Johns Hopkins U. Health Database Blocks Searches for 'Abortion'
The “world’s largest database” on reproductive-health issues, run by Johns Hopkins University’s Bloomberg School of Public Health, has been blocking searches for the term “abortion” because of concerns over federal financing, according to Wired.
A librarian at the University of California at San Francisco became “puzzled” on Monday after running a routine search, and she then wrote to the database’s manager at Johns Hopkins to ask if the database had been changed. It has nearly 25,000 articles using the word.
“We recently made all abortion terms stop words,” the database’s manager, Debbie Dickson, replied in an e-mail message. “As a federally funded project, we decided this was best for now.”
The database receives money from the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), the federal agency whose mission is “extending a helping hand to those people overseas struggling to make a better life, recover from a disaster or striving to live in a free and democratic country.” Since 1973, the agency “has been legally prohibited from supporting or encouraging abortion as a method of family planning,” according to the agency’s Web site. —Catherine Rampell
http://chronicle.com/wiredcampus/article/2874/johns-hopkins-u-health-database-blocks-searches-for-abortion
-->Posted on Friday April 4, 2008 Permalink
Wednesday, April 30, 2008
Monday, April 28, 2008
New OLED encapsulation method reduces water intrusion and increases lifetime
GTRI senior research scientist Wusheng Tong uses ion assisted deposition to produce a high-density, pinhole-free thin silicon oxynitride film on an organic light emitting diode surface, which reduces moisture intrusion....
Click here for more information.
Researchers have developed an improved organic light emitting diode (OLED) sealing process to reduce moisture intrusion and improve device lifetime.
OLEDs are promising for the next generation of displays and solid state lighting because they use less power and can be more efficiently manufactured than current technology. However, the intrusion of moisture into the displays can damage or destroy an OLED뭩 organic material.
밢LEDs have better color and flexibility and the capability of larger displays, but companies still need an inexpensive encapsulation method that can be used to mass produce organic electronics that don뭪 allow moisture in,?said Wusheng Tong, a senior research scientist at the Georgia Tech Research Institute (GTRI).
GTRI senior research scientist Wusheng Tong uses ion assisted deposition to produce a high-density, pinhole-free thin silicon oxynitride film on an organic light emitting diode surface, which reduces moisture intrusion....
Click here for more information.
Manufacturers now seal displays in an inert atmosphere or in a vacuum environment. They glue a glass lid on top of the display substrate with a powder inside the display to absorb moisture that diffuses through the glue. These seals are expensive and labor-intensive to assemble.
With funding from GTRI뭩 independent research and development program, Tong and his GTRI collaborators ?senior research scientist Hisham Menkara and principal research scientist Brent Wagner ?have replaced the glass enclosure with a thin-film barrier formed by a less expensive conventional deposition method.
밯e chose a passivation coating process that could be performed at room temperature so that the organic material remained intact,?said Tong.
The researchers selected advanced ion assisted deposition, which utilizes reactive ions to deposit a high-density, pinhole-free thin silicon oxynitride (SiON) film on the OLED surface.
GTRI senior research scientist Wusheng Tong has reduced moisture intrusion into OLEDs by replacing the typical glass enclosure with a thin-film barrier formed by a less expensive conventional deposition method...
Click here for more information.
Researchers have developed an improved organic light emitting diode (OLED) sealing process to reduce moisture intrusion and improve device lifetime.
OLEDs are promising for the next generation of displays and solid state lighting because they use less power and can be more efficiently manufactured than current technology. However, the intrusion of moisture into the displays can damage or destroy an OLED뭩 organic material.
밢LEDs have better color and flexibility and the capability of larger displays, but companies still need an inexpensive encapsulation method that can be used to mass produce organic electronics that don뭪 allow moisture in,?said Wusheng Tong, a senior research scientist at the Georgia Tech Research Institute (GTRI).
GTRI senior research scientist Wusheng Tong uses ion assisted deposition to produce a high-density, pinhole-free thin silicon oxynitride film on an organic light emitting diode surface, which reduces moisture intrusion....
Click here for more information.
Manufacturers now seal displays in an inert atmosphere or in a vacuum environment. They glue a glass lid on top of the display substrate with a powder inside the display to absorb moisture that diffuses through the glue. These seals are expensive and labor-intensive to assemble.
With funding from GTRI뭩 independent research and development program, Tong and his GTRI collaborators ?senior research scientist Hisham Menkara and principal research scientist Brent Wagner ?have replaced the glass enclosure with a thin-film barrier formed by a less expensive conventional deposition method.
밯e chose a passivation coating process that could be performed at room temperature so that the organic material remained intact,?said Tong.
The researchers selected advanced ion assisted deposition, which utilizes reactive ions to deposit a high-density, pinhole-free thin silicon oxynitride (SiON) film on the OLED surface.
GTRI senior research scientist Wusheng Tong has reduced moisture intrusion into OLEDs by replacing the typical glass enclosure with a thin-film barrier formed by a less expensive conventional deposition method...
New 3-D ultrasound could improve stroke diagnosis, care
DURHAM, N.C. ?Using 3-D ultrasound technology they designed, Duke University bioengineers can compensate for the thickness and unevenness of the skull to see in real-time the arteries within the brain that most often clog up and cause strokes.
The researchers believe that these advances will ultimately improve the treatment of stroke patients, whether by giving emergency medical technicians (EMT) the ability to quickly scan the heads of potential stroke victims while in the ambulance or allowing physicians to easily monitor in real time the patients?response to therapy at the bedside.
The results of the latest studies were reported online in the journal Ultrasound in Medicine & Biology. The research was supported by the National Institutes of Health and the Duke Translational Medicine Institute, with assistance from the Duke Echocardiography Laboratory.
밫o our knowledge, this is the first time that real time 3-D ultrasound provided clear images of the major arteries within the brain,?said Nikolas Ivancevich, graduate student in Duke뭩 Pratt School of Engineering and first author of the paper. 밃lso for the first time, we have been able overcome the most challenging aspect of using ultrasound to scan the brain ?the skull.?/p>
The Duke laboratory, led by biomedical engineering professor Stephen Smith, has a long track record of modifying traditional 2-D ultrasound ?like that used to image babies in utero ?into more advanced 3-D scans, which can provide more detailed information. After inventing the technique in 1991, the team has shown its utility in developing specialized catheters and endoscopes for imaging the heart and blood vessels.
밫his is an important step forward for scanning the vessels of the brain through the skull, and we believe that there are now no major technological barriers to ultimately using 3-D ultrasound to quickly diagnose stroke patients,?said Smith, senior author of the paper.
밒 think it뭩 safe to say that within five to 10 years, the technology will be miniaturized to the point where EMTs in an ambulance can scan the brain of a stroke patient and transmit the results ahead to the hospital,?Smith continued. 밪peed is important because the only approved medical treatment for stroke must be given within three hours of the first symptoms.?/p>
Ultrasound devices emit sound waves and then create images by calculating the angle of the waves as they bounce back.
For their experiments, the Duke team studied 17 healthy people. After injecting them with a contrast dye to enhance the images, the researchers aimed ultrasound 뱖ands,?or transducers, into the brain from three vantage points ?the temples on each side of the head and upwards from the base of the neck. The temple locations were chosen because the skull is thinnest at these points.
Ivancevich took this approach one step further to compensate for the thickness and unevenness of the skull in one subject.
밫he speed of the sound waves is faster in bone than it is in soft tissue, so we took measurements to better understand how the bone alters the movement of sound waves,?Ivancevich explained. 밯ith this knowledge, we were able to program the computer to 멵orrect?for the skull뭩 interference, resulting in even clearer images of the arteries.?/p>
The key to obtaining these images lies in the design of the transducer. In traditional 2-D ultrasound, the sound is emitted by a row of sensors. In the new design, the sensors are arranged in a checkerboard fashion, allowing compensation for the skull's thickness over a whole area, instead of a single line.
The 3-D ultrasound has the benefit of being less expensive and faster than the traditional methods of assessing blood flow in the brain ?MRI or CT scanning, Ivancevich said. Though 3-D ultrasound will not totally displace MRI or CT scans, he said that the new technology would give physicians more flexibility in treating their patients.
###
Other Duke members of the team were Gianmarco Pinton of Pratt, and Duke University Medical Center division of neurology researchers Heather Nicoletto, Ellen Bennett and Daniel Laskowitz.
The researchers believe that these advances will ultimately improve the treatment of stroke patients, whether by giving emergency medical technicians (EMT) the ability to quickly scan the heads of potential stroke victims while in the ambulance or allowing physicians to easily monitor in real time the patients?response to therapy at the bedside.
The results of the latest studies were reported online in the journal Ultrasound in Medicine & Biology. The research was supported by the National Institutes of Health and the Duke Translational Medicine Institute, with assistance from the Duke Echocardiography Laboratory.
밫o our knowledge, this is the first time that real time 3-D ultrasound provided clear images of the major arteries within the brain,?said Nikolas Ivancevich, graduate student in Duke뭩 Pratt School of Engineering and first author of the paper. 밃lso for the first time, we have been able overcome the most challenging aspect of using ultrasound to scan the brain ?the skull.?/p>
The Duke laboratory, led by biomedical engineering professor Stephen Smith, has a long track record of modifying traditional 2-D ultrasound ?like that used to image babies in utero ?into more advanced 3-D scans, which can provide more detailed information. After inventing the technique in 1991, the team has shown its utility in developing specialized catheters and endoscopes for imaging the heart and blood vessels.
밫his is an important step forward for scanning the vessels of the brain through the skull, and we believe that there are now no major technological barriers to ultimately using 3-D ultrasound to quickly diagnose stroke patients,?said Smith, senior author of the paper.
밒 think it뭩 safe to say that within five to 10 years, the technology will be miniaturized to the point where EMTs in an ambulance can scan the brain of a stroke patient and transmit the results ahead to the hospital,?Smith continued. 밪peed is important because the only approved medical treatment for stroke must be given within three hours of the first symptoms.?/p>
Ultrasound devices emit sound waves and then create images by calculating the angle of the waves as they bounce back.
For their experiments, the Duke team studied 17 healthy people. After injecting them with a contrast dye to enhance the images, the researchers aimed ultrasound 뱖ands,?or transducers, into the brain from three vantage points ?the temples on each side of the head and upwards from the base of the neck. The temple locations were chosen because the skull is thinnest at these points.
Ivancevich took this approach one step further to compensate for the thickness and unevenness of the skull in one subject.
밫he speed of the sound waves is faster in bone than it is in soft tissue, so we took measurements to better understand how the bone alters the movement of sound waves,?Ivancevich explained. 밯ith this knowledge, we were able to program the computer to 멵orrect?for the skull뭩 interference, resulting in even clearer images of the arteries.?/p>
The key to obtaining these images lies in the design of the transducer. In traditional 2-D ultrasound, the sound is emitted by a row of sensors. In the new design, the sensors are arranged in a checkerboard fashion, allowing compensation for the skull's thickness over a whole area, instead of a single line.
The 3-D ultrasound has the benefit of being less expensive and faster than the traditional methods of assessing blood flow in the brain ?MRI or CT scanning, Ivancevich said. Though 3-D ultrasound will not totally displace MRI or CT scans, he said that the new technology would give physicians more flexibility in treating their patients.
###
Other Duke members of the team were Gianmarco Pinton of Pratt, and Duke University Medical Center division of neurology researchers Heather Nicoletto, Ellen Bennett and Daniel Laskowitz.
Lars Ulrich suggests Metallica could follow Radiohead
Lars Ulrich, the combustible drummer of heavy-metal band Metallica and long-time critic of file sharing, has apparently changed some of his views towards the Internet and digital music.
In an interview with Rolling Stone last week, Ulrich said he and his bandmates have only one more album to make under contract to Warner Music Group.
What are their plans for the future?
"We want to be as free (as) players as possible," Ulrich told Rolling Stone during the band's Northern California appearance for Record Store Day. "We've been observing Radiohead and Trent Reznor and in 27 years or however long it takes for the next record, we'll be looking forward to everything in terms of possibilities with the Internet."
No, he's not endorsing peer-to-peer sites, but there's no mistaking what Ulrich meant. The group is considering whether to follow the lead of Radiohead and Reznor, leader of the band Nine Inch Nails. Those acts sent shock waves throughout the music industry over the past six months by distributing albums over the Web without the aid of a record company. They also offered digital versions of the albums for free.
Ulrich is the guy who showed up at the headquarters of file-sharing site Napster in May 2000 clutching the names of more than 300,000 people the band accused of illegally downloading its music. He demanded Napster stop them.
Ulrich and the band became symbols of the music industry's antipiracy efforts. His statements underscore just how much the music industry has begun to accept that digital music (increasingly made available for free) is now an integral part of the business.
Asked by Rolling Stone whether his stance has changed in the past eight years Ulrich responded: "We have FLACs and MP3s for sale. It was never about downloading per se. We have the Vault where you can download shows from twenty years ago for free, full-on and it's been there for years...
"Back in the day there was a much bigger question about on whose terms?" Ulrich continued. "We said, 'Wait a minute, it should be about the artist.' Then all hell broke loose and we sat on the sidelines for a while."
http://www.news.com/8301-10784_3-9929031-7.html
Microsoft unveils hybrid computing platform
Microsoft unveiled on Wednesday the first important piece of a new hybrid computing platform intended to ease the transition of its core software business to the web.
The move comes two-and-a-half years after Bill Gates, chairman, warned that the rise of internet computing could one day threaten Microsoft’s desktop software business.
It is the clearest evidence so far of the influence of Ray Ozzie, who took over from Mr Gates as the company’s chief software architect in 2005.
The new technology, known as Live Mesh, is designed to free a consumer’s data from the PC or other device where it resides and place copies of it automatically on any other internet-connected gadget, or make it available through a web browser.
Microsoft executives said the Mesh could make it possible for people to access digital music stored on their home PC from any device or computer, work on documents that were entered on other computers or share their photos and other media automatically with friends over the internet.
The technology is being launched in an early test version, with a full trial scheduled for later this year, Microsoft said. The group did not say when it expected consumer services based on the idea to be available.
By giving users a way to copy data easily to Microsoft’s servers and then work on it in a “virtual desktop” through a browser, the idea echoes the so-called “cloud computing” strategies of companies such as Google.
Microsoft said it would guarantee at least five gigabytes of storage free of charge.
However, Microsoft’s plan adds a further element, making it possible to “sync” information automatically between a user’s computers and other digital devices, creating what it called a personal “device mesh”.
Users who first register all their devices on a Microsoft website will be able to copy information between them simply by “right clicking” on the relevant folders, Microsoft said.
more on http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/f5e2d34e-10a2-11dd-b8d6-0000779fd2ac.html
However, this don't seem any kind of innovation or development, rather MS is trying to do what they have been doing the whole time. Trying to use title of technology in order to monopolize and control the PC or nowadays personal media industry. This will enable MS to have access, control over users in terms of PC, media, internet, TV, virtually anything by holding their data as hostage. This don't seem much as a new technology, rather the technology and service mesh(as MS put it) with tremendous labor and data storage.
The move comes two-and-a-half years after Bill Gates, chairman, warned that the rise of internet computing could one day threaten Microsoft’s desktop software business.
It is the clearest evidence so far of the influence of Ray Ozzie, who took over from Mr Gates as the company’s chief software architect in 2005.
The new technology, known as Live Mesh, is designed to free a consumer’s data from the PC or other device where it resides and place copies of it automatically on any other internet-connected gadget, or make it available through a web browser.
Microsoft executives said the Mesh could make it possible for people to access digital music stored on their home PC from any device or computer, work on documents that were entered on other computers or share their photos and other media automatically with friends over the internet.
The technology is being launched in an early test version, with a full trial scheduled for later this year, Microsoft said. The group did not say when it expected consumer services based on the idea to be available.
By giving users a way to copy data easily to Microsoft’s servers and then work on it in a “virtual desktop” through a browser, the idea echoes the so-called “cloud computing” strategies of companies such as Google.
Microsoft said it would guarantee at least five gigabytes of storage free of charge.
However, Microsoft’s plan adds a further element, making it possible to “sync” information automatically between a user’s computers and other digital devices, creating what it called a personal “device mesh”.
Users who first register all their devices on a Microsoft website will be able to copy information between them simply by “right clicking” on the relevant folders, Microsoft said.
more on http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/f5e2d34e-10a2-11dd-b8d6-0000779fd2ac.html
However, this don't seem any kind of innovation or development, rather MS is trying to do what they have been doing the whole time. Trying to use title of technology in order to monopolize and control the PC or nowadays personal media industry. This will enable MS to have access, control over users in terms of PC, media, internet, TV, virtually anything by holding their data as hostage. This don't seem much as a new technology, rather the technology and service mesh(as MS put it) with tremendous labor and data storage.
Web-Surfing Phones Riding High
http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/tech/2008/04/129_22860.html
Touch Phone is hardware and service for mobile Internet use. Its high-definition screen, easy control and relatively low price has earned it recognition as a truly Web-oriented phone.
It also has an embedded Web browser, which displays Web pages the same way Internet Explorer does on a personal computer. Users can easily increase or decrease font sizea with a dial. It also automatically shifts the screen between horizontal and vertical positions using a built-in motion sensor, similar to that used in the Nintendo Wii game console. The same feature is being used with dice and Korean folk game Yutnoli. Another reason that these full-browsing phones are fast gaining popularity in Korea is e-mail.
It's a bit slow, but it works well enough. Reading e-mail and browsing the Internet via mobile phone have become more enjoyable and convenient than ever, thanks to new technology and clever ideas.
Touch Phone is hardware and service for mobile Internet use. Its high-definition screen, easy control and relatively low price has earned it recognition as a truly Web-oriented phone.
It also has an embedded Web browser, which displays Web pages the same way Internet Explorer does on a personal computer. Users can easily increase or decrease font sizea with a dial. It also automatically shifts the screen between horizontal and vertical positions using a built-in motion sensor, similar to that used in the Nintendo Wii game console. The same feature is being used with dice and Korean folk game Yutnoli. Another reason that these full-browsing phones are fast gaining popularity in Korea is e-mail.
It's a bit slow, but it works well enough. Reading e-mail and browsing the Internet via mobile phone have become more enjoyable and convenient than ever, thanks to new technology and clever ideas.
Some Important Technology You Never Think About
(1) XML
You've probably heard of XML, but what is it? Where is it?
Though you may never have encountered it directly, XML is everywhere. Now in its tenth year, it has become virtually the lingua franca of data exchange.
XML stands for "extensible markup language" -- extensible because developers can add to it to suit the needs of particular applications. But what makes it really valuable is the fact that it's a language, much like HTML. Unlike some data formats, XML files aren't just streams of incomprehensible numbers. XML is designed to be read by humans as well as machines. A developer who "speaks XML" can look at a document written in an unfamiliar XML dialect and still understand what it's trying to say.
This powerful combination of features makes XML incredibly useful for all kinds of applications. But perhaps its biggest coup was Microsoft's decision to switch to XML-based file formats for Office 2007. As it turns out, you actually may have XML documents sitting on your desktop right now, without realizing it.
Though you may never have encountered it directly, XML is everywhere. Now in its tenth year, it has become virtually the lingua franca of data exchange.
XML stands for "extensible markup language" -- extensible because developers can add to it to suit the needs of particular applications. But what makes it really valuable is the fact that it's a language, much like HTML. Unlike some data formats, XML files aren't just streams of incomprehensible numbers. XML is designed to be read by humans as well as machines. A developer who "speaks XML" can look at a document written in an unfamiliar XML dialect and still understand what it's trying to say.
This powerful combination of features makes XML incredibly useful for all kinds of applications. But perhaps its biggest coup was Microsoft's decision to switch to XML-based file formats for Office 2007. As it turns out, you actually may have XML documents sitting on your desktop right now, without realizing it.
(2) Unicode
We use computers for every kind of communication, from IM to e-mail to writing the Great American Novel. The trouble is, computers don't speak our language. They're all digital; before they can store or process text, every letter, symbol, and punctuation mark must first be translated into numbers.
So which numbers do we use? Early PCs relied on a code called ASCII, which took care of most of the characters used in Western European languages. But that's not enough in the age of the World Wide Web. What about Cyrillic, Hindi, or Thai?
Enter Unicode, the Rosetta Stone of computing. The Unicode standard defines a unique number for every letter, symbol, or glyph in more than 30 written languages, and it's still growing. At nearly 1500 pages and counting, it's incredibly complex, but it's been gaining traction ever since Microsoft adopted it as the internal encoding for the Windows NT family of operating systems.
Most of us will never need to know which characters map to which Unicode numbers, but modern computing could scarcely do without Unicode. In fact, it's what's letting you read this article in your Web browser, right now.
So which numbers do we use? Early PCs relied on a code called ASCII, which took care of most of the characters used in Western European languages. But that's not enough in the age of the World Wide Web. What about Cyrillic, Hindi, or Thai?
Enter Unicode, the Rosetta Stone of computing. The Unicode standard defines a unique number for every letter, symbol, or glyph in more than 30 written languages, and it's still growing. At nearly 1500 pages and counting, it's incredibly complex, but it's been gaining traction ever since Microsoft adopted it as the internal encoding for the Windows NT family of operating systems.
Most of us will never need to know which characters map to which Unicode numbers, but modern computing could scarcely do without Unicode. In fact, it's what's letting you read this article in your Web browser, right now.
Sunday, April 27, 2008
SCM solutions with proper consulting & software :i2 Technologies' Turn-around
SCM is so complex that scm solutions should be provided with proper consulting/experiance and software together. The news below shows the new approach of i2, world leading SCM solution vendor, to sell its software with i2's consulting capability together becasue it is not easy to just use scm software without proper consulting capability.
Implications:The success of implementing new system does not depends on software itself, but the proper consulting and experance is more important than software itself.
Excerpt from news (http://seekingalpha.com/article/73288-i2-technologies-turn-around-part-1?source=yahoo )
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Due to the complex nature of Supply Chain Management systems, i2 realized that it can't just sell customers its software and expect them to extract the real benefits out of it like ERP software products. Therefore, i2 has re-organized its entire company to become a very efficient provider of SCM results. It consults, implements and it even runs the SCM operation for its customers.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Implications:The success of implementing new system does not depends on software itself, but the proper consulting and experance is more important than software itself.
Excerpt from news (http://seekingalpha.com/article/73288-i2-technologies-turn-around-part-1?source=yahoo )
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Due to the complex nature of Supply Chain Management systems, i2 realized that it can't just sell customers its software and expect them to extract the real benefits out of it like ERP software products. Therefore, i2 has re-organized its entire company to become a very efficient provider of SCM results. It consults, implements and it even runs the SCM operation for its customers.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Customer Communication: Meet Them on Their Own Turf
http://www.technewsworld.com/story/62682.html
Customer Communication: Meet Them on Their Own Turf
Sunday - April 27, 2008Look closely at any effective customer relationship management strategy. Look beyond the technology, beyond the hype, and what will you see? What you'll see is a company that knows how to effectively communicate with its customers. Ask yourself, "What do CRM solutions actually do?" To put it very simply, they collect and manage customer information. Now ask yourself, "What is the real value or purpose of all this customer information?" Again, very simply, the real value of this information is in helping your organization to better communicate with your customers. [More...]
Customer Communication: Meet Them on Their Own Turf
Customer Communication: Meet Them on Their Own Turf
Sunday - April 27, 2008Look closely at any effective customer relationship management strategy. Look beyond the technology, beyond the hype, and what will you see? What you'll see is a company that knows how to effectively communicate with its customers. Ask yourself, "What do CRM solutions actually do?" To put it very simply, they collect and manage customer information. Now ask yourself, "What is the real value or purpose of all this customer information?" Again, very simply, the real value of this information is in helping your organization to better communicate with your customers. [More...]
Customer Communication: Meet Them on Their Own Turf
CIOs Battle Hackers Using Olympic-Themed Attacks
http://www.cio-today.com/story.xhtml?story_id=12300AYR68IL
Sukgu's Comment - Hackers seem to try to be ahead of any anti-hacking technologies. No matter how sophisticated technologies are invented and applied, they alway come up with new tactics to destroy anti-hacking activities. Personally I don't even understand why they do this. If there is someone who is trying to use others' financial information to steal other people's money, at least I can understand why they do this. However, I cannot understand the hackers who just try to harm others. As the person who is not that knowlegeable about IT, viruses attacking my computer and consequently reinstallation of OS always annoy me. The only thing I can do is periodically update the anti-virus software. However, it doesn't work sometimes. ㅜㅜ
Sukgu's Comment - Hackers seem to try to be ahead of any anti-hacking technologies. No matter how sophisticated technologies are invented and applied, they alway come up with new tactics to destroy anti-hacking activities. Personally I don't even understand why they do this. If there is someone who is trying to use others' financial information to steal other people's money, at least I can understand why they do this. However, I cannot understand the hackers who just try to harm others. As the person who is not that knowlegeable about IT, viruses attacking my computer and consequently reinstallation of OS always annoy me. The only thing I can do is periodically update the anti-virus software. However, it doesn't work sometimes. ㅜㅜ
Sony’s Home still under construction
http://blogs.ft.com/techblog/2008/04/sonys-home-still-under-construction/
Sugu's Comment - Whenever I face the articles and advertisements about new game features, I'm so amazed with how these are different from what I have experienced in computer game. I'm not the person who adopts the new technology earlier than others. Even though, "Starcraft" was real boom in my school days, I didn't even played the game. However, games that I get to know these days from the articles are so different from what I thought. As long as I'm concerned with this field, the trend that global leading game providers are focusing on is somewhat different from what Korean game providers pursue. (Because I don't know anyting about this field, I can be very wrong.) More sophisticated and idea oriented games are leading the business, rather than just creating battle field in the virtual world. Some say that Korean game companies have been very successful. Actually I agree with that because I'm working in the same office building with "NCSoft", who is one of Korean leading game companies through "Leaneage" online game, and their new building was completed recently. Their financial success has been remarkable. However, this game has induced many side effects such as real money trading and violence in real world. What could be the main trend in the future?
Sugu's Comment - Whenever I face the articles and advertisements about new game features, I'm so amazed with how these are different from what I have experienced in computer game. I'm not the person who adopts the new technology earlier than others. Even though, "Starcraft" was real boom in my school days, I didn't even played the game. However, games that I get to know these days from the articles are so different from what I thought. As long as I'm concerned with this field, the trend that global leading game providers are focusing on is somewhat different from what Korean game providers pursue. (Because I don't know anyting about this field, I can be very wrong.) More sophisticated and idea oriented games are leading the business, rather than just creating battle field in the virtual world. Some say that Korean game companies have been very successful. Actually I agree with that because I'm working in the same office building with "NCSoft", who is one of Korean leading game companies through "Leaneage" online game, and their new building was completed recently. Their financial success has been remarkable. However, this game has induced many side effects such as real money trading and violence in real world. What could be the main trend in the future?
Problems caused by Internet Addiction
Internet addiction results in personal, family, academic, financial and occupational problems that are characteristic of other addictions.
Impairment of real life relationships are disrupted as a result of excessive use of the internet. Internet addicts spend more time in solitary seclusion and spend less time with real people in their lives. Arguments may result due to the volume of time spent on-line. Internet addicts may attempt to conceal the amount of time spent on-line, which results in distrust and the disturbance of quality in once stable relationships. Financial problems may occur due to the significant amount of time spent on-line and the service provider charges. Common financial issues are large bills for use of some services, the telephone connection charges and telephone bills for calls made to friends in chat rooms. Other financial charges may include a connection with compulsive spending/shopping. Internet addicts may choose to shop on-line and credit card charges for purchases may become high. Also, a connection with gambling exists with the availability of on-line casinos.
Impairment of real life relationships are disrupted as a result of excessive use of the internet. Internet addicts spend more time in solitary seclusion and spend less time with real people in their lives. Arguments may result due to the volume of time spent on-line. Internet addicts may attempt to conceal the amount of time spent on-line, which results in distrust and the disturbance of quality in once stable relationships. Financial problems may occur due to the significant amount of time spent on-line and the service provider charges. Common financial issues are large bills for use of some services, the telephone connection charges and telephone bills for calls made to friends in chat rooms. Other financial charges may include a connection with compulsive spending/shopping. Internet addicts may choose to shop on-line and credit card charges for purchases may become high. Also, a connection with gambling exists with the availability of on-line casinos.
Earnings gloom for chipmakers in Asia
This article is about earning results of chipmakers in Asia such as Samsung and Hynix, which is not good as the price of memory is low.
As Korean, I feel proud that one of Korean companies is ranked as number one worldwide in computer chip industry. There is one noticeable contents I think we need to focus in terms of corporate strategy is the following: "As market leader, Samsung declared that it would make record investment this year. The market environment is difficult but we want to use this crisis as an opportunity to strengthen our competitiveness and increase the gap with our rivals".
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/8189d22c-1287-11dd-8d91-0000779fd2ac.html
As Korean, I feel proud that one of Korean companies is ranked as number one worldwide in computer chip industry. There is one noticeable contents I think we need to focus in terms of corporate strategy is the following: "As market leader, Samsung declared that it would make record investment this year. The market environment is difficult but we want to use this crisis as an opportunity to strengthen our competitiveness and increase the gap with our rivals".
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/8189d22c-1287-11dd-8d91-0000779fd2ac.html
There is No Web 3.0, There is No Web 2.0 - There is Just the Web
There are several articles about web2.0 in our Blog and I' m interested what is abou web2.0 whos concept is not clear. I would like to introduce another opinion about web2.0 and web3.0 compared to Tim O'Reilly.
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Something struck me while listening to Tim O'Reilly's keynote speech at the Web 2.0 expo yesterday: glancing at my notes after he walked off stage, I noticed that his current definition for Web 2.0, is a lot like the definition he's given for Web 3.0. Based on this, plus past comments from O'Reilly that I dug up via a few web searches, I am forced to one conclusion: Tim O'Reilly, the man credited with popularizing the term Web 2.0, doesn't actually believe it exists. For O'Reilly, there is just the web right now. 1.0, 2.0, 3.0 -- it's all the same ever-changing web.
Let's first take a look at Tim O'Reilly's widely used and accepted compact definition for Web 2.0 circa 2006 (way, way back in the dark ages of a year and a half ago):
Web 2.0 is the business revolution in the computer industry caused by the move to the internet as platform, and an attempt to understand the rules for success on that new platform. Chief among those rules is this: Build applications that harness network effects to get better the more people use them. (This is what I've elsewhere called "harnessing collective intelligence.")
We can perhaps simplify that even further: Web 2.0 is the web as a platform and collective intelligence (or, leveraging of user created data). Now let's look at Tim's definition of Web 3.0 (which actually predates his last Web 2.0 definition):
Recently, whenever people ask me "What's Web 3.0?" I've been saying that it's when we apply all the principles we're learning about aggregating human-generated data and turning it into collective intelligence, and apply that to sensor-generated (machine-generated) data.
Which we can simplify to mean, the leveraging of the things we created in Web 2.0. And here's the Web 2.0 defintion he had up on a slide yesterday during his keynote:
The Internet is the platform
Harnessing the collective intelligence
Data as the "Intel Inside"
Software above the level of a single device
Software as a service
O'Reilly talked about Web 2.0 in terms of taking user-generated data and turning it into user facing services. So now we're starting to see a lot of overlap between the two definitions. He's also brought in a lot of Web 3.0 definitions that other people have given and used them as part of this broader definition of Web 2.0. For example, Eric Schmidt of Google talked about Web 3.0 in terms of sofware as a service and cloud computing. Our own Alex Iskold talked about Web 3.0 in terms of web sites being turned into platforms. And so on.
"For 'Web 3.0' to be meaningful we'll need to see a serious discontinuity from the previous generation of technology ... I find myself particularly irritated by definitions of 'Web 3.0' that are basically descriptions of Web 2.0," Tim O'Reilly once said, which is mildly ironic given that his current Web 2.0 definition basically eclipses his old Web 3.0 definition. But in reality, I think O'Reilly is saying that the versioning doesn't really matter -- the web is the web.
"The points of contrast [between Web 2.0 and Web 3.0] are actually the same points that I used to distinguish Web 2.0 from Web 1.5. (I've always said that Web 2.0 = Web 1.0, with the dot com bust being a side trip that got it wrong.)," wrote O'Reilly last fall. In otherw words, the versioning of the web is silly. Web 1.0, 2.0, or 3.0 is all really just whatever cool new thing we're using the web to accomplish right now.
And he has a point. A couple of days ago, we wrote about the history of the term Web 3.0 and noted that the term itself doesn't really matter, what matters is the discussions we have when trying to define it. "It is the discussion that is helpful rather than coming to any accepted definition. Some might argue that version numbers are silly on the web, that Web 2.0 and Web 3.0 are just marketing ploys, and that we shouldn't use terms that are so nebulous and difficult to define. Those are all fair points. But at the same time, the discussions we have about defining the next web help to solidify our vision of where we're going -- and you can't get there until you decide where you want to go," we wrote.
Web 2.0 and Web 3.0 -- they don't really exist. They're just arbitrary numbers assigned to something that doesn't really have versions. But the discussion that those terms have prompted have been helpful, I think, in figuring out where the web is going and how we're going to get there; and that's what is important.
So next time someone asks me what we cover on ReadWriteWeb, maybe I won't use the term "Web 2.0" in my reply, I'll just tell them that we write about the web, what you can do with it now, and what you'll be able to do with it in the future.
http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/there_is_no_web_30_there_is_no_web_20.php
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Something struck me while listening to Tim O'Reilly's keynote speech at the Web 2.0 expo yesterday: glancing at my notes after he walked off stage, I noticed that his current definition for Web 2.0, is a lot like the definition he's given for Web 3.0. Based on this, plus past comments from O'Reilly that I dug up via a few web searches, I am forced to one conclusion: Tim O'Reilly, the man credited with popularizing the term Web 2.0, doesn't actually believe it exists. For O'Reilly, there is just the web right now. 1.0, 2.0, 3.0 -- it's all the same ever-changing web.
Let's first take a look at Tim O'Reilly's widely used and accepted compact definition for Web 2.0 circa 2006 (way, way back in the dark ages of a year and a half ago):
Web 2.0 is the business revolution in the computer industry caused by the move to the internet as platform, and an attempt to understand the rules for success on that new platform. Chief among those rules is this: Build applications that harness network effects to get better the more people use them. (This is what I've elsewhere called "harnessing collective intelligence.")
We can perhaps simplify that even further: Web 2.0 is the web as a platform and collective intelligence (or, leveraging of user created data). Now let's look at Tim's definition of Web 3.0 (which actually predates his last Web 2.0 definition):
Recently, whenever people ask me "What's Web 3.0?" I've been saying that it's when we apply all the principles we're learning about aggregating human-generated data and turning it into collective intelligence, and apply that to sensor-generated (machine-generated) data.
Which we can simplify to mean, the leveraging of the things we created in Web 2.0. And here's the Web 2.0 defintion he had up on a slide yesterday during his keynote:
The Internet is the platform
Harnessing the collective intelligence
Data as the "Intel Inside"
Software above the level of a single device
Software as a service
O'Reilly talked about Web 2.0 in terms of taking user-generated data and turning it into user facing services. So now we're starting to see a lot of overlap between the two definitions. He's also brought in a lot of Web 3.0 definitions that other people have given and used them as part of this broader definition of Web 2.0. For example, Eric Schmidt of Google talked about Web 3.0 in terms of sofware as a service and cloud computing. Our own Alex Iskold talked about Web 3.0 in terms of web sites being turned into platforms. And so on.
"For 'Web 3.0' to be meaningful we'll need to see a serious discontinuity from the previous generation of technology ... I find myself particularly irritated by definitions of 'Web 3.0' that are basically descriptions of Web 2.0," Tim O'Reilly once said, which is mildly ironic given that his current Web 2.0 definition basically eclipses his old Web 3.0 definition. But in reality, I think O'Reilly is saying that the versioning doesn't really matter -- the web is the web.
"The points of contrast [between Web 2.0 and Web 3.0] are actually the same points that I used to distinguish Web 2.0 from Web 1.5. (I've always said that Web 2.0 = Web 1.0, with the dot com bust being a side trip that got it wrong.)," wrote O'Reilly last fall. In otherw words, the versioning of the web is silly. Web 1.0, 2.0, or 3.0 is all really just whatever cool new thing we're using the web to accomplish right now.
And he has a point. A couple of days ago, we wrote about the history of the term Web 3.0 and noted that the term itself doesn't really matter, what matters is the discussions we have when trying to define it. "It is the discussion that is helpful rather than coming to any accepted definition. Some might argue that version numbers are silly on the web, that Web 2.0 and Web 3.0 are just marketing ploys, and that we shouldn't use terms that are so nebulous and difficult to define. Those are all fair points. But at the same time, the discussions we have about defining the next web help to solidify our vision of where we're going -- and you can't get there until you decide where you want to go," we wrote.
Web 2.0 and Web 3.0 -- they don't really exist. They're just arbitrary numbers assigned to something that doesn't really have versions. But the discussion that those terms have prompted have been helpful, I think, in figuring out where the web is going and how we're going to get there; and that's what is important.
So next time someone asks me what we cover on ReadWriteWeb, maybe I won't use the term "Web 2.0" in my reply, I'll just tell them that we write about the web, what you can do with it now, and what you'll be able to do with it in the future.
http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/there_is_no_web_30_there_is_no_web_20.php
Saturday, April 26, 2008
Hi-tech crime 'is big business'
Hi-tech crime 'is big business'
Millions of e-mail addresses are being sold online
Internet crime has become a major commercial activity, reveals a report by computer security company Symantec.
The report said cyber crime had become increasingly professional and was now a multi-billion dollar industry.
The underground economy has its own auction sites and marketplaces that sell valuable data such as credit card numbers and bank accounts.
They also sell toolkits for novice cyber criminals who lack technical know-how to craft their own attacks.
Boom times
"We're seeing a definite shift in terms of commercialisation," said William Beer, Symantec's european director of security practice. "It's being used by organised crime and it's being used to launch their attacks.
"We have seen very focussed attacks that leverage very active commercial business on toolkits," he told the BBC News website.
Mr Beer said Symantec had seen the net's underground economy enter a new phase in the last six months as those involved in it prospered.
Even the smallest bank has enough money
William Beer, SymantecOne example of how it had grown could be found in the number of new malicious programs reported to Symantec. The 212,101 new threats reported during the first six months of 2007 was a 185% increase over the previous six months.
The economy had rapidly become specialised and now every service a criminal needed to carry out attacks was widely available, said Mr Beer.
For instance, he said, many malicious hackers were using their technical skills to create tool kits that they then sold to those with the criminal know-how to carry out attacks.
Evidence that these were being taken up enthusiastically, he said, could be found in the fact that three phishing toolkits were behind 42% of all phishing attacks seen by Symantec in the first six months of 2007.
In addition, 86% of all phishing websites were hosted on only 30% of IP addresses known to be phishing websites, suggesting that some were cornering the market in looking after criminal sites.
More worryingly, said Mr Beer, were signs that different sections of the underground economy were starting to collaborate to improve their chances of catching people out.
Hi-tech criminals with information culled from job sites, online games or social networking sites were teaming up with phishing gangs and spammers, said Mr Beer.
The end result was well-crafted e-mail campaigns that gained a gloss of credibility by combining several different bits of data.
Often, he said, these targeted attacks were aimed at the customers of smaller financial institutions.
"Attention has gone away from the larger banks down to credit unions and small banks that do not have the people and resources to fight off the attacks," he said.
"Even the smallest bank has enough money," said Mr Beer.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/6998068.stm
Millions of e-mail addresses are being sold online
Internet crime has become a major commercial activity, reveals a report by computer security company Symantec.
The report said cyber crime had become increasingly professional and was now a multi-billion dollar industry.
The underground economy has its own auction sites and marketplaces that sell valuable data such as credit card numbers and bank accounts.
They also sell toolkits for novice cyber criminals who lack technical know-how to craft their own attacks.
Boom times
"We're seeing a definite shift in terms of commercialisation," said William Beer, Symantec's european director of security practice. "It's being used by organised crime and it's being used to launch their attacks.
"We have seen very focussed attacks that leverage very active commercial business on toolkits," he told the BBC News website.
Mr Beer said Symantec had seen the net's underground economy enter a new phase in the last six months as those involved in it prospered.
Even the smallest bank has enough money
William Beer, SymantecOne example of how it had grown could be found in the number of new malicious programs reported to Symantec. The 212,101 new threats reported during the first six months of 2007 was a 185% increase over the previous six months.
The economy had rapidly become specialised and now every service a criminal needed to carry out attacks was widely available, said Mr Beer.
For instance, he said, many malicious hackers were using their technical skills to create tool kits that they then sold to those with the criminal know-how to carry out attacks.
Evidence that these were being taken up enthusiastically, he said, could be found in the fact that three phishing toolkits were behind 42% of all phishing attacks seen by Symantec in the first six months of 2007.
In addition, 86% of all phishing websites were hosted on only 30% of IP addresses known to be phishing websites, suggesting that some were cornering the market in looking after criminal sites.
More worryingly, said Mr Beer, were signs that different sections of the underground economy were starting to collaborate to improve their chances of catching people out.
Hi-tech criminals with information culled from job sites, online games or social networking sites were teaming up with phishing gangs and spammers, said Mr Beer.
The end result was well-crafted e-mail campaigns that gained a gloss of credibility by combining several different bits of data.
Often, he said, these targeted attacks were aimed at the customers of smaller financial institutions.
"Attention has gone away from the larger banks down to credit unions and small banks that do not have the people and resources to fight off the attacks," he said.
"Even the smallest bank has enough money," said Mr Beer.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/6998068.stm
Spammers ramp up siege on Google's Blogger via bots
Spammers ramp up siege on Google's Blogger via bots
Spammers are using an automated method to create bogus pages on Google's Blogger service, again highlighting the diminishing effectiveness of a security system intended to stop mass account registrations, according to security vendor Websense.
The spammers are sending coded instructions to PCs in their botnets, or networks of computers that have been infected with malicious software, wrote Sumeet Prasad, a threat analyst, on Websense's blog.
Those sophisticated instructions tell PCs how to register a free account on Blogger. The spammers also figured out a way to solve the CAPTCHA (Completely Automated Public Turing test to Tell Computers and Humans Apart), the warped text that has to be deciphered in order to complete an account registration.
The compromised PC sends a request to an external host that tries to solve the CAPTCHA and then sends the answer back to the PC. Websense estimates the process has an 8 to 13 percent success rate.
It's unknown how exactly the CAPTCHA gets solved. It's been theorized the process has been outsourced to real humans who get paid for every one deciphered. But researchers have successfully developed methods that enable computers to increase their success rate at solving the puzzles, indicating that hackers have also figured out how to do it.
Security vendors and researchers have seen a rapid rise in accounts used for spam on free e-mail services from Microsoft, Yahoo and Google, indicating current CAPTCHA technology has reached the end its usefulness.
In this case, the Blogger pages created by the spammers are then used to promote the usual line of spammer goods. But many of those sites are rigged with JavaScript that redirects the browser to another spammy Web site.
"Spammers include these redirecting accounts in different spam campaigns rather than including their actual spam domains," Prasad wrote. "Spammers use this tactic to defeat a range of antispam services."
In effect, they're using Google's Blogger domain as a shield, as it's unlikely to be blocked by other security software products for being a suspicious domain.
One option for Google would be to prohibit those redirects, said Dan Hubbard, vice president of security research for Websense. But every additional security restriction has the potential to drive away users who may use the function for a legitimate purpose, he said.
For so-called Web 2.0 sites that depend on high numbers of users, that could create a backlash, causing users to leave, Hubbard said. The redirection feature could also be tied into the way how advertising is delivered to the blog pages.
Google could also figure out a better way to spot blogs that are being created through automated bots, since many of those pages have tell-tale signs indicating machines created them rather than people, Hubbard said. Those detection mechanisms are still developing, however.
"There's not a lot of people and a lot of technology that does good content input validation on Web properties, and that's something that we're looking into," Hubbard said. "Link spam and blog spam is happening a ton, and obviously that's pretty painful for Web properties."
The latest methods means a potential increase in the number of garbage pages on Blogger. But the sheer number of Blogger sites on the whole helps the spammy ones stay under the radar a bit longer, Prasad wrote.
Google has been fighting spam for a long time on Blogger. It uses automated spam classifying algorithms to keep blogs full of spam links out of its featured content. Users can also use a reporting tool to alert Google to spam blogs, but the fight continues.Jeremy Kirk is London correspondent for the IDG News Service
http://security.itworld.com/4337/spammers-attack-google-blogger-080425/page_1.html
Spammers are using an automated method to create bogus pages on Google's Blogger service, again highlighting the diminishing effectiveness of a security system intended to stop mass account registrations, according to security vendor Websense.
The spammers are sending coded instructions to PCs in their botnets, or networks of computers that have been infected with malicious software, wrote Sumeet Prasad, a threat analyst, on Websense's blog.
Those sophisticated instructions tell PCs how to register a free account on Blogger. The spammers also figured out a way to solve the CAPTCHA (Completely Automated Public Turing test to Tell Computers and Humans Apart), the warped text that has to be deciphered in order to complete an account registration.
The compromised PC sends a request to an external host that tries to solve the CAPTCHA and then sends the answer back to the PC. Websense estimates the process has an 8 to 13 percent success rate.
It's unknown how exactly the CAPTCHA gets solved. It's been theorized the process has been outsourced to real humans who get paid for every one deciphered. But researchers have successfully developed methods that enable computers to increase their success rate at solving the puzzles, indicating that hackers have also figured out how to do it.
Security vendors and researchers have seen a rapid rise in accounts used for spam on free e-mail services from Microsoft, Yahoo and Google, indicating current CAPTCHA technology has reached the end its usefulness.
In this case, the Blogger pages created by the spammers are then used to promote the usual line of spammer goods. But many of those sites are rigged with JavaScript that redirects the browser to another spammy Web site.
"Spammers include these redirecting accounts in different spam campaigns rather than including their actual spam domains," Prasad wrote. "Spammers use this tactic to defeat a range of antispam services."
In effect, they're using Google's Blogger domain as a shield, as it's unlikely to be blocked by other security software products for being a suspicious domain.
One option for Google would be to prohibit those redirects, said Dan Hubbard, vice president of security research for Websense. But every additional security restriction has the potential to drive away users who may use the function for a legitimate purpose, he said.
For so-called Web 2.0 sites that depend on high numbers of users, that could create a backlash, causing users to leave, Hubbard said. The redirection feature could also be tied into the way how advertising is delivered to the blog pages.
Google could also figure out a better way to spot blogs that are being created through automated bots, since many of those pages have tell-tale signs indicating machines created them rather than people, Hubbard said. Those detection mechanisms are still developing, however.
"There's not a lot of people and a lot of technology that does good content input validation on Web properties, and that's something that we're looking into," Hubbard said. "Link spam and blog spam is happening a ton, and obviously that's pretty painful for Web properties."
The latest methods means a potential increase in the number of garbage pages on Blogger. But the sheer number of Blogger sites on the whole helps the spammy ones stay under the radar a bit longer, Prasad wrote.
Google has been fighting spam for a long time on Blogger. It uses automated spam classifying algorithms to keep blogs full of spam links out of its featured content. Users can also use a reporting tool to alert Google to spam blogs, but the fight continues.Jeremy Kirk is London correspondent for the IDG News Service
http://security.itworld.com/4337/spammers-attack-google-blogger-080425/page_1.html
Mind-Reading Game Controller
This is an outstanding device, mind-reading game controller. I think every game player dreamed this kind of controller once in a while whenever his/her player in the game does not act in accordane with his/her intent. Probably this controller is an invention in germ but I hope someday we can play games without roaring and casting controllers away hehe :)
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The new video-game controller from Emotiv Systems is a wireless headset with 16 embedded sensors that register electrical signals from the brain. The device can detect users' facial expressions and emotions, potentially giving digital characters the personalities of their creators. Once the headset is calibrated to a player's brain signals, the player can push, pull, lift, and drop virtual objects using thoughts alone. The device comes with a game designed to explore the possibilities of brain-controlled gaming, but it can be adapted to any PC game.
http://www.technologyreview.com/Infotech/20597/
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The new video-game controller from Emotiv Systems is a wireless headset with 16 embedded sensors that register electrical signals from the brain. The device can detect users' facial expressions and emotions, potentially giving digital characters the personalities of their creators. Once the headset is calibrated to a player's brain signals, the player can push, pull, lift, and drop virtual objects using thoughts alone. The device comes with a game designed to explore the possibilities of brain-controlled gaming, but it can be adapted to any PC game.
http://www.technologyreview.com/Infotech/20597/
Hackers Focus Efforts on Firefox, Safari
Internet Explorer goes unscathed, but Office is hit with new, dangerous bugs. But I think this article relates to pc users in US as I know, 99% of my friends and acquaintances use IE 6.0 or 7.0. For me, I need to be cautious for newly created Office hacking as I installed MS Office 2007 recently.
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Many people are switching from Internet Explorer to alternative browsers such as Firefox and Safari. Though that might make them feel more secure, the shift has also opened new doors for bad guys.
Case in point: We have no IE bugs to report this month, but both Firefox and Safari have been hit hard.
So forget the idea that just because you've switched to a new browser, you're magically safer. You may be for a time, but to stay safe with any software, you need to keep current with fixes.
Firefox Holes
In a somewhat dubious recognition of Firefox's growing popularity, hackers have focused their attention on it, leading to a rash of newly discovered holes. The folks at Mozilla recently released two Firefox updates in less than six weeks, fixing a total of five critical security vulnerabilities. All five can be exploited by planting a poisoned JavaScript file in a Web site and waiting for you to stumble across it.
In an actual attack--neither the Safari nor the Firefox bugs have elicited one so far--a bad guy could take over your PC or steal your navigation history.
The latest versions of Firefox--2.0.0.13 on--will stop all five bugs. Mozilla's Thunderbird and SeaMonkey are also at risk (if you have JavaScript enabled), so download updated versions.
Safari in the Wild
Safari 3.1 patches 13 holes affecting Mac OS X, Windows XP, and Windows Vista.
Think you're safe because you don't have Safari? You may have it without realizing it. Apple now distributes its browser with iTunes updates. Forget to uncheck a box in one of these updates, and it's there.
The Safari holes could allow an attacker to trick you into thinking that a fake site is really your bank site, or to take over your PC via a poisoned page. Download Safari 3.1.
Office Bugged Again
Microsoft recently released four patches that fix a dozen dangerous holes in Office. I warned you about one of those holes--a zero-day attack on Excel--in April. Be sure to apply the patches, if your system doesn't install them automatically. Get the four new Office patches and more info. (You are not affected if Microsoft Office 2007 is the version you use.)
No sooner had Microsoft shipped those patches than the company acknowledged the existence of yet another bad Office bug that needs patching. And this one is urgent because some users have already been attacked.
Luckily, Windows Vista, Windows Vista SP1, and the beta version of Windows XP SP3 are not at risk because they ship with a newer version of the affected "Jet" database. But earlier versions of Windows are vulnerable, as are all supported versions of Office, including Office 2007.
Becoming a victim of the bug involves saving two files to your PC's hard drive--one a mail-merge file that uses the database engine. There was no patch at press time. For more information, read Microsoft's advisory.
http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,145122-c,browsersecurity/article.html
Thursday, April 24, 2008
Internet Is the Platform, Web 2.0 Founder Says
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2704,2286997,00.asp
Internet Is the Platform, Web 2.0 Founder Says
04.24.08
by Dave Mathews
SAN FRANCISCO—Tim O'Reilly, organizer and founder of the Web 2.0 event here, spoke Wednesday about the element of change in the technology sector: whether the headlines are really driving trends, or if innovation continues on despite what analysts are saying about the industry.
The trends
The Internet is the platform – a tool for harnessing collective intelligence, O'Reilly said. Data has become the "Intel Inside" and software is above being written for just a single device, meaning desktops, laptops and mobile devices. The proof? Facebook and Google hosted applications and email. Gone are the days that he needed to load a client that needs to be synced on my different devices, O'Reilly said. Finally software is a service thanks to great connectivity; and it is only getting better with WiMax and 700MHz LTE - the next generation of municipal broadband, and one that will actually get deployed.
Cloud computing as a platform is driving this software as a service model. If one cannot connect to communications, the value of your PC is diminished, O'Reilly added. This means that the computer, mobile phone and also future platforms like television with two-way data feeds are becoming display devices for getting data into and out of the cloud. The Internet becomes the operating system.
The heart of Web2.0 is the community – building collective intelligence from the mass of people that you can reach and interact and hear from – like customers which make this community, O'Reilly added.
Google page rank was the beginning of the Web 2.0 era and a breakthrough in search. When a page had many links to it, then it had value. This was the beginning of opening up data and "liberating it" and their traffic and resulting stock price has shown that this was an extremely successful idea.
The best 2.0 start-ups will help other businesses collect data and build databases whose value grows based upon the number of participants. It's a race to accumulate as much as possible to provide intelligence, which results in power to the consumer, service or business.
Software above the level of a single device: Software in the cloud is more useful and powerful than a computer that has no access, O'Reilly added. Computer input devices are the limiting factor now. That will change as new input mechanisms like voice and image capturing will take over the keyboard – purposely designed hundreds of years ago to slow down our input on ancient typewriters.
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2704,2286997,00.asp
Internet Is the Platform, Web 2.0 Founder Says
04.24.08
by Dave Mathews
SAN FRANCISCO—Tim O'Reilly, organizer and founder of the Web 2.0 event here, spoke Wednesday about the element of change in the technology sector: whether the headlines are really driving trends, or if innovation continues on despite what analysts are saying about the industry.
The trends
The Internet is the platform – a tool for harnessing collective intelligence, O'Reilly said. Data has become the "Intel Inside" and software is above being written for just a single device, meaning desktops, laptops and mobile devices. The proof? Facebook and Google hosted applications and email. Gone are the days that he needed to load a client that needs to be synced on my different devices, O'Reilly said. Finally software is a service thanks to great connectivity; and it is only getting better with WiMax and 700MHz LTE - the next generation of municipal broadband, and one that will actually get deployed.
Cloud computing as a platform is driving this software as a service model. If one cannot connect to communications, the value of your PC is diminished, O'Reilly added. This means that the computer, mobile phone and also future platforms like television with two-way data feeds are becoming display devices for getting data into and out of the cloud. The Internet becomes the operating system.
The heart of Web2.0 is the community – building collective intelligence from the mass of people that you can reach and interact and hear from – like customers which make this community, O'Reilly added.
Google page rank was the beginning of the Web 2.0 era and a breakthrough in search. When a page had many links to it, then it had value. This was the beginning of opening up data and "liberating it" and their traffic and resulting stock price has shown that this was an extremely successful idea.
The best 2.0 start-ups will help other businesses collect data and build databases whose value grows based upon the number of participants. It's a race to accumulate as much as possible to provide intelligence, which results in power to the consumer, service or business.
Software above the level of a single device: Software in the cloud is more useful and powerful than a computer that has no access, O'Reilly added. Computer input devices are the limiting factor now. That will change as new input mechanisms like voice and image capturing will take over the keyboard – purposely designed hundreds of years ago to slow down our input on ancient typewriters.
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2704,2286997,00.asp
Web-Surfing Phones Riding High
A user searches video clips on youtube.com on the touch-sensitive screen of the Samsung Haptic phone with a pencil tip. Touch-screen phones from Samsung, LG and Pantech & Curitel are selling hot in Korea since late last month.
/ Korea Times Photo by Shim Hyun-cheol
By Cho Jin-seo Staff ReporterIt's a bit slow, but it works well enough. Reading e-mail and browsing the Internet via mobile phone have become more enjoyable and convenient than ever, thanks to new technology and clever ideas. Mobile Internet is the hottest issue among early adopters of technology in Korea. At www.cetizen.com, the largest online community of mobile phone users, the three most popular handsets these days are all touch-screen phones specializing in Web browsing ― Samsung's Haptic, Pantech & Curitel's CanU and LG's Touch Web Phone. These so-called full-browsing phones are selling at impressive rates. Samsung says that it has sold around 30,000 Haptic phones in 15 days since its launch on March 25, which is about the double the daily sales of other new models. Its hefty price tag ― 797,000 won ($800) without a rebate or a discount ― hasn't been discouraging customers, the company says. ``It's a bit expensive, but still we are in short supply. Retailers are even paying in advance to secure their volume,'' a company spokesman said. LG and Curitel are also happy with their Web-surfing handsets, each selling more than 1,000 units a day. Telecom network operators also helped handset makers make mobile Internet easier, faster and less expensive. Three telecom operators were reluctant to sell such full-browsing handsets because they wanted to tie their users to their own pay-per-view portal sites. But this year, they have changed their policies to allow their users full access. Improvement in network systems also sped up the connection speed of mobile Web.Mobile Internet competition escalated on April 3, when LG Telecom launched the Oz price plan, which offers unlimited Internet access for 6,000 won ($6) per month. Boon of Touch ScreensLG's Web Touch Phone is on sale at LG Telecom, combining hardware and service for mobile Internet use. Its high-definition screen, easy control and relatively low price has earned it recognition as a truly Web-oriented phone. Web Touch Phone has a touch-sensitive screen that is superior to that of Samsung Haptic in terms of color definition. It also has an embedded Web browser, which displays Web pages the same way Internet Explorer does on a personal computer. Users can easily increase or decrease font sizea with a dial. Samsung's Haptic phone is more versatile. Mobile TV, a digital camera and MP3 player are its basic features, and it also has two fun elements ― a vibrating screen and motion sensor. The phone makes a tick motion when the screen is touched, confirming that it understood the user's command. It also automatically shifts the screen between horizontal and vertical positions using a built-in motion sensor, similar to that used in the Nintendo Wii game console. The same feature is being used with dice and Korean folk game Yutnoli. Haptic is being serviced by SK Telecom. At 26,000 won per month, its unlimited Internet plan is more expensive than that of Web Touch of the LG Electronics-LG Telecom alliance. However, many users feel that Haptic is faster than Web Touch in displaying Web pages because of its clever Web browsing system. Korean Web sites are usually crowded with traffic-heavy graphics and animation that make mobile Internet painfully slow. The Haptic-SK Telecom system circumvents the problem by showing a snapshot of the Web page to the user, instead of showing the original, data-heavy page. When the user clicks on a certain position of the snapshot, the SK Telecom server interprets the motion into a real command on the Web page and gives the subsequent result in another snapshot of the next Web page. This ``Web viewer'' technique is controversial among fans of mobile Internet who downplay it as fake browsing. Many also feel it's less sensitive than Web Touch Phone in reacting to users' command, though its downloading speed appears faster. Sorry, BlackberryAnother reason that these full-browsing phones are fast gaining popularity in Korea is e-mail. Both Samsung's Haptic and LG's Web Touch provide the e-mail services that Blackberry offers in other countries. Telecom firms' mail servers automatically refresh users' inboxes and ``push'' new mail to handsets. External mail accounts such as Hanmail, Hotmail, and Gmail can be linked to the mobile e-mail services as well. Using e-mail on mobile phones is an old habit in Western countries, where smartphones such as Blackberry have become a staple for businessmen. But in Korea, foreign smartphones are almost non-existent because of fussy government regulations on software and hardware configuration, which the European Union Chamber of Commerce in Korea has cited as a non-tariff barrier on foreign goods. indizio@koreatimes.co.kr
/ Korea Times Photo by Shim Hyun-cheol
By Cho Jin-seo Staff ReporterIt's a bit slow, but it works well enough. Reading e-mail and browsing the Internet via mobile phone have become more enjoyable and convenient than ever, thanks to new technology and clever ideas. Mobile Internet is the hottest issue among early adopters of technology in Korea. At www.cetizen.com, the largest online community of mobile phone users, the three most popular handsets these days are all touch-screen phones specializing in Web browsing ― Samsung's Haptic, Pantech & Curitel's CanU and LG's Touch Web Phone. These so-called full-browsing phones are selling at impressive rates. Samsung says that it has sold around 30,000 Haptic phones in 15 days since its launch on March 25, which is about the double the daily sales of other new models. Its hefty price tag ― 797,000 won ($800) without a rebate or a discount ― hasn't been discouraging customers, the company says. ``It's a bit expensive, but still we are in short supply. Retailers are even paying in advance to secure their volume,'' a company spokesman said. LG and Curitel are also happy with their Web-surfing handsets, each selling more than 1,000 units a day. Telecom network operators also helped handset makers make mobile Internet easier, faster and less expensive. Three telecom operators were reluctant to sell such full-browsing handsets because they wanted to tie their users to their own pay-per-view portal sites. But this year, they have changed their policies to allow their users full access. Improvement in network systems also sped up the connection speed of mobile Web.Mobile Internet competition escalated on April 3, when LG Telecom launched the Oz price plan, which offers unlimited Internet access for 6,000 won ($6) per month. Boon of Touch ScreensLG's Web Touch Phone is on sale at LG Telecom, combining hardware and service for mobile Internet use. Its high-definition screen, easy control and relatively low price has earned it recognition as a truly Web-oriented phone. Web Touch Phone has a touch-sensitive screen that is superior to that of Samsung Haptic in terms of color definition. It also has an embedded Web browser, which displays Web pages the same way Internet Explorer does on a personal computer. Users can easily increase or decrease font sizea with a dial. Samsung's Haptic phone is more versatile. Mobile TV, a digital camera and MP3 player are its basic features, and it also has two fun elements ― a vibrating screen and motion sensor. The phone makes a tick motion when the screen is touched, confirming that it understood the user's command. It also automatically shifts the screen between horizontal and vertical positions using a built-in motion sensor, similar to that used in the Nintendo Wii game console. The same feature is being used with dice and Korean folk game Yutnoli. Haptic is being serviced by SK Telecom. At 26,000 won per month, its unlimited Internet plan is more expensive than that of Web Touch of the LG Electronics-LG Telecom alliance. However, many users feel that Haptic is faster than Web Touch in displaying Web pages because of its clever Web browsing system. Korean Web sites are usually crowded with traffic-heavy graphics and animation that make mobile Internet painfully slow. The Haptic-SK Telecom system circumvents the problem by showing a snapshot of the Web page to the user, instead of showing the original, data-heavy page. When the user clicks on a certain position of the snapshot, the SK Telecom server interprets the motion into a real command on the Web page and gives the subsequent result in another snapshot of the next Web page. This ``Web viewer'' technique is controversial among fans of mobile Internet who downplay it as fake browsing. Many also feel it's less sensitive than Web Touch Phone in reacting to users' command, though its downloading speed appears faster. Sorry, BlackberryAnother reason that these full-browsing phones are fast gaining popularity in Korea is e-mail. Both Samsung's Haptic and LG's Web Touch provide the e-mail services that Blackberry offers in other countries. Telecom firms' mail servers automatically refresh users' inboxes and ``push'' new mail to handsets. External mail accounts such as Hanmail, Hotmail, and Gmail can be linked to the mobile e-mail services as well. Using e-mail on mobile phones is an old habit in Western countries, where smartphones such as Blackberry have become a staple for businessmen. But in Korea, foreign smartphones are almost non-existent because of fussy government regulations on software and hardware configuration, which the European Union Chamber of Commerce in Korea has cited as a non-tariff barrier on foreign goods. indizio@koreatimes.co.kr
A Sigh and An Hope...Two article of Motorola
[A sigh]
Motorola tries to find the bottom
Investors hoping for a sign that the No. 3 phone maker is on the comeback are likely to be disappointed.
By Scott Moritz, writer
http://money.cnn.com/2008/04/23/technology/moritz_motorola.fortune/index.htm?postversion=2008042315
NEW YORK (Fortune) -- Expect another glimpse of the ongoing collapse of Motorola's phone business when the company reports first-quarter earnings Thursday.
Motorola, the No. 3 handset maker, has already outlined in recent weeks some of the more dreary details of its steady slide: 2,600 jobs cuts, a plan to jettison the money-losing mobile phone unit in a spin off to shareholders, and a search for a handset chief to help stabilize if not rebuild the business.
Investors are bracing for more bad news Thursday morning. Motorola is expected to post a loss of seven cents a share on $7.75 billion in sales for the quarter ended March 31, according to analyst estimates. That compares to earnings of two cents a share on $9.43 billion in sales in the year-ago quarter.
[An Hope]
Motorola Hits Domestic 3G Mobile Handset Market
매일경제 | 기사입력 2008.04.22 19:45
http://media.daum.net/foreign/englishnews/view.html?cateid=1047&newsid=20080422194508685&cp=mk
Motorola has penetrated into the domestic third-generation (3G) mobile handset market, which is currently trisected by Samsung Electronics, LG Electronics and Pantech, with its 3G mobile handset model "Z8m" launched on April 22.
"We have developed the first 3G mobile handset model which is up to the standard of Korean consumers who expect a 3G phone with superior functions and a sophisticated design," said Rick Wolochatiuk, head of the mobile business division at Motorola Korea.
"Starting with Z8m, we will beef up our product portfolio aimed at catering to Korean consumers' appetite to launch additional 3G phones of various types," he added.
Motorola's brand-new Z8m has adopted the "kick-slider" design in which the opening of the handset's slide automatically snaps the body so as to better align with the user's facial curve.
With the titanium color in the background, the upper brim of the slide and the following line are tinted with orange while the joint connecting the slide and the body is hidden to give a smooth touch.
The handset supports video calls with the data transfer rate of 7.2Mbps and carries an external memory chip with a maximum capacity of 4GB, a 2 million-pixel camera and Bluetooth function.
[Sun-young Park / KHS]
[ⓒ Maeil Business Newspaper & mk.co.kr, All rights reserved]
Motorola tries to find the bottom
Investors hoping for a sign that the No. 3 phone maker is on the comeback are likely to be disappointed.
By Scott Moritz, writer
http://money.cnn.com/2008/04/23/technology/moritz_motorola.fortune/index.htm?postversion=2008042315
NEW YORK (Fortune) -- Expect another glimpse of the ongoing collapse of Motorola's phone business when the company reports first-quarter earnings Thursday.
Motorola, the No. 3 handset maker, has already outlined in recent weeks some of the more dreary details of its steady slide: 2,600 jobs cuts, a plan to jettison the money-losing mobile phone unit in a spin off to shareholders, and a search for a handset chief to help stabilize if not rebuild the business.
Investors are bracing for more bad news Thursday morning. Motorola is expected to post a loss of seven cents a share on $7.75 billion in sales for the quarter ended March 31, according to analyst estimates. That compares to earnings of two cents a share on $9.43 billion in sales in the year-ago quarter.
[An Hope]
Motorola Hits Domestic 3G Mobile Handset Market
매일경제 | 기사입력 2008.04.22 19:45
http://media.daum.net/foreign/englishnews/view.html?cateid=1047&newsid=20080422194508685&cp=mk
Motorola has penetrated into the domestic third-generation (3G) mobile handset market, which is currently trisected by Samsung Electronics, LG Electronics and Pantech, with its 3G mobile handset model "Z8m" launched on April 22.
"We have developed the first 3G mobile handset model which is up to the standard of Korean consumers who expect a 3G phone with superior functions and a sophisticated design," said Rick Wolochatiuk, head of the mobile business division at Motorola Korea.
"Starting with Z8m, we will beef up our product portfolio aimed at catering to Korean consumers' appetite to launch additional 3G phones of various types," he added.
Motorola's brand-new Z8m has adopted the "kick-slider" design in which the opening of the handset's slide automatically snaps the body so as to better align with the user's facial curve.
With the titanium color in the background, the upper brim of the slide and the following line are tinted with orange while the joint connecting the slide and the body is hidden to give a smooth touch.
The handset supports video calls with the data transfer rate of 7.2Mbps and carries an external memory chip with a maximum capacity of 4GB, a 2 million-pixel camera and Bluetooth function.
[Sun-young Park / KHS]
[ⓒ Maeil Business Newspaper & mk.co.kr, All rights reserved]
Wednesday, April 23, 2008
Web Firms to Face Heavy Penalties for Info Leaks
http://english.chosun.com/w21data/html/news/200804/200804220019.html
Web Firms to Face Heavy Penalties for Info Leaks
Updated Apr.22,2008 09:32 KST
Under a proposed law revision, chief executives of Korean Internet companies like Auction would face heavy penalties for large-scale leaks of users' personal information due to lax security. The penalties would include up two years in prison and large fines based on company sales. The revision would also ban Internet companies from keeping users' residence registration numbers.
The Korea Communications Committee is pushing for the revision of the Information and Communications Network Act with a view to imposing heavier penalties on those responsible for information leaks, it was learned on Monday.
A senior KCC member said, "Under the current law, Internet companies are fined up to W10 million (US$1=W992) for a large-scale personal information leak. This hasn't been as effective as it looks, so we're pushing for a revision of the law to impose prison terms and heavy fines on the CEOs of Internet companies if personal information leaks occur." To hold big Internet companies responsible for such leaks, the fines would be equivalent to 1 to 3 percent of total sales.
The revised law would also make it mandatory for Internet companies to check and verify "i-PINs" (Internet personal identification numbers). This measure is designed to stop companies from keeping the users' residence registration numbers, a key item of personal information.
According to the KCC, i-PINs are not susceptible to leaks as they are used only once, when the user's identity is checked by the Internet company, and they are not stored by the companies.
Naver and Daum currently keep residence registration numbers of some 30 million users each. Experts are concerned that an attack by hackers on either of these companies could result in a leak larger than the one at Auction, in which the personal information of 10.81 million users was leaked.
Nonetheless, Internet companies have opposed the mandatory introduction of the i-PIN system for fear that their user numbers could fall.
(englishnews@chosun.com )
http://english.chosun.com/w21data/html/news/200804/200804220019.html
Web Firms to Face Heavy Penalties for Info Leaks
Updated Apr.22,2008 09:32 KST
Under a proposed law revision, chief executives of Korean Internet companies like Auction would face heavy penalties for large-scale leaks of users' personal information due to lax security. The penalties would include up two years in prison and large fines based on company sales. The revision would also ban Internet companies from keeping users' residence registration numbers.
The Korea Communications Committee is pushing for the revision of the Information and Communications Network Act with a view to imposing heavier penalties on those responsible for information leaks, it was learned on Monday.
A senior KCC member said, "Under the current law, Internet companies are fined up to W10 million (US$1=W992) for a large-scale personal information leak. This hasn't been as effective as it looks, so we're pushing for a revision of the law to impose prison terms and heavy fines on the CEOs of Internet companies if personal information leaks occur." To hold big Internet companies responsible for such leaks, the fines would be equivalent to 1 to 3 percent of total sales.
The revised law would also make it mandatory for Internet companies to check and verify "i-PINs" (Internet personal identification numbers). This measure is designed to stop companies from keeping the users' residence registration numbers, a key item of personal information.
According to the KCC, i-PINs are not susceptible to leaks as they are used only once, when the user's identity is checked by the Internet company, and they are not stored by the companies.
Naver and Daum currently keep residence registration numbers of some 30 million users each. Experts are concerned that an attack by hackers on either of these companies could result in a leak larger than the one at Auction, in which the personal information of 10.81 million users was leaked.
Nonetheless, Internet companies have opposed the mandatory introduction of the i-PIN system for fear that their user numbers could fall.
(englishnews@chosun.com )
http://english.chosun.com/w21data/html/news/200804/200804220019.html
Tuesday, April 22, 2008
중국해커 CNN 도 건드렸네요
옥션, 청와대 이후 미국의 CNN 까지..
--------------------------------
CNN cyberattack called off
A planned cyberattack against CNN's Web site fizzled out Saturday as the group backing the event called it off.
"Our original plan for 19 April has been canceled because too many people are aware of it and the situation is chaotic," wrote a group called "Revenge of the Flame," according to a translation posted on the Dark Visitor Blog. "At an unspecified date in the near future, we will launch the attack."
Pro-China hackers had called for the attack in protest of the news network's coverage of Tibet, which they believe has been overly critical of China. Participants had been instructed to flood CNN's Web site with Internet traffic in hopes of knocking it offline, something known as a distributed denial of service (DDOS) attack.
Some had begun hitting the site ahead of the April 19 attack date.
On Friday CNN reported that it had been attacked Thursday causing the site "to be slow or unavailable to some users in limited areas of Asia." The net effect of the attack was "imperceptible," CNN said.
Network monitoring company Arbor Networks observed that www3.cnn.com was hit with a minor 14-MB-per-second attack that lasted about 21 minutes, according to Danny McPherson, the company's chief research officer.
==========================================
http://security.itworld.com/4337/cnn-cyberattack-called-off-080420/page_1.html
--------------------------------
CNN cyberattack called off
A planned cyberattack against CNN's Web site fizzled out Saturday as the group backing the event called it off.
"Our original plan for 19 April has been canceled because too many people are aware of it and the situation is chaotic," wrote a group called "Revenge of the Flame," according to a translation posted on the Dark Visitor Blog. "At an unspecified date in the near future, we will launch the attack."
Pro-China hackers had called for the attack in protest of the news network's coverage of Tibet, which they believe has been overly critical of China. Participants had been instructed to flood CNN's Web site with Internet traffic in hopes of knocking it offline, something known as a distributed denial of service (DDOS) attack.
Some had begun hitting the site ahead of the April 19 attack date.
On Friday CNN reported that it had been attacked Thursday causing the site "to be slow or unavailable to some users in limited areas of Asia." The net effect of the attack was "imperceptible," CNN said.
Network monitoring company Arbor Networks observed that www3.cnn.com was hit with a minor 14-MB-per-second attack that lasted about 21 minutes, according to Danny McPherson, the company's chief research officer.
==========================================
http://security.itworld.com/4337/cnn-cyberattack-called-off-080420/page_1.html
Just Pay With Your Phone, Please
http://english.chosun.com/w21data/html/news/200804/200804220026.html
Just Pay With Your Phone, Please
Updated Apr.22,2008 11:08 KST
A brave new world where mobile phones double as credit cards is just around the corner. Shinhan Card and KTF on Monday established a joint venture to introduce a new mobile phone payment system, and announced they are embarking on developing credit cards that can be used extensively in mobile phones. Shinhan Card has been providing a credit card service in mobile phone terminals, but only two types of cards could be used in handsets, limiting the choice of customers. The joint venture aims to develop new types of mobile credit cards so that one day phones will replace plastic cards.
The mobile credit card system will be applicable only to the third-generation WCDMA handsets offered through KTF’s “Show” and SK Telecom’s “T” services. Customers can apply for the service in branch shops of KTF and SKT, and after four to seven working days the credit card information file will be sent to the phone. Once users download the file, the credit card is saved, and payment can be made just by touching the cell phone to card terminals in stores. Information on card transactions, charges, cash service and card loan can be viewed via mobile phone as well. Signatures, however, still have to be made on paper.
The third-generation cell phone market is expected to grow sharply, from 7 million users as of the end of last year to 17 million this year. Shinhan Card plans to aggressively expand its network of franchises in response.
(englishnews@chosun.com )
Vodafone goes green, will cut CO2 by 50 percent
http://www.itworld.com/Tech/5054/vodafone-goes-green-080421/
Vodafone will reduce its own CO2 emissions by 50 percent by 2020, and will help users lessen their burden on the environment. "This is the right decision for a responsible business to take. It is good for the environment but also makes sense for the business," said CEO Arun Sarin in a statement Monday.
The starting point for measurements will be the company's emissions during 2006/2007, which totaled 1.23 million tons. Currently, Vodafone's network accounts for 80 percent of its emissions, so improving energy efficiency here is a top priority.
It also plans to introduce solar-powered phone chargers for Vodafone-branded handsets to help users limit their own emissions.
Vodafone has also reviewed other ways to lower CO2 emissions, including carbon-offsetting, but came to the conclusion that direct cuts are is the best alternative.
The announcement doesn't come as a surprise to Mikael Salo, editor-in-chief at the Swedish paper Miljöaktuellt, which focuses on environmental issues.
"It is quickly becoming a must for all companies, including mobile carriers, to analyze how it affects the environment and what it can do to improve energy efficiency," he said.
At the same time the mobile operator encourages others to take similar action, and it isn't alone -- last week Taiwan Mobile announced it had adopted 10,000 trees.
Vodafone will reduce its own CO2 emissions by 50 percent by 2020, and will help users lessen their burden on the environment. "This is the right decision for a responsible business to take. It is good for the environment but also makes sense for the business," said CEO Arun Sarin in a statement Monday.
The starting point for measurements will be the company's emissions during 2006/2007, which totaled 1.23 million tons. Currently, Vodafone's network accounts for 80 percent of its emissions, so improving energy efficiency here is a top priority.
It also plans to introduce solar-powered phone chargers for Vodafone-branded handsets to help users limit their own emissions.
Vodafone has also reviewed other ways to lower CO2 emissions, including carbon-offsetting, but came to the conclusion that direct cuts are is the best alternative.
The announcement doesn't come as a surprise to Mikael Salo, editor-in-chief at the Swedish paper Miljöaktuellt, which focuses on environmental issues.
"It is quickly becoming a must for all companies, including mobile carriers, to analyze how it affects the environment and what it can do to improve energy efficiency," he said.
At the same time the mobile operator encourages others to take similar action, and it isn't alone -- last week Taiwan Mobile announced it had adopted 10,000 trees.
Yahoo's first-quarter earnings could sway Microsoft battle
Judgement Day of Yahoo??
-------------------------
After two years of crumbling profits, Yahoo Inc. can't afford another letdown Tuesday when the Internet icon reports its first-quarter earnings.
Although they only cover a three-month period, the results could determine the Sunnyvale-based company's fate as it grapples with an unsolicited takeover offer from Microsoft Corp.
If Yahoo bounces back to exceed analysts' modest expectations, it could be a springboard to a higher bid from Microsoft or provide more credence to management's argument that the company will be better off remaining independent.
But a disappointing quarter would intensify pressure on Yahoo to accept Microsoft's cash-and stock offer, which was worth about $43 billion, or $29.96 per share, as of Monday's trading.
A lackluster performance might even cause Microsoft to lower its bid, a move that almost certainly would provoke a wave of lawsuits from angry shareholders who thought Yahoo should have accepted the offer when it was first made nearly three months ago.
Microsoft so far has insisted its initial bid is fair and has threatened to initiate an attempt to oust Yahoo's board if the 10 directors don't accept the offer by Saturday. This option, known as a proxy contest, might drag the saga into mid-July.
A solid first quarter would make Microsoft's threat less imposing because more Yahoo shareholders might side with the board's thesis that the company is rebounding and will likely be worth a lot more in the months ahead.
Since 2005, Yahoo's quarterly earnings reports have been mostly dismal affairs marked by eroding profits, disappointing revenue growth and promises of a turnaround that hasn't emerged.
But most analysts seem to think Yahoo will top their average earnings estimate of 9 cents per share, especially after rival Google Inc. electrified Wall Street late last week with a 30 percent increase in first-quarter profit.
Yahoo management signaled last month the company was on track to hit its first-quarter earnings projections.
Unlike Google, the bar hasn't been set high for Yahoo. The 9 cents per share earnings estimate among analysts surveyed by Thomson Financial represents a slight decline from 10 cents per share that the company made at the same time last year.
Google's first-quarter performance probably gave Microsoft even more incentive to buy Yahoo quickly because further delays will better position Google to widen its lead in the Internet search and advertising market, Collins Stewart analyst Sandeep Aggarwal wrote in a Monday note to investors.
Microsoft views Yahoo as a key weapon in its effort to catch up to Google.
Aggarwal believes Microsoft will boost its Yahoo bid to $33.50 per share, or about $48 billion, to get the deal done more quickly. Other analysts say Microsoft can afford to pay as much as $35 per share, or about $50 billion.
Redmond, Wash.-based Microsoft will update its own finances Thursday when the software maker is scheduled to release fiscal third-quarter results.
Besides reviewing its first-quarter results on Tuesday, Yahoo management also is expected to provide more details about an experimental advertising partnership with Google. The two-week trial is supposed to wrap up Wednesday.
If Yahoo decides to pursue a long-term relationship with Google, it could lift Yahoo's profits and pave the way for possible merger with Time Warner Inc.'s AOL, another Internet pioneer that has been stuck in a funk for years.
Yahoo and AOL reportedly have been in discussions about a possible combination for months. Google owns a 5 percent stake in AOL.
Sanford C. Bernstein analyst Jeffrey Lindsay thinks the moneymaking potential of long-term deal between Yahoo and Google could propel Yahoo's stock price beyond $40 — a level it hasn't reached in more than two years. Yahoo shares finished at $28.55, up 12 cents Monday.
But other analysts doubt antitrust regulators will let Google and Yahoo join forces, given the two rivals control more than 80 percent of the U.S. search market. In contrast, a combination between Microsoft and Yahoo would hold about 31 percent of the search market — still well below Google's 60 percent share.
Still, the mere prospect of other Yahoo alliances might be enough to cause Microsoft to boost its bid if Yahoo delivers in the first quarter.
"Yahoo has done a lot of dumb things in this process, but they have been pretty smart lately," said Darren Chervitz, director of research for the Jacob Internet Fund, which owns a stake in Yahoo. "When you get down to it, this is all about squeezing a few more dollars out of Microsoft."
===============================================
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080421/ap_on_hi_te/yahoo_microsoft;_ylt=AuoBgXG40CvGiLUjWzhDGF8jtBAF
-------------------------
After two years of crumbling profits, Yahoo Inc. can't afford another letdown Tuesday when the Internet icon reports its first-quarter earnings.
Although they only cover a three-month period, the results could determine the Sunnyvale-based company's fate as it grapples with an unsolicited takeover offer from Microsoft Corp.
If Yahoo bounces back to exceed analysts' modest expectations, it could be a springboard to a higher bid from Microsoft or provide more credence to management's argument that the company will be better off remaining independent.
But a disappointing quarter would intensify pressure on Yahoo to accept Microsoft's cash-and stock offer, which was worth about $43 billion, or $29.96 per share, as of Monday's trading.
A lackluster performance might even cause Microsoft to lower its bid, a move that almost certainly would provoke a wave of lawsuits from angry shareholders who thought Yahoo should have accepted the offer when it was first made nearly three months ago.
Microsoft so far has insisted its initial bid is fair and has threatened to initiate an attempt to oust Yahoo's board if the 10 directors don't accept the offer by Saturday. This option, known as a proxy contest, might drag the saga into mid-July.
A solid first quarter would make Microsoft's threat less imposing because more Yahoo shareholders might side with the board's thesis that the company is rebounding and will likely be worth a lot more in the months ahead.
Since 2005, Yahoo's quarterly earnings reports have been mostly dismal affairs marked by eroding profits, disappointing revenue growth and promises of a turnaround that hasn't emerged.
But most analysts seem to think Yahoo will top their average earnings estimate of 9 cents per share, especially after rival Google Inc. electrified Wall Street late last week with a 30 percent increase in first-quarter profit.
Yahoo management signaled last month the company was on track to hit its first-quarter earnings projections.
Unlike Google, the bar hasn't been set high for Yahoo. The 9 cents per share earnings estimate among analysts surveyed by Thomson Financial represents a slight decline from 10 cents per share that the company made at the same time last year.
Google's first-quarter performance probably gave Microsoft even more incentive to buy Yahoo quickly because further delays will better position Google to widen its lead in the Internet search and advertising market, Collins Stewart analyst Sandeep Aggarwal wrote in a Monday note to investors.
Microsoft views Yahoo as a key weapon in its effort to catch up to Google.
Aggarwal believes Microsoft will boost its Yahoo bid to $33.50 per share, or about $48 billion, to get the deal done more quickly. Other analysts say Microsoft can afford to pay as much as $35 per share, or about $50 billion.
Redmond, Wash.-based Microsoft will update its own finances Thursday when the software maker is scheduled to release fiscal third-quarter results.
Besides reviewing its first-quarter results on Tuesday, Yahoo management also is expected to provide more details about an experimental advertising partnership with Google. The two-week trial is supposed to wrap up Wednesday.
If Yahoo decides to pursue a long-term relationship with Google, it could lift Yahoo's profits and pave the way for possible merger with Time Warner Inc.'s AOL, another Internet pioneer that has been stuck in a funk for years.
Yahoo and AOL reportedly have been in discussions about a possible combination for months. Google owns a 5 percent stake in AOL.
Sanford C. Bernstein analyst Jeffrey Lindsay thinks the moneymaking potential of long-term deal between Yahoo and Google could propel Yahoo's stock price beyond $40 — a level it hasn't reached in more than two years. Yahoo shares finished at $28.55, up 12 cents Monday.
But other analysts doubt antitrust regulators will let Google and Yahoo join forces, given the two rivals control more than 80 percent of the U.S. search market. In contrast, a combination between Microsoft and Yahoo would hold about 31 percent of the search market — still well below Google's 60 percent share.
Still, the mere prospect of other Yahoo alliances might be enough to cause Microsoft to boost its bid if Yahoo delivers in the first quarter.
"Yahoo has done a lot of dumb things in this process, but they have been pretty smart lately," said Darren Chervitz, director of research for the Jacob Internet Fund, which owns a stake in Yahoo. "When you get down to it, this is all about squeezing a few more dollars out of Microsoft."
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http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080421/ap_on_hi_te/yahoo_microsoft;_ylt=AuoBgXG40CvGiLUjWzhDGF8jtBAF
Monday, April 21, 2008
MIT-Fraunhofer Institute for Sustainable Energy Systems
The MIT Energy Initiative and the Massachusetts Technology Collaborative have launched a new joint project with the Fraunhofer Institute, a German R&D organization, that will be based in Massachusetts and will focus on developing and commercializing sustainable energy systems. Electricity provider National Grid has also signed on to the project, acting as the principal utility member of the center's Partnership with Industry segment, and committing $1 million over the next five years to the project. The Massachusetts Technology Collaborative (MTC) has allocated $5 million to fund the startup of the institute, to be named the MIT-Fraunhofer Institute for Sustainable Energy Systems. According to published reports, the center will be located adjacent to the MIT campus in Cambridge. About 60 jobs could initially be created by the institute, and officials hope some of the technologies developed there could eventually be licensed to other firms or spun out of the center to generate revenue. The center is expected to initially focus on solar energy, green buildings and energy device prototyping, eventually expanding into other technologies in the future. Aside from MIT and representatives from the MTC and the Massachusetts Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs, the center will also be operated by Michigan-based Fraunhofer USA, a wholly owned subsidiary of Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft. That European research agency, which is partially funded by the German government, maintains more than 80 research units at more than 40 different locations throughout Germany, and a staff of some 12,700 scientists and engineers working on a variety of technologies, from solar power to lasers. The firm's Institute for Solar Energy Systems is the largest solar research lab in Europe. (The Journal of New England Technology, 4/14/08)
The next wave in gaming
Online games let consumers play for free, with plenty of opportunities to buy extras. Here are ten games that industry analyst Billy Pidgeon has an eye on.
Last updated April 20 2008: 7:29 PM ET
http://money.cnn.com/galleries/2008/fortune/0804/gallery.buzzy_freebies.fortune/index.html
Last updated April 20 2008: 7:29 PM ET
http://money.cnn.com/galleries/2008/fortune/0804/gallery.buzzy_freebies.fortune/index.html
Skype Introduces Unlimited International Calling Plan
NEW YORK (AP) -- Skype, the Internet calling subsidiary of eBay Inc., is introducing its first plan for unlimited calls to overseas phones on Monday.
The plan will allow unlimited calls to land-line phones in 34 countries for $9.95 per month, said Don Albert, vice president and general manager for Skype North America.
The countries encompassed include most of Europe, plus Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Chile, China, Singapore, Taiwan, Japan, Korea and Malaysia.
Calls to domestic land lines and cell phones are included as well, as are calls to cell phones in Canada, China, Hong Kong and Singapore, but not cell phones in other countries.
Skype has already been selling unlimited calls to the U.S. and Canada for $3 a month. It is expanding that offering with another plan, for $5.95 per month, that gives free calls to Mexico City, Guadalajara and Monterrey, and a discount on calls to other places in Mexico.
Skype is generally used as a software application running on a computer equipped with a microphone and speakers or a headset. But subscribers will also have the option to call a local number from their phones and be connected to international numbers that fall under their plan, paying only local access charges or using their cell-phone airtime.
Unlimited international calling plans have been popping up in recent years from hardware-based phone services like Vonage International Holdings Corp. and cable companies, but the prices are generally higher, and the plans are add-ons to basic calling plans that cost even more.
Skype said its subscribers called phones for 1.7 billion minutes in the first three months of the year, compared with 14.2 billion minutes used in computer-to-computer sessions, which are free. http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/technology/AP-Skype-International-Calls.html?ref=technology
however, korea don't seems to get the benefit of mobile unlimited international call option, due to expensive mobile airtime pricing. Kinda of funny that korea is supposed to be at the forefront of IT technology, yet all the pricing and customer related area are so behind with alot of excuses from monopolistic SKT, KTF and LGT in order to protect their high profit margin. Korea is one of the only, if not the only country that provides unlimited airtime plan to customer even though one of the first country to start any generation of mobile service.
The plan will allow unlimited calls to land-line phones in 34 countries for $9.95 per month, said Don Albert, vice president and general manager for Skype North America.
The countries encompassed include most of Europe, plus Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Chile, China, Singapore, Taiwan, Japan, Korea and Malaysia.
Calls to domestic land lines and cell phones are included as well, as are calls to cell phones in Canada, China, Hong Kong and Singapore, but not cell phones in other countries.
Skype has already been selling unlimited calls to the U.S. and Canada for $3 a month. It is expanding that offering with another plan, for $5.95 per month, that gives free calls to Mexico City, Guadalajara and Monterrey, and a discount on calls to other places in Mexico.
Skype is generally used as a software application running on a computer equipped with a microphone and speakers or a headset. But subscribers will also have the option to call a local number from their phones and be connected to international numbers that fall under their plan, paying only local access charges or using their cell-phone airtime.
Unlimited international calling plans have been popping up in recent years from hardware-based phone services like Vonage International Holdings Corp. and cable companies, but the prices are generally higher, and the plans are add-ons to basic calling plans that cost even more.
Skype said its subscribers called phones for 1.7 billion minutes in the first three months of the year, compared with 14.2 billion minutes used in computer-to-computer sessions, which are free. http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/technology/AP-Skype-International-Calls.html?ref=technology
however, korea don't seems to get the benefit of mobile unlimited international call option, due to expensive mobile airtime pricing. Kinda of funny that korea is supposed to be at the forefront of IT technology, yet all the pricing and customer related area are so behind with alot of excuses from monopolistic SKT, KTF and LGT in order to protect their high profit margin. Korea is one of the only, if not the only country that provides unlimited airtime plan to customer even though one of the first country to start any generation of mobile service.
Web 2.0 Changing Banking Habits
By Cho Jin-seo Staff Reporter
Lending or borrowing money from your pals on Facebook or Cyworld could become a reality soon, thanks to the integration of online banking and social-networking platforms. Traditional banks are aiming to attract young customers by taking advantage of so-called Web 2.0 services, such as blogs, virtual communities such as Second Life and social-networking sites such as Facebook. At the same time, those Internet services are actively seeking ways to transform themselves into a form of online bank to make profits from transaction fees. The integration of the two sides ― conventional banking industry and modern-day Web 2.0 Internet services ― is an irreversible trend, said Mitch Muroff, manager of Edgar, Dun & Company, a financial consultancy. ``There is increasing evidence. Traditional banks that are investing in Web 2.0 will remain competitive with other banks,'' Muroff said at a conference organized by LG CNS, a leading Korean IT service and consulting firm, Tuesday. ``Social networking services are very popular with young people aged 18 to 30 years old, so this is where that market is spending their time.'' Several U.S. banks such as Chase and Wells Fargo are operating blogs to appeal to students in need of loans and other financial assistance. Saxo Bank and ABN Amro operate virtual branches on Second Life, a 3-D online community. Others use podcasts or automatic news release systems called RSS feeds to communicate with their current or potential customers online. While banks are trying to adopt Web 2.0 services, Internet firms are approaching this issue from the opposite end ― Web sites such as Facebook is trying to make inroads into the financial sector by using its vast user base ― some 183 million people spend one hour a day on these sites in the United States alone, according to Muroff. ``Facebook developed its own user-to-user money transfer service. So everyone who has a Facebook account can easily use that,'' he told The Korea Times after the conference, adding that the Web site has recently hired people specializing in this. Other than Facebook, there are a number of examples of the Web 2.0's adoption to banking. One example is a credit card called Revolution Money, which offers money exchanges between Facebook users. Two startup Web sites Prosper and Zopa allow users to freely lend and borrow money to and from each other on their Web sites, and let them decide on their own interest rates and repayment period. ``The best rate, the nicest people: It's a more human way of getting low-cost loans,'' Zopa's Web site says. In Korea, money transfer is already available between users of Nateon, the most popular online short-messaging service, if they are customers of Shinhan Bank. The most critical step for the success of such a Web 2.0 financial service is, Muroff says, to convince people to go to the process of signing up for the account so it can form a critical mass.``It's sort of chicken and egg problem: people will not adopt it unless everybody has it, and nobody will adopt it until everybody has it. So the biggest challenge is to have enough people adopted, then it becomes very easy and common,'' he said. Another setback is the managerial costs. ``The biggest problem is risk management. If you are the payment platform and you created the service, you have to manage fraud, from the consumers and the senders and the receivers,'' Muroff said. ``That's a very complicated process, and it will take an entire team of specialists to do that properly.''indizio@koreatimes.co.kr
Lending or borrowing money from your pals on Facebook or Cyworld could become a reality soon, thanks to the integration of online banking and social-networking platforms. Traditional banks are aiming to attract young customers by taking advantage of so-called Web 2.0 services, such as blogs, virtual communities such as Second Life and social-networking sites such as Facebook. At the same time, those Internet services are actively seeking ways to transform themselves into a form of online bank to make profits from transaction fees. The integration of the two sides ― conventional banking industry and modern-day Web 2.0 Internet services ― is an irreversible trend, said Mitch Muroff, manager of Edgar, Dun & Company, a financial consultancy. ``There is increasing evidence. Traditional banks that are investing in Web 2.0 will remain competitive with other banks,'' Muroff said at a conference organized by LG CNS, a leading Korean IT service and consulting firm, Tuesday. ``Social networking services are very popular with young people aged 18 to 30 years old, so this is where that market is spending their time.'' Several U.S. banks such as Chase and Wells Fargo are operating blogs to appeal to students in need of loans and other financial assistance. Saxo Bank and ABN Amro operate virtual branches on Second Life, a 3-D online community. Others use podcasts or automatic news release systems called RSS feeds to communicate with their current or potential customers online. While banks are trying to adopt Web 2.0 services, Internet firms are approaching this issue from the opposite end ― Web sites such as Facebook is trying to make inroads into the financial sector by using its vast user base ― some 183 million people spend one hour a day on these sites in the United States alone, according to Muroff. ``Facebook developed its own user-to-user money transfer service. So everyone who has a Facebook account can easily use that,'' he told The Korea Times after the conference, adding that the Web site has recently hired people specializing in this. Other than Facebook, there are a number of examples of the Web 2.0's adoption to banking. One example is a credit card called Revolution Money, which offers money exchanges between Facebook users. Two startup Web sites Prosper and Zopa allow users to freely lend and borrow money to and from each other on their Web sites, and let them decide on their own interest rates and repayment period. ``The best rate, the nicest people: It's a more human way of getting low-cost loans,'' Zopa's Web site says. In Korea, money transfer is already available between users of Nateon, the most popular online short-messaging service, if they are customers of Shinhan Bank. The most critical step for the success of such a Web 2.0 financial service is, Muroff says, to convince people to go to the process of signing up for the account so it can form a critical mass.``It's sort of chicken and egg problem: people will not adopt it unless everybody has it, and nobody will adopt it until everybody has it. So the biggest challenge is to have enough people adopted, then it becomes very easy and common,'' he said. Another setback is the managerial costs. ``The biggest problem is risk management. If you are the payment platform and you created the service, you have to manage fraud, from the consumers and the senders and the receivers,'' Muroff said. ``That's a very complicated process, and it will take an entire team of specialists to do that properly.''indizio@koreatimes.co.kr
Signs of Internet addiction
Lots of people are being addicted to the internet, check yourself whether you have this kinds of signs or not.
Signs of Internet addiction include the following:
Preoccupation with the Internet. (Thoughts about previous on-line activity or anticipation of the next on-line session.)
Use of the Internet in increasing amounts of time in order to achieve satisfaction.
Repeated, unsuccessful efforts to control, cut back, or stop Internet use.
Feelings of restlessness, moodiness, depression or irritability when attempting to cut down use of the Internet.
On-line longer than originally intended.
Jeopardized or risked loss of significant relationships, job, educational or career opportunities because of Internet use.
Lies to family members, therapist, or others to conceal the extent of involvement with the Internet.
Use of the Internet as a way to escape from problems or to relieve a dysphoric mood. (e.g., feelings of hopelessness, guilt, anxiety, depression.)
Signs of Internet addiction include the following:
Preoccupation with the Internet. (Thoughts about previous on-line activity or anticipation of the next on-line session.)
Use of the Internet in increasing amounts of time in order to achieve satisfaction.
Repeated, unsuccessful efforts to control, cut back, or stop Internet use.
Feelings of restlessness, moodiness, depression or irritability when attempting to cut down use of the Internet.
On-line longer than originally intended.
Jeopardized or risked loss of significant relationships, job, educational or career opportunities because of Internet use.
Lies to family members, therapist, or others to conceal the extent of involvement with the Internet.
Use of the Internet as a way to escape from problems or to relieve a dysphoric mood. (e.g., feelings of hopelessness, guilt, anxiety, depression.)
Foreign Web Giants Find Little Success in S.Korea
http://english.chosun.com/w21data/html/news/200804/200804210008.html
Foreign Web Giants Find Little Success in S.Korea
Updated Apr.21,2008 06:55 KST
Is South Korea a graveyard for overseas Internet companies? American Internet heavies such as Google, YouTube and MySpace, leaders of the so-called "web 2.0" frenzy, face heavy odds in South Korea. Why is it that these companies boast astronomical numbers of subscribers and users in many other markets around the world but find little luck here?
MySpace, the world's largest online social network, launched a Korean service last week, but local portal and blog users have given the new service the cold shoulder. "I signed up out of curiosity, but I canceled my membership soon after because I found it un-user friendly," a Korean blogger reported. Another blogger said, "MySpace isn't new or interesting for Korean users who are already familiar with online communities like Cyworld."
Google and YouTube are also having a hard time here. Since it launched its Korean-language service in 2006, Google, the world's top Internet search engine, has earned a mere 2 percent-range share of the local Internet portal market. YouTube launched a Korean-language service in January. But while the world's largest video sharing website boasts about 30 million visitors per month in the U.S., in Korea it has only about one-tenth the number of users as PandoraTV, South Korea's No. 1 video sharing website.
Experts say the foreign challengers have failed to understand the peculiarities of the South Korean market. Their quality suffers in comparison to local offerings in terms of Korean-language features, site design and sophistication of services, South Korean experts argue.
In addition, South Korean Internet users generally tend to be uninterested in services from abroad. AFP reported recently, "South Korea is one of the world's most wired countries, with some 70 percent of homes having high-speed Internet access. But it has largely shunned popular overseas services."
Since 2004, there has been no notable change in the rankings of the local portal market, where Naver tops the list. Cho Il-sang, CEO of MetriX, an online survey agency, said, "Overseas web service providers should be more sincere in approaching the Korean market, so that their participation in the market can give a wholesome impetus to the development of the Korean Internet industry."
(englishnews@chosun.com )
http://english.chosun.com/w21data/html/news/200804/200804210008.html
Foreign Web Giants Find Little Success in S.Korea
Updated Apr.21,2008 06:55 KST
Is South Korea a graveyard for overseas Internet companies? American Internet heavies such as Google, YouTube and MySpace, leaders of the so-called "web 2.0" frenzy, face heavy odds in South Korea. Why is it that these companies boast astronomical numbers of subscribers and users in many other markets around the world but find little luck here?
MySpace, the world's largest online social network, launched a Korean service last week, but local portal and blog users have given the new service the cold shoulder. "I signed up out of curiosity, but I canceled my membership soon after because I found it un-user friendly," a Korean blogger reported. Another blogger said, "MySpace isn't new or interesting for Korean users who are already familiar with online communities like Cyworld."
Google and YouTube are also having a hard time here. Since it launched its Korean-language service in 2006, Google, the world's top Internet search engine, has earned a mere 2 percent-range share of the local Internet portal market. YouTube launched a Korean-language service in January. But while the world's largest video sharing website boasts about 30 million visitors per month in the U.S., in Korea it has only about one-tenth the number of users as PandoraTV, South Korea's No. 1 video sharing website.
Experts say the foreign challengers have failed to understand the peculiarities of the South Korean market. Their quality suffers in comparison to local offerings in terms of Korean-language features, site design and sophistication of services, South Korean experts argue.
In addition, South Korean Internet users generally tend to be uninterested in services from abroad. AFP reported recently, "South Korea is one of the world's most wired countries, with some 70 percent of homes having high-speed Internet access. But it has largely shunned popular overseas services."
Since 2004, there has been no notable change in the rankings of the local portal market, where Naver tops the list. Cho Il-sang, CEO of MetriX, an online survey agency, said, "Overseas web service providers should be more sincere in approaching the Korean market, so that their participation in the market can give a wholesome impetus to the development of the Korean Internet industry."
(englishnews@chosun.com )
http://english.chosun.com/w21data/html/news/200804/200804210008.html
IPhone has hurt Palm, BlackBerry
Palm is facing deep challenges to compete with Apple's iPhone, while Research In Motion's BlackBerry also seems set to lose market share to the device, at least in the consumer market, an analyst reports.
Needham & Co. analyst Charles Wolf has commenced coverage of Palm and RIM, and notes both companies face challenges as iPhone wins hearts and minds in the consumer and enterprise markets.
Palm faces the deepest challenge. Wolf warns the company has "lost its way". The lack of a new OS release in five years means the company is increasingly reliant on in-development products to regain its lost market lead.
"Neither is likely to be introduced until late in the year. Even then, it's an open question whether they'll be successful. We're initiating coverage with an under perform rating," Needham & Co. said.
Wolf also believes that Apple's iPhone may take market share from both competing firms once it introduces new enterprise-friendly features in June. RIM will see some impact in its core enterprise markets, while the expected diversity of third-party iPhone applications will hammer Palm's place in the consumer market.
"We believe BlackBerry's supercharged growth in this [consumer] market could slow materially when far more versatile applications developed for the iPhone begin to appear in the second half of the year," Wolf warned.
The analyst does note that this triptych of smartphone developers still hold a great lead on most competitors, because other firms (such as Motorola or Samsung) are tied to Microsoft's Windows Mobile system, which Needham & Co. calls "a non-starter in the consumer world".
The introduction of Google's Android platform for mobile phones may change the game once again, the analyst said, as it will offer a more extendible base OS than Windows Mobile to competing firms.
Despite it all, Wolf notes that Apple changed the smartphone industry when it chose to launch iPhone, describing the market as "totally disrupted" by the product's introduction.
"The iPhone is a game changer, weaving together a wide array of computer-like functions," he explained. "Given the choice between a BlackBerry and iPhone, we believe a material percentage of consumers will opt for the iPhone once exciting applications for the phone begin to proliferate in the second half of the year. BlackBerry sales should continue to grow but at a materially slower rate than they would have in the absence of the iPhone."
Research In Motion's market leadership is based entirely on the incompetence of the competition, the analyst also said: "RIM's competitors until quite recently were simply inept. Their failure stemmed less from their ability to design sleek phones than in their choice of an operating system on which to run them," he explained.
The analyst rates Palm shares as under-perform, while RIM takes a hold rating pending the effects of June's release of iPhone Software 2.0
http://wireless.itworld.com/4267/iphone-has-hurt-palm-blackberry-080410/page_1.html
Needham & Co. analyst Charles Wolf has commenced coverage of Palm and RIM, and notes both companies face challenges as iPhone wins hearts and minds in the consumer and enterprise markets.
Palm faces the deepest challenge. Wolf warns the company has "lost its way". The lack of a new OS release in five years means the company is increasingly reliant on in-development products to regain its lost market lead.
"Neither is likely to be introduced until late in the year. Even then, it's an open question whether they'll be successful. We're initiating coverage with an under perform rating," Needham & Co. said.
Wolf also believes that Apple's iPhone may take market share from both competing firms once it introduces new enterprise-friendly features in June. RIM will see some impact in its core enterprise markets, while the expected diversity of third-party iPhone applications will hammer Palm's place in the consumer market.
"We believe BlackBerry's supercharged growth in this [consumer] market could slow materially when far more versatile applications developed for the iPhone begin to appear in the second half of the year," Wolf warned.
The analyst does note that this triptych of smartphone developers still hold a great lead on most competitors, because other firms (such as Motorola or Samsung) are tied to Microsoft's Windows Mobile system, which Needham & Co. calls "a non-starter in the consumer world".
The introduction of Google's Android platform for mobile phones may change the game once again, the analyst said, as it will offer a more extendible base OS than Windows Mobile to competing firms.
Despite it all, Wolf notes that Apple changed the smartphone industry when it chose to launch iPhone, describing the market as "totally disrupted" by the product's introduction.
"The iPhone is a game changer, weaving together a wide array of computer-like functions," he explained. "Given the choice between a BlackBerry and iPhone, we believe a material percentage of consumers will opt for the iPhone once exciting applications for the phone begin to proliferate in the second half of the year. BlackBerry sales should continue to grow but at a materially slower rate than they would have in the absence of the iPhone."
Research In Motion's market leadership is based entirely on the incompetence of the competition, the analyst also said: "RIM's competitors until quite recently were simply inept. Their failure stemmed less from their ability to design sleek phones than in their choice of an operating system on which to run them," he explained.
The analyst rates Palm shares as under-perform, while RIM takes a hold rating pending the effects of June's release of iPhone Software 2.0
http://wireless.itworld.com/4267/iphone-has-hurt-palm-blackberry-080410/page_1.html
Bill Gates and the Radio Shack Tandy 2000 (1984)
For your fun :)
You can see young Bill 24 years older than now endorsed PC in the 1980s.
-----------------------------------
Product endorsement ads like this one weren't unusual for Microsoft's chief honcho back in the early 1980s. Of course, those were the days before Microsoft was insanely huge, rich, and unstoppable.
"When we set out to design MS-Windows in color," Gates says in the ad, "we knew that the Tandy 2000 computer would let us turn an extraordinary product into a work of art." Um ... right.
"When we set out to design MS-Windows in color," Gates says in the ad, "we knew that the Tandy 2000 computer would let us turn an extraordinary product into a work of art." Um ... right.
Sunday, April 20, 2008
Google Maps gets YouTube videos, 'Chocolate Rain' not included
Google Maps and Google Earth may be two separate services, but the gap between the software and Webware apps is narrowing. Last night Google rolled out a new view in Maps, enabling users to view geocoded YouTube videos, something Google Earth users have been doing since October of last year. The videos show up as small red dots, and can be played right on the map. To enable the feature users simply need to add the layer from Google's map add-ons directory, which has quickly grown to include more than 50 add-ons--many of which come from third parties. One option sorely missing is a way to search for videos within the map; something that must be done from YouTube. For instance, I was looking to geolocate Tay Zonday's "Chocolate Rain" in Minneapolis, but was unable to. I'm assuming Zonday has not geotagged his video, but it would still be nice to search for videos by title using the same interface. Other layers that have made their way into Google Maps from Earth include clouds, elevation, and the Wikipedia mapplet, which shows you Wikipedia entries based on location--something that's been ported over to Yahoo's Fire Eagle as well. Still missing, however, is Google Earth's claim to fame: a spinning 3-D and oblique view. Competitors like Microsoft have been pushing the limit of in-browser visuals on its Live Maps product, while Google seems to have settled (for now) with its Street View technology, which incidentally is making its way to Google Earth from Google Maps later tonight.
You can now watch YouTube videos in Google Maps with a brand new add-on. Missing, however, is a way to search. (Click to enlarge.)(Credit: CNET Networks)
Ebay considers sale of Skype subsidiary
This article talks on this : Ebay will consider selling off its Skypes internet phone subsidiary at the end of this year.....
As you know, Ebay Korea or auction.co.kr has been attached by a hacker resulting most of valuable personal information being handed over somebody who might misuse for criminal purposes. I think Auction.co.kr have to be responsible for this terrible cyber crime. However there are nothing can be done to cure this cyber crime. To secure my personal information, I withdraw most my membership status from on-line shopping malls. I guess Ebay would announce that Ebay Korea will be close down because of draining of membership information at the end of this year.
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/af6bd79a-0ca0-11dd-86df-0000779fd2ac.html
As you know, Ebay Korea or auction.co.kr has been attached by a hacker resulting most of valuable personal information being handed over somebody who might misuse for criminal purposes. I think Auction.co.kr have to be responsible for this terrible cyber crime. However there are nothing can be done to cure this cyber crime. To secure my personal information, I withdraw most my membership status from on-line shopping malls. I guess Ebay would announce that Ebay Korea will be close down because of draining of membership information at the end of this year.
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/af6bd79a-0ca0-11dd-86df-0000779fd2ac.html
Cyberstalking case reveals Internet loopholes
http://security.itworld.com/5009/cyberstalking-080420/page_1.html
The Internet is becoming a powerful forum for the airing of lovers' grievances, and the trend, underscored by high-profile breakups around the world, is stoking debate about Internet privacy and legal issues.
The British actress Tricia Walsh-Smith used a video posted on YouTube to bid farewell to her businessman husband Philip Smith and berate him over his alleged sexual preferences. Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales turned to his own creation to announce the termination of a relationship with Canadian journalist Rachel Marsden, who retaliated by selling some of Wales' personal property on eBay.
In Italy, the acrimonious end to the marriage of an American musician and his Italian concert pianist wife has led to the hijacking of the latter's personal Web site and, some say, has exposed the inadequacy of privacy protections in the face of the enormous freedom of speech opportunities offered by the Web.
The Rome daily La Repubblica compared the marital breakup of New York musician and composer Wayne Gulezian and classical pianist Loredana Brigandi to Hollywood's "War of the Roses." But rather than barricading doors and hurling plates, in this case the violence has been purely verbal and "restricted" to the infinite spaces of the blogosphere.
The conflict broke out in public last December when Brigandi received an SMS (Short Message Service) from her estranged husband, inviting her to take a look at her personal Web site. Instead of a glowing account of her achievements in discovering and recording the work of little-known classical piano composers, it contained a diatribe against her and accusations that she was denying Gulezian access to their five-year-old son.
Brigandi has complained to the Italian legal authorities and the case is being investigated by prosecutors in Tivoli, a central Italian town near Rome. In the meantime she has created a new Web site, www.loredanabrigandi.com, to continue publicizing her artistic career. But she has so far been unable to obtain the removal of the pirated Web site.
"The Web site was originally created by her husband but was bought by my client, using her credit card," said Brigandi's lawyer, Giovanni Nappi. "On March 10 he illegally took possession of it, paying US$45 to secure the domain. As far as the American server is concerned, he is the owner and can continue to use it, at least until there is a ruling on the matter by an Italian court."
It was startling how quickly defamation could be spread over Internet and how inadequate were the opportunities for obtaining redress, Nappi, a Rome-based lawyer, said in a telephone interview. Gulezian risked a suspended prison sentence if convicted by the Italian courts on charges of defamation and violation of privacy, he said.
"If someone were to write something offensive about the pope, the site would be taken down immediately. We need to have a system that provides a possibility of rapid redress for ordinary people as well," Nappi said.
Gulezian has a personal Web site and a blog, operated under the professional name David Wayne. One contains photos from happier times showing him embracing his wife in a variety of romantic settings and a link to her site. That site now hosts a long response to the La Repubblica article, in which Gulezian explains that he was driven to start writing against his wife because she had cut contact with his son. "Now finally I have some power on my side, the power of the truth," he wrote. The animosity normally reserved for divorce court papers has even spilled onto Brigandi's Wikipedia entry. The last line, evidently added by Gulezian, reads: "She is currently using her son as a pawn in her chess game against her husband by not letting him speak to his father." And there are extensive comments -- mainly in defense of Brigandi -- on blogs devoted to the dispute. There may be some light at the end of the tunnel for Brigandi, however. Last month a court in Milan handed down a suspended two years and four months prison sentence and a €5,000 (US$7,960) fine to a 32-year-old man who had posted erotic photos of his former girlfriend on a personal Web site.
The Internet is becoming a powerful forum for the airing of lovers' grievances, and the trend, underscored by high-profile breakups around the world, is stoking debate about Internet privacy and legal issues.
The British actress Tricia Walsh-Smith used a video posted on YouTube to bid farewell to her businessman husband Philip Smith and berate him over his alleged sexual preferences. Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales turned to his own creation to announce the termination of a relationship with Canadian journalist Rachel Marsden, who retaliated by selling some of Wales' personal property on eBay.
In Italy, the acrimonious end to the marriage of an American musician and his Italian concert pianist wife has led to the hijacking of the latter's personal Web site and, some say, has exposed the inadequacy of privacy protections in the face of the enormous freedom of speech opportunities offered by the Web.
The Rome daily La Repubblica compared the marital breakup of New York musician and composer Wayne Gulezian and classical pianist Loredana Brigandi to Hollywood's "War of the Roses." But rather than barricading doors and hurling plates, in this case the violence has been purely verbal and "restricted" to the infinite spaces of the blogosphere.
The conflict broke out in public last December when Brigandi received an SMS (Short Message Service) from her estranged husband, inviting her to take a look at her personal Web site. Instead of a glowing account of her achievements in discovering and recording the work of little-known classical piano composers, it contained a diatribe against her and accusations that she was denying Gulezian access to their five-year-old son.
Brigandi has complained to the Italian legal authorities and the case is being investigated by prosecutors in Tivoli, a central Italian town near Rome. In the meantime she has created a new Web site, www.loredanabrigandi.com, to continue publicizing her artistic career. But she has so far been unable to obtain the removal of the pirated Web site.
"The Web site was originally created by her husband but was bought by my client, using her credit card," said Brigandi's lawyer, Giovanni Nappi. "On March 10 he illegally took possession of it, paying US$45 to secure the domain. As far as the American server is concerned, he is the owner and can continue to use it, at least until there is a ruling on the matter by an Italian court."
It was startling how quickly defamation could be spread over Internet and how inadequate were the opportunities for obtaining redress, Nappi, a Rome-based lawyer, said in a telephone interview. Gulezian risked a suspended prison sentence if convicted by the Italian courts on charges of defamation and violation of privacy, he said.
"If someone were to write something offensive about the pope, the site would be taken down immediately. We need to have a system that provides a possibility of rapid redress for ordinary people as well," Nappi said.
Gulezian has a personal Web site and a blog, operated under the professional name David Wayne. One contains photos from happier times showing him embracing his wife in a variety of romantic settings and a link to her site. That site now hosts a long response to the La Repubblica article, in which Gulezian explains that he was driven to start writing against his wife because she had cut contact with his son. "Now finally I have some power on my side, the power of the truth," he wrote. The animosity normally reserved for divorce court papers has even spilled onto Brigandi's Wikipedia entry. The last line, evidently added by Gulezian, reads: "She is currently using her son as a pawn in her chess game against her husband by not letting him speak to his father." And there are extensive comments -- mainly in defense of Brigandi -- on blogs devoted to the dispute. There may be some light at the end of the tunnel for Brigandi, however. Last month a court in Milan handed down a suspended two years and four months prison sentence and a €5,000 (US$7,960) fine to a 32-year-old man who had posted erotic photos of his former girlfriend on a personal Web site.
POSDATA Begins IPTV Service in US in September
POSDATA will begin the IPTV service in the US in September. POSDATA said that it is working with Celrun and AcanetTV to establish a joint venture in the US. The joint venture will have a capital of KRW 10 billion and manage the IPTV service in the US. POSDATA will attract content providers for movie and drama shows to provide the content continuously. Also, it will invite companies which established a marketing network in the Korean-American community. In last January, it held a bench mark test for CAS/DRM, VOD/CDN and set-top box to designate contractors for the system build-up. And, the build-up began in the last month. The service initially targets the Korean-American community as well as the Asian communities like Chinese, Japanese, Filipino and Vietnamese, familiar with Korea’s drama shows and movies. Later, it will expand the service coverage to nationwide, targeting mainstream viewers. Particularly, the service will be focused on the content business including drama shows, entertainment shows and movies. Then, it will expand the business to TV shopping, VoIP service, online education, karaoke and games. Also, it will provide the mobile IPTV service by combining the IPTV service with its WiMAX business. And, it will develop the relevant solutions to create synergetic effect. As of last year, the Korean-American community consists of 700,000 households. The number of Korean American reaches to 2.2 million, showing a sizeable market. Particularly, there has been no on-demand service provider for Korean-American who want to watch Korea’s broadcasting content. And, the existing video rental service is diminishing due to the low quality of picture. Therefore, the needs for new service is growing, laying the foundation for the IPTV service. POSDATA plans to begin the service in California including Los Angeles, where most Korean-Americans live so that the demand for Korea’s broadcasting content is high. President Yu Byung-chang of POSDATA said, “We’ve provided content service for cartoon and traffic information in Korea. Particularly, in Pohang and Gwangyang, we are providing various services like the internet line, portal and VoIP. Based on our content service know-how and our experience in establishing the IPTV system for Hanaro Telecom, we will firmly lay the foundation for our success in the US.”
Communication in the Workplace: Beyond the Virtual Water Cooler
Communication in the Workplace: Beyond the Virtual Water Cooler
Sunday - April 20, 2008
A few weeks ago, University of Florida football coach Urban Meyer said his team's chemistry was suffering. The reason: cell phones and iPods. Meyer said his players come into the locker room with iPods, put their football gear on and go out to practice, come back in and grab their iPod or whip out their cell phone and text people, and leave. "How are we going to develop any chemistry as a team?" he wondered aloud. In one attempt to spark communication, Meyer said he took the team paint-balling. [More...]
Saturday, April 19, 2008
Mac Clones and Psystar
http://blogs.zdnet.com/Murphy/?p=1121
April 19th, 2008 Posted by Paul Murphy @ 1:18 pm
Back in August of 2006 I outlined a business plan for a guy in California who wanted to go after the PPC market Apple was then abandoning. There were three keys to my plan: a manufacturing and sales partnership with a major defence contractor; a commitment from Freescale on supplying processors; and a 1984 legal judgement we thought would force Apple to let us load MacOS X on our machines.
That judgement, rendered by the Court of Appeals for the Ninth District in the case of DigiDyne Corp. Vs. Data General ( 734 F.2d 1336 (9th circuit, 1984)) “held that Data General’s refusal to license its copyrighted computer software to those who did not purchase its hardware was an unlawful tying arrangement” and this was not over-turned by the U.S. Supreme Court.
Since the intended market for our new PPC Macintosh continuation was initially to be the more security conscious arms of the American government (for whom Sun’s SPARC stations are now the only workable alternative) we thought it met all legal tests both in terms of intent and in terms of precedent - meaning, on net, that Apple would be forced to sell and support MacOS X on our machines for civilian uses too.
Unfortunately the financial prime mover in the deal was and is a rather well known American democrat whose commitment to financing consisted of being willing, and I thought probably able, to get an appropriate earmark through Congress - and since that’s something I don’t go along with the deal fell apart before it really got going.
The application to companies like Psystar should be obvious - thus, while I believe this particular group is going nowhere because there’s no real value in using even lower quality hardware to compete with Apple’s already low quality hardware, the potential clearly exists for someone to break open the MacOS X clone or PPC continuation markets.
Who that someone will be I’ve no idea - but the legal opening exists, at least with respect to the American market, and Apple itself is, I think, losing interest in the Macintosh as it shifts both its image marketing and its revenue focus to more current and forward looking products like the iPhone.
So, will it be Psystar? I don’t think so - but how about IBM? or a pretend start-up funded by Microsoft?
April 19th, 2008 Posted by Paul Murphy @ 1:18 pm
Back in August of 2006 I outlined a business plan for a guy in California who wanted to go after the PPC market Apple was then abandoning. There were three keys to my plan: a manufacturing and sales partnership with a major defence contractor; a commitment from Freescale on supplying processors; and a 1984 legal judgement we thought would force Apple to let us load MacOS X on our machines.
That judgement, rendered by the Court of Appeals for the Ninth District in the case of DigiDyne Corp. Vs. Data General ( 734 F.2d 1336 (9th circuit, 1984)) “held that Data General’s refusal to license its copyrighted computer software to those who did not purchase its hardware was an unlawful tying arrangement” and this was not over-turned by the U.S. Supreme Court.
Since the intended market for our new PPC Macintosh continuation was initially to be the more security conscious arms of the American government (for whom Sun’s SPARC stations are now the only workable alternative) we thought it met all legal tests both in terms of intent and in terms of precedent - meaning, on net, that Apple would be forced to sell and support MacOS X on our machines for civilian uses too.
Unfortunately the financial prime mover in the deal was and is a rather well known American democrat whose commitment to financing consisted of being willing, and I thought probably able, to get an appropriate earmark through Congress - and since that’s something I don’t go along with the deal fell apart before it really got going.
The application to companies like Psystar should be obvious - thus, while I believe this particular group is going nowhere because there’s no real value in using even lower quality hardware to compete with Apple’s already low quality hardware, the potential clearly exists for someone to break open the MacOS X clone or PPC continuation markets.
Who that someone will be I’ve no idea - but the legal opening exists, at least with respect to the American market, and Apple itself is, I think, losing interest in the Macintosh as it shifts both its image marketing and its revenue focus to more current and forward looking products like the iPhone.
So, will it be Psystar? I don’t think so - but how about IBM? or a pretend start-up funded by Microsoft?
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