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Technology

Submission + - Skype's Magical iPad Disappearing Act (wsj.com)

Submitted by
pbahra
pbahra writes: "One of the frustrations of Apple's FaceTime video calling is it only works over Wi-Fi, not 3G. So there was much excitement when a full-featured version of Skype for the iPad 2 with 3G support appeared in the App Store. And there much disappointment when it disappeared a few hours later with a Tweet from Skype. "oeWe know you’ve been eagerly awaiting Skype for the iPad and apologize for the inconvenience." It seems this may, as well, be a bit of a let-down for conspiracy theorists. With Microsoft in the process of finalizing its purchase of Skype they would have suggested that Apple had pulled the plug on the new app. However it appears it was Skype that made the strategic withdrawal in order to tweak the product for the iPad. There may also be other conspiracies to be pursue."
Security

Submission + - Ex-U.K.Official Gets Huawei Cyber-Security Role (wsj.com)

Submitted by
pbahra
pbahra writes: "BEIJING — Chinese telecommunications-equipment maker Huawei Technologies Co. said Monday it has hired a former chief information officer for the U.K. government as a cyber-security official, as the company faces continued scrutiny in developed markets where it aims to expand. Huawei has faced political obstacles to expansion in developed markets, especially in the U.S., over what critics call close ties to the Chinese government — something Huawei denies. John Suffolk, who will report to Huawei's secretive chief executive, Ren Zhengfei, will start as Huawei's first "global cyber security officer" on Oct. 1, the company said."
Software

Submission + - Adobe New HTML5 Design Tool No Threat to Flash (wsj.com)

Submitted by
pbahra
pbahra writes: "It is a reflection of the huge interest in HTML5 as a possible alternative to Flash that Adobe’s launch of a very early preview of a toolkit for professional web developers immediately became a trending topic on Twitter. What has excited people is Adobe’s statement that Edge will, “bring animation, similar to that created in Flash Professional, to websites using standards likes HTML, JavaScript and CSS.” Across the web some headline writers been almost apocalyptic. Beta News, for instance, talks of The Final Days of Flash while SlashGear says, “Adobe Edge HTML5 app could eat Flash from the inside.” Many analysts, however, are more sanguine. “People have shown that you can do animation with HTML5, but it’s not nearly as well realized as with Flash,” said James Governor, an industry analyst at RedMonk. Nor is it the end of the road for Flash developments at Adobe according to Vishal Jain, mobile services analyst at The 451 Group."
Google

Submission + - Google Buys IBM Patents (wsj.com)

Submitted by
pbahra
pbahra writes: "Google Inc. said Friday that it has purchased technology patents from International Business Machines Corp. as the Web-search giant stocks up on intellectual property to defend itself against lawsuits. "Like many tech companies, at times we'll acquire patents that are relevant to our business," a Google spokesman said in a statement.
The purchase was reported earlier by the blog SEO by the Sea, which said Google in mid-July recorded the acquisition of more than 1,000 patents with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. The patents involve the "fabrication and architecture of memory and microprocessing chips," computer architecture including servers and routers and online search engines, among other things. SEO stands for search engine optimization, or the practice of structuring websites and content so they rank well on search engines like Google. The Google spokesman declined to comment on the purchase price. It wasn't immediately clear which of the patents might be useful to Google to shield against lawsuits. Google faces patent lawsuits for many of its services, including its Android mobile-device operating system, which has become a bigger target as its world-wide popularity has risen. It is unclear whether any current lawsuits pose a threat to future revenue generated by Google's new technologies."

Submission + - HTML5 Poses Threat to Flash and the App Store (wsj.com) 1

Submitted by
pbahra
pbahra writes: "Few outside the techie world were aware of HTML5 before April 2010 when Apple CEO Steve Jobs declared iPhones and iPads would never support Adobe Flash. Instead, he said, Apple would implement other technologies for video and games, based around HTML5. It was either strange or ironic when, a little over a year later, the Financial Times announced it had developed an app using HTML5 which would allow it to bypass payments to Apple for its use on the iPad or iPhone. That led to HTML5 being discussed as a technology that could kill Apple’s highly profitable App Store. The problem is HTML5 is not scheduled for official approval by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) until 2014. Developers, meanwhile, want to run the latest technology now. So they will either use proprietary plug-ins such as Flash or protocols that could become standards. So where does that leave the would-be app developer now? Paul Fifield CEO of iPad publishers Ceros, believes: “If you’re not looking to monetize your app then, absolutely, you should go for HTML5. If you’re looking to monetize it. then native coding for the App Store is still the way to go.”"
Entertainment

Submission + - BBC iPlayer European Launch Disappoints (wsj.com)

Submitted by
pbahra
pbahra writes: "There was a gnashing of teeth amongst Anglophiles and British expatriates mixed with a certain amount of relief for virtual private network suppliers as the U.K.'s national broadcaster, the BBC, announced details of the long-awaited international expansion of its iPlayer. This service has for over five years allowed viewers in the U.K. to catch up with broadcasts on demand using a growing number of devices including computers, mobile handsets, cable services, games consoles and internet-connected televisions. Brits abroad and other fans of BBC programming have long found workarounds to beat the territorial restrictions [and breach the terms and conditions] of the service in order to keep up with their favorite shows. Generally this has meant using a virtual private network (VPN) with a UK IP address so it appeared the user was in Britain. It has become a thriving little industry for suppliers. For months, however, visitors to the BBC website (where no subterfuge is required to view) have been tantalized with teaser advertisements for a new international iPlayer service. The obvious inference was that it would replicate what was available in the UK, but with charges. The reality is rather less."

Submission + - Adobe Closes Its App Stores (wsj.com)

Submitted by
pbahra
pbahra writes: "Without offering much of an explanation beyond saying it comes from “developer feedback”, Adobe has pulled the plug on its AIR Marketplace and InMarket app stores. However, the Apple Intelligence blog “9to5Mac” is quite clear as to what has happened: “Another win for Apple here,” it says."
Cloud

Submission + - U.K. Officials Put Classified Info in the Cloud (wsj.com)

Submitted by
pbahra
pbahra writes: "U.K. government policy makers will be able to work securely on classified documents across departments for the first time thanks to a deal with cloud computing and content management service provider Huddle. Previously the only way for policy makers to share documents across departments, said Huddle CEO Alastair Mitchell, was via secure email: "Try working on a 500 page document to be shared by 20 people. It is a nightmare." Some 70% of government departments have been using a version of Huddle for some time, said Mr. Mitchell, but anything with a classification of "oerestricted" or above was prohibited. So the government commissioned a special secure version, called Huddle IL3, to allow it to handle more sensitive documents up to restricted level. According to a government spokeswoman a large amount of government work is done at the restricted level.
Cloud-based solutions help tackle the issue of users, when faced with obtrusive security procedures, using their insecure Gmail or Hotmail accounts. Surely London-based Huddle has just made itself a target for every hacker in the world wanting to crack into the U.K. government’s secrets? Not so. “It is running on the government secure intranet on their servers in their data center” said Mr. Mitchell. He added that because they were running on the government servers, they were in theory authorized to work to higher levels. He said they were hopeful to be cleared to handle the next level of security, confidential (IL4), next year."
Security

Submission + - Vodafone Mobiles Targeted by Hackers (wsj.com)

Submitted by
pbahra
pbahra writes: "Hackers gained access to unauthorized information from Vodafone mobiles and its network after exploiting security loopholes in a femtocell—devices aimed at plugging small holes in their network coverage—the group has claimed. In a statement Vodafone has said that it was aware of the hack the group alleged it had used and had already patched the vulnerability. “The only time a customer could theoretically have been at risk was if they were registered on, and within 50 metres of, a box which the owner had tampered with,” the company said in the statement. “This would have required that person to dismantle the device and solder additional components onto it, as well as taking the conscious decision to prevent the device from receiving our automatic software updates.” “Eduart Steiner” (a pseudonym), a spokesman for The Hacker’s Choice group, said: “That is exactly what we did.”"
Cloud

Submission + - Spotify Will Find U.S. Tough to Crack (wsj.com)

Submitted by
pbahra
pbahra writes: "If everyone in the U.S. is as excited about Spotify as Britney Spears is, then their worries are over. The excitable Ms. Spears tweeted to her 8.5 million fans last night: "So excited Spotify is FINALLY coming to the US tomorrow! Getting my playlists ready now -Brit". In reality the U.S. market is going to prove a lot tougher to crack: “They have done a very good job in Europe, but the U.S. is a very tough music market,” said Ben Rumley, an analyst at Enders Analysis. “You have had subscription services there for a long time. Spotify was new when it launched in Europe; it was offering something that was done very well. But in the U.S. you have had Rhapsody for many years and Napster was around. These services have struggled to capture the imagination.” Alongside Rhapsody, a joint venture between MTV and Real Networks, and Napster there are services such as Pandora, Mog, Rdio and even the controversial Grooveshark. And of course, its biggest rival, piracy."
Piracy

Submission + - Fines Levied by French Piracy Watchdog: € Zer (wsj.com)

Submitted by
pbahra
pbahra writes: "Earlier this week, France’s anti-internet piracy police, Hadopi, presented the fruits of nine months of scanning the Web for intellectual property thieves. That works out at 470,000 first warnings, no fines, and not one Internet connection cut off. Some copyright holders, whose industry associations pay to harvest the IP addresses of alleged miscreants, are wondering whether they are getting any bang for their buck.

When it was launched in 2010, Hadopi was viewed as the big stick the music industry would use to beat French Internet pirates into submission. Now Hadopi is putting pressure on the music industry to offer up a correspondingly juicy carrot: cheap and easy to use Web sites where songs can be downloaded legally."
Security

Submission + - Is the Military Prepared for Cyberwarfare? (wsj.com)

Submitted by
pbahra
pbahra writes: "If you think that combatting cyber criminals is hard in your organization, imagine doing it in an enterprise with some 18 or so layers of management between the top man (and it is always a man) and the most junior employee. Now imagine that in that organization there is a form for everything, that it can take literally decades to buy new equipment, and that you can be jailed for having dirty footwear. But that same organization is charged with helping to defeat shadowy hacker groups who are faster, have better equipment, almost certainly are better funded and don’t have to salute every time someone senior walks past them.
The modern military is used to operating in what is known as an asymmetric environment, with a distinct imbalance between the two opponents. The problem for the military is that they like to be the big guy. According to a senior officer speaking at the 2011 Annual Defense Lecture in London, when asked if the military was capable of operating at the same speed as their opponents, he admitted they were not."
Businesses

Submission + - New Business Models for Industries In Crisis (wsj.com)

Submitted by
pbahra
pbahra writes: "In Don Tapscott and Anthony D. Williams' 2006 book Wikinomics, the authors looked at dozens of companies that have used the Internet to transform their business models and achieve tremendous success. However, they noticed something striking: the rate of business model innovation has not accelerated. Increasingly it’s becoming difficult or even impossible for companies to achieve breakthrough success without changing their entire industry’s modus operandi. For example, despite the advancements of modern medicine, healthcare’s business model has remained unchanged for centuries. Doctors wait for sick people to come to them and tell their patients what to do, one-on-one, face-to-face. Patients play little or no role in deciding their own treatments plans. Patients are passive recipients. The entire industry needs to reinvent itself around the Internet and recast the doctor-patient relationship. Patients should use the Internet to become informed. Every citizen, including newborns, would have a personal health page. Think of it as a patient’s personal window into his or her own health and the basis for participation in a broader health social network."
Technology

Submission + - Women & Children First: Technology And Moral P (wsj.com)

Submitted by
pbahra
pbahra writes: "Why is it that some technologies cause moral panic and others don'(TM)t? Why was the introduction of electricity seen as a terrible thing, while nobody cared much about the fountain pen? According to Genevieve Bell, the director of Intel Corporation’s Interaction and Experience Research, we have had moral panic over new technology for pretty well as long as we have had technology. It is one of the constants in our culture. "oeI like the fact that moral panic is remarkably stable and it is always played out in the bodies of children and women," she said. There was, she says, an initial pushback about electrifying homes in the U.S.: "oeIf you electrify homes you will make women and children and vulnerable. Predators will be able to tell if they are home because the light will be on, and you will be able to see them. So electricity is going to make women vulnerable. Oh and children will be visible too and it will be predators, who seem to be lurking everywhere, who will attack. "oeThere was some wonderful stuff about [railway trains] too in the U.S., that women's bodies were not designed to go at 50 miles an hour. Our uteruses would fly out of our bodies as they were accelerated to that speed.""
Science

Submission + - Telemedicine Fertility Monitor As Successful As IV (wsj.com)

Submitted by
pbahra
pbahra writes: "Shamus Husheer’s opening line as a speaker is guaranteed to get him a laugh: "My name is Shamus Husheer and my job is to get the women of Britain pregnant." Behind the laughs, though, Mr. Husheer has developed a technology that is helping thousands of women get pregnant without recourse to drugs or invasive techniques for a fraction of the cost of IVF. In the U.K. a cycle of IVF costs on average some £4,500 ($7,200). New Zealand born Mr. Husheer, who started his company, Cambridge Temperature Concepts, straight after being awarded a PhD from the chemistry department at Cambridge University says the fertility monitor, called DuoFertility, is as effective as conventional IVF. “We published a peer-reviewed paper that showed that six months use of the monitor has the same success rate as a round of IVF.” They are confident that unpublished research which uses additional data will show that a year of use is better than IVF. So confident is Mr. Husheer, that the company offers a money-back guarantee. If a woman is not pregnant after 12 month’s use, and has complied with the instructions, then the company will refund the £495. DuoFertility comprises a small sensor, slightly larger in diameter than a €1 coin, which a woman wears under her arm, affixed with medical tape. The sensor, which can take up to 20,000 readings a day, has to be worn all night and preferably during the day as well. It is designed to fit into the natural pocket under the arm. And in a great example of how data capture is transforming businesses, the monitoring data has proved to be a valued resource for sleep researchers. The monitor contains a three-axis accelerometer which it uses to determine when the woman is asleep"

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