Apple Talk: Can Google become the new Apple?
Much has been written about the Google-Motorola deal. About how it adds 60 per cent to Google's headcount. Much has been written about what it means for Android's platform partners such as HTC and Samsung, and even more has been said about Google's access to Motorola's vast, though not exhaustive, library of patents.
The argument for the Google-Motorola deal that interests me in the context of Apple is the idea that Google wants to use the deal to become an integrated supplier of hardware and software. Just like Apple.
It would be an admission that the Apple way is the right way. Ideological arguments aside, the balance sheet would seem to agree.
Google is a software company, pure and simple. It's a brilliant software company that has developed an incredibly successful product that makes it a huge amount of money. But it is just a software company. Or at least it was at the start of the week. Read more...
Social networks aren’t beyond the law. The police need to remember that
Last week, in the aftermath of the English riots, there was much debate about banning social networks in times of strife: a ridiculous knee-jerk reaction which is sadly the standard response from some politicians when faced with new technology.
There are plenty of good arguments against this stance. Twitter and other social media services were tools used for good as well as evil during the riots, and giving anyone the right to switch them off would not only undermine freedom of expression, but also cut off the law-abiding population from information in the middle of a crisis, just when they need it most.
In any case, police have already been keeping an eye on Twitter, Facebook and other networks to great effect, as they told MPs earlier this week. There should be no surprise at this - after all, the modus operandi of social media is collating information and making it easily accessible to all. Read more...
Symbian Anna makes her debut
Owners of the latest Nokia phones can now update to Symbian Anna, assuming their operators permit it, but having caught a glimpse of her younger sister they might not be impressed.
Anna was announced back in April, and has been available to developers for a while, but can now be installed on N8, C7, C6-01 and E7 handsets. It provides a portrait keyboard, faster browser, better mapping app and split-screen view, as well as reminding everyone that there are still a lot of Symbian handsets out there. Read more...
Amazon deploys true-blue US gov cloud for secret arms data
Amazon is upping the pressure on both Microsoft and Google in the battle to scoop up cash-strapped government customers into the cloud.
The online bookseller has moved to win over more government customers with the launch of AWS GovCloud, its cloud for US gov departments that crunch super-secret defence data.
AWS GovCloud is a region, Amazon's sixth, which is designed to meet a tough set of US government rules known as the International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR).
ITAR says controlled data must be stored in an environment where logical and physical access is limited to US persons or permanent residents. That data covers the import and export of a long list of goods and services, ranging from warheads and missile-control systems to aircraft carriers and tanks. Read more...
Mozilla decision to drop Firefox version number sparks backlash
Mozilla's decision to strip the version number from Firefox's "About" dialog box has been greeted by a nearly unanimous thumbs down, according to a lengthy, and at times heated, debate on a company discussion list.
The pushback was the second in as many months against Mozilla, which found itself the center of a late-June controversy over its apparent lack of interest in enterprise customers.
Asa Dotzler, a director of Firefox, explained why Mozilla was dumping the version number.
"We're moving to a more Web-like convention where it's simply not important what version you're using as long as it's the latest version," said Dotzler on a thread in the mozilla.dev.usability discussion group on Sunday. "We have a goal to make version numbers irrelevant to our consumer audience." Read more...
Dropbox cloud was a haven for data thieves, researchers say
Files entrusted to cloud-storage provider Dropbox were susceptible to unauthorized access via three attacks devised by security researchers, but the provider has since closed the vulnerabilities.
Dropbox could also be used as a place to store documents clandestinely and retrieve them from any Dropbox account controlled by an attacker.
Researchers who presented their work at Usenix Security Symposium say they had developed the exploits last year but gave Dropbox time to fix the problems before making the exploits public. Read more...
Linux marks 20th anniversary, recounts past slights from Microsoft
The mythical "year of the Linux desktop" still hasn't come, and may never, but on the 20th anniversary of Linux the free operating system's proponents threw a party to celebrate its success and scoff at past attacks launched by Microsoft, its biggest rival.
Linux Foundation Executive Director Jim Zemlin - known among Network World readers for saying that bashing Microsoft is "like kicking a puppy" - used his keynote at the LinuxCon conference in Vancouver to recount past slights from Microsoft and explain how wrong they were, one by one. Read more...
The collar bomber’s explosive tech gaffe
The man who claimed to have attached a bomb collar to an Australian high school student two weeks ago thought it would be a good idea to leave a ransom note on a USB stick looped around her neck. What he probably didn't realize is that he also left his name, hidden deep in the device's memory.
Court documents unsealed Tuesday describe the harrowing Aug. 3 incident, which began when a man broke into Madeline Pulver's bedroom wearing a striped balaclava and wielding a black aluminum baseball bat. He told her to sit down and chained a black box around her neck. Read more...
Google highlights trouble in detecting web-based malware
Google issued a new study on Wednesday detailing how it is becoming more difficult to identify malicious websites and attacks, with antivirus software proving to be an ineffective defense against new ones.
The company's engineers analyzed four years worth of data comprising 8 million websites and 160 million web pages from its Safe Browsing service, which is an API (application programming interface) that feeds data into Google's Chrome browser and Firefox and warns users when they hit a website loaded with malware.
Google said it displays 3 million warnings of unsafe websites to 400 million users a day. The company scans the Web, using several methods to figure out if a site is malicious.
"Like other service providers, we are engaged in an arms race with malware distributors," according to a blog post from Google's security team.
That detection process is becoming more difficult due to a variety of evasion techniques employed by attackers that are designed to stop their websites from being flagged as bad, according to the report. Read more...
IBM brings brain power to experimental chips
IBM has created prototype chips that could mimic brain-like functionality, which the company said is an "unprecedented" step forward in creating intelligent computers that collect, process and understand data quickly.
The prototype chips will give mind-like abilities for computers to make decisions by collating and analyzing immense amounts of data, similar to humans gathering and understanding a series of events, said Dharmendra Modha,project leader for IBM Research. The experimental chips, modeled around neural systems, mimics the brain's structure and operation through silicon circuitry and advanced algorithms.
IBM hopes reverse-engineering the brain into a chip could forge computers that are highly parallel, event-driven and passive on power consumption, Modha said. The machines will be a sharp departure from modern computers, which have scaling limitations and require set programming by humans to generate results. Read more...