Google embarrassed by Blogger outage

Google Blogger was knocked offline for 90 minutes over the weekend, as Google suffered another of its increasingly common outages.

The problems were acknowledged in a terse statement on the service's Twitter feed, which noted "we're investigating an outage on blogger.com. Thanks for your patience as we work to resolve this."

The statement offered no explanation on the cause of the problem, which crashed the service between 7.30am and 9am BST on Saturday morning.

"Users were unable to access their Blogger accounts and some people had trouble viewing others' blogs. We worked quickly to address and fix the issue, and we apologise for any inconvenience to our users," says Google in a statement.

The Blogger problems are the latest in a string of outages suffered by Google's services. Gmail was knocked offline twice in September, the first time ironically due to server maintenance intended "to improve service availability".

This was followed by problems with Google's popular news aggregator service.

The problems comes as Google begins a major marketing push aimed at convincing corporate customers to abandon Microsoft for its cloud-based products.

Author: Stuart Turton
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Canonical has announced that it's to begin limiting the number of free Ubuntu CDs

Canonical has announced that it's to begin limiting the number of free Ubuntu CDs people can order.

The ShipIt scheme allows people to order a copy of Ubuntu on a CD for free through the mail. However, with Ubuntu growing in popularity Canonical has decided to make a few changes to the way the programme works.

No longer will people be able to order a CD for each and every version of Ubuntu that is released. Instead copies will be restricted to "LoCo [local community] teams and Ubuntu contributors. And... everyone who is just discovering Ubuntu."

This means that the vast majority of people will be able to order one, potentially two, mail copies of Ubuntu, before being required to upgrade to new versions through online upgrades, or by downloading the latest version as an ISO and burning it to CD themselves.

"In the last five years we have shipped millions of CDs and seen Ubuntu’s popularity and reach grow in ways that would be impossible without ShipIt," says Canonical's chief operating office Jane Silber.

"While these CDs are often referred to as 'free CDs', they are of course not free of cost to Canonical. We want to continue this programme, but Ubuntu’s growth means that some changes are necessary. Therefore we are adjusting how we handle CD requests to try to find the right balance between availability of CDs and the continued viability of the ShipIt programme," she adds.

Extra CD copies of Ubuntu will still be available for purchase through the Canonical store, although they need to be bought in bulk. Five copies of the open-source operating system will cost $8 exc VAT and shipping.

Anybody looking to become an Ubuntu member will need to "be engaged in a sustained level of contribution to the Ubuntu community," according to the Ubuntu help page.

"This can include coding, writing or documentation, the creation of art-work, music, testing, bug triage and verification, translation, advocacy, leadership of LoCo teams, etc. Contributions should be significant and visible. Anybody who is active in the Ubuntu community is a good candidate for Ubuntu membership."

Author: Stuart Turton
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Net neutrality could lead to inexpensive, high-quality broadband services for businesses

Federal Communication Commission net neutrality rules have the potential to save businesses money in ways that range from heading off potential new Internet access charges to opening up low-cost, high-bandwidth services distinguished by superior quality of service.

While the FCC won't make final decisions until next spring at the earliest, its rule-making agenda that was approved Friday prompts speculation on what the outcome might yield, and that includes the possibility of high-quality access at a low price.

The agenda includes examination of managed or specialized services such as IP TV that run over the same networks as general broadband Internet services.

If the FCC decides to formally classify these specialized services as information services, existing communications law would allow for a rule requiring providers to wholesale the component parts of the service to competitors, says Tom Nolle, president and CEO of tech consultancy CIMI Corp. This was formerly the practice with information services, but the FCC changed its mind several years ago.

But language in the proposed rule suggests the commission might revisit the old regulation. "It could be the start of a regulatory reversal," Nolle says, which might work this way:

If a service provider sold IP TV for $60 per month to customers -- made up of the TV content and the high-speed delivery network -- it would have to sell just the network portion of the service for less, Nolle says. That would drastically undercut the price of traditional network services with good enough QoS to support high-definition video, he says. Even paying the full consumer price for the service would be a good deal.

"I could save a ton of money on this if I'm a business," Nolle says.

That is an unlikely scenario based on a reading of the FCC proceeding, says Colleen Boothby, a partner at Washington, D.C., telecom law firm Levine, Blaszak, Block & Boothby. The FCC would have to reverse an earlier decision, which is possible, but doesn't seem to be the main thrust of the FCC rule making.

Rather, it seems more likely the commission will prevent service providers from discriminating about what services and content they will carry over their networks and under what circumstances, she says.

By banning such discrimination, the FCC could prevent a host of unnamed new charges against businesses depending on the type of content they move over their Internet access lines, she says. "All enterprise customers are content providers," Boothby says, so they stand to face new fees if providers are allowed to charge more for certain types.

Hypothetically, a bank could be charged for supplying account balance data to its customers who happen to access the bank's online services from a different ISP than the bank uses. So the customer's ISP would charge the bank's ISP for allowing the account data to reach the customer. There is no such proposal, but without a regulation this type of fee would not be prohibited, Boothby says. "It doesn't exist yet, but the models are there," she says.

This could help explain AT&T's and Verizon's lobbying efforts to prevent the rule making. They both need to recover the enormous amounts they've spent on network fiber upgrades. So far they charge for Internet access, TV and phone services over them, but they are involved in price wars on all three fronts with cable operators.

This predicament the providers find themselves in could result in higher general Internet access fees or a fee structure where customers pay by the byte, according to Irwin Lazar, an analyst for Nemertes Research. And that could influence the costs of supporting corporate work-at-home programs.

"Do not continue to assume that your employees will always have cheap access to high-speed residential services," Lazar says in his blog.

"Develop contingency plans that include purchasing of business class services, use of optimization, and/or desktop virtualization to guarantee application performance."

So in order to preserve application performance, it may become necessary to buy service-level agreements from providers or alter corporate infrastructure to squeeze better performance out of lower quality broadband services, he says. Likely additions to corporate networks are WAN optimization gear that reduces the volume of Internet traffic as well as gear that boosts the performance of Web applications, he says.

by Tim Greene
Network World
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Microsoft launches Windows 7

Microsoft Corp launched Windows 7 on Thursday in its most important release for more than a decade, aiming to win back customers after the disappointing Vista and strengthen its grip on the PC market.

The world's largest software company, which powers more than 90 percent of personal computers, has received good reviews for the new operating system, which it hopes will grab back the impetus in new technology from rivals Apple Inc and Google Inc.

"It's the first really significant release of Windows in a decade," analyst Brendan Barnicle of Pacific Crest Securities told Reuters Television. "Given the missteps around Vista, people really questioned Microsoft's relevancy in the technology space. So this is a critical first step for Microsoft regaining that credibility."

The new system -- which is faster, less cluttered and has new touch-screen features -- comes almost three years after the launch of Vista, whose complexity frustrated many home users and turned off business customers.

The success of Windows -- which accounts for more than half of Microsoft's profit -- is crucial for Chief Executive Steve Ballmer to revive the company's image as the world's most important software firm.

"I have to say I'm chomping at the bit," Ballmer told an audience of Microsoft customers and partners in Toronto on Wednesday, adding that he is ready to make sales calls himself on Windows 7.

Sales won't immediately impact the bottom line of Microsoft, which is expected to post a lower quarterly profit on Friday.

CHEAPER THAN VISTA

Microsoft is charging $199.99 for the Home Premium version of Windows 7, or $119.99 for users seeking to upgrade from older versions of the operating system -- well below comparable prices for Vista.

It also has a range of offers in conjunction with retailer Best Buy and PC makers such as Dell Inc and Acer Inc.

For the first time, shoppers will be able to buy PCs loaded with the software direct from a branded Microsoft store, with the first of a planned chain set to open on Thursday in Scottsdale, Arizona.

The US holiday season will soon reveal whether consumer PC sales get a kick from Windows 7, but success with corporations -- the key to Microsoft's financial power -- won't be clear until next year, analysts say.

"Come June of next year, we are going to get the real indication of the business-to-business marketplace," said Mark Simons, chief executive of the U.S. arm of Toshiba Corp, the world's No. 5 PC maker, on Wednesday.

Early indications are that companies are getting ready to switch to Windows 7.

"People like it," said Michael Capone, chief information officer for payroll services firm ADP, pointing out its quick start-up time and good user interface.

"There is a line outside my door from people wanting to get into the pilot program," said Capone, at a technology conference in Orlando, Florida, on Wednesday.

His company typically waits at least 18 months to begin broad deployment of a new version of Windows, said Capone, but this time he could be more aggressive.

"In the surveys that we've done about half the CIOs (chief information officers) indicated that they would just use Windows 7 on existing PCs as opposed to replace the entire hardware," said Barnicle. "That would be very positive for Microsoft but maybe not so positive for the PC manufacturers."

SHARES UP

Good reviews, and a surge in technology stocks across the board, have lifted Microsoft shares about 80 percent since March. They hit their highest level in just over a year on Wednesday, closing at $26.58 on Nasdaq.

"This is a better operating system -- it does the job," said Lance Ulanoff, editor-in-chief of PCMag.com. "They've certainly got it a lot more right than they did with Vista."

A range of new PCs incorporating the software in all shapes and sizes from Hewlett-Packard Co, Dell and others are set to be unveiled on Thursday, in the hope of reigniting consumer spending before the holiday shopping season.

Global PC sales rose 2.3 percent in the third quarter compared to a year ago, according to research firm IDC, after two quarters of declines.

Market-watchers are betting on further recovery of computer sales next year, as the economy improves and businesses replace old machines, but opinion is divided on how strong the impact of Windows 7 will be.

"What's going to be really interesting is whether this spurs a hardware replacement cycle or it's just a Windows replacement cycle," said Barnicle, who estimates that more than 820 million PCs across the world run Windows.

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Web surfing increases brain activity of old people

In a good news to older people struggling with bad memory, a recent research has showed that exposure to Web surfing increases brain activity among aged in regions involved in vision, language and reading.

According to a recent study presented at the annual meeting of the Society for Neuroscience, older people exposed to Web surfing for the first time showed increased brain activity in regions associated with language and working memory.

Searching the Internet can be a totally exhausting experience as you bounce from one site to another, sometimes until you can't remember what you were looking for in the first place, but scientists at University of California, Los Angeles claimed that all that virtual running around is actually good exercise—for your brain, particularly if you are older because Internet training can enhance neural function.

The scientists worked with people between the ages of 55 and 78. At the start of the study, all the participants did some Web searching while the scientists monitored their brain activity by functional magnetic resonance imaging.

The subjects who had had little exposure to the Internet before the study showed activity in brain regions involved in vision, language and reading, journal Scientific American reported.

Then everyone went home to do some surfing on their own—an hour a day for a total of a week. When the no-longer-naive subjects returned to the lab, their brain scans showed additional activity in regions associated with working memory and decision-making, it said.

The results were presented on Monday at the 2009 meeting of the Society for Neuroscience in Chicago.

Bureau Report

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ARM "outflanks" Intel with Cortex A5

ARM claims it's performing a "flanking manoeuvre" on Intel with the launch of its new Cortex A5 MPCore processor.

The British chip designer has become increasingly aggressive towards the chip giant in recent months. In September, ARM made a naked bid for Intel's netbook market with the launch of its Cortex A9 chip. Now ARM is hoping to attack Intel's Atom from the other side, with a processor aimed at more low-cost internet devices, such as smartphones.

"This is essentially a flanking manoeuvre," ARM's vice president of marketing, Eric Schom told PC Pro. "It [Intel] is in netbooks today and it wants to be in smartphones. We're going to unlock a whole lot more [product] categories."

"The Cortex A5 will be taken across a huge range of more intelligent devices," Schom added. "Things like the Kindle, portable media players, set-top boxes - anything with data to capture."

Schom claims the Cortex A5 is "an order of magnitude smaller" than Intel's Atom, making it less expensive to produce and less power hungry. He says Intel would have to shrink Atom to the 15nm process to "approach parity" with the Cortex A5, which Schom says "is a decade out".

The Cortex A5 can be used in single or up to quad-core configurations, depending on the performance requirements of the device it's powering. ARM says the processor is fully application compatible with the A9, meaning developers won't have to recode their apps.

Schom claims the A5 is "running and booting in the labs" and that the company will have it finished before the end of the year. However, he adds that there "tends to be a two or three year gap between our delivering a processor and it appearing [inside products] in the shops".

Author: Barry Collins
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Mumbai youth makes world record in video gaming

Playing video games for long hours is often termed as an addiction, but a city youth has used it to his advantage to make a world record by playing a game non-stop for more than 40 hours on his playstation.

Chirantan Patnaik has successfully broken the current world record made by a US citizen last year for the longest continuous play session on 'Grand Theft Auto IV' of 28 hours and 1 minute.

An official of Guinness World Records told reporters from London that Patnaik's endeavour, made in the presence of independent observers and under public scrutiny last month, was recently verified by them.

"The longest continuous play session on Grand Theft Auto IV is 40 hours 20 minutes, by Chirantan Patnaik (India), at the offices of the gaming blog NeuralChaos.com from 4-6 September 2009," Karolina Thelin, PR executive of Guinness World Records said.

With support from from online gaming portal Zapak.com, Patnaik began playing the game at his Mumbai residence from 10 am on September 4 and ended at around 2 am on September 6.

"We have always believed in the potential of Indian gamers. Chirantan's success is a proud moment for the Indian gaming industry. This will encourage more youngsters to take gaming seriously," said Rohit Sharma, COO of Zapak Digital Entertainment, who had also appointed observers during the event.

Patnaik, who works with a private equity firm and is also a certified scuba diver, said it was his passion for gaming that motivated him to set the new world record.

"I began playing video games since I was in the third standard. Gaming, has since then, been my passion as well as a hobby," the 26-year-old said.

Interestingly, Patnaik had never played this game earlier despite being an avid gamer.

"There are so many other games which I have played for long hours. But I had never tried playing this particular game seriously. However, I knew that I can do it after I saw my brother playing it."

Describing his experience of playing at a stretch for more than one-and-a-half day as fun, he said, "I enjoyed the game very much. It's fun playing long hours. It wasn't that exhaustive for me, as one might feel".

According to the stringent guidelines of the Guinness World Records, Patnaik was allowed a 10-minute break every hour. "But I took a total of four breaks during my entire game," he said, adding that he doesn't mind spending a chunk of his salary on buying costly gaming equipments.

"I buy the latest games in the market if it interests me. I don't mind spending money on games at all," he said.

To prepare for the feat, he went through some endurance training by running, exercising and practising yoga.

"But I think staying away from coffee and eating dates during my game helped me to stay alert and fit," Patnaik said adding that his earlier experience of playing games for long hours helped him.

When asked about his future plans, he said he wants to better his present record by playing for more than 48 hours.

Bureau Report

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Wi-Fi To Wipe Bluetooth off Earth's Face

Developers and manufacturers of microelectronic components increasingly question the future of Bluetooth technology. Despite the fact that Bluetooth devices account for a significant market share, the future of this technology is rather obscure. More advanced Wi-Fi with its enormous potential is a direct threat to Bluetooth, and may soon replace it completely.

Bluetooth issue was raised again at the ETRE 2009 in Paris. The manufacturers are confused as they cannot define their priorities or choose micro schemes to bank on.

The reason for this confusion is an incredible growth in the demand for Wi-Fi chips. Wireless networks are being implemented in all areas of electronics, including devices like refrigerators and vacuum cleaners. Mass expansion of Wi-Fi into mobile phones is expected in the near future, when this protocol will replace all other means of communication with a computer.

At the conference, several large manufacturers of microelectronic components stated that they will significantly reduce manufacturing of Bluetooth chips and will redesign their plants for Wi-Fi segment.

At the same time, sales of Wi-Fi micro schemes continue to grow. This year every electronics plant manufactured approximately one million chips, and in 2010 the output would have to be increased fivefold to meet the demand.

Bluetooth won’t be able to compete under these circumstances. ETRE 2009 participants had to acknowledge that Bluetooth is dying out. The best future it can count on is its utilization in specific areas where the protocol can hit its stride.

Another technology with an uncertain future was discussed at the conference. WiMAX ( Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access) , a networking system, took off in Russia, Australia, South America, and the Middle East. European launch of WiMAX did not meet the expectations of the manufacturers, which caused certain disappointment.

Representatives of Intel Corporation strongly disagree with this evaluation. In their official statement they said that 460 global commercial projects in 135 countries are based on WiMAX. They expect that by the end of 2010, approximately 700 million people will use this type of wireless networks. This proves wrong those who call this technology “dead.”

Pavel Urushev
Pravda.Ru
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Programming error gives CT scan patients radiation overdose

In a rather off-the-track technology related report, a hospital named Cedars-Sinai Medical Center has come into a bit of trouble due to problems with its CT scanner; a programming error has caused the machine to give patients eight times the maximum amount of radiation that's nominal.

According to the LA Times, the hospital recently began utilizing a new protocol in order to create a specialized type of scan used to diagnose strokes, which unfortunately went a bit wrong. In order to use said protocol, the machine had to be reset, thus overriding the pre-programmed instructions that were included with the scanner when it was installed.

An official for the hospital said that, "There was a misunderstanding about an embedded default setting applied by the machine… as a result, the use of this protocol resulted in a higher than expected amount of radiation." Higher than expected sadly means that is was increased by eight times, which, when combined with a brain scan, lead to radiation sickness.

Apparently other hospitals are now investigating their own equipment to ensure everything is working as it should, but it just goes to show that whilst technology may be great in some aspects, it can also be very dangerous.

By Sam Symons
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Radio waves can `see` terrorists, hostages through walls

Engineers have developed a wireless network of radio transmitters that can track people moving behind solid walls. The system could help police, firefighters and others nab intruders, and rescue hostages, fire victims and elderly people. It also might help retail marketing and border control.

The method uses radio tomographic imaging (RTI), which can "see", locate and track moving people or objects in an area surrounded by inexpensive radio transceivers that send and receive signals. People don't need to wear radio-transmitting ID tags.

RTI is different and much cheaper than radar, in which radar or radio signals are bounced off targets and the returning echoes or reflections provide the target's location and speed.

RTI instead measures "shadows" in radio waves created when they pass through a moving person or object.

"By showing the locations of people within a building during hostage situations, fires or other emergencies, radio tomography can help law enforcement and emergency responders to know where they should focus their attention," say study authors Joey Wilson and Neal Patwari of the University of Utah (U-U).

Both researchers are in the U-U department of electrical and computer engineering - Patwari as an assistant professor and Wilson as a doctoral student.

The study involved placing a wireless network of 28 low cost radio transceivers - called nodes - around a square-shaped portion of the atrium and a similar part of the lawn, says an U-U release.

IANS

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Now, cybugs 'to access areas people can't go

You can call it straight from a science fiction -- a "cybug" that can access those areas where people can't go, for example, in the aftermath of a quake.

Yes, scientists have developed the "cybug" – part beetle, part machine -- which they claim is a key breakthrough that will help them direct the flight of beetles for the first time by remote control.

The cybug is the work of researchers at the University of California, funded by the Pentagon, who've inserted a radio receiver attached to wires into brains and muscles of large beetles, 'The Independent' reported.

And, according to them, the insects like these could be used to access areas where people can't go.

Noel Sharkey, Professor of robotics and artificial intelligence at the University of Sheffield, said: "At the moment, the bugs wouldn't be able to carry a payload such as a camera, or GPS (receiver) so we could track them.

"But this research makes me uncomfortable. You never know where we will be in 20 or 30 years."

Bureau Report

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YouTube gets billion hits per day

Google's online video site YouTube now gets a billion hits a day, the site's founder Chad Hurley said in a video posted on Friday.

"Three years ago today (YouTube co-founder) Steve (Chen) and I stood in front of our offices and jokingly crowned ourselves the 'burger kings' of media," read the post, which was titled Y,000,000,000uTube.

"We'd just made headlines by joining with Google in our shared goal of organising the world's information (in our case video) and making it easily and quickly accessible to anyone, anywhere. "Today I'm proud to say that we have been serving well over a billion views a day on YouTube. This is great moment in our short history and we owe it all to you."

Hurley said a key factor behind the site's success was its technology that allowed videos to load and play quickly, and to an open platform that allows anyone with a video camera and internet connection to share their experiences.

"Three years after the acquisition, our platform and our business continue to grow and evolve. We are still committed to the same principles that informed the site early on, but we know things have changed. As bandwidth has increased, so has our video quality. As we've started to see demand for longer, full-length content, we've brought more shows and movies to the site," Hurley wrote.

IANS
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Vodafone cuts prepaid mobile broadband to $99, doubles data to 1GB

Vodafone’s Prepaid Mobile Broadband Starter Pack now sells at $99 and throws in 1GB of data for the bundled dual-band USB modem.

The tug of war for the wallets of prepaid mobile broadband customers continues this month, with Vodafone dropping prices and adding data to its starter pack.

This is its second price drop in the six months since Vodafone entered the prepaid mobile broadband market. Its starter kit – which includes a dual-band USB modem that runs on both the 2100MHz and 900MHz 3G networks – launched at $149, which was later trimmed to to $129, and now stands at $99.

This includes 1GB of data, with recharge options starting at $19 for 500MB and attracting an additional 10% ‘bonus data’ allocation for recharge packs purchased online. Customers can also roll over up to 5GB of unused data.

Each recharge pack also includes a small number of free SMS messages which can be sent from the PC – for example, the $19 (500MB) pack comes with 15 SMS texts – although these are not available to Mac users.

apcmag
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iPhone will be able to run some Flash programs

The developer of the widely used Flash programing language has devised a way to translate its code to run on Apple Inc's iPhone -- a move that could dramatically boost the variety of applications for the iPhone.

Programs written with Adobe Systems Inc's Flash programing language currently cannot run on Apple's popular smart phone. Adobe has spent several years trying without success to persuade Apple to make technical changes to the device's software that would make it possible for Flash programs to run on the iPhone.

In the absence of an agreement with Apple, Adobe announced on Monday that it will introduce a tool that lets computer programmers easily convert software applications that they write in the Flash programing language to code that will work on the iPhone.

Flash is designed so that programmers can write one set of code that run on multiple types of computers and mobile devices, including ones using software from Google Inc, Microsoft Corp, Nokia and Palm Inc.

The iPhone has been the only major handset provider that has declined to collaborate with Adobe.

The new option that Adobe announced on Monday will allow developers to create a second piece of software that they can distribute through Apple's App store.

"It's basically an export capability," said Adrian Ludwig, a manager with Adobe's Flash group.

He said in an interview that Apple has yet to agree to work with Adobe to clear two key technical hurdles that would enable Flash applications to run on the iPhone.

"The ball is in their court at this point. We've been very blunt about what we need and what we are requesting," Ludwig said in an interview.

A spokesman for Apple could not be reached for comment.

Adobe said in a press release that it will release a public trial version of the tool for converting Flash programs into ones that will run on the iPhone later this year.

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Microsoft says some Hotmail passwords exposed

Microsoft Corp has accepted that passwords belonging to some users of its Hotmail email service were exposed on an Internet site, but had since been taken down.

The company did not say how many users were affected, but some reports suggested that passwords to more than 10,000 accounts were exposed.

"We are aware that some Windows Live Hotmail customers' credentials were acquired illegally by a phishing scheme and exposed on a website," a Microsoft spokesman said.

Phishing is a scam whereby fraudsters get hold of personal information by sending out emails under the guise of a bank, IT department or some other trustworthy source.

Microsoft said the passwords had been removed from the offending website, which it did not identify, and said it had blocked access to all affected accounts and was helping users to reclaim their Hotmail accounts.

The software company said the exposure of the passwords was not a breach of any Microsoft servers.

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Microsoft's mobile apps store goes live

Microsoft has launched its competitor to Apple's App Store, Windows Marketplace Live, but first impressions of the service are underwhelming.

The Microsoft store is designed along similar lines to Apple's. Split into categories such as Entertainment, Productivity and Business Center, you can use your Windows Live ID to download and install applications. The Marketplace launched this morning, a day ahead of the global launch of Windows Mobile 6.5.

The library of apps is currently unimpressive, however. Windows Marketplace Live currently appears to have only 40 applications on our test handset, including PAC-MAN (£5.19), Mastersoft Money V6 (£9.69) and a world clock called WorldTime (£7.50).

When the Marketplace was announced in February, a Microsoft spokesperson claimed there were would 20,000 applications available for Windows Mobile. PC Pro is awaiting word from Microsoft's PR on where the other 19,960 are.

Even if all 20,000 do appear for the official launch, the Microsoft store will still have a long way to go before it catches up with Apple. The iPhone App Store has more than 85,000 applications and has clocked-up more than two billion downloads, according to Apple.

ANI

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Adobe brings full-fat Flash to mobile devices

Adobe has unveiled the first full version of its Flash player for mobile devices.

Smartphones have, until now, been left to use a stripped-down Flash Lite player. Now the company is set to deliver full Flash functionality to a series of mobile devices over the coming months, as part of its drive to "reach users wherever they are".

Adobe says it hopes to bring Flash Player 10.1 to Windows Mobile and Palm WebOS devices before the end of the year, with support for Symbian S60 and Google's Android arriving in the early part of 2010. The company has also signed a deal with RIM to develop a BlackBerry version of the software.

The elephant in the room is, of course, Apple's iPhone OS, which is the only major smartphone OS that has been omitted from the announcement. Adobe has said in the past that it's working hard to persuade Apple to include support for Flash on the iPhone.

The arrival of the fully-featured Flash player will, according to Adobe, bring "uncompromised web browsing of expressive applications, content and high definition (HD) video" to mobile devices. The software will tap the device's GPU to help accelerate graphics performance, although Adobe insists this won't have a hugely detrimental effect on battery life.

The software will include support for multitouch, gesture controls and accelerometers, so that mobile users aren't tied to desktop-like interfaces when using web applications, for instance.

In addition to mobile phones, Flash Player 10.1 will be rolled out across netbooks and standard PCs. It's the fruition of Adobe's Open Screen Project, which aims to achieve a consistent experience across different devices.

ANI

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Cyber crime generates more money than drug trafficking

With more and more people going online and social networking becoming pervasive, cyber crime now generates more money than drug trafficking, says global cyber security solutions provider Symantec.

"Cyber crime has surpassed drug trafficking as a criminal money-maker. Every three seconds, an identity is stolen worldwide," Symantec consumer business unit vice-president for Asia-Pacific David Freer said.

Cyber crime is perpetrated by hackers through a spate of attacks in the form of malware, spam, virus and bots when computers are connected to the Internet.

Hackers use spyware, fake anti-virus applications, e-mail and phishing to trick netizens into parting with their personal data and even money.

"Phony e-mails, fake websites and online advertisements trick netizens into divulging personal data such as social security and credit card numbers," Freer said at a demo of Symantec's Norton anti-virus 2010 product here.

The company's latest Internet security product equips computers to fight cyber crime with new detection technology.

Symantec's data showed cyber criminals not only steal personal information such as identity, profile and credit card numbers but also sell it to the highest bidder on the online black market.

During the beta testing of Norton 2010, Symantec detected and blocked a whopping 245 million attempted malicious code attacks every month the world over in 2008.

"The increasing use of Internet and web for a plethora of services and applications has made computers vulnerable to malicious attacks," Freer said.

Convergence of information and communication technologies (ICT), globalisation and exponential growth of information have enabled transacting goods and services in the form of e-commerce and mobile commerce.

"The phenomenal growth of Internet traffic for mailing, surfing, browsing, social networking, buying or selling expose netizens to online thieves who will stop at nothing to steal anything, be it money, identity, signature and even names," Symantec marketing head in Asia-Pacific David Hall said.

Though the USD 6.2-billion Symantec has been arming its customers and end-users with security solutions over the years, cyber criminals have been outsmarting them by hacking into computers to wreak havoc.

Norton 2010 leverages a new model of security, code-named Quorum, to detect new malware and go beyond traditional signature and behaviour-based detection.

Cyber criminals are furiously re-writing malware to stay undetected. But Quorum has been developed to track files, applications and attributes such as age, download source, digital signature and prevalence.

"These attributes are combined using complex algorithms to determine a reputation. As a file is distributed across the Internet and these attributes change, Quorum updates the reputation of the file, which is significant when a file is new and likely to be a threat," Hall said.

As the third largest cyber country in Asia after China and Japan, India may become a soft target for cyber crime unless the government, industry, enterprises and netizens jointly wage the war against the underworld economy.

"Since cyber criminals destroy lives more than computers, we have raised the bar for Internet security and set a new standard for the industry. The new version empowers netizens to deny digital dangers for a safe online experience," Hall claimed.

The Internet security version is priced at Rs 1,450 for a single licence and the anti-virus version is Rs 1,125 for a single user.

IANS

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IBM to launch GMail rival

IBM is introducing an inexpensive web-based corporate email service to compete with Google Apps, which has recently suffered several high-profile outages.

Big Blue will likely try to capitalise on the damage that those outages have caused to Google Apps over the past year. Last month millions of business users could not access GMail for almost two hours.

An IBM spokesman says the company will start selling its LotusLive iNotes next week. The lightweight email service will cost $36 per user per year, about 25% less than what Google charges.

IBM's offering does not have as many bells and whistles as Google's, but the technology giant could attract customers because it has decades more experience serving the business market. Its products include Lotus Notes, one of the world's two most widely used email programs.

"The IBM brand will help a lot," says Forrester Research analyst Liz Herbert.

iNotes will also compete with a web-based email service from Microsoft that costs about $120 per user per year, according to the software maker's website.

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Spotify launches offline mode for PCs

Music-streaming service Spotify is launching an offline mode for its PC software, allowing users to continue listening to playlists without an internet connection.

The feature replicates the functionality found in Spotify's iPhone app, which stores music on the phone to allow playback when a 3G or Wi-Fi connection is out of reach.

However, the new feature will be limited to subscribers of Spotify's $15-per-month premium service, providing another incentive for users to upgrade from the free service. The iPhone and Android app is also restricted to subscribers.

Technical details on how the offline mode will work are sketchy, but users won't be able to copy or playback the downloaded music files on other devices. Users will be able to select individual playlists to make available when offline.

Earlier this week, Spotify introduced support for PayPal for users wishing to pay for premium accounts.

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