Tizen-based smartphone could come in 2013, reports say

IDG News Service - Japan's biggest cellular network operator, NTT DoCoMo, is working with Intel and Samsung on development of the Tizen operating system and the first smartphone based on the platform could be out in Japan in 2013, according to a Japanese newspaper report.

The Yomiuri Shimbun, Japan's largest circulation daily newspaper, didn't attribute the source of the information, which was published in a report on its website on Dec. 31.

Tizen is a Linux-based operating system targeted at smartphones, tablet PCs and other consumer applications. It is hosted at the Linux Foundation but counts Intel and Samsung among its major backers.

Tizen's backers have said little about commercialization of the OS, but, if successful, it could play a balancing role to Android. The Google-developed OS, which is also based on Linux, has grown to dominate the smartphone sector in just a few years and put a lot of power in the hands of Google.

A Tizen-based smartphone has been expected from Samsung ever since September, when a phone called the "GT-I9300_TIZEN" was listed in a Wi-Fi Alliance document as passing a Wi-Fi interoperability test. GT-i9300 is the model name Samsung gives to Galaxy S3 smartphones. After reports of the document surfaced, it was later modified to delete the Tizen name, but the phone is still expected.

For Samsung, developing a Tizen-based phone is only half the battle. It then has to sell it to cellular network operators, so support from a major carrier like NTT DoCoMo could help Tizen make the jump from engineering project to consumer OS.

NTT DoCoMo had 60.8 million subscribers at the end of November, according to data from Japan's Telecommunication Carriers Association. That gave it a 47 percent share of the entire market.

But even with the support of DoCoMo, Tizen's success isn't guaranteed. The history of smartphone operating systems is littered with failures and the market is getting more competitive with the recent launch of Windows Phone 8 as well as the January launch of the BlackBerry 10 operating system.

Martyn Williams covers mobile telecoms, Silicon Valley and general technology breaking news for The IDG News Service. Follow Martyn on Twitter at @martyn_williams. Martyn's e-mail address is martyn_williams@idg.com

Reprinted with permission from IDG.net. Story copyright 2012 International Data Group. All rights reserved.

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Samsung, LG set for TV battle at CES

IDG News Service - LG Electronics is hoping to make its smart TVs more attractive by making it easier to share and find content, while Samsung Electronics is only hinting at what its plans are for 2013.

The TV market is highly competitive and vendors are doing their best to differentiate their products from the competition, or at least not fall behind.

Samsung and LG will both present new TV hardware and software at the International CES trade show in Las Vegas next month.

LG's TVs will make it easier to share content with a feature called Tag On, which uses NFC (near-field communication) to connect a TV with, for example, a smartphone.

To connect, users just have to hold a smartphone or some other NFC-enabled device against an NFC sticker on the TV, the company said on Monday.

A recommendation function called On Now will suggest trending on-demand and broadcast content. Results pop up in thumbnail images, making it faster and easier for the viewer to make a selection, according to LG.

The TVs will also have thinner bezels, the frames that surround TV screens.

LG has already announced that its 2013 lineup will include two new Google TVs called the GA7900 and GA6400. Its TVs will also get better support for speech recognition, thanks in part to a new remote.

Samsung, on the other hand, is still keeping its new offerings under wraps.

Last week, the company posted a teaser on Youtube, which didn't provide any details beyond the arrival of a new product that by the looks of it still has a bezel. The set will have an "unprecedented new TV shape," according to Samsung's official blog.

The next 12 months could have some interesting developments in store for consumers with the arrival of more Ultra HD and OLED TVs. But the big question is still if Apple will finally reveal its own TV.

Samsung and LG both have launch events planned for Jan. 7 where they will announce their new products.

CES takes place between Jan. 8 and Jan. 11 in Las Vegas.

Send news tips and comments to mikael_ricknas@idg.com

Reprinted with permission from IDG.net. Story copyright 2012 International Data Group. All rights reserved.

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YouTube, briefly restored, blocked again in Pakistan

IDG News Service - Pakistan reinstated its YouTube ban on Saturday after it was briefly lifted, reportedly without approval from the country's prime minister, local media reported.

The country's federal interior minister, Rehman Malik, wrote on Twitter on Friday that the three-month ban on Google's video-sharing service would be lifted after great demand from "all sections of society." YouTube was then restored on Saturday for around three hours, according to The Express Tribune.

But the ban was restored by the Pakistan Telecommunications Authority (PTA) on orders from Prime Minister Raja Pervez Ashraf, the publication reported.

Ashraf ordered YouTube to be blocked on Sept. 17 after Google refused to remove a controversial movie trailer mocking the Prophet Muhammad, which sparked violent protests in several countries around U.S. consulates and embassies, including Pakistan.

Google restricted viewing of the 14-minute trailer in India, Libya and Egypt and Indonesia, but left it online in most countries. The company contends the video does not violate its guidelines.

The PTA's technical inability to block just the video in question led to the entire YouTube ban being reinstated, The Express Tribune reported.

Malik later wrote on Friday on Twitter that the PTA was finalizing negotiations to acquire "powerful firewall software" that can block pornographic and blasphemous material, hinting at the possibility of a more granular response to content deemed offensive in the country.

Send news tips and comments to jeremy_kirk@idg.com. Follow me on Twitter: @jeremy_kirk

Reprinted with permission from IDG.net. Story copyright 2012 International Data Group. All rights reserved.

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Why Social networks should be more like Facebook Poke

Computerworld - The sister of Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, who's name is Randi Zuckerberg, posted a private photo this week of some of her family members, including brother Mark, in a kitchen goofing around with Facebook's new Poke app.

A friend of another Zuckerberg sister saw that post on her Facebook News Feed, thought it was charming and re-posted it publicly on Twitter.

Randi Zuckerberg was upset by the re-share, so she lectured the world on Twitter about "digital etiquette." She Tweeted:

"Always ask permission before posting a friend's photo publicly. It's not about privacy settings, it's about human decency."

Randi Zuckerberg is totally wrong. It's all about the settings and it has nothing to do with "decency."

The problem: Nobody knew what was happening with the communication.

Randi Zuckerberg, a former senior executive at Facebook, believed her private Facebook post was viewable only to "friends," when in fact it was visible to friends of friends.

Randi Zuckerberg's other sister didn't know that by simply friending someone on Facebook she was making her sister's personal posts visible to those friends.

And the friend who shared the post on Twitter didn't know that Randi Zuckerberg's photo was meant to be private. She thought it was public.

Even Zuckerberg family and friends don't know what's happening with their own Facebook messages.

Why? Because of the settings, of course -- not because of "decency."

This is the situation for all Facebook users and all messages. Almost nobody knows who can see or share their posts on social networks.

Instead of lecturing the world, Randi Zuckerberg should instead try lecturing her little brother, Mark. (And while she's lecturing him, she should also give him the "decency" lecture -- about copying Snapchat in the creation of Poke. It's about decency.)

When Randi Zuckerberg posted her photo, it should have been clear to her exactly who would gain access to the message. And if she marked it as private and viewable only by a specific group of people, Facebook should have done a better job of both locking it down to some degree and providing obvious signals that it should not be shared.

Instead of requiring every single recipient of every single post to check the light-colored fine print that shows who the sender addressed it to, private posts on social networks should be unsharable on the network and the pictures should be undownloadable, just like Flickr photos are when the user selects certain rights options.

Of course, any recipient can take a screen shot. But when a screenshot is taken of a private photo, the sender of that photo should be notified of the fact.

The next big breakthrough in IT management is here. Learn how you can reduce change risk, speed incident resolution, and improve visibility across your environment with Social IT Operations Management.

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Ultimate guide to SSDs (plus reviews of 7 new drives!)

PC World - Installing an SSD in your PC, be it a laptop or a desktop, is one of the easiest and most effective ways to boost the machine's overall performance. The change won't be merely noticeable--it will startle you. Your system will boot more quickly, windows and menus will jump open, and programs and data will load much, much faster.

In case you don't know what an SSD is, the acronym stands for solid-state drive--that is, solid-state as in no moving parts, and drive as in the fact that an SSD appears as a hard drive to your computer. But instead of storing data on one or more spinning platters, an SSD writes and reads data to and from nonvolatile flash memory. In addition, an SSD contains a controller that's analogous to the memory controller in your PC's CPU or core-logic chipset.

Many vendors sell SSDs, but the devices are far from equal. Flash memory and controller technology have both advanced so quickly that what was fast last year is now second-class. The drives you might find in the bargain bin will be faster than a consumer-grade mechanical hard drive, but they won't deliver the astounding performance boost you'll be looking for after you read this article.

To get the skinny on state-of-the-art consumer SSDs, we brought seven drives from five vendors into the PCWorld Labs and put them through the wringer. We tested Corsair's Neutron and Neutron GTX drives; Kingston's HyperX 3K; OCZ's Vertex 4 and Vector drives; Samsung's 840 Pro; and the SanDisk Extreme. We also retested Intel's 240GB Series 335 SSD using our new benchmarking procedure (if you're curious, read our original review). Each drive delivers either 240GB or 256GB of storage, which is the current sweet spot in terms of price and performance. Each drive we tested proved to be a solid performer that will offer a significant boost over whatever conventional drive your machine has now. Some drives, however, are definitely faster than others.

If you'd like to upgrade a computer equipped with an older second-generation SATA interface (which maxes out at 3 gigbits per second), note that we also checked out the Apricorn Velocity Solo x2, an add-in card that upgrades any computer with an available PCIe 2.0 x2 slot to the newer SATA 6-gbps standard.

But before we dive into those reviews, here's a primer on SSDs that will tell you everything you need to know about this technology.

Controller

The memory/interface controller proved to be a major factor in determining each SSD's performance. Three of the drives we tested use a SandForce SF-2281 controller: the Kingston HyperX 3K, the SanDisk Extreme, and the Intel Series 335 (the controller firmware on this drive is tweaked to Intel's specifications). OCZ's Vector and Vertex 4 drives both use OCZ's proprietary IndiLinx controllers, namely the Everest 2 in the Vertex 4 and the Barefoot 3 in the Vector. Corsair is blazing a path with its Neutron series drives (the GTX and Neutron) by using Link A Media's LM87800 controller. Samsung's 840 Pro utilizes the company's proprietary MDX controller.

As you'll see in our performance chart, drives with the IndiLinx, Link A Media, and Samsung MDX controllers boasted significantly faster write speeds than the SandForce-based competition. In fact, counterintuitively, each of the five drives using those controllers wrote faster than they read. The SandForce-based drives were all good readers, but their comparatively slower write speeds dragged down their overall scores.

On the next page, I'll discuss memory types, interfaces, and how we measured performance.

Memory

Although the controller plays a big role in determining an SSD's performance, the type of flash memory inside an SSD is also a huge factor. The SSDs in this roundup used either synchronous or toggle-mode NAND.

You might also encounter the terms SLC (single-level cell),MLC (multi-level cell), and TLC (triple-level cell) when researching SSDs. An SLC NAND cell has two states--on or off--so it can store one bit of data. An MLC NAND cell has two states besides off, so it can store two bits of data, while a TLC NAND cell has three states in addition to off and is therefore capable of storing three bits of data.

While MLC and TLC NAND deliver more capacity in the same physical space, they also bring a trade-off in performance and endurance. SLC NAND is faster and more durable than the other two types, but it's also more expensive; you'll find it today only in enterprise-level drives. Very few drives use TLC NAND, because it's not as durable--it can't handle as many program/erase cycles (which I'll explain in a moment) as SLC and MLC can. Each of the drives in this roundup uses MLC NAND.

A note about endurance: All types of NAND flash memory have a limited life span. The MLC memory in consumer SSDs is good for 3000 to 10,000 P/E (program/erase) cycles, which is enough to deliver several years of normal usage. Unlike a mechanical hard drive, an SSD cannot simply write (program) data on top of old data that's no longer needed; once flash memory has been written to, it must be erased before it can be written to again. Newer SSDs running on modern operating systems (including Windows 7, Windows 8, Mac OS X 10.6.8, and Linux kernel 2.6.28) use the TRIM command (it's not an acronym, despite the caps) to actively inform the SSD controller of memory cells that contain unneeded data, so the controller can proactively erase those cells and make them available for storage once again.

So how long should you expect an SSD to last? The manufacturers' warranties provide a clue: Both of OCZ's drives, Corsair's Neutron drives, and Samsung's 840 Pro drives carry a five-year warranty; the rest of the drives we reviewed are warrantied for three years.

Interface

To take full advantage of a state-of-the-art SSD (that is, one with a third-generation SATA 6-gbps interface), and get close to the speeds you'll see in our benchmark charts, you'll need a motherboard with a third-generation SATA 6-gbps interface.

While mechanical hard drives don't come close to saturating the second-generation SATA 3-gbps bus, the latest SSDs are already bumping up the against the limit of third-gen SATA. If you're adding an SSD to a laptop that has only a SATA 3-gbps interface, save yourself some money and go middle of the road--you'll get very little benefit out of connecting a SATA 6-gbps drive to the older interface. If you're upgrading to an SSD on a desktop that has only a SATA 3-gbps interface, buy either a SATA 6-gbps controller card or a SATA 6-gbps piggyback card, such as the Apricorn Velocity Solo x2 (read our review). Under any circumstance, buy a top performer, and in the future you can transfer it into a better system to realize its full potential.

Performance

We evaluated the SSDs with a series of real-world data-transfer tests (by "real world," we mean a commonplace selection of data). Each drive was required to read and write both a 10GB mix of smaller files and folders and a single large 10GB file. To see just how fast the drives could go, we utilized a 16GB RAM disk to avoid any bottlenecks or interaction issues that a hard drive or second SSD might cause.

Our test bed consisted of an Asus P8Z77-V Pro/Thunderbolt motherboard, an Intel Core i7-2600K CPU, and 32GB of Corsair Vengeance 1600MHz DDR3 memory. The operating system was Microsoft Windows 8 (64-bit).

When it came to reading data, every drive we tested turned in good numbers. Oddly enough, the 256MB OCZ Vertex 4, which took fourth place overall with its combined reading and writing, was the slowest reader at 393.5 MBps (file mix and large file combined). The highest combined mark, on the other hand, wasn't tremendously higher: Samsung's 240GB 840 Pro delivered 450.8 MBps (about 14 percent faster).

Overall, the aforementioned Samsung 840 Pro and OCZ's 256MB Vector were the stars of the roundup, finishing first and second respectively. The 840 Pro delivered an overall combined read/write speed of 496.2 MBps, and the Vector delivered 489.1 MBps. The 840 Pro finished first in every test except for writing our mix of smaller files and folders, where the Vector bested it. The Corsair Neutron GTX (240GB) placed third with a speed of 459.1 MBps, the OCZ Vertex 4 took fourth place at 449.4 MBps, and the 240GB Corsair Neutron finished a rather distant fifth at 414.3 MBps.

The Kingston HyperX was the most capable of the SandForce-based drives, posting a combined read/write rate of 407 MBps. The 240GB SanDisk Extreme finished next at 385.8 MBps, followed by the 240GB Intel 335 Series at 368.4 MBps.

To establish a baseline, we also tested an older SSD (a 90GB Corsair Force Series 3) and two mechanical hard drives: Seagate's Barracuda 7200.12 and Western Digital's VelociRaptor, both of which offer capacity that no current SSD can match: 1TB. The WD VelociRaptor is a very fast enterprise-class hard drive that spins its platters at 10,000 rpm. Note, however, that the Corsair and Seagate products do not represent the respective manufacturers' latest and greatest technology; we selected them as representative of the boot drives that consumers might be upgrading from. The Seagate 7200.12,A for instance, has half as much cache as the newer 7200.14 model with the same total capacity. And the Corsair drive uses slower asynchronous NAND paired with a SandForce 2200 controller that predates the SandForce 2281 used in the newer drives we reviewed.

The Corsair Force Series 3 SSD managed an overall read/write rate of only 190.7 MBps. Seagate's 7200-rpm hard drive delivered 117.7 MBps, while the VelociRaptor achieved 213 MBps. In plain language, the bargain SSD smoked the Seagate hard drive, but it couldn't keep pace with the VelociRaptor.

On the next page, I'll tackle the issue of pricing, bundles, and the bottom line.

Price

Though you'll see the manufacturer's suggested retail price quoted in our charts, it's not always indicative of how much you'll pay. Some vendors provide MSRPs that are actually street prices, while other vendors offer loftier MSRPs that end up being heavily discounted at retail. The 240GB SanDisk Extreme, for example, is list priced at $399, but we saw it at several online retailers for much less than half that amount. On the other hand, Intel priced its 335 series model at $184, but that drive was selling for more at several online retailers.

Based on street prices, the price per gigabyte ranged from about 69 cents to $1.08 per gigabyte for the 240/256GB models we reviewed. Although that's expensive compared with the 6 cents per gigabyte the Seagate hard drive fetches, or the 24 cents per gigabyte that WD's VelociRaptor commands, so is a Ferrari compared with a Volkswagen.

Bundles

Be aware of what comes in the box with the drive you choose. At a minimum, you should get a bracket and screws that let you adapt the 2.5-inch drive to a 3.5-inch bay. Some manufacturers go further and offer cloning software so that you can easily migrate your operating system and software environment from your old drive to the new one. Some manufacturers sell drives under different SKUs, one with just the drive and others with the drive plus accessories. Be sure to make apples-to-apples comparisons when you're shopping.

The bottom line

Speed is the primary motivation for upgrading to an SSD, so I recommend skipping over the bargain drives in favor of what you really want. The lone exception to that recommendation is for a laptop that has only a SATA 3-gbps interface. In that case, you should still stay away from bargain-bin drives, but make your choice based on price per gigabyte. If you're upgrading your laptop, be mindful of drive height: Some drives are 9mm high, and many thin-and-light portables can accommodate only 7mm drives.

We reviewed seven of the very latest SSDs for this roundup. The competition was tight, but one drive managed to outperform the rest of the field. You'll find links to our reviews below and after the jump!

Corsair Neutron (240GB): The middle of the road

Corsair's move to the Link A Media LM87800 controller has been a good thing. The Neutron GTX performs better thanks to its faster toggle-mode NAND, but the Neutron with its synchronous MLC NAND is still a very fast drive--fast enough to take the fifth spot among some very tough competition in our roundup.

Read our entire review.

Corsair Neutron GTX (240GB): A gamble pays off

Corsair's move to the Link A Media LM87800 controller has paid dividends. Though not quite as fast as the Samsung 840 Pro or the OCZ Vector, the Neutron GTX beat out the OCZ Vertex 4 to take third place overall.

See our complete hands-on review.

Kingston HyperX 3K (240GB): An excellent buy

Kingston's HyperX 3K was the best performer among the SandForce SF-2281 drives in our December 2012 roundup, by a fair margin: It took the sixth spot in overall performance. Kingston somehow managed to squeeze significantly better write performance out of this controller than the other vendors using the same part.

Read the rest of our review.

OCZ Vector (256GB): Bangin' Barefoot

OCZ's latest drive, the Vector, utilizes the company's new IndiLinx Barefoot 3 controller in conjunction with synchronous MLC NAND. Said NAND is rated for 550-MBps sequential writing and 530-MBps writing, as well as for 95,000/100,000, 4KB write/read operations per second. Whatever the numbers, the Vector is fast.

Find the entire review.

OCZ Vertex 4 (256GB): Hitting the sweet spot

While it's not quite as fast as its OCZ Vector sibling, OCZ's Vertex 4 is a very speedy SSD. It uses the company's older IndiLinx Everest 2 controller, but contains the same synchronous MLC NAND used in the Vector. The combination proved fast enough for this drive to take fourth place in overall performance.

Read the entire review.

Samsung 840 Pro (256GB): A screaming-fast SSD

It's always easy to write about the best--in this case, the Samsung 840 Pro with its proprietary MDX controller. Samsung also manufactures the toggle-mode MLC memory found in the 840 Pro, and judging from the results of our tests, the company knows what to do with it. The 840 Pro finished first in overall combined reading and writing. It also placed first in three of our four individual read and write tests.

Find all the details in our review.

SanDisk Extreme (240GB): Bang for the buck

SanDisk's Extreme SSD is a study in extremes, at least pricewise. With the 240GB version carrying a $399 suggested retail price, you might dismiss it out of hand. That would be a mistake: We found the drive selling online for a mere $165 (as of December 18, 2012), which lowers the drive's price per gigabyte to just 69 cents--the lowest price in the entire roundup.

Read more about this drive in our review.

Reprinted with permission from PCWorld.com. Story copyright 2012 PC World Communications. All rights reserved.

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U.S. ITC judge recommends ban on Samsung products

IDG News Service - A U.S. International Trade Comission judge is recommending sanctions against Samsung that include an import and sales ban on products found to infringe Apple patents, and the posting of a bond for 88% of the value of some of the devices involved in the case.

Administrative Law Judge Thomas Pender's remedy in the Apple complaint against Samsung was made public in a redacted version of his opinion that entered the ITC's filing system Friday. Pender in October issued a preliminary finding that Samsung infringed four of Apple's patents, one related to product design and three related to technology.

The infringing devices, in Pender's October ruling, include models of Samsung's Transform, Acclaim, Indulge and Intercept smartphones.

On Friday, Pender issued his remedy for the infringement, including a U.S. import ban that would begin after the 60-day presidential review period that follows a final ITC decision. In addition, Pender recommended a cease-and-desist order that would ban the sale of any commercially significant quantities of the allegedly infringing products that have already been imported.

"I find that the evidence shows more likely than not that Samsung maintains a commercially significant inventory of imported infringing accused products in the United States," Pender said in his opinion.

The remedy also includes the requirement for Samsung to post a bond of 88% of the value of all infringing mobile phones, 32.5% of the value of all infringing media players, and 37.6% of the value of all infringing tablet devices during the presidential review period.

However, Samsung still might be able to sell at least some of the products involved in the complaint. Pender has approved several Samsung workarounds -- or "designarounds" -- and if those designs are "legally safe but also technically adequate and commercially viable, Samsung can keep importing and selling," according to patent expert Florian Mueller in his FOSS patents blog.

In addition, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office is re-examining several Apple patents, and in a preliminary ruling has already rejected a touchscreen patent involved in the ITC complaint.

The judge's recommendations also must be approved by the six-member ITC Commission.

Neither Samsung nor Apple were immediately available for comment.

Apple filed the complaint against Samsung last summer, after Samsung had filed a similar patent complaint against Apple. The ITC inquiry is part of a broader patent battle. In perhaps the most significant case, a California jury this summer decided Samsung should pay Apple $1.05 billion for infringing its patents. Samsung is appealing that decision.

Reprinted with permission from IDG.net. Story copyright 2012 International Data Group. All rights reserved.

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Microsoft confirms zero-day bug in IE6, IE7 and IE8

Computerworld - Microsoft on Saturday confirmed that Internet Explorer (IE) 6, 7 and 8 contain an unpatched bug -- or "zero-day" vulnerability -- that is being used by attackers to hijack victims' Windows computers.

The company is "working around the clock" on a patch, its engineers said. They have also released a preliminary workaround that will protect affected IE customers until the update is ready.

In a security advisory issued Dec. 29, Microsoft acknowledged that attacks are taking place. "Microsoft is aware of targeted attacks that attempt to exploit this vulnerability through Internet Explorer 8," the alert stated.

Newer versions of IE, including 2011's IE9 and this year's IE10, are not affected, Microsoft said. It urged those able to upgrade to do so.

According to multiple security firms, the vulnerability was used by hackers to exploit Windows PCs whose owners visited the website of the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), a non-partisan foreign policy think tank with offices in New York and Washington, D.C.

On Friday, FireEye corroborated earlier reports that the CFR website had been compromised by attackers and was hosting exploit code as early as Dec. 21. As of mid-day Wednesday, Dec. 26, the site was still conducting "drive-by" attacks against people running IE8, said Darien Kindlund, senior staff scientist at FireEye, in a Friday blog.

Kindlund added that the malware hidden on the CFR website used Adobe Flash Player "to generate a heap spray attack" against IE8. It wasn't clear whether Flash also contained a zero-day bug, or whether the attackers leveraged an already-known and previously patched vulnerability that had not been fixed on the victims' PCs.

On Saturday, Jaime Blasco, the labs manager at AlienVault, weighed in on the IE zero-day as well, noting that the exploit was able to circumvent Microsoft's anti-exploit technologies, DEP (data execution prevention) and ASLR (address space layout randomization), and successfully compromise Windows XP and Windows 7 PCs running IE8. He identified the IE bug as a likely "use-after-free" vulnerability, a type of memory management flaw.

AlienVault, said Blasco, had begun looking into the "watering hole" attacks stemming from the CFR website at the beginning of the week, and had alerted the Microsoft Security Response Center (MSRC) that it suspected IE harbored a zero-day vulnerability.

In a watering hole campaign, hackers identify their intended targets, even to the individual level, then scout out which websites they frequently visit. Attackers next compromise one or more of those sites, plant malware on them, and like a lion waits at a watering hole for unwary wildebeests, wait for unsuspecting users to surf there.

The CFR did not immediately reply to a request for comment on its site's current status.

The next big breakthrough in IT management is here. Learn how you can reduce change risk, speed incident resolution, and improve visibility across your environment with Social IT Operations Management.

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Drones, phones and other 2012 privacy threats

Computerworld - Verizon's attempt -- unsuccessful so far -- to secure a patent for a so-called 'snooping technology,' which in this case would let television advertisers target individual viewers based on what they're doing or saying in front of their sets, capped another challenging year for privacy advocates.

The Verizon technology, which includes a sensor/camera housed in a set-top box, would determine the activities of individual viewers -- eating, playing, cuddling, laughing, singing, fighting or gesturing -- and then trigger personal advertisements based on the activities.

Overall, the technology would serve targeted ads based on what the user is doing, who the user is, his or her surroundings, and any other suitable personal information, according to Verizon.

The U.S. Patent Office delivered a "non-final" rejection of Verizon's application in November.

But analysts say that because engineers are already working on such technology, it's a cinch that some kind of similar technology will be included in TV set-top boxes in the not too distant future.

Here, in no particular order, are other developments in 2012 that could have a major long-term impact on privacy:

The Federal Aviation Administration Modernization and Reform Act of 2012, signed into law by President Barack Obama in February, was immediately slammed by rights groups, privacy advocates and lawmakers who contended that the law poses a major threat to the privacy of law-abiding citizens.

The bill, still largely unnoticed by the general public, opens up American airspace to commercial unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), better known as drones. Over the next few years, the FAA is expected to license the use of as many as 30,000 drones by border patrol agents, government agencies, state and local law enforcement agencies as well as businesses.

The powerful drone lobby has done much to highlight the benefits of drones in tracking fugitive criminals, managing traffic, monitoring crops, conducting land management activities, news reporting and filmmaking.

Numerous agencies, including the Department of Homeland Security, NASA, the FBI. the border patrol, and local police departments have secured licenses to operate drones in U.S. airspace.

Rights advocates argue that the law includes no meaningful guidelines for protecting privacy rights.

The advocates warn that drones equipped with facial recognition cameras, license plate scanners, thermal imaging cameras, open WiFi sniffers, and other sensors could be used for general public safety surveillance.

The Center for Democracy and Technology earlier this year noted that static surveillance technology like closed circuit television cameras cannot track individuals beyond their fields of vision. But drones, the group contended, can peek into backyards and be used -- without a warrant -- to track individuals pervasively.

The next big breakthrough in IT management is here. Learn how you can reduce change risk, speed incident resolution, and improve visibility across your environment with Social IT Operations Management.

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Velocity Solo X2 review: Teach an old PC new SATA 6-gbps tricks

PC World - If your PC lacks a SATA 6-gigabits-per-second interface, you can't get top performance out of any of the latest consumer-grade solid-state drives. Such drives bump up against the 6-gbps limit of that bus, while the older second-generation SATA interface maxes out at just 3 gbps. Apricorn's Velocity x2 should remove that roadblock for you.

My main system sports a circa-2009 Intel D58SO motherboard. It has a great feature set, but it predates third-generation, 6-gbps SATA. The only way to upgrade such a beast is via a PCIe adapter card with a SATA 6-gbps interface, of which the market has plenty to choose from. I tried installing one of those a couple of years ago, but it gave me blue screens. SSDs at that time weren't nearly as fast as they are today, so I saw no real reason to upgrade. But with SSD performance now topping 600 MBps, it's time.

Lo and behold, Apricorn contacted me about its Velocity Solo PCIe cards. These will not only add SATA 6-gbps capability to any system with an available PCIe slot, but they'll also serve as a caddy for a single SSD. Apricorn sent two cards for me to evaluate: the $50 Velocity x1 and the $99 Velocity x2. I tried both, and recommend one.

A Kingston HyperX 3K drive attached to my motherboard's second-generation SATA interface, which is capable of delivering maximum performance of only 3 gbps, read data at 227 MBps and wrote data at 236 MBps while running the synthetic benchmark CrystalDiskMark 3. Surprisingly enough, a much faster OCZ Vertex 4 SSD mounted on the Velocity x1 delivered slower performance: It read at only 203.3 MBps and wrote at 196.5 MBps.

When I paired the Vertex 4 with Apricorn's Velocity Solo x2 card, however, the SSD's numbers jumped to 348.1 MBps reading and 323.2 MBps writing--a substantial improvement beyond what is possible with the second-generation SATA interface. Attaching the Kingston HyperX 3K to the Velocity Solo x2, meanwhile, improved its numbers to 322.1 MBps reading and 239.6 MBps writing. That considerably faster read performance made my system feel much more responsive.

The reason for the two cards' performance disparity is that the x1 uses only a single PCIe 2.0 lane, while the x2 employs two lanes (and must be installed in at least a PCIe 2.0 x2 slot as a result). Since each PCIe 2.0 lane is capable of transferring data at 500 megabytes per second (or 3.9 gigabits per second) in each direction, two PCIe lanes are necessary to satisfy the requirements of the SATA 6-gbps interface. Both Velocity Solo cards are outfitted with a standard female SATA connector for attaching a second drive, and both cards are bundled with Apricorn's EZ Gig software for cloning your existing hard drive to your new SSD.

I can't recommend the Velocity Solo x1, as the SSDs I mounted to it performed more slowly than they did when connected to my motherboard's second-generation SATA interface. The Velocity Solo x2, on the other hand, delivered a dramatic improvement, both during testing and subjectively. My only real qualm is the x2's $99 price tag, which is steep compared with the cost of some SATA 6-gbps interface cards (such as the Syba HyperDuo) that don't have the handy mounting caddy. The lowest street price we could find as of December 18, 2012, was $95.

Note: Don't miss our SSD roundup, where you'll find a detailed explanation of how SSDs work, plus links to reviews of seven new models as of December 18, 2012.

Reprinted with permission from PCWorld.com. Story copyright 2012 PC World Communications. All rights reserved.

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Researchers find malware targeting Java HTTP servers

IDG News Service - Security researchers from antivirus vendor Trend Micro have uncovered a piece of backdoor-type malware that infects Java-based HTTP servers and allows attackers to execute malicious commands on the underlying systems.

The threat, known as BKDR_JAVAWAR.JG, comes in the form of a JavaServer Page (JSP), a type of Web page that can only be deployed and served from a specialized Web server with a Java servlet container, such as Apache Tomcat.

Once this page is deployed, the attacker can access it remotely and can use its functions to browse, upload, edit, delete, download or copy files from the infected system using a Web console interface. This is similar to the functionality provided by PHP-based backdoors, commonly known as PHP Web shells.

"Aside from gaining access to sensitive information, an attacker gains control of the infected system thru the backdoor and can carry out more malicious commands onto the vulnerable server," Trend Micro researchers said Thursday in a blog post.

This JSP backdoor can be installed by other malware already running on the system that hosts the Java-based HTTP server and Java servlet container or can be downloaded when browsing to malicious websites from such a system.

According to Trend Micro's technical notes, the malware targets systems running Windows 2000, Windows Server 2003, Windows XP, Windows Vista and Windows 7.

"Another possible attack scenario is when an attacker checks for websites powered by Apache Tomcat then attempts to access the Tomcat Web Application Manager," the Trend Micro researchers said. "Using a password cracking tool, cybercriminals are able to login and gain manager/administrative rights allowing the deployment of Web application archive (WAR) files packaged with the backdoor to the server."

In order to protect their servers from such threats, administrators should use strong passwords that cannot be easily cracked by using brute force tools, should deploy all security updates available for their systems and software and should avoid visiting unknown and untrusted websites, the Trend Micro researchers said.

Reprinted with permission from IDG.net. Story copyright 2012 International Data Group. All rights reserved.

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Apple drops bid to add Samsung Galaxy S III Mini to patent lawsuit

IDG News Service - Apple has dropped its patent-infringement accusations against the Galaxy S III Mini, a mid-market Android smartphone that Samsung Electronics says it is not selling in the U.S.

In a filing in the U.S. District Court for Northern California on Friday, Apple said it would withdraw its request to include the Galaxy S III Mini in a patent infringement case against Samsung that is set for trial in 2014. On Nov. 23, Apple had asked to add the Mini and five other recently released Samsung products to its complaint, which originally was filed in February. The case is one of many in an ongoing set of disputes between the two companies in several countries.

When Apple asked to add the Mini to its case, the phone was expected to be released in the U.S. soon. Samsung subsequently filed an opposition to that request in which the South Korean company said it was not selling the Mini in the U.S.

In its filing on Friday, Apple said the Mini apparently was available for sale in the country, because its attorneys had bought multiple Minis from Amazon.com's U.S. online store and successfully had them shipped to addresses in the U.S. The company also said it appeared the device was still on sale at Amazon on Wednesday.

However, Apple wrote that because Samsung had represented it wasn't "making, using, selling, offering to sell or importing the Galaxy S III Mini in the United States," it would drop the patent allegations against the Mini.

Apple's move may rely on Samsung staying true to its statement. Apple withdrew its allegations "without prejudice," reserving the right to make the accusations again "if the factual circumstances change."

Stephen Lawson covers mobile, storage and networking technologies for The IDG News Service. Follow Stephen on Twitter at @sdlawsonmedia. Stephen's e-mail address is stephen_lawson@idg.com

Reprinted with permission from IDG.net. Story copyright 2012 International Data Group. All rights reserved.

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FCC eases licensing for in-flight Internet gear on aircraft

IDG News Service - The FCC is making it easier to launch in-flight Internet services on planes in the U.S. by setting up a standard approval process for onboard systems that use satellites.

Since 2001, the Federal Communications Commission has approved some satellite based Internet systems for airplanes, called Earth Stations Aboard Aircraft (ESAA), on an ad-hoc basis. On Friday, the agency said it had formalized ESAA as a licensed application, which should cut in half the time required to get services approved, according to the FCC.

In-flight Internet access is typically delivered via Wi-Fi in an airplane's cabin, but that access requires a wireless link outside the plane to the larger Internet. Some services make that link via special 3G cellular towers on the ground, while others exchange their data over satellites. Row44, a provider of satellite-based in-flight Wi-Fi, names Southwest Airlines and Allegiant Air as customers on its website.

Under the new rules, all it will take for airlines to implement onboard ESAA systems is to test the technology, establish that it meets FCC standards and doesn't interfere with any aircraft systems, and get Federal Aviation Administration approval, the FCC said. The result should be quicker deployments and more competition among in-flight Internet systems, according to the agency.

Stephen Lawson covers mobile, storage and networking technologies for The IDG News Service. Follow Stephen on Twitter at @sdlawsonmedia. Stephen's e-mail address is stephen_lawson@idg.com

Reprinted with permission from IDG.net. Story copyright 2012 International Data Group. All rights reserved.

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Toshiba developing Lytro-like phone camera with over 30,000 mini-lenses

IDG News Service - Toshiba is developing a tiny digital camera module similar to the Lytro camera, which shoots tens of thousands of individual photos and then allows the user to pick the point of focus.

The new camera will have from 30,000 to 50,000 tiny lenses, yet still be small enough to fit in modern smartphones and tablets. The company aims to have a product ready for sale by March of 2014.

The concept is similar to that behind a much-hyped camera launched by California-based Lytro earlier this year. Lytro calls its technology "light field capture," and photos taken by the device can be adjusted for focus and perspective after they are taken.

"Lytro doesn't make semiconductors, so the camera module is a product that Toshiba is probably better-suited to make," said Toshiba spokesman Atsushi Ido.

Ido said the concept behind the camera module is similar to the compound eyes found in many insects. He said much of the processing involved in taking and combining the individual images with the new camera would likely be handled by the module's hardware.

Toshiba is among the world's largest manufacturers of CMOS image sensors, where it competes with rivals including Sony, Samsung and OmniVision. Toshiba is better known for its massive NAND flash operations, where it cranks out memory chips for hard drives and memory cards.

In January, Lytro executive Charles Chi told PCWorld that his company was focused on branded cameras aimed at consumers, and any entry into the smartphone market would probably involve a tie-up with an established player.

Earlier this week, Toshiba announced it is readying a 20-megapixel CMOS image chip aimed at the digital camera market, where it hopes to challenge the dominance of Sony. The new chip will also be able to shoot 30 frames per second at full resolution, or 60 frames at 1080P. Toshiba said it will ship samples of the new CMOS sensor next month, with mass production to begin in August.

Reprinted with permission from IDG.net. Story copyright 2012 International Data Group. All rights reserved.

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Windows 8's uptake falls behind Vista's pace

Computerworld - With just a week left in the month, Windows 8's usage uptake has slipped behind Vista's at the same point in its release, data from a Web measurement company showed.

According to Net Applications, Windows 8's online usage share through Dec. 22 was 1.6% of all Windows PCs, an uptick from 1.2% of November. Windows 8 publicly launched on Oct. 26.

At the same two-month mark in Vista's release timetable, that OS accounted for 2.2% of all Windows systems, double the month prior.

Net Applications measures operating system usage by recording the specific operating system and version used by the machines of visitors to approximately 40,000 sites it monitors for clients.

The slowdown in uptake of Windows 8 and its poor performance compared to Vista is a troubling sign for the new operating system. Vista has been labeled a rare Microsoft failure, in part because it was adopted by far fewer customers than either its predecessor, Windows XP, or its successor, Windows 7.

Vista's online usage share peaked in the fall of 2009 at 20.3% of all Windows systems.

While there are nine days of Windows 8 data for December still to be released by Net Applications -- including Christmas, when a substantial number of Windows 8 PCs may have been given as gifts, and thus not included in the online estimates -- the new OS would have to record an amazing usage jump during December's final week to put it on par with Vista's 2007 pace.

By Computerworld's calculations, Windows 8's share of all Microsoft-powered PCs would have to leap to 4% in December's final week to equal Vista's second-month total. To give an idea of the magnitude of that required fourth-week increase, Net Applications said that Windows 8's share of all Windows PCs for the week ending Dec. 22 was 1.7%, and for the week ending Dec. 15, was 1.6%.

Net Applications' statistics continue to corroborate data from others that show Windows 8 has not generated the PC sales "pop" historically seen after the launch of a new Microsoft OS. In late November, the NPD Group said that in four weeks surrounding Windows 8's Oct. 26 debut, 21% fewer PCs were sold to U.S. consumers than during the same period in 2011.

Newer NPD numbers, cited by the New York Times last weekend, said U.S. consumer sales of Windows machines from late October through the first week of December were down 13% compared to the same stretch last year.

And even if Windows 8 makes a showing strong enough this month to match Vista, it will continue to have difficulty keeping pace: By the end of Vista's third month, it accounted for 3.3% of all copies of Windows. To equal that, Windows 8 would have to double its current share by the end of January 2013.

Windows 8's uptake trajectory fell behind Vista's for the first time this month. Note: Windows 8's usage share is through Dec. 22 only. (Data: Net Applications.) The next big breakthrough in IT management is here. Learn how you can reduce change risk, speed incident resolution, and improve visibility across your environment with Social IT Operations Management.

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Iranian official disputes report that power station was hit by virus attack

IDG News Service - A power station in the south of Iran has been hit by a cyberattack, an Iranian news agency reported Tuesday, citing a local civil defense official. But now agency and official are in dispute over whether he really made the remarks.

The Iranian Students News Agency (ISNA) initially reported that cyberattackers had struck industrial infrastructure in the southern province of Hormuzgan, which overlooks the Straits of Hormuz.

The widely circulated report quoted Ali Akbar Akhavan as saying in a news conference that a virus had penetrated some manufacturing industries in Hormuzgan province, but that skilled hackers had helped halt its progress, according to a translation of the ISNA report published by Agence France Presse.

The attack, targeting Bandar Abbas Tavanir Co., an electrical utility, among other installations, had happened in the past few months and was "Stuxnet-like," the AFP report quoted Akhavan as saying.

But later Tuesday AFP published a new report saying that Akhavan had accused ISNA of misinterpreting his remarks.

"At a press conference we announced readiness to confront cyber attacks against Hormuzgan installations, which was mistakenly reported by the agencies as a cyber attack having been foiled," Akhavan told the Iranian state broadcaster, IRIB, according to AFP.

ISNA hit back, publishing MP3 files which it claimed contained Akhavan's initial remarks, and saying it stood by the accuracy of its initial story, according to a machine translation of the report.

In a further twist, however, ISNA also published a third report that, according to a machine translation, quoted other Iranian officials as saying there had been no attacks on electrical installations in the region.

This is not the first time there has been a dispute about whether a cyberattack has hit Iranian infrastructure. A report in late July that a virus was causing computers at the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran to play AC/DC song 'Thunderstruck' at full volume were roundly dismissed the following week by the organization's director, Fereydoun Abassi.

One attack the Iranians did confirm was the original Stuxnet attack. Officials said it infected 30,000 PCs in the country, including some at the Bushehr nuclear reactor. However, computer security analysts believe Stuxnet was written to attack the control systems of centrifuges used to enrich uranium at a different Iranian nuclear facility, Natanz.

Reprinted with permission from IDG.net. Story copyright 2012 International Data Group. All rights reserved.

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Toshiba to launch 20-megapixel image chip for digital cameras

IDG News Service - Toshiba is preparing a 20-megapixel image sensor for digital cameras that it says will be the highest resolution of its kind.

The Tokyo-based firm said the new chips will be able to support capturing 30 frames per second at full resolution. They will also be able to shoot video at 60 frames per second at 1080P or 100 frames at 720P.

Toshiba said it will begin shipping samples of the new CMOS chips from next month, with mass production to begin in August of 300,000 units monthly. Toshiba is best known in components for its NAND flash memory, which it develops with partner SanDisk, but is also a major manufacturer of LSI and other semiconductors.

Digital point-and-shoot cameras are steadily falling in price, squeezed between brutal competition among manufacturers and the increasing threat of smartphones and mobile devices. While the number of pixels a camera can capture is not always a direct measure of the overall quality of its images, it is a key selling point to consumers.

The image resolution of top-end smartphones now often meets or exceed that of digital cameras. The Nokia 808 PureView launched earlier this year has a 41-megapixel image sensor.

The Japanese manufacturer said it has increased the amount of information pixels in the new chip can store compared to its previous generation of CMOS, producing better overall images. It has also reduces the size of pixels - the new 20-megapixel version has individual pixels that measure 1.2 micrometers, down from 1.34 micrometers in its 16-megapixel product.

CMOS, or complementary metal-oxide semiconductor, sensors contain rows of electronic pixels that convert light into digital signals, as well as on-chip processing technology that can enhance images or speed transfers.

Toshiba says its goal is to achieve a 30 percent market share in CMOS sensors for digital cameras in the fiscal that ends in March of 2016.

Reprinted with permission from IDG.net. Story copyright 2012 International Data Group. All rights reserved.

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Marvell ordered to pay $1.17 billion in patent case

IDG News Service - A jury in Pennsylvania has ordered chip maker Marvell Technology to pay $1.17 billion for patent infringement in one of the largest awards of its kind.

The jury found that Marvell infringed two patents related to hard disk drive technology held by Carnegie Mellon University, court papers show. Marvell infringed the patents knowingly, the jury found, meaning the damages could potentially be tripled.

The jury reached its decision Wednesday at the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania.

The award is one of the largest ever granted in a patent case. It follows an award of $1.05 billion against Samsung earlier this year in a patent case brought by Apple over smartphone technologies.

Marvell said it believes there are strong grounds for appeal and that it will seek to have the jury's findings overturned.

As well as infringing the patents itself, Marvell was found to have contributed to infringement by its customers as well.

Marvell makes chips used in hard disk drives, wireless equipment and other products. Like other component suppliers, it's financial results have been hit lately by the slowdown in the PC market.

Carnegie filed its lawsuit in early 2009. The patents cover a "method and apparatus for correlation-sensitive adaptive sequence detection" and "soft and hard sequence detection in ISI memory channels." They are U.S. Patent numbers 6,201,839 and 6,438,180, awarded in 2001 and 2002, respectively.

"We appreciate the willingness of the jurors to give us their time and attention during this holiday season to hear our case," Carnegie said in a statement.

The case involved "fundamental technology for increasing the accuracy with which hard disk drive circuits read data from high speed magnetic disks," Carnegie said. The technology was developed by Jose Moura, a professor in the University's Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, and Aleksandar Kavcic, a former student of Moura who is now a professor at the University of Hawaii.

The award was against Marvell Technology and its U.S. subsidiary, Marvell Semiconductor Inc., known as MSI. In its statement Thursday, Marvell maintained that its products do not use the technology described in the patents.

"Marvell and MSI strongly believe the theoretical methods described in these patents cannot practically be built in silicon even using the most advanced techniques available today, let alone with the technology available a decade ago," it said. "Rather, Marvell and MSI use their own patented read channel technology developed in house."

James Niccolai covers data centers and general technology news for IDG News Service. Follow James on Twitter at @jniccolai. James's e-mail address is james_niccolai@idg.com

Reprinted with permission from IDG.net. Story copyright 2012 International Data Group. All rights reserved.

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Ultimate Windows 8 starter guide: Must-know tips, apps and utilities

PC World - The year is drawing to a close, so there's a very good chance that you now find yourself staring straight down the gaping maw of Windows 8.

Maybe someone gave you a new Windows tablet or PC as a gift. Or maybe you decided to use your holiday down time to upgrade an old PC. The details don't really matter. You're now using Windows 8 for the very first time, and you're searching for answers on how to make the OS an integral, productive part of your high-tech life.

Sound familiar? Then walk with me as we take a tour of recent PCWorld Windows 8 coverage. I trust we have answers to all your Windows 8 questions.

Getting started with Windows 8

Right when the new OS launched, we published a number of essential how-to guides for first-time Windows 8 users. You can start yourA orientationA process with this handy guide to maximizing your first 30 minutes with the new OS. But perhaps even more useful is our compendium of 20 must-know Windows 8 tips and tricks, which starts off with a thorough look at keyboard shortcuts--you should know them all if you don't have a touch screen.

But if you do have a touch screen device, then head straight to our guide to Windows 8 gesture commands. In this article (and in its accompany video) we describe how to navigate the initially confusing touch commands that leave many first-time users wondering what the heck just hit them.

And if you don't have a touch screen monitor for the new OS, you should definitely read our guide to picking the right upgrade display for full Windows 8 compatibility.

Windows 8 drivers, utilities andA customizations

Once you've become somewhat acclimated to the new Windows 8 landscape, it's time to fine-tune the OS experience to yourA personalA preferences. At the top of the list is driver management. It's very possible that your new Windows 8 device boots up fine, but unless all your device drivers are up-to-date, you won't get the most high-performance experience possible (and driver issues may stop some peripherals from working altogether).

See our exhaustive guide on the whys, hows and wheres of Windows 8 drivers to nip all these issues in the bud.

Some Windows 8 problems have nothing to do with drivers. Instead, the OS itself is just innately challenging. To alleviate some of the built-in pain points, you absolutely must read our guide to the 8 worst Windows 8 irritations and how to fix them. Microsoft's decision to omit the traditional Start Button is among a host of bizarre development decisions, but luckily three different third-party utilities--Win8 Start Button, StartMenuPlus8 and Start8--can return the erstwhile Windows mainstay to your desktop.

But, hey, Microsoft didn't kill all the good things from previous versions of Windows. It just relegated many of them to hidden, second-class status. For a bunch of great tools hiding beneath the surface of Windows 8, check out this collection of 6 awesome Windows 8 utilities that no one knows about.

Diving deep into Windows 8 power tools

In the weeks since the new OS launched, we've published a number of deep-dive tutorials that explore the system's more innovative, richer features. For example, BitLocker To Go is built directly into Windows 8, and helps you quickly encrypt external storage devices like USB flash drives and portable hard drives. If you're concerned about your data security, you should also read our how-to on activating Windows Defender, a basic anti-malware tool that's not immediately exposed in many default installations of the OS.

Another great built-in Windows 8 feature is Storage Spaces, a tool that lets you combine all your sundry storage hardware into a single, virtual data pool--which you can then allocate more efficiently, for dataA redundancyA and general file management. Besides explaining Storage Spaces, we also posted a great article on using Client Hyper-V, a tool that lets you virtualize older versions of Windows from within Windows 8.

Finally, it's possible that you just installed Windows 8 on a machine from yesteryear, and your gear isn't up to the task of running the new system in all its glory. If you find yourself in this sorry lot, read our tutorial on optimizing Windows 8 for older hardware. It explains which features to turn off, or otherwise disable.

Windows 8 apps and games to explore and download

Windows 8 comes with a bunch of pre-installed "modern UI" apps, so you might as well familiarize yourself with the most high-profile entries. We have detailed primers on Music, Photos, Mail, Calendar, SkyDrive and People. None of these apps is perfect, though the SkyDrive cloud service is an integral part of the new Microsoft ecosystem, so you really should check out its implementation in Windows 8.

Precisely because Microsoft's built-in apps are so lacking, you'll want to hit up the Windows Store for Windows 8 apps to populate your new Start Screen. On the day Windows 8 launched, we published our top 10 list of the Windows 8 apps to download first, but just this week we updated the concept with a new article geared specifically to Windows 8 tablets.

New Windows 8 hardware owners should also read our suggestions of the best streaming media apps for cord cutters, the best Windows 8 casual games (our author tested a vast selection, and then chose the 15 most worthy), and best productivity apps.

Reprinted with permission from PCWorld.com. Story copyright 2012 PC World Communications. All rights reserved.

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Microsoft unveils future retail store plans

Computerworld - Microsoft on Wednesday revealed six locations for new retail stores it will open in early 2013, including four transformed from its holiday specialty stores, dubbed "pop-ups," that it established in October.

The move will expand the company's ability to sell its own hardware, notably the Surface RT tablet launched two months ago, and the upcoming Surface Pro.

Geekwire first reported the new outlets. Microsoft also blogged about the 2013 store locations.

According to Microsoft, the new brick-and-mortar sites will be in Beachwood, a suburb of Cleveland, Ohio (at Beachwood Place); Miami (Dadeland Mall); St. Louis (St. Louis Galleria); Salt Lake City (City Creek Center); San Antonio (The Shops at La Cantera); and San Francisco (Westfield San Francisco Centre).

Four of the six -- those in Beachwood, Miami, St. Louis and San Francisco -- will be former pop-ups turned into permanent locales.

Earlier this month, Microsoft announced it was extending the lifespan of most of its 34 holiday pop-ups into 2013 -- originally, they were to exist only during the October-Decemeber 2012 sales season -- and turn an unspecified number into 12-month stores.

Microsoft has declined to say how long the pop-ups will remain open, but the logical move would be to keep them running well into 2013: The company plans to start selling the Surface Pro, a more expensive tablet that runs Windows 8 Pro, in late January.

The Surface Pro will sell for $899 and $999 in 64GB and 128GB configurations, with the Touch Cover and Type Cover keyboards selling separately for $120 and $130.

Some of the to-be-established stores have been long in the works. The Salt Lake Tribune, for example, reported last July that Microsoft had filed a building permit with the city for a store in the downtown City Creek Center.

That outdoor mall also boasts an Apple retail store. Microsoft's strategy has been to place its retail stores in the same malls or shopping centers as existing Apple stores, sometimes in very close proximity. Although Salt Lake's City Creek Center noted that the Microsoft store was in the works, it did not locate the store on its mall map.

The San Francisco store, one of the mutated pop-ups, will be Microsoft's first in the city. The current closest outlet is in Marin County. Microsoft's San Francisco store will be about a block from one of the city's three Apple stores.

With the addition of the six new stores, Microsoft will soon have 37 permanent storefronts in the U.S. and Canada. However, its total of 67, including the remaining pop-ups, is only 17% of Apple's 390 stores worldwide as of last September.

Two weeks ago, Microsoft also expanded its retail footprint to a pair of U.S. chains, Staples and Best Buy, to sell its Surface tablets, and announced it would add retail partners in several other countries in the near future.

Gregg Keizer covers Microsoft, security issues, Apple, Web browsers and general technology breaking news for Computerworld. Follow Gregg on Twitter at  @gkeizer, on Google+ or subscribe to Gregg's RSS feed . His email address is gkeizer@computerworld.com.

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Ransomware scammers push panic button with bogus claims

Computerworld - Cyber extortionists shilling "ransomware" have upped the ante by pushing users' panic buttons with claims that their malware will wipe hard drives, a security firm said Monday.

The claim is bogus, said Symantec, and is simply a ploy by scammers preying on people's fears.

"This is an attempt to extort money from computer users by taking advantage of human weakness when under panic and pressure," wrote Symantec researcher Jeet Morparia in a Dec. 24 blog post.

Ransomware is a long-standing label for malware that, once on a personal computer, cripples the machine or encrypts its files, then displays a ransom note that demands payment to restore control to the owner. The technique, flatly called "an extortion racket" by Symantec last month, has been in use for at least six years. Until relatively recently, it was rare and ineffective and seen mostly in Eastern Europe.

The new ransomware variant, which Symantec identified as "Trojan.Ransomlock.G" but is called "Reveton" by other antivirus vendors, claims that any move to circumvent the lockdown will trigger disaster.

"An attempt to unlock the computer by yourself will lead to the full formatting of the operating system. All the files, videos, photos, documents on your computer will be deleted," the on-screen message reads.

Not true, said Morparia, who added that Symantec's analysis found no disk wiping capability in the malware's code. More importantly, Symantec was able to remove Ransomlock.G and unlock the machine without any formatting taking place or files deleted.

The new version also featured other changes, Morparia said, including a $100 price hike, from $200 to $300, to "unlock" the PC, and a fake deadline of 48 hours shown by an on-screen countdown timer.

Symantec credited a blogger nicknamed "Kafeine" for reporting the purported wiping skills of the ransomware. In turn, Kafeine tipped a hat to another security company, Trend Micro, for finding the variant on Dec. 10.

Ransomlock poses as a message from law enforcement, and adapts to its victims' locales: For example, U.S. users see a message supposedly from the Department of Justice's FBI, while German users see one allegedly from the Bundesamt für Polizei, Germany's federal police.

The messages claim that the user has violated one or more laws. Those posing as from the FBI, for instance, listed child pornography, copyright and software licensing laws, and alleged that the victim has been monitored -- including via the computer's built-in webcam -- viewing child pornography.

In November, Symantec released a report describing the rapid expansion of ransomware into Western markets from its Eastern European origins, and the millions criminals have reaped from their scams.

Morparia urged victims not to give in to the extortionists -- "DO NOT PAY THE RANSOM," he wrote, figuratively shouting with uppercase characters -- and instead told them to remove the malware. Symantec provides a free tool, Norton Power Eraser, that seeks out and destroys ransomware and other forms of "scareware," like fake antivirus software.

Gregg Keizer covers Microsoft, security issues, Apple, Web browsers and general technology breaking news for Computerworld. Follow Gregg on Twitter at  @gkeizer, on Google+ or subscribe to Gregg's RSS feed . His email address is gkeizer@computerworld.com.

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Former research analyst charged in IBM insider trading case

IDG News Service - U.S. authorities have charged a former research analyst at a financial services firm with insider trading offenses related to the 2009 acquisition of software vendor SPSS by IBM.

Australian Trent Martin, 33, is charged with one count of conspiracy to commit securities fraud and one count of securities fraud, the U.S. Department of Justice announced. The charges against Martin were unsealed Wednesday in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York.

Martin is accused of conspiring with stock brokers Thomas Conradt and David Weishaus after he learned of IBM's plans to buy SPSS from a lawyer who represented IBM in the deal, the DOJ said in a press release. Martin, Conradt, Weishaus and their co-conspirators allegedly traded on the basis of nonpublic information and earned more than US $1 million in profits, the agency said.

Martin was arrested Saturday in Hong Kong at the request of U.S. authorities.A Conradt and Weishaus, arrested earlier, pleaded not guilty on Dec. 7.

The IBM lawyer, unnamed in the DOJ's materials, told his close friend Martin on May 31, 2009, that IBM planned to acquire SPSS and pay significantly more than the software vendor's market price, the DOJ said. The lawyer, sharing the information in confidence, did not expect Martin to spread the information or use it to trade, the agency said.

In June 2009, Martin bought SPSS common stock based on the inside information and shared the tip with his roommate, Conradt, who worked as a stock broker at a securities trading firm, the DOJ alleged.A Conradt then bought SPSS common stock and tipped Weishaus, his co-worker, the DOJ said.A On June 24, 2009, Weishaus started buying call option contracts in SPSS.A

Conradt and Weishaus also tipped off their co-workers, who also bought SPSS call option contracts in June and July 2009, the DOJ said.

In instant messages exchanged in July 2009, Conradt and Weishaus discussed their insider trading scheme, the DOJ said. Conradt, in a July 1, 2009, instant message, said they should not share the information, but keep it "in the family."

Weishaus answered, "Dude, no way.A I don't want to go to jail."

When IBM announced its acquisition of SPSS on July 28, 2009, the share price of SPSS common stock rose by 41 percent in one day, from the prior day's closing price of $35.09 per share to a closing price of $49.45 per share. Martin, Conradt, Weishaus, and two other conspirators then sold their SPSS positions, yielding profits ranging from $2,538 for Conradt to $629,954 for an unnamed conspirator.

Martin made $7,900 by selling his SPSS shares, the DOJ said.

Martin left the U.S. after the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, in 2010, began investigating insider trading in the deal.

The conspiracy charge against Martin carries a maximum potential penalty of five years in prison and a $250,000 fine.A The securities fraud charge carries a maximum potential penalty of 20 years in prison and a $5 million fine.

A

Grant Gross covers technology and telecom policy in the U.S. government for The IDG News Service. Follow Grant on Twitter at GrantGross. Grant's e-mail address is grant_gross@idg.com.

Reprinted with permission from IDG.net. Story copyright 2012 International Data Group. All rights reserved.

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Stabuniq malware found on servers at U.S. financial institutions

IDG News Service - Security researchers from Symantec have identified an information-stealing Trojan program that was used to infect computer servers belonging to various U.S. financial institutions.

Dubbed Stabuniq, the Trojan program was found on mail servers, firewalls, proxy servers, and gateways belonging to U.S. financial institutions, including banking firms and credit unions, Symantec software engineer Fred Gutierrez said Friday in a blog post.

"Approximately half of unique IP addresses found with Trojan.Stabuniq belong to home users," Gutierrez said. "Another 11 percent belong to companies that deal with Internet security (due, perhaps, to these companies performing analysis of the threat). A staggering 39 percent, however, belong to financial institutions."

Based on a map showing the threat's distribution in the U.S. that was published by Symantec, the vast majority of systems infected with Stabuniq are located in the eastern half of the country, with strong concentrations in the New York and Chicago areas.

Compared to other Trojan programs, Stabuniq infected a relatively small number of computers, which seems to suggest that its authors might have targeted specific individuals and organizations, Gutierrez said.

The malware was distributed using a combination of spam emails and malicious websites that hosted Web exploit toolkits. Such toolkits are commonly used to silently install malware on Web users' computers by exploiting vulnerabilities in outdated browser plug-ins like Flash Player, Adobe Reader or Java.

Once installed, the Stabuniq Trojan program collects information about the compromised computer, like its name, running processes, OS and service pack version, assigned IP (Internet Protocol) address and sends this information to command-and-control (C&C) servers operated by the attackers.

"At this stage we believe the malware authors may simply be gathering information," Gutierrez said.

Reprinted with permission from IDG.net. Story copyright 2012 International Data Group. All rights reserved.

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Poor SCADA security will keep attackers and researchers busy in 2013

IDG News Service - An increasing number of vulnerability researchers will focus their attention on industrial control systems (ICS) in the year to come, but so will cyberattackers, security experts believe.

Control systems are made up of supervisory software running on dedicated workstations or servers and computer-like programmable hardware devices that are connected to and control electromechanical processes. These systems are used to monitor and control a variety of operations in industrial facilities, military installations, power grids, water distribution systems and even public and private buildings.

Some are used in critical infrastructure -- the systems that large populations depend on for electricity, clean water, transport, etc. -- so their potential sabotage could have far-reaching consequences. Others, however, are relevant only to their owners' businesses and their malfunction would not have widespread impact.

The security of SCADA (supervisory control and data acquisition) and other types of industrial control systems has been a topic of much debate in the IT security industry since the Stuxnet malware was discovered in 2010.

Stuxnet was the first known malware to specifically target and infect SCADA systems and was successfully used to damage uranium enrichment centrifuges at Iran's nuclear plant in Natanz.

Stuxnet was a sophisticated cyberweapon believed to have been developed by nation states -- reportedly U.S. and Israel -- with access to skilled developers, unlimited funds and detailed information about control system weaknesses.

Attacking critical infrastructure control systems requires serious planning, intelligence gathering and the use of alternative access methods -- Stuxnet was designed to spread via USB devices because the Natanz computers systems were isolated from the Internet, exploited previously unknown vulnerabilities and targeted very specific SCADA configurations found only at the site. However, control systems that are not part of critical infrastructure are becoming increasingly easier to attack by less skilled attackers.

This is because many of these systems are connected to the Internet for the convenience of remote administration and because information about vulnerabilities in ICS software, devices and communication protocols is more easily accessible than in the pre-Stuxnet days. Details about dozens of SCADA and ICS vulnerabilities have been publicly disclosed by security researchers during the past two years, often accompanied by proof-of-concept exploit code.

"We will see an increase in exploitation of the Internet accessible control system devices as the exploits get automated," said Dale Peterson, chief executive officer at Digital Bond, a company that specializes in ICS security research and assessment, via email.

However, the majority of Internet accessible control system devices are not part of what most people would consider critical infrastructure, he said. "They represent small municipal systems, building automation systems, etc. They are very important to the company that owns and runs them, but would not affect a large population or economy for the most part."

Reprinted with permission from IDG.net. Story copyright 2012 International Data Group. All rights reserved.

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Patent fights color mobile market, to continue in 2013

IDG News Service - Over the past year, patent battles have been fought by tech companies in courtrooms all over the world. The litigation is far from over though, however, and will continue throughout 2013. This is what's at stake on the patent battlefield in the near future.

The patent brouhaha reached its high point in August when a California District Court jury awarded a $1 billion victory to Apple in a patent trial against Samsung over tablets and smartphones. Samsung is appealing the verdict and the two companies are continuing litigation in other countries too.

In Germany for instance, Apple and Samsung are still locked in several lawsuits over numerous patents. Apple for example asserts multiple touchscreen patents against Samsung in the German courts. On its part, Samsung is suing Apple in Germany and other E.U. countries over patents it claims are essential to certain telecommunication standards.

While Samsung recently announced that it was dropping requests for bans on sales of Apple products on the basis of those standard-essential patents, its lawsuits accusing Apple of infringing the patents are still in place and will continue in the next year, according to the company.

Samsung, however, is not the only company accusing competitors of infringing patents it has declared standard-essential.

Ericsson for instance filed two lawsuits against Samsung in the U.S. over patents which it claims are essential to implementation of a number of industry standards. The Swedish telecommunications equipment vendor said it had negotiated for over two years with Samsung to reach a licensing deal on fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory (FRAND) terms, as is often agreed to among telecoms companies.

When competitors can't agree on what is a fair and reasonable licensing price, disputes are often taken to the courts. To force Samsung to pay up, for example, Ericsson decided to target a variety of Samsung products such as cameras, Blu-ray Disc players and televisions, but also phones, including the Galaxy S III and the Galaxy Note II.

The judge of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas where the suits were filed could eventually decide to ban the sales of those Samsung devices in the U.S.

Shortly after the lawsuits were filed in Texas, Ericsson filed a similar complaint with the U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC), asking for an import ban of a wide range of Samsung products, including the Galaxy S III and the Galaxy Note. Both those cases will be dealt with after Jan. 1.

Another relatively new player on the patent battlefield is the patent heavyweight Nokia. Last May, Nokia filed patent claims in the U.S. and Germany against HTC, Research In Motion and ViewSonic alleging these companies infringe a number of patents. Nokia, which ceded its top spot in mobile phone shipments to Samsung this year, said it was suing the companies because they do not respect Nokia's intellectual property by using its inventions without paying licensing fees.

Reprinted with permission from IDG.net. Story copyright 2012 International Data Group. All rights reserved.

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Web sites go dark to honor Sandy Hook victims

Computerworld - A long list of Web sites went dark for one minute at 9:30 a.m. ET today to mark a moment of silence for the 26 women and children who were murdered a week ago at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn.

Earlier this week, Connecticut Governor Daniel Malloy asked the nation to pause for a collective moment of silence to honor the victims of the shooting. Then a campaign, called Web Goes Silent, was launched to ask Internet users to take a five-minute break from their online activities. Using the hashtag #momentforsandyhook, that meant no posting on Facebook, no tweeting, no email.

The cause evolved, with the site Webmomentofsilence.org offering Web administrators a piece of JavaScript that greyed out their web page for a minute at 9:30, while a message appeared, noting, "We are observing a National Moment of Silence for the victims of the Sandy Hook tragedy."

The Huffington Post was among many websites that observed the moment of silence.

Web sites participating in the online moment of silence included Foursquare, the Huffington Post, Adobe, Funny or Die, E! Online and Digg.

A host of other, lesser-known sites like Columbusridesbikes.com and iVillage.com also joined in.

Using the site causes.com , Ron Conway, a Silicon Valley venture capitalist, has been putting his muscle behind the moment of silence campaign, along with an effort to expand federal gun control legislation. Conway has been joined by other prominent names like online entrepreneur Sean Parker, Twitter creator Jack Dorsey and the founder and CEO of salesforce.com, Marc Benioff.

Zeus Kerravala, an analyst with ZK Research, said he's glad to see social media being used to bring people together for a good cause - the remembrance of victims.

"I think it was very respectful for Web sites to take a moment," he said. "It's very good to see that social media isn't just for Justin Bieber posts. I think what this group of companies showed is that they are tied into real world, real life events. And when the need arises, they have their own form of showing respect and honoring tragedies."

Sharon Gaudin covers the Internet and Web 2.0, emerging technologies, and desktop and laptop chips for Computerworld. Follow Sharon on Twitter at  @sgaudin, on Google+ or subscribe to Sharon's RSS feed . Her email address is sgaudin@computerworld.com.

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1Password for iOS keeps your digital life safe

Macworld - For a security mechanism that has existed since mankind traded places with apes to raise to the top of the food chain, passwords have shown a surprising longevity. Passwords act as gatekeepers to our email, banking, social media accounts, and just about anything else that we do, regardless of whether we are online or not.

Unfortunately, humans are not very good at either creating or remembering passwords. Left to our own devices, we tend to pick passwords that are easy for us to remember, which is good, but also easy for others to guess, which isn't good. For this reason, Web developers try to gently coerce us into adopting more secure password generation habits by enforcing an ever-increasing set of rules on their sites: Your password must be at least eight characters long, contain one or more uppercase characters, a symbol, a smiley, and be typed standing on your left foot under a full moon while sacrificing a chicken...

Alas, all these restrictions make passwords difficult to remember, and our predictably poor response is to come up with one "good" password, which we keep reusing over and over again. The problem with this approach is that anyone who knows or learns this password can also gain access to all our other accounts--and if you use the same password to post photos on a social network and do your banking, it's easy to see where trouble might arise.

This is a very serious problem; according to a survey conducted by security firm CSID, 61 percent of Americans--nearly two out of every three people--admit to using the same password on different sites. And, to make things worse, many write that one password down and stash it in a wallet, or store it in a plain-text file on the computer, where it is up for grabs for anyone bold enough to make a move.

The immovable portable vault

As a researcher once said, the ideal password is one that is hard to guess, impossible to write down, and can only be used in one place. This combination of requirements is very hard for a human to achieve, but AgileBits's 1Password 4 makes it an absolute breeze.

1Password 4 is the latest entry in the company's long-running family of password management software. As a Universal app, it runs on your iPhone, iPod touch, or iPad, and requires iOS 6 or higher; it works by creating a virtual "vault" in which you can save many different kinds of sensitive information--passwords, of course, but also credit card and bank account numbers, passport data, software keys, and so forth.

Despite being branded as a "password management tool," therefore, 1Password is capable of keeping of every last bit of information that you don't want others to see--which is absolutely crucial when you realize that, with an iPhone in your pocket or an iPad in your bag, you basically carry your entire digital life around with you in a small package that is as convenient for you to use as it is for someone else to steal.

Flexibility and power

According to Agile Bits's press material, 1Password 4 is a complete rewrite of its predecessor, a fact that is readily visible to anyone who has ever used previous versions of the software. Everything in the app has been re-engineered with the goal of making it easier to organize and use your information.

This shows prominently in the user interface, which is both gorgeous and extremely user-friendly. The app is organized in a logical way, and the transitions between the various screens are done so well that you'll find yourself playing with them just for the visual pleasure that they bring.

Once inside the app, new items can be added directly from the Categories tab, where 1Password automatically splits the data you enter into individual groups. For example, there are pre-defined categories for logins, credit cards, software licenses, databases, passports, and so on. Adding and editing items is easy: 1Password uses an interface that is very similar to that of the Contacts app, making the process familiar for any iOS user.

In addition to the default categories, the app also allows you to group your secure items in arbitrary folders, which can be useful, for example, to separate work data from personal information. Folders come in particularly handy when you consider that 1Password can be used to store more than just passwords--for example, I keep confidential information about my clients in it, knowing that it will be safe from prying eyes if my iPhone or iPad should ever be stolen. Often-used items, like credit card numbers, banking logins, and the likes, can also be added to 1Password's Favourites screen, which helps keeping them within easy reach whenever you need them.

Perhaps my favorite user-interface feature, however, is a built-in browser that allows you to navigate the Web and allows 1Password to automatically fill forms for you using your secure data. This is a major step forward compared to the previous version--which required you to painstakingly copy and paste your data into Safari--and one that dramatically improves 1Password's user experience.

Security

All your data is protected by strong encryption and can only be unlocked by a single password that you choose when you first set up the app; this makes it both very easy for you to carry all sorts of important information wherever you go, and very hard for anyone else to access it should your mobile device ever become lost or stolen.

1Password also employs a number of measures to keep your data safe. For example, even as you browse through your saved items, all sensitive information is discretely blanked out to prevent someone from shoulder-surfing their way into your secrets. You can, of course, easily reveal a particular piece of data by tapping on it, and just as easily copy it to the pasteboard, but the rest remains safely hidden until needed.

You can also set the app to automatically lock your data vault as soon as you leave 1Password, as well as after a certain amount of idle time, so that, should your device end up in ill-intentioned hands without your permission, they won't be able to access all your passwords just because you forgot to exit the app. Finally, 1Password also offers to automatically clear out your pasteboard after a set period of time, so that other apps don't have a chance to read your private data without you knowing.

And, if you find the default settings a little too paranoid for your taste, you'll be happy to know that you can easily change them to suit your needs.

Sync

One of 1Password's strong suits has always been the ability to synchronize your data across multiple devices, and its latest release does not disappoint, with support for both manual sync through iTunes, as well as automatic sync through either Dropbox or iCloud.

There is little to be said here, other than the sync feature really just works. In my tests, both with a completely new data file and with my existing vault, the process worked flawlessly on the first try, and changes propagated from one device to all my others in record time.

One thing that has been removed from this version is the ability to sync locally over Wi-Fi. This seems to have disappointed a number of users, and is the source of much angst in App Store reviews of the software, but I think it was the right move. Wi-Fi sync was a little too finicky, easily broken, and inherently less redundant than cloud-based solutions. For my part, I am happy to know that, if my house goes up in flames alongside all my electronic devices, my digital vault won't go with it.

Strong password generator

An often-forgotten feature of 1Password is its strong password generator, which can be used to create--and store--passwords made up of pseudorandom characters; these are much harder to crack than anything a human could come up with, and can therefore improve the security of your logins dramatically.

Used properly, this generator turns password management on its head: Instead of storing your passwords, the app can automate the entire authentication process from end to end, making it easy to avoid many common security pitfalls, like reusing passwords or inadvertently coming up with passwords that are too easy to crack.

Bottom line

1Password is, quite simply, an excellent secure data management solution for every user, regardless of their sophistication or the complexity of their needs. Its execution is practically flawless, and a significant improvement over previous releases on all fronts.

Pricing--the app costs $18, although it is on sale for $8 until the end of the year--may seem a little steep at first, particularly considering that existing customers will have to purchase 1Password 4 anew.

This price, however, is perfectly reasonable when you consider two things. The first is that a person who gets hold of your passwords can essentially ruin your entire life, both socially and financially. The second is that 1Password gives you a great backup in case of emergency: If your wallet gets stolen, and you have saved all sorts of details about your various identity cards and financial accounts in 1Password, getting out of a sticky situation will be much easier.

Reprinted with permission from Macworld.com. Story copyright 2012 Mac Publishing, LLC. All rights reserved.

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