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Submission Summary: 0 pending, 196 declined, 54 accepted (250 total, 21.60% accepted)

Submission + - "Why the hell does this mouse need to connect to the Internet?" (arstechnica.com)

Submitted by
jbrodkin
jbrodkin writes: "In this hyper-connected, networked world, many more of our devices are getting linked to the cloud, whether we want them to or not. That's sometimes good, and sometimes bad, so when a basic device like a mouse requires a user to go online and set up an account to activate all of its functionality, people are understandably going to ask why? The latest entry in the saga of "Why the hell does this thing need to connect to the Internet?" comes from Razer, which has caused an uproar by asking users to register gaming mice on the Internet. While it's mainly for syncing settings across devices, gamers are complaining that certain functionality might not be available unless you create an online account for your mouse. Razer has responded to the controversy, but its answers aren't entirely satisfactory."
Microsoft

Submission + - Windows 8 Mail leaves users pining for the desktop—or even their phones (arstechnica.com)

Submitted by
jbrodkin
jbrodkin writes: "The e-mail client in Windows 8 is the shell of a potentially good application—but Microsoft hasn't given it the proper care it deserves. With less than a month before Windows 8 hits RTM, Mail is a mess that doesn't support IMAP, can't connect to servers with self-signed certificates, and lacks basic features like flagging messages for followup. Metro Mail is feature-deficient compared not just to other desktop and tablet apps—it's behind Microsoft's own phone platform. Whether used on a tablet or desktop, this in-depth look concludes that Metro Mail in its current form will have users pining for a real desktop application."
Android

Submission + - Microsoft wins US import ban on Motorola's Android devices (arstechnica.com)

Submitted by jbrodkin
jbrodkin writes: The US International Trade Commission today ordered an import ban on Motorola Mobility Android products, agreeing with Microsoft that the devices infringe a Microsoft patent on “generating meeting requests” from a mobile device. The import ban stems from a December ruling that the Motorola Atrix, Droid, and Xoom (among 18 total devices) infringed the patent, which Microsoft says is related to Exchange ActiveSync technology. Today, the ITC said in a “final determination of violation” that “the appropriate form of relief in this investigation is a limited exclusion order prohibiting the unlicensed entry for consumption of mobile devices, associated software and components thereof covered by ... United States Patent No. 6,370,566 and that are manufactured abroad by or on behalf of, or imported by or on behalf of, Motorola.” Motorola (which is being acquired by Google) was the last major Android device maker not to pay off Microsoft in a patent licensing deal. Microsoft has already responded to the decision, saying it hopes Motorola will now reconsider.
Facebook

Submission + - Facebook asserts trademark on word "book" in new user agreement (arstechnica.com)

Submitted by
jbrodkin
jbrodkin writes: "Facebook is trying to expand its trademark rights over the word "book" by adding the claim to a newly revised version of its "Statement of Rights and Responsibilities," the agreement all users implicitly consent to by using or accessing Facebook. The company has registered trademarks over its name and many variations of it, but not on the word "book". By inserting the trademark claim into the Facebook user agreement, the company hopes to bolster its standing in lawsuits against sites that incorporate the word "book"."
Android

Submission + - 2 phones, 1 device: Samsung virtualizing Android (arstechnica.com)

Submitted by
jbrodkin
jbrodkin writes: "VMware’s mission to bring virtualization to the mobile market gained a major supporter last week when Samsung pledged to use VMware software to build business-friendly smartphones and tablets. The project known as Horizon Mobile will let Android phones use virtual machine technology to run a second instance of Android, in much the same way virtualization works on servers and desktops. The user essentially has two completely separate phones running on one device, and can switch from the personal one to the corporate one by clicking a “work phone” icon. With Samsung pledging to add VMware software to the Galaxy S II phones and the Galaxy Tab 10.1 and 8.9 tablets, virtualized Android devices are expected to ship within "the coming months.""
Linux

Submission + - Linus Torvalds: ARM has a lot to learn from the PC (networkworld.com)

Submitted by
jbrodkin
jbrodkin writes: "Linux and ARM developers have clashed over what's been described as a "United Nations-level complexity of the forks in the ARM section of the Linux kernel." Linus Torvalds addressed the issue at LinuxCon this week on the 20th anniversary of Linux, saying the ARM platform has a lot to learn from the PC. While Torvalds noted that "a lot of people love to hate the PC," the fact that Intel, AMD and hardware makers worked on building a common infrastructure "made it very efficient and easy to support." ARM, on the other hand, "is missing it completely," Torvalds said. "ARM is this hodgepodge of five or six major companies and tens of minor companies making random pieces of hardware, and it looks like they're taking hardware and throwing it at a wall and seeing where it sticks, and making a chip out of what's stuck on the wall.""
IBM

Submission + - IBM PC designer says PC going way of vacuum tube (networkworld.com) 1

Submitted by
jbrodkin
jbrodkin writes: "One of the original engineers of IBM's first PC says PCs are "going the way of the vacuum tube, typewriter, vinyl records, CRT and incandescent light bulbs." With the 30th anniversary of the IBM 5150 (running MS-DOS) coming this week, IBM CTO Mark Dean argues that the post-PC world is very much upon us, perhaps not surprising given that IBM sold its PC business in 2005. Microsoft, of course, weighed in as well, saying the PC era is nowhere near over. But perhaps in the future we will consider a personal computer anything a person does computing on — whether that be laptop, tablet, smartphone, or something that hasn't even been invented yet."
Android

Submission + - Android Trojan records phone calls (networkworld.com)

Submitted by
jbrodkin
jbrodkin writes: "A new Android Trojan is capable of recording phone conversations, according to a CA security researcher. While a previous Trojan found by CA logged the details of incoming and outgoing phone calls and the call duration, new malware identified this week records the actual phone conversations in AMR format and stores the recordings on the device's SD card. The malware also "drops a 'configuration' file that contains key information about the remote server and the parameters," CA security researcher Dinesh Venkatesan writes, perhaps suggesting that the recorded calls can be uploaded to a server maintained by an attacker. Installation of the Trojan requires some user interaction, but the malware recreates the look and feel of the standard Android application installation process, and may fool some unsuspecting users."
Microsoft

Submission + - Microsoft's hottest new profit center: Android (networkworld.com)

Submitted by
jbrodkin
jbrodkin writes: "One of Microsoft's hottest new profit centers is a smartphone platform you've definitely heard of: Android. Google's Linux-based mobile operating system is a favorite target for Microsoft's patent attorneys, who are suing numerous Android vendors and just today announced that another manufacturer has agreed to write checks to Microsoft every time it ships an Android device. Vendors paying off Microsoft for the right to use Android now include HTC, Velocity Micro, General Dynamics, Onkyo Corp. and Wistron. Microsoft likely makes more money from Android than its own Windows phone platform, and its latest patent agreement announced Tuesday indicates Microsoft is also going after Google's Linux-based Chromebooks."

Submission + - NYT update breaks iPad app, annoys subscribers (networkworld.com)

Submitted by
jbrodkin
jbrodkin writes: "The New York Times, which recently started charging iPad readers $20 a month, has a lot of angry digital subscribers after an update broke the NYTimes for iPad application. The update was designed to make it easier for readers to subscribe to the Times through iTunes (irony!) but instead left readers unable to access any articles. Worse, the Times didn't bother to fix the app over the long weekend or reply to users who complained on Twitter. It's not the first time developers have broken an iPad application with a poorly constructed update, but reader complaints noted that the size of the New York Times and the high price it charges make this gaffe particularly galling. Angry users have driven the app's rating down to less than two out of five stars."
Chrome

Submission + - Chrome hits 20% share as Microsoft continues slide (networkworld.com)

Submitted by
jbrodkin
jbrodkin writes: "Google Chrome's rise in popularity has been remarkably fast and it's just hit a new milestone: more than 20% of all browser usage, according to StatCounter. Chrome rose from only 2.8% in June 2009 to 20.7% worldwide in June 2011, while Microsoft's Internet Explorer fell from 59% to 44% in the same time frame. Firefox dropped only slightly in the past two years, from 30% to 28%. While other browser trackers show Chrome with a lower percentage, there's a reason: StatCounter tracks total surfing, not the number of users. It's the Web's power users who are pushing Chrome to new heights."

Submission + - Microsoft, Google, Twitter debate HTML5 (networkworld.com)

Submitted by
jbrodkin
jbrodkin writes: "The annual USENIX conference featured an all-star lineup of engineers from Microsoft, Google, Twitter and Flipboard debating whether HTML5 is the "holy grail" for building next-generation Web applications, and whether mobile developers should build websites or apps. The promise of HTML5 is "write once, run everywhere," but the panelists did not agree on whether the technology is good enough to make browser applications feel "native." There was general agreement that HTML5 is lacking on mobile devices, and that for better or worse the move toward apps instead of websites is being driven less by technology than the imperative to make money."
Security

Submission + - Following the money in cybercrime (networkworld.com)

Submitted by
jbrodkin
jbrodkin writes: "Five dollars for control over 1,000 compromised email accounts. Eight dollars for a distributed denial-of-service attack that takes down a website for an hour. And just a buck to solve 1,000 captchas. Those are the going rates of cybercrime, the amounts criminals pay other criminals for the technical services necessary to launch attacks. This criminal underground was detailed Wednesday in a highly entertaining talk given by researcher Stefan Savage at the annual Usenix technical conference in Portland, Ore. Savage's research into the economics of cybercrime began as lip service to satisfy the terms of a government grant, but it turned out to be the key to stopping computer attacks. Targeted methods — such as using CAPTCHAs — don't stop criminals, but they add to the cost burden and put the inefficient criminal organizations out of business, letting security researchers focus only on the ones that survive."
Linux

Submission + - Shuttleworth: Chrome nearly replaced FF in Ubuntu (networkworld.com)

Submitted by
jbrodkin
jbrodkin writes: "Canonical founder Mark Shuttleworth is a big fan of Google Chrome, and says the browser could replace the standard Firefox in future versions of Ubuntu Linux. "We looked at it closely in the last cycle and the decision was to stick with Firefox," he says. But the work that Google is doing with Chrome OS — essentially the Chrome browser on top of Linux — is potentially leading to a future in which "Chrome on Ubuntu and Chrome on Linux is a better experience than Chrome on any other platform [i.e. Windows and Mac]." In a wide-ranging interview, Shuttleworth also discussed why he spent $20 million to become a space tourist but doesn't own a smartphone, controversies over Linux and Unity, the future of Ubuntu tablets, and says the move toward putting personal data in the cloud is "a little scary.""
The Internet

Submission + - Skype issues software fix for Windows and Mac user (networkworld.com)

Submitted by
jbrodkin
jbrodkin writes: "Skype has released a new version of its Windows software to fix the problem that prevented some users from logging in and making calls yesterday, and plans to issue a similar update to Mac users later today, the company said. Skype, which is in the process of being sold to Microsoft for $8.5 billion, previously gave users instructions on how to fix the problem, which involved deleting a "shared.xml" file. While Windows and Mac users are being given a software fix, Linux users still have to fix the problem manually (but they can handle it). Still unknown is what caused the Skype outage. Skype said it affected only a small percentage of users, but hasn't explained the cause. Skype has at least updated its status page to reflect the outage, however. Even after issuing yesterday's fix instructions, the status page had claimed for a while that sign in and registration were "all working normally.""

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