Rumour: New entry-level MacBook imminent
A video demo of an alleged new MacBook has surfaced on the same Vietnamese website that showed off another iPhone 4G prototype earlier this month
Tinhte.com is the name of said Vietnamese site that now claims to have the new MacBook, having posted a video showing off the machine on YouTube (which you can see below this news update).
MacBook spec bump
Specs for the MacBook shown off in the video include an Intel 2.4GHz Core 2 Duo processor (current models sport a 2.26GHz chip) and Nvidia GeForce 320M graphics (an update to the current Nvidia 9400M graphics).
No official word on when these alleged new MacBooks will be available.
However, if this boxed product shown off in the video by Tinhte.com is an actual new MacBook, then the fact that it is already boxed and ready for sale suggests that we may well seem them sooner rather than later!
Now all we really want to see is a MacBook Air update. Come on, Apple, share the wealth…
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New iPad case features Bluetooth keyboard
The Apple iPad is set to be released in the UK later in May, with shipping dates for those that pre-order Apple's new device already slipping into early June.
Demand for the new tablet PC from Apple is clearly high in Britain, although some computer users are still to be convinced by the lack of a traditional physical keyboard attached to the iPad.
Instant iNetbook
Hey presto! If you invest in a case for your new iPad you can solve the keyboard issue at the same time if you buy yourself a ClamCase – "the all-in-one: keyboard, case and stand… with a sea of features under its shell."
The ClamCase will also let you connect to "other compatible Bluetooth devices such as Sony Playstation 3, Tivo and HTPC (home theater PC) to give you the ultimate wireless keyboard experience," claims the marketing messaging.
The case itself is made from what is described as a "smooth yet grippy rubberized" material and the "the 360 degree hinge provides a more user-friendly hold for confident handling."
Viewing iStand
Finally, you can also flip it around and use it as a stand for using and viewing your iPad in tablet mode, allowing users " the capability to display a digital picture frame slideshow in both portrait and landscape views."
Whether or not this might convince netbook aficionados to give up their Eee PCs and MSI Winds once and for all is still to be seen…
Pricing and release dates are still to be confirmed. Check out the demo video from YouTube below.
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In Depth: 8 clever alarm clocks that do more than just wake you up
In the current era of touch-screen devices like the Apple iPad and smartcars that run on lithium-ion batteries, it's a wonder some of us still wake up to a clock-radio.
These ten advanced alarm clocks offer some new capabilities, although none will cook your breakfast...yet.
1. Logitech Squeezebox Touch
This 4.3-inch touchscreen music player uses the Squeezebox streaming service for music and internet radio. It lets you configure a different alarm for 7 days of the week, while it can also gradually raise the music volume. If you use the Mysqueezebox.com service it will play music all day. The colour screen shows crisp album art and track info.
2. HP DreamScreen 10-inch
While this hybrid picture frame and media streaming device serves multiple purposes, one of them is displaying a digital or analogue clock. You can set two different alarms and wake up to music. There are precious few options for changing the clock face (in fact, you only get two) but it's conceivable that HP will offer new designs for this Wi-Fi enabled device. We'd also like to see a way to automatically play a photo slideshow in the morning and configure an alarm playlist.
3. Chumby Classic
The re-designed Chumby One alarm clock lost some of its charm compared to this plush Chumby Classic - which comes in several colours and even includes goofy "charms" you can hang off the side. The clock has a sleep timer that plays your own MP3 tracks or chirping nature sounds while the programmable alarm lets you set a custom volume level. You can also set multiple alarms, the length of the chime, and even add a back-up alarm to go off after the first one sounds - it plays a loud sustained chime.
4. JBL On Time iPhone & iPod Alarm Dock
Outstanding audio quality and slim design separate this alarm clock from the rest of the pack. To play music, you'll need an iPod Touch or iPhone, but you can also use the rear 3.5mm auxiliary port. Remarkably, for a device that's only 284mm wide with just two 6-watt speakers, the sound quality is crisp and clear thanks to the audio drivers JBL uses to reproduce sound.
5. Vers 1.5R Compact AM/FM Alarm
Like the JBL alarm clock, the Vers 1.5R Compact AM/FM Alarm plays music from the iPod Touch or iPhone. The major difference: this device is actually made out of wood bought from managed plantations, is 100 per cent RoHS (Restriction of Hazardous Substances) compliant, and the plastic components are PVC and BFR free. Alarm settings allow you to choose between the radio and MP3 player, and the volume increases gradually. Sound quality over the 15-watt speaker is just about OK.
6. Sony Dash
This powerful alarm clock uses a 500-Mhz processor and the Chumby OS, and it is the best of the bunch in terms of what the device can do when the alarm goes off. The Dash can play a chime, and you can set multiple built-in alarms, but you can also open any app automatically - say, a newspaper widget, a photo slideshow, or an app with Twitter feeds. You can also play a video clip or listen to internet radio.
7. Brick House Security Internet Ready iSpy Hidden Camera Clock
This one looks like an ordinary alarm clock, but that's just a decoy. In reality, the device has a hidden surveillance camera that uses motion detection. You can stream H.264 video automatically over the web, and because it's battery powered, you can place it anywhere in your home.
8. iHome Audio iA5
The improved version of the original iHome alarm clock, the iA5 displays a large, highly readable time readout on the forward-facing speaker. You can configure up to 18 different alarms on the included iPhone or iPod Touch app, or use the built-in alarm if you are not charging your gadget. There's an option for a gradual volume increase and a sleep timer. The app's best feature, though, has to do with sleep stats: you can track when you wake up, average hours of sleep, and how often you snooze.
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Steve Jobs outlines his vision of freedom
Apple CEO Steve Jobs is not averse to a bit of late night email banter with tech bloggers, outlining his vision and understanding of 'freedom' in a late-night email exchange this week.
Jobs was responding to an email criticising the marketing campaign for the new Apple iPad, which he received late on Friday evening from Gawker writer Ryan Tate.
The heated email exchange is telling for a number of reasons. It reveals Jobs' thoughts about and attitudes to online pornography and his musings on what Bob Dylan might think of Apple's 'revolution' with the new iPad tablet PC.
For his part, Tate admitted to being mildly intoxicated when he saw an iPad TV advert late on Friday evening which claimed the iPad to be such a 'revolution'.
"If Dylan was 20 today, how would he feel about your company? Would he think the iPad had the faintest thing to do with 'revolution'? Revolutions are about freedom", Tate mailed Jobs after seeing red.
Traditional PC folks' world slipping away?
Remarkably, Jobs replied three hours later, telling the Gawker writer: "Yep, freedom from programs that steal your private data. Freedom from programs that trash your battery. Freedom from porn.
"Yep, freedom. The times they are a changin' and some traditional PC folks feel like their world is slipping away. It is."
Jobs goes on to make some further quite telling observations on internet porn, informing Tate that he "might care more when you have kids", and also has the following to say about the differences between Microsoft and Apple:
"Microsoft had (has) every right to enforce whatever rules for their platform that they want. If people don't like it, they can write for another platform, which some did. Or they can buy another platform, which some did.
"As for us, we're just doing what we can to try and make (and preserve) the user experience we envision. You can disagree with us, but our motives are pure."
Brattish sign-off
Somewhat annoyingly, Jobs then goes and spoils it a little (much to the disappointment of Apple's PR department, no doubt), by signing off with the following brattish-sounding remark:
"By the way, what have you done that's so great? Do you create anything, or just criticize others work and belittle their motivations?"
To be fair, Tate admits, following the email exchange with Jobs, that: "Rare is the CEO who will spar one-on-one with customers and bloggers like this. Jobs deserves big credit for breaking the mold of the typical American executive, and not just because his company makes such hugely superior products: Jobs not only built and then rebuilt his company around some very strong opinions about digital life, but he's willing to defend them in public. Vigorously. Bluntly. At two in the morning on a weekend."
You can read the entire exchange over on Valleywag. And you can see the TV ad spot that so riled Tate right below these words:
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Review: Many Tricks Witch 3
Witch 3 resembles a pro version of the Mac OS X app switcher, but instead of enabling you to access and focus open apps, Witch provides direct access to specific windows.
If you simultaneously use many apps with many windows, this alone should make Witch worth a look, since it speeds up workflow.
Witch 3 brings with it additional efficiency features. You can redefine the main shortcut to Command+Tab, 'replacing' the Mac OS X switcher. Usefully, Witch mimics native switcher shortcuts (an exception being 1 to invoke Dock Exposé in Snow Leopard) and adds its own.
When you've Witch's main window up, you can tap Q or H to quit or hide an application, respectively, or close (W), minimise (M) or zoom (Z) a selected window.
Keyboard users are further catered for by another dozen user-definable action shortcuts, including cycling the current app's windows.
Outside of shortcuts and actions, Witch 3 adds new appearance options. You can restrict its main window's width, which is useful for 'cropping' lengthy web-page titles. There's also a new option for saving appearance settings, and five presets are included.
Unfortunately, the new release still doesn't play particularly nicely with Spaces (although the developer says this is being looked into), and it now has Spaces-aware competition in the form of WindowFlow.
But for our money, Witch's responsiveness and efficiency edges it as a window switcher.
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Review: Codeweavers Crossover Mac 9.0
When you absolutely must run a Windows application on your Mac, you've got three options. Boot Camp will get you up and running with a proper full Windows installation, supplying all the raw power your hardware can muster and giving your programs 100% compatibility, at least in theory. This is Windows we're talking about, after all.
Next comes virtualisation – using applications such as Parallels Desktop and VMWare Fusion – which enables you to run your Windows installation on top of OS X, sacrificing a little grunt for the convenience of running everything in one bordered desktop.
And then there's Crossover. It's basically a Mac port of Linux's Wine, a compatibility layer for Windows apps; it's so close, in fact, that it maintains Wine's terminology, employing 'Bottles' to contain virtual system settings and instructions pertaining to your individual installed apps.
Unlike the other two options, Crossover doesn't need a full copy of Windows or the expensive licence that goes with it. It employs intricate emulators of all of Windows' key functions to run apps completely independently of Microsoft's operating system.
Still a way to go
Crossover has had its detractors over the years, and for good reason; here we are at version 9, and it's only just catching up with some of the more major Windows applications on the market.
There's a short list of programs – 700 or so – that CodeWeavers rates as Gold, and even this designation merely signifies that the application mostly runs as expected. This number does cover many of the applications that make it most useful.
Internet Explorer is there, for instance, which makes testing web designs with the world's most popular browser relatively straightforward. Legacy versions of Media Player are also supported, which is a cheeky way of playing WMV video.
But alternatives to these things already exist. You might as well use a service like IE Netrender to test your pages, while Flip4Mac is a much more elegant way to add WMV compatibility to OS X.
Whatever you might do with Crossover can be done just as well with something else. We're not suggesting that Crossover's sharp emulation of Windows' components isn't a remarkable achievement. It's logically fantastic, and the OS agnostic ethos behind it is flawless.
We hope CodeWeavers is thankful to the open source advocates who put Wine together in the first place.
But throughout running Crossover we were aware that we weren't getting the full Windows experience. Heck, we couldn't even get it to install IE7 without it falling over, and that was listed in its small selection of supported apps.
All that glitters…
Crossover is flaky. Its interface is equal parts ingenious and awkward. If you absolutely must run one of the applications on Crossover's Gold list it's certainly much cheaper than the rather steep combo of a Windows licence and one of the big two VM packages, but don't expect to rely on it for anything system-critical.
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Review: Postbox 1.1.4
Postbox is an email client that attempts to take the best features of Thunderbird 2.0 and Mail, synthesise them and give the best possible mail client around.
Postbox certainly has a long list of useful features, as well as a beautifully polished interface. Conversation threading lets you view lengthy email exchanges grouped either in the inbox or in a separate palette. Quick access to all the links, attachments and images embedded in emails is available in palettes and sidebars.
Two different types of tagging let you categorise messages for easy filtering. Facebook and Twitter integration lets you pull in profile pictures for contacts; To Dos let you prioritise emails.
Some Thunderbird third-party add-ons work and Thunderbird 3 features such as tabbed browsing and OS X Address Book integration are also present.
Unfortunately there's no unified inbox for all your email accounts, so you have to click between inboxes to see all your new mail. Plus there's no support for Exchange accounts, and no Time Machine or iLife integration. Thunderbird's advanced features are MIA, too.
Junk mail handling is poor and there's no way to improve it with SpamSieve. The application does provide an assistant to import accounts and messages from Mail and Thunderbird.
However, a Yahoo POP account imported directly from Mail never displayed any messages, even when there were over 40 dwelling on the server.
Postbox is tempting, but what you gain is offset by the things you lose.
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In Depth: What the internet might look like in 2020
Safe, secure and speedy: that's the internet of 2020. In a decade's time, the web will be a very different place.
There will be no crime, no malware and no fake online banking sites. Latency won't be a problem. High-definition video will be smooth, and buffering will be a distant, nightmarish memory. And that's not all.
The internet will have grown dramatically, making room for a new generation of connected devices: cars, phones, TVs, everything. Super-fast speeds are the rule, not the exception.
To borrow a phrase, it just works. At least, that's what we hope the web will be like.
To make it happen, engineers merely need to rethink the way the internet works and change pretty much everything. What could be simpler?
Some big changes are already in progress. The explosion of internet enabled devices means that we're running out of IP addresses even more quickly than expected: RIPE NCC's Managing Director Axel Pawlik noted in January that the pool of unassigned IPv4 addresses would run out as early as 2011. But the move to IPv6, which can handle around "a trillion trillion trillion" addresses – 3.4x1038 if you're feeling pedantic – is largely a software, not hardware, issue.
"In most cases it's very easy to reprogram connectivity software on a chip to ensure a device is IPv6 compatible," Pawlik says. But things aren't progressing as straightforwardly as you would think.
"Despite the simplicity of ensuring compatibility, widespread IPv6 take-up has so far been slow, and many of the best known digital devices available today, including the iPhone, do not yet support the next generation of IP addressing," warns Pawlik.
That lack of urgency is disappearing fast, with big names like Google implementing IPv6 support, router firms embracing the new system and new operating systems – including Windows and OS X – supporting it.
If we're late embracing IPv6, the internet won't grind to a halt – existing IP addresses will keep working – but as the European Commission reports, "the growth and also the capacity for innovation in IP-based networks would be hindered". The EU is pushing IPv6 hard, and it expects European ISPs and "the top 100 European sites" to be IPv6-enabled this year.
NOTHING ON TV?: Watch IPv4 addresses run out in real-time with the Hurricane Electric iPhone app
As a happy by-product of IPv6, widespread adoption will make the internet more secure too. The IPsec security protocol is a compulsory part of IPv6, which means all IPv6 communications can be encrypted and authenticated.
Route masters
We're using the internet in ways its creators couldn't possibly have imagined, from the rise of video to the sheer number of connected devices. We're constantly pushing the internet's capacity, stability and security, and inevitably cracks are beginning to show.
Aaron Falk is the Chair of the Internet Research Task Force (IRTF) and Engineering Lead with the Global Environment for Network Innovations (GENI). "There are many areas where the current architecture is straining to meet the needs of the users," he says.
"In particular, the areas of mobility, security, and network management were not well addressed in the original architecture, leading to a patchwork of mechanisms. The greatest concern is not so much that today's traffic is challenged but that the ad-hoc machinery being inserted into the network will inhibit future innovations. I worry about tomorrow's applications more than today's."
The IRTF is a technological trouble-shooter for internet architecture, as Falk explains: "The IRTF hosts research groups that work in areas 'adjacent' to the IETF (Internet Engineering Task Force). This can be pre-standards technologies, hard problems that emerge from the IETF or operations communities, technologies where the internet may be one of many possible communications strategies, or architectural issues."
He continues: "Sometimes research groups assist IETF working groups by bringing researcher expertise or otherwise 'pre-baking' technologies so they are ready for standardisation. For example, the Mobility Optimizations Research Group has been working on IP mobility solutions that feed into the MIPSHOP (Mobility for IP: Performance, Signalling and Handoff Optimization) working group for standardisation. Another example is the IRTF Research Group on Internet Congestion Control (ICCRG) which evaluates new congestion control proposals that arise in the IETF."
I dream of GENI
One of the problems with the current web is that it's too big and too important to muck around with. That's where GENI comes in. The Global Environment for Network Innovations is funded by the US National Science Foundation, and it's best described as a (serious) playground where new ideas can be tested out.
"GENI will support two major types of experiments," the organisation says. "Controlled and repeatable experiments, which will greatly help improve our scientific understanding of complex, large scale networks, and 'in the wild' trials of experimental services that ride atop or connect to today's internet and that engage large numbers of human participants.
"We're well underway on the second year of GENI prototyping, GENI Spiral 2," Falk says. "One of our more exciting activities is what we are calling 'meso-scale deployments' of virtualisable, programmable routers, switches, and WiMax base stations on 14 campuses and two national research backbone networks.
"Deployments like these are particularly exciting because they'll allow experimental applications and services built on GENI to directly reach real users on university campuses. Thus researchers will have the ability to build new services – perhaps incompatible with the current internet – and test them at-scale with real end-users."
One area of concern is routing tables, which the net's backbone routers use to direct online traffic. The BGP (border gateway protocol) routing table has grown hugely, doubling in size between 2003 and 2009, and there are concerns that if the level of growth continues, router hardware won't be able to cope.
UP AND UP: The BGP routing table doubled in size between 2003 and 2009, and it's still getting bigger
The IRTF's Routing Research Group (RRG) is investigating alternatives, and its goal is to produce solid recommendations that the IETF can implement.
Another related program is Rochester Institute of Technology's Floating Cloud initiative, which hopes to address the problem of routing table growth by moving the routing tables from inside routers to network clouds. Initial testing took place on a dozen Linux boxes, and the next step is to try it on GENI.
GENI isn't the only initiative that the NSF is helping to fund. Its Future Internet Architectures (FIA) program is offering $30million to fund projects that will transform the net. As the NSF puts it: "Proposals should not focus on making the existing internet better through incremental changes, but rather should focus on designing comprehensive architectures that can meet the challenges and opportunities of the 21st century."
FIA is a continuation of FIND, the NSF's Future Internet Design project. FIND asked researchers to redesign the internet from scratch, and FIA will narrow around 50 FIND projects down to two, three or four serious contenders.
With the existing internet, security is something that's largely been bolted on as an afterthought – but the FIA program expects security to be a key consideration from the outset. That's leading to some interesting ideas, including one security system that takes its cues from Facebook.
Davis Social Links (DSL) adds a "social control layer" to the network that identifies you not by your IP address but by your social connections. If it works – and DSL is in the very, very early stages of development – it could make a major dent in problems such as spam and denial of service attacks.
Eugene Kaspersky, CEO of Kaspersky Lab, would like to take things even further. In October, he argued that the internet's biggest weakness was anonymity, and that everyone should have online passports. "I'd like to change the design of the internet by introducing regulation – internet passports, internet police and international agreement – about following [web] standards," he told ZDNet Asia.
BORDER CONTROL: Should you produce your passport to get online? The CEO of Kaspersky Lab thinks it will improve security
Kaspersky explained further on the Viruslist.com blog: "When I say 'no anonymity', I mean only 'no anonymity for security control'," he writes, explaining that he couldn't care less what people posted on blogs or downloaded through BitTorrent. "The only [requirement] – you must present your ID to your internet provider when you connect."
Kaspersky argues that such requirements are inevitable, with some EU countries already introducing digital IDs. "Another prototype of e-passports is the two-factor authentication we use to access corporate networks," he says. "The only thing missing today is a common standard."
Security guru Bruce Schneier isn't convinced. "Mandating universal identity and attribution is the wrong goal," he writes on Techtarget. "Accept that there will always be anonymous speech on the internet. Accept that you'll never truly know where a packet came from. Work on the problems you can solve: software that's secure in the face of whatever packet it receives, identification systems that are secure enough in the face of the risks. We can do far better at these things than we're doing, and they'll do more to improve security than trying to fix insoluble problems."
The quest for improved security is attracting a lot of attention - and a lot of money. The US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) awarded contracts worth $56million in January to two firms as part of its National Cyber Range security programme, which will enable network infrastructure experiments, new cyber testing capabilities and realistic testing of network technology.
A month previously, Raytheon BBN Technologies was awarded an $81million contract by the Army Research Laboratory to build the largest communications lab in the US, again to research network security.
David Emm is part of Kaspersky Lab's Global Research and Analysis Team. "It would be unrealistic to expect a wholesale re-architecture of the internet, or even of some of the technologies that are used online," he says. "If we fix the problem by removing the facility, we run the risk of damaging legitimate activity too."
There's also the issue of displacement: if the internet becomes tougher to compromise, villains will simply switch to social engineering instead. As Emm points out, corporate email filtering to remove attached '.exe' files simply spawned the use of links rather than attachments to spread viruses and other malware.
"There has always been a human dimension to PC attacks," he says. "Patching code is fairly straightforward once you know what you need to fix. But patching humans takes longer and requires ongoing investment."
The last mile
There's another big piece of architecture that needs upgrading: the bit between your ISP and you. Whether that's a wired connection or a wireless one, today's technology needs a serious speed boost.
As Tim Johnson of broadband analyst Point Topic explains, " Over the past 15 years or so we've seen the data speeds that typical home users get going up roughly 10 times every five years. I think that will continue over the next decade so that by 2020 many users will be getting a gigabit on their home broadband.
"The big barriers that must be overcome to get there are (a) extending fibre all the way to the home, and (b) providing the backhaul capacity and the interconnect standards to make it useful," he elaborates. "Both of those are do-able but I think it will be quite late in the teens before they are achieved."
Johnson reckons that things will get particularly interesting when 100Mbps+ connections are the norm, as they will be able to deliver immersive, high-definition environments and "a huge new space of technology, applications and lifestyle possibilities".
But he's not convinced the internet can even handle that – not in its current form, anyway. "This kind of application is rather different from what the internet was designed for and is good at," he says.
"From an engineering point of view it will mean provisioning capacity that will allow users to set up assured end-to-end symmetrical calls of at least 20Mbps each way. There also needs to be a huge amount of standards development and investment to support setup and switching. […] It's possible that this could all be done across the open internet, but my own belief is that as this type of traffic grows it will create the need for more dedicated capacity. IP and intelligent multiplexing will still rule, but the basic architecture will be different."
Going mobile
In developed countries, the internet is moving away from the desktop and onto mobile phones and other wireless devices, while in developing countries the internet is primarily a mobile medium already.
In both developed and developing countries the number of mobile internet users will increase dramatically in the next decade. So if you think the mobile networks are creaky now, things could get considerably worse in a decade.
For the mobile internet at least, the future may look an awful lot like the past. As Jon Crowcroft of the University of Cambridge writes: "We are so used to networks that are 'always there' – so-called infrastructural networks such as the phone system, the internet, the cellular networks (GSM, CDMA, 3G) – and so on that we forget that once upon a time (why, only in the 1970s) computer communications were fraught with problems of reliability, and challenged by very high cost or availability of connectivity and capacity."
Noting that technologies such as email coped fine in those conditions, Crowcroft suggests that, "It appears that it's worth revisiting these ideas for a variety of reasons: it looks like we cannot afford to build a Solar System-wide internet just yet, [but] it looks like one can build effective end-to-end mobile applications out of wireless communication opportunities that arise out of infrequent and short contacts between devices carried by people in close proximity, and then wait until these people move on geographically to the next hop. It's interesting to speculate that these systems may actually have much higher potential capacity than infrastructural wireless access networks, although they present other challenges (notably higher delay)."
Such systems – variously called Intermittent, Opportunistic or Delay Tolerant networks – have a wide range of applications. They're useful in emergencies and in areas where there isn't an existing network infrastructure, and they're particularly well suited to emerging applications where a constant signal can't be guaranteed, such as internet-enabled cars. While such networks could ultimately be deployed in remote areas, for most of us the future of the mobile internet is very similar to what we've already got.
LTE (Long Term Evolution) is a kind of 3G network with knobs on, and in the UK at least it's generating much more interest than the rival WiMax technology. When LTE begins to roll out later this year it will deliver theoretical speeds of up to 140Mbps, rising to 340Mbps after a 2011 upgrade. An even faster version of the network, LTE Advanced, is in the works.
It's worth noting, though, that even the first version of the LTE network will take several years to roll out nationwide.
And WiMax? In February this year, Patrick Plas – Alcatel-Lucent's Chief Operating Officer for Wireless – told reporters that the company "is not putting a lot of effort into this technology any longer" as mobile networks were showing "a clear direction taken by the industry towards LTE". That's an honest indication of where the mobile internet is heading.
Looking ahead
Predicting the future is a tricky business, and predicting the future of the internet is doubly so. However, it's clear that the next decade will see some dramatic changes in the way the web works.
Some changes are definite – the move to IPv6 will happen, albeit more slowly than many would like – while other developments such as opportunistic networks may never become mainstream.
21st CENTURY: BT's 21CN project is a software-driven network that aims to drive innovation
What we can predict is that the internet of 2020 will be coping with user numbers and traffic volumes that we can barely imagine. To be able to cope with that, the net will probably become a hybrid: a mix of old and new.
As Falk puts it: "Recent interest in 'clean slate' network architectures encourages researchers to consider how the internet might be designed differently if, say, we knew then what we know now about how it will be used," he says.
"But that is not to say we must discard the current internet to fix the problems. The internet has tremendous value, has supported astronomical growth and changed the lives of millions of people. I believe research in new internet designs will provide insights on where the high-leverage points are on the current design thus allowing us to understand, justify, and deploy changes that will bring the greatest benefit."
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Review: green&slimy Thoughts 1.0.2
Thoughts bills itself as a flexible note and information manager, aimed at anyone wanting a hassle-free means of storing snippets and ideas.
On first launch, Thoughts immediately struck us as curious. It's a bit reminiscent of an iPad app – the interface resembles a real-world journal with 'bound' pages, notes are automatically saved, and content is shared via export to RTF, PDF, DOC or ODT, rather like Pages for iPad.
Despite a tiresome (and impossible to disable) page-turn animation, these aspects of Thoughts actually work pretty well, and it's easy to create new pages and search content by keyword or date.
Where things fall down is in the simplistic nature of page layouts; this is because in terms of functionality, Thoughts offers little over TextMate. Sure, there's a lovely toolbar for styling your text, but you only get the same options that are available in TextMate (which means no image formatting or resizing), along with buttons for adding links to web pages, email addresses and local files.
We also found it disappointing that no starter templates are offered to get you going with any document types.
Overall, Thoughts isn't a bad app, and it's a suitable – if somewhat pricey – means of keeping a digital diary or storing the odd snippet.
However, for more advanced writing tasks, the free Bean equals it; for task and information management, grab TaskPaper if you favour simplicity, or Things, which is as elegant as Thoughts but far more versatile.
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Guide: 10 ways to find bargains using Twitter
Twitter's immediacy and near ubiquity make it ideal for researching potential new purchases.
Be it product feedback, location-based advice or even price tracking, Twitter has plenty of tools up its sleeve to help you become a smart shopper.
1. Search a product
Making a standard Twitter search helps you to dredge up real-time comments that include any string you like. This can be useful for researching particular products or companies.
Head to http://search.twitter.com and enter your search terms. This gives you a blanket return on the item being tweeted globally. Your results are sorted by time, with the most recent ones first.
2. Check for complaints
If you use a search operator, you can narrow the results down to those that give you useful information about the product. Consider looking for tweets with a negative attitude: add a sad face (colon, open brackets) to the end of your search to find dissatisfied customers.
You'll need to apply some common sense to filter unjustified naysayers from genuine feedback. You can take the same approach to check out a company, or turn the frown upside down to look for positive tweets.
3. Localise the search
By adding near:location (where 'location' is the name of a city or area) to your search, you can find results by people whose location is set as close to that place.
For example, enter iphone near:bristol and you'll get tweets including the word 'iphone' from people in Bristol.
If you want to be more specific, go to Twitter's advanced search at http://search.twitter.com/advanced and set the distance in the 'Places' field.
4. Use Twitter Groups
Look for a group related to your product on Twitter Groups. Use the search utility to find groups dedicated to a related area of interest.
You'll find a list of tweets from that group shown in a widget at the bottom of its page. If you can't find a suitable group, click 'Create a group' to start one.
5. Follow the retailer
Once you've found out who stocks the product you're after, search for the retailer on Twitter and then opt to follow it.
A large number of companies keep interested customers up to date with their latest deals via the site, so it's definitely worth keeping an eye on their streams. You can always unfollow the retailer again once you've made your purchase.
6. Make a list
Set up a Twitter list that includes the retailers you're interested in plus anyone else who has useful information on the product.
On your Twitter homepage, click 'New List' under 'Lists' in the right-hand column. Give it a name and description and opt to make it private. Finally, select related users and add them to your list.
You can now view the latest tweets from list members by selecting that list from your Twitter homepage.
7. Follow bargain hunters
Make sure you're following those useful services that keep you up to date with the very latest bargains and deals out there.
The Money Saving Expert (@moneysavingexp) shares deals as and when they arise, as does @cheapstingy – although the latter tends to concentrate on bargains based on the other side of the Pond, which may or may not be of use.
8. Create reminders
Set a reminder to give yourself a nudge via Twitter if you need to make a time-sensitive purchase that you can't risk forgetting about.
Mind Me To provides a simple service to tweet you automatically when you ask it to. Details are at www.mindmeto.com.
Just follow @mindmeto and wait for it to follow you back. Now send a reminder tweet such as @mindmeto book concert tickets on Monday and you'll get your reminder. All you have to do is make sure you're online to see it!
9. Track packages
Another great notification tool is Track This, which provides you with updates on any package you're awaiting.
To use, follow @trackthis and wait for it to follow you back. Now send a message including the tracking code and a package nickname and it will message you when the package changes location.
10. Monitor products
This is a service that combines a Firefox extension with a Twitter bot to provide you with notifications when the status of an item at Amazon changes. It can tell you when a product becomes available or when the price next changes.
You can get the extension at www.buylatr.com, although it's not compatible with the latest version of Firefox, which is a minor irritant.
Once installed, you get a 'BuyLater' button on Amazon product pages. You also need to follow @buyitlater on Twitter. When you come across something you want to monitor, click the 'BuyLater' button and provide your contact details.
Be aware that while the extension is active, Firefox will be polling Amazon on behalf of BuyLater, even if you're not actively monitoring a product.
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4G iPhone finder's roommate tipped off Apple
The guy who found the 4G iPhone prototype in a Silicon Valley bar was tracked down after his roommate tipped-off Apple.
21-year-old Brian Hogan's roommate Katherine Martinson called an Apple security official to report the whereabouts of the lost 4G iPhone prototype, according to new documents made public in the case.
Bad cop show plot
In what sounds like the plot for a bad made-for-TV cop show, following Martinson's call to Rick Orloff, Apple's Director of Information Security, the police were then apparently sent on a bizarre search for information about the missing iPhone, which involved recovering a desktop computer hidden in a church and a USB thumb drive concealed in a bush!
If that didn't sound strange enough already, the lost iPhone's serial-number stickers were recovered from the parking lot of a gas station.
Wired has published the entire 10-page search-warrant affidavit which outlines the strange saga which ended up with Hogan selling the prototype to Gizmodo for $5,000. Cash.
Hogan had told his roommate that he had received a total of $8,500 for the phone, though it is still unclear where that extra $3,500 came from. The roommate has claimed that she told Hogan that he should really have returned the phone to the engineer that had left it in the bar - as Hogan had identified him via his Facebook profile on the iPhone.
Gizmodo had also promised Hogan a bonus when Apple officially announce the new iPhone, according to the roommate.
According to the affidavit Gizmodo editor Jason Chen is currently being charged with possible receipt of stolen property, copying of a trade secret, and destruction of property worth more than $400.
The case continues...
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