NewsFactor Network

Google Adds Conversational Search to Chrome

Wed, 22 May 2013 14:16:37 -0500

If you like chatting with Siri, sending voice texts while driving or telling your Xbox when to pause or rewind a DVD, you're going to enjoy the upgrade to Google's Chrome browser. The new system, which was previewed at Google's I/O developer's conference on May 15 and went live Wednesday, allows users to search for topics conversationally, by asking questions rather than stating keywords, much like Apple's Siri personal assistant for the iPhone.

Google also announced a stable update for its Android mobile operating system which allows entering topics in the omnibox, or address bar, instead of only in the search window on Google. The Android update also allows the toolbar to disappear while you scan results.

In addition, Google is giving Apple's Siri a run for her money by introducing voice search for the iOS version of Chrome, available "soon," that will allow voice searches on that browser for iPhones and iPads. (Siri will be available for iPads with the iOS 6 update.)

The Future Is Now

The update for the Chrome browser is another step toward the kind of interaction with machines seen in science fiction, such as 2001: A Space Odyssey and Star Trek, in which humans have conversations with computers and keyboards and mice are essentially obsolete.

The feature is available for version 27 of Chrome, which can be downloaded from Google.com or upgraded from an older version, provided your operating system is compatible.

Searches are activated by clicking a red microphone icon on the search page and speaking. At the I/O keynote, as seen on YouTube, Google's Johanna Wright demonstrated that Chrome not only understood her query and provided pictures of the Santa Cruz, Calif., boardwalk at her request, with a polite verbal response, but understood in a follow-up question "how far is it from here?" that she was...

Attention GIFers, It's Pronounced 'Jif'

Wed, 22 May 2013 13:42:26 -0500

Many of us have apparently been saying it wrong for years. This week, the inventor of the GIF image format revealed that the correct pronunciation of the popular image format is "Jif."

Anyone who has been involved in interactive media production has encountered meetings where both the hard "g" and soft "g" pronunciation of the term were bandied about to describe the image format. The name itself can describe a single image or a GIF animation sequence of separate images. Its original innovation was supporting 8 bits per pixel to indicate up to 256 colors, from a 24-bit color space, thus presenting a lot of color choices in a small file size.

At the Webby Awards on Tuesday night in New York City, the creator of the Graphics Interchange Format, Steve Wilhite, accepted a lifetime achievement award. Award winners at the Webbies are limited to acceptance speeches of no more than five words.

CompuServe's CompuShow

Accompanied by the dramatic set-up music from the movie, 2001: A Space Odyssey, otherwise known as Richard Strauss' Also Sprach Zarathustra, five words were displayed on the screen over the podium where Wilhite was standing to accept his award: "It's pronounced 'JIF' not 'GIF.' "

Internet historians have pointed out that the pioneering CompuServe network had an early graphics display program called CompuShow. That software included the Graphics Interchange Format, or GIF, which the documentation said was officially spec'd in 1987 and was "pronounced 'JIF'." Additionally, in 1997 a brief e-mail answer from CompuShow creator Bob Berry was published in the Internet news group alt.ascii-art. Answering a query from someone who wanted the matter settled once and for all, Berry replied that "GIF has always been pronounced 'jif,' since it was first released in 1987."

Some observers have noted that, for some unknown reason, Mac users have preferred to use the...

New Nvidia Chip Boosts Citrix Graphics for Remote Workers

Wed, 22 May 2013 12:36:50 -0500

Nvidia is working with Citrix to implement its latest Graphics Processing Unit (GPU) to improve the user experience for mobile workers who use Citrix enterprise desktop virtualization. Specifically, the Nvidia Grid vGPU can now be integrated into Citrix XenDesktop 7.

The new Nvidia Grid vGPU technology targets a challenge that has grown in recent years alongside the Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) trend.

Citrix points out that more employees who use their own notebooks and portable devices for work are relying on desktop virtualization technologies for anytime-access to computing resources. But they can't always tap into the graphic-intensive apps they need.

That's because, until now, virtualization technologies have only been used to offer employees access to standard enterprise applications. Performance and portability constraints have made it difficult to use some of the more graphics-intensive apps, like building information management (BIM), product-lifecycle management (PLM), and video-photo editing.

The Hosted-Shared Desktop

"With Nvidia Grid vGPU, even the most intensive graphics applications can be delivered by XenDesktop 7," said Bob Schultz, vice president and general manager of Desktops and Applications Group at Citrix. "Now businesses can provide their users with the performance that they expect and need for engineering, design, and video applications, while centrally securing and managing valuable intellectual property and sensitive information."

With the introduction of new HDX GPU sharing and deep compression techniques in XenDesktop 7, Nvidia and Citrix said their customers can start taking advantage of the hosted-shared form of desktop virtualization to deliver graphics-intensive applications. Using the Microsoft Windows Server RDSH and XenDesktop 7 platform makes it possible to share GPUs across multiple user sessions.

The companies also pointed to another benefit of combining Citrix XenServer and Nvidia GRID vGPU technology -- allowing customers to share GPUs across multiple virtual machines. With this capability, businesses can address a broader set of...

Security Alert: Beware of Tiffany Trojan on the Attack

Wed, 22 May 2013 12:24:36 -0500

Malware writers are using a luxury name to hack into your computer. Security watchdog Sophos is reporting that e-mails coming from a Tiffany.com address and carrying the attachment copy.zip are looking to install a malicious Trojan horse on your PC.

"This may be a deliberate ploy on the part of the criminals behind the attack to tempt more people into opening the attachment," Graham Cluley, senior security analyst at Sophos, wrote in a blog post. "Of course, it's child's play to forge e-mail header information, and there is no suggestion that the messages were really sent by Tiffany's," the high-end jeweler known for its little blue gift boxes tied smartly with white ribbon.

"If anything," Cluley said, the folks at Tiffany's "are also victims of this campaign."

Check Your Zipper

We asked Richard Westmoreland, a security analyst at security-as-a-service provider SilverSky, to chime in on the latest Trojan to make headlines. He explained that most successful e-mail Trojans now hide their malicious payload within zip files and depend on social engineering to get the end user to execute it.

"Companies can't block zip file attachments because it would impact legitimate business, however, e-mail filtering with virus scanning should still be able to inspect the contents of unencrypted zip files," Westmoreland said.

"It is important to scan for viruses both at the e-mail gateway and on the users' workstations, but equally important to remind employees not to open files they were not already expecting. In situations where antivirus does not yet have signatures for the payload and an employee still mistakenly opens the file, the workstation will likely start exhibiting suspicious behavior and the compromise could be detected by a SOC that is monitoring that network."

Copy Cat Social Engineers

Westmoreland's colleague Evan Keiser, also a security analyst with SilverSky, told us the Tiffany & Co. Trojan is...

Blue Coat Beefs Up Big Data Security with Solera Buy

Wed, 22 May 2013 09:46:12 -0500

Blue Coat Systems is expanding into the Big Data security, intelligence and analytics for advanced threat protection space. The company has snapped up Intel-backed Solera Networks. Financial terms of the deal have not yet been disclosed.

Specifically, Blue Coat is betting that the Solera DeepSee platform will add strategic capabilities to its product portfolio, paving the way to deliver an end-to-end security solution that spans protection, remediation and governance. The deal is also expected to help Blue Coat give enterprise customers visibility into the content and context of advanced targeted attacks.

"Today's approach to securing the enterprise is missing an essential element -- the ability to defend, react and resolve security issues by efficiently mining a very large dataset of network history to gain previously unavailable insights," said Greg Clark, CEO at Blue Coat Systems. "The future of the industry is moving beyond just blocking malware and stopping targeted attacks to also identifying and resolving the full scope of the attacks in real time."

Leveraging Big Data

Clark went on to say that retrospective capture and analytics are now an essential component of modern security architecture. Charles Kolodgy, research vice president of security at IDC agrees. He said traditional security solutions are becoming obsolete against today's advanced threats, as evidenced by constant stories announcing data breaches.

"Discovery and prevention of emerging threats has become one of the most critical priorities for C-level executives," said Kolodgy. "Bringing together Solera's innovative security analytics capabilities with Blue Coat's comprehensive Web intelligence should allow customers to fully monitor and enforce countermeasures on networks constantly under attack."

Blue Coat currently rates more than 1 billion Web requests per day. When the acquisition closes in about 30 days, the companies plan to work together to leverage the network effect of 75 million users from more than 15,000 customers worldwide, including...

HTC Execs Bolt, Sales Slide. Is the End Near for the Company?

Wed, 22 May 2013 09:24:33 -0500

What's going on with HTC? A string of executive departures and slow sales for new models are raising questions about the health of this major phone maker.

Last week, Chief Product Officer Kouji Kodera exited the company, the most recent of several other top-level departures. These have included Jason Gordon, the VP of global communications, global retail marketing manager Rebecca Rowland, director of digital marketing John Starkweather, product strategy manager Eric Lin, and, as of Tuesday, the CEO of the Asia division, Lennard Hoornik. Gordon and Lin went to Microsoft and Starkweather to AT&T.

Lin tweeted earlier this week: "To all my friends still at @HTC -- just quit. leave now. it's tough to do, but you'll be so much happier, I swear."

Ones, First

In addition to the executive departures, the company has faced difficulties for its most visible recent models. The One X last year, the One this year, and the recent First -- the purported Facebook phone unveiled in April -- have been struggling in the market.

According to reports, Facebook's Home interface, a key feature of First, was going to be made available for separate download by the social networking giant only after a delay, giving First time to establish itself. However, Home was made available for download in the Google Play marketplace in the same week as First's launch, undercutting First's uniqueness.

The One, despite good reviews, has been hampered by supply issues with component makers, which delayed it until second quarter and put it in direct competition with Samsung's big release, the Galaxy S 4. According to the Wall Street Journal, HTC co-founder and veteran CEO Peter Chou has told other senior executives that he would step down if the One flops. The Journal reported that an unnamed HTC executive recently said the One has sold about five...

Consumer Satisfaction for iPhone Drops as Rivals Gain

Tue, 21 May 2013 17:06:27 -0500

Even as senators gripe about Apple's elaborate scheme to avoid paying taxes here on its overseas income, the company is taking another public hit this week courtesy of the American Consumer Satisfaction Index.

No Boost from iPhone 5

The annual survey of 70,000 consumers, which measures their opinions about 230 companies, 43 industries and 10 economic sectors, found that Apple dipped slightly in its most profitable market, smartphones, down two percentage points from 83 percent last year to 81 percent. That's despite introducing its most radically improved iPhone ever last year, with a larger screen, faster processors and 4G long-term evolution high-speed data.

The company's biggest rival, Samsung, however, saw the biggest jump in consumer nods, from 71 percent to 76 percent, while Motorola Mobility got a vote of confidence since its acquisition by Google, rising from 73 percent to 77 percent.

Among other major platforms, BlackBerry, formerly Research In Motion, stayed the same in satisfaction at 69 percent approval.

Overall satisfaction with cellular telephones among Americans rose slightly, just 2.7 percent, despite the wide range of faster, bigger and more capable devices flooding into the market.

"Despite slipping two percent, Apple stays ahead of all competition," says the report. "While the iPhone 5 had strong sales, it has not bolstered Apple's overall customer satisfaction." The company did far better with its computers and tablets, which won an 86 percent satisfaction rating last year, the report noted.

Meanwhile, South Korean technology giant Samsung did see a sharp rise in overall satisfaction from the release of its flagship Galaxy S III smartphone, released last year (the Galaxy S IV is rolling out now.) The S III boosted the company's ACSI score by the largest margin of any cell phone manufacturer and even with the industry average.

"Customers still love Apple best, but Apple needs to be worried about slipping...

After 360, There Comes the Xbox One

Tue, 21 May 2013 13:36:03 -0500

In Microsoft-land, One comes after 360. That's the Xbox One, the next-generation entertainment console successor to the Xbox 360.

The new machine, unveiled Tuesday at a press event at the company's headquarters in Redmond, Wash., goes all-out to become a competitor to cable's set-top box and assume its place as the central hub of household entertainment. In his introduction, for instance, Interactive Entertainment Business Division President Don Mattrick described the Xbox One as "where all of your entertainment comes alive in one place."

The machine, which will launch worldwide by the end of the year, turns on by voice command, and a voice brings up a user's profile and settings, or allows activities to be called up. Via voice command, a user can switch between gaming, watching live TV or a movie, listening to music, browsing the Net, or bringing up TV schedules, all while running apps. Snap Mode enables two activities to run side-by-side on the screen, such as watching a movie and a live activity like Net surfing.

New Version of Kinect

The device includes a Blu-ray DVD drive, Skype communications, and a new version of the Kinect gesture-based controller. The Kinect's enhanced capability to detect user movements includes the ability, according to the company, to read a person's heartbeat during exercise, or detect the turn of a wrist. Kinect can also recognize users by their faces and recommend content.

Other specs include an eight-core central processing unit, 8 GB of memory, native 64-bit architecture, a half-terabyte hard drive, HDMI, 802.11n Wi-Fi, 1080p video for Kinect, and USB 3.0.

For online play, the company has increased the number of dedicated servers to 300,000 from 15,000 in order to increase performance, and users can use the Xbox One to take and share in-game videos and photos. There's also the ability to search for possible...

Dell Kills Its Public Cloud Effort, Will Offer Partner Marketplace

Tue, 21 May 2013 14:28:58 -0500

Putting the kibosh on its efforts to build out a public cloud, Dell has announced a new program to market a cloud Infrastructure-as-a-Service through partners. The company will deliver the Dell Cloud Partner Program through an ecosystem of as many as 20 partners.

Dell will act as a single-source supplier to offer customers a choice of vendors and technology that won't lock them into a single platform or pricing model. Dell will also offer central point-of-solution integration and control.

And with that, sales of Dell's current in-house multi-tenant public cloud IaaS will be discontinued in the U.S. Dell is initially partnering with Joyent, ScaleMatrix and ZeroLag as part of its new initiative.

More Value?

"Many Dell customers plan to expand their use of public cloud, but in order to truly reap the benefits, they want a choice of providers, flexibility and interoperability across platforms and models, the ability to compare cloud economics and workload performance, and a cohesive way to manage all of it," said Nnamdi Orakwue, vice president, Dell Cloud. "The partner approach offers increased value to Dell's customers, channel partners and shareholders, as part of our comprehensive cloud strategy to deliver market-leading, end-to-end cloud solutions."

One partner, Joyent, describes itself as a high-performance cloud Infrastructure-as-a-Service provider for real-time Web and mobile applications. Joyent offers a Cloud IaaS with its open-technology platform. Joyent is positioned as a Challenger in the 2012 Gartner IaaS Magic Quadrant and has out-of-the-box compatibility with Enstratius' multi-cloud management.

ScaleMatrix offers the TruCore Performance Cloud hosting platform. ScaleMatrix offers users control over functionality and performance. From its proprietary data centers, ScaleMatrix offers services that leverage enterprise hardware, storage and security and Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) mitigation services.

Finally, ZeroLag combines VMware-powered on-demand cloud infrastructure with professional services and custom-designed solutions.

Short- and Long-Term Bets

Zeus Kerravala, principal analyst at ZK...

High-Tech Guns Can Be Disabled Remotely

Wed, 22 May 2013 06:39:11 -0500

A high-tech startup is wading into the gun control debate with a wireless controller that would allow gun owners to know when their weapon is being moved -- and disable it remotely.

The technology, but not an actual gun, was slated to be demonstrated Tuesday at a wireless technology conference in Las Vegas and was shown to The Associated Press in advance. It comes at a time when lawmakers around the U.S. are considering contentious smart gun laws that would require new guns to include high-tech devices that limit who can fire them.

The new Yardarm Technologies LLC system would trigger an alarm on an owner's cellphone if a gun is moved, and the owner could then hit a button to activate the safety and disable the weapon. New guns would come with a microchip on the body and antennas winding around the grip. It would add about $50 to the cost of a gun, and about $12 a year for the service.

"The idea is to connect gun owners more directly with their guns, no matter what the circumstance," said Yardarm CEO Robert Stewart.

The Yardarm system is one of several recently introduced high-tech offerings: the iGun only fires if it recognizes a ring on a finger, the Intelligun uses a fingerprint locking system and TriggerSmart uses radio frequency identification.

The first smart guns were proposed more than 20 years ago, but they failed to take off for several reasons: questionable technology, added costs and concerns from some gun rights about limitations on Second Amendment rights.

Recent high-profile shootings, combined with new technologies, have revived interest. Sandy Hook Promise, a nonprofit created by Newtown, Conn., community members, is offering venture capital for new gun safety technologies, and President Barack Obama included smart guns as part of his plan to reduce gun violence.

Stewart said his company...

Users Less Satisfied with Windows 8 than with Windows 7

Tue, 21 May 2013 10:48:07 -0500

How satisfied are customers with Microsoft's Windows 8 operating system? According to a new survey from the University of Michigan, not as satisfied as with Windows 7.

The 2013 survey, called the American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI), was conducted by Michigan's Ross School of Business and released Tuesday. It found Windows 8 scored 74, down a point from last year's survey and down four points from the company's record high in 2011 for Windows 7, when it achieved a 78. The Windows 7 score had been a bump up, following the flop known as Vista.

David VanAmburg, ACSI's Director, told news media that Windows 8 "did not give Microsoft a significant bump, as the release of Windows 7 did," although it didn't cause the kind of drop that Vista showed. The lowest score was a 69 in 2008, the second year that Vista was available. VanAmburg pointed out that Windows 8 performance next year will indicate if the satisfaction level has stabilized.

'Microsoft Messed Up'

PCs in general are going through a slump in sales, as smartphones and tablets boom. PC shipments have declined four quarters in a row, with a 14 percent drop in Q1 of this year.

Laura DiDio, an analyst with industry research firm Information Technology Intelligence Consulting, said that her research among businesses indicates satisfaction with the underlying functions of Windows 8, but not with its touchscreen emphasis.

She quoted one unnamed IT administrator at a leading university who said that "Microsoft messed up the execution by forcing people into touchscreen." The tile-based interface is optimized for touchscreens, although users can switch to the classic UI.

Another factor in the satisfaction level is whether there had been some need, which is being filled, to switch from an existing OS. DiDio cited a survey conducted by her company last fall, in which...

Yahoo's Tumblr Purchase Fraught with Challenges

Wed, 22 May 2013 06:42:35 -0500

Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer says her company's $1.1 billion acquisition of Tumblr could be a game changer. But some question whether Yahoo is game for the hip upstart.

"This is incredibly important," Mayer said in a phone interview before a press conference in New York Monday. "Our (mergers and acquisitions were) around acquiring talent. This is as much strategic, enhancing growth and getting amazing content."

Tumblr, an image-intensive blog platform popular among a younger audience, could be the crown jewel in Mayer's major reclamation project of Yahoo, which is competing with Google and Facebook for billions in ad revenue.

At the press conference in New York later, Yahoo unfurled a revamped version of photo-sharing site Flickr, featuring big, bolder photos and an Android app.

"It feels like people are rooting for Yahoo," Mayer said, pointing to the return of former employees, or "boomerangs" to the company and a bump in online audience figures. "There is more energy on campus than before. Something is happening at Yahoo, and we feel it."

But in scooping up an online service that skews to a younger, more mobile audience, Yahoo -- whose demographic is older -- faces several hurdles. Key among them is integrating a vastly different core of users, keeping them happy and monetizing them.

Mayer admitted as much in a blog post, where she promised "not to screw it up."

The pledge tacitly acknowledges the Internet giant's spotty acquisition record. And this one could be tricky, analysts and investors say.

Technology analyst Jonathan Yarmis says that in the best of circumstances, acquisitions are hard and that Yahoo has never been in the best of circumstances, "whether it was a dysfunctional board trying to prove it's smarter than the last dysfunctional board, a viper's nest of competing fiefdoms, or a lack of a clear, consistent strategic vision," he said.

"Add all these...

Walter De Brouwer's Magical Medical Tricorder

Wed, 22 May 2013 06:40:37 -0500

In a warren of cluttered old offices rooted in the past, Walter De Brouwer is working feverishly to conjure the future. Founded in 1939 to explore the limits of propeller aircraft, today, NASA's scaled-back Ames Research Center near San Francisco "is a mysterious and iconic place with lots of memories of the big brains who came through here," De Brouwer says.

Count his brain in that mix. Operating in a two-story complex whose bathrooms date to the Cold War, De Brouwer, 55, and about a dozen engineers are hammering away on a gadget that promises to revolutionize the way we monitor our health.

Named Scanadu after De Brouwer's affinity for Samuel Taylor Coleridge's Xanadu-invoking poem, Kubla Khan (this Belgian entrepreneur's facile mind is as apt to drop literary references as pop culture ones), the company's handheld device takes vital signs, aggregates the data on an app and signals deviations from the norm. Scanadu is accepting early reservations for its device for $199 as of Wednesday at Scanadu.com.

In two decades as a tech guru, De Brouwer has used his semiotics Ph.D for an eclectic array of pursuits, from publishing a punk magazine to delving into brain-computer interaction. But this time, it's personal.

De Brouwer and his wife, Sam, 42, co-founded Scanadu a year ago after a private nightmare. Eight years ago, their son Nelson, now 13, jumped out of a window thinking he could fly. He landed on his head. The couple, who also have another son, Lamara, 20, spent months in hospitals struggling to understand technical information.

"You think you're smart, and then you realize you're not a doctor, and you understand nothing," says Sam, an elegant Frenchwoman who says that despite a brain injury, Nelson is thriving in a special-ed program. "It was a traumatic experience that left us thinking it would be...

Backing Up Is Hard To Do, But Do It Anyway

Wed, 22 May 2013 06:38:38 -0500

For many people, backing up their computers is like getting exercise or eating more vegetables: They know it's the right thing to do, but they just can't seem to get around to it.

I know, because I'm like that.

After buying a new computer last year, I never backed it up. I knew the dangers, of course. Hard drives fail all the time for all kinds of reasons. A power surge could fry the machine. Or a disaster of some kind could destroy it.

But I kept putting it off -- until it was too late. In December, my computer was stolen. Among the data I won't ever recover are the raw videos I had stored there of my daughter riding a bike for the first time and some stop-motion animated movies my son made.

Things could have been much worse. I use the Google (GOOG) Drive cloud service to store my documents, so I didn't lose them. Because I'm a subscriber to iTunes Match, which keeps a copy of users' music files on Apple's (AAPL) servers, I didn't lose my music collection. And I had copies of most of my pictures spread across a variety of places, including an old external hard drive, my Dad's computer and the memory card in my camera.

But I'm still kicking myself for what I lost. And I've been trying ever since to figure out the best solution for archiving my data.

I've long thought that an online backup service would make the most sense when compared with other options, such as an external hard drive or a network-attached storage unit.

Because your data is stored outside of your home, you're protected against disaster -- and theft. You don't have to worry about keeping an external drive plugged in or fret about it failing. And many still offer bargains. CrashPlan,...

Mr. Cook, About Those Loopholes . . .

Tue, 21 May 2013 09:26:41 -0500

A Senate panel says Apple Inc. is avoiding billions of dollars in U.S. taxes by shifting profits to foreign affiliates and is prepared to question the company's chief executive Tuesday about the "loopholes."

Apple CEO Tim Cook is expected to explain the company's tax strategy to the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, which released a detailed report Monday on the company's practices.

The world's most valuable company says it complies with the laws and pays "an extraordinary amount" in U.S. taxes.

Sen. Carl Levin, the panel's chairman, says Apple's use of loopholes in the U.S. tax code is unique among multinational corporations.

"Apple is exploiting an absurdity," Levin said at the start of the hearing.

The tone of the hearing turned tense before the Apple executives were scheduled to appear, as Sen. Rand Paul, an anti-tax hawk, insisted that the subcommittee apologize to Apple for unfair scapegoating.

"If anyone should be on trial here it should be Congress ... for creating a bizarre and byzantine tax code," said Paul. "If you want to assign blame, this committee needs to look in the mirror and see who created that mess."

Levin countered angrily that no such apology would be forthcoming. "Apple's a great company, but no company should be able to determine how much it's going to pay in taxes ..... by using gimmicks," he said.

The spotlight on Apple's tax strategy comes at a time of fevered debate in Washington over whether and how to raise revenues to help reduce the federal deficit. Many Democrats complain that the government is missing out on billions of dollars because companies are stashing profits abroad and avoiding taxes. Republicans want to cut the corporate tax rate of 35 percent and ease the tax burden on money that U.S. companies make abroad. They say the move would encourage companies to invest...