill Clinton is helping to boost a Chinese-owned web search engine, saying “I hope you all make lots of money.”
The service, Accoona (from the Swahili phrase “accoona matata” meaning “no worries”) claims to use artificial intelligence to improve search results. When I did a search for “Bill Clinton” on the site it came up with a page of paid placements (after a long minute) including an anti-Clinton site. Worse than that, the second unpaid result was for a site selling Saint Clinton memorabilia. Hey Google, no worries! - According to insiders, IBM is close to inking the deal to sell its PC business to the Chinese owned Lenovo Group, formerly known as Legend Computers. The $1-2 billion deal is expected to be announced tomorrow morning. The IBM brand would be retained for at least a few years. IBM would continue to sell its corporate servers. The PC business pulls in $10 billion in revenue but only breaks even.
- Apple shared jumped yesterday on rumors the company will announce an inexpensive flash-based iPod at MacWorld in January.
- Phew. Ken Jennings has found a job. The Jeopardy champion who lasted a record 75 games will become a spokesmodel for Microsoft’s Encarta encylopedia. Jennings (whom a Microsoft spokesman called “Jenkins” in a press interview) will embark on a “Quiz The Whiz” tour where reporters will be asked to challenge him with questions culled from Encarta. Here’s a piece of trivia: Jennings answered 2,700 questions on his way to winning $2.5 million dollars.
Listen in Tuesday at 6:45a Pacific for my weekly news commentary on KGO 810 AM in San Francisco.
Thursday’s Sore Loser
November 4, 2004 by Leo · Leave a Comment
Forget it, I’m not leaving. But I will do the news. Audio to follow as soon as I stop sobbing.
Happy Birthday Walter Cronkite, he’s 88. King Tut’s tomb was discovered on this day in 1922. The Iranian Hostage Crisis began in 1979.
- It’s the day after tomorrow. The eight-nation Arctic Council is reporting that the icecaps are melting at twice the normal rate, due to global warming. The four year study will be officially released next week. Global warming isn’t all bad. 25% of the Earths remaining oil and gas reserves are hidden under Arctic ice. That amphibious Hummer is looking better than ever.
- E-voting went mostly without a hitch on Tuesday. It was the first extensive use of electronic voting machines and only about 600 glitches were reported, mostly minor according to the Verified Voting Foundation. On the other hand, the Election Protection Coalition reports over 1,000 problems, including touch screens that switched votes away from Kerry.
- CNET reviews the electronic gadgetry used by the television networks on election night. Tim Russert replaced his whiteboard with a Fujitsu tablet PC. CBS used a 50-inch touch screen plasma monitor to swoop and zoom over electoral maps. I followed the results on the radio but I don’t think NPR was using any of that stuff.
- A brother and sister spamming team have been convicted of a felony in a Virginia court. It’s the first felony conviction of spammers ever. The two sent junk email to millions of AOL customers. The jury recommended nine years in jail for the brother and fined the sister $7500.
- The Motion Picture Association of America is preparing to follow in the RIAA’s footsteps by suing movie pirates. The MPAA says it will make “a major announcement regarding illegal file sharing of motion pictures on peer-to-peer networks” this morning.
- Microsoft and Intel are joining forces this holiday season with an advertising campaign touting “Digital Joy.” The multi-million dollar campaign marks the first time the two companies have advertised together.
- Another reason to eschew HTML email. The latest phishing scams overwrites your banking bookmark with bogus sites where they’ll collect your login and password, and the email does this without any action on your part.
Listen in tomorrow at 8:35a Pacific for my weekly news commentary on KFI 640 AM in Los Angeles.
Tuesday’s Threat Assessment
October 26, 2004 by Leo · 12 Comments
I‘m in Canada to get my flu shot, but the news must go on.
Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas hits stores today. Expect a drop in real life carjacking as thugs try out the virtual stuff. Rockstar expects to sell 4.5 million units this week alone.
Apple’s big press conference is today. Presumably they’ll announce the new U2 iPod.
The shootout at the OK Corral occurred on this day in 1881. Pan Am made the first commercial transatlantic jet crossing, New York to Paris, in 1958. Doonesbury debuted in 1970.
- Three anti-spyware bills are working their way through Congress, and the FTC has achieved its first victory in its lawsuit against Spamford Wallace. On Thursday the US District Court granted a temporary restraining order against Wallace prohibiting him from exploiting Internet vulnerabilities to place spyware on computers. Wallace was given 24 hours to pull his software from the web.
- PalmOne has officially announced the release of the Treo 650. Sprint has cornered the market on the hot phone through sometime next year. Sprint says the phone will be available by mid-November and cost around $500. Wi-Fi support will not be available at first, but PalmOne does expect to make a Wi-Fi card for the phone eventually.
- Microsoft says it will compete with Google in the desktop search arena, as well. The company plans to release its own desktop search program before the end of the year.
- Meanwhile Google shares were up another 15% on Friday, topping $180/share at one point. Thanks to a strong earnings report on Thursday, two analysts are saying it’s worth over $200.
- Maybe there’s good reason. According to a new survey by MSN Search, when men want advice they turn to search engines first. 50% of the men surveyed say they Google first, one-third say they ask family members, only one in four say they ask their wives first. One man in three has searched for his name online; only one in five women has done so.
- An AOL survey shows that 20% of home computers are infected with viruses. 80% are infected with spyware. Infected machines had an average of 93 different spyware programs on them. Technical experts from AOL and the National Cyber Security Alliance examined 329 computers in the survey. More than 70% of owners falsely thought they were protected from online threats.
- AOL is giving its seal of approval to a reworked Microsoft anti-spam proposal. The technology, known as Sender ID, was rejected by the IETF last month because it was encumbered by Microsoft patents. The patent has been restated but it’s not clear whether open source advocates will accept the new proposal.
- The DOJ has given its go ahead for Cingular’s acquisition of AT&T Wireless. The merger awaits FCC approval now. The merger will give Cingular 47.6 million subscribers, making it the number one wireless carrier.
- A fake Red Hat security alert is making the rounds. The alert, targeting users of Fedora, encourages users to download a “patch” which is actually a Trojan horse. Red Hat says don’t install updates unless they’re digitally signed by the company.
- The tech industry received a big tax break on Friday. President Bush signed a bill offering $136 billion in corporate tax relief, including a reduction from 35% to %5.25 in the tax rate on foreign profits for US multinationals. The breaks have been criticized for encouraging offshoring of jobs, but the US tech industry lobbied heavily for them saying they needed the money for additional R&D and investment. Senator Feinstein’s amendment requiring companies to spend their tax windfall in the US was rejected.
Listen in Tuesday at 6:45a Pacific for my weekly news commentary on KGO 810 AM in San Francisco.
Monday’s Mini News
October 19, 2004 by Leo · 7 Comments
A couple of quick stories that caught my eye, today. I’m going out of town tomorrow but will update the news on Thursday.
- Rock band U2 has made a deal with Apple to sell custom iPods promoting the band’s next album. Steve Jobs and Bono will announce the special black iPod at a press conference on Tuesday, October 26. The MP3 player will be loaded with the band’s new CD plus songs from older albums. The iPod should ship November 23 – just in time for my Regis appearance. How thoughtful of them.
- The real question, though, is will Apple announce the rumored PhotoPod with a color screen that stores both music and images at the same event?
- Dell is once again the number one PC maker, gaining ground on second place HP. Gartner and IDC both reported that the PC maker had increased shipments by more than 20 percent over last year to give it an 18.2% market share. IBM, Fujitsu, and Toshiba round out the top five.
- According to USA Today, Googles new desktop search tool can index Hotmail and other webmail caches, so if you’re on a shared computer with the desktop tool installed, someone could theoretically read your email.
Listen in Tuesday at 6:45a Pacific for my weekly news commentary on KGO 810 AM in San Francisco.
Saturday Snippets
October 16, 2004 by Leo · Leave a Comment
Playing catchup with the tech news since 2003…
- The FCC has approved BPL: broadband over power lines, and utilities in Washington State and Ohio are moving to implement it. The technology could bring high-speed Internet to areas unserved by DSL and cable modems. The ARRL, which has been virulently opposed to BPL, said they were cautiously optimistic that the new rules would protect hams.
- Project Fluffy Bunny has seen the light of day. Google is extending its search business to your desktop. The new Google desktop search indexes Outlook and Outlook Express email, Microsoft Office files, filenames, web history, chat logs, and text files. It integrates into Internet Explorer, and future Google searches will include results from your own hard drive as well as the web in general. It’s a great product considering the price, but I still prefer X1 for its speed and the wider variety of files it searches.
- It has been rumored that Google is also considering distributing its own Instant Messaging client. Experts who examined the code in the desktop tool says it supports its own IM protocol. Google’s acquisition of Picasa some months ago gave it access to the IM code in Picasa’s Hello program.
- Intel has announced it won’t produce a 4GHz Pentium 4 after all. Overheating problems with higher clock speeds are forcing the company to focus its efforts on multi-core chips – single chips with two processors – and improving efficiency in the Pentium 4 line with larger caches.
- Meanwhile AMD continues its march to eclipse Intel. Tuesday the company will unveil the Athlon 64 FX-55 and the Athlon 64 4000+. The FX is currently the best performing desktop CPU on the market.
- Netflix is announcing that it’s cutting its monthly fee from $22 to $17 because it expects Amazon to enter the business soon. Earlier this year Netflix raised its fee from $20 to $22 – but I guess that didn’t work. The DVD by mail company’s stock tumbled 41% in after hours trading on the news. Blockbuster responded by dropping its monthly fee to $17.49. Analysts say neither company can expect to make money at that price.
- More troubles for Bungie. Just days after announcing that Halo 2 for the Xbox is ready to ship, a pirated copy has leaked onto the Internet. The French language version is for PAL television sets and won’t play without a mod chip.
- Apple’s iTunes Music Store sold its 150 millionth song on Thursday. The store is averaging four million tracks a week. Beth Santisteven of Ignacio, Colorado bought the 150 millionth song: Lauryn Hill’s “Ex-Factor.” Apple sold two million iPods in Q4.
- Of course, Apple is not without competition. Starbucks is rolling out music burning stations in its coffee shops. Fifteen new Hear Music stations will open Monday in Seattle. Thirty later this month in Austin. A trial store has been open in Santa Monica since March.
- According to Dell’s Consumer Spyware Initiative, 90% of PC users have been infected by spyware, and the majority have no idea what to do about it. The Internet Education Initiative has set up a spyware education page. Unfortunately it seems to focus on commercial tools from its partners, rather than the free and effective tools most experts recommend.
