Apple vs Amazon in ereader format smackdown
Format wars are a mixed blessing for consumers. Whether it's Betamax versus VHS or Blu-Ray versus HD-DVD, the consumer ultimately wins because companies have to advance superior technologies. But problems arise if the format you backed loses the war - and your device becomes next year's expensive doorstop.
A new fight is emerging in epublishing between Apple iBooks and Amazon Kindle, with skirmishes between Barnes & Noble, Kobo and others. But the real battle is between the underlying formats: EPUB 3 and KF8.
So far, this particular format war has been waged rather quietly, but it's a war that will affect you more than you might realise: two rich, powerful and mighty West Coast tech companies could soon end up as gate-keepers to the world's literary works. And if we've learned anything about West Coast tech companies, it's that once they've got the data, they want you're pretty much at their mercy. Read more...
Voice and video calls via Wi-Fi from 30,000 feet?
Federal regulations forbid making calls from cellphones while aboard U.S. commercial planes in-flight, but Wi-Fi services could eventually make it possible for airlines to offer passengers the option of making voice and video calls over the Internet -- for a fee.
Airlines are struggling to make in-flight Wi-Fi profitable, and some analysts have suggested the airlines need to provide more than the email and Internet browsing offered on some flights using services from Gogo and Row 44.
The question boils down to whether U.S. travelers -- and airline flight crews -- would want to put up with people who talk on the phone during flights, analysts and airline officials have said. Read more...
Java tops C in language popularity assessment — but not by much
Java is barely hanging on to its ranking as the most popular programming language, edging out C in this month's Tiobe index of programming language popularity.
Released on Sunday, the February Tiobe Community Programming Index had Java being used by 17.05 percent of developers. A year ago, 18.48 percent of developers used it, while 17.48 percent of developers used Java a month ago. C was slotted right behind Java, used by 16.52 percent of developers in the latest release of the index -- up from 14.98 percent the same time last year, but down from the 16.98 percent using it in last month's index. Read more...
Adobe launches sandboxed Flash Player for Firefox, hopes for fewer exploits
Adobe has released a beta version of Flash Player for Firefox, which has better protection against vulnerability exploits because of a new sandboxed architecture.
"The design of this sandbox is similar to what Adobe delivered with Adobe Reader X Protected Mode and follows the same Practical Windows Sandboxing approach," said Peleus Uhley, platform security strategist at Adobe, in a blog post on Monday. "Like the Adobe Reader X sandbox, Flash Player will establish a low integrity, highly restricted process that must communicate through a broker to limit its privileged activities."
In secure software development, sandboxing refers to the practice of isolating a process from the operating system in order to minimize the fallout of a potential exploit. This type of technology has gained popularity in recent years, primarily because of its use in Google Chrome, a browser that has never experienced a successful remote code execution attack so far. Read more...
Kelihos botnet still dead, say Microsoft, Kaspersky
Contrary to reports, the Kelihos botnet has not crawled out of the grave, Microsoft said last week. But the company acknowledged that a new botnet is being assembled using a variant of the original malware.
The reappearance of a Kelihos-like army of hijacked computers shows just how difficult it is to eradicate a botnet, security experts said today.
"It's not possible in most cases," said Roel Schouwenberg, a senior researcher with Moscow-based antivirus company Kaspersky Lab, when asked whether killing a botnet was feasible. "What you're going for is disruption more than anything."
Liam O Murchu, manager of operations at Symantec's security response team, agreed and said that there was only one way to insure a botnet's death. Read more...
Microsoft drops Start button from Windows 8, reports say
Microsoft will scratch the 17-year-old Start button from Windows 8, according to reports based on a purported leak of the latest beta build.
First reported by The Verge yesterday and then followed by other blogs -- all seemingly based on screenshots posted in a Chinese forum that claim the images are from the newest private "build" of the beta -- the Start button has been discarded in favor of a corner "hotspot" that when touched or clicked switches between the traditional desktop and the new Metro-style Start display.
Microsoft declined to comment on the reports, with a company spokeswoman saying, "We have no information to share at this time." Read more...
Looking for work? There may be an app for that
Looking for a promising career in a lousy economy? A new study suggests you're apt to find it in apps — the services and tools built to run on smartphones, computer tablets and Facebook's online social network.
The demand for applications for everything ranging from games to quantum physics has created 466,000 jobs in the U.S. since 2007, according to an analysis released Tuesday by technology trade group TechNet.
The estimate counts 311,000 jobs at companies making the apps and another 155,000 at local merchants who have expanded their payrolls in an economic ripple effect caused by increased spending at their businesses.
The study asserts this so-called "app economy" is still in the early stages of a boom driven by the mobile computing and social networking crazes unleashed by Apple Inc.'s iPhone and Facebook's online hangout. Read more...
Facebook takes a toll on your mental health
Facebook's initial public offering of stock is likely to make a lot of developers and designers of the site very wealthy. But for many users, frequent Facebooking may not be so beneficial.
According to three new studies, Facebook can be tough on mental health, offering an all-too-alluring medium for social comparison and ill-advised status updates. And while adding a friend on the social networking site can make people feel cheery and connected, having a lot of friends is associated with feeling worse about one's own life.
The thread running through these findings is not that Facebook itself is harmful, but that it provides a place for people to indulge in self-destructive behavior, such as trumpeting their own weaknesses or comparing their achievements with those of others. Read more...
Raspberry Pi available February 20, check out the datasheet now
If you were looking forward to getting your Raspberry Pi $25 (or $35) PC soon, it looks like you have a little bit longer to wait. The Raspberry Pi Foundation has just announced that the production of their boards has hit a slight delay and that the first set of units will not be ready until February 20th. Once they are done they will be shipped (via air transit) to the UK where they will undergo the final stages before being sold and shipped out.
Details about the delay were sparse, but the announcement noted that the quartz crystal package the Raspberry Pi board uses has been replaced by a different model in China — where the RasPi is produced — so inventory for that specific part is low. The good news is that while there was a delay new inventory has been found and production has resumed (or at least will resume).
That wasn’t the only announcement from the Foundation today — they also have presented followers of the project with Broadcom’s datasheet for the BCM2835 SoC. This is, as you’ll recall, the heart of the Raspberry Pi board and the part that allows it to do all the great feats we’ve seen it do so far, like play CD-quality audio, run Quake III, and playback HD video.
The BCM2835′s datasheet (PDF) is quite dense, so don’t expect to hop right in unless you are IEEE-certified. This abbreviated datasheet is 205 pages long, so while it probably has a lot of great information in it, it’s a bit hard to parse. (We’ll report back if we see anything notable!)
(Source: geek.com)
Wearable computing is back: Google reportedly making HUD glasses
Admit it: at some point, you’ve dreamed of having Iron Man-style HUD glasses. Along with hoverboards and flying cars, computer-enhanced eyewear is probably one of a geek’s most-requested “future gadgets.” There’s something about having a secret, internet-powered Ninja View of your surroundings that gives you a sense of power and intelligence like no other (or so I hear).
Some engineers and designers at Google may share this sci-fi fantasy. An alleged leak obtained by 9to5Google says that the company is working on its own pair of HUD glasses. These specs aren’t for Larry Page’s and Eric Schmidt’s private games of laser tag, though. They are prototypes that could make it to market sooner than you might expect. Read more...