NEW NET Issues List for 17 Nov 2009
Below is the final list of issues for the TUESDAY, 17 November 2009, NEW NET (Northeast Wisconsin Network for Economy and Technology) 7:00 - 9:00 pm weekly gathering. This week we're upstairs at Tom's Drive In, 501 N Westhill Blvd, Appleton, Wisconsin, USA -- if there's a chain across the steps, ignore it and come on upstairs.
The ‘net
1. AT&T webmail outage http://www.theepochtimes.com/n2/content/view/25250/ “…AT&T Inc. rolled out a cloud computing platform that positions itself to take on Amazon.com's cloud computing services, but the telecommunication giant's webmail services for att.net and bellsouth.net suffered outages on the same day…it is "working closely with Sun to use the Sun Cloud Open Cloud Platform…In an event believed to be unrelated to the cloud computing launch, AT&T Internet users were experiencing technical difficulties with the company's webmail on both att.net and bellsouth.net for most of Monday morning…AT&T users were reported to be able to continue accessing their e-mail through AT&T-Yahoo's webpage…”
2. Internet to speak Arabic: Egypt http://tech.yahoo.com/news/afp/20091115/tc_afp/internetgovernanceforumegypt “The agency in charge of assigning domain names today began accepting applications for domain names written in non-Latin languages, and Egypt…became the first to apply for a domain name in Arabic…Egypt has applied for an Arabic Internet domain name with a suffix equating in the ASCII character set to "masr," meaning Egypt in the Arabic language…”
3. YouTube Direct service to link citizen reporters and news organizations http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/pda/2009/nov/16/digital-media-youtube-direct-local-news “…YouTube Direct…allows news and media organisations to request, review, and rebroadcast clips directly from YouTube users…People around the world are taking up cameras and covering news in ways big and small - from documenting global events, to filming local town halls in neighborhoods. YouTube Direct empowers news and media organisations to easily connect with these citizen reporters, and use the power of our platform to cover the news better than ever before." The new service was beta-tested by the Huffington Post and will be used by National Public Radio and the
4. Xobni for Outlook releases free preview of Salesforce extension http://www.xobni.com/blog/2009/11/17/xobni-for-outlook-releases-free-preview-of-salesforce-extension-now-available-to-everyone/ “…Last week we mentioned that our Enterprise customers were going to get access to our Salesforce Extension, and this week the offering gets even more exciting. We’re offering a free preview of our Salesforce Extension to all of our users…”
5. TinyChat Takes on Stickam and Ustream With New Service and API http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/tinychat_takes_on_stickam_and_ustream.php “…TinyChat has established itself as a highly popular video chat service. Today, the company launched a new product, TinyChat.tv, which competes directly with established companies like Ustream and Stickam…”
6. Google’s Sample Chrome Extensions Are Working http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/11/16/google-chrome-extensions-sample/ “…Google looks to be on the verge of unleashing Chrome extension support in a major way. Not only does the home tab page on the new builds of Chromium (and the dev builds of Chrome) feature not-yet-turned-on links to what looks to be an extensions gallery, but there are plenty of references (and pictures) in the Chromium boards as to what Google is planning with extension support…both the Google Mail Checker and (Chromium) BuildBot Monitor are up and running in a new build of Chromium…”
7. Seven Tools to Map Your Company or Life History http://www.readwriteweb.com/readwritestart/2009/11/seven-tools-to-map-your-compan.php “…Instead of locking away your memoirs in a journal or using a family tree to display shared connections, a map is one way you can preserve your history while leaving the door open for others to contribute. Below are seven tools to help you get started…”
Security, Privacy & Digital Controls
8. Online gangs cash in on swine flu http://tech.yahoo.com/news/nm/20091116/wr_nm/us_flu_antivirals_gangs “Criminal gangs are making millions of dollars out of the H1N1 flu pandemic by selling fake flu drugs over the internet, a web security firm said on Monday…Sophos said many of the gangs behind the sites were based in Russia and the top five countries buying fake Tamiflu and other medicines on the internet were the United States, Germany, Britain, Canada and France. Sophos spokesman Graham Cluley said a "worrying trend" toward stockpiling Tamiflu had already been seen in
9. Fake Verizon 'balance-checker' Is a Trojan http://tech.yahoo.com/news/pcworld/20091114/tc_pcworld/fakeverizonbalancecheckerisatrojan “Cyber-criminals have started preying on Verizon Wireless customers, sending out spam e-mail messages that say their accounts are over the limit and offering them a "balance checker" program to review their payments. The e-mail messages, which look like they come from Verizon Wireless, are fakes; the balance checker is actually a malicious Trojan horse program. "If you run the tool, obviously, your computer is toast…”
Mobile Computing & Communicating
10. Droid Becomes Fastest-Selling Android Phone to Date? http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/droid_becomes_fastest-selling_android_phone_to_date.php “…according to mobile analytics firm Flurry…the Droid is now the fastest-selling Android phone to date, beating the sales of the myTouch 3G by more than four times…the company estimated the first-week sales for the Droid handsets as compared with both the myTouch 3G and Apple's iPhone 3GS. Although the iPhone still outsold the Droid within its first week, Flurry notes that the iPhone simultaneously launched in 8 countries worldwide while the Droid only launched in the
11. Android Market Badly Needs A Desktop Presence http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/11/15/android-market-app-store/ “I’ve spent the last week throughly enjoying my new Droid, and while I’ve come across some problems, most of my issues have simply been with the fact that Android does things differently than the iPhone…But there’s one big issue that needs far more than a UI tweak: Android Market…browsing the Market just isn’t as enjoyable as what Apple’s iTunes offers. If Android’s Market’s perception as a poor man’s App Store is going to change, this experience needs to improve…Using iTunes to download new applications isn’t just something people do when they need an app to accomplish a certain task. It’s something they do for fun. Clicking through various top apps exposes plenty of high quality games, apps from popular sites like Yelp, and even the occasional productivity tool. It’s all very fast too — you can easily download fifteen new apps in a single browsing session without breaking a sweat…”
12. Windows
13. Windows Marketplace for Windows Mobile 6 and 6.1 http://windowsteamblog.com/blogs/windowsphone/archive/2009/11/16/windows-marketplace-for-windows-mobile-6-0-and-6-1.aspx “…Windows Marketplace for Mobile has today reached another major milestone by adding support for Windows Mobile 6 and 6.1 devices…Initially, Marketplace was available for the new Windows phones with Windows Mobile 6.5. Today, almost all people with phones running Windows Mobile 6.0 and above with a supporting data plan can now access Marketplace…”
Open Source
14. Microsoft's pseudo sudo patent doesn't really cover sudo http://arstechnica.com/open-source/news/2009/11/microsofts-psuedo-sudo-patent-doesnt-really-cover-sudo.ars “Righteous indignation erupted on the Internet last week following reports that Microsoft had patented sudo, a traditional command-line tool that is widely used on Linux and some UNIX platforms for selective privilege escalation…we're not so sure that the Microsoft patent in question is as egregious as the critics claim. Granting a patent on the underlying concept of sudo to Microsoft over two decades after the tool was invented by open source developers would indeed be foolish, but that is not at all what happened. A look beyond the short summary of the patent filing and into the body of the patent's actual claims reveals that Microsoft's "invention" is really quite different from the sudo command-line tool. It might, however, cover some technologies that have more recently arrived on the Linux desktop…”
15. The Linux consultant: The Maytag repairman of the IT world http://blogs.techrepublic.com.com/opensource/?p=1064 “…I was the lone Linux guy in the crowd…During the course of the day I pieced a few bits of conversation together and was able to finally draw a conclusion to that age old question “Why don’t more consultants roll out Linux?” The answer should have been obvious to me all along as I long had all of the information I needed. But after hearing what I heard from the collective mouths of an IT group with years of experience and a metro city’s worth of clients it became all too clear why Windows is always rolled out…the people I was with were all self-employed consultants who depend upon their client’s needed support for income. Needed support. That’s the key. My freelance clients…they rarely need me…”
16. First look at openSUSE 11.2 http://distrowatch.com/weekly.php?issue=20091116#feature “…the new release of openSUSE…For this review I used my two usual systems, an HP Mini 110 netbook (1.6 GHz Intel Atom N270 CPU, 2 GB RAM, 16 GB SATA SSD storage) and my nearly 7-year old Toshiba Satellite 1805-S204 (1 GHz Intel Celeron CPU, 512 MB RAM, 20 GB HDD). The Toshiba laptop barely meets the published minimum RAM requirement for openSUSE 11.2…I downloaded both live CDs and the network installation image for 32-bit systems and decided to try out all three…”
SkyNet
17. Google Latitude Gets Snoopier: Adds Location History and Alerts http://www.pcworld.com/article/181907/google_latitude_gets_snoopier_adds_location_history_and_alerts.html “Just when you thought Google Latitude would no longer haunt your dreams, the service has been updated to make it a smidge creepier than before. Now Latitude tracks your location history and alerts you when your friends are nearby -- two add-ons that could make stalking that much easier! Location History is the creepiest of all, so thankfully this service is only for personal use and is not shared with Latitude friends…while it's currently private, the rise in popularity of location-based services such as Loopt, Stalqer and FourSquare may convince Google to later selectively publicize Location History to friends…”
18. Google Introduces 'Go' Programming Language http://www.informationweek.com/news/software/web_services/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=221601138 “…Google on Tuesday released a new open source programming language called Go that's optimized for applications designed for massive scalability and multi-processor systems…Go is the second programming language Google has released this year. In July, the company released Simple, a BASIC dialect for developing Android applications. Pike says Go's goal is to serve as a systems language, in the way that C++ or C does today…Go began in 2007 as a group 20% project -- Google allows its workers to spend 20% of their time pursuing projects outside of their job responsibilities. In addition to Pike, contributors include Google engineers Robert Griesemer, Ken Thompson, Ian Taylor, and Russ Cox…Existing languages haven't been optimized for multi-core processors or massive scaling. Pike says that Go was conceived as a language for the kinds of programs written by Google engineers…”
19. Google book settlement revised, criticized http://arstechnica.com/media/news/2009/11/google-offers-revised-book-settlement-but-critics-unappeased.ars “…Google filed a revised version of its book settlement with the
20. Google's Secret Chrome Plan for Browser Domination http://tech.yahoo.com/news/pcworld/20091113/tc_pcworld/googlessecretchromeplanforbrowserdomination “…Google has been piecing together a Frankenstein that will rise and forever change the Web. It's called Google Chrome. SPDY (pronounced "speedy"), a new application-layer protocol. SPDY is true to its name and is capable of revving Web download speeds up to 55 percent…SPDY improves upon -- but will not replace -- our beloved HTTP protocol. It overrides parts of HTTP such as connection management and data transfer formats to intensify speeds…”
21. Google Translate Now Talks and Translates in Real-time http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2009/11/new-look-for-google-translate.html “…we've launched three new features as well as a new look and feel for Google Translate — a service that helps people access information throughout the world by enabling them to automatically translate text and and web pages into their own language. Google Translate offers 51 languages, representing over 98% of Internet users today. * Translate instantly…* Read and write any language…* Text-to-speech…”
22. Google Sites Offers Templates; Claims It's Easier Than Sharepoint http://www.readwriteweb.com/enterprise/2009/11/google-sites-offers-templates.php “Google Sites is getting an upgrade. Starting today, Google will provide templates that it claims makes it possible for users with no technical background to create web sites with a degree of functionality that includes page layouts, adding links for navigation and embedded gadgets. Templates are available for intranets, project sites, team sites, employee profile pages and other sites…”
General Technology
23. RFID Makes Slow And Steady Progress http://www.informationweek.com/news/mobility/RFID/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=221601551 “…RFID was expected to change retailing forever. That didn't happen. Then it was expected to make the pharmaceutical market safe from counterfeit drugs. That didn't happen either. Still, the tracking technology has grown into a $5-billion-a-year industry, and shows up in lots of places--passports, transportation passes, livestock, hospitals, and in some instances, retail and pharmaceuticals. Radio-frequency identification technology was a niche technology until 2003, when Wal-Mart ordered its suppliers to put electronic product codes on pallets and cases of goods going to its warehouses and stores. Wal-Mart hoped to use EPC tags, which store details about products and transmit them to inventory systems using RFID chips and readers, to create a more-efficient supply chain…only about 600 of Wal-Mart's 20,000 suppliers have joined the effort. Suppliers such as Procter & Gamble and Kimberly-Clark are no longer the public advocates of RFID they once were. The technology is complex and costly to implement, requiring investments in the chips…readers, software, and new business processes…”
24. Qualcomm Snapdragon smartbooks http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/news/2009/11/qualcomm-hopes-snapdragon-smartbooks-take-bite-out-of-atom.ars “…Qualcomm's Snapdragon processor is finally coming to little laptops. The chip company has confirmed that its speedy ARM offering has been adopted by Lenovo for a new product with a netbook form-factor. The device will be available from AT&T…Its Cortex-A8 core packs 1GHz of processing power, delivering an impressive balance of performance and energy efficiency. The chip is already being used in a handful of ultra high-end smartphones, including the HTC HD2 and Sony Ericsson's upcoming Xperia X10 Android handset…The Snapdragon-powered Lenovo system will be one of the first products in a new class of mobile devices that hardware makers are calling smartbooks—portable computers that look like netbooks but offer longer battery life thanks to low-energy ARM chips…”
25. AMD shakes up x86 CPU world with two new designs http://arstechnica.com/hardware/news/2009/11/amd-bobcat-bulldozer.ars “…AMD bucked that trend Wednesday by unveiling details of its newly revamped roadmap, its two brand-new processor architectures, and its plans for CPU/GPU integration…Bobcat: AMD's new mobile architecture…AMD's new-from-the-ground-up microarchitecture that's aimed at portables and SoCs. Bobcat will compete with Atom and with VIA's Nano, though it has much more in common with the latter than the former…Bulldozer: AMD's server architecture. AMD's newly announced high-end processor architecture is a significant departure from the architecture that powers the company's existing processor line. It represents the implementation of an idea that quite a few folks have tossed around, but no one has really made work yet…AMD has taken two out-of-order back-ends and made them share a single front-end and a single floating-point/SIMD unit…”
Leisure & Entertainment
26. Nintendo needs to differentiate its portable game devices from smartphones http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/09/11/11/nintendo_admits_dark_future_if_it_cant_differentiate_from_iphone.html “…Satoru Iwata, president of Nintendo, is reportedly an Apple fan who uses an iPhone and Mac laptop. He also denied that there is a rivalry between his company and Apple, noting that attempts to create one makes him "uncomfortable." But Iwata also allegedly sees the iPhone as enough of a threat that Nintendo must work to stand out from it and devices like it. "If we can't make clear why customers pay a lot of money to play games on Nintendo hardware and Nintendo software and differentiate ourselves from games on the mobile phone or iPhone, then our future is dark," he said…”
27. Growing Pains at Hulu http://www.mediaweek.com/mw/content_display/news/digital-downloads/broadband/e3i8f2c0287dc37ec6baf6209f20ced7140 “Hulu is starting to show signs of why it’s not easy to run a joint venture between competitors…reports are bubbling up about an increasing level of discord between Hulu’s own ad sales staff and the staffs of each of the site’s broadcast partners: ABC, NBC and Fox…the already complicated arrangement is likely to become more so, particularly given the prospect that NBC Universal may be sold to Comcast—which already operates its own online video site (Fancast) and has a markedly different philosophy regarding just how free TV content should be on the Internet…”
28. New Super Mario Bros. Wii review: impressive, and then some http://arstechnica.com/gaming/reviews/2009/11/new-super-mario-bros-wii-review-impressive-and-then-some.ars “…New Super Mario Bros. Wii is one of those games that will leave you disappointed after the first level, slightly happy after the first world, and then you'll be stuck with a huge grin on your face after blasting through the game with three friends. This is a magical game, made even more impressive by how rote it may seem at first…One of the more impressive feats the game pulls off is offering level design that is perfectly fine to play with a single player, but also benefits from having multiple people on the screen at once…”
29. Nook e-reader on sale Nov. 30 in Barnes & Noble stores http://news.idg.no/cw/art.cfm?id=FF103E62-1A64-6A71-CE42119D5A49D2F2 “The Nook, a $259 e-reader from Barnes & Noble Inc., will hit the booksellers' stores on Nov. 30…The Nook is 7.7 inches by 4.9 inches and is a half inch thick. It weighs 11.2 ounces. The gray-scale E-ink display is 6 inches across diagonally, with a separate 3.5-inch color display below that can be used to search for book titles and for other purposes with its touchscreen keyboard. Barnes & Noble is comparing Nook to the Amazon.com Kindle 2, which is also $259. Kindle uses the Sprint Nextel Inc. wireless network for downloads of books, while Barnes & Noble will rely on AT&T and Wi-Fi. Most first releases and other popular books on both devices will sell for $9.95…”
Economy and Technology
30. Logitech Buys Videoconferencing Outfit LifeSize http://www.businessweek.com/the_thread/techbeat/archives/2009/11/logitech_buys_v.html “PC peripherals maker Logitech International has done its largest ever acquisition, by purchasing videoconferencing system maker LifeSize Communications for $405 million…What’s most interesting is the potential for Logitech to accelerate the commoditization of videoconferencing. The company specializes in high-volume manufacturing of PC mice, keyboards and other gizmos; it’s video business is essentially webcams, which bring in roughly $250 million of the company’s $1.9 billion in annual sales, says Logitech president Gerald Quindlen. LifeSize, on the other hand, makes stand-alone gear that lets users launch a HD-quality videoconference with a few keystrokes. Quindlen says Logitech will be able to apply its economies of scale and other cost savings to “make video mainstream.” Says LifeSize CEO Craig Malloy, “the opportunity is drive price points to the point that it’s a no brainer for every office and conference room in the world…”
31. The Intel-AMD Settlement: $1.25 B http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/nov2009/tc20091115_692400.htm “…The financial settlement was hammered out very late in more than a half-year of negotiations that culminated in a Nov. 12 announcement that Intel (INTC) would pay $1.25 billion to resolve long-standing antitrust allegations by AMD (AMD). Several people close to both sides gave BusinessWeek a play-by-play outline of the dramatic and sometimes tense talks dating to April 2009. Money—and who would pay it—proved the thorniest point. People on both sides say AMD wanted payment in exchange for dropping antitrust allegations, while Intel said it should be compensated for giving an AMD subsidiary access to its patents…”
32. 13 Electric Vehicle Players Join Forces to Sway U.S. Policy http://earth2tech.com/2009/11/16/13-electric-vehicle-players-join-forces-to-sway-u-s-policy/ “…Top executives from 13 companies including California utility Pacific Gas & Electric, Japanese automaker Nissan, smart grid startup GridPoint, battery maker A123Systems, battery giant Johnson Controls-Saft, and venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins, are joining forces this morning as the founding members of a new alliance called the Electrification Coalition with a shared vision for how to transition the vehicle fleet off of gasoline and onto the electric grid…The group certainly has some heavyweights, with a combined market cap of more than $100 billion, but hardly represents the entirety of the energy, utility, auto or energy storage industries — or even just the EV sector…With the stated mission to “promote government action to facilitate deployment of electric vehicles on a mass scale,” the Electrification Coalition has released a 91-page policy paper this morning, advocating government action to boost the industry…”
33. Evernote, the startup that boosts your memory, raises $10 million http://venturebeat.com/2009/11/15/evernote-the-startup-that-boosts-your-memory-raises-10-million/ “Evernote, which lets you record almost any type of data and recall it when you need it, just raised $10 million in a second round of venture-backed financing…The Mountain View-based startup says it now has nearly 2 million users on its desktop clients and apps for the iPhone and Blackberry. They use a “freemium” model with a paid version that allows larger monthly uploads and syncs your files. …” [ http://gigaom.com/2009/11/16/evernote-gets-10-million-in-new-funding/ http://webworkerdaily.com/2008/03/25/evernote-your-longterm-memory/ http://webworkerdaily.com/2009/07/10/collaborating-with-evernote/ ]
Civilian Aerospace
34. SpaceX Protests Award of Launch Contract to Orbital http://www.spacenews.com/civil/091113-spacex-protests-launch-contract.html “Space Exploration Technologies Corp. (SpaceX) has challenged a U.S. government launch services order placed with Orbital Sciences Corp., arguing that under U.S. federal law the contract should have been competitively awarded. On Sept. 14, the U.S. Air Force issued a task order to Dulles, Va.-based Orbital to launch NASA’s Lunar Atmosphere and Dust Environment Explorer (LADEE) spacecraft using surplus missile hardware, according to an Oct. 26 protest filed with the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO). Orbital has been launching government satellites with rockets based on ballistic missile motors since 2000…”
35. DISCOVERY OF WATER ICE ON THE MOON RAISES STAKES FOR GOOGLE LUNAR X PRIZE http://www.xprize.org/media-center/press-release/nasas-landmark-discovery-of-water-ice-on-the-moon-raises-stakes-for-googl “…The confirmation of the presence of water ice on the surface of the Moon is a game-changing discovery for space exploration. The Moon, already a hotly pursued destination of space agencies and private companies from around the world, becomes even more desirable with today’s news. With ready supplies of ice, future robotic spacecraft or human astronaut crews could generate not only drinking water but also gaseous hydrogen and oxygen —excellent propellants that could be used for further space exploration beyond the Moon. The discovery also provides new support for a private race to return to the Moon. The Google Lunar X PRIZE, a $30 million incentive prize created and operated by the X PRIZE Foundation, challenges privately funded teams from around the globe to send robots to explore the lunar surface and return high resolution video and imagery back to the Earth. The prize program includes a Water Detection Bonus, which pays additional prize money to teams that use robots on the lunar surface to provide confirmation of the presence of water ice…”
Supercomputing & GPUs
36. AMD Tops Supercomputer Race, But Intel Powers Most http://www.pcworld.com/businesscenter/article/182225/two_rival_supercomputers_duke_it_out_for_top_spot.html “…A Cray supercomputer at Oak Ridge National Laboratory has regained the title of the world's most powerful supercomputer, overtaking the installation that was ranked at the top in June, while China entered the Top 10 with a hybrid Intel-AMD system. Crary XT5 Jaguar Supercomputer The upgraded Jaguar supercomputer at Oak Ridge, in Tennessee, now boasts a speed of 1.759 petaflops per second from its 224,162 cores, while the IBM Roadrunner system at the U.S. Department of Energy's Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico slowed slightly to 1.042 petaflops per second after it was repartitioned…China's fastest supercomputer ever, the Tianhe-1 in the city of Tianjin, achieved 563 teraflops per second for the No. 5 ranking. It uses Intel Xeon processors with Advanced Micro Devices GPUs (graphics processing units) as accelerators. Each node of the 71,680-core system has two Xeons attached to two AMD GPUs, according to the compilers of the Top 500 list. Tianhe-1 was built by the
37. NVIDIA Unleashes Fermi GPU for HPC http://www.hpcwire.com/home/specialfeaturetopitem/NVIDIA-Unleashes-Fermi-GPU-for-HPC-70166447.html “NVIDIA has announced the first Fermi GPU products here at the Supercomputing Conference (SC09) in Portland, Oregon, where thousands of attendees will get a chance to see the company's next-generation chip in action…The new architecture offers double-precision (DP) floating point performance north of 500 gigaflops per chip, systematic support for ECC memory, L1 and L2 caches, GDDR5 support, and a raft of new features to make the processor more programmer friendly, including C++ support. In short, Fermi is designed as a true computational GPU that is designed to offer a much wider application aperture for HPC, visual computing and data analytics than any previous graphics processor…”
posted by myDigitechnician at 17.11.09
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