Make $2500 per month Online: Is HYIP Investment a Quick Way to Make Money Onlin...

Make $2500 per month Online: Is HYIP Investment a Quick Way to Make Money Onlin...: "Is HYIP Investment a Quick Way to Make Money Online?  High yield investment program (HYIP) is as its name says, the investment program t..."

www.making1000dollar.blogspot.com

www.flixya.com/user/azertyuiopp

Make $2500 per month Online: Want a Revolutionary Money Making System?

Make $2500 per month Online: Want a Revolutionary Money Making System?: "Are you working hard to make money online but still nothing happens? You have been doing pay per click advertising, affiliate marketing, blo..."

www.making1000dollar.blogspot.com

www.flixya.com/user/azertyuiopp
make 2500 per month

2010 Porsche Panamera 4S

Editors' rating: 4 out of 5

The good: The dual-clutch transmission in the 2010 Porsche Panamera 4S works beautifully, contributing to driving dynamics and fuel economy, while the dynamic suspension leads to impressive cornering. Navigation includes 3D maps, and the Bose stereo produces a nicely refined sound.

The bad: Shifter buttons on the steering wheel are poorly placed. Driver aid features, such as blind spot detection and adaptive cruise control, are not available.

The bottom line: The 2010 Porsche Panamera delivers a spectacular driving experience in a surprisingly practical car, while modern cabin tech satisfies navigation and entertainment.

Price range: $93,800.00

http://reviews.cnet.com/sedan/2010-porsche-panamera-4s/4014-10865_7-34117508.html?tag=rtcol;txt

World Cup pushes Internet to new record

World Cup fever pushed the Internet to a new record on Friday, according to measurements from Akamai.

Traffic to news sites globally started a steady climb about 6 a.m. Eastern time and peaked six hours later at noon, reaching nearly 12.1 million visitors per minute.

The traffic dipped going into the afternoon but stayed well above normal. The figures suggest that the Internet was most active during the Mexico-South Africa game and stayed heavy through the France-Uruguay game.

The day's traffic far exceeded the previous record of 8.5 million visitors per minute, which was set when Barack Obama won the U.S. presidential election in 2008.

As of Saturday afternoon, Web traffic to news sites was still heavy at 5.7 million visitors per minute

Google's Chrome 'in retreat,' says Microsoft

- Internet Explorer (IE) gained browser usage share last month in the U.S., while major rivals Firefox and Chrome both lost ground, Microsoft said today, citing data from Web analytics firm Net Applications.

"This is an incredibly competitive space now, which is incredibly healthy," said Ryan Gavin, director of platform strategies for Microsoft. "But we're already seeing Chrome in retreat in the U.S."

According to Net Applications data not available to the general public, all versions of IE gained 0.76 of a percentage point in U.S. usage share last month, accounting for 63.27% of the browsers used in May. Firefox and Chrome, meanwhile, fell 0.24 and 0.45 of a percentage point, respectively, in the U.S. last month, ending with shares of 20.38% and 4.53%.

Net Applications confirmed that the data Gavin cited was accurate

But the growth of IE in the U.S. was not enough to offset its decline globally, where Microsoft gave up 0.26 of a percentage point to fall to a new low of 59.7%. Meanwhile, Google's Chrome and Opera Software's Norwegian-made Opera boosted their worldwide shares in May at the expense of IE and Mozilla's Firefox.

By May's end, Chrome accounted for 7.05% of the browsers that surfed to the 40,000 sites that Aliso Viejo, Calif.-based Net Applications monitors for clients. Opera increased its share by 0.13 of a percentage point, its largest increase in eight months, to 2.4%.

Chrome's increase of 0.3 of a percentage point was the browser's smallest gain since August 2009, and significantly off its three- and 12-month averages of nearly half a point.

Firefox, on the other hand, was again down last month, sliding 0.24 of a percentage point to 24.35% worldwide, marking the fourth time in the last six months that the browser's share slipped. In March and April, Firefox gained back some of the ground it had lost since November 2009, but May's decline cost Mozilla most of the growth it had fought for during the two-month stretch. Firefox now stands at about the same share it had in January.

Once considered a lock to hit and then move beyond the 25% bar, Firefox has yet to reach that milestone. In April, Vince Vizzaccaro, a Net Applications executive vice president, said that Firefox was "just holding steady" and explained that gains that had once come its way were instead being gobbled by Google's Chrome.

Microsoft disputed that Chrome is grabbing share.

"IE8 continues to lead in user choice," Gavin argued. "It grew 2.5 times faster than any competitor." He arrived at the two-and-a-half times figure by comparing IE8's global increase of 0.81 of a percentage point with Chrome's growth of 0.32 of a percentage point.

IE8 closed May with 35.38% of the U.S. browser usage share, making it the most-used browser in the country. Microsoft's IE7 was second, with 16.75%, said Vizzaccaro, while Mozilla's Firefox 3.6 was third with 13%. Google's best showing was at No. 8, where Chrome 4.1 accounted for 3.52%. Chrome 5.0, which just shifted out of beta into what Google dubs its "stable channel," owned 0.76% of the usage market.

5 reasons to upgrade to Apple's Safari 5

Although it wasn't mentioned during Apple CEO Steve Jobs' keynote address Monday at WWDC, Apple launched an updated version of its Safari Web browser for Mac OS X 10.5.8 and 10.6.2 or higher, as well as Windows XP SP2 or higher, Vista, and Windows 7. With the new release, Apple patched security holes, boosted performance, and introduced a handful of features that collectively have the potential to put Safari on par with Chrome and Firefox in terms of core features and performance.

But what will matter most to users are the following five new or updated features.

Browser extensions
The most significant addition to Safari is — finally! — support for browser extensions. For a lot of users, browser extensions may seem like a non-event. It's true that other browsers — Firefox, Chrome, and IE all come to mind — have supported extensions for so long that switching to one of those browsers from Safari could easily overwhelm you with the sheer number of extensions available.


The new Extensions pane in Safari's preferences.
Extensions may not seem like a big deal, but it's important because it shows Apple is finally keeping pace with rival browser-makers. That doesn't mean it's letting developers run rampant, however. Extensions will be sandboxed to keep them from gaining unfettered access to Safari itself or to other portions of a user's computer or data.

Apple also requires that extensions be digitally signed, similar to what's required for mobile apps in the App Store. That's to ensure an extension hasn't been altered by a third party and that any updates come from the original developer.

Extensions can be written with standard Web technologies — HTML, CSS and JavaScript — just as extensions are built for Firefox and Chrome. Apple has already provided a tool called Extension Builder to make it easy to package, distribute and install extensions. And through its free Safari Developer Program, which also provides resources for developing iPhone/iPad Web apps, developers can register for a digital signature to go with their extensions.

As of yet, only a few extensions are available on the Web, which isn't surprising given that Safari 5 was just released. As developers join the Safari Developer Program and create extensions, Apple will begin adding them to a Web-based gallery. In the meantime, a Tumblr blog is already listing extensions. (It can be followed on Twitter.)

One annoyance about Apple's implementation is that extensions are disabled by default. To enable them, you must use Safari's preferences to enable the Develop menu (there's a checkbox on the Advanced tab), then click on the Develop menu and select Enable Extensions .

apple's safari 5 free download :

Apple's Safari 5 takes speed prize on Mac, Windows

Others disagree, say Apple's new browser slower than rivals Chrome, Opera

Apple's new Safari 5 browser is the fastest browser on both Windows and Mac OS X, JavaScript benchmark tests show.

According to tests run by Computerworld, Safari 5, which Apple launched late Monday, renders JavaScript 27% faster than the nearest competitor on the Mac, and 11% faster than the second-place browser on Windows.

Safari dethrowned the speed kings from Google and Opera Software to take the top spot in the time trials.

On Monday, Apple touted Safari 5's increased speed, claiming that the browser's Nitro JavaScript engine is "up to 30% faster than Safari 4," and could also beat both Google's Chrome and Mozilla's Firefox.

Computerworld ran the SunSpider JavaScript benchmark suite in Windows XP Professional Service Pack 3 (SP3) and on Mac OS X 10.6.3 three times for each browser, then averaged the scores to arrive at the final rankings.

On the Mac, the results rated Safari 5 as 34.8% faster than the previous version of Apple's browser, Safari 4.0.5. Safari 5 beat No. 2 Opera 10.53 by 26.6% and trumped the relatively new Chrome 5's JavaScript speed by 28.9%.

Safari 5 proved more than three times faster than Firefox 3.6.4, the almost-ready Mozilla browser that's been stalled since June 1; Mozilla is trying to quash a final bug or two before shipping that edition.

On Windows, the gap between Safari 5 and its rivals was narrower. There, Safari 5 proved to be 10.6% faster than Chrome 5 and 15.6% faster than Opera 10.53, and rendered JavaScript about 2.5 times faster than Firefox 3.6.4.

Microsoft's historically sluggish Internet Explorer 8 (IE8) took 12 times longer to run the SunSpider benchmarks than Safari 5.

Apple's claim that Safari is "the world's fastest web browser" may be true today, but previous claims haven't stood up to testing. Opera, for example, grabbed the top spot in February, surging past Chrome and Safari, the former No. 1 and No. 2 browsers on Windows, and didn't relinquish it until this month.

The rankings are open to debate. JavaScript performance results can vary significantly, depending on the hardware used to test and the benchmark suite used. Several other technology sites and blogs, for example, have said that their benchmarks show Safari 5 lagging behind Chrome on Windows. Some have gone as far as to call Apple's speed claim "a flat out lie."

Although Safari may own the speed prize -- by Computerworld's testing -- it not the world's most popular browser. According to the newest data from Web metrics company Net Applications, Safari accounted for just 4.8% of all the browsers used in May, a far cry from IE's 59.7%, Firefox's 24.4% or even Chrome's 7.1%. Of the five major browsers on Windows, only Opera, with just 2.4% of the usage market, trails Safari.

Norton Internet Security 2011 public beta attacks new dangers

As protections against garden-variety viruses and malware have become more effective, malware writers have turned to new ways to infect computers in the pursuit of profit. Two increasing threats are malware spread via bad Facebook links and so-called scareware -- malware that masquerades as virus-scanning software.


The main screen of Norton Internet Security 2011.
The beta of Norton Internet Security 2011 adds several tools designed to protect against those threats, along with other useful tools and tweaks. The result is a useful all-around security application aimed at keeping up with a fast-changing landscape where new threats are constantly emerging.

Scanning Facebook links
The new Facebook Scan checks links on your Facebook Wall and News Feed to see whether they link to malware or to sites known to harbor malware. When you start it up, the feature takes you to a browser page, where it reports on the progress and results of the scan.

In order to use the tool (which is actually a Facebook app), you'll have to give Norton Internet Security 2011 access to your Facebook stream. The tool also asks for permission to post the results to your Facebook page. The scanner doesn't require posting permission in order to work, though, so if you feel uncomfortable granting that permission, don't.

The labeling of the tool is somewhat confusing. You access it from the Norton Internet Security 2011 main interface, but on the Web page where the results are reported, it is labeled Norton Safe Web, which is the suite's browser toolbar. But there is no way to scan Facebook directly from the Norton Safe Web toolbar, and the toolbar itself makes no mention of a Facebook scanning tool (at least in this beta version).

I had trouble getting the Facebook Scan to work properly. It stalled at a "Generating results" notice that said it was scanning my feed for viruses. Clicking the "View results" button only started the scan again, and it once again stalled. When I closed the page and started the process again from Norton Internet Security, however, I did get results -- it reported that 27 of the 29 links it checked were safe. Results were pending on the remaining two links.

Each time I used the tool, similar problems occurred. It will clearly be a useful tool, assuming that it's fixed before the program ships.

Battling scareware
One problem with combating scareware is that individual pieces are typically so new that antivirus signatures have yet to be devised to identify them.

The previous version of Norton introduced a "Download Insight" feature that checks files as they are downloaded, as well as files already on your system, to see whether they are "trusted" -- that is, whether other people have downloaded and used them safely. If a piece of software is not trusted, that means it may not be safe. In that way, you are steered away from installing scareware.

The newest version of Norton extends that feature, adding support for more browsers -- while the previous version supported only Internet Explorer and Firefox, the new one includes Chrome, Opera, AOL and Safari. It also supports many instant messaging, peer-to-peer and e-mail applications, including AIM, Outlook, Yahoo Messenger and Windows Live Messenger.

Norton also has introduced a free stand-alone application, Norton Power Eraser, that discovers and kills hard-to-find scareware that cannot be detected by traditional antivirus software. Once you download it, the application scans your system and sends the information to Norton's servers, which analyze and report on the results. Power Eraser will then kill the scareware if you tell it to.


Norton Power Eraser is a free tool that can find and kill hard-to-detect scareware.
Be aware, though, that Norton Power Eraser is a more aggressive system scanner than the normal Norton malware scanner and is likely to return more false positives. So it's a good idea, before taking its advice to kill a program, to do a search on what it finds to get a better sense of whether it's really malware. For example, on my Windows 7 system, Power Eraser reported "shellfolderfix" as being malware, when in fact it is add-on software that helps Windows better remember the size and position of Windows Explorer windows.

Few answers after McAfee antivirus update hits Intel, others

After distributing a buggy antivirus update that apparently disabled hundreds of thousands of computers on Wednesday, McAfee is still at a loss to explain exactly what happened.

McAfee says that just a small fraction of its corporate customers -- less than 0.5 percent -- were affected by the glitch, which caused some Windows XP Service Pack 3 systems to crash and reboot repeatedly. McAfee blamed a bad virus definition update shipped out Wednesday morning, Pacific time, which ended up quarantining a critical Windows process called svchost.exe.

By the end of the day, the antivirus vendor still couldn't say exactly what caused the problem. "We're investigating how it was possible some customers were impacted and some not," said Joris Evers, a McAfee spokesman, speaking via instant message. One common factor amongst the victims of the glitch, however, is that they'd enabled a feature called "Scan Processes on Enable" in McAfee VirusScan software.

Added in version 8.7 of the product, this feature lets McAfee's malware scanner check processes in the computer's memory when it starts up. According to Evers, it is currently not enabled by default. However, some versions of VirusScan did ship with it enabled. McAfee's instructions for repairing affected computers can be found here.

A large number of users reported major problems after installing McAfee's bad update Wednesday.

Systems at Intel were knocked offline before the bad update could be stopped, according to Intel spokesman Chuck Mulloy. He couldn't say how many PCs were affected, but said that the problem was "significant."

"There were quite a few clients, laptops and PCs [affected]," he said. "We were able to get it stopped fairly early on, but clearly not soon enough."

About 40 percent of machines in Washington's Snohomish County were affected by the problem, according to John Storbeck, the county's engineering services supervisor. "This is a nightmare," he said in an e-mail message.

In Iowa, a local disaster response exercise was disrupted when 911 computer systems crashed, according to Deb Hale a Security Administrator with Internet Service provider Long Lines in Sioux City, Iowa. County IT staff soon started getting calls from other departments --- including police, fire and emergency response -- and began an emergency shutdown of all computers on the assumption that a virus was spreading.

After finishing the exercise, using a radio system for dispatch, participants learned that there was no virus, just a bad McAfee update, Hale said in a blog post. "Thanks to McAfee we were forced to test our response to a disaster while in the midst of a real 'disaster,'" she wrote.

According to reports Rhode Island Hospital, the National Science Foundation, and many universities were affected. Local police and government agencies in Kentucky experienced problems.

Google researcher gives Microsoft 5 days to fix XP zero-day bug

A Google engineer today published attack code that exploits a zero-day vulnerability in Windows XP, giving hackers a new way to hijack and infect systems with malware.

But other security experts objected to the way the engineer disclosed the bug -- just five days after it was reported to Microsoft -- and said the move is more evidence of the ongoing, and increasingly public, war between the two giants.

Microsoft said it is investigating the vulnerability and would have more information on its next steps later today.

According to Tavis Ormandy, a security engineer who works for Google in Switzerland, hackers can leverage a flaw in Windows' Help and Support Center, which lets users easily access and download Microsoft help files from the Web and can be used by support technicians to launch remote support tools on a local PC.

Ormandy posted details of the vulnerability and proof-of-concept attack code to the Full Disclosure security mailing list early Thursday. "Upon successful exploitation, a remote attacker is able to execute arbitrary commands with the privileges of the current user," Ormandy wrote.

According to Ormandy, his attack scenario works using all major browsers, including Microsoft's newest, IE8. The bug is even easier to exploit when the machine has Windows Media Player, software that's installed by default with all versions of Windows.

Ormandy also said he had come up with a way to suppress a warning prompt that Windows XP displays when the Help and Support Center is called, making the attack stealthier.

His attack is complicated, and requires several tricks, including bypassing a whitelist meant to limit the accessed help documents to legitimate support files; using a cross-site scripting vulnerability; and then executing a malicious script.

But his attack code works. Researchers at French security vendor Vulpen Security confirmed today that Ormandy's proof-of-concept works as advertised on Windows XP Service Pack 2 (SP2) and SP3 machines running Internet Explorer 7 or IE8.

Switching to another browser, such as Mozilla's Firefox or Google's Chrome, is not a solution, Ormandy maintained. "Machines running [a] version of IE less than [IE]8 are, as usual, in even more trouble ... [but] choice of browser, mail client or whatever is not relevant, they are all equally vulnerable," he said.

Ormandy admitted that he reported the vulnerability to Microsoft only five days ago -- on Saturday, June 5 -- but said he decided to go public because of its severity, and because he believed Microsoft would have otherwise dismissed his analysis.

"If I had reported the ... issue without a working exploit, I would have been ignored," he said in the Full Disclosure posting.

He also slammed the concept of "responsible disclosure," a term that Microsoft and other vendors apply to bug reports that are submitted privately, giving developers time to craft a patch before the information is publicly released.

"This is another example of the problems with bug secrecy (or in PR speak, 'responsible disclosure')," Ormandy said. "Those of us who work hard to keep networks safe are forced to work in isolation without the open collaboration with our peers."

Microsoft took Ormandy to task for giving it less than a week to deal with his report. "We are especially concerned about the public disclosure of this issue given we were only notified about it by this researcher on the 5th of June," said Jerry Bryant, a group manager with the Microsoft Security Response Center (MSRC), in an e-mail this morning.

Others were even blunter.

Microsoft confirms critical Windows XP bug

Microsoft on Thursday confirmed that Windows XP and Windows Server 2003 contain an unpatched bug that could be used to infect PCs by duping users into visiting rigged Web sites or opening attack e-mail.

The company said it has seen no active in-the-wild attacks exploiting the vulnerability.

The bug in Windows' Help and Support Center -- a component that lets users access and download Microsoft help files from the Web -- doesn't properly parse the "hcp" protocol handler, Microsoft said in an advisory issued Thursday afternoon. Attackers can leverage the vulnerability by enticing users to malicious or hacked Web sites, or by convincing them to open malformed e-mail messages.

Windows Vista, Windows 7, Windows Server and Windows Server 2008 R2 are not vulnerable to the attack.

Microsoft plans to produce a patch, but has not set a release date. "Microsoft is currently working to develop a security update for Windows to address this vulnerability," the advisory stated. July 13 is Microsoft's next scheduled Patch Tuesday, but it sometimes issues patches outside its monthly plan. The last time it did so was in late March when it fixed a bug in Internet Explorer that attackers were aggressively exploiting.

The advisory was prompted by the bug's disclosure early Thursday , and the release of proof-of-concept attack code. Tavis Ormandy, a security engineer who works for Google in Switzerland, defended the decision to reveal the flaw only five days after reporting it to Microsoft. But Microsoft and other researchers questioned the quick publication.

Microsoft made no distinction between Ormandy and his employer in a blog post Thursday.

"This issue was reported to us on June 5, 2010 by a Google security researcher and then made public less than four days later, on June 9, 2010," said Mike Reavey, the director of the Microsoft Security Response Center (MSRC). "Public disclosure of the details of this vulnerability and how to exploit it, without giving us time to resolve the issue for our potentially affected customers, makes broad attacks more likely and puts customers at risk."

According to the time stamp on Ormandy's message to the Full Disclosure mailing list, he posted it at 1:46 a.m. Swiss time on June 10, or 4:46 p.m. PT on June 9.

The two companies have traded blows this year that have included public arguments about the quality of each other's software suites -- Google Docs and Microsoft Office -- and about reports that Google wants to phase out Windows inside the company over security concerns.

Some security researchers blasted Ormandy for going public when Google's policy is to not reveal a bug until the affected vendor has a chance to fix the flaw. "Google can't have their cake and eat it too," said Robert Hansen, the CEO of SecTheory, in an interview yesterday.

Ormandy declined to comment when contacted by e-mail. In a message on Twitter late Thursday, however, he said, "The HelpCtr bug today was intended as a personal project. It sucks that work has been dragged into it."

The Help and Support Center vulnerability was the eighth zero-day -- the term used to describe a threat for which there is no patch -- that Microsoft has faced so far this year, according to data provided by Andrew Storms, the director of security operations at nCircle Security.

Six of those vulnerabilities have been patched, with fixes released an average of 43 days after Microsoft acknowledged the bug. The fastest turnaround was seven days for an emergency IE patch Microsoft closed in January. Hackers had exploited the bug to break into Google's corporate network. The longest cycle so far this year was 125 days.

Last year, Microsoft handled 10 zero-days, also patching them in an average of 43 days, with a shortest time-to-fix of eight days and a longest of 151 days.

"Despite the fact that Microsoft has made progress in getting researchers to report vulnerabilities, they're not immune to zero-days," said Storms.

At the current pace, Microsoft will have to deal with 18 zero-days during 2010, nearly double the number in 2009.

Antitrust probe into Apple's iPhone ad ban likely, says expert

Apple will probably face a federal investigation into its decision to bar rival Google from iPhone's mobile advertising market, an antitrust expert said today.

According to reports, the U.S. Department of Justice and the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) are planning to look into whether Apple is unfairly blocking rivals such as Google and Microsoft from the advertising market on the iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad.

The Financial Times was the first to note interest on the part of federal antitrust regulators.

Earlier this week, Apple modified the language in the terms iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad developers must agree to, effectively banning them from using Google's AdMob advertising network. Google acquired AdMob in late May for $750 million after the FTC approved the deal.

The probe would be the third in the last two months. Investigators are also reportedly targeting Apple over the company's ban of third-party development tools for creating iPhone software and its dominance of the U.S. digital music download business.

But an investigation into the mobile advertising market may give the government its strongest case, said Jeffrey Shinder, managing partner at New York-based law firm Constantine Cannon, and a former special counsel to the FTC.

"I would think [the government] would cast a wider net, but mobile advertising is critical," said Shinder, who has 20 years' experience in antitrust litigation. "Apple's conduct strikes me as brazen there."

According to Nielsen, Apple's iPhone accounts for 28% of the U.S. smartphone market.

Shinder said antitrust regulators would argue that Apple has an even larger share of a more narrowly-defined market -- smartphones with large numbers of available applications for downloading -- and that the mobile advertising market is unique and should be given special consideration.

"Apple has a very strong first-mover advantage in the smartphone market, and the sub-market of what I'd call 'app smartphones,'" said Shinder. "A lot of what Apple's doing, including barring AdMob from the iPhone, is an attempt to entrench that dominant position of the iPhone, and then leverage that into a dominant position in mobile advertising."

Shinder called the AdMob ban "potentially exclusionary," and thus of natural interest to the DOJ and FTC antitrust officials.

Clues that the FTC in particular sees the mobile advertising market as separate from advertising overall can be drawn from the agency's approval of Google's purchase of AdMob. "I think that's the way they're thinking," Shinder said, citing comments the FTC made after the AdMob deal. "Mobile advertising is separate because it's leveraging where and who consumers are. That's something you can't get anywhere else."

The fact that Google likely made that argument during its talks with the FTC -- and that that line of reasoning could be used against Apple, Google's rival in mobile operating system development -- wasn't lost on Shinder.

Apple could counter that it has built its smartphone market position, and by association the mobile advertising business, on the back of popular, high-quality products, said Shinder. Or it could simply delay, figuring that the longer the investigation goes on, the more ad market it could grab.

"One Apple defense would be to say, 'We are leading because our products are terrific, and we have every right to maintain the integrity of our products, or prevent rivals from free-riding,'" Shinder speculated. "Or they could just play for time."

An investigation could take as long as a year, giving Apple the opportunity to build an even stronger position in smartphones and mobile advertising. At that point, it could conceivably give in to the government's demands, allow AdMob onto the iPhone, but because it had had a year to strengthen its own iAd network, be in an unassailable spot.

Apple could also point to the rapid growth of Google's Android mobile platform as a sign that it doesn't dominate the smartphone market. Nielsen pegged Android-powered smartphones with a 9% share of the market, up two percentage points since the end of 2009.

"Time is on Apple's side, and that's huge," said Shinder. "But the government has signaled their interest in watching the company. I don't feel Apple is being unfairly targeted, because I see a pattern here."

Missouri AG Looks Into Google Wi-Fi Mess

Missouri Attorney General Chris Koster is asking Google to answer questions about how the company's widespread wireless-network sniffing activities may have affected local residents.

People who read this also read:
People Who Like This Also Like
Google Is Ginormous: Why You Should Care 34603108 Google Wi-Fi Snooping Investigation Broadens 34626940 Customize Your Google Search Page 34582904 6 Seriously Strange Ways to Make Money Online 34592588 Bugs & Fixes: Router's Network Password Can Slow Wi-Fi 34621986 Apple Issuing Lala Refunds, Rounding up 34621090 In a letter to Google Friday, Koster says it's not clear whether Google broke state law, but adds that "there can be no doubt that the company's conduct implicates the privacy concerns of Missouri residents."

The attorney general asked Google to explain how Wi-Fi data collected by the company's StreetView vehicles was used and what it's done to keep the potentially sensitive information safe. He also asked Google to hold on to the data until the appropriate regulators can study the matter.

"We expect Google to provide information to us so we can ascertain whether there is any threat to Missourians' private information, and take action if necessary to protect it," Koster said in a statement.

This latest development shows that state authorities are also taking an interest in a controversy that has reportedly caught the attention of U.S. regulators. Agencies in France, Germany and Canada have already opened investigations, and Google is facing at least seven class-action lawsuits over the matter.

Google StreetView cars, which drive around cities taking photos for use with Google Maps, had been collecting Wi-Fi networking data for years to boost the accuracy of some of its location-based products. But the company recently admitted that they have also inadvertently recorded the contents of e-mails and Web pages on unsecured wireless networks.

Google blamed the debacle on the actions of a single engineer and is now investigating the matter. In the meantime, pressure from regulators worldwide is piling up.

Consumer advocate John Simpson said he was happy to see Missouri asking for an explanation. "Google's ... operation compromised consumers' privacy in the very heartland of America," said Simpson, an advocate with California's Consumer Watchdog, in an e-mail message. "The Internet giant needs to be held accountable."

Google could not immediately be reached for comment.

Google Wi-Fi Data Capture Unethical, But Not Illegal

Google is under global scrutiny for its "accidental" gathering of wi-fi data while driving about photographing the world with its Street View camera cars. In the court of public opinion Google's actions cross ethical boundaries, but whether or not the activities were illegal depends on the laws in place for the given jurisdiction. Businesses in the United States should understand that the interception of publicly available data traversing the airwaves is probably not illegal.

People who read this also read:
People Who Like This Also Like
Google Seeks Consolidation of Wi-Fi Snooping Cases 34781212 Why Google Backed Down on Home Page Backgrounds 34780188 Google Wi-Fi Data Collection Hit by Privacy Group - PCWorld 34826612 US Lawmakers Disturbed Over Google's Wi-Fi Snooping 34811280 Motorola's 2GHz Android Phone Means Business 34814508 Skype vs. Google Talk 34648450 Granted, "probably" is not a very legally precise term, but the reality is that publicly-available wireless networks fall into a legal gray area that isn't defined very well. Google didn't "steal" anything, or even violate any expectation of privacy per se. All Google did was intercept airwaves that were trespassing in its vehicles.

The lesson for businesses and IT administrators is that you have to put forth some effort to at least give the appearance that you intend for the information to be private in order for there to be any inherent expectation of privacy. The burden should not be on Google, or the general public to have to determine whether the data you let freely fly about unencrypted is meant to be shared or is intended for a specific audience.

Some will equate Google's actions to someone taking property from a business with an unlocked door. The comparison is not apples to apples, though. If a business has an unlocked, or even a wide open door, passersby still know that entering it would be trespassing, and that taking property from inside would be stealing.

However, in Google's case, it is more like the business took its property and set it out in the middle of the street. In fact, it might not even be in front of the business, or even on the same street--since the wi-fi signal from the wireless router is broadcast for a respectable distance in all directions. If someone were walking down the street and found a laptop, or a copy machine in the middle of the street, taking it would be neither trespassing, nor stealing--just serendipitous.

There have been cases where individuals have been fined or prosecuted for accessing open wireless networks. A Michigan man was fined and forced to perform community service for accessing a local café's wireless network without being a customer. An Illinois man plead guilty and received a fine after being caught riding on the wireless network of a non-profit agency from his parked car.

I would argue that even those actions were not technically illegal. If I am out in public with my laptop or iPad, and it detects an available, unencrypted network to connect to, there is no way for me to know whether the owner meant for that network to be private, or if it is intended as a public hotspot. A wireless network is a wireless network, and some devices are configured to connect to any available wireless signal.

Google, however, did not "access" the open networks. It simply intercepted the unencrypted data that businesses and individuals beamed through the air willy-nilly. The data was left in the middle of the street so to speak, and Google gathered it as it drove through collecting photograps.

In Google's case, the legal issues may just be beginning, though. Some countries, like Germany, have a much different opinion of privacy and different laws in place. Even in the United States, there may still be legal avenues for pursuing Google. But, if Google simply collected data that was publicly available, and never even accessed or used the data in any way as they claim, I fail to see where it did anything wrong.

If you want to stay out of the legal gray area, and protect your data you must turn on encryption for your wireless network. WEP encryption is pathetically simple to crack--trivial for anyone interested, but even WEP at least implies that you intended the data to be private. For better protection, you should employ WPA, or better yet WPA-2 encryption.

If you have a business--like a coffee shop or book store--where you want to share a public wireless network, but only with patrons and only under certain conditions, then you should implement some sort of initial notice or login screen that explains the policy for acceptable use of the wi-fi connection.

I am not a lawyer, and I don't play one on TV--or even on the Internet, but the bottom line is that if someone walking or driving by can intercept your unencrypted data as it trespasses into their airspace, it's not your data any more.

HP takes top server spot from IBM

HP took the top spot from IBM in global server revenue in the first quarter, as shipments from all manufacturers rose 23 percent over the previous year, according to Gartner.

The quarterly figures are a sign that businesses are starting to increase their expenditure on servers as the global economy recovers, the analyst company said. However, although the market is bouncing back, server revenue in the quarter was only around 80 percent of its peak in 2008, it noted.

"2009 typically saw users [companies] extending the lifecycles of their hardware," Gartner principal research analyst Adrian O'Connell told ZDNet UK. "I wouldn't say the market has now recovered: it is recovering."

Server revenue rose six percent year-on-year in the first quarter of 2010, Gartner said in a report released on Tuesday. The x86 servers were the fastest growing segment, showing rises of 25.3 percent in shipments and 32.1 percent in sales. In contrast, RISC/Itanium Unix servers and mainframes declined substantially, falling 28.5 percent in shipments and 26.9 percent in revenue.

In terms of form factors, blade servers performed the best, with sales up 40.7 percent year-on-year. As for vendors, HP took over from IBM as the leading server manufacturer by revenue. In the quarter, HP had 31.5 per cent of revenue worldwide, up from 28.8 percent the previous year, while IBM fell from 30.7 percent to 28.4 percent. Dell remained in third with 15.6 percent, with Fujitsu in fourth place at six percent. Fifth-place Oracle, which acquired server maker Sun in April 2009, saw its share drop from 9.6 percent to 5.6 percent.

IBM slipped from the top spot partly because businesses are waiting to buy Power7 systems from the company, Gartner said.

HP had a stronger lead in EMEA and increased its market share by revenue to over 40 percent. IBM's market share shrank considerably to 23.7 per cent in the region from 29 percent a year ago. Total EMEA server revenue rose slightly higher than it did globally, increasing 6.6 percent. Year-on-year, shipments were up 19.7 per cent in EMEA, Gartner found. O'Connell said the UK figures broadly followed the EMEA trends.

As server sales plummeted during the recession, there is now some potential demand, according to Gartner. However, that demand will be spread throughout 2010 and 2011, it said.

"To some extent, there is pent-up demand in the market. But companies will take it cautiously and slowly in going through this refresh until there is more confidence," O'Connell said.

A lack of visibility of future economic conditions and consequently a lack of visibility of their future company performance is holding back IT departments from substantial server expenditure increases, Gartner said. O'Connell noted that procurement cycles have become lengthy for high-end systems. In contrast, businesses are quicker to purchase low-end servers.

In addition, the economy has forced companies to re-evaluate how they run their IT, causing them to make different technology choices, he added. But whereas the downturn 10 years ago left IT departments with few choices, there are now considerable options to reduce costs and improve productivity, O'Connell said. He gave the use of blades, virtualisation software and cloud computing as examples

Yahoo, Facebook side with Google against Viacom

Some of the biggest and most respected Web services have come to the aid of Google and YouTube, which are defending themselves against accusations that they violated copyright on a grand scale.

Yahoo, Facebook and eBay on Wednesday filed a friends-of-the-court brief in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York. That's where Viacom, parent company of MTV Networks and Paramount Pictures, filed a $1 billion copyright lawsuit against Google in March 2007.

The three companies have urged District Judge Louis Stanton to dismiss Viacom's suit, arguing that the Digital Millennium Copyright Act protects Internet service providers from liability for copyright violations committed by users. They say that a decision against Google could stifle the growth of important Internet services.

"Plaintiffs' legal arguments, if accepted, would retard the development of the Internet and electronic commerce," wrote a lawyer representing the four companies.

Viacom alleges that YouTube, which Google acquired in 2006, encouraged users to upload unauthorized clips from Paramount Pictures, Comedy Central, and MTV Networks to the video-sharing site. Those clips helped YouTube attract users as well as generate ad sales, Viacom claims.

The amicus brief filed on Wednesday follows a similar type of filing made by NBC Universal, Warner Bros., Disney, the Screen Actors Guild, and Directors Guild of America on behalf of Viacom.

That so many powerhouse companies are weighing in is testament to the importance of the case. The court's decision will likely help establish copyright law as it applies to the Web.

In response to Wednesday's filing, Kelly McAndrew, a Viacom spokeswoman, told Bloomberg: "The courts have been clear that creating and building a Web-based business on the intellectual property of others is illegal. That is exactly what YouTube did in its formative years."

But when it comes to services such as YouTube, the law hasn't been as clear as McAndrew asserts--not to the courts or even Viacom executives.

In September, a U.S. district judge ruled in favor of Veoh, an online-video service, after that site was sued by Universal Music Group for alleged copyright violations. Legal analysts have said that the Veoh case is very similar to YouTube's but Viacom has argued that there are important differences and that decision, which Universal said it will appeal, is not binding on Stanton's decision.

And Viacom also has had trouble determining whether the DMCA protects YouTube.

On Friday, more documents in Viacom vs. Google were released and among them was an e-mail from Michael Fricklas, Viacom's general counsel, in which Fricklas appeared to defend YouTube.

"Mostly, YouTube behaves--and why not," Fricklas wrote in July 2006. "User-generated content appears to be what's driving it right now. Also, the difference between YouTube's behavior and Grokster's is staggering. While the Supreme Court's language IS broad; the precedent is not THAT broad."

A Viacom spokeswoman said Fricklas' e-mail was sent before Fricklas had a chance to fully evaluate YouTube and "in a few short months, it became clear to Mr. Fricklas and others that YouTube's behavior was egregiously unlawful."

Apple tops Microsoft as world's most valuable tech firm

Apple passed a major milestone today, becoming the world's largest technology company as measured by the total value of its shares.

Near the close of trading on the Nasdaq exchange, Apple's market capitalization stood at $223 billion, higher than No. 2 Microsoft, which had a market cap of $219.3 billion.

It was the first time that Apple's total share worth climbed above its rival's.

"Apple's market cap just exceeded Microsoft's for the first time ever, making it the world's largest tech company in terms of market cap," said Brian Marshall, an analyst with BroadPoint AmTech. "It's interesting that just seven years ago, the company traded at less than cash."

A company's market cap is equal to its share price times the number of shares outstanding. A year ago, Apple's shares closed at $130.78; today, the company's shares fell in late afternoon trading to $244.13, a one-year increase of 86.7%.

Microsoft's shares, meanwhile, dropped to $24.99 in late trading, off more than a dollar for the day.

Google, a competitor to both Apple and Microsoft, closed the day with a market cap of $152 billion.

Oil giant Exxon Mobil is the U.S.'s largest company, with a market cap of $278.6 billion.

According to BroadPoint's Marshall, both Apple and Microsoft will generate in the neighborhood of $65 billion in revenues during the 2010 calendar year.

Dell Streak blurs line between tablet, smartphone

Is the Android-powered Dell Streak, coming this summer, a tablet or a smartphone? The answer depends on who you ask.


Dell's Streak blurs the line between tablet and smartphone, which could prove to be an asset, or not.Dell Inc. calls it a tablet, but with a five-inch screen it's nearly half the size of Apple's 9.7-inch iPad.

Blurring the lines even further, it also has a GSM radio for making calls, something not often seen in tablets and certainly not in the iPad.

While it's basically a large pocket-size device, the Streak is small enough to hold up to your ear to make a call, or it can be connected to a wired or wireless headset.

Dell actually hasn't officially announced the dimensions of the full device, just the size of the screen, says Dell spokesman Matthew Parretta. "It doesn't look goofy holding it up to your head to talk," he said, noting he's been using the Streak for eight months as a phone and tablet and loves it.

Dell calls the Streak a tablet and not something else, because it's expected to be used as primarily a data-centric device, Parretta said.

In full landscape mode, a user can download Web pages and see them in full width, rather than having to move back and forth like one would with a smartphone. Moreover, the Streak can be used as a GPS device with Google Maps and Google Voice, he said.

But Dell executives have also recognized that the Streak falls between a smartphone and a tablet. Ron Garriques, president of the Dell Communication Solutions Group, said in a statement that the device "hits the sweet spot between traditional smartphones and larger-screen tablets. Its unique size provides people new ways to enjoy, connect and navigate their lives."

Other Dell representatives have described what the Streak is in a blog post and a video. "It is in a class of device that fits between a smartphone and a full netbook or notebook," said Kevin Andrew, who is on the Streak's development team, in the video.

What's in a name, anyway?
Why does it matter whether you call the Streak a smartphone or a tablet? It probably doesn't matter that much, except that something with a little of both is hard for some people to digest, including analysts such as Gartner Inc.'s Ken Dulaney.

"I find this product is in an odd size category that I do not believe will produce significant volume," Dulaney said via e-mail. "It is definitely not a smartphone, and the screen is only half the diagonal of the iPad, which is obviously successful."

Apple sold 1 million iPads in a little more than a month.

Dulaney said that Intel Corp. had called such "tweener" devices MIDs, for mobile Internet devices, but the concept basically fell flat. "Intel got many manufacturers to make such devices with little success," Dulaney said.

"So Dell has to convince the market that this product has some significant feature set over the iPad and that it's not a fourth computer [category]," he said.

Dulaney said the software in the Streak is also going to have to be competitive with the iPad's offerings.

Dell has said it will be possible to upgrade the Streak to the Android 2.2 operating system later this year, enabling it to support Flash 10.1 and video chat, among other features. The Streak's fast 1-GHz Snapdragon processor and its two cameras, front and rear, would make video chat possible.

PC Magazine's Lance Ulanoff declared the Streak was not a tablet and more like a phone.

Meanwhile, independent IT industry analyst Rob Enderle noted in a column at TGDaily on Wednesday that he had carried the Streak around for months and had found that it was better than both the iPad and the iPhone.

"It is both small enough to be a phone and big enough to do a number of things the iPad does acceptably well," Enderle wrote.

A major factor in Streak's favor, Enderle noted, is that it runs on Android. Android-based devices are close to matching the iPhone's success, he said, and Android could actually attract more developers than iPhone OS.

However, Enderle noted that "there may never really be a one-size-fits-all market." The Streak, he said, is "just the beginning of what we want in a tablet/smartphone, and it may be years until the right size and combination of technologies come to market."

Enderle said he bets there will be other devices in the class of the Streak coming shortly.

Putting aside questions about whether the Streak is a tablet or a smartphone, some analysts have said the device's success will depend on other factors, including Dell's strong brand and reputation and superior ability to market and sell products.

Analyst Jack Gold of J.Gold Associates LLC said on Tuesday that the Streak will do well in the short term, partly because Dell's brand recognition could help differentiate the device from dozens of other upcoming Android devices.

While some bloggers theorized AT&T will carry the Streak in the U.S., Dell has not commented officially on U.S. carriers, nor has it announced pricing or a release date -- except to say that the Streak would arrive "later this summer."

The Dell Streak will first appear in early June in the U.K. at 02 stores and at online retail sites, including Dell's U.K. site later in June.

Intel eyes hardware acceleration for Google's WebM

Intel is considering hardware-based acceleration for Google's new WebM video file format in its Atom-based TV chips if the format gains popularity, an Intel executive said on Thursday.

Google last week announced the high-definition WebM video file format to deliver high-quality Web video to multiple devices including TV sets and handhelds. WebM files will include video streams compressed with the open-source VP8 video codec, which was acquired by Google when it bought On2 Technologies in February.

"Just like we did with other codecs like MPEG2, H.264 & VC1, if VP8 establishes itself in the Smart TV space, we will add it to our [hardware] decoders," said Wilfred Martis, general manager for retail consumer electronics at Intel's Digital Home Group.

Intel is working with Google to bring Internet video to TV sets through the Google TV platform, which will blend broadcast TV and Internet content into one interface. Google will supply the software, and the service will be available later this year in some Sony high-definition TVs and Blu-ray DVD players, for which Intel will supply the highly optimized Atom CE4100 chip.

Intel declined to comment on how the lack of hardware acceleration in the CE4100 chips will affect the Google TV project. Google owns YouTube, which is one of the largest video sites on the Internet.

Intel's CE4100 TV chips will be able to decode and play back WebM files using software, Martis said. However, hardware acceleration could provide higher-quality video through faster decoding while consuming less power.

Intel has been trying to woo major TV makers and consumer electronics companies to use the Atom CE4100 chip. The chip includes a processor core that can run at clock speeds of up to 1.2GHz and is capable of decoding two 1080p video streams. The chips are in production, and the company has said it has received orders for more than a million.

A number of hardware and software vendors announced support for the WebM file format, but Intel was not on that list. Mozilla, Microsoft and Opera Software were some of the early vendors to jump on board, and chip maker Broadcom said its VideoCore IV smartphone processor would provide hardware acceleration for WebM video files.

Border searches of laptops may be conducted off-site for cause, court rules

In recent cases, U.S. courts have supported the government's right to search the contents of computers and other electronic devices carried by travelers arriving at U.S borders.

A federal court in Michigan this week added that if such a search could not be performed at the border, the government has the right to seize and transport a computer to a secondary inspection facility, as long as there's reasonable suspicion.

The issue of border laptop searches is important for business travelers who arrive at U.S airports carrying computers they use for work. Privacy advocates, security analysts and others have expressed concern that such searches could result in the exposure of sensitive company or customer data. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security has previously asserted its right to inspect, copy or download the contents of computers or other electronic devices belonging to travelers at U.S. borders even without cause.

The federal court's ruling was first reported by the Web site FourthAmendment.com. The ruling was in response to a motion filed by the defendant in a child pornography case, who alleged that U.S. customs officials violated his Fourth Amendment rights when they took away one of his computers at Detroit Metropolitan Airport.

The defendant, Theodore Stewart, is charged with transporting child pornography on two laptop computers that were in his possession when he arrived at the Detroit airport after a trip to Indonesia last May. According to court papers, a U.S. immigration and customs agent discovered images that appeared to depict child pornography on one of Stewart's computers during a secondary inspection of his belongings at the airport.

Customs officials were unable to immediately inspect the other computer, however, because its battery was damaged and no adapter was available to power up the system. Both computers were seized, and Stewart was allowed to go after being informed that the seized devices were being transported to a separate forensic facility for inspection.

Stewart was later charged with transporting child pornography based on evidence gathered from both computers during the inspection at the secondary facility. To do the inspection on the second computer, forensics agents had to remove the hard disk and mount it on another system.

Stewart sought to have the evidence from the second computer suppressed. In a brief, Stewart argued that while the initial inspection of one computer at the airport may have been valid, the seizure of the second computer and its inspection at the forensic facility amounted to an unreasonable, extended border search. Stewart also claimed that the evidence found on the second computer was discovered in violation of his Fourth Amendment rights against unreasonable seizure and search.

The government contended that the search at the forensic facility was a continuation of the search at Detroit airport. Having found what appeared to be evidence of child pornography on one computer, it was reasonable to suspect that the other one might also contain such content, the government said. It claimed that the search of the second computer was no different than multiple entries being made into a premises using a single search warrant.

In a 10-page ruling, Judge David Lawson of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan said he could not fully accept either argument.

"Removing the laptops from the point of entry into the country and transporting them to a remote forensic laboratory may result in an intrusion greater than one might reasonably expect upon entering or re-entering the United States," Lawson wrote. Stewart was therefore correct in arguing that he was subjected to an extended border search, the judge wrote.

However, the search of the computer was valid, because agents clearly had reason to believe it might contain child pornography based on their inspection of the first computer at the airport, Lawson said.

In dismissing Stewart's motion to suppress evidence from the second computer, the judge also stressed that the search was only justified because the government was able to show "a particularized and objective" basis for suspicion in the case. The fact that the inspections were conducted within a day of the computers being seized also made it a reasonable search, he said.

"There comes a point when the passage of time or other circumstances can transform a seizure of property reasonable at its outset into an unreasonable intrusion," he said. But in this case that did not happen, Lawson wrote

Australian agency hits U.S. carriers over wireless patents

The Australian Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization (CSIRO) is suing three of the largest U.S. mobile operators, charging they infringed a patent by selling wireless LAN products.

CSIRO last year settled with 14 wireless LAN vendors, including Microsoft, Hewlett-Packard and Dell, after suing them in 2005 over the same patent. The current lawsuits, filed in late February in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern Division of Texas, target AT&T, Verizon Wireless and T-Mobile USA.

CSIRO is a government-funded research institute with facilities all over Australia. It claims ownership of U.S. Patent No. 5,487,069, issued in 1996, entitled "Wireless LAN," which it claims covers fundamental aspects of the IEEE 802.11a,b,g and n standards.

In the three lawsuits filed in February, CSIRO is going after companies that are primarily sellers rather than makers of Wi-Fi products. In three separate complaints, CSIRO alleges each mobile operator is knowingly infringing the patent because it informed them about the infringement last year.

The agency is seeking unspecified damages as well as injunctions to stop the carriers from selling infringing products. CSIRO wants a jury to hear the case. One exception to the complaints is that the allegedly infringing products don't include those made with Intel chips. Intel was one of the companies that settled with CSIRO last year.

Verizon issued an answer to CSIRO's complaint last week in which it denied that the patent was "duly and legally issued for inventions" and that it had infringed "any valid enforceable claim" of the patent. T-Mobile also answered the suit, denying it has infringed the patent and that CSIRO has full ownership of it. As of last week, AT&T had not filed an answer to the complaint. All three carriers declined to comment on the case.

At the time of its 2005 lawsuit, CSIRO said it had offered to license the technology to vendors on reasonable and non-discriminatory terms but was turned down. Its legal actions at one point raised concerns over completion of the IEEE 802.11n standard.

The standards board of the IEEE said in 2007 that the approval of 802.11n was at risk because CSIRO hadn't provided a requested form letter in which contributors to a standard state how they will license their technology. The 802.11n standard was approved in September 2009.

AT&T and Verizon are the largest mobile operators in the U.S., and T-Mobile is the fourth-largest. All three sell smartphones equipped with Wi-Fi and include Wi-Fi hotspots as part of their wireless data offerings.

In 2007, T-Mobile provided free Wi-Fi routers through its hotspot@home service, which let subscribers make unlimited calls via Wi-Fi with T-Mobile phones that have the technology. Other companies that settled with CSIRO last year included Netgear, Toshiba, 3Com, Nintendo, D-Link and Buffalo Technologies.

Is there a replacement for Facebook?

Facebook claims to have more than 400 million active users. In fact, according to Web analytics firm Alexa, only Google is a more popular site. So, with all that going for it, why are so many users unhappy, with one poll showing that more than half of Facebook users are thinking about leaving?

The one-word answer: privacy. By default, Facebook has made almost everything on your account open to the world. You can lock down your Facebook account, but it's a tedious process.

New tools unveiled this week are designed to make this easier, but the next time Facebook changes its policies and system, you may need to do it all over again. There are also external tools that can check out just how secure your account is, but again, when Facebook changes its software, they may not work.

Last Monday, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg finally admitted that Facebook has made some mistakes. Some users are staying put despite their distrust of the company. But others think it's too little too late and are talking loudly about leaving. There's even a group that has announced that May 31 is Quit Facebook Day.

Will a significant percentage of Facebook users actually leave? No matter its faults, Facebook has a huge user base, and those users, in turn, have all their friends on the service, all their photos and, yes, even all their Farmville farms. Will that many people really want to abandon Facebook and start all over with a new platform?

They have before. In social networking's early days -- all of five years ago -- Friendster, MySpace and Xanga all had their days in the sun. Now those once-popular social networks are in decline.

There are, of course, the other existing social networks. But some, like MySpace and LiveJournal, seem to have missed their moment. Others, such as the professional-oriented LinkedIn, have established a specific niche or, like Twitter, address different needs.

The alternatives
A group of would-be Facebook replacements have recently raised their hands, hoping that enough disenchanted users will see them as viable alternatives. Some are already out there, some are in beta, and some have hardly gotten past the "what-if" stage.

Who are these players, and do any of them have what it takes to become the next big social network?

Appleseed
While this open-source project is still in beta, it's an interesting take on social networking. Instead of being under the control of one company and one set of administrators, Appleseed works via a distributed server software package tied together with the ASN (Appleseed Social Network).

That means that as a user, you select and log into an Appleseed site. Once there, you connect with friends, send messages, share photos and videos, join discussions and participate in all the usual social networking stuff. Don't like the specific Appleseed site you're on? Then sign up for a different one and, according to the site, "immediately reconnect with everyone in your network."

It sounds good, but I can't help but notice that even though the program is officially in beta, I couldn't find any ASN sites to log into yet.

In a recent New York Times article, Michael Chisari, an Appleseed developer, said that the project is six months away from opening its doors to the public. It looks promising, but I'm not holding my breath on seeing Appleseed give Facebook serious competition anytime soon.

Diaspora
Diaspora, for all the headlines it's gotten, is still not much more than an idea. Mind you, with almost $200,000 of support from thousands of donors at Kickstarter.com, it's also a very popular idea.

Technically, Diaspora sounds a lot like Appleseed. It's also going to be built from open-source software, and it's going to be a distributed network server application. More power to them, but at least Appleseed already has some code.

The first Diaspora code release is slated for September.

2010 Lamborghini Gallardo

MSRP
$205,000 - $229,100
Invoice
Not Available

The 2010 Gallardo is a 2-door, 2-passenger luxury sports car, or convertible sports car, available in 4 trims,... read more ranging from the LP560-4 Coupe to the LP570-4 Superleggera.

Upon introduction, the LP560-4 Coupe is equipped with a standard 5.2-liter, V10, 560-horsepower engine that achieves 12-mpg in the city and 20-mpg on the highway. A 6-speed manual transmission with overdrive is standard, and a 6-speed automatic transmission with overdrive is optional. The LP570-4 Superleggera is equipped with a standard 5.2-liter, V10, 570-horsepower engine that achieves 14-mpg in the city and 20-mpg on the highway. A 6-speed automatic transmission with overdrive is standard, and a 6-speed manual transmission with overdrive is optional.

The 2010 LP560-4 Coupe is a carryover from 2009. The LP570-4 Superleggera has been reskinned for 2010.

2011 Hyundai Sonata

MSRP
$19,195 - $25,295
Invoice
$18,390 - $23,648

The 2011 Sonata is a 4-door, 5-passenger family sedan, available in 6 trims, ranging from the GLS Manual to... read more the Limited Auto PZEV.

Upon introduction, the GLS Manual is equipped with a standard 2.4-liter, I4, 198-horsepower engine. A 6-speed manual transmission with overdrive is standard. The Limited Auto PZEV is equipped with a standard 2.4-liter, I4, 190-horsepower engine that achieves 23-mpg in the city and 35-mpg on the highway. A 6-speed automatic transmission with overdrive is standard.

The 2011 Sonata is redesigned for 2011.

Blair to Join Venture Firm as Adviser on Technology

SAUSALITO, Calif. — Tony Blair, the former British prime minister, is turning his attention to Silicon Valley. Mr. Blair is becoming a senior adviser at Khosla Ventures, the venture capital firm founded by Vinod Khosla, an investor and a proponent of green technology.

Enlarge This Image

Eric Risberg/Associated Press
Tony Blair, right, with Vinod Khosla on Monday. Mr. Blair plans to offer guidance on public policy and green technology.

Related
Times Topics: Venture Capital | Tony BlairKhosla Ventures, which Mr. Khosla founded in 2004 after leaving the venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, made the announcement here on Monday at a meeting of its investors. The firm is investing $1.1 billion in clean technology and information technology companies.

Mr. Blair will offer strategic advice on public policy to the firm’s green portfolio companies. They include Calera, a manufacturer that uses carbon dioxide to create cement products; Kior, which converts biomass like wood chips into biofuels; and Pax Streamline, which aims to make air-conditioning more environmentally friendly.

“The more I studied the whole climate change issue and linking it with energy security and development issues, I became absolutely convinced that the answer is in the technology,” Mr. Blair said in an interview.

Mr. Blair worked on international climate change policy as prime minister, and now leads the Breaking the Climate Deadlock initiative, through which he aims to help shape international climate policy.

Silicon Valley and Washington have a distant and at times adversarial relationship. That is fine when it comes to information technology, Mr. Blair said, because government is not its driving force.

Green technology is different, though, because governments are trying to use it to achieve policy goals. “Technological breakthroughs that are economically viable — for governments, that’s the holy grail,” he said.

Mr. Khosla said that people who worked in technology underestimated the importance of working with policy makers, and that Mr. Blair would help bridge that divide.

Like Al Gore and Colin Powell, who are advisers at Kleiner Perkins, Mr. Blair will lend his name to projects, make introductions and dole out advice, but will not be involved in the firm’s day-to-day activity.

For example, Mr. Blair said, he could potentially help to broker a deal for one of the companies to build a demonstration plant in a particular country.

Khosla Ventures, based in Menlo Park, Calif., generally invests between $5 million and $15 million in technology start-ups, and also invests smaller amounts, around $2 million, in what Mr. Khosla calls “science experiments” — green-technology ideas that are so risky and early-stage that they will likely fail.

Its goal is to help build technologies that do not require government subsidies to survive and that are economically viable in countries like China and India, Mr. Khosla said.

“We are not trying to do incremental things,” Mr. Khosla said. “We are trying to do things that are the stuff of dreams.”

Khosla Ventures is increasing its green-tech investment as most venture capitalists have been scaling back on such investments, particularly those that require building factories to produce alternative energy.

MasterCard Wants Programmers to Use Its Payment Technology

There has been a lot of talk about digital forms of payment replacing cash and even credit cards. But MasterCard intends to stay in the middle of the technological innovation.

On Tuesday, MasterCard announced that it would let software developers use its technology in their own online apps and on mobile phones.

“A big part of the strategy is to be able to harness the innovation of others in the developer community to really push our business forward,” said Josh Peirez, MasterCard’s chief innovation officer.

E-commerce and mobile payments are changing the way we use money, Mr. Peirez said. Though MasterCard, Visa and other payment companies have experimented with building their own apps for things like mobile money transfers, MasterCard wants to see what other people can come up with for paying online and in the real world.

“You’re seeing quite different ways people are paying for digital goods, but you haven’t really seen that translate into physical goods,” he said. “It’s still really hard to buy a physical item from your phone.”

MasterCard has already built a few apps, including the MasterCard ATM Hunter iPhone app. But if outside developers wanted to use its payment technology, they have had to get a merchant agreement, set up the payment system and make the consumer enter data each time. No one wants to do that.

Developers could use the new open platform to embed a payment feature in virtual games or in e-commerce apps on Twitter or Facebook, or to build an app that sends a text message to the card’s owner before a purchase is made, for instance.

But the most creative uses of MasterCard’s technology will be those that MasterCard hasn’t even thought of, Mr. Peirez said.

MasterCard is following in the footsteps of PayPal, which opened its platform late last year. Developers have built apps like MyHomie, a Web app for roommates and families with to-do lists, calendars and a bill payment system, and GoSqueesh, a group buying service like Groupon.

So far, MasterCard has identified about 20 of its services that developers will be able to use in their applications. They include payment technology, bill payment systems and data streams like consumer spending patterns, which could be used to send coupons.

This is the first project to come out of MasterCard Labs, the research and development group that the company started in April.

Developers will be able to tap into the platform by the end of the year.

MasterCard is also working on a way to share the revenue that developers get from payments.

Facebook to Make Privacy Control Easier

On Wednesday, Facebook will unveil a new version of its privacy menu intended to make adjusting the settings much easier for its members.


Sean Kilpatrick/The Canadian Press via Associated Press

Facebook’s complicated privacy settings have frustrated some users.Chris Cox, vice president for product at the company, speaking on-stage at TechCrunch Disrupt, a technology conference in New York City, described the revised controls as “drastically simplified.”

Mr. Cox said that the move was part of a larger effort to quell the growing frustration of some Facebook users befuddled as well as concerned by recent revisions to its privacy policy that makes more personal information public.

Currently, Facebook users are required to navigate through 50 settings with more than 170 different options to adjust how much of their profile information is accessible to anyone on the Internet. As Facebook extends itself to other Web sites across the Internet, that information is shared more widely.

Mr. Cox declined to offer any more details, but said the company was responding to user feedback and is working with consultants to address recent privacy concerns.

“It’s been a humbling couple of weeks for us,” Mr. Cox said.

Mr. Cox’s announcement comes one day after Mark Zuckerberg, the founder and chief executive of the company, published an editorial in The Washington Post, saying the company “moved too fast” with its most recent changes

Microsoft Shakes Up Products Unit

Microsoft disclosed a series of management changes on Tuesday that will alter the shape of its business unit responsible for products like the Zune music player, Xbox gaming console and phones.

Most notably, Robbie Bach, the head of the entertainment and devices group, will retire from Microsoft after 22 years at the company. As a result, Mr. Ballmer will take a more hands-on role in Microsoft’s gadgets and games by having various division heads report directly to him.

In a statement and in discussions with reporters, Microsoft representatives stressed that Mr. Bach would leave the company on good terms.

Mr. Bach’s division has had a number of successes, including the Xbox, but has also produced some of the company’s greatest disappointments, including lackluster phone software and the slow-selling Zune. It also botched its approach to the tablet computer market.

"For the past 22 years, Robbie has personified creativity, innovation and drive,” Mr. Ballmer said in a statement. “With this spirit, he has led a division passionately devoted to making Microsoft successful in interactive entertainment and mobility.”

Mr. Bach, 48, will remain at Microsoft until the fall, at which point he plans to spend more time with his family, Microsoft said. During a meeting with reporters and editors at The New York Times on May 14, Mr. Bach did not mention any plans to leave the company, instead focusing on the future of the Xbox and new phone software.

J Allard, the head of design and development in Mr. Bach’s group, will also leave Microsoft after 19 years at the company, although he will continue to advise Mr. Ballmer, the company said. Mr. Allard has worked on a variety of products, including Windows, Xbox and Zune.

Microsoft recently scrapped a project code-named Courier that included a new type of tablet computer that would have competed against Apple’s iPad. Mr. Allard had backed the product internally.

Microsoft’s entertainment and devices group, which competes against Apple, Sony, Nokia, Google and others, has failed to turn into the large profit center that the company envisioned.

“They certainly expect to be one of the top two companies in market share in the areas where they play,” said Charles Golvin, an analyst with Forrester Research. “With the exception of Xbox, they have failed to achieve that with any of the components in Robbie’s organization.”

Some of the recent shifts in the computing industry have dealt particularly hard blows to Mr. Bach’s group.

For example, Microsoft spent years working on tablet computers, only to watch as Apple’s iPad took over the market in a matter of weeks. In addition, Hewlett-Packard, one of Microsoft’s closest partners, just moved to acquire Palm, a maker of mobile device software. This deal sent a clear signal that H.P. thought it could no longer bet on Microsoft’s Windows software in the mobile market, analysts said.

Roger Kay, president of Endpoint Technologies Associates, said he questioned Mr. Ballmer’s ability to correct some of these problems by embracing a more direct role in overseeing the products.

Microsoft continues to lack what Mr. Kay described as a “maestro” who is capable of reading the tastes of the consumer device market and moving the company quickly enough to take advantage of that intuition.

“I think that is a very special thing that Apple has, and that Microsoft doesn’t,” Mr. Kay said.

Internet Security 2010

Internet Security 2010 is a fake application designed by computer hackers whose main goal is to gain money easily from ordinary computer users. It's a rogue antispyware program that enters computers with a help of Trojan viruses. It doesn't require the authorization of the user and doesn't leave any notification about installation.

Once inside, the application is configured to start automatically when computer is rebooted. It pretends to look for infections just like a legitimate antispyware program. Later it generates a list of infections stating that they are damaging your system so you must immediately get rid of them.

Internet Security 2010 also displays fabricated security alerts stating that a worm has been detected on your machine and then recommends fixing the problem by purchasing a full version of its program.

Moreover, the program tends to block many legitimate computer programs. When you attempt to start certain application, the Trojan will terminate it and display a message warning that the program is infected. Besides, the message promotes purchasing Internet Security 2010 as a legitimate security tool. The application blocks some of the programs in order to protect itself from being uninstalled. This means that your legitimate security tools are very likely to be blocked too. So your system stays unprotected.

As you see, Internet Security 2010 has nothing in common with a reputable antispyware program. Please ignore any scan results or messages provided by this rogue antispyware program. Instead consider removal of Internet Security 2010, if it happened to you to detect it running on your system.

Cheap International Phone Calls From UK

How to make cheap international telephone call from UK - many of us are searching how to get cheap long distance telephone calls. It could be for relatives, friends living abroad, or maybe you need to call your business partner 10 times a day in another country. The main telecom companies like BT and NTL charges high prices for your international calls – they were monopolists for so long. In these days it's possible to use phone cards or a small telecom companies who specialises in international calls via dial-through access numbers.

Some people use alternative telecom companies to make cheap international phone calls from UK, like Telediscount, Telestunt, DialAround, Bestminutes, Ratebuster, Dialwise, Pennyphone etc. They are known as dial through companies and they operate by providing dial through access number (UK geographic number) to call from your normal BT or NTL landline telephone. Most companies charge different prices for telephone calls to different destinations worldwide. For example you can call USA, most of western Europe (Germany, France, Italy etc) for as little as 1p per minute, call India for just 5p – a big savings on your bill!

How to make cheap international calls from your landline using dial through companies:

1. Dial their low cost access number for your chosen destination

2. At the prompt dial the international phone number starting with a prefix "00"

3. Your international call's low rate will then be conveniently charged to your current phone bill.

For example to make a call to India: dial chosen company's access telephone number, wait for connection, dial you destination telephone number 0091 123 456789. You will hear a confirmation on how much your call will cost after dialing the access number.

With more than 20 companies available it is not an easy task to find out which company offers the best rates for your destination and prices often change on a daily basis. Many Cheap International Call comparison websites has been created to provide you with a complete, comprehensive and most of all easy to use guides to the cheapest international call prices offered by dial through service providers to all countries around the world from the UK. With more than 20 companies available on most websites to choose from, international calls are becoming an easy and cheap everyday activity.

All the companies reviewed on comparison sites requires no sign up or account, you don't need a credit card, you do not need to change your phone provider, purchase any special devices or even buy a phone card. Using dial through low-cost access numbers to make your international and long distance calls can save you huge amounts on your phone bill.

Happy Talking!

Cheap International call

GPS Options With The iPhone

There is a lot of talk nowadays with regard to the iPhone. It pays to know what is in store when buying one. This will be especially useful for those with particular needs in terms of gadgets. People who require GPS features will benefit from the iPhone.

The iPhone Technology

This whole thing about the advent of the iPhone is more than just a craze. This is something that could prove to be useful in the long-term. Considering the wonderful features that have been packed into the iPhone, it will definitely stay.

The iPhone provides a very convenient option for people who are always on the run but still want to keep in touch with their favorite music tracks. The iPhone allows the owner to make use of the cellular phone with the music playing options and email access.

The iPhone GPS

GPS or global positioning system is another remarkable feature that sets the iPhone at the front of cellular phone choices. This GPS option allows the user to track locations and sites. This way, getting lost will be nearly impossible. Just keep the iPhone at hand and you can navigate through locations with less worry of getting lost.

The iPhone was initially released without the GPS feature. This fact drove many users to request for it to be installed the iPhone, or at least have an accessory to make the GPS feature available. There is a high expectations that cellular phones that are newly released will automatically have the GPS feature installed. There are developments still being made to make the iPhone GPS capable.

In actuality, the initially released iPhone possesses features that can work well with the GPS function. The capability of the cellular phone to explore the online community can give user access to sites that provide positioning services. There is also the wi-fi feature that can easily indicate to the iPhone users the locations that need to be looked for the wireless connectivity.

Conclusion

Most of the current users also recognize the fact that they are able to enjoy more battery life with the current iPhone. The GPS feature may shorten the battery life. Still, the iPhone GPS feature is still worth watching out for. Knowing the Apple company, they will come up with something new that will keep the market interested.

Alert: iPhone For Sale

People have been waiting for a long time to grab hold of their own iPhone. Ever since the news came out that the iPhone would be released, there were quite a number that prepared to purchase it. To those who haven't had a chance to buy the gadget, it pays to know the options of the iPhone.

The Wonders Of iPhone

There are lots of people craving and raving for the iPhone after it was released. There is so much to enjoy on the iPhone that convinced the rest of the population that they need one too.

The iPhone could be the best thing that's happened in cellular phone technology. It possesses the wonderful features of the iPod technology. It can also give way to other possibilities like image browsing, email access, GPS options and the 8 GB memory capacity. These considerations prove the wonders of the iPhone. This is why you have to know where to go to find iPhones for sale.

iPhone For Sale

The iPhone is still a relatively new technology. It may not be easy to find the gadget on sale very soon. Some outlets may not even be given the privilege to sale the iPhones. This is why it becomes more important to simply know where to get one. There may be no discounts but the buyer can at least secure a guaranteed purchase.

Apple Retail Store

The first stop is the Apple retail store. This is where you can get anything that is the product of the Apple company. This is definitely the place where you can get the iPhone. Take the opportunity also to ask questions regarding the product. The people at the Apple retail store will be glad to assist you in all your needs.

AT&T Outlets

The outlets of the AT&T network can also be your choice to get an iPhone. This is the official service provider for the iPhone. This is also where you can fully secure the services that go with the iPhone. You can inquire from the network the other rates and fees that you have to manage.

Apple Online

You can also explore the Apple retail store online. Browse the different features, accessories and enhancements that come with the iPhone. Then have it delivered to your house. That is convenience.