Internet Changes Everything

December 29, 2004

Creative problem solving process

How to Save the World

One to save for later review.

December 29, 2004 at 01:12 PM in Financial Services | Permalink | TrackBack (63) | Top of page | Blog Home

December 28, 2004

AOL Spam Down 75 Pct; Net Spam Trends Reverse

Internet News Article | Reuters.com

NEW YORK (Reuters) - You've got less spam, according to America Online, the world's largest online service.

The online unit of Time Warner Inc. on Monday said junk e-mail declined by more than 75 percent this year, based on its internal member reports.

Junk e-mail, known as spam, accounted for about 83 percent of computer traffic at one point this year, and have cost Internet providers about $500 million in wasted bandwidth, analysts have said.

As of November 2004, AOL received an average of 2.2 million complaints daily from its more than 24 million subscribers, down from 11 million complaints in the same period last year.

The daily average number of e-mails blocked by AOL's spam filters fell 50 percent to about 1.2 billion e-mails in late 2004 from a peak of 2.4 billion in 2003.

Attempts made by junk e-mail senders also fell to about 1.6 billion daily, from 2.1 billion last year.

AOL launched a new version of its software, AOL 9.0 Security Edition in November, which included a free version of the McAfee VirusScan Online software and improved anti-spam tools.

The company is also part of an tech industry coalition comprised of Microsoft Corp., EarthLink Inc. and Yahoo Inc., which have vigorously gone after suspected e-mail marketers, who hide behind fake e-mail addresses.

© Reuters 2004. All Rights Reserved.

December 28, 2004 at 08:28 AM in Spam | Permalink | TrackBack (32) | Top of page | Blog Home

December 27, 2004

Top Ten Trends for 2005

RED HERRING | Top Ten Trends for 2005

The risks and rewards of trendspotting.
December 13, 2004 Issue

Laying out technology trends is a treacherous undertaking. Those predictions can end up haunting the luminaries who pronounced them after they’ve proven to be ridiculous. Just consider these: Bill Gates was quoted in 1994 saying, “we’ll have infinite bandwidth in a decade’s time.� And George Gilder proclaimed in the pages of Forbes in 1992, “just as the old integrated circuit made transistor power virtually free, the new all-optical network will make communications power virtually free.

We could go on. But on another level, who can blame the likes of Mr. Gates and Mr. Gilder for daring to dream a little? After all, it’s the entrepreneurial spirit – as much as technical progress – that has propelled not just Silicon Valley, but the entire world over the past twenty years. The ability to take a risk, occasionally even a perverse one, is an inherent part of that spirit. Laying out trends, and banking on them – even if it’s just a little bit of credibility on the line, rather than millions of dollars in venture capital – is rooted deeply into the cultural fabric of the industry. After all, even the most boneheaded trend can stimulate dialogue, trigger the imaginations of tomorrow’s problem solvers, and make life a little better.

It’s in that spirit that we humbly stick our necks out every year to propose Ten Trends that we believe will shape the year to come. Each year, we spend hundreds of hours talking with venture capitalists, brainstorming with technical innovators, and scrutinizing investment research reports. This year, we worked closely with ChangeWave Research and its team of experts to grab key data points for our trends from its technology alliance. We used its surveys of technology users to propel our discussion of how each trend will impact markets, disrupt some of today’s dominant players, and maybe create a few of tomorrow’s industry leaders.

To that end, we’ve delved into a wide range of nascent trends in everything from biotechnology to semiconductors that could shake up the world next year. We’ve also tried to look at this year’s trends – like Internet telephony – and find the surprising ways in which they’ll be implemented. We looked for technologies with innovative capabilities and the potential to redefine not only the way we do things, but how we think about them. For example, the ability of voice-over-IP to destroy today’s concept of distance. Of course, we like to think we’ve attacked these trends with the skepticism that’s always been part of the Red Herring tradition. But in a post-bubble world, it’s important to take the risk of being wrong again. It’s all too easy to resort to waffling as a cheap way to look smart. No thanks. We’ll take our cue from Bill Gates on this one. After all, it’s better to be wrong occasionally if that makes the world, and the one sticking his neck out, a little richer.

This year’s Top 10 Trends:

From speed races to duels

Moore’s Law is challenged as the chip industry changes tactics to avoid a meltdown.

The death of distance

VoIP is cheap, no doubt. What is more interesting is what it can do.

We know who you are

The identity and access management crisis.

Silencing the genes

After the hype, and then the lull, biotechs are making progress in pushing RNAi therapies into real-world treatments and real-deal revenues.

Micro energy, finally?

After heating up great expectations and then missing deadlines, the fuel cell industry could finally hit its stride next year.

Where is that file?

As the storage capacity of personal computers has expanded, innovators see a business opportunity in searching the final frontier – your desktop.

Baby boomers left to their own devices

As an aging population continues to seek the fountain of youth, the medical equipment market promises answers.

The web goes to pieces

Don’t blink – web services just became real.

The U.S takes a 3G thrashing

The next generation in cellular could leave the U.S. even further behind.

Home sweet digital home

Will computer companies or consumer electronics makers own the keys to the wired house?

December 27, 2004 at 12:33 PM in Web/Tech | Permalink | TrackBack (7) | Top of page | Blog Home

BLOGROLLING UPDATE

Pejmanesque: BLOGROLLING UPDATE: From Pejmanesque

"It's been quite a long time since the blogroll was updated. Some longtime members got shuffled around, so be sure to check for that. And some new blogs got added. Here they are ...... "

December 27, 2004 at 11:23 AM in Blogging & feeds | Permalink | TrackBack (8) | Top of page | Blog Home

December 25, 2004

The Year in Technology - 2004

Yahoo! News - The Year in Technology

Thu Dec 23,12:41 AM ET
By Cynthia L. Webb, washingtonpost.com Staff Writer

Will 2004 be remembered as the year the technology sector grew up? There are plenty of reasons to think so.

From Silicon Valley darling Google coming out of its cocoon in the biggest IPO since the tech bust, to the mainstreaming of open-source software and the rise of satellite radio, the year was full of signs that technology companies are not just done licking their wounds -- they're expanding, investing and otherwise preparing to write the next chapter of the New Economy manifesto.

In the past year, broadband outpaced dial-up connections in the U.S. for the first time, hinting yet again that the long-promised digital convergence is just around the corner. Desktop search applications and the major commitment by Yahoo, Microsoft, Amazon.com and a host of start-ups to challenge Google in the search-engine space ensures a heady competitive race that will surely pay off in great new features for consumers and businesses. For hardware manufacturers like Apple, Dell and Hewlett-Packard, the focus these days seems to be less on personal computers and more on a host of tech gadgets that play music, movies, games, or take pictures, record audio and organize your day. And don't forget the ubiquity of WiFi...

Here's my Top 10 list of the technology developments that I think were most notable this year and are likely to remain a significant influence on the sector in 2005:

10. VoIP's Big Leap: Vonage, Skype and other companies offering Internet telephone services proved in 2004 that the Web is about to revolutionize the century-old telecommunications industry. The rise of Voice-over-Internet Protocol forced traditional carriers like AT&T to devise their own VoIP offerings. Perhaps more importantly, VoIP highlighted the need for greater investments in rolling out high-speed wiring to the nation's households and businesses, as the broadband pipe of the future will be expected to carry a heavy stream of digital communications. Retailers are latching onto VoIP too. Just yesterday, Vonage announced that CompUSA will sell Vonage service at its stores and online. The VoIP revolution has just begun.

9. Merger Mania: The technology sector went on an M&A binge in 2004, especially in the last three months. The merger-of-the-year award surely goes to Oracle's Larry Ellison, who finally managed to gobble up rival business software firm PeopleSoft in a $10.3 billion deal. The security software space had its own whopper of a deal last week, with Symantec purchasing Veritas for $13.5 billion. Some of technology's heavies made smaller acquisitions as they seek leverage in the bigger battles for consumers' eyeballs and wallets. Microsoft recently added an anti-spyware firm into its empire, and Google has been boosting its search services by buying technology firms, such as its October purchase of digital mapping company Keyhole Corp. The giant Sprint-Nextel deal sets up a three-way battle for subscribers in the wireless industry in 2005.

8. iPod Nation: The iPod digital music player not only boosted Apple's bottom line in 2004, but also gave a big boost to the popularity of MP3 players and the commercialization of legal music downloads. Not since the debut of Sony's Walkman in the 1980s has a tech gadget become such a cultural phenomenon. Meanwhile, Apple's iTunes Music Store and competing services from Microsoft, RealNetworks, and even Wal-Mart are proving that fans can be trained to use the Internet to purchase music, instead of just downloading it for free from one of the many renegade file-sharing services. Case in point: Apple said last week that iTunes has sold more than 200 million songs so far.

7. Pay-For-Play: As Apple succeeds in getting people to pay for music downloads, the underground world of swapping copyrighted material online continues to grow. The Recording Industry Association of America (news - web sites) and the Motion Picture Association of America continued their legal campaign against Internet piracy in 2004, but it's debatable whether slapping consumers and Internet service providers with lawsuits is cutting down on the problem or just pushing the practice into a deeper black market. The entertainment industry trade groups are showing no signs of letting up. But all eyes will be on the Supreme Court next year, as the justices weigh whether the makers of file-swapping software are responsible for their customers' violation of copyrights. Over in Congress, lawmakers debated several laws that would have imposed even tougher penalties on file-sharers. Congress will surely debate the copyright issue again next year, and, as my washingtonpost.com comrade David McGuire concluded, the direction lawmakers will take on copyright protection legislation in 2005 is an open question.

6. The Song in the Sky: It wasn't that long ago that it was an open question whether the two satellite radio companies -- XM and Sirius -- could lure enough customers to stay afloat. The past year certainly showed that the profit potential is there. Last month, Sirius hired ex-Viacom head Mel Karmazin as CEO and also brought on raunchy DJ Howard Stern in a $500 million deal. XM, for its part, hired NPR veteran Bob Edwards and continues to lead Sirius in the subscriber race. Will satellite radio turn FM into the next AM backwater?

5. Squelching Spyware and Spam: Cyber-security threats only got worse in 2004, just like all the experts predicted last year. Spam, by some estimates, now makes up 60 percent of all e-mail messages sent across the Internet. Spyware, meanwhile, infects 67 percent of all PCs connected to the Web, according to a recent study. "Phishing" attacks, which lure unsuspecting PC users to bogus online sites to steal financial and other private data, took off in a big way in 2004. New laws and a rash of lawsuits targeting online scammers look nice in the headlines, but aren't likely to make a dent in Internet crime. So what is to be done? It's going to take more diligence from individual PC users -- arm your PC with updated firewall, anti-virus and anti-spyware programs, and don't forget to download regular updates for your operating system (particularly if you are one of the more than 90 percent of PC users on a Microsoft-powered system).

4. Firefox Rising: Netscape came back to challenge Microsoft's Internet Explorer Web browser in 2004, this time in the form of Firefox, the browser application built by the Mozilla Foundation and based partly on the original Netscape engine. Since the release of its version 1.0 last month, more than 10 million copies of the free application have been downloaded, putting a small dent in Internet Explorer's otherwise commanding lead and prompting raves from tech reviewers.

3. Open Sesame: The success of Firefox gave the open-source movement additional clout over the last year, but it was the continued mainstreaming of Linux (news - web sites) that made headlines over and over again in 2004, as governments, big businesses (Intel and IBM!) and regular home users increasingly took steps away from proprietary software. Microsoft, as the world's dominant software firm, has the most to lose from the rise of Linux. In September, the company wrote in an SEC filing that open source software is a growing threat and noted "IBM's endorsement of Linux has accelerated its acceptance as an alternative. ... Linux's competitive position has also benefited from the large number of compatible applications now produced by many leading commercial software developers as well as non-commercial software developers."

2. Blogs Get Real: Web logs have become so mainstream that Merriam-Webster reported that the word "blog" was the most looked-up word of 2004. Blogs started ages ago in Internet time, but what was new in 2004 was the attention they finally got from traditional media outlets. Blogs were put under the spotlight during the Republican and Democratic national conventions, but it was on Election Day that they perhaps had their biggest impact, when numerous bloggers posted early election exit poll data. "Are blogs journalism?" was a big question of 2004. Perhaps the question in future years is whether journalism itself evolves into endless blogging. Tech giants are certainly betting that the blog revolution is here to stay, with Microsoft rolling out its own blogging software. Nick Denton's Gawker Media empire, which includes the popular Wonkette, is surely a sign that the profit potential is there.

1. The Search For Dominance: Google's wildly successful IPO helped shine the light again on the search engine industry and its potential to attract advertisers and profits. And it was Google that set the pace for the search-engine wars time and again in 2004. In the spring, the company unveiled a beta version of its Gmail e-mail service -- offering users 1 gigabyte of free storage. That move alone quickly forced Yahoo and Microsoft to up the paltry storage limits they already offered to their e-mail users. Google then offered up its own desktop search tool, beating Microsoft out of the gates. So if Google established a big lead in 2004, that means it has a target on its back in 2005. Watch the company's stock price as Microsoft digs deep into its bank account to catch up, and don't forget all those little start-ups in Silicon Valley. Somewhere out there could be the next Sergey Brin and Larry Page.
Your Top 10 Takes?

Drop me a note with your nominations for 2004's biggest tech trends. I will publish selected reader comments after the holiday break. Please include your full name, city and state.
Happy Holidays!

Thanks for putting Filter on your bookmark list and for your e-mail feedback. I'll be taking the next two weeks off. But Filter will be back online Jan. 3, with my colleague Robert MacMillan filling in; I'll be back online on Jan. 5. To get your Filter fix until then, check out the archives.

Have a safe, happy holiday. Enjoy your eggnog, don't linger under the mistletoe too long and see you online in 2005! Happy New Year!

Filter is designed for hard-core techies, news junkies and technology professionals alike. Have suggestions, cool links or interesting tales to share? Send your tips and feedback to cindyDOTwebbATwashingtonpost.com.

December 25, 2004 at 09:47 AM in Web/Tech | Permalink | TrackBack (6) | Top of page | Blog Home

December 23, 2004

What would you want to see in Microsoft's IE?

What would you want to see in Microsoft's IE? - ZDNet UK Insight

Paul Festa
CNET News.com
September 30, 2004, 15:00 GMT
Even if Microsoft is trying to kill off standalone browsers, people are still trying to convince it to add features to IE

While Microsoft is attempting to make standalone browsers a thing of the past, Web developers and surfers alike are trying to push the company to bring Internet Explorer up to the present.

With no major upgrade in three years, apart from last month's XP Service Pack 2 security release, IE is showing its age. Despite this, Microsoft's browser software remains the industry standard, with 95 percent of the market, even though small competitors like the Mozilla Foundation's Firefox, Apple Computer's Safari and Opera Software's browser have apparently made inroads.

Microsoft has steadfastly refused to issue another standalone browser and has reserved the recent security upgrade to IE for people with the Windows XP operating system -- about half the 390 million users of Windows worldwide, according to research firm IDC.

But if Microsoft could be persuaded to update IE, what features would Web developers and surfers like to see?

Perhaps first on Web surfers' list is tabbed browsing. This feature, offered since the earliest versions of Opera in 1996 and subsequently by Mozilla-based browsers and Safari, lets the user open multiple Web pages within the same browser window. Fans of tabbed browsing say it reduces clutter and helps organise pages gleaned from search results.

Microsoft acknowledges the appeal of tabbed browsing.

"Once you start doing tabs, you never go back to a browser without tabs," said Gary Schare, director of security product management for Windows. "But like anything else, it's a matter of resourcing and prioritising what we work on."

Schare recommended third-party browsers based on IE that provide tabbed browsing, such as NetCaptor and Maxthon.

Another feature high on many Web surfers' wish list is live bookmarks, such as those available in Firefox, which display dynamically updated content from RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feeds along with the browser's bookmarks (or, in IE parlance, "Favourites").

If you want to get Web developers riled up, ask them about IE's support for CSS (cascading style sheets) and the PNG image format.

With CSS, bugs have lingered for years. Developers call IE's rendering of certain PNG images "ugly."

"It has been *seven years* since 'native PNG' support was announced for IE 4.0," wrote a respondent to a hotly discussed Microsoft Web log on the subject. "While I am pleased that development on IE will continue, and I'm hopeful that the issues I have with it will be addressed, I'm not holding my breath. Microsoft has squandered much of the public support and trust it once had, and it will take a lot more than vaporous quasi-announcements to win that back. The vague pronouncements released so far have been meaningless, except in a touchy-feely PR sort of way. There has been zero commitment, after making us wait many years."

Microsoft acknowledges the hue and cry over standards support but insists that it's acting prudently in holding back full CSS and PNG support.

"There are certainly aspects of IE rendering that developers would love to see some changes to," Schare said. "The challenge is that changing the way IE works along those lines has huge ramifications for backwards compatibility for Web sites that people have been building for years and years."

While developers call on Microsoft to give IE a general makeover, and Microsoft insists that its browser feature development efforts are strictly reserved for Longhorn, some people are posting wish lists of their own, including some on Microsoft's own Channel 9 blog site.

December 23, 2004 at 01:13 PM in Browsers | Permalink | TrackBack (13) | Top of page | Blog Home

Microsoft says Firefox 'not a threat to IE'

Microsoft says Firefox 'not a threat to IE' - ZDNet UK News

Munir Kotadia
ZDNet Australia
November 11, 2004, 11:52 GMT

Talkback
Tell us your opinion
Internet Explorer is no less secure than any other browser on the market and does not lack any important features, according to the Microsoft. Senior IT figures doubt them, however

Internet Explorer (IE) is no less secure than any other browser and does not lack any important features, according to Microsoft. But the managing director of Cisco admitted that he wouldn’t use IE without additional protection.

At a security round-table discussion in Sydney on Thursday, Microsoft's security and management product manager, Ben English, told attendees that IE undergoes "rigorous code reviews" and is no less secure than any other browser.

"Because IE is ubiquitous you hear a lot more about it, but I don't think that Internet Explorer is any less secure than any other browser out there," said English.

However, Ross Fowler, managing director of Cisco Australia and New Zealand, said the network giant uses IE internally but only after deploying its Secure Agent, which is a desktop utility that monitors all activity and alerts the user if it spots something unusual -- such as a keystroke logging program.

"Internally we have deployed Cisco Secure Agent to prevent those day-zero attacks and we have more and more of our customers -- particularly in the University sector -- deploying the Cisco secure agent,” said Fowler.

No threat from Firefox
Microsoft Australia's managing director, Steve Vamos, said that he did not believe IE's market share was under threat after the recent high profile launch of Mozilla's Firefox browser.

Vamos said that although he has heard other people mention the threat posed by Firefox, he does not believe the threat is real.

"I’m not sure that that is the reality. I have seen comments around that but there is nothing I can refer to that really supports that," he said. Instead, Vamos added, users needed educating about all the features already offered by Microsoft’s browser.

"We probably need to do a bit of work to communicate the features that are in IE," he said.

Vamos, who admitted he has never used Firefox, said there is a lot of hype surrounding the open source movement and if Microsoft's customers wanted new features they would have told the company about it.

"I don’t agree is that just because a (competing) product has a feature that we don’t have, that feature is important. It is not. It is only important if it is a feature the customer wants. There are plenty of products out there with features we don’t have. We have plenty of features that our customers don’t use.

"If there are features in our products that are sub-par or need to be added then I have great confidence that we are an organisation that responds pretty quickly and effectively to that," said Vamos.

Microsoft's English reiterated that features such as tabbed browsing were not important to IE users.

"I don't believe it is a true statement that IE doesn’t have the features that our customers want. We take user feedback very seriously. If you have that feedback then you should feed it back to us because we will feed it to the product team," said English.

December 23, 2004 at 01:11 PM in Browsers | Permalink | TrackBack (7) | Top of page | Blog Home

Firefox hits 10-million mark

Firefox hits 10-million mark - ZDNet UK News

he open-source browser has now been downloaded over 10 million times in a month - but Microsoft says it isn't worried

Firefox, the open-source challenger to market heavyweight Internet Explorer, has surpassed 10 million downloads in a little more than a month since the browser was released in November.

The free Web browser from the Mozilla Foundation notched up 10 million downloads on Saturday as Web surfers continue to move away from Microsoft's market-dominating IE. The milestone highlights growing frustration with the security vulnerabilities that have dogged IE during the past few months. Nearly two dozen holes in the Web browser have been discovered during the autumn, ranging in degrees of seriousness.

Niels Brinkman, co-founder of research firm OneStat.com, said in a statement in November: "It seems that people are switching from Microsoft's Internet Explorer to Mozilla's new Firefox browser."

Firefox has surpassed the 10 million download mark while gaining five percentage points in May to 7.4 percent in November, according to OneStat.com.

Firefox's percentage gain helped cut into Microsoft's dominance of the Web browser market, cutting its market share to less than 90 percent. OneStat reported in November that IE's market share had slipped to 88.9 percent in the third week of November, down five percentage points from its share in May. Mozilla-based browsers, including Firefox, rose to 7.4 percent, up five percentage points from May.

Microsoft has disputed these numbers, claiming that they do not represent corporate users.

Gary Schare, Microsoft's director of product management for Windows, said of OneStat's statistics: "It doesn't jibe with what WebSideStory shows, and what neither of these count is corporate intranets where users aren't actually hitting the Web."

On Wednesday, the Pennsylvania State University's Information Technology Services department recommended that students drop IE in favour of Firefox and Apple's Safari to reduce attacks through vulnerabilities in the Microsoft software. The university said "media reports" and a string of warnings by Carnegie Mellon University's Computer Emergency and Response Team led to its recommendation.

December 23, 2004 at 01:10 PM in Browsers | Permalink | TrackBack (11) | Top of page | Blog Home

Opera hints at version 8 with latest beta

Opera hints at version 8 with latest beta - Yahoo! UK & Ireland News

By Matt Loney, ZDNet UK

With voice commands, shrinking Web pages and improved RSS tools, Opera is confident that the beta of its new browser has enough new features to merit a jump to version 8.0

Norwegian browser company Opera Software released a beta version of its latest browser on Thursday.

This was intended to be the beta for version 7.6 of the browser, but the company says its new features are so substantial that "it exceeds the next logical version number and warrants a major release." This suggests a major version jump, backed up by the fact that the beta's 'about' page refers to itself as version 8.0.

The beta can be downloaded from Opera's Web site.

Opera chief executive Jon S. von Tetzchner said people who have licensed Opera 7 will receive free upgrades when the new version is officially released.

The new Opera browser includes an updated and more prominent RSS tool, and rendering technology designed to cut out the need for horizontally scrolling across Web pages, regardless of screen size. The same technology also means that online content can be printed on any size of paper without cutting off the edges. The browser will also contain an accessibility feature that allows uses to magnify Web pages and view them without scrolling sideways.

The renderer uses a combination of techniques: it reflows page elements where possible, and resizes them to fit where necessary. Depending on how a Web page has been written, this can result in either a rescaled version of the page, or some elements being pushed to the bottom of the page.

Opera has been working on the problem of rendering Web pages on small screens for some time. It produces versions of its browser for various mobile phones including Nokia, Sony Ericsson, Panasonic and Siemens handsets. It also recently added support for Microsoft smartphones, reversing its self-imposed ban on producing software for Microsoft.

The new version of Opera also features voice technology, allowing users to browse the Web using spoken commands, such as "Opera next link", "Opera back", or "Opera speak".

As Microsoft's Internet Explorer browser continues to suffer from high-profile security flaws, users have been flocking to alternatives in recent months.

Mozilla's Firefox browser "usage share" had climbed to four percent by mid-December, from three percent just before the launch of Version 1.0 in early November, according to San Diego-based WebSideStory, which sells Web site traffic monitoring software and services. Firefox appears to have taken that percentage point directly from IE, which slipped from 93 percent to 92 percent.

Another Web site metrics firm, Amsterdam, Netherlands-based OneStat.com, last month showed IE dipping below the 90 percent mark.

By WebSideStory's count, non-Firefox Netscape browsers accounted for three percent of the market, unchanged from the prior month, and other browsers -- which include Opera and Apple's Safari browser -- accounted for one percent of usage.

December 23, 2004 at 12:56 PM in Browsers | Permalink | TrackBack (2) | Top of page | Blog Home

Sony Says It's Not Leaving U.S. Plasma TV Market

Yahoo! News - Sony Says It's Not Leaving U.S. Plasma TV Market

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Sony Corp (NYSE:SNE - news) (news - web sites). on Wednesday said it had no plans to abandon the market for plasma-screen television sets in the United States in the near term, though it did not say specifically what its intentions were internationally

"Sony has absolutely no intention of abandoning our plasma television business in the U.S. in 2005 or the foreseeable future," Sony Electronics said in a statement.

A spokeswoman for Sony Electronics said she could only comment for the United States and that corporate representatives in Japan were not available to comment.

Earlier this week Sony representatives in Japan said the company may consider abandoning the market for plasma TVs at some point in the future but for the time being would continue to make the TV sets.

Japanese media had reported that Sony, the No. 2 plasma TV maker, could pull out of that market as soon as the spring of 2005.

Sony executives have said they will focus their attention in future on Liquid Crystal Display, or LCD television sets, a different technology than plasma that up to now has been used primarily for smaller screens.

Plasma sets use tiny pockets of gases to display images, while LCDs use crystals sandwiched between glass. Prices have fallen steadily on both though they remain more expensive than traditional TVs with retail prices starting at over $2,000 in the United States.

Sony has a joint venture with Samsung Electronics for mass LCD production starting in 2005. By contrast, it has to source all of its plasma panels from outside manufacturers.

December 23, 2004 at 12:54 PM in Web/Tech | Permalink | TrackBack (19) | Top of page | Blog Home

December 22, 2004

Browser Wars

Yahoo! News - Browser Wars

Thu Dec 16, 3:00 AM
Michael Desmond
Are you sick and tired of Internet Explorer? Have you grown weary of the constant vulnerabilities and patches? Do you scratch your head at sudden program lockups and crashes? Are you dismayed that Microsoft hasn't lifted a finger to improve or enhance IE since it buried Netscape's Navigator browser at the dawn of the century?

Yeah, me too.

Welcome to Internet Explorer backlash. For the first time since Microsoft launched its flagship browser in 1995, Internet Explorer is actually losing market share. Research firm WebSideStory reported that the enormous chunk of IE users declined from a high of 95 percent in June to 92.9 percent in October. That number could drop further, as a sudden wealth of good browser options attracts users of all stripes.

A lot of the credit can go to the folks at the open-source Mozilla Foundation, which was established in 1998 to breathe new life into the fast-failing Netscape browser platform. It's taken six years and the utter failure of Netscape the company, but Mozilla is finally delivering on its promise.

Today, not one, but two significant browser alternatives are powered by Mozilla's Gecko software code base--America Online's Netscape 7.2 and the wildly popular new Firefox 1.0 browser. Of course, even those two aren't the only IE challengers: A third major alternative, the Opera browser from Opera Software, has been serving disaffected IE users for years.

With so many choices just a software download away, questions swirl. Why should you care? Which browser is best? And after all is said and done, should you really switch? Software junkies may tell you the answers are obvious and conclusions foregone, but wait; read on.
It's the Tabs, Stupid

There are a lot of reasons why users are fleeing Microsoft Internet Explorer, but a lot of it boils down to security. Microsoft has chosen to run IE like a highly automated factory. ActiveX controls, dynamic HTML, and other technologies deliver lots of automation and programmatic control over IE. That's great if you want to integrate, say, a billing system with your browser, or have Web sites offer dynamic interfaces. But those same controls can be misused or targeted, amplifying the threat from malicious code.

Microsoft's response has been a grim parade of patches, fixes, and advisories. In some instances, Microsoft has suggested turning off features or setting security levels so high that they disable the very capabilities that make IE attractive in the first place. Finally in October, Microsoft released Windows XP (news - web sites) Service Pack 2, a wholesale update that helped close many of the vulnerabilities in Internet Explorer.

But understand this: No browser is without flaws. Mozilla patched some holes of its own prior to the Firefox 1.0 release, and Opera has issued a few security-centric updates in the past year. The problem for Microsoft is the overwhelming popularity of its browser. Virus writers and hackers target IE because there are so many systems running it.

Perhaps more frustrating than security leaks is the fact that Microsoft quit adding new features to its browser. The last major feature refresh for IE dates back to August 2001--and it shows. Firefox, Netscape, and Opera all offer significant feature improvements over IE, including tabbed browsing for juggling multiple Web pages, and built-in pop-up blocking to prevent ads from opening new browser windows. Other refinements include helpful managers for file downloads, integrated search bars, and more accessible controls for managing histories, cookie files, and the browser cache.

In fact, the future of Web browsing comes down to one word: tabs. I realized it the instant I fired up multiple pages in a single Opera program window. Just like that, I could browse a half-dozen Web pages with ease, jumping from one to the next simply by clicking on the little tabs at the top of the window. What's more, I could open multiple tabbed pages in the background, so they could load while I looked at the page in the foreground.

Not all tabbing systems are created equal, and no one has done it perfectly yet. Opera gets the nod for best keyboard shortcuts. For example, I can close a tabbed page by holding Shift and clicking on the page tab; clicking the tab for the foreground page bounces me to the last page I viewed. I can even drag tabs around to keep pages in neat order. Both Firefox and Netscape offer tabbing that is a bit more rigid.
Time to Switch?

Of the four browsers I've worked with--IE, Firefox, Netscape, and Opera--Firefox 1.0 stood out as the best overall choice. The browser does an excellent job of faithfully displaying Web pages, offers a superior user interface, and suffers fewer crashes than my previous favorite, Opera. It's also highly customizable through something called Firefox Extensions. I installed one module that lets me navigate pages using mouse gestures, a feature I became addicted to during my Opera years.

One area where you'll hear browser makers tout an advantage is performance, or how quickly a browser can show you Web sites. I'd urge you to take any such claims with a grain of salt. In my testing, I found that performance was usually determined by the speed of my Internet connection (not surprisingly) rather than one browser or another. Although Firefox tended to outperform all the others in loading complex pages, we're talking about a difference of one to two seconds.

When the dust settles, the different browsers offer their own unique benefits and drawbacks. Here's a quick take on which browser might be best for you, depending on how you work.

Firefox: The best all-around alternative to IE. Great for power users who want to add functionality to the browser, and appropriate for newbies just getting started.

Internet Explorer: Best for corporate users in controlled environments and those who spend most of their time on Microsoft-branded or IE-specific Web sites.

Netscape: Best for AOL subscribers (with AOL Instant Messenger integration) and those who are willing to put up with some rough edges to use other goodies, including an HTML editor and e-mail program.

Opera: Best for power users who keep many pages open at once and perform frequent downloads. There's an e-mail program included, but banner ads on the free version of the browser are annoying.

So is it time to ditch Internet Explorer once and for all? In a word, no. Microsoft requires its browser to access its Windows Update and Office Update services, and it's not uncommon to find Web sites that are designed specifically for IE. Pages such as MSNBC.com can challenge non-Microsoft browsers. Firefox renders MSNBC pretty well, while Opera fails to render the fly-out menus on the navigation bar.

For the time being, most users will need to keep IE handy, just in case. Keep in mind that you can have more than one browser on your computer. If one acts up, close it and launch the other.

But for general-purpose Web browsing, there is no reason to put off the switch a minute longer. Firefox, Netscape, and Opera are an impressive trio of IE alternatives that could help shelter you from the daily blizzard of Internet exploits.

Michael Desmond is a freelance writer living in Burlington, Vermont. His wife doesn't understand how anyone can get so excited about tabs.

December 22, 2004 at 07:41 PM in Browsers | Permalink | TrackBack (8) | Top of page | Blog Home

December 20, 2004

Clarke condemns the 'Luddites' over identity cards opposition

Times Online - Britain

By Greg Hurst, Political Correspondent
CHARLES CLARKE overcame his first test in the Commons as Home Secretary last night as he steered the Government’s plans for identity cards past opposition from both the Labour and Tory back benches.

The Identity Cards Bill was given a second reading by 385 votes to 93 after Mr Clarke earlier branded opponents of the plan “Luddites” and argued that he had a duty to use technology to protect citizens.

In a combative Commons performance, the new Home Secretary confronted head-on the doubts of a succession of Labour backbenchers to plans for biometric identity cards.

He was challenged by Kate Hoey, the Labour MP for Vauxhall, to rule out a role for Capita — the support services company involved in several controversial public computer contracts — in creating a national identity database.

But Mr Clarke told her bluntly: “There is a Luddite tendency in this House that says we should have no IT projects because there have been mistakes in the past. That is a legitimate position to take but it is not one I am able to support. There are large numbers of areas where the use of technology should be a major asset.”

Mr Clarke told MPs that he was not prepared to exclude any bidder from the process.

Mr Clarke further denied claims from MPs of all parties that a national identity database amounted to a fundamental increase in the power of the State over the citizen.

Bill Cash, the Tory MP for Stone who disagreed with his own party’s backing for the Bill, brandished a copy of George Orwell’s 1984 as he argued that it represented a sea change in the relationship between the individual and the State.

Twice Mr Clarke compared the proposed national identity register to the introduction in 1837 of the requirement to register the birth of every child in England and Wales.

MPs pressed him to explain how identity cards would help to combat terrorism when they had not prevented the Madrid train bombings this year.

Mr Clarke said: “It is clearly the opinion of the police and all the other security services that this Bill will make the identification of people easier and that is why we support it.”

Others, such as the Tory MP Francis Maude, pressed him to say how the supposed benefits of an identity card scheme could apply unless it became a legal requirement to carry a card at all times. The Home Secretary admitted that the Bill could indeed lead to a compulsory identity card scheme, if Parliament approved, but said that it did not create police powers to require people to identify themselves.

Although the Conservative front bench supported the Bill, there were rebel motions opposing its second reading from six Tory MPs led by the former Cabinet minister Douglas Hogg and by 15 left-wing Labour MPs, including Clare Short. Instead, the Tories tabled a separate motion calling for the Bill to be referred to a joint committee of MPs and peers rather than a standing committee of MPs. Under a timetable motion, its committee stage will finish on January 27, two and a half weeks after the Commons returned form the Christmas recess.

David Davis, the Shadow Home Secretary who had privately expressed doubts about the Bill, spoke of the need to balance security against liberty, saying that the duty to protect life must be weighed against the protection of our way of life.

He told MPs that he would not have countenanced identity cards before the September 11 terrorist attacks. “After 9/11, I accept we have to consider them,” he said.

He set out five tests on which the Conservatives would judge the Bill during its passage. Challenged on whether the Opposition would continue to back it at its third reading if the Government refused to make changes, Mr Davis replied: “We will make a judgment — and, if it hasn’t changed at all, I think we will make a judgment which is pretty sceptical of it.”

THE CARD DEAL

2002: Home Office launches consultation on identity cards

2003: Home Office research and surveys

2004: Government launches ID Card Bill

2005: Bill should pass into law

2005-07: Technology to be tested and agreed

2008: First cards issued

2013: Cards could become compulsory

December 20, 2004 at 10:24 PM in Web lifestyle | Permalink | TrackBack (14) | Top of page | Blog Home

December 17, 2004

Revenue from cash machine charges more than doubles in a year

Finextra: Revenue from cash machine charges more than doubles in a year
UK consumers are paying £140 million a year to withdraw money from cash machines, an increase of 133% on the previous 12 months, according to figures compiled by Nationwide Building Society.

In the run up to the Treasury Select Committee's enquiry into charging cash machines, Nationwide estimates there are almost 20,000 fee-charging ATMs in the UK which equates to 40% of the cash machine network.

If the number of fee-charging machines continues to grow at its current pace, says the building society, it is likely that by next Christmas, there will be more fee-charging machines than free ones. Nationwide also claims that 1600 of the fee charging machines are within 100 metres of a free ATM, disproving the claims of independent operators that their estates cover under-serviced locations.

Stuart Bernau, Nationwide's executive director says: "We welcome the Treasury Select Committee's enquiry and hope a code of practice can be devised which will make it easier for consumers to differentiate between charging and free machines. In the meantime consumers need to be wary when taking cash out of ATMs and boycott fee paying machines whenever possible."

December 17, 2004 at 07:27 AM in Financial Services | Permalink | TrackBack (5) | Top of page | Blog Home

December 16, 2004

UK matches US online shopping fervour

UK matches US online shopping fervour - Yahoo! UK & Ireland News

NEW YORK (Reuters) - The number of British consumers buying holiday gifts online this year will more than double, matching U.S. habits, as high-speed Internet use rises and despite increased Internet fraud, a new survey suggests.

Online fraud prevention firm Retail Decisions is set to release on Friday a study which shows 43 percent of UK customers plan to shop online this year versus 46 percent in the United States. Last year, 21 percent of British consumers and 31 percent of U.S. shoppers made purchases online.

"Traditional retailers need to make sure they have a very good online strategy because online shopping is here to stay," Carl Clump, chief executive of Retail Decisions, told Reuters.

"The study indicates that shopping on the Internet is causing some convergence in global terms, and that's why we're seeing very similar behaviour by U.S. consumers and UK consumers," he said.

The most-favoured Internet purchases on both sides of the Atlantic included travel tickets, hotel arrangements, books and music discs, while the speed of completing transactions and delivery was key to maintaining the momentum of Web shopping.

UK customers are still more likely than their American counterparts to order goods over the phone, through mail orders and via interactive television this holiday season, the survey showed.

In all, 57 percent of British consumers and 60 percent of U.S. customers surveyed said they found nothing negative in buying goods online. At the same time, Retail Decisions said it expected a 46 percent rise in potentially suspicious transactions online from a year earlier.

Internet fraud could also increase dramatically in the UK next year as "chip and pin" cards are implemented for in-store purchases, making it harder for criminals to target traditional store shoppers, Retail Decisions said.

Retail Decisions polled 1,000 adults on December 3.

December 16, 2004 at 10:59 PM in eCommerce | Permalink | TrackBack (20) | Top of page | Blog Home

Multi-channel challenge

finextra.com

Is multi-channel service quality within reach for all, asks Angus Hislop, head of European financial Services, Cisco Internet Business Solutions Group

In 1997,Coopers&Lybrand's international banking practice produced some seminal research 'Tomorrow's Leading Retail Bank' predicting that the effective management of multiple distribution channels would be the key challenge for retail bankers in the first decade of the 21st century. They forsaw an era in which all of us could gain access to the right financial expertise 'anytime, anywhere, anyhow'. But still in 2004 only the wealthy with 24 hour access to their private banking team benefit from such a vision. The rest of us must put up with unanswered phone calls and e-mails, constant handovers to see the mortgage or investment expert, or waiting to be put in touch by phone or e-mail to "somebody who can help".

Why has there been so little progress towards joined-up, 'anytime, anywhere, anyhow banking' and is it about to change? Are we about to move from strategic management of multiple channels to real cross-channel collaboration aimed at meeting customers' growing expectations?

Progress has been slow for a number of reasons. We have taken to multiple channel banking faster than expected but have hardly reduced our use of the branch - over 50% of us use three or more channels on a regular basis and only 10% never use the branch. But the infrastructure and applications supporting these channels across the various products are different and expensive to link together. These difficulties have been compounded by an obsession with cost reduction which has driven a wave of domestic mergers adding further complexity and putting service enhancements lower on the agenda.

Three things are now changing. Service quality is back at the top of the CEO's agenda as the 'easy' sources of cost reduction disappear and the potential for large, transformational domestic mergers recedes in most countries. Leaders(Wachovia amongst them) are making customer satisfaction and loyalty key drivers of their future investments as they gain more information on the strong link between such measures and incremental revenue.

Secondly there is a growing realisation that more and better customer contact translates into improved satisfaction and loyalty and can thus drive customer revenues. For example, BNPParibas estimates that an increase in proactive customer contact from annual to quarterly leads to a six point improvement in customer satisfaction ratings.

Furthermore recent data from US research firm, Portland Research Group, calculates that customer purchase intentions plummet from an average of 64% to 48% once more than one handover is made either in the same channel or between channels. Unfortunately experience with two major UK banks reveals that about one third of calls are not dealt with immediately or at first handover and branch staff estimate that some 40% of leads are lost if customers are asked to return to see a specialist or are promised a follow-up call.

Finally a new communications technology has emerged which, when combined with changes in process, enables much more effective customer contact both within and between channels. IP telephony allows convergence across networks voice, data, video, storage at a cost which can make 'anytime, anywhere, anyhow banking' a reality for most of us. Linked to these developments is the rapid take-up/reduced cost of broadband whose speed makes the wider use of functions which demand high bandwidth such as video so much more practical than in the past.

As a result of these changes, retail bankers across the world are beginning to recognise that networks matter. In the past, business leaders did not care too much about the networks used as long as they worked and IT managed them at low cost. Now they are beginning to realise that policy decisions on future networks can have a great impact on the functionality, revenue potential, complexity and costs of their operations. As a consequence network decisions are too important to be left to IT or the outsourcer.

Banks throughout the world are at various stages of implementation, conscious of the need to prove robustness, scalablity and security before full roll-out. In the US, JPMorgan Chase is at the forefront, in the UK it is Abbey - and more recently LloydsTSB - which is investing most heavily and in France BNPParibas and Credit Agricole are taking the lead.

How in practice does this help banks manage multiple distribution channels more effectively and ultimately achieve full multi-channel collaboration? Let us look at some examples. Now if you go to a branch or call your bank to ask for advice about a mortgage or investment, you would be asked to set up a separate appointment, probably in another branch - or you would be promised a call later. But if the bank were enabled with IP telephony and the processes adjusted, the bank worker could simply put you through to an expert who would speak to you on video in a private room with all your relevant data already in front of him/her. And if you were particularly valuable, you would be allocated the most experienced advisor. Credit Suisse are already using this technology to great effect to support credit sales in car showrooms and Credit Agricole uses it in country branches where access to face-to-face expertise is difficult or expensive.

There are other ways in which service can be hugely enhanced. Cameras in branches linked to the same single network can be used to observe queuing patterns and adjust staffing or to support sales training as is common amongst retailers. Call centres need no longer be the same monolithic, conveyor belt operations with high staff turnover and generally poorly paid/trained staff that are typical today.

In future simpler queries may be directed to offshore centres with other calls and e-mails dealt with by much better trained staff able to resolve immediately or at one handover in virtual contact centres. These can be a network of smaller units or operators working partly from home or the branch-all using the same converged network and with access to the same customer data. When a call is received at the branch, home or call centre, the phone rings and displays relevant customer data based on the ID/account number. Calls need no longer go unanswered; the customer is always dealt with in a manner consistent with the business value/priority which has been assigned.

Compliance can also be enhanced since more sales and service conversations will be digitally recorded, allowing easier and less expensive retrieval and access. Retrieving details of conversations - who said what to whom, when and with what data - will be no more difficult than retrieving old emails. Since banks typically are unable to provide incontrovertible proof of correspondance or conversations in 30-40% of complaint cases, there can be considerable benefits in reducing the cost of complaints or proof of compliance with regulations

Of course not all banks understand the critical importance of such communications technology. Many have only recently invested in traditional PBX networks or are locked into leases and baulk at the cost, even when recognising that total cost of ownership is 10-20% less than the old separate networks.

Others have vested interests in the different channels and networks fighting to retain their independence; in such cases there will be references to service standards and uncertain reliability in IP telephony. As experience is gained, such concerns diminish and it is now generally recognised that voice quality is similar to traditional standards and flexibility and resilience very much higher.

Finally, some banks are concerned about the cost of training staff and reengineering processes which are required if the business wants to reap the benefits of this improved telecommunications capability. Or they may have lost much of their ability to influence outcomes because network management has been outsourced without due regard to safeguarding innovation potential.

However those banks which realise that strategic management of multiple and separate distribution channels is simply insufficient for today's customers are finding ways to overcome these challenges. They realise that real cross-channel collaboration in the interest of the customer can only work when converged communications networks are in place. They are becoming an essential prerequisite for success in retail banking.

Related website: www.cisco.com

December 16, 2004 at 08:32 AM in Financial Services | Permalink | TrackBack (17) | Top of page | Blog Home

More banks turning to biometric authentication

Finextra: More banks turning to biometric authentication

US-based Bio-Key has secured a contract with an un-named bank for its finger-based biometric identification system, Web-key. The deal follows a number of recent implementations of biometric technology by financial services firms as part of the fight against fraud.

New Jersey-based Bio-key says a pilot of its Web-key system has been deployed at the commercial banking division of a major global bank which will be used to authenticate institutional customers conducting treasury transactions and electronic funds transfers.

The biometric technology will be used as an alternative to the current identity management system which is based on an electronic token. In the first phase of the pilot the technology will be used by internal staff before being rolled out for use by commercial customers in the second phase.

The Web-key deployment is the latest in a number of implementations of biometric technology at financial services firms. Earlier this month Columbia's Bancafe Bank introduce fingerprint scanning technology across its network of ATMs, effectively eliminating the need for customers to carry cards, while earlier this year Bank of China announced plans to roll out fingerprint authentication technology from Ontario-based Bioscrypt across 1000 branches. Japanese card issuer JCB International has also introduced biometric-based services that allow customers to access account information via mobile hand sets fitted with fingerprint scanners.

Finextra columnist and TowerGroup director Chris Skinner says that banks have to start exploring the use of biometrics in order to tackle hi-tech fraud. Research by TowerGroup shows that 35% of banks have a biometric authentication programme in place although and a further 10% of firms are piloting the technology. Skinner says spending on biometrics will increase from about $1.4 billion this year to about $4 billion in 2007 as the use of biometric technology becomes more mainstream.

December 16, 2004 at 08:28 AM in Financial Services | Permalink | TrackBack (1) | Top of page | Blog Home

Moneybox calls off takeover talks; lobbies for share of Link interchange fees

Finextra: Moneybox calls off takeover talks; lobbies for share of Link interchange fees

Independent ATM operator Moneybox has discontinued talks with potential suitors while it awaits the outcome of a government inquiry into cash machine fees.

The struggling UK-based vendor was approached by unspecified third parties after warning in September of a £1.5 million shortfall in profits for the year. In a trading statement, Moneybox has confirmed September's guidance and signalled £4 million in exceptional costs relating to cost-cutting measures instituted in the intervening period.

The firm says it has also made a detailed submission to the Treasury Select Committee (TSC), which is to conduct an investigation into ATM charges. Moneybox is lobbying the Committee for a share of the interchange fee currently available to banks operating over the national Link network. The firm says upfront consumer access fees could be lowered if it were able to recover an interchange fee through Link.

Moneybox says the TSC investigation provides an opportunity to encourage wider scrutiny of the current regulatory regime governing ATMs.

"We believe strongly that changes in the structure of charges made by Link, the monopoly supplier of switching services between card-issuers and ATM deployers, would potentially be of benefit to consumers and would significantly improve the competitive position of IADs (independent ATM deployers)," the statement continues. "In the light of this, and in view of the nature of approaches so far received, the Board has decided it would be inappropriate to continue talks with any potential offerors."

December 16, 2004 at 08:26 AM in Financial Services | Permalink | TrackBack (17) | Top of page | Blog Home

US regulator urges banks to upgrade Internet security

Finextra: US regulator urges banks to upgrade Internet security

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation is urging US banks to abandon single password-based ID systems in favour of two-factor authentication following a sharp rise in 'account hijacking' ID theft.

The outline guidance follows an FDIC investigation into the problem, which suggests that unauthorised access to bank accounts is the fastest growing form of identity theft.

In publishing its findings, the agency points to Federal Trade Commission estimates that almost 2 million US adult Internet users experienced this type of fraud during the 12 months ending in April 2004. Of those, 70% did their banking or paid their bills online and over half believed that they had received a phishing e-mail.

The FDIC says that fraudsters are taking advantage of the reliance on single-factor authentication for remote access to online banking, and the lack of e-mail and Web site authentication, to perpetrate account hijacking.

The regulator says financial institutions and government agencies should consider a number of steps to reduce online fraud, including upgrading existing password-based single-factor customer authentication systems to two-factor authentication systems.

The FDIC says banks should also use scanning software to pro-actively defend against phishing attacks. Customer education and information sharing among banks is also recommended.

The FDIC says it hopes to use the study to formulate guidance to bankers next year. Comments are invited by 11 February, 2005.

December 16, 2004 at 08:24 AM in Financial Services | Permalink | TrackBack (15) | Top of page | Blog Home

December 15, 2004

Google Checks out Library Books

washingtonpost.com:

Google Checks out Library Books ( The Libraries of Harvard, Stanford, the University of Michigan, the University of Oxford, and The New York Public Library Join with Google to Digitally Scan Library Books and Make Them Searchable Online )

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif., Dec 14, 2004 (BUSINESS WIRE) -- As part of its effort to make offline information searchable online, Google Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG) today announced that it is working with the libraries of Harvard, Stanford, the University of Michigan, and the University of Oxford as well as The New York Public Library to digitally scan books from their collections so that users worldwide can search them in Google.

"Even before we started Google, we dreamed of making the incredible breadth of information that librarians so lovingly organize searchable online," said Larry Page, Google co-founder and president of Products. "Today we're pleased to announce this program to digitize the collections of these amazing libraries so that every Google user can search them instantly.

"Our work with libraries further enhances the existing Google Print program, which enables users to find matches within the full text of books, while publishers and authors monetize that information," Page added. "Google's mission is to organize the world's information, and we're excited to be working with libraries to help make this mission a reality."

Today's announcement is an expansion of the Google Print(TM) program, which assists publishers in making books and other offline information searchable online. Google is now working with libraries to digitally scan books from their collections, and over time will integrate this content into the Google index, to make it searchable for users worldwide.

"We believe passionately that such universal access to the world's printed treasures is mission-critical for today's great public university," said Mary Sue Coleman, President of the University of Michigan.

For publishers and authors, this expansion of the Google Print program will increase the visibility of in and out of print books, and generate book sales via "Buy this Book" links and advertising. For users, Google's library program will make it possible to search across library collections including out of print books and titles that weren't previously available anywhere but on a library shelf.

Users searching with Google will see links in their search results page when there are books relevant to their query. Clicking on a title delivers a Google Print page where users can browse the full text of public domain works and brief excerpts and/or bibliographic data of copyrighted material. Library content will be displayed in keeping with copyright law. For more information and examples, please visit http://print.google.com/library.

About Google Inc.

Google's innovative search technologies connect millions of people around the world with information every day. Founded in 1998 by Stanford Ph.D. students Larry Page and Sergey Brin, Google today is a top web property in all major global markets. Google's targeted advertising program, which is the largest and fastest growing in the industry, provides businesses of all sizes with measurable results, while enhancing the overall web experience for users. Google is headquartered in Silicon Valley with offices throughout North America, Europe, and Asia. For more information, visit http://www.google.com.

SOURCE: Google Inc.

CONTACT: Google Inc. Nathan Tyler, 650-623-4311 nate@google.com

Copyright (C) 2004 Business Wire. All rights reserved.

December 15, 2004 at 11:22 PM in Portals | Permalink | TrackBack (25) | Top of page | Blog Home

I'm broke but I've £12,000 to spend

Telegraph | Money | I'm broke but I've £12,000 to spend

The Bank of England has warned that spiralling levels of credit card borrowing threaten our financial stability. Chloe Rhodes, 25, spent a week in search of extra plastic – and discovered how easy it is to borrow to the hilt and beyond

Like millions of people across the country, I get so carried away by the celebration of giving at Christmas that I can almost forget that debt is bad. What better time could there be to maximise my spending power with a few more credit cards?

Of course, I know that borrowing can be dangerous. Figures published by the Department of Trade and Industry show that individual bankruptcies have increased by 30 per cent since last year, and experts say that credit card debt is most often to blame. Credit card use has become so widespread that Britain now has more credit cards – 67 million – than people.

Store card use is increasing, too, according to the consumer magazine Which?, as retailers use the hard sell on weary Christmas shoppers. The Bank of England even warned yesterday that the rise in credit card borrowing might pose a threat to future financial stability; yet it has never been easier to apply for more.

I spent a few hours online looking for credit cards, allowing myself to succumb to the temptations of cash-back rewards and interest-free offers, but with student debts still to pay, I didn't fancy my chances. A short time later, I discovered I was wrong, as lender after lender gave me the go-ahead. A week later, I was in possession of no fewer than seven credit cards, the lowest initial spending limit coming in at a generous £750. There are 10 shopping days until Christmas and I have access to more than £12,000.

This would be alarming enough if I had some spare cash to cover the repayments. But I don't. I'm 25 years old, earn less than £25,000 a year and am paying off a student loan, a graduate loan, and taking small but earnest steps to reduce my substantial overdraft. The swiftest glance at one of my bank statements would have convinced any would-be lender that I'm already operating at full capacity.

Only one of the companies I applied to asked me to provide details of my income and expenditure; the others simply noted my good credit rating and employment status and flung their arms wide in welcome. It turns out I'm the perfect customer: I have a full-time job, a husband (though one almost as financially stretched as me), a fixed address and, most important it seems, a sizeable balance on an existing credit card for which I pay the minimum amount each month.

Francis Walker of the Consumer Credit Counselling Service says using a card in this way is often what causes borrowers to get into trouble. "If you just pay the minimum every month, you will find that your debt can spiral quite quickly. Ideally, people should aim to pay off credit card debts within two to three months and borrow only as much as they can afford.

"As a guideline, we suggest that borrowers should add up all the money they pay off in debt each month and if it comes to more than 20 per cent of their take-home income, they should seek professional advice about how best to repay it."

According to these calculations, I'm not far off the advice-seeking stage. This is also true of many of my peers. Young people with limited disposable cash are lucrative clients for credit card companies; they will often pay off as little as possible each month, making their creditors rich in the process. The UK Insolvency Helpline, a professional network of lawyers and accountants specialising in money advice, has identified this group as being particularly vulnerable.

Financial counsellor Ian Richardson says large numbers of young people are overly reliant on credit cards. "Too many youngsters use credit cards to pay basic utility bills and rent, which is never a good idea. We suggest that they should use credit cards only for necessities and be aware of when their bill will come through, so they can budget ahead and repay it. They often think of it as a cash cow providing endless free money, which can lead them into trouble."

My generation does seem to regard debt more casually. My parents use their credit card only sparingly, paying back the full balance every month, and even this sensible usage must have seemed frivolous to my grandparents, who paid for everything they bought with cash they had saved.

I shared this ethos when I started university, armed with £1,000 saved from temping jobs and a determination to make it through my three years with as little debt as possible. So where did it all go wrong?

It's difficult to pinpoint the precise moment, as my resolve didn't so much crack as gradually wither away. Most students who graduated in 2001 did so with £10,000 of debt; this year, it will be nearer £15,000. For me, this had the effect of slowly but surely eradicating my scruples about owing money. Every student who takes out a loan has to adapt to the idea of living on borrowed money, and this can make it all too easy to continue to view debt in this way when you start out on the bottom rung of the career ladder.

This was the case for 26-year-old Melissa Chambers, who racked up £6,000 of credit card debt within three years of graduating. She has managed to reduce her debt to £4,000 on two different credit cards, but is relaxed about living beyond her means.

"At university, I took out loans, even though I didn't really need them to live on, because they were just so readily available. I spent the money on frivolous things, so when I graduated and the loan option wasn't there any more, I moved on to credit cards. I use them for all my luxuries – clothes, haircuts, Christmas presents. On my salary, I can't afford to spend more than £100 a month on clothes – but I always do.

"My view is that there's no point stressing about it now because the money will always come from somewhere. I've got some savings and there's always my flat to fall back on if I ever get into serious trouble. Maybe knowing that has made me more complacent."

For David Gosling, a 25-year-old computer engineer, the move from student straight to a salaried job gave him a false sense of security that led him into serious debt. "When I graduated, I was still in the mindset of living on borrowed money without thinking of the consequences," he says. "I already owed £13,000 in student loans, credit cards and an overdraft, but I took a £10,000 graduate loan to buy a car. When all the repayments kicked in, it was a massive hit to my salary – at one point, £700 of the £1,200 I was taking home each month was going on repaying my debts.

"I was just scraping by but I had no contingency, so when unexpected costs came up I just had to add it to my debt. At my worst point, I owed a total of £29,000 in loans and on four credit cards, and I was only 24 years old. It was getting to the stage where I wouldn't have been able to make the payments, so I took out a loan to cover the credit card debt and got rid of all but one of my cards. I'm now clearing my debts, but for a while, I was spending without thinking and I'd never sat down to work out what I could really afford."

Educating young people about how to handle their finances is thought by advisers to be key in changing attitudes towards debt. A recent survey by Mintel revealed worrying gaps in their understanding of financial terms and concepts. Nearly 50 per cent could not explain what an overdraft is and one in five admitted to having "a poor understanding" of interest rates, inflation and APR. A separate survey by the Office of Fair Trading showed that a third of people had borrowed money without comparing deals.

But the Citizens Advice Bureaux (CAB) believes that responsibility also lies with the lenders. "Clearly, everyone must take responsibility for making sure they can afford their repayments, but lenders should behave responsibly, too," says Rosalind Pearson. "It should be a requirement of their contract to be sure people they give a card to can pay back what they borrow."

The Government's new Consumer Credit Bill, announced in the Queen's speech last month, has been warmly welcomed by the CAB. The changes it proposes would prevent companies from allowing struggling customers to take on still more debt, and make it easier for debtors to take "unfair" lenders to court.

There have also been suggestions that credit-referencing agencies should share their information to prevent consumers from going on card-collecting sprees like mine. Already, the UK's three main agencies provide a safety net of sorts by putting the brakes on when several lenders run checks on the same person in a single week.

My applications for more cards a few days after my initial haul were, reassuringly, declined. A spokesman at the reference agency Experian explained that the flurry of credit checks on my record aroused their suspicion that I might be suffering financial difficulties so, for a while, I would not be eligible for more credit.

Francis Walker of the Consumer Credit Counselling Service believes that responsible action from both lenders and consumers is the only way to prevent young people from ending up with crippling bills. "Credit cards can be a useful way of borrowing money cheaply in the very short term, especially with all the introductory periods at zero per cent interest, but even these may not be around for ever and should be treated with caution.

"The most sensible course of action is to seek independent advice, and unless you are transferring your balance, say no to offers of new credit cards, however tempting they may be."

December 15, 2004 at 01:38 AM in Financial Services | Permalink | TrackBack (4) | Top of page | Blog Home

December 14, 2004

US task force trawls for phishers

Finextra: US task force trawls for phishers

A coalition of US banks, ISPs, technology firms and federal law enforcement agencies have launched Digital PhishNet, the latest effort to tackle online phishing scams.

The group includes companies such as Microsoft, America Online, VeriSign and EarthLink as well as law enforcement agencies including the FBI, the Secret Service and the US Postal Inspection Service. A statement issued by Microsoft says the consortium includes nine US banks, four ISPs and five digital commerce and technology companies.

The anti-phishing group says the initiative will establish a single line of communication between the industry and law enforcement, so critical data to fight phishing can be compiled and provided in real time.

Dan Larkin, unit chief at the FBI's Internet Crime Complaint Centre (IC3), says: "Phishers create and dismantle these phony sites very, very fast, stockpiling credit card numbers, passcodes and other personal financial information over the course of just a couple of days, in order to avoid detection.

"Digital PhishNet is a powerful response to this type of online fraud because it facilitates critical data collection between a large number of the targets of these crimes - those who are on the front lines of the fight against phishing - and establishes a pipeline directly to law enforcement, in real time, before the phisher has had time to disappear back into the anonymity of cyberspace."

Bank of China and the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China have become the latest firms to be targeted by hackers. According to a report by Reuters, both banks identified spoof Web sites which were reported to the police.

The report says an account holder at Bank of China appeared to have lost over 20,000 yuan as a result of the online scam, but police were still investigating the case. The Industrial and Commercial Bank of China says its has also identified a fake Web site that invited customers to register account details, although nobody has claimed to have lost any money.

In Europe, Danish security research firm Secunia has also warned a flaw in popular browsers that could allow hackers to launch phishing attacks from pop-windows on legitimate Web sites.

Secunia says the "vulnerability" which is present in a number of popular browsers would enable hackers to "hi-jack" pop-up windows on trusted Web sites and change the content.

December 14, 2004 at 07:34 AM in Financial Services | Permalink | TrackBack (36) | Top of page | Blog Home

Link to launch mobile ATM service

Finextra: Link to launch mobile ATM service

UK cash machine network Link has signed up two of the UK's high street banks and four mobile operators, including Vodafone, to its MobileATM service which allows users to check bank accounts and purchase air time from their hand sets.

MobileATM - a joint venture set up in 2003 between Link and computer services company Morse - will be launched in the first quarter of 2005, according to a report by the UK's Daily Telegraph newspaper.

The initial roll-out will involve two of the UK's biggest high street banks but as many as half of Britain's banks are expected to offer the service within 12 months.

The new service replicates the look of a cash machine screen on a mobile phone and offers many of the same functions - such as access to account balances - except the ability to withdraw cash. The system may be developed to include services such as mini bank statements - and potentially to extend overdrafts and transfer money to other people's accounts.

Users of the mobile networks involved will be able to activate the MobileATM service by texting a code to their bank. Two days later they will receive a single-use activation number in the post which will allow them to view their account balance using their mobile hand set using their normal PIN number.

Link says the service should be successful because its cash machines are currently used 60 million times a month for balance inquiries. The venture aims to take a small cut of mobile transactions, initially through the top-up service.

Link's existing mobile-top up service is available on 18,000 ATMs in the UK.

December 14, 2004 at 07:24 AM in Financial Services | Permalink | TrackBack (6) | Top of page | Blog Home

December 13, 2004

The finer points of e-mail etiquette

The finer points of e-mail etiquette | csmonitor.com

By Christa Case | Correspondent of The Christian Science Monitor
When Diane Darling's frustrated e-mail exchange with a co-worker in Australia was inadvertently passed on to a boss, she found herself in the CEO's office.

"He handed me a copy of my e-mail and said, 'I just want to know your thoughts on this,' " recalls Ms. Darling, who had critiqued her manager. "It's something you hope happens in your 20s. Heaven help you if you do that later in your career!"

Like Darling, who wasn't fired but left the company shortly afterward, many employees have learned the dos and don'ts of e-mail the hard way. Some workers get tripped up by e-mail etiquette, or "netiquette." Others fall into a black hole of inefficiency because of ineffective electronic communication habits.

With the volume of e-mail growing rapidly, good e-mail skills have become more important than ever, some workplace experts say. For example: 1 in 10 employees spends more than four hours a day handling electronic missives; nearly half spend at least two hours, according to a survey of 840 companies conducted this year by the American Management Association and the ePolicy Institute.

Junk e-mail contributes to the problem. But another more deeply rooted issue is ineffective communication practices. Employees' poor writing skills cost American corporations $3.1 billion annually in training costs, the National Commission on Writing estimated in a September report.

That's why companies - and individuals - are beginning to coach workers on how to use the medium effectively.

With upwards of 800 e-mails pinging her inbox daily, Sharon Clay would be overwhelmed if she didn't focus on efficient e-mail techniques with laserlike intensity.

"People should go through their e-mail in the morning like calisthenics," says Ms. Clay, an architecture manager at Nvidia Corp. While she offers one-on-one e-mail coaching, her Santa Clara, Calif., company, which makes graphics and digital-media chips for computers, has begun holding e-mail training classes for employees.

Clay suggests that workers go through their in-boxes methodically and thoroughly every morning, and more often if necessary. Being predictable in one's response time is an essential part of being a good communicator, she adds.

Here are strategies Clay and others employ to handle the electronic flood:

• Don't forget the phone. If your e-mail has more than three points or questions, you're probably better off calling or meeting someone, when you can tailor the discussion based on his or her answers.

• Create an alert system. Use color-coding, fonts, and styles to prioritize your inbox. These visual cues enable you to recognize and respond to critical e-mails quickly. Lower-priority items can be moved into folders to be dealt with later. Clay combs through most of these folders at least once a week..

• Remember your grammar. It's not just a courtesy; it ensures clear communication - and may determine your business success. Half of all companies surveyed by the National Commission on Writing took an employee's writing skills into account when making promotion decisions. So while it may save you time to leave out nouns and use cryptic abbreviations, don't do it. It can confuse co-workers. Also, use clear and concise subject lines.

• Watch whom you copy on e-mails. Make sure your recipients have the necessary context to understand an e-mail or exchange of e-mails. If not, write a quick summary or add some clarification. Taking these steps will also help when referencing archived e-mails.

The corollary is also important, as Darling found out when her e-mail got passed on to her employer: Don't send sensitive information to someone you can't trust to keep it confidential. E-mail "is an excellent technology," says Darling, now a networking consultant in Boston. "It's just so often misused."

Admittedly, all of this can be difficult to keep track of. Some companies have stepped in with software that analyzes employees' communication patterns and identifies when they're using e-mail unproductively, says Andrew Wolff, vice president of products at DYS Analytics in Wellesley, Mass., a software company.

More advanced software can also identify employees who violate company policies by using e-mail for personal reasons. Some 30 percent of total workplace e-mail is personal, according to some estimates.

Bottom line? E-mail guidelines should be written into company policy and enforced with software that can monitor e-mail and instant messaging records, says Anthony Sanchez, vice president of marketing at Waterford Technologies in Irvine, Calif. "Everybody's problems boil down to education, policy, and enforcement," he says. "We can't really change the people until there are policies that are going to be enforced."

December 13, 2004 at 07:32 PM in email | Permalink | TrackBack (21) | Top of page | Blog Home

Tech's future: It's all about fun

Tech's future: It's all about fun | csmonitor.com

From iPods to Web-surfing TVs, consumers clamor for digital toys.
By Mark Sappenfield | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor
WALNUT CREEK, CALIF. – There is no ambiguity about Kimberly Meyer's marching orders. Her daughter does not want just any MP3 player to listen to the music she downloads from the Web. No, her Christmas list is as precise as a Martha Stewart recipe for Bundt cake: She wants an Apple mini iPod - and she wants it in lime green.

Mrs. Meyer's daughter is not some tech-geek devotee of all things Apple. In fact, Meyer can't think of a single Apple item in the entire house. But this isn't about gigabytes and USB ports. It's about Madonna, Michelle Branch, and 10,000 songs in your pocket.

With its iPod, Apple has tapped into what many analysts say is the future of American technology: entertainment. And this holiday season, the computer industry as a whole is making its first significant foray into the world of digital cameras and plasma-screen TVs.

The momentum has been building for a while, as tech companies look to new markets now that sales of personal computers have slowed. But the recent rise of the Internet, combined with the explosion of digital media, has fueled the shift by turning every photo, song, film, and TV into nothing more than a package of digital information that can be moved around and played at will.

Now, as technology companies step in with an array of products that give consumers more control over their movies and music, they are recasting Silicon Valley's business sense and revolutionizing an entertainment industry still baffled by the realm of bits and bytes.

"Technology companies understand how to move a word document file around," says Rod Bare, a tech analyst at Morningstar in Minneapolis. "It doesn't take much more effort to move around a music file ... and if you're sitting in a tech company, you're looking at all the information that can be digitized."

Everyone is a movie producer, DJ

In the broadly defined universe of entertainment, that's almost everything - from photo albums to episodes of "The Biggest Loser." Hewlett-Packard, a leader in printing, has already jumped into the digital camera and photo printing markets. Microsoft, which introduced its XBox game system several years ago, has reintroduced a brand of Web TV that allows users to surf the Internet by TV. And Dell now sells MP3s and flat-panel TVs on its website.

It's just the beginning. This year, both Dell and HP are offering Media Centers - computers that work like a normal machines but are specifically tailored to help users manage their digital music and photos. The next generation media center, which is just now entering the market, is a computer that hooks up to the TV and looks like a VCR. Through a remote control, users can record TV like a TiVo, play music like an MP3, and show movies that are saved on a computer in the den through a wireless Web connection.

"It's a growing trend," says Venancio Figueroa, a spokesman for Dell. "If you look at the usage model ... the PC is moving from a productivity tool to an entertainment platform."

On one hand, as computers become a more seamless part of everyday life, it moves America closer to the digital home. Yet it also underscores the increasing importance of entertainment and the individual in contemporary culture, as the ever more on-demand world spawned by the Web allows users to tailor every aspect of the media to their tastes.

"It turns out, the Internet revolution was not a technology revolution but a media revolution," says Paul Saffo of the Institute for the Future in Menlo Park, Calif. "It's a shift from mass media to personal media."

Speaking cosmically, he is by no means certain that this is an entirely good thing: "Digital technology is so bewitching that it risks turning everything into entertainment ... and the lesson from Rome onward is that all great civilizations fail by turning everything into entertainment."

Certainly, it will put more power in the hands of each consumer. He suggests that the greatest symbol of the mass media was the TV. "It delivered the world to your living room, but all you can do is press your nose to the window and watch," he says.

Personal media makes each person a participant. Recording TV on a computer allows users to potentially edit out commercials and watch programs any time they choose. With music, people can download one song at a time and build their own albums. As the more tech-savvy members of society have begun doing this on their own, Silicon Valley has jumped in to make it easier for everyone.

Creating buzz with new gadgets

Moreover, Apple has found that makina a foray into entertainment can create a buzz that boosts stock prices. "If you want to be highly valued, you have to be visible and people have to like what you sell," says Rob Enderle of the Enderle Group in San Jose, Calif. Today, with laptops little more exciting than toasters, he says, businesses are looking for "a popular product people get excited about."

The excitement about the iPod has shown itself in ways both familiar and peculiar. With Apple's MP3 on virtually every hot gift list, sales are strong. Market analysts forecast that Apple will sell 3.5 million iPods during the Christmas quarter. Yet one schoolteacher's love for the iPod has taken a unique twist. He has created his own 60-second commercial for the iPod. Although it was only posted a few weeks ago, the online ad has already drawn 37,000 hits, according to Wired News. It's the first consumer-generated ad industry watchers can recall.

Consumers in control

While the ad might help Apple, the personalizing of the media hints at something more troubling for the entertainment industry. If computer users can mix and burn their own CDs, for instance, why would they buy CDs from the store? If TV viewers of the future can program their recorders to skip ads at will, how will networks pay their bills? In many ways, technology companies are fueling a future that Hollywood is desperate to avoid.

"The control-points are broken," says Mike McGuire, an analyst for Gartner G2 in San Jose. "What these [tech] companies are doing is reacting to the phenomenon that the consumer is in absolute control."

By the looks of it, Meyer's daughter is in control at home. Meyer, who refused to give her real name, says she has already bought an iPod for her husband with the idea that he and his daughter could share. Her trip to the Apple store here in Walnut Creek, Calif., suggests that didn't work.

The same is true in front of the Apple store a half hour away in Emeryville, where Ron Kirk says it took him 3-1/2 weeks to find an iPod for his daughter last Christmas. This year, he's here to buy her a new carrying case. "She loves it," he laughs.

December 13, 2004 at 07:29 PM in Web lifestyle | Permalink | TrackBack (22) | Top of page | Blog Home

Britons growing 'digitally obese

BBC NEWS | Technology | Britons growing 'digitally obese'

Gadget lovers are so hungry for digital data many are carrying the equivalent of 10 trucks full of paper in "weight".

Music, images, e-mails, and texts are being hoarded on mobiles, cameras laptops and PDAs (Personal Digital Assistants), a Toshiba study found.

It found that more than 60% kept 1,000 to 2,000 music files on their devices, making the UK "digitally fat".

"Virtual weight" measurements are based on research by California Institute of Technology professor Roy Williams.

He calculated physical comparisons for digital data in the mid-1990s.

He worked out that one gigabyte (1,073,741,824 bytes) was the equivalent of a pick-up truck filled with paper.

The amount of data people are squirreling away on their gadgets is clearly a sign that people are finding more things to do with their shiny things.

'Digitally obese'

If digital hoarding habits continue on this scale, people could be carrying around a "digitally obese" 20 gigabytes by next year.

"Britain has become a nation of information hoarders with a ferocious appetite for data," said Martin Larsson, general manager of Toshiba's European storage device division.

"As storage capabilities increase and the features and functionalities of mobile devices expand to support movie files and entire libraries of multi-media content, we will all become virtually obese," he told the BBC News website.

The survey reflects the increasing trend for portable devices with built-in hard drives like music and media players from Apple, Creative Labs, Archos, iRiver and others.

This trend is set to grow, according to analysts. They suggest the number of hard drives in consumer electronics gadgets could grow from 17 million last year to 55 million in 2006.

"Consumers are driving the move towards smaller devices that have greater functionality, and industry is trying to keep up," said Mr Larsson.

"People are looking for more than just phone calls and text messages on the move, they want things like web browsing, e-mailing, music, photos and more."

Bigger please

Many are finding memory keys and memory sticks are simply not big enough to hold everything.

"Floppies and memory keys have their place, but they don't have anything like the capacity or flexibility of a hard drive so are unable to meet the demand for more and more storage capacity in consumer devices," said Mr Larsson.

The cost of making hard drives has dropped and is continuing to do so because of improved technologies so they are proving to be more cost-effective than other forms of memory, he added.

The amount of data that can be stored has grown by 400% in the last three years, while the cost for every gigabyte has fallen by 80%.

It is also getting easier to transfer files from one device to another, which has traditionally been a slow and problematic area.

"Transfer of data between different memory types has improved significantly in recent times, and will be further helped by the standards for hard drives which are currently being developed by the major manufacturers," said Mr Larsson.

According to technology analysts IDC, a fifth of all hard drives produced will be used in consumer electronics by 2007.

December 13, 2004 at 07:28 PM in Web lifestyle | Permalink | TrackBack (15) | Top of page | Blog Home

Mobile multimedia slow to catch on

BBC NEWS | Technology | Mobile multimedia slow to catch on

By Mark Ward
Technology correspondent, BBC News website
There is no doubt that mobile phones sporting cameras and colour screens are hugely popular.

Consumers swapping old phones for slinkier, dinkier versions are thought to be responsible for a 26% increase in the number of phones sold during the third quarter of 2004, according to analysts Gartner

More than 167 million handsets were sold globally between July and September 2004, a period that, according to Gartner analyst Carolina Milanesi is "seldom strong".

But although consumers have mobiles that can take and send snaps, sounds and video clips few, so far, are taking the chance to do so.

Snap unhappy

In fact, the numbers of people not taking and sending pictures, audio and video is growing.

Figures gathered by Continental Research shows that 36% of British camera phone users have never sent a multimedia message (MMS), up from 7% in 2003.

This is despite the fact that, during the same period, the numbers of camera phones in the UK more than doubled to 7.5 million.

Getting mobile phone users to send multimedia messages is really important for operators keen to squeeze more cash out of their customers and offset the cost of subsidising the handsets people are buying.

The problem they face, said Shailendra Jain, head of MMS firm Adamind, is educating people in how to send the multimedia messages using their funky handsets.

"Also," he said, "they have to simplify the interface so its not rocket science in terms of someone understanding it."

Research bears out the suspicion that people are not sending multimedia messages because they do not know how to.

According to Continental Research, 29% of the people it questioned said they were technophobes that tended to shy away from innovation. Only 11% regarded themselves as technically savvy enough to send a picture or video message.

The fact that multimedia services are not interoperable across networks and phones only adds to people's reluctance to start sending them, said Mr Jain.

"They ask themselves: 'If I'm streaming video from one handset to another will it work?'" he said.

"There's a lot of user apprehension about that."

Tech choice

There are other deeper technical reasons why multimedia messages are not being pushed as strongly as they might.

Andrew Bud, executive chairman of messaging firm Mblox, said mobile phone operators cap the number of messages that can be circulating at any one time for fear of overwhelming the system.

"The rate we can send MMS into the mobile network is fairly constant," he said.

The reason for this is that there are finite capacities for data traffic on the second generation networks that currently have the most users.

No-one wants to take the risk of swamping these relatively narrow channels so the number of MMS messages is capped, said Mr Bud.

This has led to operators finding other technologies, particularly one known as Wap-push, to get multimedia to their customers.

But when networks do find a good way to get multimedia to their customers, the results can be dramatic.

Israeli technology firm Celltick has found a way to broadcast data across phone networks in a way that does not overwhelm existing bandwidth.

One of the first firms to use the Celltick service is Hutch India, the largest mobile firm in the country.

The broadcast system gets multimedia to customers via a rolling menu far faster than would be possible with other systems.

While not multimedia messaging, such a system gets people used to seeing their phones as a device that can handle all different types of content.

As a result 40% of the subscribers to the Hutch Alive, which uses Celltick's broadcast technology, regularly click for more pictures, sounds and images from the operator.

"Operators really need to start utilising this tool to reach their customers," said Yaron Toren, spokesman for Celltick.

Until then, multimedia will be a message that is not getting through.

December 13, 2004 at 07:26 PM in Web/Tech | Permalink | TrackBack (14) | Top of page | Blog Home

M.I.T. Technology Review Adopts More Serious Tone

The New York Times > Business > Media & Advertising > M.I.T. Technology Review Adopts More Serious Tone

By VICTORIA SHANNON

Published: December 13, 2004
Technology Review at M.I.T., like many similar magazines, was born during a technology boom. In The Review's case, that boom took place in the late 1800's, which may help explain why it has outlived so many of its recent imitators, like Red Herring and The Industry Standard.

Now Technology Review, which was introduced in 1899 with such titillating headlines as "The Function of the Laboratory" and "Applied Science and the University," is getting a makeover with help from a refugee of the latest tech bubble. Jason Pontin, the former editor of Red Herring before that magazine's collapse in 2002, has remade The Review for more sober times.

"We want to levelly and intelligently analyze today's and tomorrow's technology," Mr. Pontin said. "The magazine didn't have the elegant seriousness we intend."

Technology Review is also expanding in size - from 10 to 12 issues a year and from 56 to 72 pages a month - and in scope; new features will include reviews and synopses of scientific articles and innovations. The first redesigned issue is on newsstands this week with a fresh look from the company of Roger Black, the well-known graphic designer.

The ostensible goal of a redesign is to attract more readers and advertisers, each of which, in this case, provide about half of the magazine's revenue. But editorially as well as commercially, this is a more subdued version than the last one in 1998, which injected a cheerleading breathlessness into its coverage that left some academics cold.

Mr. Pontin said the new image tries to project more seriousness. "We will never be gee-whiz," he said.

The Review's makeover comes at a time when other magazines are gingerly stepping back into the technology arena. A new Red Herring magazine returned to newsstands this fall, and the publishers of The Daily Deal, a newspaper for investment advisers, are preparing a monthly called Tech Confidential.

Although Technology Review was among the few titles that survived the dot-com blowout - the original Red Herring and The Industry Standard did not - it has yet to make an annual profit. The publication is still subsidized by M.I.T. for an undisclosed sum, and about 95,000 of its 315,000 readers get the magazine, which sells for $5 an issue, for free through the institute's alumni association, which buys it in bulk as its official newsletter.

"We're working as hard as we can to get to break even," said R. Bruce Journey, the chief executive of Technology Review Inc., the nonprofit company owned by M.I.T. that publishes the magazine. Licensed versions are now being published in China, Russia, Poland, South Africa, Germany and several other countries.

Mr. Journey earns a high salary. He did not dispute a report in the Boston Globe last month that put it at $317,000 in 2002. "It hasn't changed in three years," he said last week.

Like Scientific American and Popular Science, Technology Review is trying to take advantage of a new interest in the discovery of technology, some media experts believe.

"We believe it's a very strong sector," said Eric McClure, media director of DCA Advertising in New York. "We look at the readers of a Technology Review or a Scientific American as intelligent, well-educated, generally influential people."

Mr. Pontin is trying to give the magazine's accent on the business of technology innovation more impact by recruiting writers from The Economist and The New Yorker with generous payments of up to $5 a word for articles on topics ranging from "The Future of Books" to "What We Can Learn From Robots."

Still, Technology Review is not the intellectual publication of the pretechnology boom times.

"It's far more enthusiastic about what technology can do for us," said Kevin Finneran, editor in chief of Issues in Science and Technology magazine, published by the University of Texas and the National Academies. "The earlier Technology Review was more likely to look at the social and political dimensions of science and technology." Mr. Pontin promises a grounded approach this time. "We want to be skeptical," he said.

December 13, 2004 at 07:23 PM in Web/Tech | Permalink | TrackBack (9) | Top of page | Blog Home

Once Upon a Time, There Was This Really Loud Band

The New York Times > Arts > Music > Rock Review | The Pixies: Once Upon a Time, There Was This Really Loud Band

By KELEFA SANNEH

Published: December 13, 2004
It's not hard to envy the Pixies. After more than 10 years apart, the members reunite, only to find that fans (and, if anyone cares, pop critics) love them more than ever. There are sold-out shows, glowing profiles, ecstatic fans. By now you've probably read at least one article about how the Pixies helped inspire a generation of bands, about how much Kurt Cobain loved them, about how water tasted different before they came along, about how the sky used to be a slightly different shade of blue.

But despite all that build-up - or maybe because of it - Saturday's Pixies concert at the Hammerstein Ballroom was a rude, often exhilarating shock. It had been all too easy to forget about the Pixies' ugliness: how fast they played, how loud they were, how nasty they sounded. Compared with the old-timers, the appealing postpunk act that opened the show, TV on the Radio, seemed positively quaint, even polite.

The concert was the opening night of a weeklong, eight-concert engagement, a tribute not only to the continuing popularity of the Pixies but also to the ticket-buying power of the many 30-something fans who remember the band from their college years. (It would be interesting to know how many devotees end up seeing more than one of the eight concerts.) The opening acts are different every night, ranging from pre-Pixies veterans (the reunited Mission of Burma tonight, the pioneering punk bassist Mike Watt next Saturday) to post-Pixies alt-rock bands (the shaggy Canadian collective Broken Social Scene on Tuesday, the feminist new-wave trio Le Tigre on Wednesday). Don't be surprised if the Pixies out-clamor them all.

In 1986, when the Pixies were formed, it made sense that an underground rock band would want to make lots of noise. Shrieked lyrics and guitar tantrums were two signs that you weren't angling to become radio fodder, two signs that you were part of the American postpunk movement - waving the flag, even if you weren't quite marching in step.

But sometime in the 1990's, things changed. The success of Nirvana helped introduce Pixiesish chaos to mainstream listeners who decided that screaming singers and screaminger guitars weren't so hard on the ears after all. From Nine Inch Nails to Korn, shriekers earned a place in overground rock 'n' roll, and the tradition continues today. Turn on your local modern-rock station and wait a few minutes; you'll probably hear the kind of racket that once kept bands off commercial radio.

Not surprisingly, some underground bands responded by getting quieter and sweeter. Those looking for an alternative to the high-decibel ennui of, say, Linkin Park can throw on a CD by the Postal Service or Interpol (to name just two big-name alternative acts), losing themselves in something quieter and more restrained. Emo bands and Ozzfest perennials still scream their lungs out, but lots of bands following in the Pixies' wake have decided to pipe down.

So where does that leave the Pixies? Exactly where they started: alone. On Saturday night, it was a relief to hear that they still sounded utterly and gloriously like themselves, barreling through songs full of elements that might once have seemed disparate but now seem inseparable: the ruthless, sometimes deadpan drumming of David Lovering (in "Bone Machine," he makes it almost impossible to find the downbeat); the precise disruptions of Joey Santiago's electric guitar; Kim Deal's warm slow-motion bass lines; the frantic strumming and gorgeous yelping of Black Francis, a k a Frank Black.

Most startling of all is how little the band's live show has changed over the years. The Pixies' old record label, 4AD, recently released a great retrospective DVD (it's called simply "Pixies") that includes a performance from 1988: Mr. Santiago and Mr. Lovering have hair, Black Francis looks a bit more streamlined, and Ms. Deal looks less like someone you might trust with your car keys, but the furious, off-kilter energy is exactly the same.

Age hasn't affected all of these songs the same way. When Black Francis sang "Where Is My Mind?" it was hard to remember that the phrase had once sounded vague and bitterly evocative; these days, it sounds more like someone making fun of the slacker-chic 1990's. But most of the songs sounded as mysterious and elusive as they always have, from the gently swaying "Caribou" to Ms. Deal's unsettling (and beautiful) sex song "Gigantic," which might be the best thing the Pixies ever did.

If you had to pick a concert for the inevitable live reunion DVD, it probably wouldn't be this one: the members sometimes seemed to be battling one another to establish the right tempo, and a few songs sounded even more ragged than they were supposed to. The band members didn't look as if they were having the time of their lives. They looked like four people working hard to create a marvelous racket; even after watching them do it for 90 minutes, you weren't quite sure how they did it. And as the fans filed out, ears ringing, no doubt some of them were already getting ready to return for another noisy night.

December 13, 2004 at 07:16 PM in World Affairs | Permalink | TrackBack (19) | Top of page | Blog Home

Firefox gains suggest browser wars may heat up

Firefox gains suggest browser wars may heat up - Yahoo! UK & Ireland News

Monday December 13, 08:40 PM
WASHINGTON (AFP) - The Internet browser wars, dormant for several years, shows signs of heating up again as a result of gains from a new program called Firefox, a research report showed.

Use of Firefox, created by the nonprofit Mozilla Foundation, has grown by more than a third over the past month, research firm WebSideStory.
In the period from November 5 to December 3, Firefox's online usage share grew from 3.03 percent to 4.06 percent, following a 13 percent gain during the previous month.

Microsoft's Internet Explorer retains its overwhelming dominance with 91.8 percent of the market, the report showed. But that has slipped from over 93 percent two months ago.

Microsoft, by integrating the browser into its Windows operating system crushed Netscape Navigator, which had been the dominant browser in the late 1990s, effectively ending the browser wars at the time.

But some Web users are concerned about the security of Internet Explorer and have been using alternatives.

"Since June 4, when IE's usage share first began to drop due to security concerns, IE has lost a total of 3.68 percentage points," WebSideStory said.

"Firefox's gains are clearly accelerating," said Rand Schulman, WebSideStory's chief marketing officer. "Much of it has to do with the release of Firefox's version 1.0 on November 9, after several months of offering a preview version. Firefox's stated goal of gaining 10 percent of the market over the next year no longer seems unattainable."

Netscape, which is now a part of Time Warner's America Online unit, held a 2.83 percent market share in early December, down from 3.05 percent two months earlier.

Netscape shares some of the same origins of Firefox, and includes some of the same features including "tabbed" browsing to allow several pages to be contained within a single window, accessibility to search engines and pop-up blocking.

December 13, 2004 at 07:12 PM in Browsers | Permalink | TrackBack (6) | Top of page | Blog Home

IBM Signs Seven-Year Deal with Lloyds TSB

Yahoo! Finance - IBM Signs Seven-Year Deal with Lloyds TSB

ComputerWire Staff

IBM Corp has signed a seven-year deal to manage the voice and data services of London, UK-based financial institution Lloyds TSB (LSE: LLOY.L - news - msgs) . The contract is estimated to be worth 500m pounds ($972.5m).

IBM (NYSE: IBM - news) will oversee Lloyds TSBs move to a national high-capacity fiber, DSL, and MPLS network supporting both voice and data communications. The implementation will include about 70,000 VoIP telephones.

The network integration and management will be provided by Isleworth, UK-based Vanco Plc (LSE: VAN.L - news) , while Hertford, UK-based Vtesse Networks will supply the fiber network. The new infrastructure is expected to be in place in early 2006.

December 13, 2004 at 07:10 PM in Telecommunications | Permalink | TrackBack (21) | Top of page | Blog Home

Canada to Set Up Do-Not-Call Telemarketing List

Yahoo! News - Canada to Set Up Do-Not-Call Telemarketing List

Mon Dec 13, 3:59 PM ET
OTTAWA (Reuters) - Canadian families could soon enjoy a measure of peace and quiet at dinner time as the result of legislation introduced on Monday to limit the right of telemarketers to make unsolicited calls.

The new legislation would pave the way for a national do-not-call list, matching popular registries in the United States and Britain.

"We want to give Canadians an easy and effective way to protect their privacy and stop intrusive telemarketing," Industry Minister David Emerson said in introducing the bill.

Currently, Canadian telemarketers must maintain individual do-not-call lists, but this requires people to add their names to potentially hundreds of separate lists. Monday's bill would create one central registry.

The federal telecoms regulator will also consider whether to exclude certain types of calls, for example from charities and pollsters, from the national list.

In the United States, 60 million phone numbers have been placed on its do-not-call registry.

December 13, 2004 at 07:09 PM in Online Marketing | Permalink | TrackBack (17) | Top of page | Blog Home

December 12, 2004

AOL Creates Its Own Browsing Software

Yahoo! News - AOL Creates Its Own Browsing Software

Sun Dec 12, 6:00 PM ET
By ANICK JESDANUN, AP Internet Writer

DULLES, Va. - As part of its reincarnation, America Online Inc. is creating its own software for browsing the Web and playing movies and songs. It's a question of staying relevant in an increasingly broadband world.

AOL got its start as a dial-up Internet service provider, connecting millions of first-time users with software that had to be installed on computers and often made some serious modifications to the operating system.

That approach no longer makes sense, said Kerry Pearce-Parkins, director of AOL Product Management. For one, corporations generally prohibit their employees from installing software. That means many subscribers can't access AOL programming during the day.

And because broadband users get their Internet connection through a company other than AOL, they no longer need a software package that includes access tools.

That's why AOL is building a standalone Web browser, while keeping an all-in-one package available for those who really want it.

The browser's core will be Microsoft Corp.'s market-dominant Internet Explorer. Though AOL financed an organization behind a competing browser called Firefox, Pearce-Parkins said the company stuck with IE so users won't have to make "a leap of faith."

But AOL engineers are working to add such features as tabbed browsing, letting users open new Web pages without cluttering the screen with new windows. Unlike tabbed browsing in the Opera and Firefox browsers, AOL's will display a mini-version of the Web page, or thumbnail, as users scroll over a tab.

The AOL Browser will also have tools to thwart e-mail scams known as phishing and to index and search files on the user's computer.

But most importantly for the company, the browser will incorporate several ways to drive traffic to AOL programming and products, increasing ad opportunities.

The new AOL Media Player, built on AOL-owned Winamp technology, will also seek to integrate software with AOL's online radio stations and music store.

"Access to the AOL content and services is always a click away," Pearce-Parkins said.

The programs are expected to be ready for free download early next year.

December 12, 2004 at 11:12 PM in Portals | Permalink | TrackBack (10) | Top of page | Blog Home

High Court To Weigh File Sharing

Yahoo! News - High Court To Weigh File Sharing

Sat Dec 11, 4:12 AM ET
By Charles Lane, Washington Post Staff Writer

The Supreme Court agreed yesterday to hear the entertainment industry's case against two Internet-based file-sharing services through which millions of people swap music and movies online, a decision that sets up a potentially decisive digital-age battle over copyright-infringement rules.

The court said it would rule on an appeal by movie and record companies, headed by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios, that say they should be able to sue the file-sharing services, Grokster Ltd. and StreamCast Networks Inc., because their customers copy and trade copyrighted material online without paying for it.

And in taking the case, the court signaled that it would take the lead on the issue rather than wait for Congress, which is considering various solutions but was unable to hammer out compromise legislation earlier this year.

The entertainment industry says more than 2.6 billion copyrighted music files are downloaded each month, along with about half a million movie files per day. This, it says, is a mortal threat to intellectual property and, thus, to the entertainment business's viability. Lawsuits forced one company, Napster (news - web sites), to shut down its file-sharing service.

In urging the court to take the new case, the companies said it was "one of the most important copyright cases ever to reach this Court. Resolution of the question presented here will largely determine the value, indeed the very significance of copyright in the digital era."

But Grokster and StreamCast say that their services rely on a different technology from the one Napster used -- one that they say has many legitimate uses, so it would be unfair to make them liable for the alleged wrongdoing of customers over whom they have no direct control. They cite a 1984 decision, Sony Corp (NYSE:SNE - news) (news - web sites). v. Universal City Studios, widely known as the Betamax case, in which the Supreme Court refused to make Sony liable for alleged bootlegging of movies and TV shows by its customers as long as its video recorders also could be used for many other legal purposes.

"The evidence that file sharing has significantly hurt the large content companies is very thin," said Gigi B. Sohn, president of Public Knowledge, a digital rights advocacy group. "But the tradeoff of giving content companies more control over the development of technologies and of overturning Betamax would be very significant and very harmful to consumers and to our economy."

In August, the San Francisco-based U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit ruled in favor of Grokster and StreamCast, saying that their position was essentially the same as that of Sony in the 1984 case.

Whereas Napster had employed a technology that gave Napster itself direct control over access to a centralized index of files available for downloading, the court noted, Grokster and StreamCast use a "peer-to-peer" technology that enables computer users to search one another's files, then download the songs and films they want.

Grokster and StreamCast make money by selling advertising.

The 9th Circuit also expressed concern that subjecting the file-sharing services to suits by intellectual property owners could strangle a promising new industry for the sake of an older one.

"We live in a quicksilver technological environment with courts ill-suited to fix the flow of internet innovation," the court said.

But the record and movie industries contend that the illegal uses of peer-to-peer services far outweigh their legitimate ones.

"It is undisputed that those who use Grokster and StreamCast . . . are committing copyright infringement and that this infringement constitutes 90 percent of the activity on the services," Donald B. Verrilli Jr., the entertainment industry's lawyer, wrote in his brief.

The Betamax case did not attempt to address the unique circumstances presented in this case, Verrilli argued, noting that "the 9th Circuit's decision threatens the very foundations of our copyright system in the digital era."

He asserted that Grokster and StreamCast have "designed their services to disable mechanisms that would prevent the very infringement that sustains their businesses."

It also promises to leaven the court's usually somber atmosphere with a pinch of stardust. Among the names on a friend-of-the-court brief supporting the entertainment industry's appeal are the Dixie Chicks (news - web sites), Sheryl Crow, Jimmy Buffett and Stevie Nicks.

The case is MGM Studios v. Grokster, No. 04-480. Oral argument is set for March, and a decision is expected by July.

Staff writer Jonathan Krim contributed to this report.

December 12, 2004 at 11:11 PM in Business Models | Permalink | TrackBack (10) | Top of page | Blog Home

'BitTorrent' Gives Hollywood a Headache

Yahoo! News - 'BitTorrent' Gives Hollywood a Headache

Sat Dec 11, 9:41 PM ET
By ALEX VEIGA, AP Business Writer

LOS ANGELES - Bram Cohen didn't set out to upset Hollywood movie studios. But his innovative online file-sharing software, BitTorrent, has grown into a piracy problem the film industry is struggling to handle.

As its name suggests, the software lets computer users share large chunks of data. But unlike other popular file-sharing programs, the more people swap data on BitTorrent, the quicker it flows — and that includes such large files as feature films and computer games.

Because of its speed and effectiveness, BitTorrent steadily gained in popularity after the recording industry began cracking down last year on users of Kazaa, Morpheus, Grokster and other established file-sharing software.

The program now accounts for as much as half of all online file-sharing activity, says Andrew Parker, chief technology officer of Britain-based CacheLogic, which monitors such traffic.

"BitTorrent is more of a threat because it is probably the latest and best technological tool for transferring large files like movies," said John Malcolm, senior vice president of anti-piracy operations for the Motion Picture Association of America. "It is unusual, perhaps unique, in that the moment you start downloading you are also uploading," he added. "It's what makes it so efficient."

Cohen created BitTorrent in 2001 as a hobby after the dot-com crash left him unemployed. He says the aim was to enable computer users to easily distribute content online — not specifically copyrighted content.

"It seems pretty clear that a lot of people are actively interested in engaging in wanton piracy," said Cohen, 29, of Bellevue, Wash. "As far as I'm concerned, they're just pushing around bits, and what bits it is they're pushing around is not really a concern of mine. There's not much I can do about it."

BitTorrent has proven to be resistant to some of the countermeasures the entertainment industry has taken to sabotage file-sharing, including a process known as file-spoofing in which incomplete or decoy versions of songs or other material are uploaded to discourage piracy.

"Spoofing is very difficult on BitTorrent, if at all possible," said Mark Ishikawa, chief executive of online tracking firm BayTSP Inc. "There's no defense for this one."

Programs such as Kazaa and Morpheus allow users to link their PCs to computer networks and then query a search engine for the file or title they're seeking. The software then churns out a list of other computers sharing the file.

The process is simple and straightforward, which makes it relatively easy to corrupt with spoofed files.

With BitTorrent, however, users don't find whole files. The program seeks out torrent files, also known as seed files, that are hosted by a number of Web sites.

The files on the Web sites are not songs or movies but serve as markers that point the way to other users sharing a given file. BitTorrent then assembles complete files from multiple chunks of data obtained from everyone who is sharing the file.

Attempts to upload bogus files to corrupt the process fail because the BitTorrent program follows a blueprint of the original file when piecing it together.

"It's very difficult for an interdiction company to get in the middle of that system," said Ishikawa, whose company combs file-sharing networks on behalf of Hollywood studios and alerts clients when their movies turn up on the Internet.

Some of the BitTorrent host sites, like SuprNova.org, generate a daily list of new seed files added by users. The site recently had listings for movies such as "Van Helsing" and "Wimbledon (news - web sites)," which is not scheduled for release on DVD for another three weeks.

Some sites offer digitized broadcasts of "The Daily Show With Jon Stewart," computer games like "Star Trek: Klingon Academy" and "Half Life 2," e-books on the physics behind an atomic bomb, even footage of kidnap victims in the Middle East.

"A bunch of the different beheadings are online," Ishikawa said.

Downhill Battle, a Worcester, Mass.-based independent music group that has developed its own BitTorrent-based software called Blog Torrent, says the technology is much more than a tool for swapping copyright movies and software (a blog is a Web journal).

"What we're excited about as far as BitTorrent goes is the possibility for people to blog video and blog their own home movies (and) independent films and have a way to distribute them online without having to have a big budget for Web-hosting," said Nicholas Reville, one of the group's directors.

"Bandwidth has been a big barrier," he said. "BitTorrent solved that."

While some of the BitTorrent sites that host seed files have been forced to shut down, many others escape scrutiny because they're only hosting marker files, not copyrighted material.

Malcolm of the MPAA says his organization is not focusing any more or less on BitTorrent than other file-sharing system. He declined to say whether the trade group intends to sue Cohen and wouldn't name any BitTorrent users who may have been included in the entertainment industry's latest wave of lawsuits.

"Anyone who uses BitTorrent and is under the illusion that they are anonymous are sorely mistaken," Malcolm said. "There is no reason why those lawsuits wouldn't include BitTorrent" users.

So far, Cohen said, he has not become a target of the entertainment industry, which has aggressively pursued litigation against other file-sharing software distributors, with mixed success. On Friday, the U.S. Supreme Court (news - web sites) agreed to hear an appeal by movie studios and music labels of a ruling that found Grokster Ltd. and StreamCast Networks Inc., the firm behind the Morpheus software, to not be responsible for their customers' online swapping of copyright songs and movies.

For his part, Cohen said he has received just one legal warning, over a computer game that was being distributed using BitTorrent.

"Someone else was doing something with BitTorrent that I had no knowledge of," Cohen said. "It's not being done on any machines I have any control over ... what do you want me to do?"

December 12, 2004 at 11:10 PM in Business Models | Permalink | TrackBack (33) | Top of page | Blog Home

Livewire: News and Info Junkies Take New Look at RSS

Yahoo! News - Livewire: News and Info Junkies Take New Look at RSS

Sun Dec 12, 7:32 AM ET
By Lisa Baertlein

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - News and information junkies are taking a new look at RSS, a technology that helps them feed their habit without getting overwhelmed in the clutter of the information age.

News organizations and Web log commentators constantly update hot stories, and RSS technology can help people stay abreast of the latest developments. But RSS is about more than the latest news. Some online shoppers use it to keep an eye out for rare items that come up for bid on eBay.

Users say the simple utility of RSS is its greatest strength. Popular demand, together with higher-capacity networks and a crop of RSS-related readers that make it easier to keep track of massive amounts of incoming information, have lately caught the eye of venture capitalists.

"What's old is what's new again," said Jim Pitkow, president and CEO of Moreover (http://w.moreover.com), an early RSS supporter that in 2000 snagged $21 million in venture funding.

But while use of RSS has exploded in popularity, it must work to overcome the stigma left by similar technology that in the early years of the Internet era created massive headaches for corporate network administrators.

NEEDLE IN A HAYSTACK

Internet media company Yahoo Inc. (Nasdaq:YHOO - news) has offered RSS feeds for two years on the news section of its site, and recently added RSS to My Yahoo in a bid to make it easier for individual users to pick the news they want to receive.

NewsGator (http://www.newsgator.com) has online and downloadable tools that help people select RSS feeds -- some free and others for a fee -- by entering search terms. Its premium content includes advice from Dear Abby and tech news from InfoWorld, as well as celebrity news and horoscopes.

In Austin, Texas, Pluck Corp. (http://pluck.com) has joined a handful of companies moving beyond news syndication and into delivering shopping notifications via RSS.

Pluck's downloadable tools can continuously search eBay (Nasdaq:EBAY - news) and use RSS technology to notify buyers when the items they seek come up for auction. Pluck can also automatically search Google (Nasdaq:GOOG - news) and Amazon.com. (Nasdaq:AMZN - news)

Elsewhere, information distributors can republish feeds through FeedBurner (http://feedburner.com), a Chicago company that returns detailed usage statistics.

Technorati (http://technorati.com) users sign up for free Watchlists on a variety of subjects, which track postings on millions of Web logs. The San Francisco-based company also identifies hot topics on the Internet and measures the audience following of particular bloggers.

Rising RSS adoption among Web cognoscenti has prompted venture capitalists to make bets on some companies as the sector grapples with the question of how to make money.

Draper Fisher Jurvetson and Mobius Venture Capital invested $6.5 million in Technorati, a venture industry source said. Mobius also funded NewsGator.

Pluck recently announced $8.5 million in follow-on venture capital funding from lead investor Mayfield and continuing investor Austin Ventures. FeedBurner this summer landed $1 million from Portage Venture Partners.

HISTORY REPEATING ITSELF?

RSS was created at Netscape in 1997. It has since been embraced by the New York Times Co. (NYSE:NYT - news), the British Broadcasting Corp. (BBC), the Wall Street Journal (NYSE:DJ - news) and Reuters (RTR.L), among others.

But the roots of RSS go back beyond Netscape to a company called PointCast, once one of the Internet's brightest stars.

In 1996 through 1997, PointCast's system of delivering personalized headlines to computer users attracted some 1.5 million users and $48 million in backing from top venture firms. The company suddenly lost its market after network administrators blocked the service, complaining that its enthusiasts overloaded office networks.

And in a case of history repeating itself, technologists say RSS aficionados can still overwhelm networks with too many feeds. The addictive nature of RSS means that one user may sign up for hundreds of feeds. Multiply that times a few thousand users in an organization and network slowdowns or blockages result.

The rate of mainstream RSS adoption has been dampened by technical limitations that have required Internet users to have a some technical savvy to find and use RSS.

In response, browser software from Opera of Norway (http://www.opera.com) and Mozilla's Firefox (http://www.firefox.com), an open-source descendant of the Netscape browser, offer RSS readers that allow users to control which RSS headlines they see.

Despite the challenges, Moreover's Pitkow sees an upward slope for RSS.

"The Web has matured, and Internet users are more sophisticated now," he said. "They know what they want and what they don't want."

December 12, 2004 at 11:05 PM in Blogging & feeds | Permalink | TrackBack (6) | Top of page | Blog Home

December 11, 2004

Yahoo to test desktop search feature in January

CoolTechZone :: Yahoo to test desktop search feature in January

Written by Mahendra Hora
Saturday, 11 December 2004

Yahoo, Inc., world-class leader in online search queries, announced its plans to reveal desktop search feature in January, which will go through testing in the designated month.

With its desktop search option, Yahoo will directly compete against Google, Inc. that launched its desktop search feature in October of this year.

Desktop search is a new technology that is being offered by search engines. It searches users’ hard disk drive locally for files; similar to Microsoft’s integrated search feature, but better in performance.

Yahoo will use licensed technology from X1 Technologies, Inc., which is based in Pasadena, California.

The service will be connected with Yahoo’s online search feature, and the online search firm plans to release constant updates to make its desktop search feature better than its competition.

In response to Google and Yahoo’s desktop search features, Microsoft said its search feature will be offered to users by the end of this year.

Ask Jeeves, Inc., also acquired search firm Tukaroo, Inc. and will introduce its desktop search feature sometime this month.

AOL and Apple Computer, Inc. are also entering the market with their desktop search features, but no due date has been given.

All online companies hope to notice a surge in advertising revenue with their desktop search features.

December 11, 2004 at 08:47 PM in Portals | Permalink | TrackBack (28) | Top of page | Blog Home

Google suggest ... beta

Google Suggest

Google introduces "Google Suggest". Why has no-one thought of this before? Its a little clunky but its the right concept. It even shows the numbers of potential entries for your search string.

December 11, 2004 at 08:32 PM in Portals | Permalink | TrackBack (26) | Top of page | Blog Home

Sumitomo Mitsui to link bank accounts to cell phones

Japan Today - News - Sumitomo Mitsui to link bank accounts to cell phones - Japan's Leading International News Network

Sunday, December 12, 2004 at 04:00 JST
TOKYO — Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corp will start next April allowing its account holders to transfer savings to cell phones which have electronic money functions, bank officials said Saturday.

The service, the first of its kind by any bank in Japan, will be offered jointly with Bitwallet Inc, operator of the "Edy" prepaid, rechargeable electronic money service, they said. The new service will make it possible for account holders around the clock to move money to NTT DoCoMo Inc's i-mode cell phones that are equipped with Sony Corp's Felica contactless integrated-circuit card technology. (Kyodo News)

December 11, 2004 at 08:23 PM in Financial Services | Permalink | TrackBack (8) | Top of page | Blog Home

Terror cells clone cash machine cards

The Scotsman - Top Stories - Terror cells clone cash machine cards

KEVIN SCHOFIELD

AL-QAEDA is using cashcard fraud to steal thousands of pounds from bank accounts in Britain and the rest of Europe to fund its activities across the world.

Jean-Louis Brugière, France’s top anti-terrorism judge, said radical Islamic cells in Europe were using sophisticated equipment to "clone" the card details of cash machine users.

He said the terrorists were then creating fake cards and using them to withdraw hundreds of thousands of pounds and euros a month.

"These are cards that I call clones," he said. "They are very difficult to catch."

The judge said authorities uncovered the cash machine scheme two years ago when investigators found an Islamic terrorist finance cell operating in France.

Ten suspected Islamic militants were withdrawing more than £50,000 a month from cash machines in other European countries, where they were arrested.

"The [Islamic] European networks finance themselves primarily through microfinancing systems - criminal activity that is very profitable," he said.

The claims come amid warnings that al-Qaeda is preparing for an attack on a key maritime target in the next 12 months on the scale of the atrocities it unleashed in the United States on 11 September, 2001. In March this year, the threat to Europe was made clear when bombs planted by Islamic militants on rush hour trains in Madrid killed 191 people.

The Association for Payment Clearing Services (APACS) has reported that cash machine fraud has grown by 85 per cent to £61 million in the UK over the past year. In Scotland, it has gone up by 134 per cent to almost £1.9 million.

The organisation has identified a number of ways in which criminal gangs steal cash-card details from members of the public and then use them to access their bank accounts.

One is known as "shoulder surfing", where criminals stand close to a cash machine user, take a note of their Personal Identification Number (PIN) and then steal their card.

Card-trapping devices are used to retain the card inside the cash machine while the criminal tricks the user into re-entering their PIN, which they then memorise.

APACS says one of the main reasons for the rise in cashcard fraud is the increase in so-called "skimming" devices, which are attached to the card entry slot on the machine and record the magnetic stripe details without the customer’s knowledge.

Miniature cameras can also be hidden over the PIN keypad to record the card number.

In January, three asylum seekers were convicted of stealing hundreds of thousands of pounds from bank accounts after cloning cash-card details.

Remus Chirila, Adina Chirila and Adrian Manteanu, who were all from Romania, admitted fixing intricate machines into the door-swiping mechanisms of two HSBC branches in Barnsley and Rotherham, which copied account details.

They also attached a tiny camera above the machines’ keyboards to record the card’s PIN. The footage was beamed back to a laptop owned by the gang members, who then accessed the accounts.

Although APACS insists that card fraud represents less than 0.05 per cent of the £114 billion withdrawn from cash machines in the UK, it has issued advice to members of the public on how to avoid becoming a victim.

It says that if cash machine users see any signs of tampering they should report it to the bank immediately.

People should also refuse help from apparently well-meaning strangers and never allow themselves to be distracted during the transaction, the organisation says.

Any receipts, statements or balance details should also be torn up before being discarded, APACS warn.

Yesterday Mark Bowmer, a spokesman for APACS, said: "Cash machines are our most commonly used and most convenient way to access money, with 75 cash withdrawals made every second.

"The vast majority of all these withdrawals are fraud-free - and the banking industry is working hard with the police to keep it this way.

"People should remain vigilant at all times when using cash machines. If they see something suspicious or see people hanging around for no apparent reason they should cancel their transaction and move to another cash machine."

The rise in cash machine fraud is just one example of the so-called "identity thefts" carried out by criminal gangs.

These includes credit card fraud, which enables criminals to obtain goods or cash on the phone or the internet.

Last night, Professor Paul Wilkinson, the chairman of the centre for the study of terrorism and political violence at St Andrews University, welcomed the judge’s comments and said he hoped it would help to focus the minds of the intelligence services.

He said: "The fact is that terrorists are using crime extensively in order to fund their activities, and just as some groups have become more sophisticated in the way they carry out their terrorism, so they have also become more sophisticated in terms of how they raise funds.

"Cash machine fraud is one of the methods they are using and it is extremely difficult to combat."

December 11, 2004 at 01:12 AM in Financial Services | Permalink | TrackBack (3) | Top of page | Blog Home

December 08, 2004

Phishing fraud losses exaggerated - TowerGroup

Finextra: Phishing fraud losses exaggerated - TowerGroup

The actual dollar value of potential fraud losses from phishing has been exaggerated, according to research house TowerGroup, which predicts that direct losses attributable to cyber scams will total just $137.1 million globally in 2004.

Research by consultancy Gartner estimates that direct losses from ID fraud against victims of phishing attacks cost US financial services firms about $1.2 billion in 2003, while more recent research from payments association Nacha estimates the monetary losses to victims of phishing incidents to total $500 million. But TowerGroup says the actual dollar value of phishing-related fraud losses is far less than commonly cited.

Beth Robertson, senior analyst, global payments research service, TowerGroup, says: "Phishing attacks can allow criminals to fraudulently obtain consumer data, but they do not as commonly result in an actual fraud event in which accounts are accessed or funds are stolen."

According to the research the number of phishing attacks - which total more than 31,000 globally in 2004 - will rise to over 86,000 by 2005, as the fraudsters begin targeting smaller financial institutions and new merchant/service-provider categories. But Robertson suggests phishing attacks only fool a small fraction of the online population and are, to many consumers, just a nuisance like spam.

TowerGroup says ultimately the total cost of managing phishing scams will be far greater than the cost of direct fraud, but admits that the increasing sophistication of phishing has the potential to knock consumer confidence in the Internet as a channel for the provision financial services.

Seperately, New York security software vendor Cyota says key findings from its recently-released anti-phishing service, FraudAction, shows that 59% of phishing attacks are hosted on hijacked computers and two out of three attacks are hosted internationally. On average targeted banks were alerted to phishing attacks four hours prior to a customer call.

Cyota says its anti-phishing system - in use at five top US and UK banks including Barclays - has shut down over 60% of attacks in less than five hours and has managed to reduce the lifespan of some phishing sites to five hours, compared to the industry average of 153 hours (6.4 days) reported by the Anti-Phishing Working Group.

The service, which was launched in January, includes real-time alerts, detailed severity assessments, site shutdown services, forensic work and proprietary counter-measures.

The vendor says one bank client benchmarked phishing-related fraud losses before and after using its service and found that FraudAction lowered its losses by over 50%.

December 8, 2004 at 08:06 AM in Phishing & identity theft | Permalink | TrackBack (11) | Top of page | Blog Home

Phishing scams soar in 2004

Finextra: Phishing scams soar in 2004

The number of phishing scam e-mails has soared in 2004, rising more than tenfold in less than 12 months, according to a report from security services firm MessageLabs which warns that the rise may lead to fraudsters conducting targeted attacks on specific individuals and companies.

MessageLabs intercepted 279 phishing e-mails in September 2003 but the figure had risen significantly to more than two million by September 2004.

In 2004 the number of phishing attacks has soared from 337,050 in January to 4.5 million in November. Overall the company intercepted more than 18 million phishing e-mails during the course of the year.

MessageLabs says phishing-related online identity theft has established itself as the principal threat of 2004 and may signal the beginning of a wave of e-mail attacks targeted at specfic individuals and small groups of companies.

In November UK online payments processor Protx was hammered by a distributed denial of service (DDOS) attack conducted by a gang of cyber criminals running an extortion racket. US electronic payments processing firm Authorize.net was hit by a similar attack in September after receiving an extortion letter from hackers. Internet gaming site Blue Square was also targeted by extortionists who demanded almost £5000 to stop thousands of spam e-mails being sent out in its name.

Mark Sunner, chief technology officer of MessageLabs, says: "Already, particular businesses are being threatened and blackmailed, which could indicate a shift from random, scattergun approaches to customised attacks."

Other stats from MeesageLabs show that 73% of all e-mail is spam, compared to 40% in 2003, while one in 16 messages contain a virus compared to one in 33 last year. The most widespread outbreak of 2004 was W32/MyDoom.A, which hit in January this year.

December 8, 2004 at 08:05 AM in Phishing & identity theft | Permalink | TrackBack (6) | Top of page | Blog Home

WestLB rolls out Day Software for Web content management

Finextra: WestLB rolls out Day Software for Web content management

German bank WestLB is rolling out technology from Switzerland-based Day Software to manage its Internet, intranet and extranet content.

The bank is deploying Day Software's flagship product, Communiqué, to replace the incumbent system which is supplied by Vignette. The Communiqué system will initally be implemented at WestLB's global financial markets division before being rolled out across all the bank's 50 sites.

Day Software says its Communiqué product will provide the bank with an easy to use central source for sharing information with clients and employees.

Michael Krebbers, head of application services, WestLB, says: "We wanted to present our clients with real-time information such as investor and analyst data. Furthermore, the intranet platform will be extended as the primary information channel for our employees."

December 8, 2004 at 08:04 AM in Financial Services | Permalink | TrackBack (4) | Top of page | Blog Home

Banks ditch in-house ERP for off-the-shelf software

Finextra: Banks ditch in-house ERP for off-the-shelf software

Banks are increasingly replacing custom-built enterprise resource planning (ERP) applications with standard off-the-shelf products, according to research conducted by the European Business School and sponsored by SAP.

Although banks have traditionally relied on home-grown, custom-built software to handle banking and back office processes, the survey of senior managers at 114 of the world's largest banks found that 50% were already using a standard ERP software package and an additional 14% considering an ERP purchase.

Five years ago, off-the-shelf packages represented less than 40% of software in banks. This is expected to top 60% in the next few years.

EBS says the shift toward standard software is in response to tougher market competition, shrinking margins, new legal and regulatory requirements and increasing mergers and acquisitions.

The need for improved business processes and better transparency and quality of information are the two most cited reasons for adopting an ERP system.

According to the research, new ERP systems with portal functionality are increasing end-user acceptance and adoption. Furthermore, the ability to integrate ERP with other IT systems was cited as critically important, particularly as the majority of banks surveyed (60%) prefer using IT product from multiple vendors.

Dirk Schiereck, endowed chair for banking and finance, EBS, comments: "Banks' desire for business growth, the ability to evolve and integrate systems and the need for wide-ranging and easy-to-use functionality represent the primary factors affecting ERP buying decisions, surprisingly much more than cost considerations. This indicates to us a clear and growing understanding by banks of the strategic long-term value of enterprise resource planning."

December 8, 2004 at 08:03 AM in Financial Services | Permalink | TrackBack (18) | Top of page | Blog Home

December 07, 2004

Bank of America begins roll out of Cisco VoIP telephony technology

Finextra: Bank of America begins roll out of Cisco VoIP telephony technology

29/09/2004 14:29:00
In one of the largest VoIP implementations of its kind, Bank of America has begun deployment of Cisco Internet Protocol (IP) telephones across 180,000 desktops at its 5800 branches and office locations in the US.

The bank will replace its existing disparate collection of 362 private branch exchanges (PBXs) with a single IP-based voice, video and data system supplied by the vendor.

More than 100,000 employee voice-mail boxes installed on a variety of voice messaging platforms will be replaced with a single Cisco Unity voice messaging system.

The bank is also implementing IP-based trading turrets from IPC on its trading floor.

Cisco says the IP communications system will reduce operating costs and increase productivity at the bank.

Commenting on the technology, Steve Venezia, MD of the network computing group and network services for Bank of America, adds: "This will help us realise operational and telecom cost savings as well as improved system management and employee productivity."

Systems integrator EDS will help Bank of America manage the migration to the new voice and data network infrastructure, which is expected to take three years.

According to recent resesearch from Avaya and the Economist Intelligence Unit, 43% of companies are either using, testing, or planning to implement VoIP within the next two years.

December 7, 2004 at 07:17 AM in Telecommunications | Permalink | TrackBack (14) | Top of page | Blog Home

Lloyds TSB to switch to new fibre core in £500 million IBM deal

Finextra: Lloyds TSB to switch to new fibre core in £500 million IBM deal

UK bank Lloyds TSB has struck a seven-year £500 million voice and data services deal with IBM, entailing the introduction of a new high-speed network core and an order for 70,000 Voice over IP telephones.

Under the agreement, IBM will act as the "strategic technology partner" for Lloyds TSB as the bank moves to a national dedicated high-capacity fibre, DSL and MPLS network supporting both voice and data communications. The network integration and management will be provided by Vanco, and will include technology from a variety of carriers to provide connectivity to all Lloyds TSB branches and cashpoint machines.

Vtesse Networks, a gigabit optical networking provider, will supply the fibre network, while Cisco will supply the VoIP phones.

Lloyds TSB currently operates a traditional voice infrastructure, including PABX switches, PSTN, RAS, VPN and managed services with approximately 30 supplier contracts, with the largest share of the business held by BT and C&W.

The current Lloyds TSB WAN is deployed solely to support data traffic - no voice convergence exists. Although historically the network has supported many legacy protocols and technologies, today's network is an IP/Ethernet only environment, with the main focal point being the principal data centres.

The new infrastructure, which will be rolled out over the next 20 months to approximately 2500 branches and 1000 other UK sites, will feature a single network for voice, data and video with direct links to mobile and call centre services.

The new fibre core will supply almost limitless bandwidth, allowing Lloyds TSB to consider alternative Web-based or bandwidth-hungry applications that would not previously have been viable.

Efficiency gains are also expected in network branch connectivity, with projections for an expected eight-fold increase in throughput for approximately a quarter of the previous overall cost.

Wayne Churchill, managing director, Vanco Northern Europe, says: "We view this deal as an important first step towards releasing the carrier stranglehold on the financial services market. Our teaming with IBM will change the telecoms market for the benefit of the financial industry and the clients they serve."

December 7, 2004 at 07:14 AM in Telecommunications | Permalink | TrackBack (15) | Top of page | Blog Home

December 05, 2004

L.A. Times to Drop East Coast Edition

Yahoo! News - L.A. Times to Drop East Coast Edition

Fri Dec 3,10:09 PM ET

Add to My Yahoo! U.S. National - AP

LOS ANGELES - The Los Angeles Times will stop publishing its East Coast print edition by the end of the year, and will instead try to reach readers in Washington, D.C., and New York with electronic versions of the newspaper.

The Times, owned by Chicago-based Tribune Co., prints a pared-down version of its paper in Baltimore and distributes copies, many of which are complimentary, in Washington and New York. Newsstands in those cities have sold the paper on a limited basis.

The paper would not disclose how many copies it prints or whether the venture is profitable.

No staff cuts are expected as a result of the decision to stop the East Coast edition at the end of the year, according to Times spokeswoman Martha Goldstein.

The edition was started in 1992 and briefly ceased publication in 1995.

"The aim of the edition was to get our journalism in front of key audiences in Washington, D.C., and New York," Goldstein said. "Since then, other electronic means of reaching East Coast readers have become more plentiful and of higher quality."

In addition to its Web site, Goldstein said the paper is exploring other options for delivering news to its East Coast audience, including an electronic edition of the print version that could be printed by each recipient.

December 5, 2004 at 10:32 AM in | Permalink | TrackBack (2) | Top of page | Blog Home

December 04, 2004

Best blogs

THE BELGRAVIA DISPATCH: The NYT-NYRB Echo Chamber

I mean, thank God for blogs! I got (and still get) more juice and real news from reading Sully, Glenn, Dan, Oxblog, War&Piece, TPM, and so on than from these tired, bloated networks (I'm not talking about the print media here, of which us bloggers rely on heavily, of course, as launching off points from which to analyze the passing show). More self-congratulatory blog triumphalism from the pajama and boxers set? Kinda. But it has the merit of being largely true, doesn't it? I mean, when is the last time you watched a cable or network newcast and felt you had really learned something (apart from simply breaking news or a policy pronunciamento from some politician on, say, Tim Russert's show)?

December 4, 2004 at 02:05 AM in Blogging & feeds | Permalink | TrackBack (29) | Top of page | Blog Home

Study: Big Growth in European Broadband

Yahoo! News - Study: Big Growth in European Broadband

Fri Dec 3, 4:44 PM
More than half of Europe's Internet users now enjoy a broadband Web connection at home, according to a market research report from Internet audience tracking firm Nielsen/NetRatings.

The growth of broadband has helped to expand the number of European Internet users past the 100 million mark, Nielsen/NetRatings said.

UK and Italy Ahead

As of October 2004, 54.5 million Europeans accessed the Internet via a broadband link, up 60 percent from 34.1 million a year earlier, according to the research firm.

The greatest growth was seen in Italy, at 120 percent, and in the UK, where the number of broadband users almost doubled. Consumers have been drawn to broadband because of lower prices and more offerings for broadband services, which offer fast and always-connected Internet access.

In Europe, as in North America, consumers have the choice of cable TV broadband services and telephone-based digital subscriber line (DSL) subscriptions.

Overall Internet Growth

Along with a rise in consumers changing their slow, dial-up accounts for broadband subscriptions, there has been a growth in the overall number of Internet users in Europe.

The total number of European Internet users rose by 12 percent to 100 million in the 12 months to October 2004, led by consumers in France, Italy, the UK and Germany, Nielsen/NetRatings said.

"Twelve months ago, high-speed Internet users made up just over one third of the audience in Europe," Gabrielle Prior, European Internet analyst at Nielsen/NetRatings, says in a statement.

"Now they are more than 50 percent -- and we expect this number to keep growing. As the number of high-speed surfers grows, Web sites will need to adapt, update and enhance their content to retain their visitors and encourage new ones."

Internet use in the United States has followed a similar trend. "In October 2004, 53 percent of the American online population connected via broadband compared to 41 percent in October 2003," according to Marc Ryan, senior director and analyst, Nielsen/NetRatings.

Lower Estimate

The Yankee Group has a more cautious stance on broadband Internet usage in Europe than Nielsen/NetRatings, while agreeing that there has been a sharp rise in broadband subscriptions.

"We forecast 31.1 million paid broadband subscribers at the end of 2004 for Europe, a 62 percent increase from 2003," Patrick Mahoney, a Yankee Group analyst, told Newsfactor.

"The reason this differs so much from Nielsen is because our numbers reflect paid residential subscriptions, not users -- one subscription can have many users."

December 4, 2004 at 01:45 AM in Internet evolution, Web lifestyle | Permalink | TrackBack (6) | Top of page | Blog Home

December 02, 2004

The scholarly content of blogging

Marginal Revolution: The scholarly content of blogging

..................

1. A blog post can have a new idea. It is like a very short journal article, with other bloggers/linkers as providing a citation index of sorts. Plus you receive quick and useful feedback.

2. The blogosphere as a whole is the relevant unit of analysis. Don't think that a single post amounts to much of importance. But the blogsophere as a spontaneous order (sometimes) spits out the truth.

3. Blogging is a way to publicize academic work and give it new readers. I call this "blogging as loss leader."

4. Blogging is more like editing a journal or magazine than writing an article.

5. A blog post is like a (very short) public lecture.

6. Blogging is a fundamentally new medium, akin to an epic in serial form, but combining the functions of editor and author. Who doesn't dream of writing an epic?

December 2, 2004 at 09:26 PM in Blogging & feeds | Permalink | TrackBack (26) | Top of page | Blog Home

Wozniak's Wheels of Zeus Tackles Enterprise Data Encryption

Wozniak's Wheels of Zeus Tackles Enterprise Data Encryption

December 2, 2004
By Ryan Naraine

Steve Wozniak's Wheels of Zeus is beginning to roll, and enterprise data protection is one destination on the Apple Computer Inc. co-founder's mind.

Wozniak offered a peek into his vision for the company on Ziff Davis Media's Security Virtual Tradeshow, where he introduced "wOz Location-Based Encryption," an application that uses GPS tracking within a wireless hub to encrypt and decrypt sensitive data for large businesses.

Wheels of Zeus, which launched in 2001 with backing from three big-name venture capital firms, has developed a wireless platform to power a range of location-based monitoring and notification services, and Wozniak believes data protection is a natural extension of the company's business.

"Hundreds of thousands of notebooks and laptops are stolen or lost every year and, when that happens, sensitive corporate data is gone out the door," Wozniak said, citing FBI statistics that show that 98 percent of all stolen laptops are never recovered.

With wOz Location-Based Encryption, Wozniak said companies can guard against the unauthorized removal of data outside of safe zones by using GPS tracking tied to the proprietary wOzNet, which serves as a local wireless network.

The application involves the use of a dongle attached to the laptop that communicates wirelessly with a base station controlled by an enterprise IT department.

According to Wozniak's vision, the IT department sets specific "safe zones" where the laptop/device can be used, allowing an environment where the location of the laptop is known at all times and where access can be denied entirely if a safe zone is breached.

When the employee logs in, the device automatically requests valid zone information from the dongle. Once the preset zones are approved, the dongle regularly requests GPS positioning as a key to decrypting data to allow access. All the while, Wozniak said the internal base station is continually checking with the dongle for disconnect.

Once everything clears approval, the dongle decrypts the data based on the preset zone data. This, Wozniak explained, would automatically block an employee or a thief from picking up a laptop and moving out of a building without the IT department's approval.

He said the true value of the application kicks in when there is unauthorized removal of a device containing corporate secrets. "Remember, the dongle is constantly requesting GPS positioning, so once there's an out-of-zone reading, it triggers an automatic encryption of data, and alerts are sent to on-site security or to relevant authorities.

"The dongle can be programmed to delete data or shut down sections of the device. Once the computer is removed from the physical zone, the keys are lost or unavailable, and the hard disk is gibberish," Wozniak added.

Next Page: No dongle, no critical data.

What if the dongle is removed? "It is automatically detected by the base station and reported immediately. Decryption of the data is done through the dongle, so no dongle means no use of critical data," Wozniak explained.

Using device-location history, a cookie-crumb trail will help with retrieval of the stolen or lost laptop, he said.

In highly sensitive environments, the application can be integrated with audio alerts and sensors to trigger early warnings, said Wozniak, who is president and chief technology officer of the Los Gatos, Calif.-based Wheels of Zeus.

PointerFor insights on security coverage around the Web, check out eWEEK.com Security Center Editor Larry Seltzer's Weblog.

"The biggest benefit of this is very simplified usage," he said. "The company defines where the computer can or can't be used. You set up the PC to operate in one location, but not others, and you can also approve operation in multiple environments, all based on GPS tracking."

Throughout the entire process, Wozniak said the encryption key is controlled in a central location through a secure transmission. Because the wOz Platform and the wOzNet network are proprietary, he said it is not open to Wi-Fi spoofing or password sniffing.

eWEEK.com Special Report: Cyber-CrimeFor companies with mobile work forces that move from location to location with laptops, he said the application may require multiple base stations.

Wozniak did not provide details on pricing for the application or a timeline for release. Company officials could not be reached to discuss commercial rollout.

Wheels of Zeus already has a deal with Motorola Inc. to develop devices and services for location-based monitoring of pets and other important possessions, but not much is known about the types of devices being created.

PointerCheck out eWEEK.com's Security Center for the latest security news, reviews and analysis.
Copyright (c) 2004 Ziff Davis Media Inc. All Rights Reserved.

December 2, 2004 at 09:23 PM in Security | Permalink | TrackBack (24) | Top of page | Blog Home

Microsoft gets the blogging bug

BBC NEWS | Technology | Microsoft gets the blogging bug

Software giant Microsoft is taking the plunge into the world of blogging.

It is launching a test service to allow people to publish blogs, or online journals, called MSN Spaces.

Microsoft is trailing behind competitors like Google and AOL, which already offer services which make it easy for people to set up web journals.

Blogs, short for web logs, have become a popular way for people to talk about their lives and express opinions online.

Catching up

MSN Spaces is free to anyone with a Hotmail or MSN Messenger account.

People will be able to choose a layout for the page, upload images and share photo albums and music playlists.

The service will be supported by banner ads.

"This is a simple tool for people to express themselves," said MSN's Blake Irving.

This is Microsoft's first foray into blogging, which has taken off as a web phenomenon in the past year.

Competitors like Google already offer free services through its Blogger site, while AOL provides its members with journals.

Accurate figures for the number of blogs in existence are hard to come by.

According to blog analysis firm Technorati, the so-called blogosphere, has doubled every five and a half months for the last 18 months.

It now estimates that the number of blogs in existence has exceeded 4.8 million, although some speculate that less than a quarter are regularly maintained.

December 2, 2004 at 08:39 PM in Microsoft | Permalink | TrackBack (91) | Top of page | Blog Home