Geek Engineer

How to enable Push Notification on a Unlocked iPhone

2009-07-10T00:24:00.002+06:00

Push Notifications have been introduced by Apple with the launch of OS 3.0 and its not a biggie for those who are using their iPhones on contract, but the folks with unlocked iPhone have to do some manual settings in order to enable Push notifications.

Download this file first and then follow this guide step-by-step to successfully implement it:

Push Solution Test Steps
------------------------

A. Get Legit Keychain Data:
*You Must Perform These Steps On A Properly Activated Device (iphone or ipod touch) with at least one working push app*

1.Unzip the downloaded zip file and copy the binary 'nimble' using SSH into /private/var/Keychains and set permission to 0755

2. Make sure the file "keychain-2.db" is in /private/var/Keychains and run nimble. You will see 4 files being created:
- youtube-cert.bin
- youtube-key.bin
- push-cert.bin
- push-key.bin

3. Copy these 4 files into the corresponding folder on your hactivated device.

B. Testing Push:
*You Must Perform These Steps On Your Hacktivated Device*

1.Unzip the downloaded zip file and copy the following files using SSH into /private/var/Keychains and set permission to 0755:
- inject
- nimble

2. Store in somewhere else the current "keychain-2.db" and run inject. A new keychain-2.db will be created

3. Uninstall the push app (i.e. beejive or similar) you intend to test on from your hacktivated device and reboot

4. Test youtube, reinstall the above push app and test.

Please note that notifications can be controlled from "settings" option.

Enable Private Browsing mode in Firefox 3.5

2009-07-08T22:44:00.003+06:00

Firefox 3.5 hasn't been out yet, its still in beta testing but one of the key feature of the new browser would be a Private surfing mode, which was introduced by Google Chrome in the browser market.

The advantage of private surfing mode or window is, that all your cookies, browsing history and Internet files are deleted, right after you close the window. This helps preventing the unauthorized access to your Online accounts and helps you keeping your browsing history a secret (that is by deleting everything related).

It can be helpful to you in one more way, that if you're using someone else's PC and the user saves cookies and passwords in their browsers, you'll have to log him/her out before you can log-in if you want to access the same site. That usually happens when visiting a social media site or checking E-Mails. To avoid this, you can simply open a Private mode for browsing and do your stuff their. All your data and setting would be automatically deleted, right after you close the browser, without changing any saved password or cookie.

Now how to do that? Here's a short tutorial:

Make sure you have downloaded the latest version of Firefox 3.5 (beta)
Open the Tools menu and click on 'Start Private Browsing' or use Shift + Control + P
A pop-up will ask you to confirm your decision so click on 'Start Private Browsing' again.
Now to end the session, simply go to Tools menu and click on 'End Private Browsing'.

How to Unlock and Jailbreak iPhone 3GS? Step-byStep Guide

2009-07-07T21:37:00.003+06:00

Here's a video from iPhone Dev Team blog, which demonstrates how to Unlock your iPhone 3GS in few easy steps!

Here’s a brief video demonstration by @planetbeing of the iPhone Dev Team’s ultrasn0w unlock for the new iPhone 3G S. Special thanks to @Oranav for the at+xlog crash — a gift to the community that has kept on giving!

Our ultrasn0w program uses the at+xlog crash as an injection vector of our unlocking payload — and it does so on the 3GS in exactly the same way as on the 3G! But this injection vector will be lost if you update to 3.1 using the official Apple IPSW, which updates the baseband. So stay away from official 3.1 IPSWs until we release the tools that let you update the firmware without updating the baseband.

iPhone 3GS Unlock Demonstration from planetbeing on Vimeo.

If you encounter some confusion in this video, or are looking forward for a step-by-step guide to Unlock your iPhone 3GS, then here it is in few simple steps:

1. Download Redsn0w first.

2. Download the original firmware of your iPhone from here and here. These two files are a splited version of a single iPhone firmware, and therefore you need to extract it using WinRAR first to get a single firmware file out of it.

3. Connect your iPhone to the USB port and execute Redsn0w. It should detect your iPhone and something like this would be displayed:

4. It would either automatically detect your firmware, or you'll have to browse to the file you just downloaded.

5. It would ask about the packages you want to install, check on Cydia and Unlock.

6. Keep following the on screen instructions, it will ask you to reboot your iPhone

7. After rebooting, you'll have a jailbroken iPhone, but you won't be picking up any signal. Now its the time to unlock it.

8. Browse your iPhone to the Cydia application and execute it. Its an essential application that is installed automatically after the iPhone is jailbroken.

9. Download repo666.ultrasn0w.com from there. Your iPhone should be connected to a WiFi.

10. Download Ultrasn0w from Cydia. Search it and you'll find it easily.

11. Restart your iPhone 3GS and now you are free to choose the carrier of your choise!

Windows 7 Prices announced by Microsoft

2009-06-29T19:48:00.006+06:00

Microsoft has finally announced the prices of their long awaited Operating system, Windows 7 which will be released on October 22. Though the beta version is already out, some users are anxiously waiting to get their hands on something which is more advance and better than XP.

The prices are announced on the Windows 7 Blog. Rumor has it that the upgrade to the newer version would be free of cost but its not for sure.

The list of prices which we have got from the official sources are as follows:

Windows 7 Home Premium (Upgrade): $119.99
Windows 7 Professional (Upgrade): $199.99
Windows 7 Ultimate (Upgrade): $219.99

And the estimated prices for full versions are:

Windows 7 Home Premium (Full): $199.99
Windows 7 Professional (Full): $299.99
Windows 7 Ultimate (Full): $319.99

Also there is a Special offer on Pre-Order of Windows 7,

We will offer people in select markets the opportunity to pre-order Windows 7 at a more than 50% discount. In the US, this will mean you can pre-order Windows 7 Home Premium for USD $49.99 or Windows 7 Professional for USD $99.99. You can take advantage of this special offer online via select retail partners such as Best Buy or Amazon, or the online Microsoft Store (in participating markets).

You can pre-order a copy of Windows 7 from retailers like Best Buy and Amazon or online from Microsoft Store

Unlock the OS firmware 3.0 on iPhone 2G

2009-06-29T17:47:00.003+06:00

The procedure of unlocking the firmware 3.0 has already been discussed here but for the sake of simplicity, we will define it here too.

Follow the following steps in exact order to get your iPhone 2G unlocked:

Download the PwnageTool 3.0 (Direct | Torrent)
Make sure to download bl39.bin and bl46.bin
Install the iPhone firmare for iPhone 2G from here.
Run the PwnageTool and follow the steps on the software.
Once the custom firmware is made, enter DFU mode and restore the firmware.

Note: To enter DFU mode, watch this easy tutorial. Also while clicking the restore button, hold 'Shift' in Windows and 'Option' in Mac to browse to the custom firmware file.

Unfortunately the PwnageTool does not work for Windows users so just make use of the following custom and unlocked firmware 3.0 files for iPhone 2G.

Download the Custom/Unlocked firmware 3.0 files above.
Combine the files with HJSplit (for Windows) and Split&Concact (for Mac).
Now you will have on file named iPhone1,1_3.0_7A341_Custom_Restore.ipsw
Simply boot into DFU mode and restore the Custom/Unlocked firmware 3.0.

If you follow each and every step mentioned here carefully, then you should have an Unlocked iPhone 2G running on firmware 3.0. Good Luck!

Unlock your iPhone 3.0 Firmware with Ultrasn0w

2009-06-29T13:45:00.004+06:00

The Apple iPhone dev team has came up with a new solution to unlock the iPhone 2G/3G and iPhone touch who have been upgraded to the firmware 3.0 While firmware 3.0 has its advantages which can be found everywhere on Internet, it also solves the problem of unlocking an iPhone whose baseband was 2.30.03

Currently, the solution available by dev team did not support this baseband. Their support to unlock an iPhone on all carriers was uptil baseband 2.28. To resolve this issue, if you upgrade your firmware, then its baseband would change to 04.26.08 and then it can be easily unlocked.

Once you have upgraded on firmware 3.0 on your iPhone 2G/3G you have to jailbreal it using quickpwn or redsn0w. Once they are jailbroken, use Cydia installer (Its the name of an app which will automatically be installed on your iPhone when it will be jailbroken) to install ultrasn0w.

Once ultrasn0w will be executed on your iPhone, it would be unlocked and you'll be free to use it on any carrier you wish.

More details are available here.

Track Your iPhone Through GPS

2009-06-29T12:24:00.003+06:00

It is possible to track your iPhone online and offline with the helpp of GPS, but there sure are several catches as well. For example, iPhone normally doesn't run apps in background, so if you're planning to use applications like Instamap or something, it won't help much until that particular application is launched. To track your iPhone online whereever it goes, you'll have to break some rules.

To run application in the background of OS, you'll have to jailbreak it. You can jailbreak your iPhone using quickpwn or winpwn. Once its jailnroken, you'll see an app called Cydia installed on it.

Run Cydia, and from there install an app called "findmyi". Using the web interface you’re able to mark your iPhone as stolen and review a map with it’s location. The findmyi GPS agent runs in the background and contacts the server at the interval specified in the options menu to record its location. Free accounts are given an estimated location, and upgrading appears to be rather simple. It also allows you to place a message on your iPhone asking for the current user to contact the owner should you wish to.

So even if your iPhone get lost or stolen somehow, that was an easy way to recover it.

Good Luck!

Height of Desperation

2009-06-19T22:20:00.005+06:00

Looks like the ongoing browser is touching the new boundaries, since the people associated with the publicity of browser are not only focusing on the performance but also its marketing, and in this regard Microsoft has made its move for its new browser, Internet Explorer 8.

Here's a ad below:

More details are available here

Pro tips to breathe new life into your website

2009-05-03T08:56:00.002+06:00

As the global economy continues to stutter its way through 2009, companies are increasingly fighting to be heard.

In recent months, investment has shifted abruptly from traditional media and 'real world' environments to the internet, which provides the means to reach the largest possible audience in a relatively cost-effective manner.

In theory, this is great news, but in practice the picture isn't entirely rosy. As Clearleft's managing director Andy Budd explains: "Many people view a website as a one-off project, rather than an ongoing concern. Organisations often go through a big redesign and then let a website fall into disrepair."

Instead, he recommends training yourself and your clients to think of a website as a staged process, which should be updated every three to six months: "That way, it'll always be up to date and will last longer, rather than spending the majority of its life underperforming."

Instead of tearing a site down and rebuilding it from scratch, figure out ways to make the existing site work harder.

"Breathing new life into a site through a design refresh is one such option," suggests Budd. "Smart companies also explore usability improvements to help conversion rates – small tweaks to registration and checkout processes can see conversions skyrocket and pay for themselves in no time."

The trick is in knowing the difference between an expense and an investment. While some sites are too outdated to make do with subtle tweaks and need a radical revamp, you can often do a lot with a little, thereby finding yourself in tune with companies cutting back on large capital expenditures.

10 things to put on your web design to-do list

Back to basics

Even if you only want to make small changes, Alex Willcocks, creative director at Engage Interactive, recommends approaching your site refresh with an open mind. "Sometimes going back to the beginning and thinking from that standpoint can bring surprising results," he says, "especially with the number of resources available to web designers increasing all the time."

However, there are certain tried and tested considerations that will almost always play a part, including tweaking content, amending graphic design and integrating new components.

It's essential to consider how each element works in a modern context, especially if a site is long out of date. "Users want information quicker than ever before and if you don't supply it, their interest will move elsewhere, regardless of whether you're a trusted brand or resource," argues Tim Gibbon, director at Elemental.

Gibbon reckons there's a desired immediacy to website content and structural revamps must take this into account. Now isn't the time to be coy; tweak homepages so they enable users to rapidly access the most important current content, rather than making them hunt for it.

Alec East, director of Do Tank Studios, adds that immediacy in modern sites sits alongside a certain informality. Often, just changing the name of a site's sections results in something more contemporary.

"There's a move away from 'catalogue' and 'about us' to more descriptive and cognitive terms, such as 'men's shorts'," East says. This assists users in finding specific types of content in a more intuitive manner than when generic terms are used and improves things from an SEO perspective.

And on the subject of search engines, East points out that they've become the only way many users find information online. "Since most people find a site via a search engine, they could enter anywhere," he says.

Consequently, during refreshes, it's important to consider whether it's obvious how to navigate straight away, regardless of where you enter, and whether basic information about the organisation needs to be available site-wide (such as in the footer), so new users immediately know a little more about the site they're visiting.

Source

Adblock Plus and (a little) more

2009-05-03T08:56:00.001+06:00

Recently I wrote about how not giving extension developers a good way to earn money might lead to very undesirable effects. The recent events give an impression of the kind of effects we should expect here. This is going to be about the popular NoScript extension which happens to make its money from ads. And to make sure that somebody sees these ads it goes pretty far. For example, it opens the changelog webpage (full of ads of course) on every single update of the extension, even though the NoScript FAQ claim that it happens only on major updates (yes, if you dig into it you will find the preference to disable this behavior – but how many people do that?). And updates coming roughly each week ensure that this page is opened fairly often. A problem is of course that NoScript will usually disable scripting and consequently also most advertising. That problem is being worked around by putting NoScript’s domains, Google AdSense and a few others on NoScript’s default whitelist (again, the overwhelming majority of users won’t go hunting for bogus entries in their whitelist). Given that NoScript proudly calls itself a security extension this means putting users at risk — for example, a while ago I demonstrated how an XSS vulnerability on a NoScript domain can be used to run JavaScript from any website, despite NoScript. This was countered by implementing anti-XSS measures rather than removing anything unnecessary from the whitelist.

You get an impression for the business model here. Of course, this approach brings NoScript in conflict with another popular extension — Adblock Plus. For years, NoScript has been using a trick to prevent Adblock Plus from working on its domains. Fixing this issue was never particularly high on my list of priorities (though I finally came around and fixed it after the recent events) so at some point I suggested that EasyList should be extended by a filter to block ads specifically on NoScript’s domains. This finally happened two weeks ago.

What followed was a small war — the website would add various tricks to prevent Adblock Plus with EasyList from blocking ads, EasyList kept adjusting filters. Then, a week ago a new NoScript version was released. A few days later I noticed first bug reports — apparently, Adblock Plus “glitches” were observed with this NoScript version, especially around NoScript’s domains (but not only those). When I investigated this issue I couldn’t believe my eyes. NoScript was extended by a piece of obfuscated (!) code to specifically target Adblock Plus and disable parts of its functionality. The issues caused by this manipulation were declared as “compatibility issues” in the NoScript forum, even now I still didn’t see any official admission of crippling Adblock Plus. Clearly, NoScript is moving from the gray area of adware into dark black area of scareware, making money at user’s expense at any cost.

Confronted with the facts and with the AMO policy NoScript author agreed to revert the changes. However, he put a different “solution” in place — the new NoScript version released yesterday adds a “filter subscription” to Adblock Plus meant to whitelist NoScript’s domains. A note about this “feature” has been added to extension description on AMO (I insisted), not without misrepresenting the cause of course. Supposedly, this is because of a “targeted attack from EasyList which broke functionality.” Which fails to mention that EasyList was just doing what it was created for (block ads) and the broken functionality is the result of attempts to avoid ads from being blocked (originally the filters didn’t break anything). So the real reason is not broken functionality, it is the ads on these sites.

Of course, adding a note to the description that almost nobody will read anyway wasn’t the only change I wanted to see. Adblock Plus allows other extensions to add filter subscriptions but that wasn’t supposed to happen without user’s consent. In case of NoScript, asking the user whether this filter subscription should be added was clearly required. But that would probably make too many people notice that something fishy is going on and decline. Note also that this filter subscription cannot be removed (will be re-added on next Firefox start), only disabled. Also, it stays there even after NoScript is uninstalled. Should I now make it harder for all extensions to integrate with Adblock Plus just because NoScript is misbehaving? I doubt that this will help much, any installed extension has the privileges to do anything and trying to stop it from misbehaving after installation is a lost cause.

While the current state of affairs (NoScript’s manipulation of Adblock Plus is visible to the user if he knows where to look, it is documented and even reversible) is better than what we had before I still think that extensions manipulating other extensions to prevent them from doing their job is not where we want to be. NoScript might be somewhat extreme but the “business offer” emails I occasionally see in my inbox make me think that we will see more of this. Companies start to recognize the potential of Firefox extensions and push extension authors into monetizing their extensions by questionable means — at the expense of the users.

Update (2009-05-02): Apparently, thanks to some pushing from AMO yet another NoScript version was released. This one supposedly no longer adds a filter subscription to Adblock Plus and also removes the one added by the previous versions. Also, a change to AMO policy is under discussion. Big thanks to everybody who made that happen!

Source

13 Super Cool Computer Keyboards

2009-05-03T08:54:00.009+06:00

Keyboards are an essential part of out computers. We use computer keyboards mostly to type. However in recent times we have seen a diversification in the use and design of keyboards. They are no longer used to type only text anymore, but are now used to do a lot more tasks. Playing Games, Controlling Media Players and launching applications are some of them. To meet these user requirements, keyboards are no longer confined to having only alphabetical keys and numbers. They now come with Media Controlling Keys, Special Keys for Playing games, Shortcut Keys to launch applications and some have even taken a step ahead and come with touch screen instead of the traditional buttons. We don’t usually get to see these types of keyboard in homes and offices. Let us take a look at some of these unusual but cool Computer Keyboards that make the use of Keyboards easier and much more

1.Optimus Maximus

Optimus Maximus is a fully customizable keyboard that lets you choose the sequence of the characters on the keyboard. Each key of the Optimus Maximus is a stand-alone display that shows the function currently assigned to it. You can make use of any language like Cyrillic languages, Ancient Greek, Arabic etc. Apart from that you can use any other character sets: notes, numerals, special symbols, HTML codes, math

3 Ways to Record Your Linux Desktop

2009-05-03T08:49:00.001+06:00

In this article I'll include three ways to screencast your Linux desktop with the help of recordMyDesktop, XVidCap and Istanbul. These three applications are included in every major distribution.

recordMyDesktop and frontends
recordMyDesktop has both a command-line interface and two frontends, a GTK and a Qt graphical frontend. You can run it in a console, do whatever stuff you want to record, then hit Ctrl+C to stop it and recordmydesktop will create an out.ogv (Ogg Theora) video file in the current working directory.

recordMyDesktop - GTK interface

If you need to customise the video settings for the screencast, you can do it either with the command-line tool or by using one of the graphical frontends. For example, to run the GTK application use gtk-recordmydesktop.

recordMyDesktop will allow you to create a screencast and choose the video and audio quality, frame rate, include or exclude window decorations and the mouse pointer. It's easy to use and will surely do its job in a few clicks.
Official website

XVidCap
XVidCap is another pretty good GTK-based recording application. The first thing which jumps into attention when starting XVidCap is a red rectangle which can be moved around and resized and which will allow you to record only a certain portion of the desktop.

XVidCap

XVidCap allows you to save the screencast as an MPEG or AVI format.
Official website

Istanbul
These are not the only applications with which you can make a screencast. Have a look at Istanbul too, which is included in the repositories of all the popular distributions. Although it is probably the easier to use of all three, I found Istanbul to be the slowest when it comes to response time (it looks like it takes forever to encode the video), so you'll have to bear with it. Just like recordMyDesktop, Istanbul saves the screencasts into the free Ogg Theora format.
Official website

Istanbul

Have some other cool applications or ways for creating screencasts? Please share them in the comments below.

Source

1 Million Google Android Phones sold by T-Mobile

2009-04-25T20:43:00.000+06:00

Bellevue (WA) - T-Mobile’s Google Android smartphone has reached an incredibly important milestone, reaching one million in US sales in the six months since the phone launched. The smartphone now accounts for almost two thirds of all of the 3G devices available on the T-Mobile network.

T-Mobile is the US’s fourth largest wireless network operator and has over 32.1 million customers. The company started selling the G1 Smartphone on October 22, 2008.

It is being reported by mobile advertising specialist AdMob that the Android OS now accounts for 6% for the entire smartphone market in the United States. Though the popularity is increasing, Android still has a while to go until it beats out Windows Mobile, which holds an 11% market share, the Blackberry OS at 22% and the iPhone, which takes the cake with 50% of the smartphone market in the U.S.

During a conference call last week Eric Schmidt, Google CEO stated that he felt the Android had a chance for great success this year. Schmidt claimed that the open source strategy was gaining ground and hinted that the company would deliver future announcements.

“There are announcements happening between now and the end of the year that are quite significant from operators and new hardware partners in the Android space, which I won't preannounce except to say that they really do fulfill much of the vision that we laid out more than a year ago,” stated Schmidt during the call. “On the netbook side, there are a number of people who have actually taken Android and ported it over to netbook or netbook-similar devices.”

Source

iPhone Software 3.0 may offer voice control, dialing - report

2009-04-22T01:02:00.000+06:00

A new report is backing rumors of Voice Dialing support inside betas of Apple's iPhone 3.0 Software but adds that capability may be just one of several features included in a new Voice Services framework that may also facilitate voice control of the new OS.

Adding to discoveries of "Voice Control" preferences within the International preferences of the upcoming release, contacts speaking to Ars have located a number of function calls to voice control features apparently nicknamed "Jibbler."

While details are few and far between, the features appear to tie into the new version of the Springboard application that serves as the iPhone's home screen and application launcher. In particular, references to VSSpeechSynthesizer, VSRecognitionSession, SBVoiceControlDisableHandlerActions, SBSensitiveJibblerEnabled, and SBVoiceControlSoundCompletion were uncovered.

While those methods appears to be private at this time, meaning they're accessible to Apple but not third-party developers, it's speculated that they could initially provide support for Voice Dialing on current and future iPhone handsets. In addition, they could also provide an alternative means of controlling the iPhone's Springboard services.

"Jibbler may be controlled via the iPhone headset -- button squeezes could be used to record short voice segments from the user, which Jibbler will then interpret," the report notes. "Voice synthesis can then be used to give the user a response, similar to the latest generation iPod shuffle, which can 'read' playlists and track names -- the difference being that the iPhone hardware itself could handle real-time voice synthesis."

Apple has said it plans to release iPhone Software 3.0 sometime this summer as a free upgrade for all current iPhone owners. A distribution for iPod touch users will cost $10.

Source

The Future of Networked Warfare Begins with Apple

2009-04-20T22:28:00.000+06:00

"The future of 'networked warfare' requires each soldier to be linked electronically to other troops as well as to weapons systems and intelligence sources," says a new report in Newsweek, and the product of choice appears to be the iPod Touch.

According to Newsweek, both the iPod Touch and to a lesser degree the iPhone are increasingly being used by the U.S. military because of their versatility, ease of use and comparative low cost.

The report notes that the iPod fulfils the military's need to give soldiers one device that can perform many different functions, and this device has the added advantage that it can often be controlled with one hand.

Software developers and the U.S. Department of Defense are busy developing military software for iPods in an attempt to gives soldiers even more functionality. A new program called Vcommunicator produces spoken and written translations of Arabic, Kurdish and two Afghan languages.

"Snipers in Iraq and Afghanistan now use a "ballistics calculator" called BulletFlight, made by the Florida firm Knight's Armament for the iPod Touch and iPhone. Army researchers are developing applications to turn an iPod into a remote control for a bomb-disposal robot (tilting the iPod steers the robot). In Sudan, American military observers are using iPods to learn the appropriate etiquette for interacting with tribal leaders," the report says.

According to an Army official in Baghdad, the devices have yet to be successfully hacked and at $230 a pop, the iPod may fit right into President Obama's 663.7 billion dollar defense budget.

Source

Report: Hulu app coming to the iPhone soon

2009-04-20T22:26:00.000+06:00

Silicon Alley Insider is reporting that a dedicated Hulu application is indeed on its way to the iPhone and should be here in just a few months.

SAI says the application will work over Wi-Fi and AT&T's 3G network, meaning that users will be able to view programming anywhere with a fast data connection.

Rumors suggesting that an iPhone-friendly version of Hulu swirled around this time last year, however, they predated the launch of the App Store, and Hulu flat-out denied that one was being worked on.

This time around, though, it's far more plausible, with the upcoming iPhone OS 3.0 software update, which lets developers bake streaming media into their applications. For Hulu, this means that the advertising could be stuck into the mobile stream and that users would be able to watch videos without leaving the application.

One of the things that keep this rumor from holding water is that Hulu is in direct competition with Apple's iTunes business. Users of Hulu can watch ad-supported, full-length television shows and movies on their personal computers for free, instead of paying Apple to download a copy for offline viewing.

If such an app were available on the iPhone, it would also offer portable TV and movie watching, something not yet offered in Apple's own mobile iTunes app, which is limited to video podcasts. In past instances of this, the company has simply denied applications such as Podcaster from making it through the app approval process, only to launch it as a first party feature later on.

On the other hand, some of Hulu's competitors have already gotten a foot in the door, including Joost and CBS-owned TV.com, which has its own iPhone application that streams in content in chunks. In addition, Google's YouTube, whose application comes preinstalled on the iPhone, has recently reached an agreement with major studios, including Sony Pictures, Lions Gate Entertainment, and CBS (publisher of CNET News), to offer visitors full-length TV shows and feature films.

If Hulu can't manage to pull off getting advertisements in the stream, using this system, it would be fairly simple to force users to sit through advertisements between clips.

Source

Wanted: Computer hackers ... to help government

2009-04-20T22:25:00.001+06:00

WASHINGTON -

Wanted: Computer hackers.

Federal authorities aren't looking to prosecute them, but to pay them to secure the nation's networks.

General Dynamics Information Technology put out an ad last month on behalf of the Homeland Security Department seeking someone who could "think like the bad guy." Applicants, it said, must understand hackers' tools and tactics and be able to analyze Internet traffic and identify vulnerabilities in the federal systems.

In the Pentagon's budget request submitted last week, Defense Secretary Robert Gates said the Pentagon will increase the number of cyberexperts it can train each year from 80 to 250 by 2011.

With warnings that the U.S. is ill-prepared for a cyberattack, the White House conducted a 60-day study of how the government can better manage and use technology to protect everything from the electrical grid and stock markets to tax data, airline flight systems, and nuclear launch codes.

President Barack Obama appointed a former Bush administration aide, Melissa Hathaway, to head the effort, and her report was delivered Friday, the White House said.

While the country had detailed plans for floods, fires or errant planes drifting into protected airspace, there is no similar response etched out for a major computer attack.

David Powner, director of technology issues for the Government Accountability Office, told Congress last month that the U.S. has no recovery plan for a digital disaster.

"We're clearly not as prepared as we should be," he said.

Administration officials says the U.S. has not kept pace with technological innovations needed to protect its computer networks against emerging threats from hackers, criminals or other nations looking for national security secrets.

U.S. computer networks, including those at the Pentagon and other federal agencies, are under persistent attack, ranging from nuisance hacking to more nefarious assaults, possibly from other nations, such as China. Industry leaders told Congress during a recent hearing that law enforcement and other protections are too outdated to fend off threats from criminals, terrorists and unfriendly foreign nations.

Just last week, a former government official revealed that spies had hacked into the U.S. electric grid and left behind computer programs that would let them disrupt service. The intrusions were discovered after electric companies gave the government permission to audit their systems, said the ex-official, who was not authorized to discuss the matter and spoke on condition of anonymity.

Cyberthreats are also included as a key potential national security risk outlined in a classified report put together by Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Pentagon officials say they spent more than $100 million in the last six months responding to and repairing damage from cyberattacks and other computer network problems.

Nadia Short, vice president at General Dynamics Advanced Information Systems, said the job posting for ethical hackers fills a critical need for the government.

The analysts keep constant watch on the government networks as part of a program called Einstein that was initiated by the Bush administration under the U.S. Computer Emergency Readiness Team.

Short said the $60 million, four-year contract with US-CERT uses the ethical hackers to analyze threats to the government's computer systems and develop ways to reduce vulnerabilities.

Faced with such cyberchallenges, Obama ordered the 60-day review to examine how federal agencies manage and protect their massive amounts of data and what the government's role should be in guarding the vast networks that control the country's vital utilities and infrastructure.

Over the past two months, Hathaway met with hundreds of industry leaders, Capitol Hill staff and other experts, seeking guidance on what the federal government's role should be in protecting information networks against an attack. She sought recommendations on how officials should define and report cyberincidents and attacks; how the government should structure its cyberoversight; and how the nation can increase security without stifling innovation.

A task force of technology giants, including representatives from General Dynamics, IBM, Lockheed Martin and Hewlett-Packard Co. urged the administration to establish a White House-level official to lead cyberefforts and to develop ways to share information on problems more quickly with the private sector.

The administration has struggled with the basics, such as who should control the nation's cyberspace programs. There appears to be some agreement now that the White House should coordinate the overall effort, rejecting suggestions that the National Security Agency take it on — a plan that triggered protests on Capitol Hill and from civil liberties groups worried about giving such control to spy agencies.

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How slow can Linux go?

2009-04-20T22:23:00.000+06:00

If it has a CPU, you can run Linux on it. Xboxes or iPhones, cars or calculators, Linux can live quite happily on any of these devices. But, when it comes to the desktop or laptop, how much processing power do you need to run a modern Linux desktop?

The short answer to this question is "not much at all." In fact, I don't think you could buy a computer at your local Best Buy or online that can't run Linux.

Let's take Ubuntu 9.04, which is due to arrive this week. The official minimum requirements for this popular Linux distribution are a 700MHz processor and 256MBs of RAM. I think that's too low. In my experience, you could run GNOME 2.26 on that slow a processor, but the RAM's way too low. You could pull it off with 512MBs, but you'd be happier with a Gigabyte.

A reader recently claimed to me that he had an older PC that can run Windows 7, but wasn't powerful enough to run any modern desktop Linux. Yeah. Right. Windows 7 'officially' requires, a 1GHz processor, 1GB of memory, 16GBs of free hard drive space and 128MB of graphics memory on a chip set or card able to support DirectX 9. As with every version of Windows going back to 1.02, Microsoft is lying about the minimum requirements.

In my Windows 7 testing, starting with Build 7000 to Build 7077, I've found that 7 requires at least a 1.6GHz processor and 2GBs of RAM to run at an acceptable level. Still, that's not bad, and it's certainly better than Vista. That said, there's no way any desktop that can run Windows 7 can't run Linux. Period. End of statement.

What about older PCs though? Linux works great on them. The oldest working server I have is one of the ones I used in 1999 to prove, for the first time, that Linux was a better file server than Windows NT. It's a white-box with a 266MHz Pentium II and 64MBs of memory. These days it's running openSUSE 10.3.

My least-powerful Linux desktop I'm currently using is HP Pavilion 7855 PC. It was born in 2001 with a 1GHz Pentium III and 512MBs of RAM. These days I run Mint 6 on this old vet of a PC. Frankly, that's a little too much operating system for it.

I'd be better off on this level of PC running a Linux that uses a lightweight desktop manager like Fluxbox or XFCE, instead of GNOME or KDE. There are also many desktop Linux distributions that are designed to work this kind of old hardware.

I'm particularly fond of DSL (Damn Small Linux). DSL can run on as little as a 486DX with 16MBs of RAM. I've used it myself on a 33MHz 486 PC with 32 MB of RAM.

DSL, which comes in a 50MB package, isn't a one trick pony. It's a real, live desktop Linux distribution with the Fluxbox windows manager, Firefox for Web browsing, office programs, IM client, and all the other trimmings. It's my first choice for really old PCs.

Many of my friends are also fond of the lightweight Puppy Linux and antiX MEPIS distributions. Both these distributions can run on PCs with as little as 64MBs of RAM and Pentium II 266MHz processors.

In short, if you have a PC that's still not old enough to vote, you can easily find a well-regarded and supported desktop Linux that will run great on it. I wonder how many of you are already running Linux on PC 'antiques.' Drop me a note on this article's comments areas and let me know just how slow you've been able to go with desktop Linux.

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Rumor: Undoubtedly Expensive 2nd Generation Sony OLED TV Unveiled This September

2009-04-20T22:21:00.001+06:00

If you get your rocks off over TVs that you can't have and can never afford, why don't you set aside some alone time this coming September, when Sony might reveal a larger OLED TV.

The announcement, if true, would signal the launch of Sony's 2nd generation OLED TVs. The first gen, as you'll remember, were showcased as tiny XEL-1 prototypes and consumer models throughout 2008 (notably at CES 2008, later as a swank kitchen knife set).

Hopefully, the second coming means an end to the OLED no-show we experienced late last year/this year, which manufacturers (rightly or wrongly) blamed on this crappy economy of ours.

Interesting coincidence: It was nearly one year ago that Sony said it would invest about $210 million into larger OLED TV development. Way to take your sweet time, fellas! [Korea Times via OLED-Info - Thanks, Ron]

GPS Map Navigation in Pakistan

2009-04-10T21:26:00.001+05:00

A good summary post by Shahid Saeed on the topic of automotive navigation in Pakistan appeared recently at Pakistaniat and other blogs. Last year I spent some time evaluating the feasibility of making the portable navigation devices ‘connected’ in US and EU. By including a SIM in these gps based devices, one could combine location based features with search and other internet functionality. The idea was good but the market was not ready for that - the main factors were the high cost of data and the competition from mobile phones, which now have almost the same functionality as a stand-alone portable navigation device. In the US the phone companies are making a lot of money by offering network based navigation (turn-by-turn directions) services on the phone.

These pictures are via Sahid’s post. He writes: these picturers show a drive from my home in Rawalpindi to Jinnah Super Market in Islamabad. The maps were of course not up to date, but will provide a relief to somebody new in the city.

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Telenor may deploy 3G Network in Pakistan

2009-04-10T21:25:00.000+05:00

Telenor Pakistan has reportedly agreed to award 3G network deployment contract to NSN (Nokia Siemens Networks) in Pakistan, told us a reliable source in NSN.

Earlier there was this feeling in NSN that they might not get away with this contract as Huawei gave them a tough competition.

Telenor’s spokesman didn’t confirm it and said that he can’t comment on the issue at this point of time; however, he was enthusiastic enough to validate that Telenor Pakistan is all set ready for 3G deployment and it is eagerly for 3G license auction.

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Samsung confirms Android handsets as Google adapts to market

2009-04-10T21:23:00.000+05:00

Mobile phone maker Samsung has confirmed that it intends to launch at least three phones this year that are built with Google's Linux-based Android operating system, including two that are destined for US mobile carriers. The move will boost the availability of Android-based handsets and give consumers some new Android options besides T-Mobile's G1, the current flagship Android handset.

Samsung first announced its Android plans last year, after it was revealed that the company had formed a sizable team of Linux and Java experts to build an Android touchscreen phone reportedly similar to the company's Omnia handset, which runs Windows Mobile. The products suffered some delays and it became unclear whether Samsung would still deliver an Android phone on Sprint's network when Sprint backed away from Android.

Major mobile operators in the United States have been cautious about Android and slow to accept the new platform. Verizon and AT&T, the two largest carriers in the US, have both declined to make a commitment to Google's OS. Sprint and T-Mobile were both on board from the start, but Sprint's early trepidation left T-Mobile standing alone as the only strong adopter.

Sprint boss Dan Hesse said in October 2008 that the platform wasn't fit to ship yet. Sprint's Android product manager provided more insight into the carrier's concerns and criticized Google's handling of the platform in an interview that was later retracted. He praised Google's confidence and vision, but suggested that the company needed to be more pragmatic and more responsive to carrier requirements.

Samsung executive Won-Pyo Hong told Forbes last week that Samsung encountered some difficulty with carrier concerns over Android, but he says that his company's Android phones are still on track for release. He also indicated that Samsung's own version of the platform will not be Google-centric.

"Some operators were concerned about the vision Google has [and] that affected [timing]," Hong told Forbes. "Our commitment is more to the Android phone than the Google Experience device."

Google has taken some steps to accommodate carrier interests while scaling back on its original vision of unprecedented freedom. For example, Google has removed a third-party tethering program from the App Store, blocked users from installing custom firmware on carrier-subsidized handsets, and imposed limitations on App Store accessibility for users of unlocked developer handsets. These moves haven't been entirely popular with some users, but have likely helped to increase the carriers' comfort level with Google's vision, thus paving the way for broader Android adoption.

The most visible sign that Google's increased willingness to compromise is getting through to carriers is Verizon's recent change in tone about Android. Verizon initially made a very strong commitment to LiMo as its platform of choice, citing LiMo's approach to governance and conformity with existing carrier business models as primary factors in the decision. The company recently indicated that Android could be back on the menu when it told reporters that it is no longer "in a position where we shun one operating system in favor over another operating system."

Android's recent technical improvements could be another factor in the recent increase in carrier support for Android. The lack of an onscreen keyboard and several of the platform's other weaknesses at launch have since been corrected. The platform has gained a strong touchscreen keyboard, complete localization support, and a number of other critical features. The localization support will likely contribute to boosting Android's presence abroad. A keyboard-less G1 refresh is coming to Vodafone in Europe while Lenovo and other vendors have Android products in the works for Asia.

Android hasn't been welcomed with the kind of enthusiasm that Google originally expected and the platform's growth has been stifled by cautious carriers who aren't ready to cede control or allow Google to disrupt the status quo. Google's recent concessions to restrictive carrier demands, which are clearly helping the platform gain ground, show that the search giant is beginning to accept the realities of the market.

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Next-gen iPod touch, iPhone to support low-power 802.11n

2009-04-06T22:10:00.000+05:00

Wireless radio component specifications contained within beta distributions of iPhone 3.0 firmware reveal support for a new chip enabling low power 802.11n that's bound for Apple's third-generation iPod touch. It's therefore also likely to be included with new iPhone models.

The version of the existing Broadcom chip that supplies WiFi and Bluetooth on existing models jumps from BCM4325 to BCM4329, according to resource files reserved for a third-generation iPod touch. The component upgrade adds new support for 802.11n features, including the ability to find and join 5GHz networks.

Existing iPhone and iPod touch models only support 5GHz 802.11a networks, or 2.4GHz 802.11b/g networks, forcing users who want the top speed of 802.11n (available on all MacBooks) but compatibility with 802.11b/g networks (to use the existing iPhone) to set up a 2.4GHz compatible network. That compromise forces the wireless network to deal with interference from other networks on the often crowded 2.4GHz band.

Apple's latest generation of AirPort base stations added new hardware support for dual-band networks, allowing both fast and slow devices to connect to independent 5GHz and 2.4GHz signals at the same time. However, this isn't possible with previous AirPort base station hardware, or when setting up an ad-hoc WiFi network from a notebook, for example.

New support for 802.11n in the upcoming iPhone and iPod touch models would also provide the devices with additional network speed and reception range features of the significantly faster 802.11n specification, which are related to channel bonding (using two channels at once to double the top reception speed) and MIMO, the ability to use multiple transmit and receive antennas to improve reception speed and range.

Other features related to 802.11n include Space Time Block Coding (STBC), which sends the same data across multiple antennas for redundancy against radio interference; Short Guard Interval (SGI), which increases the data rate by squeezing out shorter padding intervals; A-MPDU, the aggregation of multiple MAC-level service data units; Block Ack, which increases efficiency by transmitting multiple data frames followed by only one acknowledgement frame in a transmission block; Greenfield mode, the increased efficiency gained by dropping 802.11a/b/g backward compatibility; and RIFS, reduced interframe spacing, which minimizes unused radio dead time by cutting the interval time between sent packets.

The new device also focuses on efficient power management, with a special integrated PMU (power management unit) and a shared Bluetooth and WiFi receive signal path, which "eliminates the need for an external power splitter while maintaining excellent sensitivity for both Bluetooth and WLAN."

The new component should dramatically speed up WiFi throughput and flexibility as AT&T and other UMTS mobile providers also upgrade their 3G networks to take advantage of parallel improvements in mobile 3G speed capacity expected in the new iPhone.

Source

Google and Nokia Catch Netbook Mania

2009-04-06T22:08:00.000+05:00

Nokia and Netbook Mania Dept.: When I first heard about Nokia considering getting into the netbook game, I made an offhand joke that it would be interesting unless the company ran Symbian as the OS. I figured that, like every other netbook, it would be running Windows or Linux. So you can imagine my shock when I was reading an article in which the Nokia folks seem to be indicating their netbook will indeed be running Symbian. What?!? Is the device just going to be a huge phone? It's ridiculous. Stop now, guys, before it's too late!

Meanwhile, there's more and more talk on the streets about Google porting its Android OS—actually a specialized distro of Linux—to its own netbook. This makes a lot more sense than using Symbian, that's for sure. If Google puts its resources behind Linux on the desktop, I think we could actually see a platform shift. This would be the time to do it since Microsoft seems to be distracted by both cloud computing and making money selling advertisements. The cash cows are what should be getting the attention, but many companies neglect them. Poor cows.

As the netbook scene heats up, you have to wonder: Exactly where is the Sony netbook? The company has released a few smallish machines they say are netbooks, but one, for example, with a Blu-ray drive is $2,700. This misses the point of a netbook, which is the low cost. It should cost about $299. Expect to see some major changes at Sony now that its European boss, Howard Stringer, will be running the whole show, as he got rid of one more top executive. It will be a magic act if Sony can somehow get back into a position of influence. The entire netbook genre had Sony written all over it, but the company could not execute. Kind of like with the iPod and the iPhone. These would have been Sony products in the 1970s.

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Invisibility 'carpet' expected soon

2009-04-06T22:06:00.000+05:00

An invisibility cloak has long been the the stuff of fantasy, but fiction is about to become reality.

The British scientist who pioneered the concept, Sir John Pendry, expects a cloak that can conceal an object from prying eyes to be unveiled within months.

Harry Potter need not worry just yet. His wizard's cloak, which makes people disappear, is still too complicated and costly for Muggle scientists to emulate.

"At the moment we don't have the technology to do that," Professor Pendry, of Imperial College London, told the Sydney Morning Herald. The first man-made cloak will be more like an invisibility "carpet", he said. Tuck a tiny object underneath it, and it will seemingly disappear because the bump the object makes will be hidden from view with an artificial mirage.

Its development will be a startling demonstration of the potential of metamaterials - a radical new technology that could lead to other applications, including barriers to prevent waves damaging the shore, acoustic cloaks to reduce noise, stealth systems for the military, and faster telecommunications.

Metamaterials have microscopic structures that give them properties not found in nature because of the unusual way the structures interact with light or other electromagnetic waves.

They can be designed to hide things by bending radiation around an object as if it were not there, "like water flowing around a stone", said Professor Pendry, who will give a public talk on invisibility at the University of Sydney on Wednesday.

He was the first to think up these new materials a decade ago. In 2004, to "spice up" one of his mathematically dense lectures in the US, he mentioned Harry Potter. "I said one of the interesting things they could do is hide things."

Other researchers in the audience, led by David Smith of Duke University, took his message to heart. "They went back and built the darn thing."

In 2006 Professor Smith revealed the first cloak, which steered radiation around a copper cylinder, making it invisible to microwave detection.

"I am optimistic work in progress will produce an optical cloak in the next six months," Professor Pendry said.

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Review: Apple's Nehalem-based Mac Pro 'fastest Mac ever'

2009-04-06T21:44:00.000+05:00

Every time it updates its professional-level workstation, Apple brands the new Mac Pro as "the fastest Mac ever." It's an interesting dilemma for the company, because the boast -- albeit true -- is both exciting and humdrum. Wouldn't it bum you out if the latest top-of-the-line Mac weren't also the fastest?

Don't worry. The latest update for the Mac Pro pretty much lives up to expectations. In some ways, the basic quad-core 2.66-GHz Mac Pro that Apple sent over for review screamed. But it falls short of last year's version when it comes to great expectations of across-the-board performance leaps.

With this iteration, the Mac Pro takes a significant step forward by moving to Intel's new Nehalem processor, leaving behind the previous model's Harpertown and Penryn chips. (Yes, they're all officially Intel Xeon processors, but Intel's nomenclature is so arcane that it's better to go by those code names to keep the models straight.) For $2,499, the entry-level Mac Pro offers a quad-core 2.66-GHz processor, 3GB of DDR3 EEC memory, a 640GB hard drive, an 18x double-layer SuperDrive, and an Nvidia GeForce GT120 video card. For $800 more, you get two 2.26-GHz quad-core processors (for a total of eight cores) and 6GB of RAM. It's a hefty price bump, mostly for the additional CPU; Intel's newest processors still command a premium cost. There are also a variety of CPU options: Moving to a 2.93-GHz single quad-core Xeon adds $500 to the price of the base model -- or you can get two of them for $2,600 extra in the top model.

Apple's new Mac Pro sports the same as before. It's shown with Apple's 24-in. LED display.

If those prices seem high for a personal computer, they are. Granted, these Mac Pros approach performance numbers previously seen in Unix workstations costing in the five figures. And they offer Apple's traditional build quality, not to mention the vertical integration of hardware and software that can avoid driver updates and conflicts. But price does focus attention on value and on whether those Apple advantages are worth the cost.

Various commodity PC makers are starting to roll out their own Nehalem offerings at much lower prices. Lenovo, for instance, has put out workstations with Nehalem-based Xeons; its single-CPU, quad-core S20 starts at $1,070, with the eight-core, dual-CPU going for $1,550. Of course, these are bare-bones prices, with the features and expandability that are already built into the Mac Pros sure to cost extra elsewhere. But the ability to order a bare-bones model is something that has always been attractive to businesses. So tote up the balance sheet if you're comparing this workhorse with others.

Nehalem, yes, but lower clock speeds

Don't be misled by the lower clock speeds of the new Mac Pros compared with their predecessors, which offered CPUs ranging from 2.8 GHz to 3.2 GHz. Those processors had two dies and shared cache memory, while the new 64-bit, 45nm Nehalem processors are designed purely as quad-core chips. The single-die/four-core Nehalem has 256KB of dedicated Level 2 cache memory for each core, and 8MB of Level 3 cache for each processor. With multithread-aware applications, this more than makes up for any missing megahertz.

In addition, each Nehalem processor has an integrated memory controller, which obviates the need for a separate I/O chip; according to Apple, that gives the new Mac Pro much faster access to memory data, reducing latency by up to 40%.

All of this allows for some interesting internal magic, complete with hot-rodding code names. Hyper-Threading manages two computing threads running simultaneously on a single core. Turbo Boost overclocks a single core and turns off the others when an application accesses only one core. The QuickPath Interconnect system ties together the hard drives, I/O and two processors (in the high-end model) much more efficiently than the previous model's dual independent front-side buses.

About that video card...

The standard video card, the Nvidia GT 120 with 512MB of RAM, is a competent option for everyday work, though it compares poorly in benchmarks against the previous generation of Mac Pros, which came with an Nvidia GeForce 8800 GT. As a result, for professionals and most other power users, the $200 upsell of the ATI Radeon HD 4870, also with 512MB of RAM, is worth the money.

In a Call of Duty 4 time demo, our test machine delivered more than double the frame rate when moving from the GT 120 to the Radeon HD 4870. In fact, the Mac Pro with the GT 120 didn't even match published frame-rate numbers for an iMac with an 8800 GS graphics chip. (The 8800 GS is related to the GT.) Swapping in the Radeon HD 4870, though, made the Mac Pro the handy winner.

In other benchmarks, the review unit's quad-core 2.66-GHz racked up a Geekbench 2.1 score of 8350, an Xbench score of 214, and a Cinebench R10 multicore score of 14857. These numbers place this model squarely in line with the previous generation running two 2.8-GHz CPUs. This year's Mac Pro might not bury the older generation, which is selling at a discount now, but the Nehalem-based new Mac Pros look like they'll grow the gap soon. More about that later.

32GB of RAM will cost you

Looking to add RAM? The more the better, of course. Mac OS X, even the relatively mature Leopard version, loves RAM. But maxing out the Mac Pro's RAM (to 8GB on the quad-core model and 32GB on the octo-core) costs a premium if purchased through Apple. In the most extreme instance, 32GB of RAM configured from Apple costs $6,100, while the same RAM from a major Mac reseller is a third less.

Whatever amount you end up with, though, it's best to configure it in sets of threes, rather than in pairs. Since there are three memory channels per Nehalem processor, this allows saturation of all three for the best performance.

As a longtime Mac user, I can tell you that even with the "base" quad-core model, the sum total of the parts works, and works well. Boot times are on the order of "glance out the window" quick, and I've yet to see a spinning beach ball -- though I haven't had time to put this Mac Pro through months of production-line work and application installs -- the kind of general cruft build-up that can affect any computer.

I'm not a fan of a lot of the interface tweaks in Mac OS X 10.5, but overall, Apple has done a great job of further refining the OS so that it's a great companion to the powerful hardware. And if for some reason you want or need to run Windows, the Mac Pro, like all Intel-based Macs, can use Boot Camp or maturing consumer virtualization software such as Parallels Desktop or VMware Fusion.

The metal cheese-grater look remains

The Mac Pro is designed to be user-expandable.

The Mac Pro hasn't had a significant exterior overhaul for a while -- the new model's "cheese grater" case looks almost indistinguishable from the Power Mac G5 that usually sits under my desk. A few changes to the available ports are the most obvious differences: On the front there are two USB ports versus one, two FireWire 800 versus one FireWire 400 and an extra slot for a second optical drive. Out back, there are three rather than two USB ports, two FireWire 800 -- mine has one FireWire 400 and one FireWire 800 -- and a second gigabit Ethernet port. That's about all that separates them visually.

The internal hardware is arrayed in a similar way, though there was little to complain about in the first place. The Power Macs had an incredibly minimalist interior design, with most components cleanly arrayed with plenty of space around for airflow and fingers. The Mac Pro keeps the easy-access Serial ATA hard drive trays, allowing quick, cable-free configuration of up to four drives. (Apple also offers a $700 RAID card that allows you to set up a more secure, faster internal storage array.) Making things even easier is a new slide-out tray for the RAM and processors.

Since the Mac Pro is the only user-expandable Mac, you'd expect the options here to be good. They are, with four PCI Express 2.0 slots, two of which are x16 (one populated by the video card by default) and two x4. There may be more expandable monsters out there, but the Mac Pro offers a good trade-off between design and versatility.

As for the included low-profile keyboard, which follows the design lead of Apple's laptops, and the Apple Mighty Mouse, neither would be my first choice. Not having some sort of adjustable tilt for the keyboard will require many people to muss up their design-conscious desk with a magazine or something else as a prop. And the mouse is just a mess: The shape doesn't feel ergonomic, and it's way too easy to hit the wrong button (and tricky to hit the right one). But many Mac users are no doubt fine with the keyboard and mouse; it's a highly personal decision.

Also note that the Mac Pro does not ship with Wi-Fi capabilities by default. An internal AirPort Extreme card is a $50 option; most pros would rather take advantage of the high bandwidth and security of the Gigabit Ethernet ports. But it seems odd that this is the only Mac without wireless connectivity by default.

Greenpeace will be pleased

After Greenpeace pointedly hit Apple over environmental concerns in 2007, the company has made great strides toward eliminating toxins and maximizing recyclable materials in its hardware. (It also will take in defunct computers at Apple stores for recycling). Apple bills this as the "greenest Mac Pro ever" -- though, of course, no splash of color defiles the cool aluminum casing.

As part of that boast, Apple claims that it has reduced idle power consumption by 15%, met EnergyStar 4.0 and the upcoming 5.0 standards, eliminated the use of PVC and BFR, and considered recycling issues when designing its hardware. I can vouch that the Mac Pro is a lot quieter, whether at idle or under load, than a dual-G5 Power Mac, though video card fans can be a large part of the noise production.

I mentioned multithreaded applications earlier, and the new Mac Pros' advantage in this arena will most likely become even more pronounced in the future, as Apple pushes the Grand Central technology slated to debut with Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard. This not only makes the coming Mac OS X multicore-aware, but the technology includes tools for developers to add multicore threading to existing and future applications. In other words, the more cores you have, the more boost you'll see in future OS X releases. This makes the $800 price for the dual-Xeon Mac Pro -- which sports 16 cores! -- the cost of future-proofing.

And while it's too early to tell, the Radeon HD option might also add some future-proofing to your workstation investment (and at this price range, the Mac Pro is definitely more a workstation than a personal computer, and it's certainly an investment). Another piece of tasty tech promised for Snow Leopard -- OpenCL -- is designed to allow applications to offload some general computing tasks from the CPU, no matter how many dozens of cores there are, to the GPU, which lies relatively idle for most tasks. This isn't automatic, as developers would have to introduce this code into their applications. But even if this doesn't pan out as planned, opting for the Radeon video card seems to be a worthwhile upgrade.

Final thoughts

The updated Mac Pro is an appropriate refresh ahead of the anticipated release of Snow Leopard. Both the hardware and software look familiar superficially but hold within them the promise of significant advances when they team up later this year.

Depending on what applications you rely on for work, your frequency of machine turnover, and what sort of deals you can find, the 2008 Mac Pros still offer a lot of value and power. A top-of-the-line '08 will offer similar performance in most areas to the newer ones; they have more RAM capacity and a slower SuperDrive, but Apple is offering ATI Radeon HD 4870 kits for the 2008s.

Apple deserves some kudos for being perhaps the first computer manufacturer out of the gate with Nehalem-based workstations, but that may have come at the cost of, well, cost. As Intel amortizes its development costs, we may see price drops on the new Xeon line. But early adopters have always paid that kind of price to get the newest and shiniest. And the new Mac Pros are, indeed, "the fastest Macs ever."

Dan Turner has been writing about science and technology for over a decade at publications such as Salon, eWeek, MacWeek and The New York Times.

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How to upgrade your laptop components

2009-04-05T19:33:00.000+05:00

One of the wonders of the modern computer is its modular nature. And at times like this, when money may be tight, it's more tempting than ever to open up your PC's case and effect an easy upgrade instead of spending much, much more on a new system.

Some extra memory will improve your machine's ability to multitask, while a faster hard drive will enhance file writing. The proposition changes a little if your system is a laptop – but it needn't. Your notebook computer is in many ways just as easy to upgrade as your desktop. All it takes is a little more preparation.

Here we pass on the tips that we've learned from cracking open the shells of numerous notebook computers, from picking the best tools for the job to finding the right guide to help you do things properly.

Upgrading a laptop is very different to upgrading a desktop PC. Whip off the case of a standard tower and the motherboard is instantly exposed, with the slots, CPU and drive all easily accessible. In a notebook, the components are crammed into a much smaller space and are often layered on top of each other. Some forward-thinking manufacturers design their machines to provide easy access to the parts that are most likely to be upgraded.

On the back of a Toshiba Satellite Pro, for example, you'll find cutaway hatches for accessing the RAM, Wi-Fi card slots and the hard disk. Other machines hide their wares, requiring you to remove the keyboard and sometimes even other components before you can get at a part to upgrade it.

Why bother upgrading?

There are three good reasons for upgrading your laptop. The first, and most important, is cost. You can easily eke out the effective life of a laptop with a cheap upgrade or two.

Another reason for cracking open your laptop case is to make repairs. Notebooks are prone to drops and knocks; components can come loose and elements with moving parts are easily broken. You'll save yourself a bundle in labour costs if you're confident enough to replace an ailing optical drive or sticky keyboard.

Our third reason for carrying out some DIY upgrades is to make your notebook a better, stronger and faster device. Adding the latest Wi-Fi card or a solid state drive to speed up data access could transform your notebook from a mobile standby into an effective desktop replacement.

Before you start

It's important to begin with the right tools. While modern desktop cases are held together with quick-release catches, you'll need at least a small Philips screwdriver to tackle a laptop case. A cheap, basic set of electrical screwdrivers should be fine, although in some cases we've had to resort to a powered screwdriver to loosen tightly fitted screws.

Some laptops – notably Dell and Apple notebook computers – have Torx screws to deal with, which have a star-shaped slot at the top. It might well be worth investing in a set of screwdrivers for those as well. You shouldn't have to pay more than £4, and they'll come in handy for small hex socket screws too.

In rare instances you may need a soldering iron, but only to repair any damage you've wrought by being over-eager with your modifications. You'll find all the tools that we've mentioned here in your local DIY shop or online at www.amazon.co.uk/tools.

These are standard tools, but we've found that a couple of other bits and pieces come in handy too. A telescopic magnetic pick-up tool can be useful for grabbing small screws that have fallen down cracks: Silverline do one for around £2. A pair of pincers or tweezers will help you when removing small ribbon cables or motherboard connectors.

You'll also find that many laptop cases click together with plastic clips. A plastic putty spreader is often the right size to get between gaps and strong enough to give you some leverage without causing too much scratch damage to the exterior case. Of course, you'll only need something like this if you're planning on fully disassembling your machine – and hopefully it won't come to that.

No laptop model is the same as another. You can expect notebooks in the same family to be broadly similar, but it's never guaranteed that all the screws are in the same place, or that the hard drive always slots into a handy bay on the side. Sometimes you have to remove the keyboard to get to a screw, or take off the back to access the hard drive.

Before you start, flip over your machine and take a good look at the bays and ports on the back and sides. If it's not clear how to easily access a component, don't go blundering in: read the manual first.

Some laptop manufacturers provide service manuals online, including Dell and HP. Websites dedicated to 'take-apart' guides – documents created by enthusiasts that detail disassembly procedures – are also helpful.

If you have a Toshiba laptop, try www.irisvista.com. MacBook owners are well served by iFixit. The largest repository of guides we've found is Repair4Laptop, which hosts a list of guides for laptops from around 100 manufacturers. If none of these sources comes up with the goods, try 9 Manuals. Here you'll find a splendid set of official service guides in PDF format that you can download for $5.99.

Gathering tech specs

The main difference between a service manual and a take-apart guide is that the former will give you a full, official overview of the components in your machine. That's important when considering upgrades. An official guide should answer all sorts of questions, like what kind of memory you need, if there are any spare USB or PCIe ports in the machine and whether the optical drive is of a standard size.

If you don't have access to a full service manual, you can interrogate your notebook's architecture using free software tools. We recommend System Information for Windows, a freeware program that interrogates your computer and digs out valuable hardware and software information. It can tell you what drives you have installed and what the interfaces are, what kind of RAM is present and more. You can even use it to retrieve software licenses and passwords, which will come in handy for your pre-upgrade back-up routine.

A similar program, PC Wizard 2008, is also free. It supplies you with sufficient data to attempt upgrades, though in less detail and with no software information. It also includes a handy benchmarking tool, so you can measure any improvements in performance after you've upgraded.

Some guides recommend a BIOS update before upgrading. We think that's only really necessary in two specific circumstances: if your machine is having problems that diagnostic tests suggest are BIOS related, or if you want to install components that your current BIOS won't support. We say this because flashing your BIOS is a procedure that can turn your laptop into an unbootable brick if done badly. It's also trickier to carry out on notebooks than on desktop PCs, because most lack a floppy drive.

One way around this is to boot into Windows using an old install disc and then access the BIOS upgrade – available from your motherboard manufacturer – from a CD-RW. Alternatively, and more safely, try www.bootdisk.com for DOS and Windows boot discs, including a bespoke 'Flash CD' with BIOS upgrade instructions.

Carrying out the upgrades

Now that you have the right tools, have correctly identified the part that you want to replace and have a service manual or disassembly guide to work with, you're ready to begin the upgrade process.

As with desktop upgrades, your machine shouldn't be plugged in to the mains – that's just common sense. Ensure that the system is fully powered down – not just hibernating – and then remove the main battery. This step is vital. If you miss it, you could damage your system or get a shock when you open up the machine.

Next, touch something metal to dissipate any static in your body and bear in mind that you should continue doing this periodically if you're going to be working on the machine for a long time. It should go without saying, but proceed carefully.

Once you're into the case, remove elements slowly and keep an eye out for ribbon cables and small wires. Unless you have to access the motherboard or PSU, it's rare that you will have to fully disassemble your laptop.

Take care with where you put the screws as you remove them from the case. The best way to keep track of them is to write down where you retrieved them from on a piece of paper and stick the corresponding screws next to the description with tape.

For example, if you're removing five screws from the back panel, write down 'Back panel – five screws'. It doesn't take long and will save you a lot of time when you come to the reassembly stage. Better still, some notebooks have a unique identifier printed next to each screw.

Memory first

RAM is simple to upgrade in tower PCs, and the same is often true for notebooks. In many cases you can access RAM slots without taking your machine apart at all; many modern laptops have memory access ports that are covered by a single plate.

As for finding out what kind of RAM to buy, try Crucial's Memory Advisor or visit Kingston's memory tools web page. Both will tell you what kind of RAM you need and the maximum amount that your system can use.

Adding RAM increases system performance by reducing swap file and virtual memory requirements. The more RAM that's available, the more effectively programs will run.

An even cheaper way to improve memory handling for Windows Vista users is ReadyBoost, which uses flash memory as a drive cache. Vista's not fussy about the kind of flash memory used, so for about a fiver you can effectively add 4GB of virtual memory to your machine with a single removable USB key.

Intel's Turbo Memory system – codenamed Robson – takes this technology a step further. It uses flash memory on a PCI Express mini card to reduce the load on your hard disk by moving your frequently accessed files to an onboard solid state drive. This is an integrated upgrade that's installed into a slot on your motherboard. Intel says that having this cache located close to the CPU significantly boosts disk performance.

The PCI Express mini card slot is mostly used in modern laptops for Wi-Fi provision. Chances are that if your old machine has an accessible slot, there'll already be a Wi-Fi card in it. Some modern notebooks may have a spare second slot, so check your documentation as this can offer some of the most interesting upgrade routes available to laptop owners.

As well as Wi-Fi and Turbo Memory, digital TV tuner cards such as the Avermedia A306 and internal GPS systems such as the AzureWave GPS Module can also be installed into this slot. There are even consumer 3G cards lurking just beyond the horizon.

Hard and optical drives

Although laptop hard drives are fairly generic and conform mainly to a specific 2.5in form factor, you'll find several variations in the way that they're fitted. Some are accessed through a panel on the bottom of your notebook, while others slide into a bay on the side in a similar way to your optical drive. The hard disk could even be buried under several other components and require a partial disassembly – as is the case with the early iBook – before you can access it.

Still, once you've found it, replacing a hard drive is a fairly easy procedure. Take a look at our 'Upgrade your hard disk' walkthrough overleaf for an easy-to-follow guide to the process.

For peace of mind, make sure that you back up the contents of the old drive before proceeding. Just backing up documents is never quite enough to ensure that you've got all your data, so try the free tool CloneZilla and make a full copy of your hard drive. CD and DVD drives are similarly generic, with a standard 5.25in device fitting into most machines.

However, there are exceptions to this, so it's worth checking that the drive you're buying is compatible with your machine before you proceed. You'll also need the right fittings, including the correct faceplate and runners. If you're replacing an old optical drive then you should be able to reuse those parts from it, but there's always a chance that things won't work out so, again, it's best to check first.

In most cases, replacing the optical drive is a fairly easy upgrade, with the device fitting into a bay in the side of the machine. It's often a case of undoing a couple of screws, sliding out the old part carefully and then sliding in the new one, making sure that the connectors are pushed home.

Replacing an old CD drive with a DVD-RW one is now a fairly cheap and worthwhile upgrade to make – you'll find drives for around £30 at www.saverstore.com.

Upgrading your laptop will require a lot of preparation and patience, but if you carefully pick the right approach, do your research first and always proceed with caution, you can add years to the effective lifespan of your trusty machine.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

First published in PC Plus Issue 280

Like this article? Then check out How to overclock your notebook

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By Karl Hodge

Source

World’s Fastest Broadband at $20 Per Home

2009-04-05T19:32:00.000+05:00

If you get excited about the prospect of really, really fast broadband Internet service, here’s a statistic that will make heart race. Or your blood boil. Or both.

Pretty much the fastest consumer broadband in the world is the 160-megabit-per-second service offered by J:Com, the largest cable company in Japan. Here’s how much the company had to invest to upgrade its network to provide that speed: $20 per home passed.

The cable modem needed for that speed costs about $60, compared with about $30 for the current generation.

By contrast, Verizon is spending an average of $817 per home passed to wire neighborhoods for its FiOS fiber optic network and another $716 for equipment and labor in each home that subscribes, according to Sanford C. Bernstein & Company.

Those numbers from Japan came from Michael T. Fries, the chief executive of Liberty Global, the American company that operates J:Com.

His larger point: “To me, this just isn’t an expensive capital investment,” he said.

The experience in Japan suggests that the major cable systems in the United States might be able to increase the speed of their broadband service by five to 10 times right away. They might not need to charge much more for it than they do now and they’d still make as much money.

The cable industry here uses the same technology as J:Com. And several vendors said that while the prices Mr. Fries quoted were on the low side, most systems can be upgraded for no more than about $100 per home, including a new modem. Moreover, the monthly cost of bandwidth to connect a home to the Internet is minimal, executives say.

So what’s wrong with this picture in the United States? The cable companies, like Comcast and Cablevision, that are moving quickly to install the fast broadband technology, called Docsis 3, are charging as much as $140 a month for 50 Mbps service. Meanwhile other companies, like Time Warner Cable, are moving much more slowly to upgrade.

Competition, or the lack of it, goes a long way to explaining why the fees are higher in the United States. There is less competition in the United States than in many other countries. Broadband already has the highest profit margins of any product cable companies offer. Like any profit-maximizing business would do, they set prices in relation to other providers and market demand rather than based on costs.

Pricing at Liberty varies widely by market. In Japan, its 160 Mbps service costs 6,000 yen ($60) per month. That’s only $5 a month more than the price of its basic 30 Mbps service. In the Netherlands, meanwhile, it charges 80 euros ($107) for 120 Mbps service and 60 euros ($81) for 60 Mbps. Mr. Fries said that he expected these prices would fall over time.

“Our margins go up,” he said. “But we are delivering more value.”

Cable executives have given several reasons for why many cable systems in the United States are going very slowly in upgrading to Docsis 3. There’s little competition in areas not served by Verizon’s FiOS system, which soon will offer 50 Mbps service. And some argue there isn’t that much demand for super-high speed.

Mr. Fries added another: Fear. Other cable operators, he said, are concerned that not only will prices fall, but that the super-fast service will encourage customers to watch video on the Web and drop their cable service.

The industry is worried that by offering 100 Mbps, they are opening Pandora’s box, he said. Everyone will be able to get video on the Internet, and then competition will bring the price for the broadband down from $80 to $60 to $40.

Aren’t you worried that the prices will fall too? I asked.

“Maybe,” he said very slowly. “We’ll see how it happens. We want to keep it up there for now. It is a premium service.”

Source

Latest iPhone developer agreement bans jailbreaks

2009-04-04T22:38:00.000+05:00

The latest revision of the iPhone SDK agreement that developers must sign forbids jailbreaking or creating apps for jailbroken phones.

The "iPhone Developer Program License Agreement" governs what iPhone developers can and cannot do. Now, jailbreaking, assisting in jailbreaking, and developing and distributing jailbreak apps are among the things that the latest revision of that agreement does not condone.

Of course, Apple forbids the creation of apps that violate privacy, facilitate crimes, or violate intellectual property laws. But registered developers can no longer jailbreak their own phones or assist others in jailbreaking their phones, including (but not limited to) working on projects such as QuickPwn or PwnageTool. Developers are also forbidden from using the iPhone OS, SDK, or other developer tools to develop applications for distribution in any way other than the App Store or Ad Hoc distribution—which of course rules out distribution via Cydia, free or otherwise.

The relevant clauses in the agreement, a copy of which was made available to Ars, are as follows:

(e)You will not, through use of the Apple Software, services or otherwise, create any Application or other program that would disable, hack or otherwise interfere with the Security Solution, or any security, digital signing, digital rights management, verification or authentication mechanisms implemented in or by the iPhone operating system software, iPod touch operating system software, this Apple Software, any services or other Apple software or technology, or enable others to do so; and

(f) Applications developed using the Apple Software may only be distributed if selected by Apple (in its sole discretion) for distribution via the App Store or for limited distribution on Registered Devices (ad hoc distribution) as contemplated in this Agreement.

Though jailbreaking allows access to apps that Apple doesn't approve of and enables unlocking the phone from approved carriers, it also allows users and developers access to the UNIX underpinnings of iPhone OS, which both groups could have perfectly legitimate reasons for wanting. These provisions aren't likely to stop the iPhone Dev Team from working on a jailbreak for iPhone OS 3.0, but there are certainly developers who will think twice about helping in those efforts or distributing a rejected app for jailbroken phones, lest they lose access to the iPhone developer program altogether.

Jailbreaking will continue as long as it offers even a small subset of users something they want but Apple won't allow. Still, preventing developers from being involved in jailbreaking in any way can actually be a hinderance to developers looking to squeeze the best performance possible out of their apps, or those looking to experiment outside of Apple's walled garden.

Source

Google Redesigns YouTube, Copies Hulu

2009-04-04T22:35:00.000+05:00

Google is redesigning YouTube to make the site more attractive to the content creators who make the kind of stuff Google could actually sell ads against -- like Disney, for example.

ClickZ scooped the details on the redesign. We've bulletpointed them for you:

The site will do away with current tabs "videos," "channels" and "community" and replace them with four tabs: Movies, Music, Shows, and Videos.
The first three tabs is supposed to feature premium content, though YouTube doesn't have many licensing agreements yet.
Videos in all four sections will feature in-stream, interruptive ads -- just like Hulu.
There will be a new player interface. It looks a lot like Hulu's, marking on the timeline where ads will play and allowing users to "dim the lights."
The redesign will emphasize a divide between long-form premium content and the user-uploaded stuff.
The launch has been delayed till April 16, possibly due to on-going negotiations with Disney.

Source

Will Skype mobile maim the wireless industry?

2009-04-04T22:30:00.000+05:00

Skype is best known for its voice telephony service, so it was only a matter of time before it went wireless. But it’s not the first mobile voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) offering, and it won’t fly with many wireless carriers.

On March 31, Skype announced software for BlackBerries and iPhones, a week after releasing a beta version for Windows Mobile. Earlier this year, Nokia -- the world’s largest cell phone vendor in terms of volumes -- announced that it would start shipping some handsets with Skype pre-loaded.

But caveats abound. For example, in the case of the iPhone, Skype voice calls can be made only over Wi-Fi, not cellular. That should help reduce the amount of voice revenue that wireless carriers would lose if iPhone customers could make Skype calls over cellular.

Even so, some cellular carriers are blocking Skype. One example is T-Mobile, which has exclusive rights for the iPhone in Germany.

“There are two reasons for this -- because the high level of traffic would hinder our network performance, and because if the Skype program didn’t work properly, customers would make us responsible for it,” a T-Mobile spokesperson says.

Other carriers -- such as AT&T and the U.K.’s O2 -- are allowing their iPhone customers to use Skype. Why don’t they view it as a threat? One reason is because very few carriers sell only a data plan for cell phones, so customers still have to spend at least $30 per month for voice service.

But carriers could take a revenue hit if some customers -- particularly those who have a lot of friends and colleagues on Skype -- downgrade their voice plans to the cheapest offering because they now can make the majority of their calls for free over Wi-Fi.

Those voice revenue losses wouldn’t necessarily be offset by more data spending if most people who would use mobile Skype already have an unlimited data plan for cellular, Wi-Fi or both. In those cases, mobile Skype probably isn't going to prompt many data plan upgrades.

Source

Channel 4 traffics in Skype

2009-04-04T22:19:00.000+05:00

As has been noted in this space a time or ninety, traditional media outlets beset by revenue shortfalls have been aggressively cutting costs -- and not all of these efforts have been invisible to news consumers. An example, and a likely harbinger of the future, turned up earlier today during Channel 4's strong morning news program. A Lynn Carey report about traffic conditions on this unsettled Monday was accompanied by footage transmitted via Skype, a product that allows users, be they individuals or companies, to communicate for free by phone or video.

Skype's technology is impressive and cost-effective, and more and more TV operations -- including Oprah -- are making it a regular part of their presentations. But it doesn't work in every situation. The Channel 4 traffic shot, as seen through the windshield of a car, was fuzzy and indistinct, the moisture-splashed glass and sweeping wiper blades reducing the world beyond to a surrealistic blend of lights and colors -- sort of like one of those montages from '60s-era teensploitation flicks meant to convey the effects of LSD. Talk about a bad trip.

Samsung introduces Mondi, the first WiMax 'Mobile Internet Device'

2009-04-03T23:51:00.000+05:00

Samsung Telecommunications America announced the first WiMax-enabled Mobile Internet Device (MID) today at the International CTIA Wireless conference.

Called the Mondi, the touch-screen, pocket-size device is designed for use on the Clear mobile WiMax network from Clearwire, Samsung officials announced on Tuesday evening. Mondi derives its name from the Latin word for "world."

No price was announced, but it will be available at Best Buy and Clear stores, as well as Samsung's online store sometime in the second quarter, Samsung officials said. The black-slider form factor of the Mondi device extends horizontally to reveal a full QWERTY keyboard and an optical mouse. It runs the Opera 9.5 Web browser and has a 4.3-in. touch screen.

The Mondi runs on the Windows Mobile 6.1 operating system. In addition to WiMax, it connects to Wi-Fi, as well as GPS and Bluetooth 2.0. It has a 3.0-megapixel camera and camcorder, and comes with 4GB of internal memory. Other specifications were not released.

"The Mondi provides the power of a laptop but easily fits in the hand or a pocket," said Omar Khan, senior vice president of strategy and product management at Samsung.

Clearwire now operates mobile WiMax service in Portland, Ore., and Baltimore and expects to launch in 80 markets by 2010.

Khan said Samsung supports WiMax networks globally and felt the need to build a WiMax product even though the capabilities of Clear in the U.S. are still in an early stage.

Samsung's Mondi sports a 4.3-in. touch screen.

"We do believe it's important to support WiMax to take advantage of 4G speeds," Khan said. "Everything starts at a nascent stage, and the Mondi is our first [device] to support that."

He said the Mondi was not a phone, and does not provide voice services. However, Khan left open the possibility of future voice support in the Mondi or other products, saying that Samsung's road map provides for dual-network mode capability with WiMax and other networks he did not name.

Khan said that Samsung was "on track" to provide Android devices in the second half of the year.

And regarding LTE, a future competitor to WiMax, he said Samsung was cooperating with LTE carriers on trials of that technology. "We are committed to being a leader in both WiMax and LTE," Khan said.

Asked whether Samsung devices would run Windows applications across other operating systems, Khan said Samsung was releasing a software developer kit next month as part of its Samsung Mobile Innovator Program to foster creation of widgets that would allow Windows to run on Android or Symbian.

Under that strategy, the browser in the device will run applications and not the operating system, he said.

Source

iPhone is now your medical assistant

2009-03-29T00:10:00.000+05:00

Picture this: you are away on business, but your doctor only gave you the go-ahead with the condition that you need to monitor your blood pressure or your blood sugar levels and keep your doctor informed about your status at regular intervals. Sounds cumbersome? It may not be soon.

Apple’s announcement last week of a new operating system for the iPhone – iPhone OS 3.0 – comes with new capabilities and applications that will make these activities a breeze for iPhone users. Aside from being your mobile business assistant, the iPhone may also become your medical assistant in the near future.

Two of the more interesting applications are for blood pressure and blood sugar monitoring. A blood-pressure cuff can be plugged into the iPhone connector, and an application will then take care of delivering the controls needed for inflating the cuff and measuring a person’s blood pressure. If you think that’s amazing, the iPhone OS 3.0 will take this one step further, by having the ability to send the results to the person’s attending physician using 3G technology. This way, the doctor can perform remote real-time monitoring of a person’s medical status and make changes to medication as soon as it is needed.

The other application is for testing blood sugar levels. The application can tie a blood glucose test to an iPhone. The connection will enable a diabetic iPhone user to download the results where it can be read as a graph.

The iPhone will also have the ability to connect the user to real-time information which will help determine whether there is a need to adjust insulin or medicine intake, as well as to other iPhone users or community of experts who can provide feedback and input on how to manage diabetes.

Source

The Wine development release 1.1.18 is now available.

2009-03-28T23:22:00.000+05:00

What's new in this release (see below for details):
- RPC over HTTP support.
- Improved support for upgrades in MSI.
- Debug symbols in WineDbg on Mac OS X.
- Many Direct3D code cleanups.
- Various bug fixes.

The source is available from the following locations:

http://ibiblio.org/pub/linux/system/emulators/wine/wine-1.1.18.tar.bz2
http://prdownloads.sourceforge.net/wine/wine-1.1.18.tar.bz2

Binary packages for various distributions will be available from:

http://www.winehq.org/site/download

You will find documentation on http://www.winehq.org/site/documentation

You can also get the current source directly from the git
repository. Check http://www.winehq.org/site/git for details.

Wine is available thanks to the work of many people. See the file
AUTHORS in the distribution for the complete list.

----------------------------------------------------------------

Bugs fixed in 1.1.18:

2366 Wine unable to initiallize on NetBSD
4145 Redraw problem in "The Journal"
8072 Media Player Classic segfaults
11507 nwn2 dm toolkit missing graphical elements
11856 Any application: keyboard focus lost after a popup is unmapped, if SCIM is enabled
12225 EVE Premium, graphics glitches: some effects missing.
12723 LEGO Island Xtreme Stunts: always wants to install DirectX8.1
13308 comctrl32 listview toggles election while scrolling with ctrl key
13469 cmd can't handle long input (buffer overflow)
14014 T-Online Browser: Crash on unimplemented Functions (gdiplus.dll)
14080 Red Faction: sound does not work
14139 Governor of poker crashes
14185 Wine 1.0 networking issues - /proc/net/route doesn't exit on Solaris hosts.
14293 winhelp: Vertical scroll bar is missing in some cases
14624 Metal Fatigue: crashes before game start
14703 Null character comparison problem in vb6 application
14711 'Type' command in cmd.exe does not line feed in the end of a file
15356 Textures are not displayed in Final Fantasy XI with an ATI card
15411 Dragon NaturallySpeaking 10 takes a very long time to finish loading
15717 Far Cry 2 quits when OffscreenRenderingMode=fbo
16130 Runes of Magic client doesn't communicate with the server
16394 No sound in ever17 without native msacm32.dll
16570 FineReader 7 Pro: won't save to multiple files.
16941 interrupts cause nested trace output
17183 Not showing any text in one of the textboxes
17499 Sun JRE 1.6.0_12 installer crashes
17683 ExpressPCB: does not properly print circuit board traces
17705 Audiosurf: crashes at startup
17759 CommandLineToArgvW bug with empty lpCmdLine
17822 Logic Friday: crashes when entering equation
17843 Rubbish entries in registry on clean .wine
17854 build broken in rpcrt4 on OpenSolaris

----------------------------------------------------------------

Changes since 1.1.17:

Alexander Morozov (1):
hal: Fix KfRaiseIrql declaration.

Alexandre Julliard (24):
loader: Fix installation for platforms that don't use extra binaries.
ctl3d32: Make ctl3d.dll and ctl3dv2.dll into stand-alone 16-bit modules.
imm32: Make imm.dll into a stand-alone 16-bit module.
wintab32: Make wintab.dll into a stand-alone 16-bit module.
wnaspi32: Make winaspi.dll into a stand-alone 16-bit module.
twain_32: Make twain.dll into a stand-alone 16-bit module.
rasapi32: Make rasapi16.dll into a stand-alone 16-bit module.
winmm: Make sound.drv into a stand-alone 16-bit module.
winnls32: Make winnls.dll into a stand-alone 16-bit module.
w32skrnl: Make win32s16.dll into a stand-alone 16-bit module.
w32skrnl: Make w32sys.dll into a stand-alone 16-bit module.
winebuild: Make sure main module is properly initialized.
configure: Always set LDPATH, rpath support is broken on many platforms.
wineps.drv: Set the line join and cap styles based on the selected pen.
avifil32: Make avifile.dll into a stand-alone 16-bit module.
wininet/tests: Fix the http tests for the new winehq.org behavior.
winebuild: Skip non-functions when building the undefined exports file.
kernel32: Revert incorrect part of commit 7c3529f1cc6a3ce6f0a403c337926c8fc9fbfc57.
wininet/tests: Fix another instance of changed behavior on winehq.org.
configure: socketpair needs -lsocket on Solaris.
ntdll: Get rid of the no longer used pthread emulation.
include: Get rid of the definitions for the pthread emulation.
msi/tests: Avoid size_t in traces.
rpcrt4: Disable HTTP support if we don't have socketpair and related networking functions.

Anders Jonsson (1):
wordpad: Update Swedish translation.

Andrew Nguyen (5):
tapi32: Stub lineGetDevCapsW.
tapi32: Stub lineMakeCallW.
tapi32: Stub lineGetIDW.
wine.inf: Add entry for fake ddeml.dll.
ddraw/tests: Skip some cooperative level tests on NT4/Win95.

Andrew Talbot (7):
shell32: Remove uninitialized and superfluous struct.
winex11.drv: Remove order-of-evaluation dependencies.
wineps.drv: Remove order-of-evaluation dependencies.
ntdll: Remove superfluous semicolon.
winedos: Initializations fix.
advapi32: Constify some variables.
advapi32: Constify some variables.

Aric Stewart (10):
kernel32: Report unixfs instead of ntfs for unknown filesystem type.
propsys: Stub for PSUnregisterPropertySchema.
msi: Reorder the condition operators so that longer strings are matched first.
msctf: ThreadMgr sink framework.
msctf: Define ITfTextInputProcessor. Implemented by the Text Services.
msctf: Add ITfThreadMgrEventSink to ThreadMgr.
msctf: Hook up the DocumentMgr to be able to forward ITfThreadMgrEventSink events to sinks advised to the ThreadMgr.
msi: Verify the existence of fusion.dll before reporting the .Net version.
advapi32: Stub TreeResetNamedSecurityInfo for the IE8 installer.
msctf: Implement ThreadMgr ITfSource::UnadviseSink.

Aurimas Fischer (5):
mshtml: Update Lithuanian translation.
uninstaller: Add Lithuanian translation.
reg: Add Lithuanian translation.
start: Add Lithuanian translation.
wineboot: Add Lithuanian translation.

Austin English (3):
winegcc: Fix a compiler warning on PC-BSD.
twain32: Fix a compiler warning on PC-BSD.
rpcrt4/test: Change a skip to win_skip.

Christian Costa (3):
d3dxof: Remove limitation on data buffer size.
amstream: Implement IAMMultiMediaStreamImpl_GetFilterGraph.
kernel32: Add stub for GetSystemTimes.

Dylan Smith (3):
richedit: Add bounds checks for EM_GETTEXTRANGE with tests.
winhlp32: Invalidate scrollbar when changing pages.
richedit: Properly handle lack of semicolon after font name in rtf.

Francois Gouget (1):
wineesd.drv: Remove esd_host as it is unused.

Hans Leidekker (13):
msi: Add stub implementations of MsiDeterminePatchSequenceA/W.
msi: Implement MsiReinstallProductA/W.
msi: Add stub implementations of MsiSourceListClearAllExA/W.
msi: Don't initialize COM for custom action threads.
msi: Only apply a transform when its language id matches the system language id.
winspool: Support special environment value "all" in EnumPrinterDrivers.
msi: Add some tests for MsiQueryFeatureState.
msi: Detect privately installed assemblies.
msvcrt: Implement _vscprintf and _vscwprintf.
msvcrt: Add tests for _vscprintf and _vscwprintf.
msi: Enumerate products from all contexts.
msi: Add tests for MsiEnumProducts.
msi: Allocate token information buffer dynamically.

Henri Verbeet (50):
wined3d: Unload resources on Uninit3D().
wined3d: Compare the actual formats.
wined3d: Set the currently active context to NULL when it's destroyed.
d3d9: Get rid of basetexture.c.
d3d9: Get rid of resource.c.
d3d9: Fix locking.
d3d8: Get rid of basetexture.c.
d3d8: Get rid of resource.c.
d3d8: Fix locking.
d3d10core: Only destroy the device when it doesn't have any references left.
wined3d: Try to make Coverity shut up (CID 863, 905).
d3d8: Properly handle unsetting the pixelshader in SetPixelShader().
d3d8: Cleanup the pixelshader handling code a bit.
d3d8: Cleanup the vertexshader handling code a bit.
wined3d: Set the byte count for WINED3DFMT_UNKNOWN to 0.
wined3d: Remove the bytesPerPixel field from IWineD3DSurfaceImpl and IWineD3DVolumeImpl.
wined3d: Pass format_desc to the Check*Capability() function.
wined3d: Pass format_desc to getColorBits() and getDepthStencilBits().
wined3d: Pass format_desc to set_shader().
shdocvw: Add a stub ITaskbarList implementation.
wined3d: Print a warning when the stage isn't mapped to a valid texture unit in tex_coordindex().
wined3d: Fix the indentation in tex_coordindex().
wined3d: Print a FIXME in tex_coordindex() when NV_TEXGEN_REFLECTION isn't supported.
wined3d: Reduce the number of checkGLcall's in tex_coordindex() a bit.
wined3d: Implement WINED3DTSS_TCI_SPHEREMAP.
wined3d: Make the texunit field in struct stb_const_desc unsigned.
wined3d: Fix a few sign compare warnings.
wined3d: Add a more convenient way to check if a surface is on a swapchain.
wined3d: Don't use rtInternal for surfaces that are on a swapchain.
wined3d: Do the ffp_valid check before even trying to use the element.
d3d8: Fix some indentation.
d3d9: Fix some indentation.
d3d9: Properly initialize the viewport dimensions.
d3d9: Don't depend on specific display modes in test_reset().
wined3d: Remove unused attributes from WineDirect3DVertexStridedData.
wined3d: Simplify remove_vbos().
wined3d: Simplify IWineD3DDeviceImpl_ProcessVertices().
wined3d: Simplify the "transformed" check in state_lighting().
wined3d: Pass the number of components to glVertexBlendARB().
wined3d: Create a separate function for setting basic format info.
wined3d: Create a separate function for checking a format's FBO compatibility.
wined3d: Create a separate function for setting format fixups.
wined3d: Create a separate function for setting a format's GL texture info.
wined3d: Make sure the format actually exists in init_format_texture_info().
wined3d: Use separate structures for ddraw style strided data and wined3d's internal stream info.
wined3d: Remove IWineD3DVertexDeclarationImpl_GetDeclaration().
wined3d: Remove IWineD3DVertexDeclaration_SetDeclaration() from the public interface.
wined3d: Separate the internal representation of vertex declaration elements from the struct used to create it.
wined3d: Don't create an END element for wined3d vertex declarations.
wined3d: Unify vertex and texture formats.

Huw Davies (14):
ole32: Remove unused static variable.
ole32: Don't allocate the ole clipboard object in global memory - we're not going to directly expose it to other processes.
ole32: Add a helper function to retrieve the implementation ptr.
ole32: Rearrange functions to eliminate forward declarations.
ole32: pFmt isn't exposed to the client, so simplify its allocation.
ole32: Simplify QueryInterface.
ole32: Use IsEqualIID rather than memcmp.
ole32: Register DataObject clipboard format.
ole32: Store the ole clipboard window's HWND in the DataObject clipboard format.
ole32: Move the code to set the clipboard formats to a separate function.
ole32/tests: Tests for the 'Ole Private Data' clipboard format.
rpcrt4: Dynamically allocate the buffer if the fixed size one isn't large enough. Don't return an inappropriate error if we fail to get the status text, it's only used for diagnostics.
ole32: OleFlushClipboard shouldn't call EmptyClipboard.
ole32: Set the 'Ole Private Data' clipboard format.

Hwang YunSong(황윤성) (1):
mshtml: Updated Korean resource.

Jacek Caban (4):
urlmon: Code clean up.
urlmon: Return IAsyncMoniker from QueryInterface.
urlmon: Added StdURLMoniker implementation.
urlmon: Fixed handling NULL URLName in GetDisplatName implementation.

James Hawkins (15):
msi: Fix a typo (Coverity 910).
msi: Enumerate the current user's patches if szUserSid is NULL.
msi: Allow the enumeration of other users' patches.
msi: Factor out the MsiEnumPatchesEx tests and test the NULL szUserSid and an szUserSid that is different from the current user.
msi: Test and handle the case where the SourceList key does not exist and the PackageName value does not exist in MsiGetProductInfo.
msi: MsiCollectUserInfo cannot be called from a custom action (Coverity 565, 566).
msi: Don't try to release a NULL record, with tests (Coverity 536).
msi: Handle a NULL and empty szPackagePath in MsiInstallProduct (Coverity 181).
twain_32: Fix the use of an uninitialized variable (Coverity 908).
cmd: Fix a memory leak (Coverity 904).
winebuild: Document the correlation of spec->ordinals and spec->limit with an assertion (Coverity 902).
kernel32: Add tests for WritePrivateProfileString.
kernel32: Set last error to ERROR_FILE_NOT_FOUND if lpAppName is NULL.
kernel32: Handle writing empty sections and keys in WritePrivateProfileString.
kernel32: Don't try to load an empty initialization file.

Kai Blin (1):
quartz/tests: If CoCreateInstance() fails, it's safe to return, as no cleanup is needed.

Ken Thomases (4):
dbghelp: Add support for debugging Mach-O modules.
dbghelp: Recognize .dylib files as Mach-O modules.
dbghelp/stabs: For Mach-O, line numbers use absolute address, not offset.
dbghelp: Include Mach-O modules in minidumps.

Kirill K. Smirnov (1):
mciavi32: Fix typo.

Konstantin Kondratyuk (2):
fonts: Add Bielorussian and Ukrainian symbols to tahomabd.
fonts: Add Bielorussian and Ukrainian symbols to tahoma.

Kusanagi Kouichi (1):
winex11.drv: Make import/export functions static.

Lei Zhang (1):
oleaut32: Fix some corner cases in VarBstrCmp.

Michael Stefaniuc (24):
mshtml: Update the Romanian translation.
mshtml: Convert the German translation to UTF8.
mshtml: Update the German translation.
reg: Change the German translation to UTF8.
reg: Fix/update the German translation.
regedit: Remove commented out STRINGTABLE from the resource files.
regedit: Convert the German translation to UTF8.
regedit: Fix the German translation.
ntdll: Remove superfluous pointer casts.
advapi32/tests: Don't use "long" for variable types.
d3dxof/tests: Use ULONG instead of unsigned long.
d3d8/tests: Use ULONG instead of unsigned long.
d3d9/tests: Use LONG instead of long.
ddraw/tests: Use ULONG instead of unsigned long.
msi: Convert the German translation to UTF8 encoding.
msi: Update the German translation.
msi: Add the Romanian translation.
setupapi: Update the Romanian translation.
gdi32: Use "%p" to TRACE() pointers.
uninstaller: Add the Romanian translation.
msi: Remove redundant NULL check before msi_free (Smatch).
d3dxof: Remove redundant NULL check before HeapFree (Smatch).
crypt32: Change the encoding of the German translation to UTF8.
crypt32: Update the German translation.

Nicolas Le Cam (2):
shell32/tests: Fix a test on Win2k platform and above.
schannel/tests: Fix test on Win2k.

Nikolay Sivov (9):
comctl32/tab: Implement TCM_REMOVEIMAGE.
comctl32/tab: Fix button background filling on TCS_BUTTONS.
comctl32/tab: Implement TCM_[G,S]ETEXTENDEDSTYLE and TCS_EX_FLATSEPARATORS style.
comctl32/trackbar: Fix reverting to default value for TBM_SETPAGESIZE with lParam = -1.
comctl32/ipaddress: Store current IP address text as a window text for IP Address control.
comctl32/listview: Some tests for LVM_GETSUBITEMRECT.
comctl32/tab: Draw tab button properly on TCIS_BUTTONPRESSED state.
comctl32/tab: Handle state mask in TCM_[G,S]ETITEM.
comctl32/tab: Selected item should have TCIS_BUTTONPRESSED state.

Patrick Gauthier (1):
user32/tests: Check effect of magic font height value 0x7fff in dialog template.

Paul Vriens (6):
urlmon/tests: Fix a test failure on Vista and higher.
riched20/tests: Fix and extend EM_FORMATRANGE tests.
winspool.drv/tests: Fix a test failure on NT4 and below.
comctl32/tests: Fix a crash on W2K and below.
kernel32/tests: Fix crash on NT4 and higher.
kernel32/tests: Fix some test failures on NT4 and below.

Rein Klazes (3):
user32/tests: In sysparams.c disable some Get/Set border tests for now. These may permanently change desktop settings of the testers.
user32: In MENU_SuspendPopup() make sure the right message is removed.
user32/tests: Show that a submenu is still functional after calling DestroyMenu().

Ricardo Filipe (2):
setupapi: Remove invalid check for < MAX_PATH and don't copy to NULL PathBuffer (Coverity 888).
comdlg32: Send CDN_INCLUDEITEM notification for each object in an Open/Save dialog.

Rob Shearman (18):
widl: Check the attributes applied to function declarations.
widl: Output correct code for freeing of conformant-sized and non-conformant strings.
widl: Initialise ref pointers to basic and enum types to 0 in generated server code.
rpcrt4: Free the resources associated with server protocol sequences on DLL unload.
rpcrt4: Simplify some code in RpcServerInqBindings by changing while loops into for loops.
rpcrt4: Implement NdrRangeUnmarshall for enum types.
rpcrt4: Fix a memory leak in union unmarshall functions by never passing fMustAlloc=TRUE into union_arm_unmarshall.
services: Add a ref count to the service entry in svcctl_CreateServiceW.
advapi32: Trace the contents of the in parameter to GetServiceKeyNameW, not the out parameter.
services: svcctl_GetServiceDisplayNameW and svcctl_GetServiceKeyNameW should have string attribute on output buffer.
services: Always initialise the out buffer in svcctl_QueryServiceStatusEx and svcctl_QueryServiceConfig2W.
rpcrt4: Fix crash when calling RpcServerUseProtseq for ncacn_np and ncalrpc.
rpcrt4: Implement stubless asynchronous NDR interpreter.
rpcrt4: Implement RPC over HTTP support.
widl: Include the version number in the __WIDL__ preprocessor definition.
rpcrt4: Re-use already registered endpoints for a protocol sequence.
rpcrt4: Allow listening on dynamically generated ncacn_ip_tcp endpoints.
rpcrt4: Ensure that only the IP/IPv6 address families are considered in rpcrt4_protseq_ncacn_ip_tcp_open_endpoint/rpcrt4_ncacn_ip_tcp_open.

Robert Reif (1):
dsound: Fix uninitialized variable.

Roderick Colenbrander (2):
wined3d: Add WGL_ARB_pixel_format detection.
wined3d: Add a classic WGL pixel format backend as not all OpenGL implementations support WGL_ARB_pixel_format.

Roman Mindalev (3):
ntdll: Check for arch and name fields in assembly_identity structure.
ntdll: Free memory for type field of an assembly_identity.
ntdll: Move search for assemblyIdentity element.

Stefano Guidoni (1):
winemp3: Fixed mpeg3_streamsize.

Vincent Povirk (1):
gdiplus: Support line gradient brushes in GdipFillPath.

Vitaliy Margolen (1):
shell32: Fix number of returned arguments from CommandLineToArgvW with empty string.

William Waghorn (2):
msadp32: Refuse unknown destination format.
imaadp32: Refuse unknown destination format.

--
Alexandre Julliard

Source
julliard@winehq.org

Biggest mistake for IPv6: It's not backwards compatible, developers admit

2009-03-28T11:45:00.000+05:00

SAN FRANCISCO - The Internet engineering community says its biggest mistake in developing IPv6 - a long-anticipated upgrade to the Internet's main communications protocol - is that it lacks backwards compatibility with the existing Internet Protocol, known as IPv4.

At a panel discussion held here Tuesday, leaders of the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) admitted that they didn’t do a good enough job making sure native IPv6 devices and networks would be able to communicate with their IPv4-only counterparts when they designed the industry standard 13 years ago.

"The lack of real backwards compatibility for IPv4 was the single critical failure," says Leslie Daigle, Chief Internet Technology Officer for the Internet Society. "There were reasons at the time for doing that…But the reality is that nobody wants to go to IPv6 unless they think they’re friends are doing it, too."

Originally, IPv6 developers envisioned a scenario where end-user devices and network backbones would operate IPv4 and IPv6 side-by-side in what’s called dual-stack mode.

However, they didn’t take into account that some IPv4 devices would never be upgraded to IPv6, and that some all-IPv6 networks would need to communicate with IPv4-only devices or content.

IPv6 proponents say the lack of mechanisms for bridging between IPv4 and IPv6 is the single, biggest reason that most ISPs and enterprises haven’t deployed IPv6.

"Our transition strategy was dual-stack, where we would start by adding IPv6 to the hosts and then gradually over time we would disable IPv4 and everything would go smoothly," says IETF Chair Russ Housley, who added that IPv6 transition didn’t happen according to plan.

In response, the IETF is developing new IPv6 transition tools that will be done by the end of 2009, Housley said.

"The reason more IPv6 deployment isn’t being done is because the people who are doing the job found that they needed these new transition tools," Housley said. "These tools are necessary to ease deployment."

IPv6 is needed because the Internet is running out of IPv4 addresses. IPv4 uses 32-bit addresses and can support approximately 4.3 billion individually addressed devices on the Internet. IPv6, on the other hand, uses 128-bit addresses and can support so many devices that only a mathematical expression - 2 to the 128th power - can quantify its size.

Experts predict IPv4 addresses will be gone by 2012. At that point, all ISPs, government agencies and corporations will need to support IPv6 on their backbone networks. Today, only a handful of U.S. organizations – including the federal government and a few leading-edge companies like Bechtel and Google - have deployed IPv6 across their networks.

Richard Jimmerson, chief information officer for the American Registry for Internet Numbers, says demand for IPv4 address space has not slowed down despite the global economic meltdown.

Jimmerson said he’s seen a shift among network operators during the last year as it has become clear that IPv4 addresses are truly running out. "They’re further along in moving towards acceptance of IPv6," he said.

When IPv4 addresses run out, ISPs and enterprises will require several new transition mechanisms to bridge between IPv4 and IPv6 devices, IETF leaders say.

The transition mechanisms under development by the IETF are:
* Dual-Stack Lite, a technique developed by Comcast that allows for incremental deployment of IPv6. With Dual-Stack Lite, a carrier would give new customers special home gateways that take IPv4 packets from their legacy PCs and printers and ship them over an IPv6 tunnel to a carrier-grade network address translator (NAT).

* NAT64, a mechanism for translating IPv6 packets into IPv4 packets and vice versa. A related tool, dubbed DNS64, allows an IPv6-only device to call up an IPv4-only name server. These two tools would allow an IPv6 device to communicate with IPv4-only devices and content.

The IETF also is considering work that would allow ISPs to share a single public IPv4 address among multiple users.

"We need to take a two-pronged approach," says Alain Durand, director of IPv6 architecture and Internet governance in the Office of the CTO for Comcast. "We need to embrace IPv6, but we also need to build an IPv6 transition bridge that will allow for sharing of IPv4 addresses and IPv4 and IPv6 tunneling."

Durand says these transition mechanisms are required so that IPv6 "can be deployed incrementally."

Jari Arkko, an engineer with Ericsson Research, says the IETF community has shown "tremendous interest" in developing these IPv6 transition mechanisms.

These mechanisms aren’t about "extending IPv4 for eternity," Daigle says. "We still need to be doing this to make sure that we can do a global transition from a primarily IPv4 network to a primarily IPv6 network."

The overall message of the IETF panel was that network operators need to plan for IPv6 deployment whether they like it or not

IETF leaders say the networking industry is starting to accept that they have to migrate to IPv6, even if it doesn’t offer any concrete business advantages.

"People are deploying, albeit slowly," says Kurtis Lindqvist, CEO of Netnod Internet Exchange in Stockholm. "The core networks are already capable of IPv6…Our biggest challenge is to make the transition work."

Daigle says the business case for IPv6 is simple: If companies want to have Internet applications that continue to work and scale, they need to deploy IPv6.

"IPv6 is the path forward," Daigle says. "There are a lot of technologies being discussed and being promoted for extending the use of IPv4 but that really is a bridging mechanism because the path forward is IPv6."

Daigle says the time for CIOs to start planning for IPv6 is now, before IPv4 addresses are depleted.

Network operators need "`to be aware of [IPv6] and accept it as coming and look forward to it as coming," Daigle says. "If at this point, IPv6 is not in your refresh cycle planning, it should be. If you haven’t done a review of what applications would be impacted in a heavily NAT-ted world or in an IPv6 world, you should."

Source

Apple iPhone 3.0 event tomorrow might reveal a tablet

2009-03-17T08:55:00.000+05:00

The Apple iPhone 3.0 event tomorrow might have more surprises than are immediately apparent. Especially in relation to a tablet. Here's my hypothesis why:

I've got a pretty good idea that Apple is going to be releasing more iPod touch/iPhone platform devices. Why? Well, for one, they've said so in a job posting at the end of last year.

The software developed by the networking team runs on a broad spectrum of platforms, including Macs and Windows, and from servers down to a growing number of embedded devices including iPhone.

Mockup via this blog

So, that "growing number of embedded devices" I think will be a ten inch tablet. The ten inches figure I get from the three different reports out of China that Apple is developing a touch screen in the 9.5-10 inch area for release in Q3 (summer).

I don't think Apple is going to try to compete with the Netbook market directly. Apple has a big lead in touch technology and probably needs to innovate in other ways rather that release a similar type of product to a mature market.

The timing? Well, if this thing has to be put on a device in late Summer, Apple will probably want some software to run on it...probably even an App Store. If so, developers will need at least a few months to get their apps to run on this new little device. That means they should probably start right about now.

Then there has been the persistent "premium app store" rumors. Paying $20 for an iPhone app seems silly to me with so many great $5-$10 apps all around. But if an Apple tablet can handle hi res 3D gaming, it might make more sense. Current App Store apps should also run on it but in a resolution independence type of mode. This type of app would also be able to play on a new AppleTV OS with App store as well.

I think Apple's devices (even if not a tablet) will be based on the ARM Cortex A8 architecture like that of the Palm Pre. The video card will be from Imagination and will hopefully use some of that OpenCL Apple has been touting in its desktop Snow Leopard OS.

If not tomorrow, then soon hopefully.

I'll be here tomorrow liveblogging the event. Please stop by to find out if anything exciting happens.

Updated: Changed to a better mockup via request from comment

Source: ComputerWorld

Sony reorganizing their business - President to step down

2009-03-02T23:00:00.000+05:00

Sony has really had to face the brunt of an economy in recession - their product launches over the past year have all not been as significant as hoped, making them revise their projected losses to $2.9Billion - over double their previous projections of $1.1Billion.

They are now restructuring their organization to build two distinct business arms: the Networked Products and Services group (combining Playstation, Vaio and Walkman businesss into one unit) and the Consumer Division (focusing on TVs, digital imaging, home audio/video).The Chairman Howard Stringer is also taking the role of President now, hoping to spearhead the organization back to a more innovative track - here is what he has to say:

“This reorganisation is designed to transform Sony into a more innovative, integrated and agile global company with its next generation of leadership firmly in place. Consumers want products that are networked, multi-functional and service-enhanced utilising open technologies, and user experiences that are rich, shared and, increasingly, green.”

Hopefully this restructuring will bring their big divisions together for a stronger market presence than they have seen in the past 3 years. Such integration is necessary for them to ensure that the business lines don’t go off on their own tangents, and can reinforce each other by offering powerful combined services - e.g. their online content distribution system, the PlayStation Network.

We’ll find out about the implications of the restructuring soon enough - but for now, here’s hope that their new President will make the right decisions for putting their brand back on the consumer radar after losing significant market share to Microsoft and Nintendo.

Click for Orignal Article

How to Downgrade Baseband 2.30.03 to 2.28.00

2009-03-02T22:57:00.000+05:00

Since firmware 2.2.1 came out and updated the baseband from 2.28.00 to 2.30.03, many people accidentally updated, and are now stuck on baseband 2.30.03. I wonder how you can “accidentally update” your firmware as it takes a few steps, but anyways… I’ve had a few emails from people asking me how to downgrade baseband 2.30.03 to 2.28.08.

If you’re looking to unlock your iPhone with yellowsn0w, you can’t do that as long as you will on baseband 2.30.03. Unfortunately, you can not downgrade baseband 2.30.03 to 2.28.00! Sorry folks but you should have read the Dev Team’s warning!

Now the good news is that I’m very confident the Dev Team is working on updating YellowSn0w so it works with firmware 2.2.1, baseband 2.30.03.

You can still downgrade your firmware from 2.2.1 to 2.2 in iTunes by hitting SHIFT + RESTORE and selecting firmware 2.2 but you will most likely have errors and even if you manage to downgrade, you still won’t be able to downgrade the baseband.

Click for Orignal Article

Caught on film - India 'not shining'

2009-03-02T22:54:00.000+05:00

The night before the Oscars, in India, we were re-enacting the last few scenes of Slumdog Millionaire. The ones in which vast crowds of people – poor people – who have nothing to do with the game show, gather in the thousands in their slums and shanty towns to see if Jamal Malik will win. Oh, and he did. He did. So now everyone, including the Congress Party, is taking credit for the Oscars that the film won!

The party claims that instead of India Shining it has presided over India 'Achieving'. Achieving what? In the case of Slumdog, India's greatest contribution, certainly our political parties’ greatest contribution is providing an authentic, magnificent backdrop of epic poverty, brutality and violence for an Oscar-winning film to be shot in. So now that too has become an achievement? Something to be celebrated? Something for us all to feel good about? Honestly, it's beyond farce.

And here’s the rub: Slumdog Millionaire allows real-life villains to take credit for its cinematic achievements because it lets them off the hook. It points no fingers, it holds nobody responsible. Everyone can feel good. And that’s what I feel bad about.

So that’s about what’s not in the film. About what’s in it: I thought it was nicely shot. But beyond that, what can I say other than that it is a wonderful illustration of the old adage, ‘there's a lot of money in poverty’.

The debate around the film has been framed – and this helps the film in its multi-million-dollar promotion drive – in absurd terms. On the one hand we have the old 'patriots' parroting the line that "it doesn't show India in a Proper Light' (by now, even they’ve been won over thanks to the Viagra of success). On the other hand, there are those who say that Slumdog is a brave film that is not scared to plum the depths of India 'not-shining'.

Slumdog Millionaire does not puncture the myth of ‘India shining'— far from it. It just turns India 'not-shining' into another glitzy item in the supermarket. As a film, it has none of the panache, the politics, the texture, the humour, and the confidence that both the director and the writer bring to their other work. It really doesn’t deserve the passion and attention we are lavishing on it. It's a silly screenplay and the dialogue was embarrassing, which surprised me because I loved The Full Monty (written by the same script writer). The stockpiling of standard, clichéd, horrors in Slumdog are, I think, meant to be a sort of version of Alice in Wonderland – ‘Jamal in Horrorland’. It doesn't work except to trivialize what really goes on here. The villains who kidnap and maim children and sell them into brothels reminded me of Glenn Close in 101 Dalmatians.

Politically, the film de-contextualises poverty – by making poverty an epic prop, it disassociates poverty from the poor. It makes India’s poverty a landscape, like a desert or a mountain range, an exotic beach, god-given, not man-made. So while the camera swoops around in it lovingly, the filmmakers are more picky about the creatures that
inhabit this landscape.

To have cast a poor man and a poor girl, who looked remotely as though they had grown up in the slums, battered, malnutritioned, marked by what they’d been through, wouldn't have been attractive enough. So they cast an Indian model and a British boy. The torture scene in the cop station was insulting. The cultural confidence emanating from the obviously British 'slumdog' completely cowed the obviously Indian cop, even though the cop was supposedly torturing the slumdog. The brown skin that two share is too thin to hide a lot of other things that push through it. It wasn’t a case of bad acting – it was a case of the PH balance being wrong. It was like watching black kids in a Chicago slum speaking in Yale accents.

Many of the signals the film sent out were similarly scrambled. It made many Indians feel as though they were speeding on a highway full of potholes. I am not making a case for verisimilitude, or arguing that it should not have been in English, or suggesting anything as absurd as 'outsiders can never understand India.' I think plenty of Indian filmmakers fall into the same trap. I also think that plenty of Indian filmmakers have done this story much, much better. It's not surprising that Christian Colson – head of Celedor, producers of ‘Who Wants to be a Millionaire?’ – won the Oscar for the best film producer. That's what Slumdog Millionaire is selling: the cheapest version of the Great Capitalist dream in which politics is replaced by a game show, a lottery in which the dreams of one person come true while, in the process, the dreams of millions of others are usurped, immobilizing them with the drug of impossible hope (work hard, be good, with a little bit of luck you could be a millionaire).

The pundits say that the appeal of the film lies in the fact that while in the West for many people riches are turning to rags, the rags to riches story is giving people something to hold on to. Scary thought. Hope, surely, should be made of tougher stuff. Poor Oscars. Still, I guess it could have been worse. What if the film that won had been like Guru – that chilling film celebrating the rise of the Ambanis. That would have taught us whiners and complainers a lesson or two. No?

Arundhati Roy
DAWN

Advertising Info

2009-03-01T19:44:00.002+05:00

You can advertise your business on the available ads unit, (One top banner, 3 slots on top-right, and a vertical banner in the bottom left) for as low as $5/week only. This is a limited time inauguration offer.

For finalization and further details, please contact at m.hamzazafar@gmail.com