Industry Standard News and Predictions

Global warming research exposed after hack

IDG News Service — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 20:27:06 -0500

An anonymous hacker has posted private e-mails, files and other documents belonging to a noted climate researcher, sparking an international debate between skeptics of global warming and those who see it as an urgent problem.

The files include about a decade of e-mail correspondence belonging to Phil Jones, director of the Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia in Norwich, England. Shortly after news of the leak began circulating Thursday, critics of global warming science zeroed in on some of the messages as evidence of bias in the climate research community.

Jones' e-mails offer some candid insight into the thoughts of a noted climate researcher and his peers.

A spokeswoman with the University of East Anglia confirmed that the data was taken from a university server, but noted that because "of the volume of this information we cannot currently confirm what proportion of this material is genuine."

"We are undertaking a thorough internal investigation and we have involved the police in this enquiry," she added.

On Friday, the research unit's Web site had been moved to an emergency Web server, presumably as a result of the breach.

The e-mail, which includes Jones' correspondence with other researchers and journalists, can be searched here.

The RealClimate Web site, a forum for climate change scientists, disputed skeptics' claims that the e-mails showed any attempt to manipulate results. "More interesting is what is not contained in the emails," the site noted. "There is no evidence of any worldwide conspiracy, no mention of George Soros nefariously funding climate research, no grand plan to ‘get rid of the MWP’ [Medieval Warm Period], no admission that global warming is a hoax, no evidence of the falsifying of data, and no ‘marching orders’ from our socialist/communist/vegetarian overlords."

Judging from the data posted, the hack was done either by an insider or by someone inside the climate community who was familiar with the debate, said Robert Graham, CEO with the consultancy Errata Security. Whenever this type of incident occurs, "80 percent of the time it's an insider," he said.

E-mail data dumps are a familiar way of settling grudges in the hacker community, but they happen in the political world too. Last year, former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin's Yahoo Mail correspondence was published after a hacker managed to reset her account password.

Ruby shining on Java, Windows, and Mac OS

IDG News Service — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 20:20:31 -0500

Ruby, the popular open source dynamic language, is making headway not only on Java but also on the Windows and Mac platforms.

Appearing at the RubyConf event in Burlingame, Calif., on Friday afternoon, Engine Yard officials offered insights on JRuby, which puts Ruby on the JVM (Java Virtual Machine). JRuby also functions with Windows. Apple personnel at the conference detailed MacRuby, which puts Ruby on Mac OS.

[ See InfoWorld's report on the JVM supporting multiple languages. ]

JRuby 1.4.0 was released November 2, featuring a native executable capability for Windows.

"Over the years, we realized that we've been basically ignoring the Windows platform because we don't really like the Windows platform," said Charles Nutter, co-leader of the JRuby project with Thomas Enebo at Engine Yard. Both previously led the project at Sun Microsystems.

But most of the world's developers still run Windows, especially in the Java world, said Nutter. Proponents of JRuby are going to have make sure it can work on Windows, Nutter said. "We finally realized we can't ignore that side of the world," he said.

"I think JRuby may actually be the easiest way to run Ruby on Windows right now," said Nutter. JRuby previously has worked on Windows, but version 1.4.0 cleans up a lot of bugs pertaining to Windows, Nutter said.

Also featured in the JRuby upgrade are more than 300 bug fixes and an embedding API.

Future plans for JRuby include cleaning up performance issues, offering a new optimizing compiler and JVM integration parity with other languages, such as Groovy. Also planned is support of the Java 7 invokedynamic capability, to improve how Ruby does method calls. Code will run faster via this capability.

"JRuby really is the enterprise Ruby," Nutter said. Plans also are moving forward to enable development of JRuby applications via Engine Yard's cloud platform, he noted. JRuby also works on Google's Android platform.

Separately from JRuby, IronRuby exists as a version of Ruby for Microsoft's .Net framework, relying on the Microsoft Dynamic Language Runtime.

In the Mac space, the open source MacRuby project is intended to provide an optimized and integrated version of Ruby for Mac OS X and be compatible with Ruby programs. MacRuby leverages Apple's Cocoa technology, which provides an Objective-C-based programming environment for Mac OS X.

Concurrent programming, for managing multiple threads, is featured in the MacRuby effort via the GCD (Grand Central Dispatch) technology in Mac OS. "I think [GCD] is really going to make Ruby a great language for doing concurrent programming on the Mac," said Ernest Prabhakar, open source product manager at Apple.

Incremental releases of MacRuby have been occurring since March 2008. MacRuby is compiled by default and uses the LLVM (Low Level Virtual Machine) project for just-in-time and ahead-of-time compilation.

This story, "Ruby shining on Java, Windows, and Mac OS," was originally published at InfoWorld.com. Follow the latest developments in application development at InfoWorld.com.

LG NAS Adds Blu-ray Drive

IDG News Service — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 20:00:07 -0500

LG's N4B1 NAS box is neither a comprehensive media server nor a particularly fast performer, but as a network-attached storage device, it's quick enough for home/small-business file serving. The unit--available at this writing for around $700--is also the sturdiest and quite possibly the best-looking such box I've had my hands on. You also can't beat it's HTML configuration interface for looks or ease of learning and use. But none of that compares to the N4B1's most outstanding feature: an integrated Blu-ray burner, unique among NAS products in the SMB/SOHO market.

This Blu-ray writer lets you back the box's contents up to Blu-ray recordable or rewritable discs. However, LG also leverages the Blu-ray drive as a reader to back up CDs to disc images. (Technical note: For data discs, you'll wind up with .iso images, while audio and video CDs result in files in the .cue or .bin formats originated by CDRWin but now supported by many programs, including the free ImgBurn. Why LG didn't just stick with good ole' .iso, though, is a mystery to me.)

Outside of the handy optical drive, my favorite N4B1 feature is its front-panel LCD. Using it you can back up the box to both USB and Blu-ray as well as set the IP address without resorting to the HTML interface. It's nice not to have to fire up a computer just to set a backup in motion.

While the N4B1 has only two USB ports (one front, one back) it also has an SD memory card reader, another unique feature, as well as an eSATA port for storage expansion or backup.

As I mentioned, the N4B1 isn't the swiftest of NAS boxes, though it's hardly the slowest. With four 500GB drives configured in RAID 5 for 1.5TB total storage, it placed comfortably in the middle of the pack, though well off the pace set by HP, Acer, and Synology's faster boxes. For the home or small-business environment it'll do just fine--unless you want to stream multimedia to a digital media adapter. The N4B1 serves up music only, and only to iTunes. This doesn't mean you can't store or play video or images off of the unit; you can, but search, find, and play must be done manually via a PC.

If it weren't for the lack of media streaming, I'd give this unit a wholehearted nod for the home as well as SMBs, for which it's well suited. Considering the amount of storage on board and the integrated Blu-ray drive, it's surprisingly affordable.

Now anyone can try Brizzly’s app for Facebook and Twitter

Venture Beat — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 19:28:26 -0500

Brizzly, an application for managing messages in Twitter and Facebook, expanded its beta test today — now you don’t need an invite code, so anyone can use it.

The application was created by San Francisco-based Thing Labs, and includes features like expanding links and photos, the ability to “mute” people who you want to stop seeing updates from temporarily, and recently-added support for Twitter Lists.

In addition to opening the beta, Brizzly also added a new feature today, the ability to translate tweets with a single click using Google Translate.

Thing Labs also announced a new hire — Ben Darnell, an early Google employee who worked on Reader with Thing Labs chief executive Jason Shellen. He left for FriendFeed, all of two weeks before it was sold to Facebook. Thing Labs is backed by Polaris Venture Partners and Ron Conway.

And one last easter egg, if you tweet ‘#jacob’ or ‘#edward’ into Brizzly, it will change to a Twilight theme.

Tweetmeme launches buttons for re-tweetable advertising

Venture Beat — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 19:14:32 -0500

Twitter said it’s planning a large-scale advertising network soon, but U.K.-based Tweetmeme beat them to the punch with a monetization effort of its own today.

The startup, which creates those green ‘Retweet’ buttons you see everywhere (including on this site), is rolling out the same feature for ads. They’re partnering with Federated Media to insert retweet buttons into their advertising two weeks from now, enabling people to share compelling ads with others.

Advertising in social streams has historically been a touchy issue (see: Facebook Beacon in 2007). Users logged into Twitter and Facebook want to see what their friends are up to, and they don’t want those personal messages to be conflated with advertising. There have also been other advertising efforts launched around Twitter, like Sponsored Tweets, which pays people to send out commercial messages. But those haven’t gained widespread traction for the very simple reason that if you pollute your stream with too many boring messages, you risk losing followers.

But Tweetmeme’s product is interesting because it returns advertising to its roots in some ways. Great advertising has always been about connecting with people — remember Apple’s “Think Different” campaign or the never-ending “Got Milk” print and TV ads. They’ve become cultural touchstones in some ways. This could incentivize online advertisers to create material that’s more engaging or social.

It’s also the direction in which advertising is headed on other social networking platforms. Facebook, for example, sends detailed metrics back to its advertisers on how many shares, likes and comments their campaigns receive. They also send how many “Hides” an advertiser’s content gets if users find it uninteresting.

Google Chrome OS on the PC World Podcast

IDG News Service — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 19:05:36 -0500

In this week's special (and slightly long) episode of the PC World podcast, editors Robert Strohmeyer, Tim Moynihan, Melissa Perenson, and Nick Mediati discuss the just-announced Google Chrome OS.

The lean, netbook-centric operating system isn't for everyone--especially those who want to run installed applications or store all their media locally--but it is an exciting development for the cloud-computing world.

Will Google Chrome OS take over the world of netbooks, tablets, kiosks, and digital signage? Time will tell, but that won't stop the PC World editors from talking about its potential (or lack thereof).

Download the podcast here.

Read more PC World coverage about the Google Chrome OS announcement:

Google Chrome OS Unveiled: Speed, Simplicity, and Security Stressed

Google Chrome OS: A Visual Tour

Google Chrome OS: A Simple FAQ

Get Chrome OS Now

Five Reasons Chrome OS Will Succeed...

...And Five Reasons Chrome OS Will Flop

Is Chrome OS a godsend or a bunch of Google hooey? We want to read your take. You can reach us at podcast@pcworld.com and review our podcast on iTunes. Also, you can subscribe to the weekly PC World Podcast either on iTunes or via the PC World RSS feed.

Four things you need to know about Apple

IDG News Service — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 18:42:15 -0500

All big companies have their critics. But what's interesting about Apple's detractors is universal surprise. Their disappointment often stems from finding out that Apple isn't the company they thought it was. So I'm going to do all you would-be critics a favor, and explain some fundamental aspects of Apple's culture. Next time, you won't be blindsided and confused.

Here are four things that Apple believes that explain the unexplainable:

1. Everything Apple sells is an Apple product

Developer Paul Graham wrote an impassioned post this week called "Apple's Mistake," where he expressed his shock and disappointment at Apple's heavy hand with iPhone developers. Graham said the "App Store approval process is broken." Apple doesn't "understand software."

"They treat iPhone apps the way they treat the music they sell through iTunes," he wrote.

That last statement is truer than Graham realizes. Everything Apple offers on iTunes is viewed by Apple in the same way they view music: They're all Apple products. When you drop 99 cents for Lady Gaga's newish single, "Paparazzi," you're buying an Apple product, according to Apple. In fact, Ms. Gaga's only function in life is to make a marginal contribution to the overall Apple experience.

Graham thinks his product is his, and that Apple simply makes the hardware and software it runs on. But Apple views all of it as part of the Apple experience. If you want to sell an iPhone app, Apple will dictate the shape, size and look and feel of the buttons, windows, typeface, and how most of the user settings will appear. They will reject and ban it if it competes with another of their products, or even with possible product directions. If it offends Apple in some way -- either because of sex, politics or religion or some other banned topic -- Apple will simply deny it. And they'll take their sweet time deciding, too. As a developer, you have two options: love it or leave it.

This would make no sense if your assumption is that Apple is just another hardware and software maker cultivating an applications ecosystem. But it makes perfect sense if you realize that Apple views app developers as employees or contractors who have been allowed to work for Apple as long as they follow the rules.

Another bit of evidence for Apple's world view emerged this week. Long story short: A software company called The Little App Factory was put on notice by Apple's legal department to change the name of their product, iPodRip, because it contained the word "iPod." The owner wrote an impassioned letter to Jobs practically begging him to intervene and allow the product to keep its name. The man professed his undying loyalty to Apple, and pointed out how he even dropped out of school to devote his life to creating software for Apple products. He said he has 6 million customers, and the product has been recommended by Apple itself.

Jobs' reply was simply, "Change your apps name. Not that big of a deal. Steve"

This peon wasn't even worth the hassle of an apostrophe. You see the disparity in how each party views the relationship? The developer's attitude was: "Hey, I've devoted my life to your brand, and I have good reasons why I should be given special consideration as a loyal partner and friend of the company. We can work this out." Apple's attitude is: Get in line or you're fired."

This isn't now how CEOs talk to software partners. This is how CEOs talk to low-level employees or unimportant contractors.

There's a great scene in the upcoming movie, "Me and Orson Welles," in which Welles responds to a fellow actor's complaint that "he is an arrogant, selfish..." with the line: "I am Orson Welles, and every single one of you stands here as an adjunct to my vision. [If] you don't like the way I work here, there's the door."

That, in a nutshell, is Jobs' view of the relationship between Apple and its developer community.

2. Apple products are disposable

Apple makes high-quality, durable gadgets. I've dropped my iPhone many times, and it hasn't got a scratch on it. But don't let that fool you into thinking Apple wants those products to enjoy years and years of use.

Apple expects you to dump your old product and buy the new one just as soon as it comes out. And they don't expect you to sell the old one to someone else. There's no such thing as an old Apple product. There is only the current Apple product, and trash.

Phones similar in size to the iPhone, for example, typically have a removable battery. A battery that can be replaced is just common sense, given that batteries rapidly lose their ability to hold a charge after a few hundred charges. But iPhones are not designed to last. They're designed to be used until the new one comes out, then discarded. The same goes for iPods.

iPhone and iPod batteries don't make sense, unless you understand that these are disposable products. They look like fine china, but they're sold like paper plates.

3. Nothing exists unless Apple sells it

Steve Jobs famously said that "People don't read anymore." This comment (which you're reading, by the way), was made in response to a question about the Amazon Kindle. In Steve Jobs' world view, nothing exists outside the Appleverse. People don't read because Apple doesn't sell a reader.

Mark my words, when Apple ships its tablet or some other device that can be used for the serious reading of books, people will read again.

4. Apple doesn't want to be a successful business

Tech watchers love the horse race aspect of technology industry competition. Apple competes with Microsoft. Apple competes with Google. Apple competes with companies like HP. But Apple doesn't see it that way.

Industry titans like Microsoft, Google and HP instinctively "fill out" their product lines to dominate huge areas of technology. Microsoft, for example, wants Microsoft software running on wristwatches, supercomputers and everything in between. Google wants to offer every conceivable service that can be squeezed through an internet connection. HP's massive product line runs the gamut from consumer digital cameras sold at Best Buy to entire data centers filled with enterprise systems.

Apple doesn't want to dominate like this. It has no interest in this kind of imperialist expansion. Apple is interested only in surgical strikes into this business or that product category, where they can solve design problems others have failed to solve.

Understanding this about Apple helps explain otherwise inexplicable decisions, such as why Apple got into the mobile phone handset business, and why the company is so ambivalent about business products.

To Apple, the mobile phone industry proved clueless at how to offer a compelling user experience with a phone, with its history of cramped buttons and claustrophobic user interfaces. They believed, correctly it turns out, that their designers could drop a game-changing phone into the market and "change the world" again. But when Apple casts its gaze at the enterprise space, it doesn't see sufficiently compelling design problems that will emotionally affect users. So why bother?

Apple's choices in markets it gets into make no sense, unless you understand that they don't want to dominate industries, or even maximize revenues. They just want to design and sell better products that will affect user experience in markets where that's an achievable goal.

Of course, business success is great. But Apple sees that as only a means to the end of shipping thrilling designs.

Steve Jobs was recently named CEO of the Decade by Fortune Magazine. I'm sure Jobs' ego was pleased by the designation. But ultimately, he doesn't care about this sort of thing as much as you might expect. Jobs doesn't want to be viewed by history as a Lee Iacocca or a Henry Ford. He wants posterity to look at him as a Mozart or a Da Vinci. He wants to be seen as a builder of beautiful things, not a builder of business empires.

Next time Apple does something that infuriates you, or makes you go "huh?" remember that Apple has its own unique world view. And only by understanding that perspective can you understand why Apple does what it does.

Google Chrome OS: A Simple FAQ

IDG News Service — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 18:31:02 -0500

Everyone's all a-twitter over Google's newly announced operating system, Google Chrome OS. Some swear it'll be a hit; others are convinced it's destined for failure. Love it or hate it, though, this puppy's one tough piece of software to ignore.

So what's Chrome OS all about, and what could do it for you? Here are some answers.

What is Google Chrome OS?

Google Chrome OS is a lightweight, cloud-based operating system demonstrated by Google for the first time this week.

How's it different from Windows 7?

Well, it won't feature any launch parties, to start (at least, as far as we know). But the primary difference is that Google Chrome OS is designed to operate entirely off of the Internet. That means you won't store data or run programs on the computer itself; rather, everything will Web-driven.

So, what's the advantage?

Speed is one big plus: Because of the cloud-based configuration, Chrome OS can boot within as little as three seconds. That instant-on capability is a large reason why Google describes the Chrome OS experience as more like using a TV than using a computer: You press a button, and seconds later, you're doing your thing.

Security is another expected advantage. Since you aren't storing data or running applications locally, the odds of contracting a virus are significantly reduced. In fact, the Chrome OS won't even allow applications to make changes to the operating system if they want to -- and, on top of that, the OS will continually update itself and correct any corrupted modules automatically. The critical pieces of the OS will also be stored in read-only memory.

Do you actually save any data locally?

Not much. Chrome OS will store a small amount of data locally, such as your system preferences. Even that data will be encrypted, though -- and synched with an online storage center, too. The idea, as Google explains it, is that you could lose your Chrome OS system, go get another one, and have everything back exactly the way it was within a matter of seconds.

Will you be able to work offline?

Kinda-sorta-maybe, a little. Since Google Chrome OS runs cloud-based applications, your options will be limited when you aren't connected. Developers, however, may be able to build in a small amount of offline functionality for their programs.

What's the Chrome OS interface like?

No big surprise here: It's just like the interface of the Chrome browser. All of your applications run in tabs, and all of the tabs reside in windows. You can drag and drop tabs between windows at will. And there's a permanent tab called the application menu that shows you new and noteworthy apps for your system.

Want a closer look? Check out this Chrome OS visual tour.

Will you be able to run any program?

Technically, any Web-based application will work, so long as it's able to operate in a standards-compliant browser. Even Microsoft's Office Live will run on a Chrome OS computer -- in fact, it's the software's default program for opening files such as Excel documents.

Does that mean you couldn't install your own browser, like Firefox?

More or less. Chrome is the default browser in the Chrome OS, and you can't install software onto a Chrome OS system. The only way around it would be if a developer such as Mozilla were to take Google's open source code, create its own version of the Chrome operating system, and then sell its own Chrome OS devices with the Firefox browser built in.

What about Android apps -- can you run those?

Nope. Google says its Chrome OS will not run Android-specific applications, since they have to be downloaded to a device to work.

What kind of computers will run Google Chrome OS?

Google Chrome OS will run on netbooks and mobile tablets (the ones that actually exist, anyway). They'll be fairly scaled-down systems, since they won't need much functionality besides USB and Wi-Fi. Google is already working with manufacturers to come up with a list of hardware components that'll be allowed within the Chrome OS machines. Some of the early specifications include solid states disks (no hard drives) and full-sized keyboards.

Would Chrome OS replace your current computer?

Probably not. Chrome OS will provide more of a companion device -- after all, you won't be able to run complex programs not available on the cloud, nor will you necessarily be able to use advanced peripheral devices.

When will the Chrome OS computers be available?

Google expects to have Chrome OS systems on the market late next year, in time for the holiday season.

Can you try Chrome OS out any sooner?

Why, sure, as long as you're up for an adventure. Since the code is completely open source, you can get your hands on it right now. But since it won't run on just any computer, you'll have to set up a virtual machine to make it work. Read through this handy guide if you're brave enough to give it a whirl. Just make sure you know what you're doing.

How many golf balls can you fit in a school bus?

Uh, sorry, buddy -- wrong story. That's one of Google's interview questions. If you figure it out, though, let me know.

JR Raphael is co-founder of geek-humor site eSarcasm. You can keep up with him on Twitter: @jr_raphael.

GreenBeat: Big thank you and media roundup

Venture Beat — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 18:30:08 -0500

Thanks to everyone who made it out to GreenBeat 2009 yesterday and Wednesday!

We were thrilled with the turnout, and couldn’t be more grateful for all the support we received from attendees, speakers, sponsors and the press. It’s clear that the Smart Grid has gained the momentum it needs for serious work to be done, and we are excited to play a big role in this conversation going forward.

With Al Gore, and several of the biggest utilities and brightest entrepreneurs leading the charge, 2010 should be a big year for smart metering initiatives, regulatory reform and consumer conservation education. Whether or not these efforts will result in a cleaner, more efficient grid, or a population more committed to saving power (even if it’s only to trim their bills) still hinges on policy and money.

Stationed in the most progressive state for environmental legislation, and at the heart of the venture capital community, VentureBeat is ideally situated to report on how this unfolds. We’re already looking forward to future events on the power grid that will pick up where GreenBeat 2009 left off.

Once again, we’d like to thank all of our event sponsors and strategic partners for making this week’s event possible: Accenture, Southern California Edison, Accel Partners, Mayfield Fund, Oracle Utilities, Schwartz Communications, Cisco Systems, CPower, CSC, S&C Electric Company, KPMG, Vantage Communications, DEMO, Matter Network and Fora.TV.

We were also honored to have so many of our colleagues from the press in attendance during the event. To thank them for their coverage, and give our readers a more holistic sense of the Smart Grid dialogue sparked by GreenBeat, here’s a roundup of articles from the last several days:

GreenBeat in the New York Times:

Google says it doesn’t want to be a utility
In Pursuit of a Smarter Grid

On Al Gore:

Al Gore: Super grid is critical to combating the climate crisis, Cleantech Group
Gore: White House shooting for climate bill by spring, Greentech Media
Al Gore: The Smart Grid is Key, Earth2Tech
Al Gore: Our next power grid will be like the Net, CNet

On Innovation Competition and winners Locust and CPower:

Data storage startup, energy manager, win GreenBeat Innovation Contest, TriplePundit
3 Next-Gen Applications for Smart Grid 2.0, Earth2Tech
Data centers that feed power to the grid?, Greentech Media
Xtreme Power named a Smart Grid innovator in VentureBeat’s Innovation Competition

Here are some photos from the event — look for more media, including an image and video gallery, in the next few days.

[Photo credits: Alexa Lee, David Lin and Cheng Saechao]

Control iTunes from the Windows 7 Taskbar

IDG News Service — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 18:29:32 -0500

One of my favorite Windows 7 amenities is thumbnail previews, which appear when you mouse over any running program in the taskbar.

In fact, each thumbnail has a little red X in the upper-right corner, meaning you can close that program without first having to maximize it.

iTunes takes this a step further by adding player controls. As you can see in the screenshot below, the thumbnail sports three little icons: previous track, play/pause, and next track.

These buttons work just like the controls in iTunes proper, but they save you from having to actually switch to the program whenever you want to, say, skip to the next song or temporarily pause playback.

Of course, savvy users know that you can add an entire iTunes toolbar to the taskbar in both Windows 7 and Vista, but that just adds clutter. Here you get basic playback controls without consuming extra space. Nice!

Listen up: Rock and roll artifacts under surveillance

IDG News Service — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 17:48:35 -0500

NEW YORK -- The Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Annex keeps decades of music alive through rare videos of rock's greatest musicians playing on wall-sized screens, along with a display of prized artifacts including guitars, clothing and original sheet music from legends like John Lennon and Mick Jagger.

Turn it up to 11: Tech's contributions to rock and roll

Guarding the extensive collection, which is located in New York City's SoHo area, is a priority. Guards with Motorola radios and chic black suits man their posts, while shatter-resistant transparent casings surround many items (though not the 1957 Chevrolet Bel Air convertible owned by Bruce Springsteen .

Keeping an eye on nearly every inch of the display collection is a networked IP-based video surveillance system with more than 40 discretely placed Mobotix cameras integrated into the larger IT control room at the museum. Motion detectors are in place, too.

"Some artifacts are particularly valuable," said David Waggett, general manager at the museum, which opened about a year ago as the annex to the main Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum in Cleveland.

Not only does the Annex hold Bruce Springsteen's famous Bel Air, but also there's the 1964 album "Meet the Beatles" signed by all members of the band a few days after their historic TV appearance on the Ed Sullivan Show. There's also John Lennon's Vox prototype, a special guitar/organ hybrid and a piano he used, plus Ringo Star's drumhead from 1964 used in the film "Help." Exhibits also hold the colorful jumpsuits worn in concert by Mick Jagger and Elvis Presley and much more.

Recognition of musicians by the museum starts with induction to the Hall of Fame, which can take place "25 years after your first album," Waggett says, adding that naturally the technology of recording means something different today than it did in the dawn of rock.

In the New York museum, there's a wall of tribute that comes alive electronically with a musical sampling of each honored rock star and rare film footage of them. Whether it's rock's early age with Chuck Berry and Buddy Holly, or the more recent vintage (Velvet Underground, Led Zeppelin, U2, Elton John, Tina Turner, Jimi Hendrix, Alice Cooper, the Grateful Dead), the audio-visual is exhilarating -- and distributed via a digital IP broadcast through servers housed in the museum's IT control room.

No security incident has directly threatened the valuable artifacts themselves, but the museum's network did once get hit with a computer virus, which disrupted the network and the audio-visual broadcast streams. Waggett believes the virus was introduced by a contractor's USB token, though it's hard to know for sure. But Windows-based servers had to be patched and the virus cleaned up.

The Mobotix cameras on the IP-based network can be operated remotely by museum employees from their PCs, so they can observe different locations in the museum.

Working at her PC, Assistant Operations Manager Nicole Fernandez showed how it's possible to pan and zoom an IP-based camera located on a ceiling or wall in various areas of the museum. Though it looks real-time, the streaming image is actually a fraction of a second delayed and delivered off a server. Fernandez says the museum had Mobotix set it up this way because it facilitated the return of the camera to the proper angle without employees having to do that manually.

"We're actually looking at an image off a server," she says.. A month's worth of surveillance footage is stored and archived as data in an Overland Snap Server 620 in the museum control room should it ever be needed if any security incident occurs. The museum also has the option to remotely access the digital cameras.

Currently, the museum has a special exhibit on display of items connected with Lennon. Organized by his widow, Yoko Ono, it includes personal items such as the Green Card that Lennon got on July 27, 1976. One display holds a brown paper bag containing the clothes Lennon was wearing the day he was shot and killed in 1980. Ono received "the patient's belongings" from New York's Roosevelt Hospital and said she included this grim item of tragedy in the exhibit as a plea against gun violence.

Broadband stimulus grants delayed

IDG News Service — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 17:48:32 -0500

One of the government agencies in charge of doling out broadband stimulus cash has pushed back the dates for when it will start handing out grants.

FCC identifies roadblocks to broadband adoption

The National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) said in a filing with the U.S. House and Senate Appropriations Committees this week that it was planning to start awarding broadband stimulus grants this December and would begin funding the grants in February of next year. The NTIA's original timeline had been to fund all first-round projects by year-end, but the agency says that it has had to push back its timeline due to "the large number of complex applications and the voluminous amount of information the agency needs to review."

This past August, the NTIA and the Rural Utilities Service said they had http://www.networkworld.com/news/2009/082709-broadband-stimulus-applicat... ">received roughly 2,200 applications for the $4 billion worth of grants available for broadband projects in the United States. The applications, which were submitted earlier in the year, requested funds for a total of about $28 billion in broadband projects, or seven times the total funds available.

The $4 billion in grants currently available to applicants is just the first part of the $7.2 billion that the government has allotted to fund broadband infrastructure investment over the next two years. Of that money, $4.7 billion has been given to the NTIA to award grants for projects that will build out broadband infrastructure in un-served or under-served areas; to deliver broadband capabilities for public safety agencies; and to stimulate broadband demand through training and education. The remaining $2.5 billion in broadband stimulus money has been allotted to the Department of Agriculture to make loans to companies building out broadband infrastructure in rural areas.

Because the NTIA and RUS have received so many requests, they now plan to release the rest of the funds for projects early next year rather than having two separate rounds of awards. The broadband grants are being awarded as part of the larger $787 billion economic stimulus package passed into law earlier this year.

Hurricane Electric's IPv6 network doubles

IDG News Service — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 17:48:29 -0500

Hurricane Electric, a Fremont, Calif., ISP, will announce on Monday that its IPv6 network has doubled in size in less than a year -- a sign of how rapidly IPv6 traffic is increasing across the Internet.

http://www.networkworld.com/news/2009/073009-ipv6-guide.html ">IPv6: The essential guide

IPv6 is the long-anticipated upgrade to the Internet's main communications protocol, known as IPv4. IPv6 features vastly more address space, built-in security and enhancements for streaming media and peer-to-peer applications. All carriers and enterprises must run IPv6 when IPv4 addresses are depleted, which is expected in 2012.

Hurricane Electric claims to be the No. 1 IPv6 backbone in the world in terms of the number of IPv6 networks that it peers with and the number of IPv6 routes that it announces.

On Monday, Hurricane Electric will announce that it is the first network in the world to connect to over 600 IPv6 networks. This is twice as many IPv6-based interconnections as its closest rival, Hurricane Electric says.

Hurricane Electric offers native IPv6 connectivity, IPv6-enabled Web hosting and a free tunnel broker using the Teredo protocol that allows network managers to send IPv6 traffic over IPv4 pipes. The ISP also offers a free online program that allows network managers to certify their level of IPv6 knowledge.

Hurricane Electric's IPv6 connectivity has grown dramatically this year. In July, the ISP peered with 480 IPv6 networks. Next week's announcement that Hurricane Electric peers with 600 IPv6 networks represents a 25% increase in four months.

"This rapid growth uniquely positions Hurricane Electric's network to be able to provide the best native IPv6 connectivity to our business partners in strategic locations all over the world," said Martin Levy, Hurricane Electric's Director of IPv6 Strategy in a statement.

Hurricane Electric's role in pushing IPv6 traffic is being noticed across the Internet. Arbor Networks said in a blog post that Hurricane Electric's free tunnel broker introduced in April was one of the main reasons that global IPv6 traffic grew more than 1,400% from September 2008 to September 2009.

Craig Labovitz, chief scientist at Arbor Networks, wrote that the most important IPv6 traffic increase "came on April 21, 2009, with Hurricane Electric's turn up of a global anycast'ed Teredo relay service. Hurricane Electric enabled 14 Teredo relays in Seattle, Fremont, Los Angeles, Chicago, Dallas, Toronto, New York, Ashburn, Miami, London, Paris, Amsterdam, Frankfurt and Hong Kong."

Labovitz said that "by all accounts, Hurricane Electric's Teredo service significantly improved the IPv6 goodput for the average Internet end user overnight."

IPv6 now represents 0.03% of all Internet traffic, according to Arbor Networks.

GreenBeat: Al Gore says Smart Grid part of ‘the single largest solution’ to climate change

Venture Beat — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 17:43:08 -0500

Nobel Prize winner and former vice president Al Gore gave a wide-ranging, passionate talk at VentureBeat’s GreenBeat 2009 conference yesterday in San Mateo about combating global warming. We already liveblogged Gore’s talk, but for folks who don’t want to read the blow-by-blow description, here’s a summary.

Perhaps the most significant point: That energy efficiency is “the single largest solution to the climate crisis,” and the Smart Grid will “play a crucial role” in achieving that efficiency.

The Smart Grid will have a number of advantages, Gore said. It will reduce the carbon emissions that accelerate global warming. It will give us more access to alternative energy sources like solar and wind, and will equip us to cope with the inconsistency of those sources. It will create jobs. And it will be cost-effective, eventually paying for itself by preventing grid failures and blackouts.

“The analogy to the internet is close to exact and very relevant,” Gore added. Like the internet, the Smart Grid is moving from a centralized to a distributed model, and it will spur the creation of new devices and applications.

Gore also talked about the obstacles facing the Smart Grid and other efforts to fight global warming. Those obstacles involve politics, economics, and short-term thinking. But those challenges must be overcome — because he said members of the next generation will ask one of two questions.

If the climate crisis has come to a devastating head, they’ll ask, “‘What were you thinking? Were you watching Dancing with the Stars? Didn’t you hear the scientists? Didn’t you care?’” Or they may see that we’ve taken the political, economic, and technological steps necessary to create “a new renewable energy platform and sustainable environment,” and they’ll ask, “‘How did you find the moral courage to rise and solve a crisis that so many people said was impossible to solve?’”

[photo:David Lin]

Mobile wireless router from Zyxel competes with Mi-Fi

IDG News Service — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 17:28:29 -0500

Wireless carriers and retailers have been promising a wide array of low-priced gadgets beyond smartphones that will hit the market soon, taking advantage of faster wireless networks.

The list of devices ranges from dedicated e-readers to advanced GPS units. There will also be more mobile routers, similar to the pocket-sized MiFi mobile device from Novatel Wireless that can connect up to five Wi-Fi enabled devices to a wireless CDMA 1x EV-Do Rev A network.

Recently, Taiwan-based manufacturer Zyxel Communications Inc. announced a competitor to MiFi called the MWR222, a mobile wireless router that is compatible with faster 802.11n Wi-Fi devices (as well as 802.11b/g) and 3G wireless networks. The device, which is alos pocket-size, will go on sale in the first quarter of 2010 for $300 through various online electronics sites, said Jake Sailana, marketing manager for Zyxel's North America operations.

Two similar mobile wireless routers from Zyxel will go on sale with somewhat different form factors and features for less with prices of $200 and $100, he said.

Zyxel is hopeful it will get wireless carriers to resell the routers to their subscribers, and is also working to sell its products in retail stores, such as Best Buy, Sailana said in an interview.

The MWR222 was named an Innovations Honoree on Nov. 10 by the Consumer Electronics Association, which picked devices in 36 categories that it will display at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas in early January.

Part of the reason the MWR222 won the distinction, Sailana said, is because CEA judges see the device as the kind of product that business travelers and consumers need now. "It's come out at the right time for how people are interacting with the Internet," he said. "It just makes sense as a product."

The MWR222 is thicker than the MiFi, but it also has advantages over the competing device, Sailana said, with portable battery power. Its 11n compatibility, which offers a theoretical transfer rate at 150 Mbit/sec. is well above the MiFi throughput of 3 Mbit/sec., he said. The MWR222 is 3.96 in. by .8 in. by 2.97 in. in size. and weighs 5.3 ounces. That's twice as heavy as the MiFi's 2 ounces and more than twice as thick at .35 inches. The MiFi is also 3.5 in. long x 2.3 in. wide.

While the MiFi device could be bought without monthly wireless service at around $215, it is being resold by CDMA carriers Verizon Wireless and Sprint Nextel with a monthly fee, and the initial price varies by the length of the contract. But Zyxel's Sailana said the MWR222 is being sold independent of carriers, giving businesses the ability to choose the wireless carrier that will support it. "It supports any USB adapter from any service provider," he said.

LTE and WiMax wireless echnologies as well as 3G networks are supported, but dual USB and dual Ethernet ports can be used to connect to DSL and cable modems.

Among the markets that could used the MWR222 are business professionals who want to supplant Wi-Fi cards on laptops, or want to connect iPods, iPhones and other devices to the Internet. Business groups traveling to another business location and can't access a Wi-Fi network can use the MWR222 as a hub to work together, accessing through a 3G wireless carriers, Sailana added.

Zyxel also won a CEA Innovation Honor for a Smart Home Gateway, which is also a battery-powerd wireless router and will be used as a hub for collecting data from multiple home health monitoring devices. The gateway will go on sale through various resellers in the first quarter. Pricing was not announced.

The gateway can connect to Bluetooth and Zigbee-compliant medical sensors used for various medical duties, including basic blood pressure and heart rate monitoring. Monitors can also be set to detect when a home-based elderly person stops moving, sending an alarm to a distant location over a wired or wireless network, including Wi-Fi 11n and 3G and 4G networks.

"We predict there's going to be a lot of demand for health monitoring applications, and when you consider the millions of baby boomers reaching retirement, it will be huge," Sailana said.

Zyxel has been manufacturing communications products for 20 years and had 3,200 employees with $479 million in revenues in 2008, according to its Web site. Sailana said most of its revenues comes from sales of products such as DSL gateways, switches and wireless routers sold to service providers, but it also makes firewalls and other network and security products sold through resellers as well as consumers products such as wireless routers that are sold online.

Qualcomm's updated 3G chipset coming to ThinkPads

IDG News Service — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 17:26:57 -0500

Lenovo will offer Qualcomm's latest Gobi multimode 3G (third-generation) mobile data chipset on ThinkPad laptops, allowing users to connect to the world's two major types of 3G networks and use assisted GPS for location-based services.

Gobi, which hit the market last year, includes both HSPA (High-Speed Packet Access) and EV-DO (Evolution-Data Optimized) technology in one chipset, along with GPS (Global Positioning System) capability. Gobi2000, the second generation of the platform, supports additional frequencies as well as AGPS (Assisted GPS). AGPS uses the cellular network to extend the coverage of GPS indoors and to areas blocked from the sky, such as city streets with many tall buildings.

Because the Gobi chipset can work with both HSPA and EV-DO networks, as well as other flavors of GSM (Global System for Mobile Communications) and CDMA (Code-Division Multiple Access), it can work with most of the world's mobile data services. 4G technologies such as WiMax and LTE (Long-Term Evolution), and the Chinese-developed TD-SCDMA (Time-Division Synchronous CDMA) system are not included today. With both major network types in one chip, users don't need multiple PCs or cards to stay connected around the world and IT departments are better able to standardize on one laptop model.

Gobi1000 was built to work on nine commonly used frequency bands, and Gobi2000 adds support for HSPA on 800MHz and 900MHz. In addition to AGPS, the new chipset includes gpsOneXTRA, a Qualcomm technology for improving GPS performance where the operator isn't yet equipped for AGPS.

Gobi2000 will be offered on ThinkPad X, T and W Series laptops beginning next year. Lenovo already offers the first-generation Gobi1000 in the ThinkPad X200, T400, T500 and W500 systems. Hewlett-Packard has also said it will use Gobi2000, and several other manufacturers plan to offer it, according to Qualcomm.

Chrome shines, Gore opines, staffs decline

IDG News Service — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 17:19:24 -0500

Google's Chrome OS captured a lot of headlines and hype this week after the company invited the media in to have a look-see, setting off a whole lot of opinions about whether it will be any good. Microsoft, predictably, doesn't think so. Otherwise, Al Gore offered his opinion on the role supercomputers can play to quell climate change, and for the first time we can recollect there were not one, but two, cat-related IT stories that caught our attention.

1. Google Chrome OS unveiled: Speed, simplicity and security stressed, The 5 best, and 5 worst, features of Google Chrome OS, Microsoft, other rivals slam Google Chrome OS and Why Chrome OS will fail, big time: We were all over the Chrome demonstration, with varying opinions about it, including Randall Kennedy's provocative piece at InfoWorld about why he thinks it will fail, and in a big way.

2. Al Gore: Supercomputers can reverse climate change: The temperature is a balmy 60 degrees Fahrenheit (15.5 degrees Celsius) here in Boston, making it more than a little weird to see Christmas decorations, even allowing for the argument that those are displayed too early. So, it seems fitting that former Vice President Gore said at the SC09 supercomputing conference this week that supercomputing technology can be used to help expand renewable energy sources and explain climate change to people so that they better understand its implications.

3. EU ombudsman faults EC's Intel antitrust ruling: The European ombudsman, Nikiforos Diamandouros, found fault with the European Commission's antitrust investigation of Intel, although his decision is not legally binding and so will not change the outcome, which led to a hefty fine for the company.

4. Ballmer: Windows 7 sells twice as fast as past operating systems: The Windows 7 operating system is selling like hotcakes compared to past Microsoft operating systems, according to CEO Steve Ballmer. Of course, there's another way to look at that fact, which is that users are flocking to get rid of Vista.

5. Nokia cuts research staff by up to 330 people and AOL looks to slash staff by a third: In what is becoming a standing entry for the ongoing effects of the recession, we include this week word that Nokia is cutting its research staff by as many as 330 people and the plagued AOL will axe a third of its employees.

6. Three basic steps to avoid joining a botnet: CSO's Joan Goodchild has been all over the botnet beat lately, and her latest installment on that topic offers some advice from security pros on how to keep corporate networks from becoming hooked into botnets.

7. Facebook bible: Everything you need to know about Facebook: The headline says it all.

8. Sold out! Grinch steals Nook Christmas and Some Sony e-readers may not arrive for the holidays: Well, it looks like many of us who are hoping for e-readers will find Kindle's under the tree now, doesn't it?

9. IBM brain simulations exceed scale of cat's cortex: Living with four cats, we have keen appreciation for research out of IBM toward building a computer that mimics the human brain, with a brain simulation that exceeds the capacity of a cat's cortex. Of course, it's also the case that some cats seem to have better cortexes than others, but that's a different story.

10. CatPaint iPhone app adds cats to any photo and CatPaint got your iPhone?: Arguably, some other IT news story (OK, quite a few other IT news stories) could be in this slot, but this one generated a whole lot of interest and discussion, and besides which we aren't about to let down the "Cheezburger" crowd by leaving it out. The iPhone app, CatPaint, allows users to add cats to any photo. At last, we have a reason to buy an iPhone.

Gameloft to cut back on Android development

IDG News Service — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 16:34:18 -0500

Though you may think us to be iPhone fans all the time, we really do want to root for the underdog. Whether it's Google's Android or Palm's webOS, the smartphone industry could really use a David to the iPhone's Goliath to promote competition and better products all around.

So it comes as a bit of a downer when we hear that Android development isn't going so well. Gameloft, whom you may know for making dozens of well-designed mobile games that look an awful lot like certain other popular games, has told Reuters that it (among others) has decided to invest less in developing for the Android platform.

Gameloft's finance director Alexandre de Rochefort states that the problem is that "[the Android's application store] is not as neatly done as on the iPhone," resulting in a market that doesn't encourage Android customers to buy applications for their phone. Rochefort further goes on to explain that "on Android, nobody is making significant revenue" because Google hasn't done a very good job of promoting software on the Android.

iPhone games alone have made for a very generous 13 percent of Gameloft's revenue in the last quarter. By comparison, Android games only make for about 0.0325 percent of that revenue--400 times less.

We've reported on a steady exodus of smaller developers from the iPhone platform, thanks to the App Store's often murky policies. If Gameloft's claims are true, we may see more of the larger developers start to move away from Android--or continue to stay away--thanks to a lack of marketing.

In the past, Google has largely relied on viral marketing, its partners, and word of mouth to promote its own products. Perhaps Google could stand to learn a thing or two from Apple's marketing?

"Hi, I'm an Android app." "And I'm a rejected iPhone app."

Sony Online Service to Challenge iTunes? Fat Chance

IDG News Service — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 16:31:13 -0500

For entertainment hardware companies like Sony, a thriving, all-encompassing online media store is the Holy Grail. It's a glorious balance, in which the customer buys software through the store, and therefore becomes hooked on the hardware to which it's attached. That's how brand loyalty is created.

In other words, that's iTunes.

So I'm not surprised that Sony wants to unify its disparate hardware parts through a far-reaching media store, dubbed the Sony Online Service. An article in BusinessWeek states that this is Sony's answer to iTunes, and though it's not clear whether Sony's executives are actually saying that, they'd be wise not to.

First, a bit of history: Sony has tried the online media store before, with Sony Connect. The store shuttered after three years, and Sony surrendered the proprietary and ill-conceived ATRAC format in favor of the proprietary and ill-conceived Windows Media format.

Thankfully, Sony wised up and added MP3 support over the years, and a new wave of MP3 players, such as the Walkman X, include software for transferring files from iTunes. But if Sony's really expected to challenge iTunes on the music front, consider one statistic: iTunes accounts for 69 percent of all digital music sales in the United states. It's not happening.

The bigger focus for Sony will be video, and to a lesser extent, e-books. On those fronts, Sony can compete because it has devices that let you watch video in the living room. Sony needs to focus here, because TVs and video games are the company's worst-performing categories right now, according to BusinessWeek.

The problem is that nobody really knows what Sony is doing. Is the Sony Online Service software that you download? Is it a cloud service that you'll mostly access directly through devices? Both? Neither? From what I can see, the Sony Online Service is being hyped as an ambitious plan to turn the copmany ship towards profitability, but it's just a plan. I can't even stack it up against the things we hate about iTunes, because we don't know if the services will be at all alike.

Worse yet, the idea of a media store across several devices has no inherent advantage for the consumer. If I buy a video on my Playstation 3, it means nothing to me that the same video store also exists on Sony HDTVs. I'm already watching the video on my TV, so what do I care?

It's just a matter of branding. And when it comes to brands of online media stores, iTunes is a juggernaut. The cold truth is that if Sony really wants a competitive edge, it needs to excel in hardware first. The dedicated legions of media store customers follow.

New speakers, sponsors for DiscoveryBeat; today is last day for early-bird discount

Venture Beat — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 16:28:14 -0500

We’ve got some great momentum for VentureBeat’s upcoming DiscoveryBeat event, which will attack the problem of how to get attention for an app in the midst of a lot of noise.

One of our newest speakers is Randy Breen, chief operating officer at Social Gaming Network, where he oversees game development, business development, strategy and executive management. He has worked in the game industry since 1986 at companies such as Electronic Arts, LucasArts and Emotiv Systems.

Today is the last chance to get DiscoveryBeat tickets at the early-bird rate of $114. That’s a 25 percent savings from the regular ticket price per attendee of $149.

As a reminder, DiscoveryBeat is all about getting your apps noticed. The event is targeted at the intersection of social, mobile and gaming trends. The event takes place in the afternoon of Dec. 8 at the Automattic Lounge on Pier 38 in San Francisco. Check out the DiscoveryBeat site for the full agenda and speakers. We’ve got a good batch of sponsors signing up for the event. A partial list of sponsors includes apps PR firm AppLaunch PR/VSC Consulting, Peter Relan’s startup incubator YouWeb, app store operator GetJar and social gaming firm SGN.

We’ll discuss the “secret recipe” for getting discovered in an age when getting discovered can mean huge viral growth and the difference between profound success or prompt failure. We think there are five main ingredients to the secret recipe for viral growth: 1) Social networking and marketing, 2) advertising, 3) web design, 4) partnering and 5) measurement.

Our previously announced speakers include John Pleasants, chief executive of social game firm Playdom, Ge Wang, co-founder and chief technology officer at music app maker Smule; Jon Vlassopulos, CEO of Zippo virtual lighter app maker Moderati; Roy Sehgal, executive producer of the Cafe World social game at Zynga; Julian Farrior, CEO and founder of iPhone hit game maker Backflip Studios; and Sebastien DeHalleux, president of social gaming firm Playfish, which was recently acquired by Electronic Arts for as much as $400 million.

Tickets are available here.

General Mobile DSTL1

IDG News Service — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 16:23:12 -0500

The General Mobile DSTL1 ($450, unlocked; price as of November 16, 2009) has some nice features, like dual-SIM card support, but I found that the device's awkward design and unresponsive touchscreen dulled the sense of feature-richness and the ease of use that the Android OS can give a mobile device.

The biggest selling point of the DSTL1 phone is that it can support two separate wireless phone numbers. You simply insert two SIM cards into the two slots below the battery. There's also a slot to accommodate a microSD storage card with a capacity of up to 16GB. The phone itself has 4GB of internal memory.

The DSTL1 runs Android 1.5 OS (not the newer Android 2.0) and carries a 624MHz processor inside. General Mobile went to Sharp Electronics for the 3-inch 240-by-400-pixel touchscreen display and to Sony for the 5-megapixel camera. The DSTL1 has an FM radio on board and offers Bluetooth 2.0 and Wi-Fi support.

These specs look good on paper, but the phone's construction felt cheap. I didn't like the phone's highly reflective plastic chrome outer shell--because I would rather see the phone's features and content than my own reflection. The DSTL1 has a navigation wheel with an Enter button in the middle, plus buttons for making a call from either SIM card. General Mobile also provides an on/off button and an extremely useful back button.

Measuring 4.4 by 2.1 by 0.6 inches, the phone is nearly as thick as the Motorola Droid, yet it lacks a slide-out QWERTY keyboard. As a result, you have to rely on the native Android touch keyboard for your typing, which is painfully small and awkward to use in portrait orientation, and far from comfortable in landscape mode.

All of this might not matter much if the touchscreen worked well, but it doesn't. The screen appears to be imbedded a few millimeters deep in the phone's clear plastic shell; in any event, the touchscreen had trouble responding immediately and accurately to my commands in connection with everything from selecting apps to customizing the desktop to using the calculator. Meanwhile, the voice commands, such as 'open calendar', seemed to work well.

One of the DSTL1's biggest shortcomings is its lack of 3G support--it can run only on 2G or 2.5G EDGE networks. I tested the phone with SIM cards from T-Mobile and AT&T inside. The voice calls I made on those EDGE networks were clear and uninterrupted by latency or drops. When I surfed the Net, the phone behaved torpidly and ran at very un-3G-like speeds. (My Palm Pre, in contrast, loads pages pretty briskly with the help of Sprint's 3G Network).

The DSTL1 does benefit from Google's Android OS straightforward and intuitive interface. As I moved from task to task, the OS's basic tools appeared roughly where I expected them to be.

Like other Android phones, the DSTL1 gives you three homescreens for installing your own set of shortcuts, widgets, folders, and wallpapers. A Google search bar appears at the top of the center panel. To move between the three homescreens, you swipe your fingers from side-to-side.

Similarly, you bring up your application launch menu by swiping a tab up from the bottom of the screen. Preloaded on the phone are some 20 apps, shortcuts, games, widgets, and other tools--from the phone's settings to contacts to the FM radio. To install a shortcut to any of these "apps" on your front screen, simply press and hold the icon.

General Mobile didn't attempt to build a layer of additional software on top of Android, as the manufacturers of some other phones did with varying degrees of success.

Within a few minutes I successfully connected the DSTL1 to my Gmail account and began sending and responding to e-mail. Navigation through the messages was easy and intuitive, though typing in the 'compose' box was slow going because of the touchscreen.

The phone's text messaging functions were similarly well organized and intuitive. Once you've typed your message, you choose which SIM card to use to send your message.

Importing my contacts from Gmail was easy; using the phone to create new contacts was a little more time-consuming. The Android address book adopts a tabular design, which simplifies the tasks of locating and accessing various contact details. When you click a contact, the app displays all of the available modes for contacting the person (text, phone, IM, and so on).

If you use one SIM for work and the other for personal activity, keeping the two separate is easy. Click one of the tabs at the top of the screen and you can quickly view the dialer, the call log, or your favorites (contacts you've dialed most recently).

The dialer interface itself is a touchpad keypad with oversize, slightly overlapping keys. I found the keypad reasonably easy to use, and certainly less arduous than typing on the virtual keyboard.

The music player in Android 1.5 is fine, but I had a lot of trouble getting music to load onto the DSTL1--in fact, I ultimately failed. I plugged the DSTL1 into my Dell PC (running Vista) at work, but the PC refused to recognize the device in Explorer. You may have better results. This problem also prevented me from loading any other kind of data onto the device, such as documents, images, and videos.

The included headphones sounded okay, but you can't plug them (or any other headphones) directly into the DSTL1 because it has no 3.5-mm jack; instead, the headphones plug into a clip-on voice mic, which in turn plugs into the USB port on the phone.

The DSTL1 comes with a 5-megapixel Sony camera that has an impressive range of features, including auto focus, facial recognition, choice of picture sizes, a timer for taking your own picture, and multiple focus settings. The DSTL1 also provides a physical button on top of the camera for shooting pictures, which I much preferred to snapping photos with my shutter-buttonless Palm Pre.

The pictures I took with the DSTL1 looked good. The images were sharp, and the flash seemed to light photos properly without washing them out. I shot a 40-second video with the device, too; the output looked okay, but was limited by the phone's mediocre screen.

The DSTL has some solid features (in particular, the dual SIM cards and the camera), but I wouldn't pay such a high price for a device with so many shortcomings. I do like the look and feel of the Android operating system, and I believe that the set of applications that are available to it will eventually best the set offered for the iPhone. But on the DSTL1, the hardware got in the way of making full use of the Android goodness. Still, for the moment, if you have a special need for dual SIM and Android in one phone, the DSTL1 is pretty much your only option.

Mac OS X 10.6.2 Hack Gets Atom Support Back

IDG News Service — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 16:20:34 -0500

Early last week, Apple released the 10.6.2 update to Snow Leopard loaded mostly with welcome, but unsurprising bug fixes, including a patch for the uncommon but extremely harmful user account deletion bug. However, hidden in the kernel update was dropped support for the hackintosh-friendly Intel Atom processor. The Atom is Intel's smallest chip and has the distinction of being the processor of choice for people building cheap OS X netbooks with limited hackery required. When early builds of 10.6.2 removed Atom support, speculation and rumors were abound regarding the future of the easy-to-build Atom hackintosh.

Just two days after the 10.6.2 update was released to the dismay of OS X Atom users, a Russian poster of the InsanelyMac forums released a fix that once again allows the chip to be used. The fix actually comes in the form of an entire kernel replacement, reminiscent of the early days of Intel hackintosh. It may sound daunting, but installation is actually a snap, requiring no more than six commands to be typed in the Terminal. Still, it adds a somewhat convoluted step in the once extremely straight-forward process of building an Atom OS X box.

Between Psystar, the recent iPhone 3GS firmware jailbreak block, and now this, Apple sure has been spending a lot of effort to keep their software on lockdown. Are their efforts warranted or is Apple fighting a losing battle? Discuss below.

Follow Mike Kelle r and GeekTech on Twitter.

Two approaches to NFC battle for French hearts and mobiles

IDG News Service — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 16:17:42 -0500

Two competing approaches to equipping mobile phones with contactless communications capabilities vied for supporters at the Cartes exhibition in Paris this week. Either approach could turn phones into self-service electronic tour guides, travel tickets or secure payment terminals.

One half of the technology is already in widespread use. Contactless smartcards -- credit-card-sized RFID tags with an embedded cryptographic chip for authentication and secure data storage -- are already used for access control, public transport tickets (such as Navigo in Paris and Oyster in London) and electronic payment systems (such as Visa Paywave), and the same chips can be used to add intelligent tags to objects or buildings, allowing shoppers or tourists to view related information. The chips are powered by a radio signal from the reader.

But anyone who uses such cards for multiple applications will quickly find their pockets or wallet cluttered with pieces of plastic. One way to cut the clutter is to put those applications in a smartcard chip embedded in a mobile phone, connected to a small antenna.

A bonus of combining phone and contactless smartcard in this way is that the same antenna can communicate with other smartcard chips, for example to show a payment card's balance on the phone's screen, or display information about a tagged object. Combining this NFC (Near-Field Communications) technology with a cellular data connection, the phone can also be used to renew a transport pass online and load it into the smartcard.

While NFC technology is already a success in Japan, where it was championed by mobile network operator NTT DoCoMo, attempts to take it beyond the pilot stage in France and elsewhere in Europe have stalled as network operators, banks, stores and transit authorities wait for one another to make the first move. There are two main problems: Banks and transit authorities won't load their application on someone else's smartcard chip unless its security and integrity can be guaranteed. Meanwhile stores are unwilling to deploy the necessary infrastructure of readers and applications unless they can be sure that a substantial proportion of their customers will be able to use them.

The two approaches to combining NFC smartcard and phone shown at Cartes each had a solution to one of these problems..

Cityzi, proposed by the French Mobile Contactless Association (AFSCM), relies on the SIM (Subscriber Identity Module), a small smartcard already present in all GSM (Global System for Mobile Communications) phones, and links it with NFC circuitry embedded in the phone's case. The security and reliability of the smartcard chips is guaranteed by the mobile operators that issue them, and all applications will be vetted before installation in the chips, said Bruno Prexl, the association's head of communications. However, there are still only two NFC-compatible GSM phones on the market, the Nokia 6216 and the Samsung Player One NFC Version, he said.

The French mobile network operators Orange, SFR and Bouygues Telecom -- all three are members of the AFSCM -- began developing common standards for SIM-based NFC systems in 2006, and have so far completed contactless payment trials with a small number of users and stores in Caen and Strasbourg.

After giving away the phones participants needed in those trials, the operators are set to begin a larger project in the second quarter of 2010 in Nice, where they will sell NFC phones in regular stores. The idea is to test whether there is enough interest for NFC to be commercially viable.

For Prexl, the project will be a success if they can persuade 3,000 of Nice's 500,000 inhabitants to buy an NFC phone in the coming months. However, after ruling out all those who want an iPhone or BlackBerry and those who are simply not ready to replace their phone yet, that may still be an ambitious target.

Operators in other countries are already showing interest in AFSCM's approach, but it's vital that all the operators in a country work together if a critical mass of customers is to be reached, said Prexl.

However, it's not possible to reach a critical mass of customers -- 30 percent or more -- when just two of the hundreds of GSM phone models on sale are NFC-compatible, according to Franck Edme, business development manager at Twinlinx. A better approach is to take the Bluetooth wireless connection found in around 70 percent of those phones and use that to talk to an external NFC device.

That's what Twinlinx has done with MyMax, a self-adhesive patch containing a Bluetooth radio, a tiny battery, some NFC circuitry and one or more smartcard chips in a package 38 millimeters by 29 mm that can be stuck on almost any phone, solving the problem of adoption. To make payments or use public transport, the patch can be waved at a reader just as if it were a simple contactless card.

For tasks that require the phone's display or cellular connection, such as adding a new transport ticket to the card or using the patch as a contactless reader, the Bluetooth device must be turned on. The battery in the patch lasts long enough to complete a couple of hundred of such transactions, according to Twinlinx, and afterwards can be recharged using the same readers that power the contactless cards -- although the charging process takes hours rather than the milliseconds necessary to read a card.

The first sample patches are about 2.5 mm thick and will cost between €15 (US$22) and €20 for those willing to buy 10,000 when they go on sale next year. By 2011 Edme expects the patch to be under 2 mm thick and costing €10 in quantities of 100,000 or more.

Adding tickets to a transport card or using the patch as a card reader will require a special application on the phone. Twinlinx has developed the necessary APIs or driver software for Windows Mobile and Java-enabled phones, but it will be up to sponsors such as banks and transport authorities to distribute the patches and install and develop the applications for their customers -- which raises, once again, the other obstacle to adoption: no one will want a stack of incompatible patches on their phone, and Twinlinx is not in the business of guaranteeing the security and integrity of individual applications cohabiting on a single smartcard chip.

So would it make sense for the two teams, Twinlinx and AFSCM, to pool resources to win over users and distributors?

Not really, according to Prexl. "It's taken us three years to get our specifications in place, not just for the technology, but also the processes. Theirs are necessarily different, so we would have to reengineer all the processes to handle a different technology."

Microsoft launches beta tests of free Office 2010, 'streaming' delivery

IDG News Service — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 16:16:29 -0500

Microsoft has launched new betas for its free Office suite and for the "streaming" technology it will use to deliver some paid versions of Office 2010 next year.

As first reported by ZDNet blogger Mary Jo Foley, Microsoft has kicked off a private beta of Office Starter 2010, the ad-supported edition that the company will offer computer makers in lieu of the ancient Microsoft Works, which has been discontinued.

Office Starter will include on-screen advertisements, the first desktop edition of Microsoft's longstanding suite to do so. The ads will be limited to a space in the lower-right-hand of the applications' windows.

Microsoft announced Office Starter 2010 more than a month ago, but said it would not be available to the public until the completed Office 2010 suite ships sometime in the first half of next year.

Office Starter will include reduced-functionality versions of Word and Excel, the suite's word processor and spreadsheet, but will not be a time-limited trial. Microsoft hopes that customers will like what they see and pony up the money for the real deal, such as the entry-level Office Home and Student 2010 or the more expensive Office Home and Business 2010. Prices for Office 2010 have not been set, and last month Microsoft refused to say whether Office Starter users will receive a discount if they purchase a for-a-fee edition.

Today, Microsoft confirmed that it has launched a preview of Office Starter 2010 to what a company spokesman said was a "select group of users."

Also included in the Starter beta, said the spokesman, is a new feature called "Office Starter to Go" that lets testers run Word Starter and Excel Starter from a USB flash drive. According to Foley, Office Starter to Go will run from the flash drive on Windows Vista and Windows 7 systems.

Microsoft also sent invitations to a larger group of testers for a preview of the "Click-To-Run" mechanism it plans to use to deliver some final editions of Office 2010 next year. In messages sent to people who had tested the Technical Preview of Office 2010 last summer, Microsoft urged them to try the Click-To-Run delivery.

Last weekend in an FAQ posted to its Web site, Microsoft hinted that it would offer the public a beta of Home and Business using Click-To-Run, but those plans have been put on hold, said Takeshi Numoto, the corporate vice president for Office, in an interview earlier this week . "We're working to make that available as soon as possible," said Numoto.

Click-To-Run is a new technology that Microsoft debuted in the Technical Preview that went out to testers last July. Essentially, it "streams" pieces of the suite as users begin a download, letting them start running the suite within minutes. It also runs Office 2010 in a virtualized environment, separating it from the rest of Windows and other applications.

Unlike the Office 2010 Beta that went live on Wednesday, the Click-To-Run version of Office 2010 Home and Business must be installed alongside existing versions of Office on the PC; it's not possible to upgrade from Office 2003 or Office 2007 to the beta of 2010. Testers must also first uninstall the Technical Preview before installing the Click-To-Run edition of the beta.

The beta of Click-To-Run Office Home and Business 2010 includes Excel, OneNote, Outlook, PowerPoint and Word. Like the standard download of Office 2010 Beta, the version delivered via Click-To-Run expires Oct. 31, 2010.

LaDiDa brings reverse karaoke to your iPhone

Venture Beat — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 15:55:33 -0500

There are tons of karaoke applications for the iPhone, but a startup called Khu.sh is introducing a twist on the concept, “reverse karaoke,” to the App Store.

There have been other reverse karaoke products, most notably Microsoft Songsmith, a Windows application that lets you record your singing, then automatically generates musical accompaniment. Songsmith even prompted a series of YouTube videos highlighting the hilarious badness of many of the resulting songs.

Khu.sh’s iPhone app, LaDiDa, lets you do something similar on your iPhone. You choose a style (such as E Piano Pop or Dub Tone) and tempo, sing into the iPhone, and LaDiDa adds the music. You can also share the recordings on Facebook or Twitter. A $0.99-version of LaDiDa was first released last month, and Khu.sh added a free version (with fewer musical styles) called LaDiDa Lite (iTunes link) this week. You can check out the results in the video below.

This may seem like little more than a novelty, but if musical iPhone app developer Smule can have a hit with something like I am T-Pain (which overlays your singing with Auto Tune technology), I could see plenty of iPhone owners embracing this, too — though it’s a little more challenging without the help of a hip hop star like T-Pain.

Khu.sh is based in Atlanta and has raised $120,000 in seed funding, including $20,000 from incubator Shotput Ventures.