Archive for the 'News & Articles' Category
In a video featuring Bill Gates presented to the CES crowd, the Microsoft CEO said goodbye to the largest tech trade show in the United States Sunday night in Las Vegas. Featuring cameo appearances from Brian Williams, Jay-Z, Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, Al Gore, Jon Stewart, Steven Spielberg and George Clooney, the video showed Bill Gates rapping, lifting weights, and pleading with U2 to be included in the band. The normally business-as-usual crowd filled the auditorium with laughter.
Gates was serious during his keynote outlining Microsoft’s future of “Windows everywhere”. Not a new concept, one that has been said before many times in various fashion, Gates impressed to the Las Vegas crowd that from high-definition movies on the Xbox to its new Sync product that allows cell phones, digital music players, and PDAs to all integrate into the vehicles sounds system seamlessly, Microsoft would be part of everyones daily life where ever they go. Unfortunate for Microsoft, it chose Ford and it’s lack-luster selling inventory to be the platform for Sync. With 18 months of negative sales (sans two months,) Ford has ignored a very successful boycott of its products and Microsoft may be stuck with a Edsel for Sync.
Microsoft’s outgoing CEO, to retire in July, showed of its table-sized Surface to the crowd and how simple it would be to design a snowboard and then easily put it on a smartphone by simply placing it on the table. At nearly 15k per table, don’t get your hopes up that your local snowboard store will have this custom shop before you next time you stroll in.
Lacking any true innovative ideas, Bill Gates once again proved why Microsoft is the butt of jokes and garners little respect from most in the tech world. With Apple’s market share nearing 10%, the iPhone surpassing Windows Mobile in just a mere six months, and the iPod still the killer digital music player, Gates simply ignored the company he co-founded mistakes and offered no true exciting future for it. Gates, desiring to leave Redmond to help people in undeveloped countries, one wonders who’s going to help Microsoft.
No matter how many times you warn computer users to back up their data, more instances than not, you find a boat load of people that don’t and end up losing important data. DriveSavers has made its riches from these people and now it plans to make an industry first announcement in a few weeks at Macworld Expo 2008. SvenOnTech was told in an email that it will be making a “big announcement for Apple users”. The email went on to tease, “DriveSavers is the first data recovery company to offer this service, and will be rolling out the service at MacWorld.”
Possibly offering an insurance-like policy to Mac users, it is conceivable that DriveSavers will offer a program where customers can make monthly payments on their Macs fitted with hard drives that could become faulty. When the drive does become unusable, the user would then simply send in the drive for recovery.
What ever the announcement, we’ll be on the floor to report the news when it hits in January 15th.
Apple news blog, Think Secret, is officially closed for business. In an undisclosed settlement with Apple, Think Secret agrees to cease operations while Apple would not be entitled to any information on sources used in Think Secret articles.
Stemming from a slew of suits Apple began last year, Think Secret was sued for releasing trade secrets to the public. Outlined in the suit briefs were articles about a “G4-monitorless Mac” and an “office suite”. Both articles contained very indepth details that caused Apple to file suit.
In its press release, publisher and founder Nick Ciarelli stated on the web site, “I’m pleased to have reached this amicable settlement, and will now be able to move forward with my college studies and broader journalistic pursuits.”
We wish you the best Nick and hope to see your return to the news world soon. Good luck with those studies!
Once the only store you could get computer parts from those dinky screws that mount your hard drive in its bay inside a computer case all the way up to an actual computer, CompUSA will be closing the doors of its remaining 103 stores for good this January. After nearly serving the computer world for 24 years, slumping sales can no longer sustain the superstore. What seemed to be some cost cutting measures earlier this year by closing some stores (one of which was a twenty minute drive for me) has turned into a complete chain closing. Sold to Gordon Brothers Group for liquidation, the computer superstore will close for good after the holidays.
I can still remember my first CompUSA, the one on Stevens Creek in Santa Clara, California (where interesting enough, the property it sits on use to be my father in-laws childhood farm). I was so excited that I could get computer “stuff” for my computer in one store! No more searching on CompuServe’s boards for a toll-free number of some catalog store I didn’t know anything about, or struggling to find something at the smaller stores such as Egghead (which really was just a software store anyway.) I was 20 when I walked through those doors for the first time in 1990 and now it’ll be gone for ever. While I wasn’t too sad to see the Modesto store close this summer, the chain, ya, that’s a bit sad. Even though the Blossom Hill store was closer to my home and was nicer (though smaller than the Stevens Creek store), that Santa Clara superstore will always be special to me.
As for it’s demise, I blame Carlos Slim. A Mexican telecom tycoon (he represents 8% of Mexico’s GDP…but is that really saying much?). Slim purchased CompUSA for $2 billion in 1997. His “dream” was to take on Best Buy and thus is the reason he also purchased The Good Guys. Note how that store no longer exists, either. Mmm, starting to see a pattern here? While he may be the richest man in the world, he doesn’t really get how to run technology stores, does he? For those keeping score, that’s 0 for 2.
While Slim doesn’t have anything to do with day-to-day business of any the businesses he does own, he could have at least sent a few cronies over the border (legally, of course) and taken a look at how things were running. What he would have witnessed was a staff that had no clue what it was selling and managers that could care less about their customers. I saw the down hill trend going back to 1999 and knew it wasn’t going to get any better any time soon. Thankfully, I always knew exactly what I wanted. When I heard that Slim purchased The Good Guys, I knew right then CompUSA’s (and The Good Guys’) days were numbered. Slim’s idea and reality of integrating The Good Guys into CompUSA to battle Best Buy was laughable at best. Dumping wide screen TVs and a few HD DVD players to the mix wasn’t going to do it, Carlos. And it didn’t.
These closings won’t hurt Slim, worth an estimated $68 billion, but it does hurt me. It’s a piece of my history and I’m bummed it’s going away. Like Downtown Datsun, CompUSA will be a time in my life line that I will not be able to take my kids to and say, “This is where I use to get computer parts when I was your age.” Sad days indeed. Yes, even us geeks are sentimental.
PC World is reporting that a sophisticated Trojan, Prg Banking, is transferring hundreds of thousands of dollars out of unsuspecting banks in the UK and US. Using very convincing phishing e-mails, the German speaking hackers would trick individuals in downloading the the trojan.
“They’ll usually have the bank account number, and the first and last name of its owner,” said Jackson, as well as security details, such as whether the account is protected by a one-time password. “The e-mail will claim that the user needs to download a new one-time password or soft token, but when the user clicks on the link and reaches the phish site, the Prg Trojan is downloaded instead.”
When ever you receive any type of email message from a financial institution, always go to the main page by typing in it’s URL (address) directly in your web browser and checking your account from there. If in doubt, call your institution. It is never a good idea to click links in an email message when pertaining to your finances.
Digital Foci, Inc. announced yesterday that they are supporting the “Operation: Support Our Troops” giveaway of 1,000 Digital Foci “Pocket Album” digital keychain photo viewers through the “Into Tomorrow with Dave Graveline” radio show as holiday gifts for U.S. military men & women serving in Iraq and Afghanistan. The “Into Tomorrow” radio show and the Consumer Electronics Association (CEA) will distribute the keychains through on-air promotions and the website at: http://www.graveline.com/2007/11/28/operation-support-our-troops or www.graveline.com . The first 1,000 soldiers to email the show will receive a Pocket Album in time for the holidays.
Pocket Album has a retail value of $39/each from Digital Foci, who is assisting with the production of these units. Information about the Pocket Album giveaway will be available on the “Into Tomorrow” radio show heard on the 5 American Armed Forces Networks, where the show has a huge soldier following; as well as on hundreds of radio stations around the U.S. and Canada, and on the XM Satellite Radio.
“With Pocket Album’s ability to store up to 74 pictures of family & friends and its easy portability in the field, we think it’s the perfect gift for troops to keep their special pictures close to them at all times,” said Dave Graveline, Host and Executive Producer of “Into Tomorrow.” The “Operation: Support Our Troops” giveaway comes on the heels of Dave Graveline and his team sending out over 7,000 Skype Kits (headsets, software & calling time) and long distance Calling Cards to U.S. military serving around the world.
“We are honored to be working with Dave Graveline at ‘Into Tomorrow’ and CEA in supporting this effort that gives our troops a great way to view photos of their family and friends who are waiting for them back home,” said Charles Huang, Director of Business Development, Digital Foci.
Security predictions released today by Arbor
Networks reveals that the iPhone will be a major target for
cybercriminals in 2008. The forecast also highlights Chinese specific
crime as a major issue for the New Year.
Arbor’s Security and Engineering Response Team (ASERT), who have put
together the forecasts, believe that the iPhone will become the victim
of a serious attack in 2008. These assaults are likely to be in the form
of drive by attacks - malware embedded into seemingly harmless
information, images or other media that actually perform dangerous
actions when rendered on the iPhone’s Web browser. With the scrutiny
the iPhone has received since its launch earlier this year over network
lock-in, ASERT believes that hackers will be enticed by the possibility
of attacking Apple users and the opportunity to “be the first” to hack a
new platform.
Increase in Chinese cybercrime for 2008
ASERT has also predicted a rise in ‘Chinese on Chinese’ cybercrime. In
the past year the team has seen a dramatic increase in the attention
paid to Chinese-language specific software such as QQ Messenger and a
number of malware samples focused on stealing users credentials. Arbor
expects this trend to multiply in 2008 as more Chinese users come
online, more software is written for the market and Chinese
cybercriminals become increasingly more sophisticated and organised.
Storm botnet hijacking and Peer-to-Peer
The Storm botnet is another vulnerability that ASERT believe will be
prevalent in 2008. Although the Storm botnet has been quiet for some
time, there are still tens of thousands of infected PCs around the
world. Arbor believes this presents a too lucrative an opportunity to be
passed up and anticipate a hacker hijacking the bots for their own gain
in the New Year.
Spammers are highly motivated by financial gains and are not afraid to
push technological boundaries to develop new attacks. Arbor envisages an
attack that will eclipse the storm worm vulnerability that caused havoc
in 2007 and in 2008 we will see a much larger, but similar (spam) botnet
designed to target P2P networks.
“2007 was the year of the browser exploit, the data breach, spyware and
the storm worm. We expect 2008 to be the year of the iPhone attack, the
Chinese Hacker, P2P network spammers and the hijacking of the Storm
botnet,” said Jose Nazario, senior security engineer at Arbor Networks.
“Online fraud is soaring and security attacks are now being used in
countless and ever more sophisticated ways to both steal and launder
money. Financial and other confidential data is being obtained, sold and
utilised in the highly developed black market. In 2008 this market will
continue to grow and it is important that business implement the
processes and technology necessary to protect themselves and their
customers.”
For over a decade, well known Apple accessory designer, Power Support, has designed and produced inventive high-quality computer and electronic accessories. Since 1994, the products have been coming out of Japan and were introduced in 2005 as one of the select few product lines sold in Apple store locations and online. To address the growth and overwhelming popularity of their products, Power Support has recently opened a flagship store in Burbank, California. The store features Power Support’s innovative product lines including, but not limited to, protective coverings for your Apple iPod, PowerBook, MacBook (& MacBook Pro) and the highly popular iPhone. The Burbank store will be having their grand opening on December 11th from 12pm-8pm.
The Power Support store is located at 3202 W. Magnolia Blvd., Burbank, CA 91505.
Verizon, that very same company that said no to Apple three years ago to its unknown iPhone, has changed course with Google’s open source operating system for mobile devices, Android. Maybe Verizon has learned from its Apple mistake and now will bring something unique to its strip-mall stores across the nation. Chief Executive Officer Lowell McAdam says it now makes sense to get behind Android. “We’re planning on using Android,” McAdam tells BusinessWeek. “Android is an enabler of what we do.”
Ya, I bet it does make sense, Lowell!
If you haven’t seen much on Android, take a look at Google’s Code site for videos and such about it. The visual global time (spin the globe with your finger ala iPhone!) and SkyPop (locate your other Android using friends in real-time) alone are worth considering dumping your iPhone! Oh ya, did I mention it’ll be 3G on the get-go? 
What’s being called this centuries Windows ME, Bill Gates will be happy to officially leave the company he co-founded with the award of “Top ten terrible tech products” by CNET. Keen to the fact that Microsoft took six years – SIX YEARS folks! — to develop this operating system upgrade it should have just been so much more than it turned out to be. From incompatibility hardware woes to constant warning boxes that must be acknowledged to the sell-out to Hollywood with DRM-everywhere, Vista is in CNET’s words, “terrible technology”. My favorite quote from the article:
Any operating system that quietly has a downgrade-to- previous-edition option introduced for PC makers deserves to be classed as terrible technology.
The funniest thing about this is I’ve had customers already perform this on their newly purchased laptops after “a day of hell with Vista”! Even funnier is the various versions you can buy of this horrendous release and just how much they all cost you.
Man, Microsoft, you REALLY missed the boat on this one. Six years!! HAHAHAHA. Put down the X-Box controller and start working!