- AMD dual-core Athlon 64 X2 lures HP as partner
- Intel's dual-core Pentium D satisfies need for speed
- Friendster's woes continue
- Microsoft recommends uninstalling Netscape 8
- "Zombiemeter" measures malware epidemic
- Global counterattack on zombie menace
- Intel unveils dual-core chips for home and office
- Nokia launches Linux-based, Wi-Fi tablet
- Samsung calls for industry standard in manufacturer of LCD motherglass sizes
- Queuing for the Microsoft helm
May 31, 2005 | Comments: (0)
AMD dual-core Athlon 64 X2 lures HP as partner
AMD launched its dual-core Athlon 64 processor, promising a performance boost just as rival Intel had done last week with its own dual-core announcement.
The AMD Athlon 64 X2 processor, designed for desktop and desktop-replacement notebooks, improves performance by as much as 80 percent on select digital media and productivity applications compared to single-core the AMD Athlon 64 processor, the company asserted.
AMD has rounded up impressive partners, including Hewlett-Packard (HP) and Alienware among the leading manufacturers planning to offer AMD Athlon 64 X2 dual-core processor-based systems.
"HP is always looking for opportunities to deliver leading-edge technologies to our customers that will dramatically improve their computing experience," said John Romano, Senior Vice President, Consumer PC Global Business Unit, HP. "The AMD Athlon 64 X2 dual-core processor running on HP systems will offer users the ability to enjoy and create with their digital content, work on multiple demanding tasks at once, as well as run background applications – all with a smooth operation of each task."
"Alienware demands the latest and most powerful technology for its systems, and the AMD Athlon 64 X2 dual-core processor easily fits this stringent criteria by providing remarkable performance enhancements for digital media, content creation and multi-tasking," said Frank Azor, Senior Vice President and General Manager for Alienware Worldwide Product Group, Alienware Corporation. "Alienware is excited to be working with AMD to put this ground-breaking technology in the hands of our global customer base."
Several prototype systems based on the new chip were on show at a launch event at the Computex trade show in Taipei, Taiwan. They included a consumer desktop PC from HP, a media center PC from Wistron Corp., the Feng Xing K9000 from Lenovo Group, Acer's Aspire T140, Iwill Corp.'s ZMax DP and Shuttle Inc.'s XPC ST20G5.
The new processor will also be supported by more than 40 leading system-builder partners worldwide.
The Athlon 64 X2 is hardware-compatible with motherboards for AMD's single-core Athlon 64 chip, although current boards will require a BIOS (basic input output system) upgrade, IDG News Service reported. The advantage of this is that boards for the chip are already on the market, and it also makes upgrading an existing system relatively simple. The chip will initially be available in four versions, which don't come cheap. The prices range from $537 for the 4200+ ver-sion to $1,001 for the 4800+ version -- and those prices are for bulk purchases of 1,000 chips or more.
"We've decided to go first at the high end of the market," said Henri Richard, executive vice president of worldwide sales and marketing, at a news conference in Taipei.
Asked if AMD's chips might be too expensive for system integrators, especially compared to the slightly lower prices of dual-core Intel chips, Richard said Intel's chips require a new chipset and additional cooling. As a result, the overall price difference between the companies won't be as great as the difference in chip pricing, he said.
AMD Athlon 64 X2 dual-core processor performance benchmarks have already yielded results, the company said. Digital media applications can see an average of a 34 percent increase compared to similar single-core AMD Athlon 64 proces-sors, while overall productivity benchmark results can see a 22 percent average increase. These dramatic performance gains available with AMD Athlon 64 X2 dual-core processors allow power-hungry users to usher in the next generation of digital media software with amazing high definition video rendering and editing, digital content creation, imaging, and audio mixing.
The new chips may not be useful for all needs, said Rob Enderle, principal analyst with the Enderle Group in San Jose, California, who attended the AMD event. Users who recently bought a machine don't need rush into replacing it with a dual-core model, but users just replacing their machine now might con-sider the dual-code chip, especially given the typical three-year lifespan for a desktop PC.
The reason: the new chips will deliver even greater performance gains when used with a 64-bit operating system. Microsoft just launched such a version of Windows but it is not easy to obtain for the average user, and there are still many issues associated with drivers for peripherals.
"If you want a machine that's ready for Longhorn, that's when it comes into play," Enderle said.
Posted by Jack McCarthy on May 31, 2005 03:06 PM
May 27, 2005 | Comments: (0)
Intel's dual-core Pentium D satisfies need for speed
Intel's introduction of the dual-core Pentium D processors for use in desktop PCs offers greater power and speed to home users and small business operators who want extra bang for their computing buck. But the processors are not for everyone, analysts say.
"For those folks who think they need more performance than they could get from a single-core processor, this provides a big bump in performance and only a small bump in power requirements and heat," said Nathan Brookwood, principal analyst for Insight64.
The Pentium D 840, 830 and 820 processors use dual-core technology enabling everyday users to operate more than one program at a time or use extra computing power of the chips' dual cores.
That kind of horsepower is not necessary to run many everyday applications, Brookwood said.
"If you access the Internet on DSL or cable modem and using run-of-the-mill applications like the browser, e-mail, processing or spread sheets, you're never going to see how fast these things are, Brookwood said. "The test is do you spend any of your time staring at an hourglass display? If so, these things will help. This is a performance story. If you are lacking performance, this will give it to you."
The launch was part of Intel's new "platform strategy," in which the company describes business models for its products in addition to traditional product specificatfions.
Intel's Professional Business Platform included its Pentium 4 600 series processors, the 945G and 945P chipsets, and the Intel Pro/1000 Network Adapter as its first desktop platform, modeled on the success of its Centrino notebook PC platform.
The 945G chipset features integrated graphics, while the 945P chipset is designed for use with a third-party graphics card.
"Certainly Intel has concluded that there is a broader story than just processors to be told so they are trying to tell the platform aspect," Brookwood said. "So you see the usage model for games and PCs being accessed from the family room."
Posted by Jack McCarthy on May 27, 2005 05:48 PM
May 27, 2005 | Comments: (0)
This week Friendster's high-profile CEO Scott Sassa stepped down to make way for a more tech-savvy executive. The social networking site also laid off five employees, bringing its ranks down to 50.
Sassa will be replaced by Taek Kwon, currently an executive at Citysearch.com.
Friendster enjoyed high traffic and immense popularity after its launch in 2002, but has recently seen traffic numbers drop. Meanwhile, newer competitor sites such as MySpace.com have experienced growing traffic.
Furthermore, Friendster continues to suffer some performance and availability problems, which plagued the site during its early popularity. I wrote a feature article about the site's adoption of open source technology to solve the massive scalability issues Friendster encountered after its launch.
Although much of those performance glitches have been resolved, parts of the site are still experiencing outages. For many hours on Friday a section of the site that allows users to send messages to other Friendster members has been down. A "scheduled maintenance" note is posted in its place. This same scheduled maintenance page was up for several hours on Wednesday as well. Maybe it really is server maintenance scheduled for the middle of the day, twice in the same week. But if you are a struggling online business trying to rally traffic numbers, site unavailability, whatever the reason, is not how to do it.
Posted by Cathleen Moore on May 27, 2005 03:47 PM
May 27, 2005 | Comments: (0)
Microsoft recommends uninstalling Netscape 8
Microsoft is calling for Internet Explorer users to uninstall the new Netscape 8 because a bug in AOL's browser can interfere with the display of XML content in IE.
Earlier this week Dave Massy, Microsoft's senior program manager for Internet Explorer, posted workarounds for the problem on an IE blog.
In the blog, Massy recommends uninstalling Netscape 8 or deleting the XML node from a registry file entitled HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Plugins\Extension.
According to the IDG News Service, AOL said the problem was "a minor issue," and that uninstalling Netscape was not necessary.
"This issue [affects] a very small number of users who visit sites that require that advanced technology," said Andrew Weinstein, an AOL spokesman.
The company plans sometime next week to deliver a fix to the problem, which will be delivered to users via Netscape's auto-update feature. "We would not encourage people to uninstall or [change] their browser settings," Weinstein said.
Several people who posted comments to Microsoft's IE blog said the XML rendering worked fine with both Netscape 8 and IE installed.
Posted by Cathleen Moore on May 27, 2005 12:56 PM
May 27, 2005 | Comments: (0)
"Zombiemeter" measures malware epidemic
In a move George Romero would be proud of, CipherTrust recently introduced a ZombieMeter, a new online resource that tracks worldwide zombie activity in real-time. The ZombieMeter can be downloaded at CipherTrust's website.
The ZombieMeter comes on the heels of "Operation Spam Zombies," a worldwide effort to educate Internet Service Providers (ISPs) about the dangers of botnets and their role in the spread of spam. Twenty countries have signed on and several government agencies, including the Federal Trade Commission in the U.S., have signed on to send information to more than 3,000 ISPs around the world in an effort to disable destructive botnets.
Botnets or zombie networks are groups of computers that have been infected by malware that allow the malware to control the infected PC and use it to send spam or launch distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks. A recent survey by CipherTrust estimated that 350,000 PCs a month are being recruited into this zombie army. So far in May, CipherTrust researchers found an average of 172,009 new zombies identified each day. Other surveys have suggested that there are millions of PCs worldwide that can generate spam or create DDoS attacks. Researchers from the Honeynet Project tracked more than 100 active botnets, including one containing 50,000 compromised "zombie" machines.
According to the FTC, these letters will recommend that ISPs should be proactive in identifying those computers on their networks that are sending large amounts of e-mail and discover whether they are being used as zombies. The letter suggests infected machines be "quarantined" until the zombie software is removed.
The 20 countries involved are already members of the London Action Plan, an international coalition aimed at preventing spam. Among those signed up to the initiative are the U.S., Canada, Denmark, Japan, Ireland, the Netherlands, Germany, Taiwan and the United Kingdom. China, where a large number of botnets have been found recently, is not part of the coalition.
Posted by Bob Francis on May 27, 2005 10:35 AM
May 27, 2005 | Comments: (0)
Global counterattack on zombie menace
"Operation Spam Zombies" is a worldwide effort to educate Internet Service Providers (ISPs) about the dangers of botnets and their role in the spread of spam.
Twenty countries have signed on and several government agencies, including the Federal Trade Commission in the U.S., have signed on to send information to more than 3,000 ISPs around the world in an effort to disable destructive botnets.
Botnets or zombie networks are groups of computers that have been infected by malware that allow the malware to control the infected PC and use it to send spam or launch distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks.
A recent survey of CipherTrust estimated that 350,000 PCs a month are being recruited into this zombie army. So far in May, CipherTrust researchers found an average of 172,009 new zombies identified each day. Other surveys have suggested that there are millions of PCs worldwide that can generate spam or create DDoS attacks. Researchers from the Honeynet Project tracked more than 100 active botnets, including one containing 50,000 compromised "zombie" machines.
CipherTrust recently introduced a ZombieMeter, a new online resource that tracks worldwide zombie activity in real-time. The ZombieMeter can be downloaded at CipherTrust's website.
According to the FTC, these letters will recommend that ISPs should be proactive in identifying those computers on their networks that are sending large amounts of e-mail and discover whether they are being used as zombies. The letter suggests infected machines be "quarantined" until the zombie software is removed.
The 20 countries involved are already members of the London Action Plan, an international coalition aimed at preventing spam. Among those signed up to the initiative are the U.S., Canada, Denmark, Japan, Ireland, the Netherlands, Germany, Taiwan and the United Kingdom. China, which has been a growing source for botnets, has yet to join.
Posted by Bob Francis on May 27, 2005 09:05 AM
May 26, 2005 | Comments: (0)
Intel unveils dual-core chips for home and office
Intel focused on platforms for PC users in homes and in offices Thursday, announcing systems with dual-core processors as well as chipsets that incorporate a number of new technologies designed to boost performance.
The Pentium D 840, 830 and 820 processors use dual-core technology enabling everyday users to operate more than one program at a time or use extra computing power of the chips' dual cores.
"This is the first dual-core that will make a real impact on the market place," said Gerald Holzhammer, vice president of Intel's Digital Home Group and general manager of the consumer client group, during an event in San Francisco.
The launch of the 945G chipset also brings several new technologies, such as virtualization, system management and high-definition audio to both consumer and business users, IDG News Service reported.
Intel unveiled the Professional Business Platform with its Pentium 4 600 series processors, the 945G and 945P chipsets, and the Intel Pro/1000 Network Adapter as its first desktop platform modeled on the success of its Centrino notebook PC platform, the news service reported.
The 945G chipset features integrated graphics, while the 945P chipset is designed for use with a third-party graphics card. 2004 was a turning point in Intel's recent history. The company made two crucial decisions about its product design strategies, opting to accelerate the development of dual-core processors and focus on integrating technology that boosts overall system performance without relying on increases to clock speed or cache size.
A four-year ride up the clock speed ladder allowed Intel to reach new performance heights, but as the Pentium 4 surged past 3GHz, it became harder and harder to reach the next speed grade due to overheating. Likewise, there's only so much cache memory a chip maker can add before the processor becomes too large to be manufactured efficiently. Building two processor cores on to a single chip will allow Intel to increase performance without having to worry about melting the inside of a PC chassis.
But the company also wants to improve the user experience without having to rely solely on processor performance. This is Intel's "platform" strategy, or its plans for building new technologies into its chipsets. The company started doing this with its hyperthreading technology several years ago, and introduced 64-bit extensions to the desktop earlier this year through chipsets.
"Intel's new home and office platforms mark a new era in personal computing that matches the way people are increasingly using their PCs to work, communicate, entertain and play," Robert Crooke, vice president and general manager, Business Client Group, Intel's Digital Enterprise Group, said in a statement. "The new platforms are tailored for specific market segments and provide busi-ness and consumer-friendly features."
Now IT managers will be able to remotely manage PCs even if they are shut down through Intel Active Management Technology (AMT), one component of the 945G chipset. AMT allows administrators to download software updates to a PC or take inventory of their network through a protected part of the chipset and processor that is transparent to the user.
"AMT provides a significant step forward in managing a PC," said Gregory Bryant, general manager of Intel's Digital Office Platform Division.
Business users can also take advantage of virtualization technology in the 945G chipset to run multiple operating systems on a single PC, or create partitions on a system. These capabilities are available on servers with software, but the performance of that software is dramatically enhanced by hardware dedi-cated to virtualization.
However, the virtualization technology will not be available to users until later this year, Bryant said. Users will not need to purchase new hardware in order to take advantage of it, he said, implying that the capability is built into the 945 chipsets but not yet activated. Intel has done this with several other chipset technologies in the past, such as 64-bit extensions and the execute-disable bit.
While the business features may help users pay the bills, Intel designed some new technology into its chipsets for home PC users more concerned with entertainment. The integrated graphics in the 945G chipset are the company's best yet, and the inclusion of high-definition audio and noise-reduction technology will improve the sounds home users want to hear and stifle the ones they don't, Intel said.
"As more devices and content goes digital, we'll see more a lot more evolution," Holzhammer said.
Posted by Jack McCarthy on May 26, 2005 05:45 PM
May 25, 2005 | Comments: (0)
Nokia launches Linux-based, Wi-Fi tablet
Nokia, targeting the growing market for wireless internet access devices, announced the Nokia 770 Internet Tablet at the LinuxWorld Summit in New York.
The Nokia 770 Internet Tablet is optimized for Internet browsing and email communications in a pocketsize format. It features a high-resolution widescreen display with zoom and on-screen keyboard, for viewing online content over Wi-Fi. The device can also connect to the Internet utilizing Bluetooth wireless technology via a compatible mobile phone.
"We are very excited to introduce our first Nokia Internet Tablet device to the market," Janne Jormalainen, Vice President of Convergence Products, Multimedia, Nokia, said in a statement. "With the Nokia 770 Internet Tablet consumers can access broadband Internet services away from their desktop, for example in the backyard or at a café within a Wi-Fi hotspot."
The device runs on Linux based Nokia Internet Tablet 2005 software edition which includes widely deployed desktop Linux and Open Source technologies. The maemo development platform (www.maemo.org) will provide Open Source developers with the tools and opportunities to collaborate with Nokia on future devices and OS releases in the Internet Tablet category.
Jerry Purdy, principal analyst with MobileTrax, said more announcements are expected about products offering wireless Internet access.
"The whole concept, where you get the entire Internet via WiFi is very exciting," he said. "Linux doesn't mean as much (in this space)," Purdy said. "It's the browser and the applications more than worrying about what the OS is. The key is not just the features. It's what you can do with it. How people find it useful to them."
Nonetheless, Nokia is excited about Linux. "Linux is a logical choice for the Nokia 770 Internet Tablet as Linux and the Open Source development platform provide us with fast and efficient solutions to build products for this new, Nokia product category," Jormalainen said. "This is the first step in creating an Open Source product for broadband and Internet services. We will be launching regularly updates of the software. The next software release planned for the first half of next year will support more presence based functionalities such as VoIP and Instant Messaging."
Additional highlighted applications of the Nokia 770 Internet Tablet with the 2005 software include an Internet Radio, RSS News reader, Image viewer and Media players for selected types of media. The Nokia 770 Internet Tablet is planned to start shipping in the third quarter of 2005 in selected countries in the Americas and Europe.
Posted by Jack McCarthy on May 25, 2005 05:59 PM
May 25, 2005 | Comments: (0)
Samsung calls for industry standard in manufacturer of LCD motherglass sizes
While we all happily sit our desktops gazing on radiation-free flat panel LCD displays or carry around notebook PCs, and handhelds with LCD technology, not many users realize there is a huge and highly volatile industry behind the scenes manufacturing the glass for those LCD displays.
Companies like Philips Electronics, ViewSonic, Samsung Electronics, and NEC-Mitsubishi Electronics Display of America, spend billions of dollars creating what is called in the industry the motherglass.
Motherglass is the largest sheet of glass that can be manufactured which is then cut up into pieces for flat panel TVs, and all the high tech equipment we use.
Periodically, about every two to three years a change in screen size for notebooks or a new size for flat panels cause a shortage in the industry.
It is times like that that IT procurement people get caught short having to wait for products they were counting on being delivered.
Now Samsung is calling on the industry to standardize on certain sizes of product so that on the backend the motherglass manufacturers can concentrate on putting out enough product rather than being caught short when notebook or monitor manufacturers decide to push out a new size display.
Here's what the president of Samsung, Sang Wan Lee, said according to Derek Sooman at Techspot.com.
"To save on equipment development and product costs, as well as to accelerate the time-to-market for advanced large screen LCD TVs, the entire industry should come to-gether and cooperate toward size standardization," said Lee.
Sounds like a good idea to me.
Posted by Ephraim. Schwartz on May 25, 2005 04:01 PM
May 25, 2005 | Comments: (0)
Queuing for the Microsoft helm
The New York Times this morning has a piece on Eric Rudder, a senior vice president at Microsoft. A Front Runner at Microsoft, But There's No Race Yet, takes a look at how Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer may have singled Rudder out to become the next top executive, though the story maintains that as of now neither Gates nor Ballmer has indicated any intentions to step aside.
The article also lists other candidates, including Steve Sinofsky of the Office team, Chris Jones, a Windows Vice president, Yusuf Mehdi, who runs MSN, and J Allard the Xbox vice president.
Posted by Tom Sullivan on May 25, 2005 07:54 AM
May 25, 2005 | Comments: (0)
FTC in worldwide effort against "zombies"
The Federal Trade Commission is asking for cooperation from Internet providers worldwide to stop home computer users who have computers that unwittingly send out spam e-mails.
These home - and in some cases - corporate - computers are known as "zombies" because they have been hijacked by spammers who use their bandwidth and cover the spammer's Internet footprints. Recent computer research has shown that zombie networks are responsible for up to 80 percent of all spam.
According to the FTC, Internet providers should be able to identify computers on their networks that are sending out large amounts of e-mail and quarantine them if they are found to be zombies.
They should also help customers clean their machines and tell them how to keep them safe in the first place, the FTC said. Most U.S. Internet providers have already taken steps to find zombie machines, according to computer industry officials. But other countries have been more lax about finding the zombies, industry officials say.
Posted by Bob Francis on May 25, 2005 07:50 AM
May 24, 2005 | Comments: (0)
IBM teams with Infineon and Macronix on new memory technology
IBM, Infineon and Macronix announced they are working together to develop a new form of computer memory technology called phase-change memory (PCM) that could in the future replace memory chips in computers and portable storage devices.
PCM is a new technology that stores data by changing the state of a special material from an amorphous to a crystalline structure, rather than storing data as an electrical charge. While in its early stages, the technology shows potential for high speed, high density storage of data, while retaining data even when power is turned off, the companies said in a statement. Such attributes could be beneficial in applications ranging from high performance servers to consumer electronics.
PCM can change its structure from an amorphous to a crystalline state by using electrons to pass energy through the material, Chung Lam, manager of the PCM project at IBM, told IDG News Service.
Computer memory stores data in the form of zeros and ones. With PCM technology, the material's state represents this information, with an amorphous form, or indefinite structure, representing 0 and a crystalline, or definite, structure representing 1.
PCM offers several advantages over flash memory technology, including greater reliability, Lam said. It does not use floating gates, which flash memory chips use to store information. This makes PCM faster and more reliable. "It is more reliable because there are no moving parts involved like in flash memory. We can change the status [of material] without floating gates," he said.
Flash memory uses floating gates to store electrons, which represents the binary data. With PCM, resistors are used instead of floating gates, he said.
"Floating gate stores a large number of electrons. More than a thousand electrons [in flash memory] represent one state of binary. In PCM, the resistance of the material represents the binary data. PCM stores 1 and 0 in the state of material," Lam said.
PCM will provide quicker read and write capabilities than flash memory, Lam said. In PCM, "you can directly write without erase. In flash memory, you need to erase before you can write," he said. Even if the device containing PCM is shut down, the memory retains data, making it nonvolatile memory. Flash memory is also a non-volatile memory type.
Research on the technology is in its early stages, and PCM could hit the mar-ket in three to five years, Lam said. "We are looking at it as a research project, whether we can actually make any memory as [fast] or faster than flash memory," he said. It could be used in products ranging from servers to consumer electronics, according to the company.
IBM has in the past worked with Germany-based Infineon Technologies on memory technologies, Lam said. Taiwan-based Macronix brings in manufacturing expertise, he said.
The partnership draws on IBM's strengths in the research of fundamental materials and physics research, Infineon’s competence in the research, development and high volume manufacturing of various memory technologies and product types and Macronix’s experience in nonvolatile memory technologies, the companies said.
"This collaborative effort reinforces IBM's commitment to explore new phenomena for memory applications," said T.C. Chen, Vice President of Science and Technology, IBM Research. "The project will aim to develop the materials for high performance, advanced nonvolatile memory and evaluate these materials in realistic memory chip demonstrations."
"The initiative underlines Infineon's strong momentum in the evaluation and development of interesting emerging memory technologies," said Wilhelm Beinvogl, Senior Vice President of Technology and Innovation at Infineon's Memory Products Group. "With this partnership combining resources from specialists in different areas, Infineon continues its long history of R&D co-operations."
The research work will be conducted at IBM's TJ Watson Research Center in Yorktown Heights, N.Y., and the IBM Almaden Research Lab in San Jose, Calif. Approximately 20-25 employees from across the three companies will be dedicated to this project.
Posted by Jack McCarthy on May 24, 2005 03:47 PM
May 23, 2005 | Comments: (0)
Apple recalls batteries that pose fire hazard
Apple Computer and the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) announced the recall of 128,000 batteries for the iBook G4 and PowerBook G4 computers.
The lithium rechargeable batteries were sold worldwide from October 2004 through May 2005 for use with the following notebook computers: 12-inch iBook G4, 12-inch PowerBook G4 and 15-inch PowerBook G4. The batteries were manufactured by LG Chem, Ltd. of South Korea, Apple said in a statement.
The recall is the second in two years for Apple, which took back 28,000 bat-teries last year that were manufactured by the same South Korea company.
"It seems like they have a problem with their supplier," said Rob Enderle, founder and president of the Enderle Group. "That hurts customers' good will. They may be forced to get a new supplier."
The affected batteries could overheat, posing a fire hazard to consumers, the CPSC said. The company has received six consumer reports of the batteries overheating.
Apple's statement advises users that if they have a recalled battery, to stop using it and order a replacement battery immediately. "Once the battery is removed, plug in the AC adapter to power the computer," Apple said. "If you must temporarily use your computer with the battery, do not leave it unattended and check for signs of overheating."
Apple has initiated a worldwide exchange program and will provide eligible customers with a new replacement battery, free of charge.
The recalled batteries include those with model numbers A1061, A1078, and A1079 and serial numbers that begin with HQ441 through HQ507 and 3X446 through 3X510, Apple said.
To view the model and serial numbers labeled on the bottom of the battery, remove the battery from the computer. The battery serial number is printed in black or dark grey lettering beneath a barcode, Apple said.
Posted by Jack McCarthy on May 23, 2005 06:06 PM
May 23, 2005 | Comments: (0)
An IBM Rational approach to collaboration
IBM hopes to add Lotus Workplace-like collaboration capabilities to its Rational Team tools offering in late-2006, IBM Rational GM Daniel Sabbah said on Monday.
Following his keynote speech during the IBM Rational Software Development Conference in Las Vegas, Sabbah elaborated on Lotus-Rational integration plans.
Noting that large communities of developers are collaborative groups, Sabbah said IBM will start more aggressive integration of Lotus capabilities into Rational. Lotus offers capabilities such as Instant Messaging, information-sharing and document portfolio management.
Incorporating these capabilities will be a boon to information-sharing by Team users, according to Sabbah. "Today, they have to share that information by picking up the telephone, by trying to understand what somebody else wrote," without the benefit of an instant connection, Sabbah said.
Team-based development capabilities also are planned as improvements to the company's "Atlantic" tools platform initially released in December 2004, Sabbah said.
Sabbah, a legacy IBMer, now is in charge of Rational, which merged with IBM more than two years ago. Mike Devlin, a Rational co-founder, is retiring. But Sabbah stressed everything is OK internally with the move.
"It was a very friendly merger," Sabbah said.
Posted by Paul Krill on May 23, 2005 05:18 PM
May 23, 2005 | Comments: (0)
Network Appliance adds to midrange
Network Appliance released two new midrange products today aimed at reducing storage costs and increasing storage utilization rates.
The new products are the FAS3020 and the FAS3050, new midrange storage systems, a new serial ATA (SATA) option for primary storage applications and the V3020 and V3050, two new V-Series virtualization engines.
NetApp officials said the new SATA storage option, cuts the storage cost per MB significantly. "We also offer some safeguards for the SATA drives using RAID-DP technology," said Suresh Vasudevan, vice president of product marketing for NetApp. "This offers better data protection that traditional RAID-1 or disk mirroring," he said.
The V3020 and V3050 systems increase the virtualization capabilities of NetApp Data ONTAP 7G software to include additional third-party storage products from HDS, HP, IBM, and Sun.
The new FAS3020 and FAS3050 systems and the new SATA storage option are available immediately. The new V3020 and V3050 systems will be available in June.
Posted by Bob Francis on May 23, 2005 03:41 PM
May 23, 2005 | Comments: (0)
AMD, HP in tandem with Lance Armstrong Foundation
AMD and Hewlett-Packard have teamed up with the Lance Armstrong Foundation to create a laptop with a cause. The Lance Armstrong Foundation, set up by the six-time Tour de France winner following his own battle with cancer, supports people diagnosed with cancer through research, education and other outreach programs.
HP's new Special Edition L2000 Notebook PC is powered with an AMD Turion 64 processor. Prices start at $999 for a system with a 14-inch widescreen display and weighs in at 5.3 pounds. The systems should be in retail stores by July and available from HP's online store in June.
That's the technology side of the consumer notebook. The L2000 also has Armstrong's "LiveStrong" motto in big yellow letters on the lid and a reproduction of Armstrong's signature just below the keyboard. HP and AMD will give $50 to the Lance Armstrong Foundation for every laptop sold. AMD has made a two-year commitment to help generate a minimum of $4 million for the Lance Armstrong Foundation from this initiative.
In addition to the $50 the foundation will receive from each notebook, HP has purchased yellow LIVESTRONG wristbands to be packaged with yellow stereo ear buds with every notebook. To further support the cause, AMD and HP plan to donate notebooks for use in Lance Armstrong Foundation-funded cancer survivorship centers throughout the United States. In addition, the two companies are inviting PC buyers to join the battle against cancer by matching or exceeding the $50 per unit that goes to the foundation.
Posted by Bob Francis on May 23, 2005 11:31 AM
May 20, 2005 | Comments: (0)
Google's personalized home page takes on portal features
Google launched a personalized service that incorporates features such as Google News and Gmail onto the company's notoriously sparse home page as it takes aim at portals from Yahoo, Microsoft and AOL.
The service allows visitors to Google's site to display content of their choosing below the query box on Google.com. Examples include headlines from The New York Times or the British Broadcasting Corp., stock quotes, weather information and as many as nine incoming Gmail messages, said Marissa Mayer, director of consumer Web products at Google.
While Google holds a strong lead in search marketshare, the company is feeling competition from portals such as My Yahoo and MSN that can hold users with many other features beside search, said James Lamberti, a vice president of comScore Networks, a market research company.
"This is another move by Google to continue to compete with Yahoo, AOL and MSN," Lamberti said. "Google is the dominant player in search but is always at risk by the portal lock-in of Yahho, MSN and AOL."
Google demonstrated the service during a press event at its Mountain View, Calif.-based headquarters, Tom Krazit reported for IDG News Service. Currently available for preview at Google Labs, the personalized service allows visitors to include information from 12 different feeds on their view of the Google home page.
Google will add support for a variety of RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feeds to the personalized service within one to two months, Mayer said. Anyone with a free Google Account can set up a page, she said. The service was rolled out as a beta product, similar to how Google News and Gmail, the company's Web e-mail service, were introduced.
"While this is just the first step in what we hope it will become, we believe it is a very compelling offering," Mayer said.
The end result incorporates several different Google services into one spot, a portal-like model resembling that of Yahoo or Microsoft's MSN.com that company executives had previously disdained.
But both Mayer and Google Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Eric Schmidt called the personalized service a unique offering from Google that was not done in hopes of competing with either of those Web sites, which feature advertising in addition to many content elements.
Mayer's team has been working on developing a more personalized Google Web page for several years and did not launch the product until company executives were convinced they had found the right approach, Schmidt said during a ques-tion-and-answer session with Google co-founder and President, Technology Sergey Brin.
Still, targeted advertising eventually will become part of the personalized home page, Mayer said.
Google also previewed a new version of Google Earth that incorporates technology from recent acquisition Keyhole. Keyhole developed a desktop application, now known as Google Earth, that lets users search within a database of highly detailed maps and satellite imagery. Google's Web search capabilities will be incorporated into the next version of the product, available in the next few weeks, said John Hanke, general manager of Google Keyhole.
Posted by Jack McCarthy on May 20, 2005 03:22 PM
May 20, 2005 | Comments: (0)
Startup Virtual Iron Software on Friday announced that its VFe virtual computing platform has been certified to work with applications compatible with IBM's Linux-based version of DB2 Universal Database on both Novell SuSE Linux Enterprise 9 or Red Hat's Enterprise Linux 3.0.
Virtual Iron officials believe the certification is important to many of it s users because they because increasingly have been looking for transparent virtualization capabilities that work across the breadth of their datacenters and so need applications like DB2 for Linux to work and play well in a virtualized environment.
"Early customers are beginning to move their business applications to the Virtutal Iron solution so we are pretty pleased that customers running DB2 can use our product knowing this designation ensures full interoperability between DB2 and VFe," said John Thibault, Virtual Iron's President and CEO.
Virtual Iron will be demonstrating its software at the DB2 User Group conference which runs May 23-26 in Denver.
Posted by Ed Scannell on May 20, 2005 09:46 AM
May 20, 2005 | Comments: (0)
VoIP to get 911 services in Fall
Don't hang up your Internet phone yet. Federal regulators voted Thursday to require Internet-based phone services to provide full 911 services later this year.
Following a hearing with dramatic testimony from a Florida woman who was unable to reach emergency services to help her infant daughter, the Federal Communications Commission voted 4-0 to require Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) providers begin offering 911 services by this fall.
About half the country's 3 million VoIP customers do receive full 911 services, but the rest get their VoIP from suppliers that offer a basic 911 service that does not display a caller's number or address to 911 operators, meaning calls often are not answered promptly.
On the heels of the 911 service imbroglio, a new report says that VoIP will continue growing, but that VoIP bypass revenues will become a smaller percentage of international voice revenue.
The report, released by Insight Research, says that, as international settlement rates between carriers begin to line up with costs, the attractiveness of VoIP as a substitute for more traditional phone offerings will slow.
The study, titled "North American Telecom, International Telecom and VoIP: A Global Market Perspective 2005-2011," says that VoIP revenue will hit $84 billion this year and increase to $96 billion by 2011.
For more information on the report, check out
Insight's website.
Posted by Bob Francis on May 20, 2005 09:28 AM
May 20, 2005 | Comments: (0)
Another twist in blogging's fate
I came across a new type of blogger this morning while scouting out links for our Special Report on IDG's Syndicate show and other related news from the blogosphere.
Corporate blogs have become something of a norm. Sun has a host of internal bloggers, and IBM last week set out guidelines for its employees to blog by, just to name two of many. But what I believe is a first emerged today: a Microsoft employee blogging for a media publisher.
John Carroll blogged this morning that he has accepted a job with Microsoft, but will continue to post entries to ZDNet's site. This is different than what Scoble does for Microsoft; he is an employee paid to blog, but his writing is neither affiliated with nor does it appear on a media site.
Carroll was up front with his intentions:
Will I be biased? I've been programming professionally for more than 11 years. During that time, I've used a wide variety of computing technology, and had opinions on all of them. I found that I preferred programming with Microsoft technology. So, if by "bias" you mean I will rely on 11 years of computing experience to guide my opinion, then yes, I will be biased.
Bias does not imply lack of reason. It just means that you have weighed the alternatives and come to your own subjective conclusions. People with opinions are better sources of information than those who lack them. Who do you think is a better source of information, some milquetoast generalist who feigns disinterest or an enthusiast whose affection for his favored technology drives him to understand all he can about it?
A more typical commentary come out of Microsoft this week as well, in the form of CEO Steve Ballmer quoted attempting to curb some of the momentum RSS has gathered:
We believe RSS is important and will be around for a while but it is not going to change the world. It is a little too simple, that is also the reason everyone's using it. We are working on more existing powerful stuff, around XML/Web services [sic] that will address many issues beyond RSS. RSS will be around, but whatever we are working next will be cooler and more prevalent.
Having said that, there are groups in MS that believe RSS has the potential to change everything and many future technologies will be built around RSS, the internal debate goes on.
Ballmer also dismissed Google's Gmail and Blogger as competition to its own Office suite. Undaunted, Google this week introduced ads for RSS feeds, and demonstrated a personalized service of its homepage that will provide news and weather.
The RSS traction continued when Yahoo announced version 2.0 of its Media RSS Module, and Macromedia boosted its blog aggregator.
For coverage of the Syndicate conference, see our Special Report: Blogging takes center stage at IDG Syndicate. (Full disclosure: IDG is the parent company of InfoWorld.)
Posted by Tom Sullivan on May 20, 2005 09:01 AM
May 19, 2005 | Comments: (0)
Netscape 8.0 rejuvenates once-proud browser
Netscape launched the latest version of its browser Thursday, promising to bring back the once-proud browser to prominence. Netscape 8.0, based on Mozilla's Firefox browser, switches between the rendering engines used by the Firefox and Microsoft's Internet Explorer (IE) browsers, Netscape officials said.
The browser also automatically adjusts safety and security settings to help protect users as they explore the Web. A simply-designed interface is intended to allow to find and use features like tabbed browsing, integrated RSS feeds, enhanced privacy settings, groups of favorite "home tabs," multiple Web mail ac-counts, form fill and password managers, news and weather updates, and up to 10 customizable toolbars.
"Netscape 8.0 is designed for the millions of online users who are searching for a safer and better browser," said Netscape General Manager Jeremy Liew in a statement. "Netscape 8.0 combines the best of all worlds by automatically adjusting browser and security settings based on which sites are likely to be safe and which might be dangerous. By warning users before they visit many poten-tially dangerous sites, Netscape 8.0 adds an extra layer of protection to a user's computer. Netscape 8.0 also brings cutting-edge functionality right to the surface to make exploring the Web safer, easier, faster, and more entertaining."
For security, Netscape 8.0's browser automatically checks to see if the site is on a constantly-updated "black list" of thousands of suspected virus, scam, or spyware sites or a "white list" of more than 150,000 Web sites that have been certified as legitimate by VeriSign and TRUSTe.
If the site appears on either list, the browser automatically adjusts its security settings and rendering engine to help protect the user from unsafe sites while offering full functionality on known and trusted sites. The browser also blocks access to suspected dangerous sites with a warning screen and disables potentially dangerous functionality on those sites.
The browser also includes customized sets of multiple home pages, access to multiple Web mail accounts from the browser, integrated search from a choice of providers, including AOL, AskJeeves, Google, and Netscape, and RSS notification to add popular feeds to the browser with just a couple clicks.
Version 8.0 can be downloaded for free at browser.netscape.com. More detailed product information about Netscape 8.0 and the new Netscape.com portal, including downloadable screen shots and detailed descriptions, can be found at www.aolepk.com/netscapebrowser.
Purchased by AOL in 1999, Netscape declined from its industry-leading status as it was eclipsed by Microsoft and, recently, by Mozilla's Firefox. While IE retains more than a 90 percent share of the browser market, Firefox has shown strong gains in recent months.
Posted by Jack McCarthy on May 19, 2005 05:27 PM
May 19, 2005 | Comments: (0)
Google launches personalized homepage
Google today announced the first major change to its famously understated homepage since its launch. Visitors to the site can now choose to personalize their Google page to create a Web portal uniting many of Google's different services. The traditional Google homepage is still available, now called Google Classic, and users can toggle between a personalized view and the classic search pane.
The reasoning behind the launch is to give users more ways to organize their own information, according to Marissa Mayer, director of consumer Web products at Google.
"We now have a critical mass of products that work well in a push style. Push content works on things like mail or news. It makes sense to give users tools to [personalize] that. We hope it helps users navigate the Web better," she said.
Users can select from a menu of what Google services they want on the personalized page. Examples of Google products that can be integrated in the view include Gmail, Google News, weather, stocks, Google Maps, driving directions, and movies. Users can further tailor the page by dragging and dropping the content panels.
The new offering is a result of an internal Google initiative called Fusion, which aimed to fuse together Google functionality and content on the Web into a single way to access the content, Mayer said.
The offering also includes six feeds from content other sites: New York Times, BBC, SlashDot, Wired, Quote of the Day, and Word of the Day. The ability to link in any RSS feed will be offered in the coming months.
Posted by Cathleen Moore on May 19, 2005 03:17 PM
May 19, 2005 | Comments: (0)
J. P. Morgan to issue wireless credit cards
Wireless credit cards, called contactless cards, are about to flood the country.
Visa made the technology available earlier this spring and today J. P. Morgan Chase announced that it will be one of the first issuers of the new credit cards under the nomenclature "blink." Morgan intends to issue "millions" according to a J. P. Morgan spokesperson.
While there is no ceiling on the dollar amount of a purchase you can make using a contactless card, purchases up to $25 do not even require a signature.
Perhaps in order to avoid interference with your wireless phone, your WiFi handheld and the wireless RFID chip in your sweater, the cards do require a buyer to be no more than four inches away from the wireless reader.
Patrick Gauthier, senior vice president for new product development at Visa, said the cards will speed up a typical transaction by 15 percent to 20 percent, helping consumers get processed through a line that much quicker.
I suppose if you're in a great rush and the purchase is for under $25, you might consider running past the line, sort of like a streaker of old, waving your contactless card over the reader as you pass by.
Somehow, benefits for consumers also usually translate into benefits for the vendor and the contactless cards are no exception.
J. P. Morgan reports that cardholder transaction volumes where 12 percent higher than with traditional cards and the average transaction size increased 20 percent to 30 percent.
Posted by Ephraim. Schwartz on May 19, 2005 02:48 PM
May 19, 2005 | Comments: (0)
Gates to outline Office 12 and the 'New World of Work'
At its annual CEO Summit on Thursday, Microsoft chairman Bill Gates will offer up some details about the next version of Office, called Office 12, and lay out how he feels it fits in with his company's "New World of Work" vision.
Due into beta sometime this fall, Office 12 represents a "significant development," Gates is expected to explain during his keynote, that will advance information work in this new world. The upcoming version, not expected to be delivered until late 2006, is expected to help users better manage their communication and collaboration in a unified environment as well as to more readily visualize and extract important in-sights from large amounts of incoming data.
Gates will contend that information workers will prove to be the driving force behind business innovations and that for them to adapt and succeed in the new world of work they need more sophisticated tools that help them apply whatever unique talents and experience and judgment that can have a positive impact on their respective businesses.
"Office 12 has a couple of key areas of focus such as allowing users to better connect with partners and customers through new and simpler ways of collaborating. Right now you work with other people through e-mail, instant messaging but in the future users will have greater control over how people reach you and what type of context you want to be contacted in," said Betsy Frost, senior director of marketing and strategy for Microsoft's Information Worker Product Group.
Gates will outline how he believes workplace trends such as the shift from manufacturing to a services-oriented economy will shape and direct technology innovation over the next 10 years, along with the growing need for people collaborate more effectively across companies and time zones.
He will also discuss other forces in play including the increasingly larger and more complex stream of information that workers must deal with in an "always on, always connected" environment, as well as greater demands for transparency and accountability of business processes.
"In the transparent organization companies have to be more accountable because of regulatory concerns, but there is also this notion of the enterprise content lifecycle. Companies that can efficiently collaborate and can create, track and manage content securely will give IT the ability to centrally define archival and expiration policies that will naturally integrate Word and Excel," Frost said.
Posted by Ed Scannell on May 19, 2005 09:22 AM
May 18, 2005 | Comments: (0)
Google Desktop Search hits the enterprise
Google has introduced a new enterprise version of its Desktop Search tool featuring bolstered security and management tools.
Google Desktop Search for Enterprise gives IT administrators central control over end-user features and preferences via Group Policy. In addition, the enterprise version offers a plug-in written by IBM that allows the tool to search Lotus Notes e-mail.
But the sharpest contrast to the consumer version is that Google Desktop Search for Enterprise uses Encrypted File System technology to encrypt all user data and index files.
"Corporations want to be a locked down environment. Google Desktop Search for Enterprise gives them that control," said Matt Glotzbach, the enterprise product manager at Google.
But are the security enhancements enough to sway security-conscious corporations?
"That's the 64 thousand dollar question," said Eric Peterson, senior analyst at JupiterResearch.
Google was caught off guard when competitors raised privacy and security concerns about the consumer desktop search tool, Peterson said. Google seems to have quieted those questions in the enterprise version, he added.
"They are addressing security and privacy concerns in the [enterprise release]," Peterson said.
However, because the tool creates an index of a corporate user's desktop files, e-mails, IM, and Web pages viewed, Google Desktop Search for Enterprise could potentially introduce a new level of risk to a company.
"It has the potential to expose a much larger section of the enterprise to nefarious activities than was previously exposed," Peterson said.
But the benefits to corporate users, who struggle to find what they need amid a growing tide of information, are clear.
"Enterprise workers have information retrieval problems. This combo of the Google Search Appliance, plus Desktop Search [for Enterprise], plus Google.com is a compelling way to discover info that may otherwise go undiscovered," Peterson said.
The software will be available for free download on Wednesday.
Posted by Cathleen Moore on May 18, 2005 05:24 PM
May 18, 2005 | Comments: (0)
Yahoo Messenger improves PC phoning
Yahoo unveiled a beta of its Yahoo Messenger instant message service, with upgrades that improve the PC-to-PC, voice call feature by replacing the current walkie-talkie technology with a persistent connection.
Instead of having to take turns speaking, users will have a constant connection with good voice quality even if they're hooked up to the Internet at dial-up speeds, IDG News Service reported.
As with the existing voice feature, both users need PCs equipped with a microphone and speakers, since the voice "calls" are made from within the Yahoo Messenger interface and there are no phone numbers to dial. For a fee, users can dial out to a phone number from within Yahoo Messenger using the third-party Net2Phone service, an existing option.
Also new with the free voice communication service are a call history log and the ability to leave voice-mail messages. "We have had PC-to-PC voice connec-tions via Yahoo Messenger since 1999, and this is chapter two," said Frazier Miller, director of product management at Yahoo's instant messaging group.
Yahoo's enhanced voice communication feature is in a test upgrade of Yahoo Messenger as a free download.
Yahoo is in fierce competition with Microsoft and AOL over instant messaging, said Rob Enderle, president and co-founder of the Enderle Group.
"Both Yahoo and Microsoft are being very aggressive in trying to turn their messaging products into a broad communications platform," he said. "AOL was the clear leader but Yahoo and Microsoft have been more aggressive with their technology."
Improving the voice communication capability of Yahoo Messenger is a good move, considering that VoIP (voice over Internet protocol) is catching on thanks to improved service quality, widespread broadband adoption and the prevalence of PCs that come equipped with microphones and speakers, said Marcel Nienhuis, an analyst at Radicati Group.
Fine-tuning the product's voice feature also ties into the industry trend of extending IM communication's options beyond simple text messaging, Nienhuis said. "The nice thing about IM is that you have presence," he said, referring to IM services' ability to inform about people's availability status. "That's the heart of it, so it makes for a great platform to build other applications around it."
The new Yahoo Messenger beta also has improved photo sharing, including better image quality, a new interface onto which photos can be dragged and dropped, and the ability to grab photos from anywhere on the hard drive, whereas the existing version only allows the sharing of photos from a Yahoo album, Miller said.
Other types of files, such as Microsoft Word documents, can also be dragged and dropped into a Yahoo Messenger IM window to be transferred to another user.
Also new is integration with the company's new blogging/social networking service Yahoo 360. An icon indicates if someone in the contact list has updated a blog, and users will be able to publish blogs to their Yahoo 360 account from the Yahoo Messenger interface.
A new contact card has been designed to make it easier for users to exchange contact details, such as e-mail address, postal address, phone numbers and birthdates. Another new feature is the ability for users to share their Yahoo Messenger contact lists with others.
In the security realm, the product adds the ability to report unsolicited messages, or "spim," to Yahoo, which will log the sender into its spim database and decide on actions to take based on usage patterns. Reporting a sender as spim also automatically blocks him from sending messages to the user in the future.
This new Yahoo Messenger version is also more tightly integrated with the company's Web search engine by featuring a search query box in message screens, whereas the current version only shows a search query box in the main interface, Miller said.
Posted by Jack McCarthy on May 18, 2005 04:47 PM
May 18, 2005 | Comments: (0)
Macromedia boosts blog aggregator
Macromedia is enhancing its blog technology, which unites blogs pertaining to the vendor. But it is uncertain at this point whether the technology now being used in-house will be released for commercial purposes.
The Macromedia XML News Aggregator rounds up Macromedia-related blogs. New features added lately include a "smart categories" function to group content based on categories and a Reports capability adding business intelligence. Users can make queries such as asking what has been the most popular post of the week. Content also is being made available to mobile devices. Support for non-English blogs has been added as well, according to Macromedia.
A previous iteration of the technology was made available commercially as part of the company's developer resource kit. But Macromedia is uncertain if that will happen with the latest version of XML News Aggregator, said Mike Chambers, senior product manager for developer relations at Macromedia.
"We're open to making it available in the future but that's not anything we've decided on yet," Chambers said.
Posted by Paul Krill on May 18, 2005 04:30 PM
May 18, 2005 | Comments: (0)
EMC joins with Brocade, Cisco and McData for Invista
Storage vendor EMC Corp. unveiled its storage network virtualization platform, dubbed Invista, this week and said the product will be available in the next quarter.
Invista is designed to operate with switches from Brocade, Cisco and McData. The Invista platform, priced starting at $225,000, will take on better established players in the storage virtualization market - IBM, Hitachi and Hewlett-Packard.
Invista allows users to retrieve data without knowing exactly where in a storage network the information resides. This will speed up service, increase storage capacity and flexibility and avoid downtime, according to EMC.
For users, EMC's product gives them additional storage options. "We want to see how this works, if it can help us better utilize our storage systems, we'll definitely be interested, " said Mack Kigada, an IT manager at Providence Health System.
Posted by Bob Francis on May 18, 2005 01:26 PM
May 17, 2005 | Comments: (0)
Virus worm spreads neo-Nazi spam
A Sober mass mailing worm spread hateful Neo-Nazi propaganda to inboxes over the weekend.
Sober.q uses both German and English-language messages to direct recipients to Web sites with right-wing German nationalistic content, according to an advisory from e-mail security company MX Logic. One of the URLs points to the Web site of the right-wing German NPD party, XX Logic said, according to IDG News Service. "Spam has been traditionally regarded as annoying messages that promote Viagra, porn and low cost mortgages," said Scott Chasin, CTO of MX Logic. "But for the past year we have seen a trend in which worm authors are using spam not to hawk goods, but as a tool for political propaganda."
The security firm said that it had seen over 125,000 instances of Sober.q overnight Saturday and into Sunday, and labelled it as a high severity threat. The variant is downloaded by computers already infected by the Sober.p worm which began circulating earlier this month, MX Logic said. The virus writers ap-pear to have remote control over the Sober.p infected machines, giving them a network from which to launch future spam and denial of service attacks, it added.
The latest sober variant is one of a relatively new type of "propaganda spam," meant to spread political messages rather than sell a product or service, MX Logic said. Circulation of the worm coincides with ceremonies marking the 60th anniversary of the end of World War II in Europe and examples of subject lines it sends include "Dresden 1945" and "Du wirst zum Sklaven gemacht!!!" ("You are made slaves!!!"), according to MX Logic.
"We are certainly seeing more propaganda spam," said Graham Cluley, senior technology consultant with Sophos PLC. Security researchers began detecting religious spam selling a particular view of life last year, Cluley added.
Although Sophos is seeing a lot of German-language spam sent by the new Sober variant, the worm itself doesn't appear to be spreading anymore, Cluley said.
E-mail users are advised to update their spam filters to guard against the new Sober spam.
Posted by Jack McCarthy on May 17, 2005 04:14 PM
May 17, 2005 | Comments: (0)
Hewlett-Packard posts second quarter numbers
Hewlett-Packard announced today that its second-quarter profit rose 9.3 percent as PC sales increased, which helped the company make up for some flashing lights in its printer division. The company also said that earnings this quarter will miss analysts' estimates.
For the record, HP said its net income increased to $966 million, up from $884 million in the same quarter last year. Sales were up 7.2 percent hitting $21.6 billion.
This was the first quarterly report for Mark Hurd, HP's new CEO. At least HP will have some new products to sell. The company announced its largest new products announcements in the storage area this week during its StorageWorks conference in Las Vegas. Read about the new products here.
Posted by Bob Francis on May 17, 2005 02:41 PM
May 16, 2005 | Comments: (0)
Microsoft delivers MSN toolbar for desktop search
Microsoft launched the final version of its MSN Search Toolbar with Windows Desktop Search as it chases Google for a wider audience share of the search market.
This version of the search toolbar adds a number of enhancements, including the ability to preview documents on users' hard drives. It requires Windows XP or Windows 2000 Service Pack 4 or later versions, and features a new preview pane to let users view documents retrieved from their PCs.
"By offering the most integrated desktop search capabilities for Windows, now people can search their PC as fast as they can search the Web," Yusuf Mehdi, senior vice president for the MSN Information Services and Merchant Platform division at Microsoft, said on the company's Website. "The new MSN Search Toolbar makes it easy for customers to find precisely what they're looking for, no matter where it resides."
Rob Enderle, founder and president of the Enderle group, said Microsoft will have a tough time competing with Google, which is tightly focused on its search products, and which two months ago released its Desktop Search 1.0.
"Clearly, Microsoft is in a race with Google to be the best search provider," Enderle said. "But Google is way ahead because they are focusing on what their customers want."
MSN Search Toolbar with Windows Desktop Search includes an increased capability to determine which files in a user's PC the toolbar should index, IDG News Service reported.
Microsoft has also created a Web site at http://addins.msn.com/, where users will find components created by third parties to extend the toolbar's desktop search functionality. Finally, the upgraded version getting unveiled Monday fea-tures new wizard-like setup tools as well as improved performance.
In several months, the toolbar, which also lets users search the Web, will gain tabbed browsing functionality, which will result in individual searches organized as tabs. Another future plan is the creation of a desktop search tool for the workplace; Microsoft plans to have a beta version of this tool by the end of this year.
One thing the toolbar doesn't do is index information that users of MSN online services, such as the Hotmail Web mail service, may have stored in Microsoft servers, said Dane Glasgow, product unit manager for MSN Search. Indexing server-based information is something rival Yahoo has begun to do with its own desktop search product.
The Microsoft toolbar, which makes its desktop search functionality available from Windows Explorer, Internet Explorer and Outlook, can index and retrieve the metadata of over 200 different types of files, as well as the full text of some file types. At this point, the only e-mail files it indexes are those in Outlook 2000 or later versions and Outlook Express 6.0 or later versions.
The Microsoft toolbar, which requires Internet Explorer 5.01 or later ver-sions, will be made available on Monday for free download at http://desktop.msn.com.
Posted by Jack McCarthy on May 16, 2005 05:04 PM
May 16, 2005 | Comments: (0)
Big Blue says to employees 'blog, but follow these rules'
IBM, it seems, has embraced the idea of letting its employees have their own blogs -- but not without providing a set of guidelines for would-be-bloggers to follow.
The short and sweet list, posted by IBM employee James Snell, consists of 11 items.
1. Know and follow IBM's Business Conduct Guidelines.
2. Blogs, wikis and other forms of online discourse are individual interactions, not corporate communications. IBMers are personally responsible for their posts. Be mindful that what you write will be public for a long time -- protect your privacy.
3. Identify yourself -- name and, when relevant, role at IBM -- when you blog about IBM or IBM-related matters. And write in the first person. You must make it clear that you are speaking for yourself and not on behalf of IBM.
4. If you publish a blog or post to a blog and it has something to do with work you do or subjects associated with IBM, use a disclaimer such as this: "The postings on this site are my own and don’t necessarily represent IBM’s positions, strategies or opinions."
5. Respect copyright, fair use and financial disclosure laws.
6. Don’t provide IBM’s or another’s confidential or other proprietary information.
7. Don't cite or reference clients, partners or suppliers without their approval.
8. Respect your audience. Don't use ethnic slurs, personal insults, obscenity, etc., and show proper consideration for others' privacy and for topics that may be considered objectionable or inflammatory -- such as politics and religion.
9. Find out who else is blogging on the topic, and cite them.
10. Don't pick fights, be the first to correct your own mistakes, and don't alter previous posts without indicating that you have done so.
11. Try to add value. Provide worthwhile information and perspective.
Naturally, IBM goes on to provide greater depth for each point, but I'll let you read about that at Snell's blog.
With the high-profile firing of some bloggers during the last year for various reasons, some reasonable and some not, this is unquestionably a good idea, and IBM is doing more for its bloggers than just protecting the corporate hide.
Some people in the industry have been calling for blogging guidelines. Technorati founder and CEO Dave Sifry, for instance, spoke about this very topic at the end of April, and my colleague Paul Krill blogged about it here. In fact, Sifry suggested several policies that companies should outline for employee bloggers, most of which showed up in IBM's list.
Sifry's point was that blogging works well for companies that have a culture of trust, not one of fear.
Indeed. The same goes for just about everything else employees do while at work.
Posted by Tom Sullivan on May 16, 2005 02:42 PM
May 16, 2005 | Comments: (0)
Hewlett-Packard opens StorageWorks with product parade
Hewlett-Packard is talking numbers at this year's StorageWorks conference in Las Vegas.
During an interactive chat following her keynote speech at the opening of the user conference, Ann Livermore, executive vice president of HP's technology sales group said: "We're announcing nine new products and solutions that make up the most comprehensive announcement in company history and for the storage business."
That's a key message point for Hewlett-Packard at this year's StorageWorks conference. Usually data like this is only important for accountants and number crunchers, but in HP's case it may be a bit more than that.
The company has been slow to release new storage products over the past 18 months and been a bit behind the curve in refreshing some product lines. It's doubtful you can say that now. Check out our story on the new products at HP and EMC's user conference, which also takes place this week.
Posted by Bob Francis on May 16, 2005 10:05 AM
May 16, 2005 | Comments: (0)
Sun, Microsoft highlight collaboration work
Microsoft and Sun Microsystems officials marked the first year of their collaboration pact Friday by unveiling a progress report of their work.
Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer and Sun Chairman and CEO Scott McNealy, once antagonists, good-naturedly shared a stage to give the update, which included steps toward addressing single sign-on between Microsoft's Windows Server and Sun's Solaris operating system and Java Enterprise System.
In addition, the companies have pushed ahead on standards development. In the past year they’ve jointly worked on two single-sign-on protocols, Web SSO (Single Sign-On) MEX (Metadata Exchange) and Web SSO Interoperability Profile, which they plan to support in Windows Server and Java Enterprise System, IDG News Service reported here. The protocols are intended to enable single-sign-on across domains using two different identity standards, WS-Federation and the Liberty Alliance's ID-FF (Identity Federation Framework).
The two vendors are also working together on other Web services standards such as WS-Management, a specification for coordinating hardware and software management.
"In the first year, we've moved from the courtroom to the computer lab. Now we're moving from the lab to the market," Ballmer said at the event for media and analysts at a Palo Alto, Calif., hotel.
"Microsoft's .Net and Sun's Java, those are the two leading platforms in the market. So having our two teams cooperate is important, unique, and essential if the world is going to get the interoperability that it needs," Ballmer said. To move further, Sun and Microsoft will need the help of customers, said McNealy. "We're going to need help. It is not just going to be done in the lab. It has to be done with the customer to integrate these environments," McNealy said.
Sun and Microsoft also highlighted their other technology swaps, including product certifications and work with third-party integrators like Accenture and EDS on customer projects combining the two vendors' products.
Longtime rivals Sun and Microsoft startled the industry last year with an agreement in early April that ended years of lawsuits between the two companies and called for Microsoft to pay Sun more than $1 billion to resolve antitrust and patent issues. The companies also signed a 10-year technical collaboration agreement and pledged to improve their working relationship.
At the event Friday, Sun and Microsoft demonstrated identity federation using the new Web SSO MEX and Web SSO Interoperability Profile, which bridge Microsoft's WS-Federation specification and the Liberty Alliance specifications backed by Sun.
Although identity federation is only one piece of the work Microsoft and Sun are doing, it is an important piece, said Fred Killeen, chief technology officer at General Motors Corp. (GM). Today, federation between Sun and Microsoft environments requires special software adapters and sometimes homemade tools, Killeen said.
"This collaboration between Sun and Microsoft could significantly reduce our integration and ongoing maintenance costs," he said in an interview after the Sun and Microsoft event, which he attended.
John Rymer, a research vice president at Forrester Research, agreed. "The significance of the single-sign-on protocols is that integration should become easier than it is today," he said.
-- by Jack McCarthy
Posted by Tom Sullivan on May 16, 2005 06:09 AM
May 13, 2005 | Comments: (0)
What may be tomorrow's hot new companies are meeting in Silicon Valley today.
The Indus Entrepreneurs, or TiE, a networking organization for entrepreneurs, is holding its TiEcon 2005 conference in Santa Clara, Calif. this week. The event is attracting technologists in areas ranging from online ERP services to enterprise security management and video game chips. Venture capitalists also are in attendance.
TiE is in its own pamphlet as an organization focusing on analyis, research and economic policies of different nations, with a particular focus on South Asia. But representatives stressed the international nature of TiE. Begun by the Indian community in the United States, the 12-year-old organization now has chapters in the United States, United Kingdon, Australia, Dubai, Canada, Malaysia, Singapore, India and Pakistan. The organization provides education, networking and mentoring programs.
Raj Jaswa, president of the Silicon Valley chapter of TiE, emphasized the entrepreneurial spirit that has thr\ived in Silicon Valley but has been tough to duplicate elsewhere.
"You've got to have this entrepreneurial ecosystem," with people willing to work for equity in the company rather than cash, Jaswa said.
The agenda for TiEcon features luminaries such as Microsoft co-founder Steve Ballmer. Some of the companies slated to for honors at the conference include: Arcsight, which provides enterprise security management; FatLens, offering an e-commerce search engine; Intaact, a provider of ERP software a service; and Wily Technology, supplying enterprise application management.
Posted by Paul Krill on May 13, 2005 04:11 PM
May 13, 2005 | Comments: (0)
Sun Microsystems, which lost a lawsuit by Kodak over patents for Java last year, is not exactly patent-free itself.
While waiting in the lobby in one of the company's buildings in Menlo Park, Calif. this week, my attention was drawn to a wall filled with little plaques celebrating the awarding of patents to Sun employees.
But don't be fooled into thinking Sun is a big supporter of current patent laws.
"Fundamentally, we certainly acknowledge that the entire patent system is very broken. At some level, it doesn't matter because the game is what the game is and you either play it or you get killed," Sun Vice President James Gosling said.
The issue of patents for software has been a hot one lately. Industry dignitaries have debated the merits and risks of awarding patents for software technology that might unknowingly be used without permission somewhere else, placing the user at risk of lawsuits.
Gosling said he is not aware of Sun ever suing anyone over patents. But Sun also was sued years ago over a patent pertaining to RISC technology and lost, he said. "It seemed like a really obvious patent but we lost," Gosling said.
There has been a lot of talk about patent reform. But for now, enterprises and technology companies have to be concerned about whether they are using software that may be subject to licensing fees because of some arcane patent.
Posted by Paul Krill on May 13, 2005 12:22 PM
May 13, 2005 | Comments: (0)
Microsoft prepares new security offering
Microsoft continues to expand into the computer security space. The company is preparing to launch a new consumer security product that offers protection from viruses and spyware, a firewall and additional tune-up tools for Windows. The new product will put Microsoft up against traditional security vendors such as Symantec and McAfee.
The new product, called Windows OneCare, will begin beta testing by the end of the year. Like other security vendors, OneCare will be offered as a subscription service.
In response, Symantec issued a statement essentially saying they are prepared to compete with the folks from Redmond. "We are prepared to compete on a combination of technology and the back-end infrastructure required to support it; the strength of our relationships with our channel partners; and most importantly, the strength of the relationships we have with tens of millions of consumers around the world," the company said.
Posted by Bob Francis on May 13, 2005 09:00 AM
May 12, 2005 | Comments: (0)
Microsoft, Philips team on digital entertainment
Microsoft and Philips Electronics have teamed in a deal in which Philips will make semiconductors for consumer electronics devices capable of playing Windows Media audio and video files.
Philip's Nexperia range of chips is used in devices such as mobile phone handsets, DVD players, and digital television sets. Philips will also add support for Microsoft's Windows Media Digital Rights Management 10 system in its chips for portable music and video players, the companies said in a joint statement.
Philips will extend this to include its Nexperia chips for in-car entertainment and next-generation digital TV systems later in the year, they said.
The Dutch electronics maker has been pushing for compatibility between technologies, which it sees as an essential ingredient for selling consumers on the digital lifestyle and its accompanying products and services, Laura Rohde wrote in her IDG News Service story.
The partnership will help Philips compete more strongly with rivals Sony and Apple Computer, said Rob Enderle, president and founder of the Enderle Group.
"Philips has been trying to compete for a long time with Sony and Apple in devices and now wants to compete at the component level and wants to have Microsoft help them."
Frans van Houten, president and CEO, Philips Semiconductors, said the marriage of Windows Media technology in Philip's designs is intended to bring a seamless experience for consumers using the combination of Internet, PCs, and consumer electronics devices, either at home or on the go.
"The Internet is becoming increasingly vital as a means of multimedia content distribution. By supporting Windows Media technology in our designs, we're opening up additional opportunities for our customers to offer a seamless user experience from the Internet and the PC to consumer electronics devices at home and on the move," van Houten said in a statement. "As the flow of content between PCs and digital media players increases, adding this technology to the Nexperia platforms offers a simple solution to ensure that, regardless of the device on which a video is being viewed or a song being played, it looks and sounds great every time."
Amir Majidimehr, corporate vice president of the Windows Digital Media Division at Microsoft, echoed van Houten's vision for the partnership.
"Philips' support of Windows Media and Windows Media DRM on its Nexperia chip-sets and in a range of consumer products demonstrates a strong commitment to delivering anytime, anywhere access to the best digital entertainment experiences for consumers," Majidimehr said. "The breadth of available content in Windows Media format continues to grow exponentially, and Philips has extended the reach of that content significantly by adding support across such a wide range of technology and consumer electronics products."
Posted by Jack McCarthy on May 12, 2005 04:33 PM
May 12, 2005 | Comments: (0)
Microsoft Sends Eiger To Beta Testers
Microsoft said on Thursday it has sent out to selected beta testers its "Windows-based operating solution", code named Eiger, which offers users with older PCs a chance to benefit from the company's current security and management products and solutions.
A company spokesman said Eiger is still in the "very early stages of product development and testing," although he declined to say how many corporate or third party developers it was sent out to.
When underpowered users can finally afford to upgrade to the latest hardware and software Eiger reportedly will provide them with a migration path to Windows XP or to Longhorn running on a new PC, a company spokesman said.
Eiger is seen as part of Microsoft's thin client strategy aimed the low-end of market and intended to fend off Linux or a range of server-based strategies that allow users to put thin clients on their desktops. The idea behind thin clients is to significantly reduce administrative costs and offer more robust security.
Posted by Ed Scannell on May 12, 2005 02:16 PM
May 12, 2005 | Comments: (0)
The Mozilla Foundation has released a security patch to plug two security flaws in its popular Firefox browser.
Obviously, Mozilla does not let any grass grow under its foxy feet. Last week Secunia, a security firm, found two flaws in Firefox browser and deemed them "extremely critical." Mozilla recommends users upgrade to the latest version, Firefox 1.0.4, which is primarily a security update.
While updating is probably a good idea, other firms also have some other options. Two companies, Anonymizer and FraudEliminator, have released new security products for the popular open source Web browser.
Anonymizer's Total Privacy Suite is designed to safeguard Firefox users from spyware, keylogger software and other online snooping programs. The suite integrates three Anonymizer programs - surfing, anti-spyware and digital shredding - into a single product.
FraudEliminator's latest version of its FraudEliminator Pro software offers protection against pharming, phishing and DNS exploits.
Posted by Bob Francis on May 12, 2005 11:29 AM
May 12, 2005 | Comments: (0)
Microsoft adds Wi-Fi Protection to Windows XP SP2
Microsoft took yet another step on Thursday to beef up security of Windows XP, announcing it is adding support for Wi-Fi Protected Access 2 (WPA2) to Windows XP Service Pack 2.
Available as a free download now, the new update is intended to provide both enterprises and mobile users with higher levels of protection for wireless threats. Support for the Wi-Fi Alliance standard also means a raft of different government agencies and healthcare providers can now deploy wireless networks for the first time, Microsoft officials noted.
Another advantage to the update is its added support for Wireless Provisioning Services Element (WPS IE), which allows wireless Internet service providers to easily migrate to more secure Wi-Fi hot spots. It does this by enabling support for both secured and unsecured Wi-Fi networks on a single network infrastructure during a migration, company officials explained.
"For wireless computing to continue growing, consumers and enterprises need to trust that their information is safe and secure when accessed on these networks," said Jawad Khaki, corporate vice president of Windows Networking & Device Technologies at Microsoft.
The WPA2 technology ensures that a PC's wireless software is compatible with IEEE 802.11i, which is the security standard developed specifically for Wi-Fi networks, Microsoft officials noted. By building on the protections of the earlier Wi-Fi Protected Access (WPA) specification, the Wi-Fi Alliance standard offers the level of data encryption mandated by the Federal Information Proces