Informed Source

Light Table for iPhone released

2008-10-26T06:21:00.000-07:00

Lingon iKorg Software Creations has released Light Table for the iPhone and iPod touch. It's available for download from the App Store for $0.99.

Light Table helps you make collages of your photographs. It lets you import photos from your photo library, drag them around and rotate them until they fit. You can save a screenshot of your compilation once you've got them arranged how you like.

You can manipulate photos in Light Table by pinching them, rotating and zooming in and out using the multi-touch interface. It's designed for photographers, designers and other creatives who might want to lay out catalogs and other photo collections.

Light Table works with iPhones and iPod touches updated with iPhone 2.0 software or later.

Western Digital Reports Earning Triples in 1Q

2008-10-26T06:11:00.001-07:00

Western Digital Corp., which makes hard drives for computers and digital video recorders, said Thursday that profit in its first fiscal quarter tripled over the same period last year, when the results were weighed down by big charges.

Shares of Western Digital fell 72 cents, or 5.2 percent, to $13.05 in regular trading. In extended trading after the financial results were released, the shares jumped $1.51, or 11.6 percent, to $14.56.

The company said it earned $211 million, or 93 cents per share, in the quarter ended Sept. 26.

Analysts were expecting the company to earn 81 cents per share, according to a survey by Thomson Reuters.

In the same quarter last year, the company earned $69 million, or 31 cents per share, including $109 million in charges tied to taxes and an acquisition.

Revenue in the most recent quarter rose 19 percent to $2.11 billion from $1.77 billion a year ago, and unit shipments rose 34 percent.

Analysts were expecting sales of $2.07 billion.

Asustek Unveil's New Mini Laptop

2008-10-07T12:20:00.000-07:00

Taiwan's Asustek Computer on Tuesday added a new member to its low-price "Eee PC" mini laptop family after achieving what the company said is a great success in the market.

Asustek's selling point for the slim "Eee PC," is its portability -- the computer weighs only a kilogramme (2.2 pounds) and 1.8 centimetres thick.

"This is the combination of an innovative industrial and arts design," Asustek chief executive officer Jerry Shen told reporters.

The new Eee PC S101, which is expected to hit the shelves later this month at a cost of 699 US dollars, comes with a choice of operating systems between Microsoft Windows or GNU Linux.

It is equipped with a 10.2-inch display, is powered by a battery with a lifespan of up to five hours and is less susceptible to shock damage, the company said. It has 1GB of memory and 30GB of storage.

The company has sold about four million Eee PC units since they were launched in October last year.

Mono 2.0 lets .Net apps run on Linux

2008-10-07T12:06:00.000-07:00

Mono 2.0, an open-source runtime enabling .Net-based applications to run on Linux, Mac OS X, and Unix, is being released Monday, featuring capabilities for a number of .Net technologies.

Considered a major upgrade, the open source Mono 2.0 runtime leverages Microsoft's .Net Framework 2.0 programming model. With Mono, developers can build desktop and server applications using Microsoft-based environments and deploy them across multiple platforms, including Windows. Novell is leading the Mono effort.

"The existing apps you build on Windows, you can now run those applications on Linux or MacOS 10. Different people have different reasons for doing so," such as platform consolidation, said Miguel de Icaza, vice president of developer platforms at Novell and Mono project maintainer.

Mono 2.0 supports the C# 3.0 language and LINQ (Language Integrated Query) for querying of data across databases, objects, and XML content, de Icaza said. Also, users can move over server applications built for .Net and client applications built with Windows Forms.

Version 2.0 of Mono, however, lacks support for key .Net 3.0 and .Net 3.5 APIs, specifically Windows Communication Foundation, Windows Workflow Foundation, and Windows Presentation Foundation. These are not currently supported because they were not amongst the most requested technologies sought by early users of Mono, de Icaza said.

Also featured in Mono 2.0 is MoMA (Mono Migration Analyzer), a tool to assess the readiness of Linux environments for migration of .Net applications.

Anti Privacy Advocate Joe Bidden Vice Presidential Nominee For Obama

2008-08-27T05:27:00.000-07:00

Bad news for all people who are using peer to peer data transfer services; Senator Joe Bidden has been nominated by the Democrats as Vice President for Barrack Obama in the US 2008 Presidential Race.

Senator Joe Bidden has a long history of Anti-piracy Legislation tries.
He tabled bill in 2002 for declaring Fedral Felony to trick certain types of devices into playing unauthorized music or executing unapproved computer programs which got subdued due to efforts of Microsoft, Yahoo, Apple, Verizon, Ebay lobbying. He also wrote a letter to the Justice Department urgin it to prosecute individuals who intentionally allow mass copying from their computer over peer-to-peer networks.
Last year, Biden sponsored an RIAA-backed bill called the Perform Act aimed at restricting Americans' ability to record and play back individual songs from satellite and Internet radio services.
We just hope that he comes to the knowlegde that peer to peer sharing is an undeniable right of every individual.

Electonic Arts Signs Confidentiality Agreement With Take 2

2008-08-27T04:57:00.000-07:00

Gaming Industry giant Electronic Arts Inc have signed confidentiality agreements with another Game maker Take Two Interactive Software Inc.They did so after agreeing on holding private talks for a potential stake transaction.

EA, publishers of the popular "Madden" and "Need for Speed" games, dropped its hostile pursuit last week of Take-Two, the maker of the hot "Grand Theft Auto" games, after Take-Two agreed to spell out its three-year product plans, but only in private.

"As a result, EA does not intend to make any further announcements regarding the status of any discussions or negotiations with Take-Two unless and until discussions between EA and Take-Two have been terminated or such parties have entered into a transaction," EA said in a regulatory filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

EA offered to buy Take-Two for $25.74 a share, or about $2 billion, in April. The bid was promptly rejected as too low.

Shortly after EA dropped its bid, U.S. antitrust regulators said they would approve a combination of the two companies.

Adobe To Release Updated Photoshop in October

2008-08-27T04:30:00.000-07:00

Adobe Systems has updated its Photoshop Elements suite of video and photo editing software.
They have also updated the online sharing and transferring through mobile phone features also.The software is expected to release for selling as early as October.

Photoshop Premiere Elements 7 adds significant features to video editing, while Photoshop Elements 7 incorporates major enhancements to the photo-editing program. Mobile features cover only a limited number of phones.

To compete with online sites such as Yahoo's Flickr, Adobe announced an enhanced online service for Photoshop Elements customers called Photoshop.com. A basic subscription with 5GB of storage is available free for storing and sharing photos and videos. The plus package ups the ante to 20GB for $49.95. Both provide online backups of stored files. Plus members also receive additions to the software, such as new themes, tutorials, movie trailers, and special effects.

With Elements 7 cell-phone users can upload pictures directly to Photoshop.com from their phones. The application runs in the background, and Adobe promises it uploads photos while you talk, instant message, or use other phone options. The Palm Treo, Samsung Blackjacks, and Motorola Qs are supported now. The company Web site promises support for the Apple iPhone, BlackBerry Pearl, Motorola Razr, Nokia 5310, and Nokia 6301 in September.

Pervez Musharraf Calls it a Day; Resigns with Dignity Intact

2008-08-18T01:30:00.000-07:00

Pakistan's President, General(retd) Pervez Musharraf resigned on Monday the 18th of August.Thus ends his rule which he started after seizing the reign of power in a military coup against Nawaz Sharif on 12th of October 1999.
He took this decesion after a series of political steps taken by the coalition government of PPPP and PML(N) made it clear that they would impeach him and also try him for breaking the constitution along with number of other charges.
It was also evident to him that the army, his long drawn source of power would not support him if he dismissed the government under the articled 58(2)B of the constitution. The US government had also distanced itself from their former War on Terror Ally. Also his political allies were most certain to ditch him when the real impeachment proceedings started in the parliament.
Since the start of the impeachment drive two weeks earlier, the President had consulted his lawyers and well wishers, which included politicians, civilians of note, retired army men, important diplomats(including the US ambassador to Pakistan Anne W Patterson).
Recently Saudi Intelligence Chief Prince Muqrin visited Pakistan to try to convince him for resigning and securing a safe passage out the country which he had ruled unhindered for approximately eight and a half years.
Evidently the charges that were to be leveled against the one time powerful dictator were either constitutionally ratified(17th Amendment of the 1973 Constitution ) or had a legal cover (action taken by him on 3rd of of November 2007 were legalized by the Supreme Court ).
Other charges were of killing innocent people in Lal Masjid Operation. This action was taken by he Army and could have had serious implications if Army as an institution was implicated and was drawn in the court. So it can be ruled that it would have not been upheld by any court in Pakistan if a trial on that account was conducted.
In the end of his speech he said that Pakistan Ka Allah Hafiz which means Allah Will Guard Pakistan, and can be translated into the extreme emotional situation he was facing after serving the Pakistani people in numerous fields selflessly and then being labeled as a corrupt and unworthy of a leader.
Altough he dismissed the Chief Justice Choudry Iftikhar and those who didn’t take the PCO oath which cannot be justified any way, but we should not forget that CJ Ifthikar also took PCO oath after 12th October 1999 coup when fellow justices did not take oath under PCO.
For what he has done to the country to take it to a place of prestige among developing countries and also social, economical, political and educational betterment, atleast I as a sane fellow citizen of Pakistan would place him the greatest leader after Founder of Pakistan M.A. Jinnah and Khan Liaqat Ali Khan.
Atleast he knows how to address the nation and talk with international leaders unlike or current Prime Minister.
We all know the politics of PPPP and PML(N) which has gone round and round in circles but achieved nothing substantial for the country up till now except 2nd Rank in the Most Corrupt Country Of the World (Transparency International) in mid and late 90s.

Coraid comes up with 24-drive network storage appliance

2008-08-14T05:30:00.000-07:00

Coraid on Wednesday introduced the EtherDrive SR2421 Storage Appliance. The rack-mountable storage system contains a hardware RAID controller and space for 24 Serial ATA (SATA) disks and costs $4,995 (without storage).
The two dozen slots for drives can each accommodate a 1 terabyte (TB) drive mechanism, for a combined storage capacity of 24TB. It supports RAID levels 0, 1, 5 and 10, and can also be used as a JBOD (Just a Bunch Of Disks). The shelf is equipped with a universal power supply, and it's shipped on standard cabinet-mount slide-out rails. It's designed to fit in equipment cabinets with a depth of 28 to 33 inches.

The SR2421 is designed to be a self-contained network attached storage device. It includes Coraid firmware running on an embedded Plan9 OS. Operating system support includes Mac OS X, Linux, FreeBSD, Solaris and Windows.

Intel to launch Remote Wake capable Motherbards for PCs

2008-08-14T04:57:00.001-07:00

Intel is coming up with a new technological advancement which would enable their PCs to wake up from sleep when called to over the internet.
This would be a big leap in energy conservation, given the fact that loads of energy is wasted as todays computers can receive calls when they are only fully awake.

The new component Intel is announcing Thursday will let computers automatically return to a normal, full-powered state when a call comes in. The computer can activate its microphone and loudspeaker to alert the user, then connect the call.

"This certainly helps the PC become a much better center of communications in the home," said Trevor Healy, chief executive of Jajah, which will be the first Internet telephone company to utilize the feature.

The first Intel motherboards with the Remote Wake capability will be shipping in the next month, said Joe Van De Water, director of consumer product marketing for Intel.

These components, which are at the heart of every computer, will most likely be used by smaller computer manufacturers. Bigger names like Dell Inc. and Hewlett-Packard Co. use their own motherboard solutions, but Intel is working to supply them with the technology as well.

The four initial Remote Wake motherboards will be for desktop computers and will need an Internet connection via Ethernet cable, as Wi-Fi doesn't work in sleep mode.

Wikiasearch to End Google-Yahoo Search Domination-Jimmy Wales

2008-08-14T04:57:00.000-07:00

Google has been threatened to be taken over in searching, but by whom????

Search any prominent name, event, organization, etc on Google and the top search results yields are from Wikipedia.

Yes you've guessed it right. Google has been warned by Wikipedia Founder Jimmy Wales that Wikiasearch would takeover Google in the most widely used Internet search engine in near future.

Making an issue out of internet cartel like scenario because of only Two or Three Search engines he says that time has arrived for a creation of broader market for the users to get the maximum benefit.
Google and fellow titans Yahoo and Microsoft dominate the Internet search engine market which Wales said was already causing some worry among web users.

"Right now in the US in particular we have a really strong concentration of the industry," Wales said Thursday at the Global Brand Forum in Singapore.

Industry statistics showed over 90 percent of Internet searches in the United States are done through the three firms, he said.
Wales said Wikia Search will run on an open platform, similar to the principles behind Wikipedia, the popular online encyclopedia in which entries can be made and edited by anyone with an Internet connection.

NBC observes new viewing Habits with Olympic Audience

2008-08-14T04:39:00.000-07:00

Along with new sensational records and technology applications, the Beijing Olympics 2008 has come up with another new, use of more mobile TV from viewers.
Viewers are increasingly watching the coverage on their mobile sets.
Half of viewers of NBC's mobile set streams, one of the leading channels of the sporting event, are watching the coverage on their mobile sets for the first time, survey says.
Primarily because of easy access to the down loadable sports clips.
Since the opening ceremony last Friday, the company has made content available online, through video on demand and via cell phones along with traditional TV.

The number of people requesting Olympic content over their phones is still relatively small — 494,506 on Sunday and 476,062 on Monday — but NBC executives say they're stunned at how many of those never used the phones for this purpose before.

By far, however, television is still the preferred format. Of the estimated 107 million people to experience at least a few minutes of the Olympics on Sunday, 95 percent watched it on TV, NBC said.

Given the choice between a high-definition TV placed before a couch or a small, grainy picture on a computer screen, it's still a pretty obvious call, Wurtzel said.

NBC's prime-time ratings are running well ahead of the Athens games in 2004. Through five days, the average prime-time viewership for NBC is 31.3 million, the network said. Interest in Athens started slowly but heated up with gymnastics, while the Beijing games have been a draw from the start.

It has become a communal event that the country has enjoyed sharing a rarity in the day of media fractionalization.
Americans downloaded some 1.7 million video streams of Monday's stunning swimming relay where the American team came from behind to beat France and keep Michael Phelps' gold medal streak alive. An estimated 1.5 million video streams were e-mailed from one person to another.

Dell Becomes Carbon Free

2008-08-06T14:16:00.000-07:00

Dell facilities world over are now carbon free.
The company told that they have achieved their goal; that was to achieve carbon free environment friendly facilities by 2008.
Dane Parker, its director for environment, health and safety, said Dell buys renewable energy — including wind, solar and methane gas — directly from utilities to fulfill one-fifth of its energy needs.

There is not enough green energy available for all of Dell's requirements, so for the other 80 percent, Dell buys regular "brown" power, Parker said, plus enough renewable energy credits to offset that power's carbon emissions. Those credits subsidize purchases of renewable energy by other organizations, in places where more green power is available.

The company also said it has cut its energy use with more efficient lighting, modern climate control systems and software that shuts off idle office computers after hours, for a savings of $3 million a year, or about 5 percent of its annual energy bill.

Dell isn't the first company to declare its operations carbon neutral, but it's the first global high-tech player to do so, said Stephen Stokes, a climate change and business analyst for AMR Research. "They do deserve some congratulations," Stokes said, noting that the company took steps beyond just buying energy credits.

"Even if you were the worst carbon emitter in the world, if you wrote a huge check ... you could claim to be carbon neutral," he said.

Dell, the world's second-largest computer company, also is ahead of No. 1 PC maker Hewlett-Packard Co. on this matter.

Edison:The Free Power Saving Software

2008-08-06T13:57:00.000-07:00

Verdiem on Wednesday, released "Edison" a software that helps people design their own schedule of power saving modes for home or work use.
Verdiem's CEO, Kevin Klustner, is scheduled to highlight Edison and PC energy consumption during a conference call with Microsoft's chief environmental strategist, Robert Benard, and Intel's Lorie Wigle, president of the Climate Savers computing industry consortium.

Researchers have found that a computer can take up as much as 100watts to 250watts even when in screen saver mode.
Power saving softwares aren't new.There are loads of them whith loads of improvement needed.
So how does Edison kick in?
The Edison software doesn't completely shut a computer off but rather moves it to a "suspend" state, which uses less energy. Users can also schedule to shut down the screen and hard drive before going into suspend mode.

The tool lets users have work and home settings. It has a read-out of how much electricity you are saving, also translated into reductions in carbon dioxide emissions and dollar savings.

Estimates will vary widely, depending on electricity rates and type of computer, but Verdiem says the average savings is 410 kilowatt hours a year, or $36.50.

At Least Nine Climbers Die On K-2 Avalnche

2008-08-03T14:15:00.000-07:00

At least nine mountaineers have perished on K-2, the world's second highest peak, in Pakistan.
On Sunday, the expedition organizers predicted that the toll could rise .
Those confirmed dead included three South Koreans, two Nepalese, along with Serbian, Norwegian, Dutch and French climbers. Unconfirmed reports said one Pakistani had died and several foreign and local climbers were unaccounted for. Catastrophe struck on Friday, when a chunk of ice broke off from a serac, a pillar or cuboid of ice, and tore away fixed lines from a perilous steep gully known as the Bottleneck, above 8,200 metres (26,902 ft). Several expeditions were on the mountain, including a Korean team that was making its descent after summiting the 8,611 metre peak. The Korean team lost five members, including the two Nepalese in the ice fall. Three more fatalities were confirmed by Brigadier Mohammad Akram, vice president of Pakistan's Adventure Foundation. “We don't have names of dead climbers but it has been confirmed that one Dutch, one Norwegian and one French are in the tally of dead,” Akram said. A Serbian climber, identified as Dren Mandic on various mountaineering websites, fell to his death earlier on Friday during the ascent and a Pakistani sherpa was also believed to have died.. “According to the rumours from the various expeditions at the base camp, there should be nine people dead and four still missing,” the head of Italian group, Agostino Da Polenza, who is in Italy, told SkyItalia television. Around a dozen climbers were stranded at Bottleneck, at an altitude known as the “Death Zone” because bodies begin degenerating because of lack of oxygen. A few were either seen or reported to have made their way back to camps, still high on the mountain. The seven surviving members of the Korean team had descended to camps lower down. “We were told that some climbers are still returning to the camps,” Major Farooq Firoz, an army spokesman, said. A Dutch expedition said on its website that three of its team were descending from Camp Three, at 7,350 metres. Two of them were suffering from frostbite. But it said there was no information about a French climber Hugues d'Aubarede, Irish climber Gerard McDonnell, and a third climber identified as Karim. “We're still discussing the possibilities of an operation because the altitude where the accident occured is very high,” army spokesman Major Farooq Firoz said. “We can take a helicopter up there to drop medicines and supplies but carrying out any operation is very difficult,” he said.
Dubbed the "Savage Mountain", K-2 is arguably the hardest climb in the world. The routes to the summit are steeper and more difficult than those to the top of Everest. The weather is also significantly colder and less predictable. Thus, reaching the top of K-2 is the equivalent of winning the Olympic gold in mountaineering. In terms of the number of accidents that had happened on the descent, it is the most deadly mountain in the world.

Ishmeet Singh the Voice of India winner Dies By Drowning

2008-07-30T02:28:00.000-07:00

The Winner of the famous singing competition "Star Voice of India" Died on Tuesday apparently by drowning.
His uncle Charankamal Singh confirmed the report.His father, Gurpinder Singh was shocked and said he knew nothing while his mother was too shocked by the sudden demise of their beloved son who had turned a celebrity at the tender age of 19, that she didn't even shed a tear.

Ishmeet singh was drowned on tuesday in a swimming pool while he went to it just for frolicking. Mystery surrounds this incident as apparently he went in the kids section and was drowned in the more deeper adult section. The company Big Events' CEO said his friends advised him not to go till the deeper end.

It has been confirmed by his family that he didn't know how to swim, at least he never swam before them.
Indeed a sad end to a promising career in a suspicious manner.
We certainly hope that an investigation is conducted to ascertain if any foul play was not involved.

FCC Approves New PlayStation 3 Console

2008-07-28T06:28:00.001-07:00

A new PlayStation 3 console was approved by the U.S. Federal Communications Commission last week, according to the agency's online filings database.No information on the new model, number CECHL01, is available at present from the filing because Sony was granted short-term confidentiality on the papers but it is likely the 80G-byte version announced earlier this month during the E3 games show in Los Angeles. The console is due on sale in the next couple of months and will replace the current 40G-byte model.

Sony's filing to the U.S. Federal Communications Commission was made because the FCC is the radio regulator in the U.S. and as such all new products that use radio must be submitted to the organization for approval before they can be sold.

The PlayStation 3 includes both 802.11b/g Wi-Fi and Bluetooth.

Four Patches Released By Real Network For Critical Bugs in Multimedia Player

2008-07-28T06:28:00.000-07:00

RealNetworks has issued four critical patches for several versions of its RealPlayer running on Windows, Linux and Apple's Mac OS X.The flaws could allow a hacker to run malicious code on a PC or cause the computer to reveal information, according to an advisory from Secunia, a security vendor based in Denmark.

RealPlayer is an application that plays audio and video streamed over the Internet.

RealNetworks has published a table detailing which vulnerabilities affect certain player versions on the different platforms. Some users will need to download an entire new version of the application, while others may be able to just download patches.

One of the problems involves the handling of frames in SWF (Shockwave Flash) files due to a design error, which can cause a heap-based buffer overflow, Secunia said.

Another problem causes a stack-based buffer overflow when a media file is imported using an ActiveX control, Microsoft's technology that adds extra functionality to Web pages.

A third flaw is described by RealPlayer as allowing local resources to be accessed. The fourth also involves ActiveX, where a timing issue with "Controls", "Console", or "WindowName" properties can be maliciously manipulated to corrupt RealPlayer's memory, Secunia said.

Secunia ranked the flaws as "highly critical," the vendor's second-highest ranking of risk. The flaws were found by Peter Vreugdenhil, Elazar Broad, Dyon Balding of Secunia and another anonymous researcher, Secunia said.

Ex Googleers Evolve New Search Engine

2008-07-28T06:21:00.000-07:00

Anna Patterson's last Internet search engine was so impressive that industry leader Google Inc. bought the technology in 2004 to upgrade its own systemShe believes her latest invention is even more valuable — only this time it's not for sale.

Patterson instead intends to upstage Google, which she quit in 2006 to develop a more comprehensive and efficient way to scour the Internet.

The end result is Cuil, pronounced "cool." Backed by $33 million in venture capital, the search engine plans to begin processing requests for the first time Monday.

Cuil had kept a low profile while Patterson, her husband, Tom Costello, and two other former Google engineers — Russell Power and Louis Monier — searched for better ways to search.

Now, it's boasting time.

For starters, Cuil's search index spans 120 billion Web pages.

Patterson believes that's at least three times the size of Google's index, although there is no way to know for certain. Google stopped publicly quantifying its index's breadth nearly three years ago when the catalog spanned 8.2 billion Web pages.

Cuil won't divulge the formula it has developed to cover a wider swath of the Web with far fewer computers than Google. And Google isn't ceding the point: Spokeswoman Katie Watson said her company still believes its index is the largest.

After getting inquiries about Cuil, Google asserted on its blog Friday that it regularly scans through 1 trillion unique Web links. But Google said it doesn't index them all because they either point to similar content or would diminish the quality of its search results in some other way. The posting didn't quantify the size of Google's index.

A search index's scope is important because information, pictures and content can't be found unless they're stored in a database. But Cuil believes it will outshine Google in several other ways, including its method for identifying and displaying pertinent results.

Rather than trying to mimic Google's method of ranking the quantity and quality of links to Web sites, Patterson says Cuil's technology drills into the actual content of a page. And Cuil's results will be presented in a more magazine-like format instead of just a vertical stack of Web links. Cuil's results are displayed with more photos spread horizontally across the page and include sidebars that can be clicked on to learn more about topics related to the original search request.

Finally, Cuil is hoping to attract traffic by promising not to retain information about its users' search histories or surfing patterns — something that Google does, much to the consternation of privacy watchdogs.

Cuil is just the latest in a long line of Google challengers.

The list includes swaggering startups like Teoma (whose technology became the backbone of Ask.com), Vivisimo, Snap, Mahalo and, most recently, Powerset, which was acquired by Microsoft Corp. this month.

Even after investing hundreds of millions of dollars on search, both Microsoft and Yahoo Inc. have been losing ground to Google. Through May, Google held a 62 percent share of the U.S. search market followed by Yahoo at 21 percent and Microsoft at 8.5 percent, according to comScore Inc.

Google has become so synonymous with Internet search that it may no longer matter how good Cuil or any other challenger is, said Gartner Inc. analyst Allen Weiner.

"Search has become as much about branding as anything else," Weiner said. "I doubt (Cuil) will be keeping anyone at Google awake at night."

Google welcomed Cuil to the fray with its usual mantra about its rivals. "Having great competitors is a huge benefit to us and everyone in the search space," Watson said. "It makes us all work harder, and at the end of the day our users benefit from that."

But this will be the first time that Google has battled a general-purpose search engine created by its own alumni. It probably won't be the last time, given that Google now has nearly 20,000 employees.

Patterson joined Google in 2004 after she built and sold Recall, a search index that probed old Web sites for the Internet Archive. She and Power worked on the same team at Google.

Although he also worked for Google for a short time, Monier is best known as the former chief technology officer of AltaVista, which was considered the best search engine before Google came along in 1998. Monier also helped build the search engine on eBay's online auction site.

The trio of former Googlers are teaming up with Patterson's husband, Costello, who built a once-promising search engine called Xift in the late 1990s. He later joined IBM Corp., where he worked on an "analytic engine" called WebFountain.

Costello's Irish heritage inspired Cuil's odd name. It was derived from a character named Finn McCuill in Celtic folklore.

Patterson enjoyed her time at Google, but became disenchanted with the company's approach to search. "Google has looked pretty much the same for 10 years now," she said, "and I can guarantee it will look the same a year from now."

Mountaneers Rescued From Nanaga Parbat By Pak Army Helicopters

2008-07-24T06:22:00.000-07:00

An army helicopter saved two Italian climbers from the Nanga Parbat Mountain, a Pakistani official said. Walter Nones and Simon Kehrer had been struggling to descend from Nanga Parbat since July 16, when fellow climber Karl Unterkircher fell to his death. Tourism official Shaukat Zaman said the helicopter rescued the two climbers Thursday and they were being transported to the region's main town of Gilgit. The military-run helicopter rescue service, Askari Aviation, confirmed the operation on its website.

zCover Comes Up With iSAglove 3G cases for iPhone

2008-07-19T12:08:00.000-07:00

zCover on Friday announced that it is shipping its iSAglove 3G cover for the iPhone. It costs $29.99 and joins zCover's line of iPhone accessories.

The iSAglove is a silicone cover for the iPhone that comes in black, grey and ice clear. It features reinforced corners to support a natural hand position in horizontal mode along with a reinforced layer of silicone that works as a "crash cushion" if the iPhone is dropped or falls.

A flip cover protects the dock connector from getting contaminated with sand, dust and dirt, and the case has been enhanced with the 3G revision, with an easier to press sleep/wake button, tooling for the new iPhone 3G's sensors, volume button and ring/silent switch protection and more.

The "Classic Pack" includes to cover, screen protect film and a disposable screen polishing cloth.

Rescuers Spot italian Climbers On Nanga Parbat

2008-07-19T11:55:00.000-07:00

A rescue helicopter has spotted two Italian mountaineers stranded on one of the world's deadliest peaks in northern Pakistan, the Italian embassy said on Saturday.

The two climbers -- Simon Kehrer and Walter Nones -- had been stranded on Nanga Parbat, also known as Killer Mountain, since early this week when their colleague, Karl Unterkircher, fell into a crevasse and died.

"They have been spotted. They have also been reached with some equipment, food and other things. We dropped them a bag with some equipment," Italian embassy spokesman Oddo Sergio told Reuters.

However, he said bad weather and the sharp incline were hampering efforts to rescue them.

"Weather conditions are quite bad over there, quite uncomfortable. So helicopters are not able to get close to them," he said. "They are on a wall of the mountain. It's a spot where helicopter is not able to get them. It's too high and too vertical," he added.

Nanga Parbat is the world's ninth-highest peak. Its name in the Urdu language means Naked Mountain.

The 26,660 feet (8,126 meters) high peak at the western end of the Himalayas was first conquered by German Buhl, of Germany, in 1953 after 31 people died attempting it.

Since then more have died on its slopes and fewer people try to climb it because it is regarded as technically one of the most difficult mountains to climb.

Microsoft cuts Xbox 360 model price

2008-07-14T02:00:00.000-07:00

Microsoft said on Sunday it is cutting the price of its 20-gigabyte Xbox 360 video game consoles and rolling out a model with three times the memory space to take its place.

The US technology giant's announcement comes two days before the official start of a major Electronic Entertainment Expo at which videogame console makers will be striving to portray their hardware as superior.

Microsoft said it will trim 50 dollars (US) from Xbox 360 models with 20 gigabytes in the United States or Canada, cutting prices to 299 dollars.

An upgraded Xbox 360 Pro model with 60 gigabytes of memory will hit markets in those same two countries in August with 349-dollar price tags, according to the Redmond, Washington-based firm.

The reasoning for the boost in memory capacity is people's interest in storing digital photos, video, music and other data on gaming consoles which are essentially entertainment computers connected to television sets.

"We know consumers need more and more space to store the amazing digital content Xbox 360 offers, and we're giving it to them at no extra charge,' said Albert Penello, Xbox director of product management Albert Penello.

Sony maintains it has no intention of cutting prices on PlayStation 3 models, which sell in the United States for 400 0r 500 dollars depending on memory capacity.

Nintendo will be defending Wii's crown as the world's most popular videogame console, which is priced at 250 dollars and is snatched from shelves as soon as it arrives in stores.

The big three console makers along with videogame software makers large and small will be showing off their newest creations at the Expo in Los Angeles during the coming wee

Apple's iPhone 3G hits shelves; Extras Store also Opened

2008-07-11T07:37:00.000-07:00

Apple's international launch of iPhone 3G began in New Zealand and Japan on Friday, as a freshly-opened ‘App Store’ tempted fans with independently created mini-programs for the coveted devices.

New Zealanders were the first to be able to buy the much-hyped iPhone 3G when three stores opened just after midnight, and Tokyo followed shortly afterward.

Sales of iPhone 3G models begin later in the day in 21 other countries.

On the eve of the iPhone 3G launch, Apple opened an App Store stocked with hip, fun or functional programs crafted by third-party developers.

The shop, accessible through Apple's online iTunes store, opened with more than 500 mini-programs, many of them free.

Mini-applications include games, photo-sharing and mobile versions of Twitter, Facebook, MySpace and eBay.

"Facebook is even cooler on the iPhone 3G, with the ability to discover friends nearby, or to effortlessly take pictures and upload them instantly to Facebook," said the social-networking website's founder Mark Zuckerberg.

Game makers are capitalising on touch-screen and motion-sensing technology in iPhones.

"The touch and tilt controls are natural and easy to learn, making gaming even more inviting, creative and rewarding," said Sega product development vice president David Cobb.

A version of the Japanese company's "Super Monkey Ball" tailored for iPhones is in the App Store.

"Apple's iPhone and iPod Touch open up the world of games to an entirely new audience," Cobb said.

Applications crafted for iPhones will also work on iPod Touch models, which are basically iPhones without the telephone capabilities.

Brian Greenstone, president of computer game maker Pangea Software, called the iPhone platform "truly ground-breaking."

Software creators are allowed to set their own prices, as long as figures end with 99 cents. Apple keeps 30 percent of sales prices to pay for operating the store.

Apple senior vice president of world-wide product marketing Philip Schiller said the iPhone "represents a new software platform for developers, combining the most advanced mobile operating system, sophisticated developer tools and a breakthrough way for developers to wirelessly sell and distribute their applications."

Apple released an iPhone kit to outside developers in March in an effort to make the hot devices even more popular and wrest market share from smart phone market powerhouse Blackberry.

The kit lets programmers customize programs for the touch-screen mobile devices combining telephone, video, music, and Internet connectivity.

Apple vets software creations before making them available exclusively at the App Store.

Apple will sell iPhone 3G models in the United States for 199 dollars and 299 dollars, depending on memory capacity. The original eight-gigabyte iPhone was priced at 600 dollars when it debuted in June last year.

IPhone 3G prices in some countries will be as low as one euro (1.57 dollars) provided customers purchase multi-year service plans that translate into lucrative long-term revenue streams for carriers.

Apple is continuing its strategy of locking iPhones exclusively to one telecom carrier per country.

Apple and numerous technology websites have posted online tips on how to navigate Friday's anticipated buying frenzy.

Auckland student Jonny Gladwell, 22, had been first in line outside the Auckland store since Tuesday after being dared by friends who promised to pay for his phone if he lasted the distance in the queue.

"I'm going to go home, put this on charge, have a play with it and have a nice big sleep," Gladwell told Television New Zealand after securing one of the first iPhones sold in the world

AT&T Paying High Price For iPhone 3G: Will Users Take It?

2008-06-21T09:33:00.000-07:00

Consumers will soon be able to snag the iPhone 3G at an attractive price -- but what will it cost AT&T?
As a general rule, wireless carriers pay about $200 to subsidize the price of a smartphone. But AT&T may be paying Apple $325 per unit for right of carriage, Oppenheimer financial analyst Yair Reimer wrote in a report.

Additionally, Reimer said AT&T will pay another $100 for subscribers signed up in Apple stores. When you add these figures to the retail price of the handset, AT&T could be paying as much as $624 for the 8-GB iPhone 3G, and $724 for the 16-GB version.

Representatives from Apple and AT&T didn't comment, but other analysts said Apple is receiving a tidy sum from the wireless carrier.

Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster estimated in a report Apple will receive an average of $466 per iPhone. Bernstein Research's Toni Sacconaghi said in a report that he expects iPhones to be sold to carriers for anywhere from $350 to $700 each.

For the first iPhone, AT&T and Apple had a monthly revenue-sharing deal, an uncommon practice in the wireless industry. For the iPhone 3G, the mobile operator recently said it would adopt the more traditional practice of reselling handsets to consumers at a subsidy.

AT&T said this move would affect the company's bottom line short term, and it expects to reduce earnings by 10 to 12 cents a share in each of the next two years. But, this strategy is expected to add to profits in 2010 by drawing more heavy-data subscribers.

Dutch Launch Open-source Smart Card Software Project

2008-06-21T09:29:00.000-07:00

A Dutch charity is funding an open-source project to design smart card software that offers stronger protection of personal data in light of security vulnerabilities found with cards used today in the U.S., U.K. and Netherlands.
NLnet Foundation will give €150,000 (US$234,000) to Radboud University in Nijmegen, Netherlands, for the project, which will run through 2010, said Valer Mischenko, the foundation's general director.

The research and the code will be published for peer review, an open-source development model that can offer a stronger security model than undocumented, proprietary systems that dominate the smart-card market, Mischenko said. Companies will be able to use the software in future products, as it will be licensed under the GNU General Public License.

The need for more secure systems is clear. Researchers revealed last year security vulnerabilities in the Mifare Classic RFID (radio frequency identification) chip, which is used in up to 2 billion smart cards used for building access and public transportation systems worldwide.

The researchers figured out how the Mifare Classic's encryption algorithm worked, allowing them to obtain the 48-bit encryption keys the cards used. With that information, it's possible to create a clone of the card or, in some cases, add money to the card for public transport systems, said Bart Jacobs, information security professor at Radboud University.

The Mifare card chips "are from the 90s," Jacobs said. "At the time when they were developed, there was little computing power on those chips."

Using more complex encryption algorithms requires more computing power, which potentially means that a person could have to stand at a turnstile longer during a transaction. One of the aims of the new research is to strengthen that encryption but still have the transaction take a second or less, Jacobs said.

"You don't want to stand before a gate 10 seconds before it opens," Jacobs said.

Another aim is increased privacy. London's transport agency, Transport for London (TFL), uses Mifare chips in its contactless payment system known as the Oyster card. Customers have a couple of options when getting the card: they can register it with TFL, which offers benefits such as free replacement if the card lost, or buy an unregistered one.

If the card is registered, some of the person's travel record is stored by TFL databases, Jacobs said. That's a potential privacy risk if the data is misused. Jacobs said the project also aims to create card that can still offer special, personalized benefits for the rider but also not unnecessarily transmit more information than needed to a centralized database.

"Our point is that you can get these benefits without sacrificing privacy," Jacobs said. "We'd like to try this out."

A person's public transport history could also be used for marketing or other commercial purposes which may suit some interests but not necessarily be in the best interest of privacy, Jacobs said.

"In our improved card, the card behaves more like a paper ticket," Jacobs said. "It is electronic, but hides its identity and only says to a gate 'I'm allowed to make that trip'."

The research, headed up by Jacobs and Wouter Teepe, will start in July in the university's Digital Security Group. Jacobs said within about six months the researchers should have a good idea if a stronger algorithm will be technically feasible and practical in use.

All of the research will be open source and licensed under the GNU General Public License, Mischenko said.

Former Spam King Scott Richter To Pay MySpace $6 Million

2008-06-21T09:25:00.001-07:00

A Colorado man has been ordered to pay US$6 million in damages and legal fees for spamming thousands of MySpace.com users.
Scott Richter of Westminster, Colorado, must pay MySpace $4.8 million in damages and $1.2 million in legal fees, a court-appointed arbitrator ruled on Thursday.

Richter, who was once accused of pumping out more than 100 million spam messages per day, had been sued by MySpace in January 2007 in connection with an August 2006 campaign in which MySpace members were hit with unsolicited messages promoting a Web site called Consumerpromotionscenter.com. The messages were sent from phished MySpace accounts, according to the findings of Philip Boesch, the court-appointed arbitrator in the case.

The messages were sent to a MySpace community that was ill-equipped to deal with any security problems. At the time, "MySpace only employed two relatively junior staff employees to deal with these issues," Boesch wrote. The company's security staff has now grown to about 40, he added.

MySpace had been seeking a court ruling in the case, but in August 2007, U.S. District Judge George King of the Central District of California granted Richter's request to assign the matter to arbitration. Terms of the award were made public on Monday.

In a statement, Richter said that he and his company, Media Breakaway, were happy to have this matter behind them, noting that the arbitrator's award was 95 percent less than the amount sought by MySpace.

"We respect the decision of the arbitrator and we're not going to appeal it," said Steven Richter, the president and general counsel of Media Breakaway and father of Scott Richter. "We're going to pay the money he awarded."

This is not the first time a Scott Richter company has had to cough up millions of dollars to fight spam charges. In 2005, his previous company, Optinrealbig.com, paid $7 million to settle similar charges brought by Microsoft.

Scott Richter was removed from anti-spam organization Spamhaus' list of known spammers that same year.

Media Breakaway, which has no other spam cases pending, is doing everything it can to build a compliance team and make sure it is acting within the law, Steven Richter said.

MySpace said the Richter award was the latest in a series of steps it has taken to combat abuse on its Web site. In May, the company was awarded a $230 million antispam judgment against Sanford Wallace and Walter Rines.

"This award reflects MySpace's continued momentum and holistic approach to ridding the site of spammers and phishers," MySpace said in a statement. "We will continue to do our part in cleansing the Internet of this invasive onslaught of spam."

Logo Design Studio Pro improves SVG support

2008-06-21T09:25:00.000-07:00

Macware on Friday announced the release of Logo Design Studio Pro 1.8, an update to their logo design software for Mac OS X users. It costs $59.99, though updates for registered users are free.

Logo Design Studio Pro helps users looking for a creative logo to add to their stationery or corporate letterhead with more than 500 pre-designed logo templates. It sports Bezier curve-based editing tools, Boolean operations, more than 100 filters, alignment tools and other capabilities suitable for design environments.

New to this release is improved support for Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG), with more than 1,300 pre-designed SVG logo objects; a new browser to preview each SVG object in categories; and some bug fixes and enhancements.

System requirements call for Mac OS X 10.4 or later, 256MB RAM and 550MB hard disk space.

Microsoft Security Fix Clobbers 2 Million Password Stealers

2008-06-21T09:21:00.001-07:00

Microsoft's June security updates were bad news for online criminals who make their living stealing password information from online gamers.

The company's Malicious Software Removal Tool-- a program that detects and removes viruses and other bad programs from Windows machines-- removed game password-stealing software from more than 2 million PCs in the first week after it was updated to detect these programs on June 10.

One password stealer, called Taterf, was detected on 700,000 computers in the first day after the update. That's twice as many infections as were spotted during the entire month after Microsoft began detecting the notorious Storm Worm malware last September.

"These are ridiculous numbers of infections my friends, absolutely mind-boggling," wrote Matt McCormack, a spokesman with Microsoft's Malware Response Center, in a Friday blog posting.

Between June 10 and June 17, Microsoft removed Taterf from about 1.3 million machines, he said.

Microsoft's September detections seriously hobbled the Storm Worm botnet, once considered a top Internet threat.

Password stealers such as Taterf are among the most common types of malicious software on the Internet. That's because there's big money to be made selling the virtual currencies used in online games for real-world cash.

Once a criminal learns a gamer's username and password, he can log into the game and sell the victim's virtual possessions for virtual gold coins. Those coins are then handed to another character in the game who sells the gold for real-world dollars at an online exchange such as IGE, said Greg Hoglund, CEO of HBGary and a co-author of the book "Exploiting Online Games."

"There's no way to audit that money transfer, so effectively they're doing money laundering," he said. "There's almost zero risk for the attackers."

The password-stealing programs are often installed via Web-based attack code that exploits flaws in multimedia programs such as Adobe's Flash Player or Apple's QuickTime Player, Hoglund said.

The attacks are often technically sophisticated, exploiting previously undisclosed bugs in Windows software, said Roger Thompson, chief research officer with AVG Technologies. "The 'World of Warcraft' password stealers have provided most of the innovation over the last twelve months," he said via instant message.

Microsoft's McCormack provided some data on where most of the password stealer detections occurred. Not surprisingly, China was the top country, with 529,003 detections.

Security experts say Chinese games are frequently the target of these attacks. Rounding out the top five countries for detections were Taiwan with 279,428, Spain with 235,381, the U.S. with 213,374 and Korea with 184,306.

About 330 million copies of the Malicious Software Removal Tool update were downloaded during this June period.

Gamers can make easy targets for criminals because some of them disable antivirus software to boost gaming performance, while others download free "cracked" versions of games, which can contain malware, McCormack said.

"So how does one avoid being infected?" he asked. "Running an up-to-date anti-virus solution is a good start. Running an up-to-date, patched browser is another necessity," he said. "Enabling Automatic Updates helps a whole bunch, too."

Microsoft Security Fix Clobbers 2 Million Password Stealers

2008-06-21T09:21:00.000-07:00