Today Technology of the Internet RSS Forum News

Prosecutor Says San Francisco System Set to Melt Down

Added Wed, 23 Jul 2008 13:55:45 -0500
A computer engineer who allegedly held San Francisco's computer system hostage was denied a reduction in his $5 million bond Wednesday after the prosecutor said the system had been rigged to melt down during routine maintenance.

Earlier this week, Terry Childs, 43, gave the disputed password to the system to Mayor Gavin Newsom in a jailhouse meeting arranged by his lawyer, The San Francisco Chronicle reported the mayor then gave the password to a team from Cisco Systems which had been working to open up the city's FiberWAN network.

However, the password did not work initially, prompting the mayor to call Childs for clarification. The Chronicle said Childs then gave the mayor missing protocols to go with the password and the city regained control of its system.

Bond More Than for Murder

Childs has been charged with causing a loss of more than $200,000 and four counts of felony computer tampering. His bond was set at about five times the amount usually set for murder suspects after $11,000 in cash was found on him when he was arrested July 13, leading the district attorney to fear he planned to flee.

Prosecutor Conrad del Rosario told Superior Court Judge Lucy Kelly McCabe that Childs, a five-year veteran of the city's Technology Department, had put key program data in temporary memory files. They would have evaporated when the network was shut down during maintenance or a power failure. Experts were able to transfer the data to permanent files before a shutdown scheduled for last Saturday.

"He had a malicious intent to destroy the entire network," del Rosario said, noting that Childs did not give the mayor the password until after the scheduled shutdown. The prosecutor further noted that other systems Childs had access to are still not functioning properly.

He said the sheriff's department and the parks and...

Google Rumored Ready To Buy Digg for $200 Million

Added Wed, 23 Jul 2008 13:54:48 -0500
Google is reportedly ready to purchase the Digg Web site for $200 million. The search giant could beef up its news service with Digg, where readers select and vote on stories from around the Web.

The rumors began about a week ago when images on Web sites suggested Google was testing voting methods.

Some reports say Google could complete the acquisition of Digg within two weeks, and Microsoft is said to be waiting in the wings if Google doesn't seal the deal. Digg has a three-year deal with Microsoft that would likely end if the search giant absorbs the popular news site.

"This rumor has been around for a couple of months. But this is the most concrete version of the rumor," said Greg Sterling, principal analyst at Sterling Market Intelligence. "Digg seems to be trying to create some sort of bidding for the company in order to get the highest return."

Digg Evolution

Digg describes itself as a place for people to discover and share content from anywhere on the Web. From the biggest online destinations to the most obscure blog, Digg claims to surface the best content as determined by user votes. Digg doesn't employ editors, but relies on its community to determine the most worthy headlines.

Diggers can push news, videos, images and podcasts. Once content is submitted, other people see it and vote on what they like best. Submissions that receive the most diggs are promoted to the site's front page for millions of visitors to read. There is also a social-networking aspect as users launch conversations around stories.

"Digg is trying to evolve from a social news site into a 'recommendation engine' which uses the power of the community to promote certain kinds of results higher or to use that crowd wisdom to identify what are the best or most relevant...

Dolly Lashes Texas Coast as Category 2 Hurricane

Added Wed, 23 Jul 2008 13:03:05 -0500
Forecasters say Hurricane Dolly has made landfall near South Padre Island in Texas. Dolly is a Category 2 storm with top sustained winds near 100 mph.

The storm has forced thousands of people on both sides of the Texas-Mexico border into shelters. Heavy rains and high winds from the storm have collapsed an apartment roof, blown over signs and cut power to thousands of customers.

Landfall is when a storm's center crosses the coastline, but it does not necessarily indicate where the worst weather is.

Forecasters warned of up to 15 inches of rain that could produce flooding and breach levees in the heavily populated Rio Grande Valley. Thunderstorms were attributed to Dolly as far away as Houston, 400 miles up the Texas coastline.

In Mexico, fields were filling with water, palm trees were bent over in the wind and beaches were closed to the public.

Maria Miguel, 102, and seven family members fled their wooden shack in the Mexican fishing community of Higuerilla and spent the night at a convention center-turned-shelter in Matamoros. "I don't know if my poor house will withstand the rain and wind," Miguel said.

Mexican soldiers made a last-minute attempt to rescue people at the mouth of the Rio Grande. The soldiers battled storm-charged waves in an inflatable raft to rescue at least one family trapped in their home, while others further inland were still refusing to go to government shelters, said Matamoros spokeswoman Leticia Montalvo.

"These are people who did not want to leave, and now they are in trouble," Montalvo said.

On Texas' South Padre Island, an apartment complex roof partially collapsed early Wednesday. Residents said they didn't believe anybody was injured. Melissa Zamora, a spokeswoman for the town of South Padre Island, said the roof collapse caused a plumbing leak and few residents were being relocated.

"I thought it was just...

Microsoft Opens Xbox 360 To Outside Game Creators

Added Wed, 23 Jul 2008 10:23:02 -0500
Microsoft is opening the Xbox 360 to third-party software creators in a bold attempt to dramatically expand the number of games available on its platform. The goal is to give gaming aficionados far more choices than rivals Sony and Nintendo are offering.

Taking a page from the playbooks of social-networking sites such as YouTube and Facebook, which have long provided custom software from third-party developers, Microsoft said it will begin offering independently produced games to its Xbox Live community in advance of the holiday shopping season.

"Not only are we democratizing game development with Xbox LIVE Community Games later this year, but we're creating an opportunity for aspiring developers to start their careers on the world stage," said Chris Satchell, chief technology officer for Microsoft's interactive entertainment business group.

Microsoft also announced that the multiplayer components of its Games for Windows - Live service are now free. And it said its next revision to its Direct X application framework will let developers use the graphics card as a parallel processor.

Innovative and Quirky

According to Satchell, independently created games that successfully navigate a rigorous community peer-review system will be added to the Xbox Live Marketplace catalog for sale to consumers. "It is really a win for both developers and consumers because this will no doubt act as an incentive for game creators to continue to develop the best, most innovative games for Xbox 360," Satchell said.

Microsoft expects this autumn's launch of Xbox Live Community Games in the U.S., Canada and select European markets will double the size of the Xbox 360 video-game library to more than 1,000 titles. Moreover, the software giant is betting that accomplished gamers in search of new challenges will be enticed to try independently developed games, which are expected to be more inventive and quirky than those typically created...

With Slydial, Breaking Up Is Not so Hard To Do

Added Wed, 23 Jul 2008 09:51:59 -0500
The old song had it right: Breaking up is hard to do. But a free new phone service called Slydial might make it easier to get through that and other awkward moments -- without actually having to talk to anyone.

Slydial lets you connect directly with another person's cell phone voice mail, bypassing the traditional ringing process that often results -- sometimes disastrously -- with someone picking up on the other end.

Users call (267) SLY-DIAL from either a cell phone or a landline, and are prompted to enter another person's cell phone number.

After playing a short advertisement -- unless users pay a subscription fee or 15 cents per call to skip ads -- Slydial puts callers directly into their target's voice mail.

Recipients should then get a voice mail notification, and sometimes they will see a caller's number show up as a missed call, too.

Gavin Macomber, co-founder of MobileSphere Ltd., the Boston-based communications company behind Slydial, said there were currently some technological limits. It can only be used in the U.S. right now, and generally won't work with prepaid cell phones.

Also, sly dialers must have the caller ID feature activated on their phones, which Macomber said is meant, in part, to prevent people from using it to harass people undetected.

Macomber thinks it can be useful not only in the dating scene, but also in the hectic business world.

"Everybody has gone through the scenario where they've called somebody and just hoped they got voice mail so they didn't have to have a conversation," he said.

Nora Rubinoff, 45, who runs an administrative support company, At Your Service Cincinnati Ltd., has found Slydial helpful both for business and personal situations. She has left reminder messages for people one of her clients intends to interview. And when her husband travels to a different time zone for...

Electronics Giants To Create Wireless HD Standard

Added Wed, 23 Jul 2008 13:06:19 -0500
Sony, Samsung and other consumer-electronics heavyweights are uniting to support a technology that could send high-definition video signals wirelessly from a single set-top box to screens around the home.

The consortium due to be announced Wednesday is an important development in the race to create a definitive way to replace tangles of video cables, but doesn't end it -- both Sony and Samsung also are supporting a competing technology.

In the new consortium, Sony Corp. and Samsung Electronics Co., along with Motorola Inc., Sharp Corp. and Hitachi Ltd., will develop an industry standard around technology from Amimon Ltd. of Israel called WHDI, for Wireless Home Digital Interface.

"If you have a TV in the home, that TV will be able to access any source in the home, whether it's a set-top box in the living room, or the PlayStation in the bedroom, or a DVD player in another bedroom. That's the message of WHDI," said Noam Geri, co-founder of Amimon.

Amimon is already selling chips that fulfill part of that promise, but the creation of a broad industry group makes it more likely that consumers will be able to buy WHDI-enabled devices from different manufacturers and have them all work together.

Geri expects TVs with Amimon's chips to reach stores next year, costing about $100 more than equivalent, non-wireless TVs.

Wireless streaming of high-definition video is a relatively tricky engineering problem that many companies are trying to tackle. It can be done with the fastest versions of Wi-Fi, a technology already in many homes, but that requires "compression," or reduction of the data rate, with picture quality degrading as a result. There's also a delay in transmission as chips on both ends of the link work to compress, then decompress the image.

That's prompted much research into radio technologies that are faster, requiring less compression. A leading...

iPhone 3G Shortages Could Last for Weeks

Added Wed, 23 Jul 2008 13:55:31 -0500
Last week's iPhone 3G launch appears to have been a success, with the device sold out in virtually all U.S. locations. Calls to local AT&T stores in the metropolitan Chicago area, for example, turned up no phones, and long wait lists. Reasons for the shortage range from Apple underestimating demand to a shortage of components from overseas suppliers.

An Apple fan site cited an AT&T memo to store managers noting that iPhone 3Gs will not be available for 10 to 14 days, while other reports indicated the iPhone 3G was sold out in all Apple stores with no new inventory expected for at least two weeks.

Some analysts questioned whether the shortages were real or artificially created to build buzz and further increase demand. But with shortages lasting weeks, carriers with competing products, such as the RIM Blackberry, the Samsung Instinct, and the LG Voyager, will likely step up marketing efforts.

More than one million iPhone 3Gs were sold during the initial weekend. Some stores reported a steady stream of sales as long as inventory held out. The device is in high demand as it provides features that the original lacked -- namely, GPS and high-speed 3G. The 3G capabilities, in particular, are pushing units out the door and may explain the shortages.

Worldwide Black Market

3G is a nearly ubiquitous phone transmission medium, built for international use. Some analysts believe many of the iPhone 3Gs sold in the U.S. are winging their way across the globe to countries such as China and Russia where the iPhone is not yet scheduled to be sold. Reports of Russian and Chinese sales indicate the devices are entering these countries somehow.

In addition to these black markets, the iPhone 3G is sold in 20 countries other than the U.S., further putting pressure on inventories. Apple will launch the iPhone...

Viacom Steps Up Pressure on Google in Lawsuit

Added Wed, 23 Jul 2008 09:27:45 -0500
Media giant Viacom took its fight to the public this week seeking to outline battle lines in its $1 billion lawsuit against YouTube's parent, Google. Viacom filed the lawsuit in March 2007 alleging that YouTube purposefully allowed Viacom's copyrighted content to be distributed on the site. The suit was filed after negotiations between Google and Viacom over licensing content fell apart.

Viacom's CEO Phillipe Dauman took jabs at his opponent at a San Francisco press conference. He expressed disappointment in Google's management of YouTube, citing numerous copyright violations still on the site months after negotiations with Viacom.

Was it Deliberate?

While some observers point to a problem in YouTube's architecture for weeding out and blocking protected content, others believe YouTube and Google were intentionally lax in keeping such Viacom plums as the Daily Show, South Park, and other TV shows. Google maintains it is working on better filtering software to remove copyright-protected videos.

Dauman said he thinks Google purposefully allowed the piracy to continue so YouTube would grow. Google did not step in to curtail the copyright infringements until YouTube dominated the market, Dauman said. YouTube has more than 70 million views per month.

In its suit Viacom asked for the release of YouTube user information to track how often its copyrights were violated. Both parties have since agreed to drop this requirement, even though a judge ruled that Google should comply. Some analysts point to this as a sign the companies may be seeking a settlement.

Expensive Litigation

The lawsuit is causing a bleeding of cash -- Google's stock price dropped 12 percent on July 17, in part due to the costs of defending itself in the Viacom suit. Analysts estimate the lawsuit has cost Google tens of millions of dollars and it threatens the viability of YouTube, which is predicting it will fall short of...

DNS Security Flaw Leaked Before Patches Applied

Added Wed, 23 Jul 2008 07:43:13 -0500
A major flaw in the Internet infrastructure was leaked to the public Monday before many IT directors had the chance to apply security patches. The flaw was discovered weeks ago by Dan Kaminsky, a security expert at IOActive, who has worked with industry leading software developers investigating Internet vulnerabilities.

The potential breech is in the current implementation of the Domain Name System for Web servers. DNS is essentially a lookup system for Web servers: names of domains, such as newsfactor.com, are translated by DNS servers to static IP addresses, essentially the true location of the site.

Cause and Cure

A flaw in the DNS caching of incoming requests makes it susceptible to malicious misdirection of Web traffic. If a DNS server does not have an IP address for a requested domain, it asks for this information from another DNS server.

If the clueless DNS server's cache is fooled by malicious information, the user requesting the domain of a legitimate site can be redirected to a spoofed IP address. For example, if a DNS server is fooled into directing legitimate traffic from www.yourbanksite.com to a rogue site, every user hitting the legitimate site would be redirected to the rogue site.

A patch for the flaw was released two weeks ago to corporate and institutional users, but it's unclear how many servers have been fixed and tested. The patch was issued without detailed explanation, but with a strong recommendation to apply it to avoid security breaches. The IOActive Web site includes a link for testing the effectiveness of the patch.

Loose Lips

Speculation circulated around the Internet about what, exactly, Kaminsky discovered. The security researcher was due to make his finding public at the Black Hat hacker's convention in Las Vegas on Aug. 2-7. Kaminsky felt that would give DNS server operators plenty of time to fix...

Why Apple Is Struggling To Win Fans in China

Added Wed, 23 Jul 2008 07:37:05 -0500
Yang Weiguo, a 20-year-old university student in Beijing, is a committed Apple fan. Given the American company's limited presence in China, that's no small achievement. In April, for instance, Yang bought a new MacBook through MacX.cn, a fan site for Mac users in China that operates an online store unaffiliated with the company. The online store had someone buy a computer for Yang in Hong Kong and courier it up to Beijing, saving him $293, or roughly 17 percent, on his MacBook purchase.

So when Yang, who is spending his summer as a volunteer for the Olympics next month, found out through the Mac community that Apple would open its first store in China on July 19, he knew he had to be there from the beginning. He arrived at the shop, located in a swank shopping mall in the Sanlitun area of Beijing, 22 hours before it was scheduled to open. He was among more than 100 others who camped overnight -- even though he already had his MacBook and wasn't interested in a new iPod. "I don't have anything I need to buy," he says. Still, because he wanted to be there, Yang spent $26 for an adapter cable he could have easily purchased elsewhere.

Smuggling Challenge

Apple executives want to make it easier to convert more people like Yang from the cult of Mao to the cult of Mac. Apple plans to open a second store in Beijing in 2009 and another in Shanghai later. "We expect to be successful here in China because the entire economy is growing," says Ron Johnson, Apple's senior vice-president for retail.

The company has a long way to go. While Apple dominates the digital music player market in the U.S., it sold only 700,000 iPods in China last year, accounting for just 7.5 percent of...