Google is developing its own branded phone to sell directly to customers, in the internet company’s latest attempt to make headway in the lucrative mobile market.
Google engineers around the world are covertly testing a new handset – known internally as “Nexus One” – that has been built in conjunction with Taiwanese manufacturer HTC and could go on sale next year over the internet, in a move that would bypass the mobile phone networks.
According to numerous reports over the weekend, the company is eschewing a deal with major mobile operators – the approach it has used in the past – in favour of selling the unlocked handset itself online. Though sales would bypass the networks, customers would still need to have a contract or pay-as-you-go agreement if they wanted to use the handset’s ordinary phone functions.
Silicon Valley news blog Techcrunch – which broke the first news of the device last month – said that the handset will go on sale in the US in January, while the Wall Street Journal suggested that Google could link up with a partner at a later point, despite its decision to act alone so far.
The move could allow Google to more some of its own experimental ideas – such as internet calling service Google Voice, as well as the possibility that it could subsidise phone calls with advertising revenue.
The handset runs the company’s Android operating system, an attempt to create a new platform with which Google can tackle more established rivals such as Nokia, Apple, Microsoft and BlackBerry maker Research in Motion.
The software – which is available for free – is part of an aggressive strategy Google hopes will help it force its way into the mobile phone market, which is widely seen by many in the technology industry as the next major frontier.
So far Google has been building the Android software, but leaving the design and sales of phones to the mobile operators – a strategy which mimics the model used by Microsoft. But sales of Android handsets have yet to take off, despite moderate success achieved by the recent US launch of the Motorola Droid (which will be marketed in Europe by T-Mobile as the Milestone).
With the continued success of the iPhone and BlackBerry – which are more tightly controlled by Apple and RIM – it appears that Google is testing whether taking a greater degree of control could help it make a significant breakthrough.
In a blog post published on Saturday, one of the executives working on the project said it was an “experiment with new mobile phone features and capabilities”, but refused to divulge further information.
“At Google, we are constantly experimenting with new products and technologies, and often ask employees to test these products for quick feedback and suggestions for improvements in a process we call dogfooding,” wrote Mario Querioz, the company’s London-based vice president of product management.
“Unfortunately, because dogfooding is a process exclusively for Google employees, we cannot share specific product details.”
Rumours of a so-called “Googlephone” have appeared with regularity ever since the internet company bought a Californian mobile software startup, also called Android, in 2005. Two years ago, the speculation began to reach fever pitch following: it emerged, however, that the company was instead building a new mobile operating system.
Google first unveiled the Android software in November 2007, but the first handset running the system did not go on sale until the following autumn. That device, the G1, was also manufactured by HTC, but sold through T-Mobile.
The new device, which was previously known as the Dragon, is a thin with no keyboard and a touchscreen display. Pictures purporting to show the handset indicate that its screen is slightly bigger than the iPhone, with a small trackball – similar to that used on many BlackBerry handsets – at the bottom.
It is far from the first time that a company has sold an unlocked handset – indeed, it is standard practice in most countries for manufacturers to offer customers the option of buying a device without going through a mobile network. The practice largely appeals to high-end customers who are comfortable with technology and are happy to spend time negotiating deals with their operator of choice.
In an unusual move, Google announced Google Public DNS on Thursday, a new means by which users can utilize the Google DNS servers to access the Internet.
Google has even added telephone support for those who choose to make the switch.
For many, the DNS settings that lie at the heart of a user’s router rarely need to be touched. When a user types in “www.pcmag.com”, for example, the user’s PC contacts the DNS server via the router and asks for the numerical IP address of the site, somewhat like 1-800-FLOWERS actually connects to a numerical telephone number.
Google’s motivation, according to the company, is to both speed up Web browsing as well as provide enhanced security. “We believe that a faster DNS infrastructure could significantly improve the browsing experience for all web users,” Prem Ramaswami, of Google’s Public DNS Team, wrote in a blog post. “To enhance DNS speed but to also improve security and validity of results, Google Public DNS is trying a few different approaches that we are sharing with the broader web community.”
Related StoryCheck out our hands-on with Google Public DNS.
Allowing Google to handle DNS requests, rather than an ISP, will also mean that mistyped URLs will be redirected to a Google error page rather than an ISP-controlled one, on which the owner of the DNS server can place their own ads, PCMag.com software analyst Michael Muchmore noted.
Users who want to try out the new Google DNS servers can change their DNS settings to 8.8.8.8 or 8.8.4.4, as its instructions describe. Google strongly recommends, however, that users copy down their existing settings. Interestingly, Google also provides telephone support for its Public DNS as well.
The new DNS settings are not for ISPs to use, as Google does not have a service-level agreement (SLA) in place. The project is characterized as “experimental”.
The new DNS settings can be used by any user worldwide, although performance increases will be fastest for users who are in close proximity to a Google data center. Those data centers are located worldwide, although Google hasn’t specified exactly where they are physically located.
Although DNS servers are maintained by a user’s ISP, the OpenDNS project has maintained a similar open resolver project for a number of years. Ramaswami said in an interview that the Google will encourage other open resolvers to engage it in dialogue and to adopt some of the techniques Google’s Pubic DNS used to better improve the Web.
In his own blog post, David Ulevitch, the founder of OpenDNS, wrote that while he appreciated the spotlight Google’s announcement shone on DNS, he was suspicious of Google’s motivations. He also noted in passing that OpenDNS can serve enterprise customers, something that Ramaswami said that Google’s Public DNS could not duplicate, at least not yet.
“[I]t’s not clear that Internet users really want Google to keep control over so much more of their Internet experience than they do already — from Chrome OS at the bottom of the stack to Google Search at the top, it is becoming an end-to-end infrastructure all run by Google, the largest advertising company in the world,” Ulevitch wrote. “I prefer a heterogeneous Internet with lots of parties collaborating to make this thing work as opposed to an Internet run by one big company.”
Google’s Ramaswami said he also supported the customer’s right to choose. “Google believes strongly in consumer choice,” he said.
However, Ramaswami also emphatically denied that the company would in any way monetize the data it collected, referring to its privacy policies. “This is about making the Web faster, not about the data,” he said. “We’ve gone out of the way to make this true.”
From a speed perspective, the Google DNS servers use prefetching, Google said, refreshing the record on a particular network request continuously, asychronously and independently of user requests for a large number of popular domains before the record expires. This allows Google Public DNS to serve many DNS requests in the round trip time it takes a packet to travel to our servers and back, the company claimed.
Google Public DNS was also put into place to prevent the sort of DNS poisoning attacks that were disclosed last year. The system can also prevent so-called DNS “amplification attacks” that attack the DNS server itself, and then use them to route other PCs to attack target sites in an orchestrated distributed denial-of-service attack.
But will users want to trust Google with their each and every request to the Internet? In an attempt to defuse concerns, Google also added a privacy page describing how it handles its records.
Google said that it does keep a user’s unique IP address, but only for a short time, to detect and prevent a denial-of-service attack. Afterward, Google begins “burning the logs,” in Ramaswami’s words.
“Google Public DNS stores two sets of logs: temporary and permanent. The temporary logs store the full IP address of the machine you’re using,” the company said. “We have to do this so that we can spot potentially bad things like DDoS attacks and so we can fix problems, such as particular domains not showing up for specific users. We delete these temporary logs within 24 to 48 hours.
“In the permanent logs, we don’t keep personally identifiable information or IP information. We do keep some location information (at the city/metro level) so that we can conduct debugging, analyze abuse phenomena and improve the Google Public DNS prefetching feature. We don’t correlate or combine your information from these logs with any other log data that Google might have about your use of other services, such as data from Web Search and data from advertising on the Google content network. After keeping this data for two weeks, we randomly sample a small subset for permanent storage.”
Google representatives referred questions about privacy to the privacy page, but said that the company would make executives available for comment later Thursday morning.
As widely expected, Microsoft has begun rolling out the public beta of its Office 2010 suite this week. On November 16, Microsoft made the beta code available to subscribers to its MSDN and TechNet services. Microsoft is expected to open up the beta, so that anyone who’d like to try it can download it — possibly this week (though Microsoft officials refused to confirm that when I asked them today). Microsoft also has made the 64-bit Beta version of Office Web Apps — its Web-centric versions of Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote — available for download to MSDN and TechNet subscribers today. (No word yet if/when the 32-bit version of Office Web Apps will appear on MSDN/TechNet). The public also is expected to get the refreshed Office Web Apps bits, possibly this week. Again, Microsoft officials won’t confirm the public availability date, beyond saying it will be “in November.” Microsoft has set up a download page from which the public will be able to download the Beta bits. On that page, Microsoft lists as the versions it will make available the Office Home and Business 2010; Office Professional 2010 and Office Professional Plus 2010 versions of the product. Among the noticeable changes between the beta and the Community Technology Preview (CTP) build of Office 2010 that Microsoft released this summer are the new installation procedures for the beta build, a new Upload Center, modifications to the Backstage view; and new icons for all the Office products that are part of the suite, according to a post on the Redmond Pie blog. Last week, a build of Office 2010 build that was marked “Beta 2″ leaked to the Web. That build was number 14.0.4514.1009. Microsoft officials told me that the leaked build was not the same one as would be released later this month. Many Microsoft watchers are expecting the company to make the public beta bits available on November 18, as that is the day that one of Microsoft’s Office big-wigs, Senior Vice President Kurt DelBene, is keynoting the Microsoft Professional Developers Conference in Los Angeles. Given that Microsoft often releases bits to MSDN and TechNet subscribers anywhere from a couple of days to a week-plus before it makes them available to the public, I wouldn’t be surprised to see the public Office 2010 and Office Web Apps Beta 2s to go live this week. Microsoft is expected to launch the final version of Office 2010 client, Office Web Apps and SharePoint Server 2010 in May/June 2010. I’d like to hear what folks think of the Beta once they’ve had a chance to download and try out the client and Office Web Apps versions both. What is new and different?
Source : blogs.zdnet.com
Microsoft has issued a security advisory to acknowledge a crippling denial-of-service flaw affecting its newest operating systems — Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2. Exploit code for the vulnerability was released by researcher Laurent Gaffié after failed attempts to get Microsoft’s security response center to acknowledge that this was an issue that needs to be patched (SEE UPDATE BELOW). Following the publication of Gaffié’s exploit, Microsoft swiftly released Security Advisory 977544 with pre-patch mitigations and a confirmation that the “detailed” code could provide a roadmap for hackers to cause Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 systems to stop responding until manually restarted.
Here’s an explanation of the cause of the vulnerability:
The kernel in Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2 and Windows 7 allows remote SMB servers to cause a denial of service (infinite loop and system hang) via a (1) SMBv1 or (2) SMBv2 response packet that contains a NetBIOS header with an incorrect length value.
The vulnerability can be exploited via the Web:
In a Web-based attack scenario, an attacker would have to host a Web page that contains a specially crafted URI. A user that browsed to that Web site will force an SMB connection to an SMB server controlled by the attacker, which would then send a malicious response back to the user. This response would cause the user’s system to stop responding until manually restarted. In addition, compromised Web sites and Web sites that accept or host user-provided content could contain specially crafted content that could exploit this vulnerability. An attacker would have no way to force users to visit a specially crafted Web site. Instead, an attacker would have to convince them to visit the Web site, typically by getting them to click a link in an e-mail message or Instant Messenger message that takes them to the attacker’s site.
In the absence of a patch, Microsoft recommends that affected users block TCP ports 139 and 445 at the firewall. Windows users should also block all SMB communications to and from the Internet to help prevent attacks.
UPDATE: Gaffié wrote in to clarity that his decision to release this exploit was related to Microsoft’s stance on a different vulnerability, which is also unpatched.
Source : blogs.zdnet.com
Hackers have managed to find a way around one of the key antipiracy protections built into Windows 7. Ordinarily, the operating system requires users to activate their copy of Windows 7 within 30 days. However, a recently outlined method allows the normal notifications to be turned off. The software does not actually get confirmed as legitimate, but users are able to keep using the product indefinitely. Microsoft confirmed last week it is aware of the technique, but said that it is working to shore up the activation procedure. “We’re aware of this workaround and are already working to address it,” a Microsoft representative said in a statement, which also urged customers to only use genuine software, noting the fake stuff can contain malware and other bad things. It is the latest in a long history of cat-and-mouse moves between the makers of Windows and those who would rather not have to pay for the privilege.
This article was first published as a blog post on CNET News.
Don’t we scribble notes during a lecture or press conference and later, on returning to our workplace, struggle to decipher our own strokes?
Or imagine a secretary/junior lawyer taking notes from his senior. The case may run to a dozen pages or even more. When the secretary types the details and gives the draft copy, the senior, after a brief scrutiny, yells, as it is full of mistakes. If only one could capture the strokes/notes/diagrams on a paper or notebook and convert it to editable typed text on a PC or laptop!
It’s possible, Product Development Specialist at Kavonics, who has tweaked this idea by developing a digital ink pen.
The base unit — ‘eznotetaker’ — which resembles the ‘pager’ of yesteryears, though much smaller in size, captures the handwritten notes, signature, maps and sketches (in real time only) made using the digital ink pen.
Connect this base unit to the PC via the USB port to download and convert the handwritten notes into editable typed text, explains an expert in Kavonics.
How the system would decipher handwritten notes, and is all smiles Experts at Kavonics says “using bundled MyScript” software.
Is it a free download? “No, the product comes with the bundle. One need not download any software. Just spend about 30 minutes to understand the way it works, so you can use it with ease.” The eznotetaker works in two modes — pen mode and mouse mode. While in the former it captures notes and diagrams, in the mouse mode (with hovering and two button functionality) one can write directly into Windows Journal and other tablet PC applications such as MSN Messenger, MS Outlook and snipping tool.
When connected, mouse mode speeds up the whole process of capturing the notes by switching effortlessly between pen and mouse mode.
The maximum number of pages that it can capture at a time is “the content in 100 A-4 sheets”.
The product supports 22 foreign languages such as English, Spanish, Dutch, Danish, Finnish, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Norwegian, Portuguese, Russian, Swedish and Chinese and is now working on getting it to support Indian languages such as Tamil, Hindi, Bengali, Kannada and Telugu, among others.
Leaving the high desert mountains behind for a day I went Scottsdale’s Fashion Square mall, where the world’s first Microsoft no, make that Windows store opened For more photos, visit Photo Galary
That’s right, the logo on the store isn’t Microsoft. It isn’t even the wavy Windows flag logo. It is a newly styled Windows logo.
That’s how you know this isn’t your father’s Microsoft. It’s way different — it is sleek, colorful, stylish, modern — just like an Apple store.
The setting
Set in the middle of the upscale mall — Scottsdale is part of the Phoenix Metroplex — that doesn’t house an Apple store. Good thing, too: shoppers might get confused.
The similarities: white façade surround; large glass windows; spare modernist interior; T-shirt clad employees; stylish hardware. Even the occasional “it just works” tagline. Except for the color logo on the façade and the dark wood table tops and you could be in a Apple store.
Which is not a criticism. Apple stores are nice. Congrats to Microsoft’s team for ditching the brown Zune difference-for-the-sake-of-difference impulse.
The store
The store was busy at one o’clock on a Thursday afternoon. No one bothered me as I came in taking pictures.
The most striking non-Apple feature of the store card the row of thin bezel displays along each side wall. They display a variety of graphics, advertising messages and video, including some Xbox output.
Another difference: several of Microsoft’s Surface computers placed around the store. These large screen touch sensitive displays are impressive for their responsiveness and ease of use. Think giant iPhone.
At the back of the store is a small theater area just like at Apple stores. In front of that was Microsoft’s version of the Genius Bar.
The goods
The merchandise choices are well calculated. The slim, stylish and colorful notebooks is a welcome change from the chunky gray, heavy, notebooks on display at Wal-Mart and Best Buy.
Three rows of tables displayed hardware from Dell, HP, Sony and Lenovo. I also saw a Flip camcorder and colorful pink and red netbooks.
Colorful computer bags and accessories are temptingly displayed as well. The overall effect suggests quality, not price, drove product selection.
The help
I was looking at a Sony notebook with a textured surface when a store associate asked me if I had any questions. I asked which version of Windows would he recommend I buy to run a video editing app on my Mac?
He had no idea about Mac and Windows but that he would find someone who did. The first person he asked also had no idea so they led me to a nice Answers lady.
She correctly outlined 3 ways I could run Windows on Mac. OK, and which version of Windows 7 would be appropriate for video editing?
She said Windows home basic. No extra features in the higher-end versions I’d want? No, for only running a program Windows 7 home basic is all you need. I was impressed that she didn’t try to upsell me to more expensive version.
A 2nd opinion
A noncombatant in the computer wars thought the 2 stores looked alike, but that the Apple store had a cooler vibe – not as hard sell. After 3 can-we-help-you’s at the Windows store she went to a Pottery Barn to relax.
I’d chalk it up to a brand new staff eager to prove themselves. They’ll figure out what works, given time.
The Storage Bits take
The first Windows retail store is an impressive effort. Sure, they stole freely from Apple, but why not? Few civilians will notice or care about the similarities – unless the stores are in close proximity.
That’s when the price differences between Windows and Mac hardware will be most obvious. Stylish Macbook, $999. Stylish Sony, $799. Many a suburban breadwinner will wonder what the difference is. Apple will have to tell them.
The Windows stores are aiming at the mass-market end of the Apple demographic. Soccer moms and small business, not students and designers.
That’s the core of the MS strategy: to fuzz the difference in the consumer’s mind between Microsoft and Apple. Except, of course, any price difference. “We’re as good as Apple, only cheaper!”
Apple is firing back. “#1 in customer satisfaction” the latest ads proclaim. They’re also targeting XP users who face a tough upgrade to W7. With Grand Central Dispatch and OpenCL they’re positioned for the future – as long as they can deliver obvious “wow!” to consumers.
The winners are us, the consumers. Microsoft can’t illegally crush Apple the way they did Netscape 15 years ago. They have to compete on the merits. And Apple will have to work harder to tell its story.
Just days after releasing some proposed interface changes to Firefox 3.7, Mozilla has put up a page to explore interface changes in Firefox 4.0.
The Firefox 4.0 page on the Mozilla wiki is at pains to stress that the mockups are not final designs, although they do give an indication of some interesting features which could be just around the corner.
As with the proposed changes to Firefox 3.7 revealed last week, the Firefox 4.0 tweaks appear to be designed to reduce interface complexity, increase page space, and integrate more naturally into Windows.
Also being explored is the possibility of having a combined go/refresh button. “It will help the users who are just switching from IE,” says Mozilla’s wiki.
About a year after Microsoft Corp.’s hostile, contentious and unsuccessful bid to buy Yahoo Inc., the two companies appear set to join forces to take on a common rival – Google Inc. The Wall Street Journal reported tonight that Microsoft and Yahoo are hours away from announcing a search and online advertising deal. According to Kara Swisher, a blogger for The Wall Street Journal, negotiations have been successfully wrapped up on a deal that is expected to have Microsoft’s search technology used on Yahoo sites. This new Microsoft-Yahoo partnership could give the two companies some much-needed leverage in their ongoing – and until now, separate – battles to chip away at Google’s stranglehold on the search market. With Carol Bartz still new at the helm of Yahoo and focused on making the once-online-pioneer hip and fresh again, and Microsoft’s Bing search service only a few months old, neither company has been able to make a noticeable dent in Google’s well-polished, and well-funded, armor. So a strategy that has them pooling their resources and industry might makes a lot of sense, says Dan Olds, an analyst at The Gabriel Consulting Group. “Both Microsoft and Yahoo need this deal if they harbor any hopes of getting back into the lucrative search game,” said Olds. “Search has become the most reliable way of capturing eyeballs on the Internet and having a popular search engine is the basis for all of Google’s success. Both Microsoft and Yahoo have invested billions of dollars in trying to build search and content portals that would be able to command Google-like ad revenues. But both have failed to blunt Google’s revenue growth individually. Together they might have a better chance.” Both companies have also been making separate moves in recent months. In June, Microsoft unveiled its new search engine, an update to its far-from-beloved Microsoft Live Search. And with Microsoft’s advertising power and a lot of media attention behind it, Bing has shown strong numbers just out of the gate. Early this month, Web analytics firm StatCounter reported that Bing may have nibbled away at Google’s commanding lead in the search arena, but it definitely hasn’t taken a big bite. While Google Inc.’s share dipped from 79.07% to 78.48% in June, Microsoft’s search site share grew from 7.21% to 8.23%. Yahoo is hanging in at a distant second place to Google with 11.04% of the market. StatCounter CEO Aodhan Cullen described Bing’s progress in the market as “steady, if not spectacular.” And on its own front, Yahoo last week unveiled the beta of a newly overhauled homepage, whose promised features include the ability to integrate with social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter and Myspace. The changes are an apparent attempt to recapture some of the hip cache the site had during its heyday. The problem for Microsoft and Yahoo is that despite their efforts, Google still looms far ahead of both. Olds, however, said they have a much better shot at their shared opponent if they work it together. “Separately, they have small fractions of Google’s viewership, but together, with a well executed plan and solid cooperation, they have a shot of at least giving Google a run for its money,” he added. “Google needs to take this seriously, which I think they will. Microsoft and Yahoo have a lot of resources to throw at this and they now have a partnership and a plan.”
Intel is being rumored to debut Nehalem based Core i5 processors codenamed as Lynnfield on Sept. 6. The sources in the Taiwanese motherboard industry state that Intel will also began shipping two new Core i7 processors in September. Intel was rumored to launch Core i7 950 and Core i7 975 Extreme processors on May 31 but these CPUs didn’t arrive as anticipated.
As per the HKEPC compilations, Intel will introduce new quad-core Core i5 processors codenamed Lynnfield. These new Core i5 CPUs are actually Nehalem Core i7 with third memory channel removed and Direct Media Interface would be replacing the QuickPath Interconnect. As per motherboard industry sources, Intel Core i5 processor 2.66GHz with 8MB L3 cache which can be overclocked to 3.2GHz and will feature Intel Socket LGA 1156. This quad-core processor will be offered at price of $196 (Rs. 9,400 approx.) per tray of 1000 CPUs.
Along with that, Intel is rumored to introduce two new quad core processors – 2.8GHz Core i7 860 and 2.93GHz Intel Core i7 870. Both processors have 8MB L3 cache and will feature Socket LGA 1156. On auto-overclocking, Core i7 860 hits 3.46GHz and Core i7 870 hits 3.6GHz. These quad-core processors will be priced at Core i7 860 for $284 (Rs. 13, 600 approx.) and Core i7 870 for $562 (Rs. 26,900 approx.). Both processors are based on Nehalem microarchitecture ‘Bloomfield’ Core i7 800 series processors and support Hyper Threading with the new Socket LGA 1156.
All three processors will have couple of things in common like the new Socket LGA 1156, support for DDR3 1333/1066 memory and Thermal Design Power rating of 95 watts each.
