ITC to investigate Apple at Nokia's request

IDG News Service —
The U.S. International Trade Commission said it is investigating Apple based on a complaint filed by Nokia in late December, indicating that the dispute between the companies is heating up.

In its complaint, Nokia charged Apple with infringing seven of its patents in virtually all of Apple's phones, music players and computers. Nokia asked the ITC to order Apple to stop importing and selling the offending products.

Apple, in mid-January, similarly asked the ITC to investigate Nokia, charging the phone maker with infringing its patents. The ITC has not yet responded to Apple.

The companies have also taken their complaints to the courts. Nokia has filed a patent infringement suit against Apple in the U.S. District Court for the District of Delaware. Apple countersued, charging Nokia with infringing 13 Apple patents.

The ITC will set a timeline for completing its investigation within 45 days. Once the investigation is complete, six of the ITC’s administrative law judges will make an initial determination about the case. That initial determination is then subject to review by the full commission.

by Nancy Gohring

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Lotus bets the house on open collaboration plan

ORLANDO – IBM/Lotus is juicing its collaboration tools with a dose of analytics and cloud-based integration with the belief it can redefine the technology, meet the needs of a sophisticated new user generation, and put the screws to an expanding field of competitors.

Lotus sets off on 'Vulcanizing' next-gen collaboration

Web 2.0 tools have turned collaboration software back into a wide-open game, experts say, and Lotus responded last week by unveiling Project Vulcan.

Vulcan is a concept for a platform of online and on-premises capabilities, both old and new, integrated via an open framework on the back end and by analytic software on the front end. The first manifestation of Vulcan will come when IBM/Lotus releases a set of developer tools into beta later this year.

The tools are a down payment on the forward-looking Vulcan strategy that analysts and users say signals Lotus is a strategic asset to IBM like never before.

But the big question is whether Lotus can pull it off. Keeping its promise to drive everything with standards and open APIs, such as HTML5 and REST, and adapt to a services delivery model will be the determining factor.

In addition, research shows it will have to convince users they need IBM social collaboration tools, a group the company has not traditionally targeted. A survey last year by user-experience research firm Nielsen Norman Group showed that the most successful social media initiatives "start as unsanctioned, grassroots efforts led by front-line workers."

"Everything is in play now in the collaboration space," says James Governor, principle analyst with RedMonk. "Everyone is reassessing the cost of things, the value of things, their vendor relationships. There are a new set of buyers. E-mail was an IT phenomenon, but collaboration in the 2.0 style is a business-led phenomenon."

Traditional rival Microsoft is headed toward a similar collaboration strategy, but with less emphasis on the open architecture, as is Google and Cisco, and new entrants such as VMware, which recently bought Zimbra from Yahoo.

Governor, who discloses that Lotus is a client to his consultancy, says that Lotus so far has learned more from the Web than Microsoft and is putting that knowledge to good use. "I think IBM is more confident and better equipped than it has been in a long, long time with Lotus."

by John Fontana

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IBM mainframe woes continue with big Q4 drop

IBM's mainframe division finished a disappointing 2009 with a 27% fourth quarter revenue decline, but Big Blue is hoping the next generation of its mainframe computer will boost sales in 2010.

U.S. House decommissions its last mainframe, saves $730,000

System z mainframe revenue dropped 27% in the fourth quarter compared to the same period in the prior year. The Q4 results followed declines of 26% in the third quarter, 39% in the second quarter and 19% in the first quarter.

IBM doesn't provide revenue dollar amounts for individual server product lines, but the mainframe suffered the biggest decline within the company's systems and technology group, which reported fourth quarter revenue of $5.2 billion, 4% lower than the previous year. The systems and technology group also includes storage, x86 servers and Power servers.

The System z revenue decline "is consistent with what you would expect at this point in the product cycle," IBM CFO Mark Loughridge said when the company released its fourth quarter earnings this week.

IBM unveiled the System z10 mainframe almost two years ago, leading to a 12.5% increase in revenue in 2008. The initial boost in sales caused by a mainframe upgrade is typically followed by a decline, but the revenue drops in 2009 were quite a bit larger than the amount gained in 2008.

"Later this year we are releasing the next generation System z," Loughridge said.

In the meantime IBM has tried to shore up the mainframe business with special pricing, including on Linux bundles. But overall shipments as measured in MIPS (millions of instructions per second) have still declined for three consecutive quarters, including a 19% drop in the fourth quarter.

Gartner analyst Mike Chuba has said that if sales continue to suffer IBM may be forced to speed up the release of its newest mainframe.

Despite the disappointing mainframe revenue, IBM reported a 10% jump in profit companywide in the fourth quarter.

(by Jon Brodkin)

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Apple releases new Security Update for Leopard, Snow Leopard

Apple on Tuesday released Security Update 2010-001 for Mac OS X Snow Leopard as well as versions for both client and server releases of its predecessor, Mac OS X Leopard. These updates improve the security of Mac OS X are recommended for all users of the respective versions.

Included in the update are a number of patches, including a buffer overflow for the CoreAudio system that could let a maliciously crafted MP4 audio file execute arbitrary code, a hole in the CUPS printing system where a remote attacker could cause the system to terminate, flaws in the ImageIO and Image RAW software that could let maliciously crafted image files execute arbitrary code, and a patch for the OpenSSL network encryption system that could allow a third-party to capture encrypted data.

Security Update 2010-001 also contains the most recent version of Adobe's Flash Player plug-in, 10.0.42, which fixes numerous vulnerabilities, among them one that could lead to arbitrary code execution as a result of viewing a maliciously crafted Website.

The updates weigh in at 21.9MB for Snow Leopard, 159.58MB for Leopard client, and 248.11 MB for Leopard server, though the size may vary from computer to computer. They are available through Software Update or via Apple's Support downloads page.

by Dan Moren

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China pays Web users to find porn amid crackdown

China has paid US$30,000 to over 200 people who reported porn sites

China has paid cash rewards to more than 200 people who found online porn and reported it to authorities, as a government crackdown on undesirable Web content spreads.

Authorities gave the people a total of 224,000 yuan (US$33,000) as part of a policy to pay citizens for porn tip-offs, the official Xinhua news agency said late Monday. The policy caused a government watchdog's daily number of porn tip-offs from the public to surge by 10 times immediately after it was announced last month, according to Xinhua.

The news comes as China continues a crackdown on so-called "harmful" online content that has spread from conventional porn Web sites to mobile porn and to online games. Starting soon, residents of Beijing and Shanghai who send text messages containing "illegal or unhealthy" content over the network of China Mobile, the world's largest mobile carrier by subscribers, will be temporarily blocked from sending more text messages, the official China Daily newspaper said.

China blocked or shut down more than 15,000 pornographic Web sites last year, Xinhua said.

Online games also came further under the eye of Chinese authorities this week as the country's culture ministry announced the formation of a "self-discipline" industry association including game developers and operators as members. The Chinese government has often used such arrangements to encourage self-censorship, whether of pornography or of sensitive political content, by operators of Internet services such as blogs. Regulators previously called for online games to cut back on systems that let players get married or earn experience points by killing monsters.

Regulators this year plan to launch a rating system for online games to protect young players from vulgar content, the China Daily said.

(by Owen Fletcher)

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Shaw Communications increases annual dividend, cites solid operational and financial results

Analysts and business experts say the importance of the Chinese market to Google's future suggests that self-imposed exile from China may not be Google's end-game

SAN FRANCISCO, USA: Google Inc says it may be forced to leave China, but the search giant has room to compromise in its battle with Beijing, and both sides have reason to do so.

The company's surprise statement on Tuesday that it was no longer ready to censor search results in China and might pull out of the world's biggest Internet market by users has put it squarely at odds with the Chinese government.

But analysts and business experts on Wednesday said Google's past clashes with powerful companies and industries, and the importance of the Chinese market to Google's future, suggest that self-imposed exile from China may not be Google's end-game.

Hard lines in previous battles have been negotiating tactics and could be this time, too, they said.

"I'm sure they will be pragmatic, Google is a very dynamic company," said Christopher Tang, a professor at the UCLA Anderson School of Management. "I doubt they will walk away like that. The presence in China is very crucial because that's the next wave."

China has roughly 360 million users, and its search market topped $1 billion last year.

While Google has struggled to compete with local powerhouse Baidu Inc, China represents a major growth opportunity.

"As Google grows they're breaking into new markets, and they're challenging the status quo on a lot of things," said Canaccord Adams analyst Jeff Rath.

In China, where the government places tight limits on citizens' Web access, Google's search engine represents a threat to the state's control.

But many businesses and industries have been threatened in other ways by Google's expansion, and the company has compromised in some of those clashes.

Past battles point to China plans?

Google's business of offering free products and services has helped it steamroll into many new markets in recent years, from books to wireless phones.

While Google has insisted it had the right to scan thousands of library books and put them online, the company chose to settle a class action suit in 2008 bought by authors and publishers' groups.

It agreed to a $125 million settlement that would create a books rights registry, where authors and publishers register works and are paid for books that Google puts online.

Google attempted to crack open the wireless phone market, which has traditionally been controlled by communications companies. But after an initial clash, it has opted to partner some incumbent wireless firms rather than continue its unilateral assault.

Some say that pragmatic approach could work in China as well, even though Google has taken a stand on free Internet speech.

Possible compromises

UCLA's Tang said Google could reach an agreement with Beijing in which it dropped its search efforts but offered other products such as the Google Voice Internet calling service or Google's archive of digital books.

The Chinese government censors much of the Web that is viewable to Chinese surfers and potentially could allow Google to operate an unfiltered Chinese language version of the Web site from that content, said Stanford University Graduate School of Business Professor Haim Mendelson.

The government then would censor, but Google would not.

While Mendelson said he thought it was more likely Google would leave China, he said a compromise could give both sides something they want.

China wants to maintain its image at home and abroad, and being rebuffed by Google doesn't help.

"Google has some interest in maintaining a presence in China, and the Chinese government has an interest as well," said Mendelson.

"The Chinese government wants to project an image of the country where they do want U.S. companies to be present."

(Alexei Oreskovic)

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Google threatens to leave China after massive cyberattacks

Attacks tried to access Gmail accounts of Chinese, Western human rights activists, search giant says

Google today said that a "highly sophisticated and targeted" attack against its network last month originated in China, and tried to access the Gmail accounts of Chinese human rights activists.

In a blog post Tuesday, David Drummond, Google's chief legal officer, said that attacks have forced the company to "review the feasibility of our business operations in China." Google, continued Drummond, is "no longer willing to continue censoring our results on Google.cn, and so over the next few weeks we will be discussing with the Chinese government the basis on which we could operate an unfiltered search engine within the law, if at all."

The end result of those discussions, said Drummond, may be that Google shuts down its search engine and close its offices in the People's Republic of China.

"This is a bold and a very difficult move on [Google's] part," said Leslie Harris, the president and CEO of the Center for Democracy & Technology (CDT), a Washington, D.C.-based civil liberties group. "But with the revelations that there have been major cyber attacks aimed at human rights activists, both in China and in the West, it's hard to see how Google could have remained silent."

According to Drummond, Google was one of at least 20 large companies that were targeted by massive attacks in December. In Google's case, the attacks resulted in the theft of some company intellectual property.

More troubling, said Drummond, was that the attacks were aimed at accessing the Gmail accounts of human rights activists in China. Gmail is officially unavailable in the country, but activists and others use anonymous proxies to circumvent that rule.

"We have evidence to suggest that a primary goal of the attackers was accessing the Gmail accounts of Chinese human rights activists," said Drummond, who added that with the exception of two accounts, those attacks had been unsuccessful. The message content of those accounts was not compromised, Drummond claimed; instead, only some information, such as subject lines and the date the account was created, was accessed.

Drummond also said Google had discovered that the Gmail accounts of dozens of U.S.- and Europe-based advocates of human rights in China had been "routinely" accessed by unauthorized users.

"We have taken the unusual step of sharing information about these attacks with a broad audience not just because of the security and human rights implications of what we have unearthed, but also because this information goes to the heart of a much bigger global debate about freedom of speech," said Drummond.

Google launched its Chinese-language search engine at google.cn in early 2006, and at the time spelled out its position on business in the country. "We will carefully monitor conditions in China, including new laws and other restrictions on our services. If we determine that we are unable to achieve the objectives outlined we will not hesitate to reconsider our approach to China," the company said four years ago.
(By Gregg Keizer)

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Huawei plans to manufacture equipment in India

Chinese telecommunications equipment vendor Huawei Technologies plans to start having some equipment manufactured in India, a company spokesman said on Monday. The company also plans to invest US$500 million over the next five years to expand its research and development (R&D) facility in Bangalore.

The move by Huawei comes after a decision in December by the Indian government to impose anti-dumping duties on SDH (synchronous digital hierarchy) transmission equipment imported from China.

The anti-dumping duty was one of the factors that influenced Huawei’s decision to make its products locally, the spokesman said. Huawei plans to make a whole range of networking equipment in the country, which will be targeted at the local market, he added.

The company had earlier said that it would consider setting up manufacturing in India, depending on commercial viability.

Huawei may set up its own facility or enter into a contract manufacturing agreement with a local company. “We haven’t finalized the modalities, including the location and the date when we will start manufacturing,” the spokesman said.

Huawei said in December that it plans to add about 2,000 staff in India in the next 18 months to two years, both in R&D and other functions like marketing and technical support. It currently has 4,000 staff of which about 2,000 are at the R&D center.

The Indian government recently indicated security concerns about the use of telecom equipment from Chinese vendors, particularly in border areas.

India and China fought a war in 1962, and strained relations over a border dispute between the two countries increased last year.

The Huawei spokesman however said it has been “business as usual” for Huawei, which had revenue of $1.3 billion from India last year. It expects a 50 percent increase in revenue from India this year, he added. Huawei customers include many large Indian telecommunications service providers.
(by John Ribeiro)

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Google takes wraps off Nexus One

Three years after rumors of a Google phone first surfaced, the search giant has taken the wraps off its own branded and designed mobile phone, the Nexus One.

Initially available on T-Mobile's network or unlocked, Google said the phone will also become available from Verizon as well as Vodafone in Europe.

Customers can buy the phone now on a new Google Web page, Google.com/phone. It's $530 unlocked. The phone costs $179 with a T-Mobile contract. The Vodafone and Verizon options are expected to be available sometime in the first quarter.



Buyers must use Google Checkout to buy the phone and must have a Google log-in.
HTC made the phone -- photos and details of which were leaked online in advance of today's announcement. The device has a 3.7-inch OLED display and runs a 1 GHz Snapdragon processor. It's 11.5 mm thick.

The trackball pulses light to alert users of events like new e-mails or text messages. The phone has light and proximity sensors, in addition to a compass and accelerometer. The light sensor will automatically dim the display when a bright light isn't necessary. The proximity sensor also dims the display light when a user moves the phone to the ear to talk.

The 5-megapixel camera includes an LED flash and takes MPEG 4 videos.

The phone also has two microphones, one in front and one in back, enabling noise cancellation. That means when users are in a noisy environment, the background noise is cancelled out.

In the demonstration during a webcast press event, the phone response seemed zippier than that of the Motorola Droid, perhaps due to the fast Snapdragon processor and upgraded software.

The software, Android version 2.1, builds on Android 2.0, currently in the Droid phone. It has more customization capabilities. For example, users can place widgets across five home screens instead of three.

The Nexus One also introduces the concept of live wallpaper. The background images, which sit behind widgets, are animated. In an example, a photo of a small lake with a reflection shows leaves floating in the water. Touching it shows ripples on the water.

Android 2.1 voice enables every text field in the device. That means users can speak Twitter messages, Facebook posts and e-mail messages and the phone will convert them to text to send.

"One question we asked ourselves some time ago was what if we work even more closely with our partners to bring devices to market which are going to help us showcase quickly the great software technology we're working on here at Google," Mario Queiroz, vice president of product management at Google said. "We've done just that."
(By Nancy Gohring)

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The 10 best Google Chrome extensions for work and play

Some of these add-ons for Google's Chrome browser will boost productivity. Some are just plain fun.



So many add-ons, so little time. On Dec. 8, Google finally released a repository of extensions for Google Chrome. Chrome extensions numbered at more than 300 on launch day.

As a beta project, extensions come with a few caveats from Google. For the moment, Google is only supporting extensions in its latest beta version of Chrome, so if you prefer the official, stable browser, you'll have to forgo add-on tools for now. Interestingly, the version of Chrome that supports extensions, dubbed "the Beta Channel" version, is only available on XP and Vista, not Windows 7, though Google has promised that extensions will soon be available for Google's new Mac version of Chrome, too.

In the meantime, Google Subnet blogger Julie Bort has scoured the extension library to come up with the ones that she thinks will boost your productivity at work. But she couldn't stop there. She added a few that are just plain fun, too.
(Julie Bort)

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Latest Grails framework is set for the JVM

Grails 1.2 contains hundreds of fixes and improvements; SpringSource also offers general availability of Spring 3.0 Java framework
SpringSource, which is now a division of VMware, released on Wednesday the 1.2 version of the Grails dynamic language framework for the Java Virtual Machine.

The general release follows the December 16 general availability of the Spring 3.0 framework for Java application development. Accessible at this Web page, Grails 1.2 offers significant new features, said Graeme Rocher, head of Grails development for the SpringSource division of VMware, in a blog post. Grails was built on the Groovy language.

[ The JVM is beecoming a popular spot for dynamic languages. ]

"Representing the most stable and performant Grails release yet, Grails 1.2 is a significant new release of the premier dynamic language framework for the JVM," Rocher said

In addition to supporting Spring 3.0, Grails 1.2 has dependency resolution offering full control over JAR (Java Archive) dependencies. Improved Spring integration is featured along with named query support. A named URL capability allows developers to create more explicit and expressive links inside GSPs (GrooverServer Pages).

Version 1.2 also offers a refactored testing infrastructure, which is pluggable to new providers. Pluggable Web containers allow different development time containers to be installed. Plugins are available for Apache Tomcat and Jetty Web servers.

Hundreds of bug fixes and small improvements also are featured in Grails 1.2, Rocher said.

Spring 3.0 had been available in a release candidate stage -- the stage at which the project is considered feature-complete enough to be considered for general release - since early this fall.

Spring 3.0 features capabilities such as simplifications in the Spring MVC (Model View Controller) framework and support for RESTful applications. "REST is becoming much more popular as part of a remoting philosophy," said Rod Johnson, general manager of SpringSource.

SpringSource had detailed the release in October.

Other features include SpEL (Spring expression language), featuring a core expression parser for use in bean definitions. Also, extended support is offered for annotation-based components. Spring 3.0 has full support for dependency injection in Java based on Java Specification Request 330.

Next-generation scheduling capabilities are featured as is Object/XML mapping. The framework is downloadable from this Web page.

SpringSource became a part of VMware in September once the $420 million acquisition, announced in August, closed.

by Paul Krill

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PC makers introduce netbooks with new Atom processor

PC makers including Dell and Fujitsu have introduced netbooks based on Intel's latest Atom processor that are smaller and offer battery lives in excess of seven hours, the companies said on Monday.

Fujitsu announced the LifeBook MH380 and Dell redesigned its Mini 10, both of which tap into the smaller design of Intel's latest Atom N450 netbook processor, which was also introduced earlier on Monday. The single-core Atom N450 chip is 60 percent smaller than its predecessors, and consumes close to 20 percent less power, Intel officials said.

Netbooks are low-cost laptops characterized by small screens and keyboards. The devices are designed to surf the Web and to run basic applications like word productivity programs or spreadsheets. Today, most PC makers offer netbooks as part of their product lineups.
The updated Mini 10 supports high-definition video. The laptop, which starts at $299, will include a 10.1-inch display and offer nine and half hours of battery life.

Though the N450 processor supports 720p HD graphics natively, Dell will soon offer an optional HD panel and Broadcom Crystal HD media accelerator for users to see full high-definition 1080p video. The company will also bundle an optional HD tuner for over-the-air TV broadcasts. The netbook will offer storage of up to 250GB of hard drive storage and wireless communication options include Wi-Fi and an optional mobile broadband module.

The netbook will weigh starting at 2.75 pounds and will come with a gaggle of OS options include Windows 7 Starter, Windows XP Home or Ubuntu, a flavor of Linux. The laptop will start shipping worldwide by the end of January, Dell said.

Fujitsu's MH380 offers better processor and graphics performance than earlier models, the company said in a statement. The netbook, which is priced at $449, weighs 2.97 pounds and includes a 10.1-inch display. It comes standard with a six-cell battery that offers seven hours of battery life. Other technologies bundled include a webcam, b/g/n Wi-Fi wireless networking, Bluetooth support and hard-drive storage.

The MH380 will be available worldwide in January, the company said.
By Agam Shah

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Droid Multitouch Enhanced by Add-on

Milestone's downloadable ROM improves the smartphone's multitouch functions ahead of Google
The Motorola Droid might be partially responsible for a huge jump in consumer awareness and popularity of the Android operating system, but there is still one thing the Droid does -- but doesn't do very well: support multitouch.

Sure, you can download Dolphin Browser and start pinching the screen to zoom in like you can on an iPhone, but a better solution appears just around the corner.

A mutlitouch ROM based on the European Milestone (which supports multitouch) is available on a post on AllDroid.org.

The alpha release might brick your phone and doesn't support GPS, but if you follow the instructions listed on the forum you will be able to enjoy multitouch goodness in Droid native applications.
by Paul Suarez

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2009 software development predictions put to the test

Windows 7, big mergers, open source, and more: If you had a hard time calling the shots, you weren't alone

It's a tough job, playing pundit. Imagine how much tougher it would be if we were actually expected to get it right! No wonder we tech columnists like to spend the end of the year making predictions. Even if our accuracy falls somewhere short of a stopped clock, no one will remember our prognostications by this time next year anyway.

But unlike some other columns, the Fatal Exception blog stands for accountability. The proverbial euro stops here. So before I turn my crystal ball to the coming year, I thought it would be appropriate to first look back on my predictions for 2009 to see what I got right, what I got wrong -- and what I missed completely.

[ It's that time of the year again -- don't forget to check out InfoWorld's 2009 geek gadget gift guide. | Keep up with app dev issues and trends with InfoWorld's Fatal Exception and Strategic Developer ]

Microsoft warmed to open source -- sort of
After years of butting heads with the open standards movement, Microsoft's proprietary technologies were losing ground to Web-based alternatives in 2008. The software giant needed a brand makeover, badly -- and it especially needed to improve its image among developers.

That's why I predicted Microsoft would continue to cozy up to the open source community throughout 2009, and I was right -- in a way. Among other initiatives, Microsoft contributed 20,000 lines of driver code to the Linux kernel, released the code to the .Net Micro Framework under an open source license, and funded the CodePlex Foundation to encourage corporate participation in open source projects.

Then again, these efforts were mostly self-serving. The Linux driver code was needed to improve Linux performance under Windows Server's Hyper-V virtualization. The .Net Micro Framework has yet to gain traction in the increasingly competitive mobile development market, so open-sourcing it was mostly a punt. And critics say the CodePlex Foundation is structured in a way that gives Microsoft too much influence.

I was also too optimistic when I predicted we'd see Linux ports of major Microsoft products. Instead, Sam Ramji, Microsoft's leading open source advocate, left the company -- and a quick search of the Microsoft Careers site reveals plenty of positions open for foot soldiers in the war against Linux, OpenOffice.org, and open source in general. I guess the more things change, the more they stay the same.

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What a $5,900 lens says about photography

Digital photography is profoundly different from the film era for many reasons.new image sensors can enable photography in conditions too dark for film. The same camera can shoot video and still shots. Cameras can record not just when you took a photo, but where you took it. It's easy to publish photos globally on the Internet or to alter them significantly with software. And steadily increasing computing power lets cameras do everything from detect smiling faces to correct lens shortcomings.

Many SLR users don't venture beyond the kit lens that comes with their camera--an 18-55mm zoom that's reasonable for indoor shooting and basic tourist photography. Those who want to photograph the kids' soccer matches can step up with a telephoto zoom--usually one reaching to 200mm or 250mm and costing a few hundred dollars.

So why all the extra price for a bit more focal length to reach 300mm?

At the top of the list is speed.

Entry-level telephoto lenses typically don't have very wide apertures at full zoom--F5.6 is common--meaning that it's harder to shoot fast action or in dim conditions. The smaller the aperture number, the more light a lens can gather, and the F2.8 aperture of Nikon's AF-S Nikkor 300mm f/2.8G ED VR II means it can shoot with a shutter speed four times as fast as an F5.6 lens.

The lens also has to be larger to enable photography using higher-end full-frame cameras whose image sensor area is the same size as a frame of 35mm film. Most digital SLRs have smaller image sensors, and point-and-shoot cameras have ones smaller still, which permits smaller lenses.

But here's a thought: With SLRs' low-light shooting ability progressing by leaps and bounds as sensors get better, do you really need to pay for that super-fast lens? Can't you just goose the ISO a notch or two and get by with an F4 or even F5.6 lens?

After all, Nikon's newest SLR, the D3S, can shoot at a whopping ISO 102,400, and new image processing software is getting gradually better at removing image noise from high-ISO shots.

My current SLR shoots cleaner images at ISO 6,400 than my last one did at ISO 1,600. And I'm not trying to start a religious war here, but I do appreciate that Canon offers some higher-end but more affordable F4 lenses to bridge the price gap between mainstream lenses and pro-grade F2.8 models.

So you can use a higher ISO rather than a faster lens--but there are consequences.

For one thing, today's SLR autofocus systems work better with wide-aperture lenses. Wider apertures also mean a shallow depth of field, enabling photographers to blur out the background to better focus attention on the subject of the photo. Primarily, though, a wider aperture means you'll still be able to shoot with that much faster a shutter speed or in that much dimmer light.

Another feature that sets professional lenses apart--particularly fixed focal length models--is image quality. They typically provide better sharpness, lower distortion, less vignetting that causes corners of the frame to darken, higher contrast, better colors, and less chromatic aberration--an unpleasant side effect of the different paths that different color light takes through lens optics.
Here, too, digital photography is changing things. Software such as Photoshop can correct many optical problems--but increasingly, so can cameras themselves. Canon's new high-end S90 compact camera corrects barrel distortion of its lens, fixing parallel lines that otherwise look bowed. And many camera models these days correct vignetting on their own. Hasselblad's high-end cameras treat software as part of the photography process, correcting several issues with lenses after the photo is taken.

But there are advantages to getting the image right before the light strikes the image sensor.

For example, although software can correct many problems for still images, SLRs these days can take video too. Correcting the optical properties of anywhere from 24 to 60 frames per second of video is a daunting challenge--especially given that focal lengths and focus distance settings can change continuously throughout the video so corrections aren't necessarily constant.

There are plenty of other features that set professional lenses apart. Some details on the 300mm lens: weather sealing, a setting to quickly return to a preset focus distance, special glass to protect the large front element, three extra-low dispersion (ED) glass elements for sharpness and minimum chromatic aberration, one aspherical lens element to minimize distortion, a magnesium housing, and Nikon's Nano Crystal Coat to cut down on internal glare in the lens. These are the kinds of things that cost real money to research, engineer, and manufacture.

There are electronics systems such as autofocus that predate the mainstream digital era, too, of course. Another is image stabilization, called vibration reduction (VR) by Nikon. Although in the case of Canon and Nikon it predates digital SLRs, it's still undergoing changes. The technology uses small gyroscopes to detect how a lens is moving and then small servomotors to move a lens element to counteract some of that shaking.

Compared to its predecessor, Nikon's 300mm lens has more effective vibration reduction technology. By Nikon's measurements, it can compensate for four F-stops' worth of camera shake--in other words, to let somebody who ordinarily could shoot at 1/400 sec. shoot at 1/25 sec. instead, as long as the subject matter is equally unmoving, too.

For comparison, Nikon's earlier 300mm F2.8 model offered three stops of improvement, which would get that shutter speed down only to 1/50 sec. Many reviewers find that company measurements are overoptimistic about the real-world effect of the stabilization technology, but there's no question it helps significantly.

The upshot here is that image processing hardware and software is dramatically changing how cameras work. The computer science gang is ascendant, but old-school lens design skills still pay dividends.
(by Stephen Shankland)

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Analyst: Verizon is the iPhone's next big feature

There are many things driving the popularity and growth of the Apple's iPhone, but as we enter 2010, one analyst believes the addition of Verizon will be the iPhone's big new feature.
Gene Munster, senior research analyst for investment bank Piper Jaffray, said in a research note to clients 0Wednesday that he believes there is a 70 percent chance that Apple will launch a new iPhone with Verizon in 2010. Munster puts the timing of such a move around the middle of the year.



That makes sense, since Apple has used June and July to launch all three of its iPhone models. The company also used the summer months to debut the App Store in 2008. It seems reasonable to speculate that Apple would continue with its schedule of introducing a new iPhone in mid-2010.

Munster said a move to Verizon would more than double Apple's current potential market by 89 million subscribers, adding to the already 82 million available on AT&T.

Of course, at this point the big problem is Apple's arrangement with AT&T as its exclusive carrier in the U.S. That deal is widely thought to end in 2010, although talks between the two companies are said to be ongoing, according to The Wall Street Journal.

The analyst's report also cites the iPhone's apps as playing a major role in the future growth of the device.

"We have seen a shift in the reason why consumers buy an iPhone. Initially, it was the touch screen and easy access to the Internet" said Munster. "Today, apps are cited as one of the top three reasons consumers buy an iPhone."
(by Jim Dalrymple)

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Facebook in Vietnam: Social-networking blues

HANOI, Vietnam--Vietnam's access to Facebook has been intermittent at best for about a month. However, after two weeks here in Hanoi, I haven't been able to get an official answer as to whether the popular social-networking Web site is being blocked here.

Internet service providers in Vietnam blame the spotty access on "technical issues," without offering an estimate for when the problems will be resolved. A representative from Viettel, a DSL and cell phone service provider, told me "there might be something wrong with Facebook."

None of the government personnel I was able to talk to during a recent trip back to my homeland would give me an answer, either. Some seemed to be unaware of the outage. However, during a media briefing on December 3, Nguyen Phuong Nga, a representative of Vietnam's Foreign Ministry, affirmed that agencies have been evaluating the contents of certain social Web sites because "many people in Vietnam have been upset that a number of social Web sites have been misused," basically posting information of an undisclosed nature that is deemed inappropriate.

I'm unaware of any misuse, but the upset seems much louder from the other side. With more than a million users and counting, the limited access to Facebook has created a lot of anguish. Lan Nguyen, a 23-year-old English student in Hanoi said, "I use Facebook daily. Now, it feels like something just got stolen from me." She uses FPT Telecom, one of the biggest DSL providers in Vietnam.

Ha Do of Ho Chi Minh city, another mid-20s, self-proclaimed Facebook addict who has some 1,800 friends, put it simply: "This sucks big time!" She revealed, however, that she still could access the site from some cafes, though definitely not from home. Upset and disappointment are common feelings among those I talked to about the matter.

This also affects a lot of small businesses in Vietnam, especially bars, restaurants, and tourism agencies that use Facebook to promote themselves to the outside world.

A curious silence
The week before I arrived in Vietnam, I was wondering why most of my Facebook friends in the country completely ignored my poking and never updated their pages. I'm afraid things won't get any better.

However, not everyone here thinks the blocking of Facebook--if it is in fact being blocked--is a bad thing. Long Tran, a 33-year-old editor for a Hanoi newspaper, said the situation would help boost local Internet services. He referred to how, thanks to similar tactics, China's Internet services have gained much local market share from foreign counterparts, such as the case of Taobao versus eBay or Baidu versus Google. Tran has never used Facebook or any other social-networking site, however.

Media in Vietnam, apart from citing ISPs' "technical issues" claims, now have started spreading rumors that Facebook is going out of service. The Thanh Nien, one of the most popular newspapers in Vietnam, ran an article Monday with the headline "Facebook in grave illness." It hinted that this is similar to the process of what happened to the now defunct Yahoo360, suggesting maybe it's time to look to other social Web sites.

Unfortunately, there aren't many Facebook alternatives in Vietnam, apart from Yahoo360Plus, which Yahoo created solely for Vietnam prior to the closure of its global Yahoo360 Web site. Yahoo360Plus is nowhere close in popularity to the original Yahoo360, mostly because it doesn't offer the interface in any other language except Vietnamese.


It's been about a month now that most computers in Vietnam can't access Facebook.
(Credit: Screenshot by Dong Ngo/CNET)


Facebook has been the fastest-growing social Web site in Vietnam, with the number of users increasing from just around 100,000 in June to almost 1.1 million in November, according to the company. It has been a daily tool for young Vietnamese, especially those with family and friends studying or living overseas, to stay connected. According to Facebook, 95 percent of Facebook users from Vietnam are 30 years old or younger and 60 percent are females.

The reason you can't accurately say outright that Facebook is blocked in Vietnam is because there's no official statement on the matter, and once in a while access is still possible.

Personally, while I couldn't access the site via Viettel DSL at the house I stayed, I could still access Facebook via a Viettel cellular data connection. Accessing the Internet via the cell is still in the early stages in Vietnam, however. Users of other Vietnamese broadband providers such as FPT, VNPT, and Viettel also report that once in a while, like for a few hours during weekends, access to Facebook is allowed.

Finding a workaround
Like Ha Do, I, too, could access Facebook from some cafes and hotels in Hanoi and other cities in Northern Vietnam. However this is likely because these places use third-party proxy services or change the DNS of their gateway to bypass that of the ISP. And this is what a lot of people in the country have done.

Trung, a 15-year-old high school student, taught me how to change the DNS. "I figured it out myself," Trung said proudly "I just Goggled it." Indeed, after a few Google searches, I found plenty of simple ways to by pass the ISP's DNS settings. "Now it would be really sad if Google is blocked," Trung added.

Blocked Web sites are new to Vietnam. However, this seems to be the first time people are out in big numbers looking for ways to bypass. This shows the popularity of Facebook and the desire of young Vietnamese to reach out and stay connected with the rest of the world. It might be just a matter of time before all Facebook users in the country successfully find a way to keep using the site. I wonder what the new "technical issues" will be then.

Nonetheless, so far the current limited access has dissuaded a lot of users from using the site and prevented new users from signing up. Personally, I am now assigned with finding a way for my college friends, most of whom are in Vietnam, to stay connected via the Internet. This is a real irony, as Facebook was originally made exactly for this purpose.
(by Dong Ngo)

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Congress probes Visa, AmEx role in Web scam

For years, baffled consumers looked to Visa, MasterCard, and American Express for answers when mysterious charges from "shadowy companies" began appearing on their credit card statements.

Even though all three card companies have rules designed to protect users from unauthorized charges as well as to weed out problem-plagued merchants, thousands of people appear to have complained to their card companies for years about three post-transaction marketing companies: Webloyalty, Vertrue, and Affinion. Perhaps as many as 30 million people were affected, according to a government report.

The U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation launched an investigation last May after learning of the thousands of consumer complaints from online shoppers. As a result of the investigation, lawmakers have concluded that the three marketing firms employed deceptive practices in order to fool consumers into signing up to loyalty programs and paying monthly fees. Now, the commerce committee wants Visa, MasterCard, and American Express to explain how all this went on for years under their noses.

Last week, Commerce Committee Chairman John Rockefeller (D-W.V.) wrote a letter to Kenneth Chenault, CEO of American Express, as well as the chiefs of the other two major card companies. He asked that they provide information about their dealings with the three marketers. Rockefeller wrote: "It concerns me greatly that the companies we are investigating have been able to acquire the credit and debit card numbers of millions of American consumers and bill them every month for services the consumers do not realize they have purchased."

Visa and MasterCard did not respond to interview requests. American Express said: "We share the committee's concerns about the alleged unfair and deceptive practices and are in the process of investigating."

Webloyalty, Affinion, and Vertrue generated $1.4 billion through the misleading practices, according to a report issued by the commerce committee last month. Those firms couldn't have accomplished that without obtaining "unprecedented" access to consumer credit cards, from online merchants according to the government's report and e-commerce experts. To obtain the card data, the marketing firms paid nearly $800 million to 88 e-tail stores, including Orbitz, Buy.com, Travelocity, Barnes & Noble, Pizza Hut, and Priceline.

While some of these stores have otherwise established solid reputations, the material disclosed by Senate investigators indicates these retailers sold their customers' financial data to third parties--something that experts say many consumers are unaware of and would likely find abhorrent.

The sheer number of retailers accused of betraying customer trust and the scrutiny now being focused on Visa, MasterCard, and American Express is turning the situation into an unprecedented scandal for the e-commerce sector.

The reason that the commerce committee may be turning the focus onto the credit card companies is that they were in a prime position to halt the deceptive marketing practices long ago, experts say. To understand what responsibility the credit card companies may have had, you have to know how the controversial marketing practices worked.

First, a consumer who is finishing up a transaction at a Web store would be presented with a pop-up ad. An offer for a cash-back reward of, say, $10 is written in large print. Customers are informed, again in bold text that they can get the reward if they enter their e-mail address.

Further down and written in much more obscure text are the full terms of the deal. That's how customers are notified that by entering their e-mail address they will effectively be agreeing to join a membership program and allowing their retailer to turn over their credit card information so it can be charged monthly, perhaps as much as $20. For this reason, the three marketing firms and their retail partners say the whole thing is legal and above board. All the terms are there in the fine print and it's not their fault that consumers don't read them.

Congressional investigators turned up documents, however, that showed they were well aware of the potential deception. Investigators presented internal e-mails from the marketing firms that illustrate how they purposely employ tactics to mislead consumers while staying within the letter of the law.

According to members of the commerce committee, it's a classic loophole play. In addition, documents show that the marketers told retail partners that they were much more likely to make money if the retailers gave them their customers' credit card information rather than to having to ask for it from the cardholder.

That's where American Express, Visa and Mastercard come in.

Had the big card companies followed their own rules, these dubious marketing tactics would have failed long ago, said Ben Edelman, an assistant professor at Harvard Business School who focuses on electronic marketplaces.

Visa, MasterCard, and American Express require that only a cardholder, not any intermediary or merchant, provide a credit card number to complete a transaction. This is key as many consumers are completely unsuspecting that an e-mail address is enough to authorize a purchase, according to Edelman, who offered written testimony during last month's committee hearing held on the marketers.

"Consumers naturally expect that if they don't type their card numbers they won't be charged," Edelman said. "That's a good rule of thumb, and it's true almost everywhere, but not at these tricky sites."

Another question that Visa, MasterCard, and American Express must answer is why they appear to have ignored what appears, according to the government's report, to be a large volume of customer complaints about Webloyalty, Affinion, and Vertrue.

The card companies have rules in place to boot merchants off their systems who have too many customer complaints or "chargebacks," the term used to describe the refunding of money to a credit card owner who has been charged incorrectly or fraudulently.

The Senate committee has indicated it will hold another hearing sometime after the start of the year and intends to call to testify the CEOs of the marketing firms and many of the Web stores. Perhaps, the chiefs of Visa and the other card companies should be there as well.

"Credit card networks have hundreds of pages of rules detailing every requirement of banks, retailers, and credit card users," Edelman said. "The rules exactly prohibit these practices. But what good are rules when they are not enforced."
(by Greg Sandoval)

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Big marketing budget drives Moto Droid sales

Motorola's and Verizon Wireless' $100 million marketing campaign for the Motorola Droid seems to be paying off with strong sales that will likely result in more than 1 million devices being sold by the end of the year.

The Droid, the only smartphone currently on the market that uses Google Android's 2.0 operating system, is Motorola's second Android device and it's available only on Verizon Wireless's network. The device is turning out to be the hit phone of the season, thanks in large part to an expensive and extensive advertising campaign.


Neither company is reporting sales figures. But analysts say sales look good. The companies have likely sold between 700,000 and 800,000 Droids since the device was launched in early November, according to equity analyst Mark Sue of RBC Capital Markets.

"Verizon's big marketing push for the Droid is strengthening as we close in on the holidays, and following our round of checks, we believe about 700,000 to 800,000 Droids have been sold, making our hurdle of 1 [million] Motorola Droids achievable for 4Q09 [ending December 31]," Sue said in his research note. "Motorola, for its part, has done a good job on the production side, and our survey of over 100 stores indicates strong demand, limited stock outs, and very few returns."

John Stratton, executive vice president and chief marketing officer for Verizon Wireless, said when the device was launched in late October that Verizon would be pouring in more money to market this device than any other phone it has ever sold. And now it looks like the money has been well spent. From advertisements that specifically highlight the Droid to ones that focus on Verizon's extensive and reliable 3G wireless network, it's clear that the company has AT&T and the Apple iPhone in its crosshairs.

AT&T has actually sued Verizon over the advertisements about its 3G wireless network coverage.

Some Verizon Wireless stores, especially in major cities, are selling between 100 and 200 Droids per week since the launch in early November, Sue added.

The success of the Droid is good news both for Motorola and for Verizon Wireless.

Motorola comeback
For Motorola, the Droid represents a chance to make a comeback in the cell phone market. The iconic American company that practically invented the cell phone market has struggled for the past several years now. After the runaway success of the ultra-thin Motorola Razr in 2004, the company has been unable to come up with a hit phone. And it has steadily lost market share to other competitors, such as Nokia, Samsung, and LG Electronics. It's also ceded market share in the fastest growing segment of the market, smartphones, to newcomers like Apple and Research In Motion.

Motorola's mobile devices CEO Sanjay Jha took a bold gamble more than a year ago when he decided to dedicate the company's resources to building phones using the Google Android operating system. The Droid and the Motorola Cliq, which is exclusively sold on T-Mobile USA's network, are the first two Motorola Android phones to hit the market.

But Jha said the Google Android operating system will not only be used in high-end devices like the Droid, but it will also be used to power less expensive phones, creating a new tier of smartphones that will eventually replace the basic feature phone category. Jha said the company will launch at least 20 more Android devices in 2010.

The success of the Droid is an important first step in getting Motorola back on track. But equity analyst Ittai Kidron of Oppenheimer said in a research note Monday that sales of the Motorola Cliq are falling short of expectations. Motorola is expected to sell 1.5 million smartphones in the fourth quarter. And two-thirds of them are expected to be Droids.

Kidron said the Cliq is not selling well mostly because of issues with battery life. Motorola is supposedly preparing a software patch to fix the problem. But he also noted that T-Mobile appears to be losing interest in the device and is not marketing it heavily.

But T-Mobile says that the Cliq is doing just fine. And the carrier said that it's committed to marketing the phone through the holiday season.

"The Motorola Cliq is very popular among our highly connected customers and is the only device with Motorola's innovative Motoblur solution," a company spokesman said. "T-Mobile is excited about the Motorola Cliq for the holidays and continues to showcase it prominently in T-Mobile retail stores and with recent holiday deals."

Verizon's iPhone alternative
The Droid's success is also important to Verizon Wireless, the nation's largest wireless operator in the country. It is the first device that offers a true challenge to Apple's iPhone, which runs exclusively in the U.S. on AT&T's network. While Verizon has a strong reputation for its network, consumers often complain about its lack of cool phones. Up to this point, Verizon has mainly competed against AT&T and the iPhone with RIM's BlackBerry devices. But RIM's touch-screen BlackBerry Storm, which was first introduced a year ago, was largely a disappointment.

The Droid offers Verizon customers an alternative to the iPhone on the Verizon network. This fact could help Verizon retain some consumers who were thinking of leaving for the iPhone. But it might also attract new customers who are either disappointed with AT&T's service or have heard bad things about the network.

Verizon Wireless representatives say the Droid is certainly an important part of the company's device line-up.

"We are pleased with sales over the holiday weekend," Brenda Raney, a spokeswoman for the carrier said in an e-mail. "This phone clearly fits the needs of a number of customers who are excited about its availability on the Verizon Wireless network."

But if analyst data is to be trusted, it is clear that the huge marketing budget for the Droid is at least part of the reason why the device has been so successful. The HTC Droid Eris, another Android device sold exclusively on Verizon's network, is not selling as well as the Droid, Sue said in his note. The HTC Droid Eris went on sale the same day the Droid was launched, but with much less fanfare.

Part of the problem is the fact that there are many Android devices coming to market. And the number will only increase next year. The lesson from the success of the Motorola Droid is clear. If device makers and carriers hope for break-out success, then they will have to spend big on marketing.
(by Marguerite Reardon)

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Chrome OS security: 'Sandboxing' and auto updates

With most computers threatened by attacks coming through Web applications, it's no surprise that security would be a key piece of Chrome OS, Google's browser-based operating system that stores data in the cloud.

In this video, Google security engineer Will Drewry explains how Chrome OS separates user data from root or system data, which makes the system more secure and easier to re-install the operating system.
(Credit: Google)

Google showed off its new lightweight operating system designed for Netbooks and cloud computing on Thursday. As anticipated, it will rely on many of the same security features and concepts used by the Chrome browser.

"The browser is the operating system. We've expanded the browser to add operating system functionality," Caesar Sengupta, a group product manager at Google, said in an interview.

Chrome OS uses a combination of operating system-level protections and exploit mitigation techniques to limit the attack surface, or amount of code that can be targeted in an attack, and to reduce the likelihood of an attack being successful. "The biggest security impact is that all applications run within the browser," Sengupta said.

Chrome relies heavily on sandboxing, keeping different processes and applications in separate partitions. This limits the interaction between applications and the OS kernel.

For example, with conventional operating systems, if an application crashes, it can crash or otherwise affect other programs that are running, Sengupta said. "But if everything is sandboxed, that becomes more difficult to do," he added.

Many systems are compromised by deceptive attacks, such as when a user opens an innocent-looking PowerPoint file which unleashes a virus or other malware that can get access to everything on the computer.

With Chrome, "applications can't just download any binary and run it," Sengupta said.

Chrome has a verified boot process that uses cryptography to ensure that the Linux kernel, the nonvolatile system memory, and the partition table are not tampered with when the system starts up, according to a security overview of Chrome. (Google security engineer Will Drewry explains the security concepts of Chrome OS in a video on YouTube.)

"Right now, on your conventional operating system, any kind of process can run, which makes it difficult to predict what any process will do," Sengupta said. "On Chrome, because the whole operating system is essentially signed by Google, there is a lot we can do to make it secure."

If an application manages somehow to break out of the browser sandbox, to get through the kernel hardening and processing infrastructure, and manages to change something on the operating system, the changes will be detected the next time the user boots up the machine. "As soon as it detects something is different and not signed by Google, it will warn the user and try to clean itself again," Sengupta said.

Cleaning up is easier than with a standard operating system, too, because the system data is separated from the user data, which includes user preferences, system settings, and a local cache of data stored on the Google servers in the cloud, he said.

All user data stored by the operating system, browser, and any plug-ins are encrypted and users cannot access each others' data on a shared device, according to the Chrome OS security page.

Meanwhile, Chrome will automatically update to get the most recent software and patches for the operating system, just like the Chrome browser updates in the background while users are online, Sengupta said. Users will not run the risk of having their system get infected or compromised before they can install updates, as happens with Windows and other software.

In addition, the antiphishing technology found in the Chrome browser will protect Chrome OS users from inadvertently visiting malicious Web sites, he said.

Google is publishing detailed design documents on Chrome OS, which will allow security experts to scour the code for weaknesses over the next year before the operating system is released to the public, according to Sengupta.

There are some security and networking technologies that are supported in other operating systems that Google is passing on, at least for now.

Google will keep an eye on biometric authentication technologies, but believes that the cost/reliability trade-off is not where it needs to be just yet, according to the security overview for Chrome OS. Smart cards and USB crypto tokens are "interesting technology, but we don't want our users to have to keep track of a physically distinct item just to use their devices," the overview concludes.

Google is likewise not interested in Bluetooth, a wireless protocol widely used in laptops and handheld devices. "Bluetooth adds a whole new software stack to our login/screenlocker code that could potentially be buggy, and the security of the pairing protocol has been criticized in the past," the security overview says.
(by Elinor Mills)

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