Microsoft's CodePlex Foundation leader soaks in stinging critique

After a stinging critique from a noted expert in establishing consortia, the leader of Microsoft's new CodePlex Foundation says such frank evaluation is welcome because the open source group's structure is a work in progress. The CodePlex Foundation's aim is to get open source and proprietary software companies working together. Sam Ramji, who is interim president of the CodePlex Foundation, was responding to last week's blog by Andy Updegrove, who said the group has a poorly crafted governance structure and looks like a sort of "alternative universe" of open source development.

Updegrove, a lawyer, noted expert on standards, and founder of ConsortiumInfo.org, laid out in a blog post five things Microsoft must change if it wants CodePlex to succeed: create a board with no fewer than 11 members; allow companies to have no more than one representative on the Board of Directors or Board of Advisors; organize board seats by category; establish membership classes with rights to nominate and elect directors; and commit to an open membership policy. He added, however, "There are some best practices [for running the boards of non-profits] that we are not as familiar with as we would want to be." Slideshow: Top 10 open source apps for Windows  Stephanie Davies Boesch, the foundation's secretary and treasurer, is the only board member with experience sitting on a non-profit's board. Despite the stinging tone in Updegrove's assessment, Ramji says he is thankful for the feedback. "Andy's been incredibly generous with his expertise and recommendations," Ramji says. "It is the kind of input and participation we were hoping to get by doing what is probably non-traditional for Microsoft but not necessarily non-traditional for non-profit foundations, which is to basically launch as a beta." For instance, Ramji says that the decision to go with only five people on the board came from Microsoft's experience that larger groups often have difficulty with decision making. Ramji says Updegrove's suggestion to have academic representation on the board was "outstanding. And basically it is re-writable.

We did not think of that." And to Updegrove's point on becoming an open membership organization, Ramji says, "our goal is to become a membership organization and Andy has some excellent recommendations for that."He says the fact that Updegrove took the time to respond "in the format that he did is more proof that there is something worth doing here." Ramji, compares the Foundation's formation to the early days of a software development project. "We have said in these first 100 days we are looking at everything as a beta. Obviously, there are some areas like contributions and licensing agreements we put a lot of time into but even those can be modified." Microsoft announced the foundation Sept. 10 with a stated goal "to enable the exchange of code and understanding among software companies and open source communities." The company seeded the group with $1 million and Microsoft employees dominated the interim board of directors and board of advisors. One is a call for a broad independent organization that can bridge cultural and licensing gaps in order to help commercial developers participate in open source. Ramji says the foundation has spent the past couple of weeks listening to feedback in "Twitter messages, email, and phone calls in order to understand what people hope this can be." Within that feedback two patterns have emerged, Ramji says. The other focuses on creating a place where open source .Net developers can gain strong backing. "Look at projects related to Mono, you also can look at NUnit, NHibernate, we really feel optimistic that the Foundation could help them gain a higher level of credibility in the open source community. Miguel de Icaza, the founder of the Mono project and the creator of the Gnome desktop, is a member of the Foundation's interim board of directors.

They feel they have been lacking that strong moral support," Ramji says. From a high level, Ramji says the Foundation stands as a sort of enabler that helps independent developers, companies and developers working for those companies navigate the nuances and practices of open source development so they can either contribute source code to projects or open source their own technologies. "One suggestion has been that the Foundation should house all the best practices we have seen software companies and open source communities use," said Ramji. "We want to have a place where everyone interested in how to participate can come and read and if they choose they can use our license agreements or can use the legal structure of the Foundation to grant patent licenses and copyrights for developers and derivative works." Those licensing agreements have a distinct focus, Ramji said, on the rights that are related to code that is being contributed and on how to contribute the patent rights on that code. Ramji says the goal is to service multiple projects, multiple technologies and multiple platforms rather than having one specific technology base, which is how most current open source foundations are structured. "It's early days and we have received a lot of good ideas from experts in a variety of fields from law to code to policy that is what we had hoped for," says Ramji. "Someone wrote it is nice to see Microsoft engaging early on without all the answers and to have the community solve what they would like to see. Once those issues are settled, code would be submitted using existing open source licenses. That is satisfying for me and refreshing to others.

This is the right way to proceed." Follow John on Twitter

The six greatest threats to US cybersecurity

It's not a very good day when a security report concludes: Disruptive cyber activities expected to become the norm in future political and military conflicts. From the GAO: "The growing connectivity between information systems, the Internet, and other infrastructures creates opportunities for attackers to disrupt telecommunications, electrical power, and other critical services. But such was the case today as the Government Accountability Office today took yet another critical look at the US federal security systems and found most of them lacking.

As government, private sector, and personal activities continue to move to networked operations, as digital systems add ever more capabilities, as wireless systems become more ubiquitous, and as the design, manufacture, and service of information technology have moved overseas, the threat will continue to grow. " Within today's report, the GAO broadly outline the groups and types of individuals considered to be what it called key sources of cyber threats to our nation's information systems and cyber infrastructures. According to the Director of National Intelligence, a growing array of state and nonstate adversaries are increasingly targeting—for exploitation and potential disruption or destruction—information infrastructure, including the Internet, telecommunications networks, computer systems, and embedded processors and controllers in critical industries. From the GAO: Foreign nations: Foreign intelligence services use cyber tools as part of their information gathering and espionage activities. Criminal groups: There is an increased use of cyber intrusions by criminal groups that attack systems for monetary gain. While remote cracking once required a fair amount of skill or computer knowledge, hackers can now download attack scripts and protocols from the Internet and launch them against victim sites.

Hackers: Hackers sometimes crack into networks for the thrill of the challenge or for bragging rights in the hacker community. Thus, attack tools have become more sophisticated and easier to use. These groups and individuals overload e-mail servers and hack into Web sites to send a political message. Hacktivists: Hacktivism refers to politically motivated attacks on publicly accessible Web pages or e-mail servers. Disgruntled insiders:The disgruntled insider, working from within an organization, is a principal source of computer crimes.

The insider threat also includes contractor personnel. Insiders may not need a great deal of knowledge about computer intrusions because their knowledge of a victim system often allows them to gain unrestricted access to cause damage to the system or to steal system data. Terrorists: Terrorists seek to destroy, incapacitate, or exploit critical infrastructures to threaten national security, cause mass casualties, weaken the U.S. economy, and damage public morale and confidence. The Central Intelligence Agency believes terrorists will stay focused on traditional attack methods, but it anticipates growing cyber threats as a more technically competent generation enters the ranks. However, traditional terrorist adversaries of the United States have been less developed in their computer network capabilities than other adversaries. Testifying before the Senate Judiciary Committee, Subcommittee on Terrorism and Homeland Security today, FBI Deputy Assistant Director, Cyber Division said that while the FBI has not yet seen a high level of end-to-end cyber sophistication within terrorist organizations, it is aware of and investigating individuals who are affiliated with or sympathetic to al Qaeda who have recognized and discussed the vulnerabilities of the U.S. infrastructure to cyber attack; who have demonstrated an interest in elevating their computer hacking skills; and who are seeking more sophisticated capabilities from outside of their close-knit circles. "In addition, it is always worth remaining mindful that terrorists do not require long term, persistent network access to accomplish some or all of their goals.

The likelihood that such an opportunity will present itself to terrorists is increased by the fact that we, as a nation, continue to deploy new technologies without having in place sufficient hardware or software assurance schemes, or sufficient security processes that extend through the entire lifecycle of our networks," Chabinsky said. Rather, a compelling act of terror in cyberspace could take advantage of a limited window of opportunity to access and then destroy portions of our networked infrastructure.

Cyberattacks on U.S. military jump sharply in 2009

Cyberattacks on the U.S. Department of Defense - many of them coming from China - have jumped sharply in 2009, a U.S. congressional committee reported Thursday. That's a big jump. Citing data provided by the U.S. Strategic Command, the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission said that there were 43,785 malicious cyber incidents targeting Defense systems in the first half of the year.

In all of 2008, there were 54,640 such incidents. The committee is looking into the security implications of the U.S.' trade relationship with China. If cyber attacks maintain this pace, they will jump 60 percent this year. It released its annual report to Congress Thursday, concluding that a "large body of both circumstantial and forensic evidence strongly indicates Chinese state involvement in such activities." "The quantity of malicious computer activities against he United states increased in 2008 and is rising sharply in 2009," the report states. "Much of this activity appears to originate in China." "The cost of such attacks is significant," the report notes. Attacks on department systems have been rising steadily for years.

Citing data from the Joint Task Force-Global Network Operations, the report says that the military spent $100 million to fend off these attacks between September 2008 and March 2009. A Defense Department spokesman did not have any immediate comment on the report's numbers Thursday. In 2000, for example, only 1,415 incidents were reported. The department figures are "probably more accurate now," than they were nine years ago, he said. The increase is in part due to the fact that the U.S. military is simply better at identifying cyberthreats than it used to be, said Chris Poulin, the chief security officer of Q1 Labs, and formerly a manager of intelligence networks within the U.S. Air Force. Security experts have long known that many computer attacks originate from Chinese IP (Internet Protocol) addresses, but due to the decentralized nature of the Internet, it is very difficult to tell when an attack is actually generated in China, instead of simply using Chinese servers as a steppingstone. Who knows.

Q1's Poulin says that his company's corporate clients in the U.S. are seeing attacks that come from China, North Korea, and the Middle East. "We do definitely see patterns coming from specific nation states." He said that because China's government has taken steps to control Internet usage in the country, it could probably throttle attacks if it wanted to. "China's defiantly initiating attacks," he said. "State-sponsored? But they're certainly not state-choked."

HP's history of billion-dollar technology buys

HP's news that it would lay down $2.7 billion to acquire network switch maker 3Com not only causes industry watchers to look ahead at what could come of such a deal, but also reminds many of the IT vendor's long history of billion-dollar acquisitions. This way HP will also be able to run its next-generation data centers on 3Com networking equipment. Hottest tech M&A deals of 2009 3Com HP announced on Nov. 11 it would pay big bucks to add 3Com's Ethernet network switches, routers and security products to its ProCurve business. The deal also strengthens HP's converged data center product portfolio vs. that of Cisco and its partners. "It gives HP a core switch - a brand-new core switch," said Steve Schuchart of Current Analysis of 3Com's H3C 12500, which the company is pitting against Cisco's Nexus 7000. "It gives them a real platform to move forward with," Schuchart said in an interview with Network World Senior Editor Jim Duffy, adding that the HP ProCurve 8212 and 5400 series switches didn't really cut the mustard for core applications. "This is newer, bigger and a much more purpose built switch." EDS About 18 months ago in spring 2008, HP announced it would invest $13.9 billion in exponentially expanding its global IT services business via the acquisition of EDS. Aiming squarely at IBM, HP's EDS buy pushed the IT vendor quickly up the list of services providers to land behind IBM as the second largest global outsourcing company worldwide.

He explained that if IBM Global Technology Services is working with a client at the services level, there is more of a chance the customer will buy IBM technology. At the time, industry watchers speculated that HP not only wanted to enhance its services business but also potentially sell more data center equipment via outsourcing deals. "IT services are a big and strategic part of the marketplace and they influence technology purchases downstream," said Ben Pring, research vice president at Gartner, at the time of the deal. If HP can get its foot in the door with more services customers, hardware and software sales could follow. "If HP had a bigger professional services umbrella and footprint, they would get greater access to a very strategic marketplace," Pring said. HP's net gain included automation technology that could be applied to configuring and provisioning physical and virtual components across network, system, storage and application components in a data center. Opsware In 2007, HP paid what some industry watchers said was too much money for data center automation darling - and Marc Andreessen offspring - Opsware.

The acquisition was one of the first significant moves by one of the four market leading management software makers to incorporate broad automation technologies across their product portfolios. "The next big step for the big four management vendors [BMC, CA, HP and IBM] is a move into automation in the areas of active configuration management and dynamic resource allocation. BMC and CA will have to almost spring into the market with a fully shaped technology through acquisition." In fact, HP spending $1.6 billion for the automation software company had the indirect effect of upping the price for Opsware competitor BladeLogic,which BMC later acquired for $800 million. It will be a big disruptive play and a defining technology when they move into automation technologies," said Will Cappelli, a research vice president at Gartner, in an interview with Network World at the time of the deal. "It will be more of a challenge for BMC and CA than for HP and IBM because the latter have server and storage technologies from which they can incrementally grow. Mercury Interactive One of HP's initial moves to broaden its niche network management software, known as OpenView at the time, into a larger IT management software suite involved paying $4.5 billion to buy application management vendor Mercury Interactive. The technology Mercury offered addressed applications from development to quality testing to performance on production networks and would boost HP's management play beyond its OpenView Network Node Manager and Operations products. "None of those deals have been large enough to significantly impact HP's software revenue. HP had been on a buying binge of sorts snapping up smaller management software makers such as Peregrine Systems, Novadigm and Consera Software, but those vendors didn't promise the revenue increase that Mercury could offer, analysts said at the time.

The Mercury acquisition really bumps up HP's software business to where a significant portion of their revenue will now come from software," said Rich Ptak, co-founder and principal analyst at Ptak, Noel & Associates at the time the acquisition was made public. The Mercury buy was expected to increase that to more than $2 billion annually, according to HP. In 2008, HP's software revenue  had reached more than $3 billion. In 2005, HP reported net revenue of $1 billion from its software business. Compaq HP's bid to acquire Compaq in 2002 garnered much industry speculation and concern from customers, but ultimately the two companies came together with their separate computer, printer and server businesses for about $25 billion. At the time, Gartner suggested HP faced many challenges in terms of the respective companies' business and how they might be spun out or eliminated to ensure success going forward. "Both HP and Compaq depend on tactical partnerships with outside vendors to meet their customers' software infrastructure requirements," Gartner concluded. With regulatory approval concerns, product support worries and what was tagged a "sour PC market" at the time, HP received much negative press surrounding its bid for Compaq.

Gartner also said at the time that HP and Compaq didn't have a strong track record in the software infrastructure arena, contrary to CEO Carly Fiorina's assertion that the new HP will set the standard for innovation; and that HP will have to spin off its software businesses to take any kind of lead in the software arena. The deal soon soured for HP, which reported less than five years later losing $48 million in its VeriFone software business. VeriFone In 1997, HP paid about $1.2 billion to acquire e-commerce and smart-card technology maker VeriFone to help customers in the financial services and other industries advance Internet-based business. In 2001, HP sold its VeriFone assets to Gores Technology Group. Follow Denise Dubie on Twitter here.   Do you Tweet?

Pantone releases iPhone App

If you're a designer whose inspiration strikes while you're on the go, Pantone has a new iPhone app for you: myPantone. The app provides the sRGB, HTML, and LAB values on each color swatch, and its cross referencing system lets users identify colors across color libraries. The app gives graphic, multimedia, fashion, interior, and industrial designers the tools to capture, create, and share Pantone color palettes while they're riding the bus to work, waiting on line at the supermarket checkout, or anywhere they happen to be. "MyPantone gives designers the freedom to access Pantone colors anywhere, without the need to be in their office or carry around cumbersome guides," said Andy Hatkoff, vice president of technology licensing for Pantone. "Now with myPantone's Portable Color Memory in their pocket, designers no longer need to agonize trying to recall an exact color." MyPantone gives designers access to all the Pantone color libraries, including the Pantone Matching System for coated, uncoated, and matte stock; the Pantone Goe System for coated and uncoated stock; Pantone Pastels for coated and uncoated stock; and the Pantone Fashion + Home Smart Color system. In addition, myPantone facilitates creation of harmonious color palettes by finding complementary, analogous, and triadic combinations for selected colors.

Once you create a color palette, you can view or share it with others. And, the app can extract colors from any image stored in your iPhone's camera roll or let you choose individual colors from an iPhone photo and match them to specific Pantone colors. For viewing color chips, you can use Pantone's slate of built-in backgrounds or you can use one of your own photos as a background. You can attach text notes or voice annotations, as well. Sharing options include sending color palettes via e-mail, sending palettes to other iPhone users, and sharing via Facebook or Twitter.

You can e-mail palettes as color patches, or as application swatch files for use in Adobe Creative Suite, CorelDraw, and QuarkXPress. MyPantone is available for $10 at the iPhone App Store. Designers can also share their color palettes with other designers by sending them to Pantone's hosted Web site. It is compatible with iPhone OS 3.0 or higher and can also be used with the iPod Touch.

SANS official talks security

This is the second of two parts of an interview of Stephen Northcutt by technologist David Greer. How do you see the evolution of the problem space of information security? Everything that follows is by Messrs Greer and Northcutt with minor edits. (See part 1.) * * * DG: It seems like many of the current security issues are problems that we have been dealing with for decades.

SN: Twelve years ago, we were standing up for a cyber capability for the United States. We do make progress; for instance we now have the Cyber Guardian program and have already graduated the first class. All the things we are saying today and the stuff we are doing to our cyber capability I heard 12 years ago. The attack surface just continues to get larger and larger and larger. We are more connected, so there's a lot more vulnerability points because we are increasingly connected and more code is exposed to potential attacks. So we're dealing with more lines and more kinds of codes.

We are not dealing with that many fundamental problems. There is an ever-greater need for security people who can integrate with the business. The specifics are changing, but the classes of the problems haven't changed very much. I was just trying to explain to someone that the No. 1 thing a manager wants out of a security person is communication skills. Our challenge is to develop people's communications skills. We've done survey after survey after survey.

You can't do business without communication. If we don't put a tremendous amount of attention and simplify, simplify, simplify, we end up with things we cannot manage. I would also say that my personal observation is that people often think complexity is its own reward. This is true on the security level, technology level and organization-process level. SN: A couple of years back I spent some time with the trade organization that represents the 100 largest banks in the U.S. We were trying to do some work around information security risk. DG: How do you see evaluating and managing risk in the security environment today?

More than once I heard the finance guys say "You information security folks have no idea what you're doing in terms of risk management. In finance we know for any set of financial transactions within a few dollars of what our risk is." One of those quants was in the risk management department at Bear Stearns which is gone now. You are using qualitative methods when you need quantitative. The finance folks have an advanced terminology and methodology. We need to make sure in information security we are never arrogant and that we make every effort to present risk to senior management in such a way that they can govern wisely.

I am sure senior management were briefed on the risks, but because house prices and stock prices kept going up they thought this incredible risk of bubble deflation was an acceptable risk and they found out they were wrong. I think there are three parts to that. 1. Start using metrics to measure and quantify risk. Instead of just saying "We might get hacked," we should explain the financial cost of a data breach or the destruction or manipulation of our data.3. Finally, we need to present the information well and at the management level. There are several books such as Andrew Jaquith's "Security Metrics: Replacing Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt" and W. Krag Brotby's "Information Security Management Metrics: A Definitive Guide to Effective Security Monitoring and Measurement"; tools such as security information and event management (SIEM) and vulnerability management products that are internally consistent provide a quantitative score.2. We need to describe risk in terms of the business objectives. I know that is a strength of the MSIA program at Norwich.

DG: As we move toward cloud computing do you see these risks increasing? I think every security person needs to read "The Exceptional Presenter: A Proven Formula to Open Up and Own the Room" by Timothy J. Koegel and "The Cognitive Style of PowerPoint: Pitching Out Corrupts Within" by Edward R. Tufte once every 18 months or so and struggle to apply that information to our lives.

MS won't punish users for switching to hosted software

Microsoft's licensing of internal versions of software vs. their online counterparts won't penalize users for buying on-premises licenses and then switching to online hosted software, according to CEO Steve Ballmer. Ballmer, in a meeting with Network World at the annual SharePoint Conference, said moving between enterprise applications like SharePoint and Exchange deployed internally to versions of that software operated in the cloud by Microsoft will be "seamless." "Customers are saying give me some credit here, this is more like an upgrade than it is like a new buy, give us a little credit,"he said. Ballmer says Sidekick episode 'not good,' but Microsoft ensuring that its online services won't make the same error. Users have been questioning whether they can move licenses online without having to take a credit and renegotiate with Microsoft on licensing terms. "I know it will take them time to get it straight; it is really complicated," said Guy Creese, an analyst with the Burton Group. "They claim software plus services as a mantra and if that is true they need to make it so these two environments [cloud and on-premises] are seamless [from a licensing perspective]." Ballmer said users need to break it down by separating Internet and intranet deployments from cloud and on-premises. "Internet stuff we do is all priced basically per application or per server and it will be priced that way whether it is offered in the cloud, as a service or on-premises," he said. "I think that is pretty clean and I think that is the way that people would like to see things licensed." He said intranet applications are essentially priced by the number of users and that fact is true whether it is in the cloud or on-premises. "So one is user-based and one is application based." But Ballmer said Microsoft will be flexible in the way the company prices cloud versus on-premises.

For example, if a user has a client access license for SharePoint running internally but decides he wants Microsoft to run SharePoint in the cloud, the customer only pays to have Microsoft operate the SharePoint service. "You don't need to convert [the license], you can use your on-premise license and just buy the service capability; that you can do." If you want to transition you can do that too but most of our customers say just let me use the license that I already bought and have you operate this thing for me." Follow John on Twitter: twitter.com/johnfontana He said users that want to come to the cloud can buy the service and use the license they own or they can start in the cloud and buy an integrated license that pays for both the service Microsoft operates and the license. "We designed it to be seamless, in a sense it looks more complicated now because you have two choices." "We have a big enough install base of people that bought licenses that say, 'Hey, when we buy your service we don't want to be re-buying what we have already paid you for in terms of software.' We have to recognize that our customers expect a transition step where we give them credit for the software that they already own," he said.

Apple leaves Chamber of Commerce, citing green policies

Don't look for any Apple executives at the next U.S. Chamber of Commerce mixer wearing any of those "Hello, My Name is..." stickers. The trade group has been a very vocal opponent of current legislative efforts to reduce greenhouse gasses Apple's resignation comes in the wake of comments last week from Chamber of Commerce president Thomas J. Donohue who said that his group supported federal legislation to reduce carbon emissions but criticized a bill passed by the House of Representatives this summer "because it is neither comprehensive nor international, and it falls short on moving renewable and alternative technologies into the marketplace and enabling our transition to a lower carbon future." That was apparently the final straw for Apple, which has made a strong push to reduce the environmental impact of its products in recent years. The computer maker has resigned its membership in the business trade organization, citing opposition to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce's stance on greenhouse gasses. In a letter to Donohue, Catherine A. Novelli, the company's vice president of worldwide government affairs wrote: As a company we are working hard to reduce our own greenhouse gas emissions by relying on renewable energy at our facilities and designing more energy-efficient products for our customers. ... For those companies who cannot or will not do the same, Apple supports regulating greenhouse gas emissions, and it is frustrating to find the Chamber at odds with us in this effort.

The Washington Post reports that three other companies have pulled out of the group because of its climate policy-Pacific Gas and Electric, PNM Resources, and Exelon. Apple's not the only company to part ways with the U.S. Chamber of Commerce over this issue. A fourth company, Nike, resigned from the Chamber of Commerce board, but remains a member. [Hat Tip: SFGate.com's Bottom Line blog]

TwitterPeek: The World's First Twitter-only Device

Mobile e-mail device maker Peek has partnered with Twitter to bring you the world's first dedicated Twitter device: TwitterPeek. TwitterPeek features a 2.7-inch by 4-inch color screen, a full QWERTY keyboard, and no-contract nationwide unlimited wireless coverage. The new handset lets you send and receive tweets and direct messages, follow new users, and view images sent via Twitpic. Available now from Amazon or TwitterPeek.com, this Twitter-only handset sells for $100. That price includes six months of free wireless service; monthly access will set you back $7.95 per month after that.

What TwitterPeek doesn't have From the sounds of it TwitterPeek leaves a lot to be desired. Big spenders, though, can pay $200 up front for TwitterPeek and get lifetime wireless coverage. TwitterPeek allows you to send and receive tweets, but lacks a search function. TwitterPeek is also lacking a Web browser, which means you'll be left out of any conversations happening around a particular blog post or news item. So if plan on using this device to track tweets about your business, you will miss out on any conversations using hashtags-a user-created system of cataloging tweets by subject-or other conversations that don't include an @reply to your company's Twitter account. So a tweet like, "Dog Lovers - you'll Dig this! bit.ly/4prwrb" will be useless on TwitterPeek.

Better Alternatives With so many other Twitter-capable devices out there, I have to wonder about TwitterPeek's appeal. Plans are in the works to allow you to preview Web pages within TwitterPeek, but that will still leave the device crippled if you won't be able to get a complete view of what others are looking at. You can already get Twitter on any smartphone or feature phone with Internet access, and you can also send and receive tweets using SMS. If you don't want to be stuck with high data fees typical of most smartphone plans, there are cheaper alternatives from Peek such as the Pronto for $60. This email-centric device will also let you send text messages, and access Twitter via Ping.fm. So what do you say? It's still a stripped-down device, but at least you can use it for three different functions, all with a cheaper price tag.

Has TwitterPeek got you excited? If I had to guess, I'd say not that many. How many of you out there plan on grabbing one of these devices?

Google Books Won't Hit Digital Shelves Anytime Soon

Google is reportedly working to make its settlement with book publishers more palatable to the court, but even if the deal goes through, consumers are likely a long way from getting out-of-print "orphaned" books onto their e-readers. The government and other parties have raised privacy concerns, worrying about Google's observation of what people read. (And not all authors and publishers are satisfied, although their associations signed on to the deal.) But what really has Amazon, Microsoft and other competitors in a tizzy is the part of the settlement that lets Google sell online access and subscriptions to orphaned books. The settlement, in its current state, would allow Google to make large passages of these books, which are in copyright but whose authors can't be found, searchable on the Web. As the e-reader market heats up, Amazon argues, the Google book settlement would create "a cartel of authors and publishers" who could set pricing and availability without restrictions.

On Friday, the U.S. Department of Justice dealt a blow to Google, the Authors Guild, and the Association of American Publishers, saying the settlement between the three parties violates antitrust and copyright laws. These opponents would have a harder time setting up their own market of orphaned materials because they'd have to create an agreement with publishers and authors from scratch, instead of making a settlement in court. The DOJ advised a U.S. District Court not to approve the settlement unless it is modified. Google and its settlement partners are motivated to quickly address the DOJ's concerns, but delays are inevitable. Though the government seems to want the settlement to go through in the end, the slow pace of government and courts means we could be waiting a long time. It seems unlikely that the deal will be approved on October 7, when the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York has scheduled a hearing on the matter.

All this could take awhile. All parties must agree to any settlement, and even then, the opponents could still make legal challenges. Maybe it's not all bad. With any luck, Google will start selling the orphaned books just as the e-reader glut hits full swing.

Microsoft delivers massive Patch Tuesday, fixes 34 flaws

Microsoft today delivered a record 13 security updates that patched 34 vulnerabilities in every version of Windows, including the not-yet-for-sale Windows 7, as well as in Internet Explorer (IE), Office, SQL Server and other parts of its software portfolio. The closest competitor was December 2008, when the company quashed 28 bugs . "To anyone following Apple, this isn't a big surprise," said Andrew Storms, director of security operations at nCircle Network Security, referring to Microsoft's operating system rival, which typically issues security updates that include scores of fixes. "But this is certainly an unprecedented month for Microsoft." Microsoft ranked 8 of the 13 updates and 21 of the 34 vulnerabilities as "critical," the top rating in its four-step scoring system. The 34 flaws were also a record number for Microsoft, the most holes patched in one sitting since Microsoft switched to a regular monthly update schedule six years ago.

The remainder of the bulletins were judged "important," the next threat level down, while nine of the flaws were also pegged important, and the final 4 were tagged as "moderate." Among today's patches were several for zero-day vulnerabilities - bugs for which exploit code had already gone public. Microsoft patched three vulnerabilities in SMB (Server Message Block) 2, a Microsoft-made network file- and print-sharing protocol that ships with Windows; two bugs in the FTP server that's included with older editions of its Internet Information Services (IIS) Web server; and two in the Windows Media Runtime. One of the zero-day vulnerabilities was undisclosed until today. The flaws in SMB 2 and IIS had been public knowledge since early September, but the Windows Media vulnerabilities included one that Microsoft said was already in the wild, but had not leaked to the usual public sources, such as security mailing lists. More important, it can be exploited in drive-by attack situations, just be getting people to go to a [malicious] Web site." Early last month, Microsoft revealed the SMB 2 vulnerability , but although attack code went public, security researchers have not seen any actual attacks. For that reason, Storms urged everyone to deploy the MS09-051 update, which patches the Windows Media bugs, as soon as possible. "At first glance, [MS09-]051 should be patched immediately," he said. "What's interesting today is that we're learning it's in the wild.

The flaw affects Windows Vista, Windows Server 2008 and preview releases of Windows 7, but not the final edition slated for retail release next week. Microsoft also fixed a slew of flaws today that go back to a programming error in one of its code "libraries," Active Template Library (ATL). The company had acknowledged the error last summer. The FTP flaw , on the other hand, was disclosed by Microsoft Sept. 1, when the company confirmed that its security team was investigating attack code that hit the street on the last day of August. Today's patches quashed three ATL-related bugs in Office and set "kill bits" to disable four or more Microsoft-made ActiveX controls for Windows Live Mail, the MSN Photo upload tool, and various Office document viewers used by Internet Explorer (IE) to display spreadsheets, charts and databases on the Web. "And we have the token IE patches today, too," noted Storms, talking about MS09-054, which plugs four holes, all critical, in Microsoft's browser. As part of today's record update, Microsoft also patched eight vulnerabilities in GDI+, (Graphics Device Interface), a component that debuted in Windows XP and is a core part of Windows Vista and Windows 7, as well as the server-side operating systems, Windows Server 2003 and Windows Server 2008. Hackers could exploit the GDI+ bugs by sending specially-crafted image files in a variety of formats - including BMP, PNG, TIFF and WMF - to a user via e-mail, or by convincing users to visit sites that contain malicious image files.

Included in the four, said Storms, was one apparently accidently disclosed at the Black Hat security conference several months ago. By triggering the vulnerabilities, attackers could then follow up with additional malware to hijack a system or steal data. The audio codec bugs [in MS09-051] will be so much easier to exploit," he reasoned. "I would put the two items in the public domain, MS09-050 [the SMB 2 flaws] and MS09-053 [the FTP bug in IIS] at the top of the list," said Storms. "And then MS09-051 and the IE updates, the latter because those kind of client-side bugs get a lot of attention from attackers." This month's security updates can be downloaded and installed via the Microsoft Update and Windows Update services, as well as through Windows Server Update Services. Storms, however, discounted exploits of the GDI+ vulnerabilities.

China clamps down on Internet ahead of 60th anniversary

Security forces with black masks and machine guns on the streets of China's capital are just the more visible side of a security clampdown in the country this month: there is also its secretive battle to control the Internet. China's newest nuclear missiles will be included in the arsenal of weapons and equipment shown off in the parade, according to state-run media. The heightened security comes ahead of a massive military parade Beijing will hold in the heart of the city next week to celebrate China's 60th anniversary of communist rule, an event the government hopes will showcase the country's development and go untarnished by security threats or shows of dissent. Security measures have included a crackdown this month on online tools that help users circumvent the "Great Firewall," the set of technical measures China uses to filter the Internet, according to providers of the tools. "They put more resources into the blocking," said Bill Xia, president of Dynamic Internet Technology, which makes a widely used anti-censorship program called Freegate. "It has been getting worse and worse this month," he said.

But accessing some of those tools has become more difficult in recent weeks. Many expatriates and savvy locals in China rely on Freegate as well as proxy servers and virtual private networks (VPNs) to bypass blocks that China places on Web sites like YouTube, Facebook and Twitter. China has always blocked IP (Internet Protocol) addresses it believes are used by Freegate, which routes users' communication through foreign IP addresses to grant access to Web sites blocked in China. The moves have left most users unable to use the program, prompting Xia's company to ready an updated version of Freegate that will be available in a few days. But this month it became more aggressive and began blocking a wider range of IP addresses, risking taking down unrelated targets in order to hit more Freegate users, Xia said. China also cranked up its efforts to stifle Freegate ahead of another sensitive date this year: the 20th anniversary of its bloody crackdown on student democracy protests in Beijing's Tiananmen Square in June 1989. Measures China uses to limit access to certain Web sites include altering entries in the DNS (domain name system), which translates URLs like www.google.com into the numeric IP addresses used to relay information online, and resetting a computer's connection when it tries to visit a banned site.

Authorities appear to have stepped up efforts to block other circumvention tools as well. The country's police force also patrols the Internet for sensitive or pornographic content. China-based users of Hotspot Shield, another popular program that encrypts and reroutes online activity, have had problems accessing the program's Web site since last month, a representative of developer AnchorFree said in an e-mail. The company had to switch to a new tunneling protocol when some users recently became unable to connect to any servers, the representative said. "I'm unable to tell you with a 100 percent guarantee what [technical] measures are taken in China to interfere with our service, but these measures are being taken," the representative said. China last month also started blocking the Web site of Blacklogic, a VPN provider, a company representative said, though the Web site can currently be accessed from China.

Not all VPN providers appear to have been affected. Accessing blocked Web sites is fairly easy in China and many users do so through free Web-based proxies. China has mainly blocked free VPNs and proxies while allowing similar paid services, a representative of VPN provider 12vpn said in an e-mail. Most VPN users in China are expatriates, but more local Chinese may be signing up as well. 12vpn and other tool providers said their number of China-based users rose after early July, when China blocked Facebook and Twitter. The southern city of Guangzhou this month ordered Internet service providers to install "security monitoring" software on all servers and threatened punishment for failure to do so, according to government notices posted on the blog of one data center management company. Some VPN providers declined to comment for a news story for fear of drawing China's attention and potential restrictions on VPNs. At least one Chinese city has adopted a further measure to monitor Internet traffic.

Two such software programs, called Blue Shield and Huadun, were recommended in one of the government notices. The software is meant to "create a favorable online environment" for China's National Day celebration next week, the government orders said. Huadun's Web site says the program helps server owners remove illegal and pornographic content from their systems. A representative of the data center company reached by phone said it put the orders on the blog for reference by clients and that the order applied only to Guangzhou. China has long gone through cycles of blocking and allowing access to Web sites such as YouTube and Wikipedia, and updates to Freegate have repeatedly allowed the tool to bypass evolving government security measures against it. Some of China's new security measures could remain in place long after the 60th anniversary celebrations, but others are likely to be lifted.

Still, Chinese users have posted skeptical notes on Twitter about China's newest Internet controls. When asked if Twitter and Facebook would be unblocked after the National Day celebration next week, one user said they would not. "Last year we had the Olympics, this year is National Day (which actually happens every year), and next year is the World Expo," the user wrote. "Actually, every year and every month and every day are sensitive."

The OpenBlockS 600 is a Linux server that fits in your palm

Forget the netbook or the net-top PC: How about a net-server? At 5.2-inches-by-3.1-inches in size - and 1.2 inches thick - the OpenBlockS 600 is about the size of two cigarette packs side-by-side. A Japanese vendor is touting a lilliputian Linux Web server that weighs 8 ounces and consumes just 8 watts.

For non-smokers, that's two iPhones stacked on top of each other. Detailed specs are available online . It comes installed with Plat'Home's own embedded SSD/Linux distribution by default, though customers can also request others such as Debian, Ubuntu, Fedora, Java SE for Embedded and NetBSD. The OpenBlockS 600 is actually the latest in Plat'Home's line of Linux 'micro-servers' first introduced in 2000. The 16-year-old company - headquartered in Tokyo's famed electronics district, Akihabara, and with a sales office in the Silicon Valley - has sold more than 50,000 OpenBlockS devices. Starting at $600, the OpenBlockS 600 from Plat'Home Co. Ltd. includes a 600 MHz PowerPC CPU, 1 GB of DDR2 SDRAM and a CompactFlash slot and 3 USB 2.0 ports for internal and external storage. According to a spokeswoman, customers include banks telecom firms and universities. Its 8-watt draw is about a tenth of even the most-efficient rack servers, claims the company, and lets the device run without a fan. Plat'Home is targeting the latest, fastest OpenBlockS 600 at companies looking for a small-footprint Web server as a more-secure alternative to sending their data outside to a cloud or Web service.

To emphasize the OpenBlockS 600's green cred, Plat'Home is also donating money to a wind energy project in India to offset 1,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions. That means customers "can put them anywhere, or even hide them," the spokeswoman said. The server is encased in a tight aluminum-alloy shell to protect it against drops, cold temperatures and fluctuating humidity.

Microsoft rallies businesses to start Win 7 migrations now

In a last promotional run-up to the Windows 7 release next month, Microsoft is urging business customers to start their upgrades now with examples of customers already using the software, and another acknowledgement that the company learned lessons from how it handled Vista's release three years ago. Additionally, many customers, as has been typical with a major Windows release, opted to wait for the release of the first service pack for Vista to even consider upgrading, and then many others did not move to the OS at all. Microsoft has devoted an unprecedented level of time and attention to making sure business customers will have a smooth migration and reap financial benefits from the new OS, said Microsoft Senior Director of Product Management Gavriella Schuster, in what is likely to be the last of a series of interviews with reporters as the company prepares to release Windows 7 worldwide on Oct. 23. "The real difference that I think people are seeing with Windows 7 is a different level of quality," Schuster said. "We've never reached this level of quality before in terms of performance, reliability, ease of deployment, the tools around it." As she has in previous interviews, Schuster reiterated Microsoft's mea culpa about how the company handled preparing its business customers, ISVs (independent software vendors) and other partners for the release of Vista, which was made available to them in November 2006. At the time, drivers for key hardware and peripherals were not available, and major applications were not compatible.

Schuster assured customers that moving to Windows 7 will be a far smoother process and will set a precedent for how the company will handle desktop OS releases in the future. We have put a lot of effort in really resolving the customer friction point before we come to them [with the OS]. We are being much more proactive and we're saying to customers, 'You don't have to wait.'" Microsoft introduced case studies Monday showing that some customers have taken this advice - among them, Starwood Hotels and Resorts, the city of Miami and Dutch IT services firm Getronics - and are reporting cost-saving benefits because of this decision, Schuster said. In fact, with a release-to-manufacturing version of Windows 7 already in the hands of many business customers, they can begin to move to the OS now. "In the past customers have had to wait for ISV support, they've needed to wait for a service pack release [to deploy Windows]," she said. "Shame on us, we've learned our lesson. Microsoft has a lot riding on Windows 7 after the overall disappointment of Windows Vista and is hoping the OS will jump-start business spending on desktop software. But analysts have said that many companies still using Windows XP don't really have a choice when it comes to migrating to Windows 7 - the question is more of when they will move than if they will.

Many companies put a freeze on IT spending in general in the past year during the recession, and while conditions have improved, companies remain cautious about where they put their money. Overall, customers who have moved already are saving on the time of IT labor devoted to PC management in the range of US$89-$160 per year because of new features in Windows 7, according to the findings of case studies Microsoft released Monday. The OS allows administrators to set policies across multiple desktops for updating software and other features through back-end connections to Microsoft server software that manage these processes, Schuster said. In particular, the city of Miami said it would save $54 per PC per year on power management because of new features in Windows 7 for setting group policies. Microsoft also has changed its plans for a software package that helps customers deploy Windows across multiple desktops, she said. Originally, Microsoft had planned to release a beta of MED-V 2 sometime in the first quarter of 2010, but decided to add Windows 7 support earlier due to customer demand for it, she said.

Microsoft plans to release Microsoft Desktop Optimization Pack (MDOP) 2009 R2 in late October 2009, adding Windows 7 support for all components of the suite except for Microsoft Enterprise Desktop Virtualization (MED-V). That support will come in the first quarter of 2010 with MED-V 1.1 Service Pack 1, Schuster said.

Teradata announcements target public, private clouds

Teradata unveiled a range of data warehousing products and initiatives on Monday, including new public and private cloud deployment options and an upcoming appliance that employs solid-state disks. It employs a free Elastic Mart Builder tool alongside Teradata's workload management software, and is meant to help companies quickly create data marts and analyze information, as well as "control data mart proliferation," Teradata said. The company's new Agile Analytics Cloud is a set of products and services for quickly creating virtualized data marts inside a company's private cloud.

Teradata also announced versions of its Teradata Express software for Amazon's Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) and VMware Player. It is meant for use by developers in nonproduction environments. "We want to make it easier for people to develop analytic applications on the Teradata platform," said CTO Stephen Brobst. Teradata Express provides a feature-limited version of the company's database at no charge. Porting Express to pay-as-you-go cloud infrastructure services like EC2 makes doing so more attractive because companies, particularly smaller ones, don't have to acquire additional hardware, he said. Teradata's appliance uses Intel chips and will scale from between 7 and 200 terabytes of user data.

In addition, Teradata announced an upcoming data warehousing machine called Extreme Performance Appliance 4555. Like Oracle's Exadata 2 product, it uses solid-state drives, which offer better performance than traditional hard disks but are more expensive, although prices are dropping. Teradata is looking for early adopters now and plans to release the appliance in the first half of 2010, according to Brobst. This is "only fair," since Greenplum's initiative echoes what eBay has already done using Teradata technology, Monash added. "It also provides major support for what I think is an extremely sensible trend." Each vendor will bring relative strengths to the table, Monash added. With Monday's announcements, Teradata "hopes to leapfrog" its competitor Greenplum, which recently launched its own "Enterprise Data Cloud" strategy, analyst Curt Monash said in a blog post. Teradata should have an edge in managing virtual data marts versus just physical ones, but Greenplum may do better in regard to pricing and deployment options, he said.

Windows 7 May Spur Virtual Desktops, On and Off the iPhone

Predictions from analysts and virtualization vendors that desktop virtualization will take off during 2010 may be off the mark. VMware, Citrix and a range of other companies are putting clients on smart phones, minimalist thin-client hardware and USB keys in an effort to find something about Virtual Desktop Infrastructures (VDI) that will hook a customer's imagination, says Andi Mann, head of systems and storage-management research at Enterprise Management Associates. "VMware and Citrix both announced support for the iPhone, which is sexier, even though Blackberries have a greater penetration in business," Mann says. "Virtualization on handhelds is a kind of halo project -like the Chevy Corvette that dazzles customers who come in and end up buying a Chevette." The Chevette, in this case, is the aging desktop PC or laptop used by any one of millions of corporate workers stuck with Windows XP and looking to upgrade to Windows 7 when it comes out later this year, says Chris Wolf, virtualization and infrastructure specialist at The Burton Group. "Windows 7 is going to drive a lot of the activity around desktop virtualization for companies that want or need to upgrade to Windows 7," Wolf says. Sales may take off, but the desktop PC may not have much to do with it.

Bulk migrations will take a long time, but many companies will at least begin moving users to the new OS within weeks or months, Wolf says, and will try to avoid spending the money it would take to upgrade every PC while they do it. [ For timely virtualization news and expert advice on strategy, see CIO.com's Virtualization Drilldown section. ] "Strategically, both Citrix and VMware have been planning that Windows 7 would be a major catalyst for desktop virtualization, and have been working toward it for a long time," Wolf says. Citrix Systems demonstrated its iPhone client in May. "Right now, it's a race to produce client-side hypervisors," according to Wes Wasson, chief marketing officer of Citrix Systems. "With that, [enterprise applications] are just a URL to the user. VMware announced more than a year ago that its VMware Infrastructure (VI) Client would run on the iPhone. You could be using a home-office PC or a Mac or a smartphone; as long as the client is there, you have secure access." Racing to an Anywhere Virtual Client Other software and hardware developers are also racing to build add-ons to make virtualization usable, and devices to make it easy to acquire. AppSense, whose code is part of both VMware and Citrix's VDI offerings, stores all that data and code on the server and reloads it all every time that user logs on, no matter through what device the access comes, according to Martin Ingraham, VP of strategy for the company. "We have to make it transparent across all the delivery technologies, so a user can set preferences on one, and go home and sign on using a different one, and have it exactly as they left it," he says.

The User Environment Manager from AppSense, for example, is designed to make a virtual desktop mimic the real thing by allowing end users to make changes, install software add photos, store cookies and do all the other things they'd do on an actual "personal" computer. Competitor Moka Five's desktop suite offers similar functionality adding the ability to personalize PCs and Macs without disturbing the "golden" PC image on which the company relies. It's just a hub to connect a keyboard, mouse, monitor and other peripherals to a Windows desktop image running in the data center. Thin-client manufacturer Pano Logic sells what it calls a "zero client" that has no CPU no operating system, drivers or moving parts. A starter kit of five, plus one remote USB key that can turn any computer into an authenticated thin client, starts at $1,989. LG Electronics is trying to streamline the hardware by building a thin client from NComputing a Pano Logic competitor directly into its SmartVine line of LCD monitors. NComputing sells a range of mini- to micro thin computers.

The 19-inch version retails for $199, can save 70 percent on maintenance, 60 percent on hardware and 90 percent on electricity compared to a PC, the company says. Big VDI Question: Management Tools "The hardware can really be anything, which is the great thing," according to Steve Bonney, vice president of business development at Bayscribe, a software developer that builds high-volume, server-based dictation systems for medical facilities. But questions about how to manage those assets, protect intellectual property, and even measure the amount of risk involved are holding many companies back. "The fundamental problem is not getting access to the application from a phone," Mann says. "We can do that with a Web application. Bonney is hoping VMware will push its client out on all the major phone operating systems to save his company development costs and show that even heavy duty applications work on very thin clients if the client is ubiquitous enough. "This will completely reshape the way enterprise IT is done," Wasson says of Citrix' client-side hypervisor. "It shifts the information flow model back to pull-so you're not pushing things at users they don't want, and it simplifies things for IT." Even without the fancy hardware, VDI can save a ton of money for IT in support, capital costs and licensing, Mann says. It's all about the manageability, without that, there's no question it's cool, but no one is really sure if it's practical." Follow everything from CIO.com on Twitter @CIOonline.

Fall HDTV Trends: 3D, Fewer Cables, and Skinny LEDs

Move over, LCD - here comes green, lean LED. Make room, too, for sets that dispense with unsightly cables and get ready for a coming wave of 3D sets. CEDIA (Custom Electronic Design and Installation Association) is the trade group for people who install high-end home entertainment and automation systems, and its annual show has become the venue of choice for consumer electronics companies who want to show off their high-end wares. These are the big HDTV tech trends on display at CEDIA Expo in Atlanta this week.

One of the biggest trends is the emergence of LED backlighting as the upscale replacement for conventional, CCFL LCD screens. But they also cost more than traditional LCDs, so most vendors are continuing to offer LCDs for those on a budget. LEDs are more energy-efficient than LCDs (many sets tout local dimming - the capability to turn down brightness in dark spots - and ambient-light-sensitive displays that get darker in darker rooms). LEDs also dispense with environment-damaging mercury, and their superslim screens are capable of richer color. Either way, the sets are now almost all 1080p (as opposed to the 720p resolutions that dominated the market earlier in the decade. The sets come with either a 46-inch or a 52-inch screen. Sony, for example, announced a new pair of super-skinny Bravia sets, the XBR10 series, with edge-lit LED backlighting.

They boast speedy 240Hz screen refresh technology to make action video look smoother. You hook up all your audio and video sources - set-top boxes, game consoles, home theater receivers - to the transmitter box, which beams their uncompressed signals (1080p and 7.1-channel audio) to the set over the unlicensed 60GHz band. Cutting those Cables The XBR10 sets feature another hot technology: WirelessHD. Designed to eliminate ugly cables dangling from wall-hung sets (although they still need a power cord), WirelessHD sets come with transmitter boxes that have the myriad of inputs usually found on the back of the set. WirelessHD offers vastly more throughput than even the fastest Wi-Fi ; backers say the first products, all based on chips by a company called SiBeam, move about 4GB per second (802.11n tops out at a theoretical rate of 600mbps). But WirelessHD lacks Wi-Fi's range - it can cover only up to 33 feet - which is why it's a cable-replacement technology, not a home networking technology. LG Hops on the LED Train LG Electronics' new SL90 LED sets are also extremely thin - less than 1.2 inches thick, with no raised bezel. All the goodies in the XBR10 series don't come cheap, however; the 46-inch set is expected to run about $4500, while the 52-inch model will go for $500. Sony plans to ship both next month.

They're due out later this fall with price tags of $2599 for the 47-inch model and $2099 for the 42-incher. LG is also bringing three WirelessHD sets to market. A trio of new conventional LCDs, the SL80 series, are somewhat thicker - 1.8 inches - but also less expensive, at $1599 for the 42-inch model, $1,899 for the 47-inch set, and $2799 for the 55-inch display. The top-of-the line 55-inch LED-backlit 55LHX is expected to ship shortly at a suggested price of $4799, while a pair of conventional LCD sets, the LH85 series, are due later this fall for $3199 (55 inches) and $2399 (47 inches). Panasonic Shows WirelessHD set, 3D Technology Panasonic recently began shipping a 54-inch plasma TV with WirelessHD, the TC-P54Z1, which It had announced at the Consumer Electronics Show in January. Insisting that its technology is poised to become the industry standard for 3D, Panasonic said it expects to begin shipping 3D-enabled TVs and Blu-ray Disc players next year.

The set/transmitter bundle runs $5500. However, 3D HDTV took center stage at the company's CEDIA booth, in the form of a mobile theater showing dramatic 15-minute reels that included clips from the Pixar film Up! and sports footage. The technology requires wearing special glasses, which Panasonic says are superior to those provided for 3D movies in theaters. Samsung, meanwhile, has for some time been shipping 3D after-market kits. Panasonic isn't the only vendor to set a stake in 3D. Jeff Goldsmith, Sony Electronics television VP, says the company is committed to 1080p content in 3D. "You can bet that we're bullish on the technology as 2010 approaches," he told reporters at the company's CEDIA news conference. Sharp Thinks Big Sharp's new offerings also include a line of four LED-backlit AQUOS sets, the LE700 series, all 1080p sets ranging in price from $2800 for a 52-inch model to $1100 for a 32-inch set. The 65-inch LC-65E77UN will sell for about $4500 when it ships later this month, Sharp says, and the 60-inch LC-60E77UN will run $3500. JVC, meanwhile, announced only one LED HDTV, a petite 32-incher weighing a mere 12.5 pounds.

The company also announced a pair of larger conventional LCD sets at what the company described as attractive price points, given the dimensions involved. As skinny as one-quarter-inch at its leanest point, the 1080p JVC LT-32WX50 is slated to ship in November - but there's nothing skinny about its price (except maybe the effect on your wallet), which JVC describes as "less than $3000."

Eleven Years of Google: A Look Back

Google has come a long way in its eleven-year history, from its humble beginning as a Stanford University research project in 1998, to the global, multi-billion dollar online presence Google enjoys today. The unique logo illustrated Google's eleven years in operation by adding an extra L to the company's name to form a number eleven. Earlier this week, the company celebrated its 11th birthday and choose to mark the occasion with an all new Google Doodle, a fun take on their colorful identity.

Google's actual founding date is subject to debate. Still others think that Google should recognize September 15, 1997 as its founding date, as that is when Google registered the google.com domain. There are those who think that Google should bring out the cake on the September 4, the day in 1998 that Google filed its incorporation papers and officially became Google, Inc. But despite the debate, Google has celebrated its anniversary on September 27 for the past few years now, making the date somewhat official. Early Days: 1998 With 1997 behind them, founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin dropped the original BackRub moniker in favor of Google, a play on the mathematical term "googol ". With the Google.com domain registered and a healthy $100,000 investment from Sun co-founder Andy Bechtolsheim, the two Stanford students rented out a $1,700 a month garage space in California's Menlo Park.

Any birthday offers the perfect opportunity to reflect on the past, so just what has Google been up to in the last eleven years? With a makeshift office in place, Google made it official and filed for incorporation as "Google Technology Inc" on September 4, 1998. As the rest of year played out, Google began to receive positive support in the press, and the company also hired their first employee, Craig Silverstein. In June, the company released its very first press release, detailing how the firm had secured $25 million of funding. Money And Moving: 1999 Thanks to its growing workforce, the fledgling company moved twice in 1999. Google outgrew its modest garage and relocated briefly to a more suitable location in Palo Alto. During the second half of the year, as the company reached forty employees, Google moved once again to offices in Mountain View, with an in-house chef included.

Growth & Expansion: 2000 2000 was a year of growth, as along with the search engine reaching a milestone of one billion pages indexed, the website also expanded to support over fifteen languages including Chinese, French, German Japanese and more. This year also saw Google drop the exclamation mark from their logo and settling with its now world-famous branding. How things change. At the time this was a big deal, as Yahoo! was once one of the darlings of search, which Google had originally set their eyes on to compete with; mission accomplished? This year (2000) also saw Yahoo! reveal that they will be using Google as their default search provider.

Of course today paints a very different picture as now both Yahoo! and Microsoft are collectively attempting to compete with the search giant that Google has become. With the year drawing to a close it was pretty clear that the search engine was on a meteoric rise, as Google was now handling nearly 100 million search queries a day. Before the year was out Google also found time to launch the immensely successful AdWords program, and their Toolbar browser plug-in. Going Global: 2001 With the search engine now available in over twenty-five languages, it only seemed right that the company would expand on a global level with the opening of its first international office in Tokyo. 2001 also saw Google hire ex-Novell chief executive Eric Schmidt, who started at Google as the Chairman of the Board, before quickly moving on to become the CEO. With the Google search index approaching three billion webpages, it seemed the perfect time to tackle a new type of search: Images. Getting Geeky: 2002 2002 saw Google launch a range of new products, including the shopping tool Froogle, the experimental Google Labs, and the popular Google News service, a product of the company's so-called "twenty percent time". Geeky Google also decided to offer a Klingon translation of the site for all those Star Trek fans out there, bringing the total number of supports languages to over seventy. Google launched its Image Search service in July, and initially had an index of over 250 million images.

Spiderman, Warcraft 3 and pop star Shakira were amongst the most common search terms of the year. It began in February when Google acquired Pyra Labs, creators of the Blogger service, which allowed the masses to publish their thoughts online with ease. The Written Word: 2003 2003 was one verbose year for the search-engine giant. Soon after the acquisition, Google's company name was announced as a recognized verb, to "google it" had become synonymous with search, however Google strived to steer clear of dictionaries and protect their strong brand. Classic books and their film adaptations, such as Lord Of The Rings and Harry Potter, were some of the most searched for terms on Google in 2003. Email, Google Style: 2004 Without a doubt 2004 biggest Google news was the introduction of Gmail.

In December the controversial Google Print was launched: Now known as Google Book Search, the service allows users to view excerpts from thousands of books in digital form. The beta launched on April Fools Day, but Google made sure that Gmails was no joke, offering a then-unheard-of 1GB of storage along with a speedy user experience and the beauty of Google's search technology built right in to your inbox. After five years, Gmail finally disposed of its beta status early in June of 2009. 2004 also saw Google move to its Mountain View, California "Googleplex" headquarters, where the company still resides today. The service launched as a strictly invite-only affair, which resulted in an online gold rush of those hoping to land an invitation. In addition, Google opened a research and development center in Tokyo and a European headquarters in Dublin, Ireland. Mapping The World: 2005 In 2005, Google's ongoing effort to organize the world's information continued as they released Google Maps.

With over three thousand employees, a range or products under its belt and over eight billion items in its search index Google's growth continued to amaze. Sicne then, Google has continually improved the mapping service, adding new features such as satellite views and directions, as well as increasing the number of new searchable locations. Optimized mobile versions of Gmail, Blogger, and Search were also released. Google Earth, a 3D satellite photography-based mapping application, soon followed, further complimenting Google's range of location services. 2005 also saw the release of the iGoogle customizable home page, Google Reader RSS feed manager and Google Analytics. Oh, and could you imagine naming your newborn baby "Google"? It happened 2005. A Message From Chad & Steve: 2006 Ending months of speculation, in late 2006 Google finally revealed that they had bought online video site YouTube in a massive $1.65 billion stock transaction.

Gmail was also made available to all, no longer requiring an invitation. The Growth Continues: 2007 The year started with Google expanding into new territories once again, with Google Maps making its way to Australia and the Google Docs suite of tools being made available in several additional languages. The biggest innovation from Google in 2007 was the addition of street level photography to Google Maps. Naturally, Street View's introduction caused some controversy as it raised quite a few privacy concerns. Dubbed Street View, the service lets you view and explore a number of US locations at street level. Popular search terms in 2007 included the iPhone, Facebook and Second Life.

Going Full Circle: 2008 Last year Google celebrated their tenth year in operation, and showed no signs of slowing down. Since Google acquired YouTube in 2006, the popular video site has grown into an outright juggernaut: Even the Queen of England has her own YouTube channel. The company released its first iPhone application, expanded Street View's coverage to include a number of additional countries, revealed a new version of its Picasa photo management app, and launched Knol, a Wikipedia-type service. The open source Google Chrome appeared in September of last year, and featured a minimalist interface and home page with shortcuts to frequently visited pages-features that have made their way into other browsers since then. In its biggest move of the year, Google announced that it would enter the browser wars with its own take on the humble web browser. Later in the year, Google's foray into software continued as the first ever cell phone to use Android, Google's open-source mobile OS, hit the scene.

So far Google has added offline access to Gmail, introduced its Latitude location service, taken you to Mars with a new version of Google Earth, and re-launched the GrandCentral phone service as Google Voice, to name but a few things. Google At Present: 2009 2009 has been a busy year so far for Google, and it isn't over yet. Google also unveiled its Wave service in May of this year. The biggest news from Google this year came when the firm announced that it plans to release an operating system. Wave combines a range of communication and social networking activities into a single web application and is expected to be available to the masses later this year.

Google Chrome OS is expected to land next year, and will initially be aimed at low end devices such as netbooks. What Does The Future Hold? Several hints at what the OS could look like have leaked online, but Google have yet to comment on any supposed screenshots. With eleven years behind them, Google is still innovating and tweaking. Just be sure to remember this, Google: Don't be evil.

What we can expect next from the search giant is anyone's guess, but in the immediate future we can look forward to taking Chrome OS for a spin, trying out new versions of Android, and watching countless videos on YouTube. Please. Chime in with your thoughts in the comments. What will Google come up with next? Follow Geek Tech and Chris Brandrick on Twitter.

Indian ban on spurious mobile phones found inadequate

The Indian government has asked mobile service providers not to allow calls on their networks from mobile phones without proper International Mobile Equipment Identity (IMEI) numbers from Dec. 1, citing security reasons. The IMEI number is used by GSM (Global System for Mobile Communications) networks to identify mobile devices. The order, however, has a glaring loophole as it does not provide for the blocking of calls from phones that use "clone" IMEIs, said Pankaj Mohindroo, national president of the Indian Cellular Association (ICA), a trade body that represents mobile handset makers and other mobile technology vendors.

It is used by operators to block a stolen phone from using the network. The Sept. 3 order from India's Ministry of Communications & IT only refers to phones that have no IMEI numbers or have a sequence of 0s in place of the IMEI number, or "non-genuine" numbers that are not, in fact, IMEI numbers. Clone IMEIs are those that have been issued to registered handset vendors but have been copied on to phones of dubious origins, Mohindroo said. ICA has told the government that handsets that have clone IMEI numbers should also be banned in the interest of security, Mohindroo said. A large number of mobile phones that are sold in India are either spurious or unbranded, often sold at low prices without bills or warranty.

The use of mobile phones without proper IMEI numbers is seen by the government as a threat to the country's security, as terrorists have been found to use mobile phones extensively. A large number of consumers have bought these phones because of their low prices. In a letter to service providers in April, the Ministry of Communications & IT recognized that some of the users of phones without proper IMEIs were "genuine innocent subscribers." Using software would be a far more attractive option than to have to throw out the phones, said Sridhar T. Pai, CEO of Tonse Telecom, a firm that researches the telecom market in India. The government approved earlier this year a Genuine IMEI Implant (GII) proposal from service providers that programs genuine IMEI on mobile handsets. Pai added that he had not evaluated the software yet.

Operators have delayed implementing the ban because customers are their key assets and they will not do anything that will upset these customers, Pai said. Banning of the use of phones without adequate IMEI numbers has been delayed because of lack of clarity from the government and also because of a slow response from service providers that had earlier been ordered to block calls from phones without proper IMEIs from July 1, according to analysts. The Cellular Operators Association of India, an association of GSM mobile operators, was not available for comment, but an official said in private that its members would be able to meet the Dec. 1 deadline. Phones with fake IMEI numbers are to be detected by reference to the IMEI database of the GSM Association (GSMA). The database of the GSMA will be able to detect fake IMEIs, but will not detect phones that have clone IMEIs, unless there is also a device management program that reveals the specification of the device, Mohindroo said. The Sept. 3 government order has expanded the ban to include mobile phones that have fake IMEIs, besides phones that have no IMEIs or a string of zeros in place of the IMEI. It has ordered service providers to make provisions in their Equipment Identity Register (EIR) so that calls from phones from all three types of defaulting phones are rejected from Dec. 1 by the networks.

The EIR will then have to check whether the IMEI matches with the original device to which the number was issued, he added.

French National Assembly votes for new 'three strikes' bill

The French government is still pursuing its plan to cut off Internet users accused of copyright infringement - although a new version of the so-called "three strikes" bill approved by the National Assembly on Tuesday now requires that a court make the decision to suspend a surfer's Internet access. An earlier version of the law handed the power to disconnect surfers to a newly created High Authority for the Distribution of Works and the Protection of Rights on the Internet (Hadopi - another nickname for the law). It was approved by the French Parliament in April but the Constitutional Council struck that measure down as unconstitutional before it was signed into law. The bill takes its "three strikes" nickname from the three accusations of copyright infringement that must be levelled at surfers before their Internet access is suspended.

The government immediately vowed to return to parliament with a new bill, Hadopi 2, that would satisfy the Constitutional Council. That means that the government must now form a committee of deputies and senators to come up with a compromise bill and submit it to both houses for a vote. The Senate approved that text in July, and on Tuesday deputies in the National Assembly adopted it by 285 votes to 225. However, the deputies made a number of amendments to the Senate's text, and in France a bill cannot become law until both houses of Parliament agree to the same text. The compromise process usually goes without a hitch, but in a surprise vote in April the National Assembly rejected the compromise text for the first version of the law, Hadopi, by 21 votes to 15. While the new bill requires that suspension of Internet access be ordered by a judge, rather than decided by an administrative agency in an automated process, it toughens sanctions in other areas. That could be the case if their computer was attacked by malware and fell under someone else's control, or if their wireless Internet access was inadequately secured.

Internet subscribers will now be held liable if someone uses their Internet connection to illegally download copyright works - even if they do not explicitly authorize it, but allow it to happen through negligence. The bill also adds a €5,000 (US$7,300) fine for Internet service providers that fail to suspend the Internet access of a customer when ordered by a judge, and a €3,750 fine for surfers who take out a second Internet subscription to get around a suspension ordered by a judge. But the premise that songwriters and musicians will benefit from the stronger penalties for copyright infringement proposed by the bill is disputed by many - including the artists themselves. The latest bill's progress has been closely followed by other governments under pressure from record labels and film studios to crack down on Internet piracy. Last week a group of predominantly British musicians, the Featured Artists Coalition, criticized U.K. government plans for a similar three-strikes law, saying that "Processes of monitoring, notification and sanction are not conducive to achieving a vibrant, functional, fair and competitive market for music." The group's members, including Billy Bragg, KT Tunstall, Robbie Williams and Radiohead, said that a consultation paper issued by the U.K. government indicates "a mindset so far removed from that of the general public and music consumer that it seems an extraordinarily negative document."

Microsoft: Word legal foe paints cockeyed tale

Microsoft Corp. called the claim by Canadian developer i4i Inc. that it plotted to drive the company out of business "distorted," and "a breathless tale" that was not supported by the evidence, according to a court documents. But Microsoft also pressed the appeals court for a complete reversal, saying that decisions made by the Texas lower court led "to erroneous verdicts of infringement and validity, and grossly unsupportable damages." Microsoft's response brief saved its most blistering words for i4i, the Toronto-based company that in 2007 said Microsoft illegally used its patented technology to add XML editing, and "custom" XML features, to Word 2003, and later, to Word 2007. "Having little to rebut Microsoft's arguments on the merits, i4i devotes the majority of its brief to a distorted presentation of irrelevant 'evidence'," read Microsoft's brief. "i4i labors mightily to paint Microsoft pejoratively, portraying it as a once-close 'business partner' that supposedly stabbed i4i in the back and 'usurped' i4i's patented invention." Last week, i4i claimed Microsoft marketed the former's XML software to potential customers at the same time it planned to make that software obsolete by building similar features into Microsoft Word using its technology. At the least, Microsoft told the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal District, it deserves a new trial. "At minimum, a new trial is warranted," the company said in a reply brief filed Monday. Within days of a 2001 meeting between representatives of the two companies, according to an internal e-mail, someone at Microsoft said, "[I]f we do the work properly, there won't be a need for their [i4i's] product," i4i said as it linked the two events.

Microsoft's reply was the latest round in a patent infringement case that started two years ago when i4i accused the software maker of using its technology in Microsoft's popular Word software. That's nothing but a tall tale, Microsoft said. "Unfortunately for i4i, the truth is both comparatively mundane and innocent: After a handful of unfruitful meetings, i4i and Microsoft went their separate ways and Microsoft later released the custom XML functionality for Word that it had told i4i it was developing," the company's lawyers said in the brief. Last May, a Texas jury said Microsoft was guilty of patent infringement, and awarded i4i $200 million in damages. The injunction, said Microsoft, meant it might have to pull Word, and the Office 2003 and Office 2007 suites, off the market for months. In August, U.S. District Court Judge Leonard Davis added more than $90 million in additional damages and interest to Microsoft's bill, then issued an injunction that would have prevented it from selling Word 2003 and Word 2007 as of Oct. 10. Microsoft quickly won a fast-track appeal after warning the three appellate judges that the injunction would create sales chaos for the company and its partners, including Hewlett-Packard Co. and Dell Inc., the world's two largest computer makers.

Two weeks ago, the court of appeals suspended the injunction while it hears and decides Microsoft's appeal. But the company's lawyers also disputed claims made by i4i in the brief it submitted Sept. 8, particularly the conclusion that Microsoft had schemed to tout i4i's software on the one hand, and use its technology in Word on the other. "Most of the evidence demonstrates only that i4i attended certain meetings with Microsoft," the company said. "There is absolutely no evidence in this record from which a juror reasonably could infer that Microsoft had knowledge of the contents of the [i4i] patent." Nor should the injunction against selling current versions of Word stand, said Microsoft. "Even assuming that i4i had shown both competition and harm tied to that competition, an injunction is inappropriate because i4i has not shown that whatever harm it has suffered is irreparable and cannot be remedied by money damages," Microsoft stated. "Today's reply brief is an opportunity to reinforce our key assertions in this case," said Microsoft spokesman Kevin Kutz on Monday. "We believe the district court erred in its interpretation and application of the law in this case [and] we look forward to the September 23 hearing before the U.S. Court of Appeals." Kutz's reference was to the oral hearing scheduled for next week, when both parties will present their arguments before the panel of three judges. i4i was unavailable for comment on Microsoft's brief. Most of Microsoft's brief was a recitation of points made last month in its request for an appeal, when it lambasted Davis for his handling of the case and called the verdict a "miscarriage of justice." Microsoft again hit on some of the same points, criticizing Davis' rulings during the trial and arguing that i4i's patent was obvious, and thus not protected.

Linux driver chief calls out Microsoft over code submission

After a kick in the pants from the leader of the Linux driver project, Microsoft has resumed work on its historic driver code submission to the Linux kernel and avoided having the code pulled from the open source operating system. The submission was greeted with astonishment in July when Microsoft made the announcement, which included releasing the code under a GPLv2 license Microsoft had criticized in the past. Microsoft's submission includes 20,000 lines of code that once added to the Linux kernel will provide the hooks for any distribution of Linux to run on Windows Server 2008 and its Hyper-V hypervisor technology. Greg Kroah-Hartman, the Linux driver project lead who accepted the code from Microsoft in July, Wednesday called out Microsoft on the linux-kernel and driver-devel mailing lists saying the company was not actively developing its hv drivers.

If they do not show back up to claim this driver soon, it will be removed in the 2.6.33 [kernel] release. HV refers to Microsoft Hyper-V. He also posted the message to his blog. "Unfortunately the Microsoft developers seem to have disappeared, and no one is answering my emails. So sad...," he wrote. They are not the only company." Also new: Microsoft forms, funds open source foundation Kroah-Hartman said calling out specific projects on the mailing list is a technique he uses all the time to jump start those that are falling behind. Thursday, however, in an interview with Network World, Kroah-Hartman said Microsoft got the message. "They have responded since I posted," he said, and Microsoft is now back at work on the code they pledged to maintain. "This is a normal part of the development process.

In all, Kroah-Hartman specifically mentioned 25 driver projects that were not being actively developed and faced being dropped from the main kernel release 2.6.33, which is due in March. On top of chiding Microsoft for not keeping up with code development, Kroah-Hartman took the company to task for the state of its original code submission. "Over 200 patches make up the massive cleanup effort needed to just get this code into a semi-sane kernel coding style (someone owes me a big bottle of rum for that work!)," he wrote. He said the driver project was not a "dumping ground for dead code." However, the nearly 40 projects Kroah-Hartman detailed in his mailing list submission, including the Microsoft drivers, will all be included in the 2.6.32 main kernel release slated for December. Kroah-Hartman says there are coding style guidelines and that Microsoft's code did not match those. "That's normal and not a big deal. But the large number of patches did turn out to be quite a bit of work, he noted.

It happens with a lot of companies," he said. He said Thursday that Microsoft still has not contributed any patches around the drivers. "They say they are going to contribute, but all they have submitted is changes to update the to-do list." Kroah-Hartman says he has seen this all before and seemed to chalk it up to the ebbs and flows of the development process. The submission was greeted with astonishment in July when Microsoft made the announcement, which included releasing the code under a GPLv2 license Microsoft had criticized in the past. Microsoft's submission includes 20,000 lines of code that once added to the Linux kernel will provide the hooks for any distribution of Linux to run on Windows Server 2008 and its Hyper-V hypervisor technology. Follow John on Twitter

Apple patches 6 Safari security vulnerabilities

A month after it last patched Safari, Apple today plugged six security holes, four of them critical, in its Mac and Windows Web browser.

Safari 4.0.3 fixes six flaws in the Windows XP and Vista edition, but only four in the Mac OS X edition. Three of the half-dozen bugs were in WebKit, the open-source browser engine that powers Safari, as well as Google's Chrome.

Four of the vulnerabilities patched today were described by Apple as possibly allowing "arbitrary code execution," company-speak for a critical bug that, if exploited, could let hackers dump malicious software on the machine or hijack it for their own use.

The most unusual flaw is in "Top Sites", a feature Apple introduced in Safari 4.0 that presents users with thumbnails of frequently-visited sites when they launch the browser or open a new tab.

"It is possible for a malicious website to promote arbitrary sites into the Top Sites view through automated actions," warned Apple in its accompany security advisory. "This could be used to facilitate a phishing attack." Apple fixed the flaw by preventing automated site visits from affecting the Top Sites list.

Other bugs that 4.0.3 addresses include heap and buffer overflows in the Windows version caused by too-long text strings and image metadata handling errors, respectively; a buffer overflow in WebKit's parsing of floating point numbers; a problem with plug-ins that could let hackers steal confidential information; and a URL-spoofing vulnerability that could be exploited by identity thieves.

Apple last patched Safari in early July, about a month after the company officially launched the browser at its annual developers conference in San Francisco.

Safari 4.0.3 for Windows or Mac can be downloaded from Apple's site; current users of the browser can obtain the new version by running Software Update on the Mac, or the bundled Apple Software Update on Windows.

According to Web metrics company Net Applications, Safari had an estimated worldwide market share of 4.1% during July.