Google woos publishers for Android newsstand
As 2011 shapes up to be the year of the Android tablet, Google is working to get publishers on board with a digital newsstand venture for Android devices.The Android e-newsstand is set to include apps and content from a range of publishers but timings and further details are scarce.
The Wall Street Journal reports that El Goog has been talking to Time Warner, Condé Nast and Hearst Corp, although all three publishers declined to comment.
Ahead of the game
Apple already offers a range of digital magazines and newspapers in its iTunes store, but publishers are growing increasingly frustrated with Jobs' Lot's control over customer data.
Apple also takes a healthy chunk of subscription sales made through iTunes; around 30% goes to the fruity manufacturer, while Google has reportedly told publishers that its cut would be lower.
Google itself is staying tight-lipped about the venture, having released the following statement: "We've consistently said we're talking with publishers about ways we can work together, including whether we can help them with technology for subscription services. We have nothing specific to announce at this time."
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Google's Android text bug now dubbed 'critical'
Google has finally decided to up how seriously it is taking a flaw in its Android system that sends messages to the wrong person in a user's phonebook.The issue was reported back in June 2010, but Google has now decided to move the problem up to 'Critical' status, meaning a patch is likely to be imminent to the Android system to resolve the issue.
The problem is virtually undetectable to the user until alerted by someone else, because though the message is sent to the wrong number, it still displays as being directed to the correct recipient in the inbox.
Desert-based bug
It only appears to be affecting Android 2.2 and 2.3 devices, although which ones or why has yet to be explained by Google – we've leafed through reams of user comments and there doesn't seem to be any pattern.
However, the commenters are mostly using US phones, or those that have a US variant (such as the Nexus One or Samsung Galaxy S), so there's a good chance the UK isn't affected.
Obviously, this is an embarrassing issue for Google, so expect a patch in the near future if you've just bought a shiny new Froyo or Gingerbread device.
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Honeycomb to require dual-core processor and HD display?
Android 3.0 (Honeycomb) may have minimum hardware requirements, according to a Korean consumer electronics firm. The same source told PC Mag that these include such lofty requirements as dual core processors (the ARM Cortex-A9, to be precise) and an HD resolution of 1280 x 720.
Those of us on a tight post-Christmas budget may be aghast at this news, since high-end components do not a low price-point make.
The potential hardware requirements also put a question mark over OS upgrades to existing Android tablets.
Two versions of Honeycomb?
However, there are further rumours circulating that Google will also offer a lower-spec version of the Honeycomb OS for cheaper, less technically competent devices. Yeah, two versions of the same edition – that'll help the fragmentation issue.
Before you despair completely at the idea of being stuck with low-spec gadgetry, just remember that nothing is set in stone when it comes to Honeycomb: these are mere rumours.
Perhaps more will be revealed by Motorola as it unveils its Honeycomb-running tablet, known by some as the Motorola Xoom, at CES this week.
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The Carphone Warehouse offering up mobile phones for 1p
The Carphone Warehouse is attempting to show how wallet-friendly the humble mobile phone has become – by offering one for just 1p.It's not strictly as easy as finding a few pence in your wallet and equipping your family with new Alcatel OT-209's though, as you'll need to buy £10-worth of credit at the same time.
It's no iPhone-botherer, let's be honest; this is a feature phone in every sense of the phrase with a rounded plastic design, small screen and big buttons, although it does pack a colour screen and FM radio.
All the small savings
Matt Stringer, UK MD of The Carphone Warehouse said, "This is a great deal which represents brilliant value for money. The competition in the UK mobile market has seen the price of phones driven lower and lower over the last couple of year.
"Now, we've become the first to offer one for just one penny, which we hope will prove a huge money-saving hit with our customers after Christmas."
While technically true, The Carphone Warehouse has trumped this deal by offering 'free' phones on PAYG before, giving you the Nokia 1650 in exchange for £30 credit back in 2008 – but this £10 deal still trumps that even after you add in that extra 1p.
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Intel Sandy Bridge mobile preview
If you've read our review of Intel's new desktop Sandy Bridge processors, you'll know they're bonkers quick. But you'll also be aware that Intel's latest processor architecture is arguably more about mobile.On paper, the Sandy Bridge architecture looks purpose built to drop into laptop PCs. It's Intel's first chip with processor cores and high performance graphics on the same slice of silicon – it's almost a system on a chip.
Sandy Bridge is also based on Intel's latest 32nm production node and packs promising new features such as the Quick Sync Video encoder and AVX instruction extensions. Put it all together and you have a recipe for what could be immense mobile performance combined with better than ever power consumption.
Hard numbers
Happily, we can bring you some hard numbers regarding the first half of that equation. Intel let us loose in its labs with an early Sandy Bridge mobile evaluation platform. It's representative in terms of performance, but we'll have to wait just a week or two longer for a retail system our first glimpse of just how good Sandy Bridge's battery life will be.
Our sample Sandy Bridge notebook is running the Core i7-2820QM. That's a quad-core chip with an advertised frequency of 2.3GHz. As we'll see, that latter number doesn't mean much due to the aggressive implementation of Turbo Boost in the latest Sandy Bridge processors. For comparison we have both a dual-core Core i5-540M and a quad-core Core i7-740QM from Intel's existing mobile CPU line up.
Out of the gate, the new quad-core Sandy Bridge chip blows away the previous generation processors in the Cinebench R10 software rendering test. The new 2820QM clocks a time of just 47 seconds to the one minute and 27 seconds of the quad-core 740QM and one minute 42 seconds for the 540M dualie.
It's a similar story in the x264 HD video encode test, the new Sandy Bridger hitting 28.4 frames per second to the 740QM's 16.4fps and 12.7fps for the 540M. If you're wondering where the performance boost is coming from, much of it is thanks to Turbo Boost 20.
With all four cores active, and even running inside a thermally suboptimal development chassis, the new 2820QM runs at between 2.8GHz and 3.0GHz. Of course, Sandy Bridge has that funky Quick Sync Video transcode engine so the gap with supporting encode software will be even bigger.
Get a load of the graphics
Arguably just as interesting is the performance of the new Intel HD Graphics video core. All the new Sandy Bridge mobile chips get the full 12-processor HD Graphics 3000 version. The direct comparison here is with the 540M, since the 740QM lacks integrated graphics.
Anyhow, the shizzle here is 27fps for the new Sandy Bridge graphics compared to 15fps for the 540M in Call of Duty 4 at high detail and 1280 x 800 resolution. Actually, the number for the Sandy Bridge is a little lower than we expected. But we anticipate slightly better performance from final retail laptops.
If that's a sneak peak at the performance of the new Sandy Bridge processors, the elephant still standing is battery life. On paper, the new Core i7-2820QM doesn't look like a big step forward by this metric. After all, it has the same 45W TDP as existing quad-core mobile Intel processors. In fact, none of the new mobile Sandy quads is rated below 45W.
However, Intel's TDPs are only rough guides. What's more, the new graphics core of the Sandy Bridge chips must fit inside that TDP. Existing Intel mobile quads contain only CPU cores. All of which means we're hopefully for some serious progress. With any luck quad-core might just be the new dual-core.
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CES 2011: Mitsubishi dreams big with 155in OLED display
Along with a 92-inch 3D TV that can be used to dominate the living rooms of the wealthy, Mitsubishi will be showing off a mammoth 155-inch OLED display at CES 2011. 155 inches. That's almost four meters of crisp, OLED goodness. It won't be adorning an entire wall of your home, however; this bad boy is intended for advertising and other forms of digital display, probably with a price tag to match.
Mitsubishi itself sold at least one 3.8-metre (150-inch) display last year, but what will make the 155-inch display really impressive is if it consists of one single OLED panel. We suspect that it doesn't, given the manufacturing issues still prevalent in the OLED industry, but we're always ready to be proved wrong.
Big, bigger, biggest
The OLED behemoth offers super-high contrast and will dwarf the otherwise-enormous 92-inch 3D TV on show.
Before the 92-incher came on the scene, the largest 3D Mitsubishi you could indulge in was and 82in model – we hear those extra 10 inches make all the difference.
Mitsubishi will also be showing off a number of 3D projectors and a mini photo printer at the tech show in Las Vegas.
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CES 2011: Toshiba demos glasses-free 3D laptop
Toshiba is demonstrating a glasses-free autostereoscopic 3D laptop at CES 2011 in Las Vegas this week.According to Engadget, Toshiba's new glasses-free 3D notebook could well see a commercial release at some point in 2011, although there is no official word from Tosh on any plans for launch.
Dead-zone free 3D
The new Toshiba Qosmio packs in head- tracking technology in an attempt to create "dead-zone free stereoscopic 3D images."
The Qosmio laptop has two parallax 3D LCD screens, with a special eye-tracking feature that knows when you shift the position of your head.
Which basically means you don't need glasses and you don't need to keep your head in one place in order to enjoy the 3D illusion from the laptop.
Toshiba's director of product marketing Phil Osako is confident that the company will bring a glasses-free 3D lappy to market at some point this year.
It's interesting to see Toshiba pushing the potential of what is possible with a 3D laptop and we will be sure to bring you further news on any plans for a commercial release of this latest 3D tech as and when we hear more.
Right now, it's all a bit blurry…
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Opinion: Intel's Sandy Bridge video transcoder cock up
Did Intel forget to enable its intriguing Quick Sync Video transcoder engine, as found in its new Sandy Bridge processors, on the P67 platform? You can read our full review of the launch chips, including the awesome Intel Core i7 2600k.
For those who haven't, the elevator pitch for Intel's new processor architecture goes something like this. It comes in dual and quad-core trim. It has extremely impressive 2D and 3D video capabilities. And it's bonkers quick.
It is not, however, perfect. Initially, we thought all the problems were due to dumb marketing decisions. We're still pretty sure, for instance, the restriction of the fastest HD 3000 graphics engine to the two unlocked K Series models, the Core i5 2500K and the i7 2600K, is purely marketing driven.
Likewise, we think it's unlikely Intel really needs another new CPU socket – especially one that drops just a single pin – and we suspect the overclock-killing internal clock generator was marketing motivated rather than architecturally essential. As for Intel's increasingly batty branding, the less said the better - quite literally. The last time we tried to explain what the whole Core i3, i5 and i7 shebang meant, it nearly reduced us to tears.
Intentional omission or embarrassing oversight?
However, there's one Sandy Bridge anomaly that increasingly looks like an oversight at best and a major cock up at worst. It involves Quick Sync Video, the 2D video transcoding engine that's found in all Sandy Bridge processors, regardless of specification or core count.
More accurately, the Quick Sync Video engine is actually part of the new integrated Intel HD Graphics core. The problem, of course, is that the P67 chipset is discrete. In other words, it doesn't support the integrated graphics core.
Exactly why you would want to completely rule out any possibility of using the integrated graphics isn't clear. Intel argues the P67 is a performance chipset and that's fair enough. But there's no harm in having the integrated core as a back up option.
Anyway, the current upshot of all this is that Quick Sync Video requires the HD Graphics core to be enabled. But you can't enable the HD Graphics core on any P67 board. So, you can't have Quick Sync Video on the highest performing Sandy Bridge platform.
That's a serious downer for two reasons. Firstly because Quick Sync Video looks like it might well be killer for video encoding. Our initial testing suggests it's nearly four times quicker than CPU encoding. And bear in mind, that's CPU encoding on the 2600K, which is a ludicrously fast processor. Quick Sync Video is probably ten times faster, perhaps even more, than a chip like an old Core 2 Duo.
The problem with P67
The other problem is that the P67 is currently the only chipset that fully supports Intel's new overclocking regime. You can read more about that in our Sandy Bridge review, but the bottom line is that performance enthusiasts will want the P67 chipset. But they'll also want to use Quick Sync Video. And since they've paid for the frigging HD Graphics core, why shouldn't they be able to use that? It's all thoroughly unsatisfactory.
Making this whole story even more intriguing is the rumoured arrival of a third consumer-orientated Sandy Bridge chipset known as Z68. If the scuttlebutt is correct, the Z68 is the one chipset to rule them all. It supports both the HD Graphics core and the overclocking options. In other words, it's what the P67 should have been.
Quite why the Z68 is not available at launch we cannot say with certainty. But it sure looks like Intel suddenly – and belatedly - realised the P67 has a major problem.
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Explained: How MP3 compression works
Ask us to name a universally known file format, and it would probably be a toss-up between MP3 and JPG. Simply put, if you're a fully paid up member of the digital multimedia revolution, you will have thousands of these files on your computer's hard drive – music you listen to and photos you look at – both of which have been compressed to cram as much information as possible into the minimum of space.
What is an MP3?
The MP3 is a fairly recent invention in digital music and sound. Before that, there was the compact disc, or CD. The audio on a CD is converted from an analog source, such as the master tape (although these days, most audio is recorded directly as digital).
The analogue wave can't be recorded digitally as it is, so a digital audio processor is used to sample the analogue audio wave 44,100 times a second. This means, at every tick, the digital audio processor works out the amplitude of the original very complex audio wave.
It records this as a two-byte value, so there are 65,536 possible values for this amplitude: 32,767 values above zero and 32,767 below. It does this sampling for the two channels of stereo as well.
For a CD, the values of the amplitudes are stored directly onto the CD as a series of pits that the laser in your optical drive can read and interpret. No compression is done on the data stream.
Since a CD can store up to 74 minutes of music, we can calculate the storage capacity of a CD: 74 minutes ≈ 60 seconds per minute ≈ 44,100 samples per second ≈ two bytes per sample ≈ two channels = 783,216,000 bytes or 747MB.
Furthermore, the I/O channel that the CD uses needs to be able to transfer 176kB of data per second to the digital audio processor (the one that reconstructs the analogue audio wave from the digital data and then feeds it through the amplifier to the speakers).
Recording soundwaves
The reason for the sample rate and the amplitude measurement is fairly mundane. Suppose we're sampling the waveform shown in Figure 1.
If we sample at too low a rate, we may miss some peaks and troughs in the original audio and so the resulting waveform may sound completely different and muddy.
Figure 2 shows this scenario, where the resulting waveform in red looks quite different from the original. We therefore need to sample much more often. Given that the human ear (in general) only hears a tone up to about 20kHz in frequency, we should therefore sample at least twice that rate in order to properly capture the highs and lows of the audio wave at that frequency. With a fudge factor added just in case, the rate settled on was 44,100Hz.
Figure 3 shows a different problem: the number of possible values for the amplitude is fairly small. From the original measured amplitude, the processor must choose the closest value it can record. Here we've got a fairly high sample rate, but the measurements of the amplitude are pretty coarse.
Again, the resulting waveform looks different from the original – a little more subtle perhaps, but it could still alter the sound pretty badly (highs might be higher than the original, for example, making the result more shrill and meaning that subtle nuances in the music are lost).
Here, a different criterion comes into play: making the sample values fit into a whole number of bytes to help make the output DAC's job easier. One byte would be far too small for this (with only 256 different values for the amplitude), so the original designers decided on two bytes per sample.
There things stood until the age of the personal computer and the internet. A three-minute track on a CD (which is the length of a typical pop song) occupies 31,752,000 bytes, or just over 30MB. Downloading a CD track using a 9,600 baud modem would take hours, and would still take well over an hour on a 56K dialup modem (the fastest retail modem before broadband became mainstream).
On a typical broadband connection (12mbit/s download, for example), that track would take under three minutes to download, meaning you could just about stream it while listening to it. The solution would seem to be to compress the digital audio data.
As it happens, compressing a typical CD track with something like the Deflate algorithm in Zip doesn't actually give many space savings. The reason is the data stream exhibits randomness: the two-byte accuracy of the sampling means that even similar pieces of music encode slightly differently, negating the benefits of dictionary compression algorithms such as Deflate. Random data doesn't compress, so CD tracks don't compress terribly well at all.
Trimming the edges
The next solution is to use a lossy compression scheme. Such a scheme essentially throws away unimportant data in order to make the result more compressible. On decompressing the data, the algorithm doesn't produce exactly the same output as the original input, but we don't notice the difference.
This kind of algorithm is therefore only of any real use for things such as images, video, and audio. For images and photos, the archetypal lossy compression algorithm is the JPG file format. The vast majority of lower-end digital cameras produce JPG images as a matter of course.
The reasons are primarily to do with smaller file sizes: more photos can be stored on the camera's internal flash storage, and transferring photos to a computer takes less time. Of course, the fact that the vast majority of digital photos are only viewed on a computer screen (sometimes as thumbnails more often than full size) and never digitally manipulated that much means that JPGs are more than sufficient.
High-end DSLRs and professional cameras use a RAW format, which, although it may be compressed, isn't lossy-compressed. We don't usually notice that JPG is a lossy compression format because the algorithm only discards information that the human eye would have difficultly perceiving when viewed alongside other parts of the photo.
With audio compression, we take advantage of the imperfect nature of the human ear to help us identify (and discard) unimportant parts of the music: there are frequencies we can't hear, there are frequencies we distinguish better than others, and when two sounds play at the same time, we hear the louder sound rather than the softer one.
Why use MP3?
The MP3 algorithm uses these details to remove those sounds we can't hear (or have difficulty in perceiving among the rest of the audio) to simplify the data stream to make it more compressible. The idea is to tweak things so that the removed data does not hurt the quality of the audio for the eventual listener.
Nevertheless, to make things plain, MP3 cannot produce CD quality audio since it eliminates information from the data stream; instead we call the result near-CD quality or even FM quality. However, the compression ratio we obtain is truly remarkable: three minute MP3 tracks are typically between 3MB and 5MB in size – about an order of magnitude smaller than the original CD track.
The MP3 algorithm has a single tuning knob that enables us to determine how much information is thrown away. Some people will be fine with increasing the lossy part of the compression algorithm because they only listen to MP3s in a noisy environment – in a car or a busy office, for example. Within a noisy environment, you won't hear the most subtle sounds, so it makes sense to optimise for file size rather than audio quality.
If you're listening to music in a quieter environment, such as at home in your living room, you may be more aware of the loss of quality and not so bothered by file size. The lossy algorithm tuning knob is known as the bit rate.
Bit rates are measured in bits per second; MP3 varies from 96kbps to 320kbps. At the low end of the scale, 96kbps or 128kbps is equivalent to FM radio. At the high end of the scale – say 256kbps to 320kbps – the sound quality is comparable to that of a CD.
The speed of sound
Remember that a CD delivers data at a rate of 176KB/s, or 1,400kbps. This means that a song saved at the 96kbps bit rate is roughly 1/14 of the size of a CD track. At the 256kbps bit rate, files are about a fifth of the size.
So, for example, if your car's CD player can play MP3 CDs (that is, data CDs containing MP3s), you'll be able to put five times as many 256kbps bit rate MP3 tracks on the CD as you could on a standard audio CD.
The burning question then is: which bit rate do you go for when you want the best sound you can get for the smallest file size? The only subjective variable here is quality: what I might deem as acceptable quality, you might cringe at, or vice versa.
Various experiments have been conducted and it's been discovered that, in general, people can't tell the difference between an audio track encoded as a 256kbps MP3 and one from a CD. The only significant statistic is that if you know a particular track very well from CD, you're more likely to spot an MP3-encoded version of it than if you're listening to a track you've never heard before.
The MP3 file format was designed to contain more than just the lossy-compressed audio data. The file consists of a set of MP3 frames, each comprising a header and corresponding data.
A set of frames may be enclosed inside a tag to indicate that the frames are describing something special, such as metadata about the MP3 track (the artist's name, title, album, track number, musical genre, album art and so on).
Add your own data
Although the MP3 standard doesn't define its own standards for these metadata tags, there are two that have grown into standards through being recognised by several audio players. These are the ID3v1 and ID3v2 tags – although there's also a new one called APEv2, which is gaining familiarity and approval.
On playback, the metadata tags are generally read by the audio player, so that relevant information can be displayed for the user. Although many CD rippers create metadata for your tracks and embed them in the MP3 files (and programs such as iTunes enable you to edit the metadata for your tracks), there are MP3 tag editors that allow you to manipulate the metadata at a finer level, or in block mode.
All in all, MP3s have changed the music environment for good. Although you can still buy CDs – or if you're really old-school, vinyl – most people consume their music through MP3 or AAC.
Online retailers such as Amazon and iTunes help you buy MP3s for immediate download and gratification. Online radio stations, including Pandora and Spotify, enable you to listen to lossy-compressed streamed tracks without the need for purchase.
Programs like iTunes and Windows Media Player enable you to rip your CDs as MP3s onto your hard disk for later listening. Audio players such as the iPod and Zune let you to listen to your MP3-encoded music wherever you want to. In short, MP3s are here to stay.
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CES 2011: Kodak launches new tiny and rugged pocket cams
Kodak has launched its latest range of affordable digital cameras and pocket camcorders at CES 2011 this week.Up first is the Kodak Easyshare Touch, featuring a 3-inch capacitive touchscreen display, a dedicated video recording button, 14-megapixel image sensor, 5x optical zoom and HDMI input.
Credit card size cam
Easyshare Mini is "about the size of a credit card" with a 10-megapixel image sensor, 2.5-inch LCD display, a 3x optical zoom lens and a front mirror – should you need to check your hair before taking a picture!
Finally, the Kodak Easyshare Sport is a waterproof camera that can go up to ten feet underwater and is tough enough to cope with dirt and dust – with this 12-megapixel, 2.4-inch LCD display cam no doubt being marketed to fans of extreme sports.
As far as Kodak's new pocket cams go, the second generation Kodak Playsport is joined by the new tiny-sized Kodak Playfull.
The 'real Kodak moment'
"Innovation at Kodak has always been focused around making the complex simple for our customers," says Betty Noonan, Kodak Director and Vice President, Business to Consumer Marketing.
"Today, Kodak continues to bring technological advancements to market that make it easier and more convenient for consumers to share with their friends and family in their own unique way. The real Kokak Moment happens when you share and that drives our ongoing commitment to leading the evolution of imaging by developing intelligent solutions that marry consumer insights with innovative technology."
While many of us already use our iPhone 4s and Android smartphones as 'pocket cams', dedicated devices such as those from Kodak still have a few advantages – not least the fact that the Playsport can go underwater and still shoot crystal clear 1080p video.
The Playfull is Kodak's new entrant into the pocket cam world, which shoots the same 1080p video and 5MP stills as the Playsport, with the addition of a retractable USB arm and a far smaller form factor to help slip in your jean's pocket.
The new Playsport video camera is set to cost $179.95 in the US.
UK pricing and release details should follow shortly. We'll update this news story as soon as we have them.
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HTC's first tablet outed as HTC Scribe?
HTC's inevitable foray into the tablet market looks imminent after the Taiwanese firm trademarked the HTC Scribe name.The trademark application was filed for a 'handheld wireless device, namely a tablet computer' and the assumption is that this device will see HTC joining the Android-powered iPad rivals' race.
The application doesn't give away much more than the name of the device and the date of the filing (Boxing Day, if you're interested) but we'd imagine it will be running Honeycomb and therefore have a high resolution screen and dual-core innards.
We'd be surprised if the HTC Scribe name actually made it to the model we see on our shelves, as we doubt it's going to come with a pen device a la the tablets of the early 21st century.
Somethin's a-brewin'
HTC looks set to announce something big at CES or Mobile World Congress this year, and in addition to the standard Desire and Legend refreshes it wouldn't be a surprise to see a new tablet turn up too.
This would mean a UK release date of around March or April, and given HTC's recent track record, a not-too-ridiculous UK price could follow as well.
TechRadar is patrolling the floors of CES as we speak, so if nothing turns up there we'll turn our tablet-focused laser sights to the halls of Barcelona for MWC in February.
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CES 2011: Samsung overhauls 9-Series 3D TV aesthetic
Samsung's latest 3D TVs will offer consumers a snazzy new design: a 9-series TV with a bezel that morphs into the base.It may not be to everyone's taste, but the new look would certainly add a shark-like design element to the corner of your living room.
Unfortunately, technical specs are a bit thin on the ground, but the display is said to be an LED-backlit LCD.
A lot to live up to
Samsung's existing top-end 3D TV, the Samsung UE55C900, also offers LED-backlighting and a ridiculously slim form as well as Wi-Fi connection via a dongle.
It may not be as thrilling to the eye as the new model, but it did garner a full five-star review when we saw it in July last year; hot new design aside, the updated 9-series has plenty to live up to.
The new set will be unveiled at this year's CES, which kicks off in Las Vegas tomorrow.
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CES 2011: Samsung overhauls 9-Series 3D TV aesthetic
Samsung's latest 3D TVs will offer consumers a snazzy new design: a 9-series TV with a bezel that morphs into the base.It may not be to everyone's taste, but the new look would certainly add a shark-like design element to the corner of your living room.
Unfortunately, technical specs are a bit thin on the ground, but the display is said to be an LED-backlit LCD.
A lot to live up to
Samsung's existing top-end 3D TV, the Samsung UE55C900, also offers LED-backlighting and a ridiculously slim form as well as Wi-Fi connection via a dongle.
It may not be as thrilling to the eye as the new model, but it did garner a full five-star review when we saw it in July last year; hot new design aside, the updated 9-series has plenty to live up to.
The new set will be unveiled at this year's CES, which kicks off in Las Vegas tomorrow.
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Intel's Sandy Bridge chip to offer built-in DRM
The soon-to-be-revealed Sandy Bridge chip from Intel will offer customers a little something extra: new-release movies that will be streamed to computers using the super-chip. Warner Bros is among the Hollywood studios planning to offer high-definition films via Sandy Bridge, with Intel working to strike deals with other content distributors.
Films will be available at the same time as they are released on DVD and the chip comes with built-in DRM to prevent pirating of the streamed content.
Jack of all trades?
By wooing Hollywood with its protected premium content option, Intel hopes to differentiate itself further from competitors and make chip choice more important to the PC consumer and movie studios alike.
Intel's Sandy Bridge CPU promises improved multimedia processing and, because the central processing and graphics processing are done on the same piece of silicon, it is said to be faster and more efficient than previous iterations.
The long-rumoured CPU was recently shipped to manufacturers and is set to be officially revealed at CES this week.
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Disney gives Blu-ray classics a 3D makeover
Tron: Legacy is set for release on 3D Blu-ray from Disney later this year, in addition to at least 14 other 3D titles, with a number of 2D-to-3D conversions of classics also promised. It's a solid show of support from one of the major producers of 3D movies, with some great conversions of flicks such as The Lion King and Beauty and the Beast in the works.
Uncle Walt supports 3D TV
"Continuing its leadership in the advancement of 3D entertainment and marking the most significant title commitment to the growing Blu-ray 3DTM market, the Walt Disney Studios today announced plans to release at least 15 of its films for in-home viewing on Blu- ray 3D in 2011," reads Uncle Walt's press release just in.
One person who is particularly pumped about the news is Lori MacPherson, executive vice president and general manager, Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment, who tells us:
"As our contemporary library of 3D content continues to grow, and the original artists and filmmakers meticulously "dimensionalize" their work for release on the Blu-ray 3D format, we will be offering movie- lovers the most incredible in-home entertainment experience they will ever have."
Also included among the titles slated for release in 2011 are Bolt, Meet The Robinsons, The Nightmare Before Christmas, G-Force and Chicken Little.
Blu-ray Disc Association on 3D spec
Speaking about the 3D Blu-ray spec, Andy Parsons, US chairman of the Blu-ray Disc Assn.'s (BDA) promotions committee and senior VP of product planning at Pioneer Home Entertainment Group told Reuters:
"I don't think I've ever seen an association turn out a spec in such rapid time. The alternative would have been two or three different ways to do 3D on a disc - and that's death to a format. Everyone understood that could happen. We avoided what could have been an ugly, messy situation."
Rich Marty, VP of new business marketing at Sony added: "We will see large 3D (Blu-ray) theatrical releases, timed day-and-date with their 2D Blu-ray counterparts.
"As conversion techniques continue to get better and the cost of conversion comes down, there will be growing interest to do more of these titles."
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Disney gives Blu-ray classics a 3D makeover
Tron: Legacy is set for release on 3D Blu-ray from Disney later this year, in addition to at least 14 other 3D titles, with a number of 2D-to-3D conversions of classics also promised. It's a solid show of support from one of the major producers of 3D movies, with some great conversions of flicks such as The Lion King and Beauty in the Beast in the works.
Uncle Walt supports 3D TV
"Continuing its leadership in the advancement of 3D entertainment and marking the most significant title commitment to the growing Blu-ray 3DTM market, The Walt Disney Studios today announced plans to release at least 15 of its films for in-home viewing on Blu- ray 3D in 2011," reads Uncle Walt's press release just in.
One person who is particularly pumped about the news is Lori MacPherson, Executive Vice President and General Manager, Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment, who tells us:
"As our contemporary library of 3D content continues to grow, and the original artists and filmmakers meticulously "dimensionalize" their work for release on the Blu-ray 3D format, we will be offering movie- lovers the most incredible in-home entertainment experience they will ever have.
Also included among the titles slated for release in 2011 are Bolt, Meet The Robinsons, The Nightmare Before Christmas, G-Force and Chicken Little.
Blu-ray Disc Association on 3D spec
Speaking about the 3D Blu-ray spec, Andy Parsons, U.S. chairman of the Blu-ray Disc Assn.'s (BDA) promotions committee and senior VP of product planning at Pioneer Home Entertainment Group told Reuters:
"I don't think I've ever seen an association turn out a spec in such rapid time. The alternative would have been two or three different ways to do 3D on a disc -- and that's death to a format. Everyone understood that could happen. We avoided what could have been an ugly, messy situation."
Rich Marty, VP of new business marketing at Sony added: "We will see large 3D (Blu-ray) theatrical releases, timed day-and-date with their 2D Blu-ray counterparts.
"As conversion techniques continue to get better and the cost of conversion comes down, there will be growing interest to do more of these titles.".
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Interview: Firefox, Linux and the future of the web
Tristan Nitot started working for Netscape in 1997, and was one of the first volunteers to work on the Mozilla project that rose out of Netscape's ashes. He started Mozilla Europe (he's now president of that organisation) and has seen the birth, growth and worldwide success of Firefox from the inside – so who better to ask about the future of the project, how its guiding philosophy chimes with that of Linux and why the folks at Mozilla welcome the competition from Google's mighty Chrome.
He sat down with Linux Format to have a chat.
Linux Format: Could you briefly describe the Mozilla community for us? Most users are happy with the software and don't think about the people behind it.
Tristan Nitot: The Mozilla community is a very energetic, passionate group. It seems to be getting bigger all the time: every year we need bigger facilities for our meetups!
Like most communities, there is an international element, where people communicate in English, and sometimes French or Spanish – at least in Europe – and there are local communities who are especially active in their own region, have their own site, and their own meetups, and will usually drive localisation for their language or locale.
Equally, there are many people involved at Mozilla who probably don't feel an affiliation to a particular regional community, but to the global project. That's the beauty of the internet. The community covers quite a range of interests.
We have a lot of web developers who are very active inside Mozilla, a lot of FLOSS hackers and a lot of open culture activists too. At our core is a shared belief in the public benefit of the internet: an internet that is transparent, open, international, shared and participatory.
That probably describes the Mozilla community the best: participatory.
LXF: How have you seen the landscape of the browser wars change over the years?
TN: It evolved from the 90s from a duopoly (Netscape vs Microsoft) to a scary monopoly by Microsoft. Innovation totally stopped back then, and if you weren't using a Windows computer, your experience of the web was likely to be quite inferior.
This was quite depressing, since we are – even today – in the early days of the internet, and tons of things remain to be invented. It's only when Firefox started to take massive market share from Internet Explorer that Microsoft decided to reinvest into Internet Explorer and start to support more open standards.
Now things are looking a lot better for the future of the web, as users have a choice of browsers and innovation is here. I don't think it is a coincidence that the development of the web has coincided with more choice in the desktop operating system market.
LXF: Where do you feel Firefox fits into the current landscape of browsers today?
TN: The browser is what represents us online. It's the piece of software that knows the most about you. This is why you need to have a web browser that is secure and built by an organisation you can trust.
Mozilla – which is an online community led by a public benefit organisation – is uniquely positioned to deliver such a browser, independent and secure, yet very easy to use and of course customisable.
LXF: What can we expect to see in future releases from the Firefox stable?
TN: Performance, innovation and customisation. The upcoming Firefox 4 is very fast and offers things that make it easier and more productive to browse the web.
A few things I love about Firefox 4 are: a new theme which leaves more space for the content; the notion of "App tabs" so that web applications such as your webmail are always visible in the Tab bar; and Panorama, a feature that enables me to visually organise my dozens of tabs.
We're also close to finally implementing support for HTML5 and a few other related open standards, and Sync (which started as the Weave project) is included in Firefox by default.
LXF: How is Mozilla embracing the mobile market?
TN: Bringing Firefox to mobile phones is the next step towards fulfilling Mozilla's mission of providing access to the web for everyone, regardless of device or location. Additionally, Mozilla aims to provide a rich platform for developers to create compelling content and innovative apps.
Firefox is fast, secure and customisable: something that most mobile browser don't really offer. Firefox mobile will also syncs with the Firefox on your desktop. In addition to our work on Maemo/MeeGo, we have just released Firefox 4 beta for Android, our first version for Android phones.
We're investing heavily in this market: Mobile is the future of browsing and Android is a growing market and a platform that enables us to develop and offer a full-featured browser!
LXF: There has been criticism in the past that Mozilla doesn't care about Linux so much these days. What is the current position on Linux from Mozilla?
TN: Our vision for the web is that it is a truly interoperable platform: that it is a good measure of our success if you can experience the web as well on Linux as you can on a proprietary operating system. This is what the browser wars were about, after all.
And while the web is winning today, we're never going to be complacent about that. And we've been investing in the GNU/Linux market since day one.
Linux is important for us for a number of reasons: our missions align, many of our community members run Linux, and Android and MeeGo/Maemo, the phone markets on which we focus, are Linux derivatives.
LXF: In recent months the browser of choice for many Linux users has been Chromium. What do you think of Chromium and how it compares to Firefox?
TN: Chromium is a very good product, but its guiding philosophy is very different from Firefox. Following the Linux philosophy, Firefox tries to use the libraries that are already in your system (XRender, Pango) and we contribute in order to improve these libraries.
Chromium, on the other hand, is statically built against its own libraries. This allows Chromium to be slightly faster but uses more memory, and in many cases Google's coding investments in these libraries are less beneficial to the Linux ecosystem.
When you want to sync your browsing history between several browsers, several options are available. With Chromium, you could sync via your Google account. We at Mozilla consider that your browsing history is yours and should remain private. While data has to be stored on a server to be synced, our solution is to encrypt everything on the client-side before sending it to the Mozilla server. This way, Mozilla cannot data-mine your data.
Furthermore, our server is open source, so you can install and run your own instance of the service, should you want to. We've made very significant progress in terms of performance with Firefox 4, and we offer key differentiators in terms of privacy and extensibility. And this is the world we want to be in: competition is good.
LXF: How has Mozilla changed as an organisation over the years?
TN: The biggest change is probably that we are now financially sustainable and have reached significant market share, especially in Europe. For example, we're really close to 50% of the market in Germany and Poland, with an average of 33% in Europe.
This translates into being taken seriously as an important part of 'the web' and gives us the chance to influence future developments. And this leads me to the aspects that have not changed: Mozilla continues to be a community of people who want the open web to succeed.
We want it to be beneficial to individuals, and we all plan to be like this for a very long time.
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Samsung HMX-Q10: cheaper Full HD capture
Your home videos are about to get the Full HD treatment in the 'easiest and most affordable way', according to Samsung. The Samsung HMX-Q10 camcorder records in 1920 x 1080/60i Full HD, with a 5-megapixel BSI CMOS sensor for super-sensitivity - meaning 4.9-megapixel still images as well as Full HD movies.
This means you'll be able to capture better video in low-light conditions, as well as enjoying the sharp crispness of full HD home videos. The shaky-handed will be pleased to hear that the OIS Duo system helps provide a stable image; no Blair Witch effect here, thank you very much.
With a handy Switch-Grip system, the HMX-Q10 recognises the angle at which you're holding the device and turns the LCD display accordingly, so you're always aware of exactly what you're recording no matter which hand you're holding the unit in.
Simplicity is key
After some intense consumer research, the company has found that simplicity and affordability are key priorities for camcorder users - we'll just give you a minute to recover from the shock of this revelation.
In the interests of simple operation, Samsung has implemented a brand new Easy Operation and Smart Access user interface, purporting to make it quicker and easier for you to playback videos on the 2.7in LCD screen.
Despite promising affordable full HD, Samsung is keeping us guessing when it comes to the price of the HMX-Q10; we contacted them to ask for a retail price but no word yet. The Samsung HMX-Q10 will be available in March 2011.
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Review: Toshiba 46SL753
The Toshiba 46SL753, with its contemporary styling, is a 46-inch 2D LED-backlit, full HD flatscreen that can be wall or stand-mounted. However, it looks distinctly average, with a bezel wide enough to drive a bus through. Toshiba fans hankering for a 3D experience need to wait for the forthcoming WL768 model.
The 46SL753 nevertheless builds in some impressive 21st century tech. Most notably, its DTT tuner caters for Freeview HD channels, in addition to the EPG, digital teletext, subtitles and multiple soundtracks. Analogue channels (with Nicam and teletext) are covered, too, should you live in the middle of nowhere.
Then there's the integrated media player, which will pull compatible content off your DLNA home network (wirelessly, with an optional dongle) or a USB storage device. There's also an SD card slot, meaning you can whip the card from your digital camera and temporarily convert this Tosh into a large-scale picture frame.
Unfortunately, the digital wizardry of the 46SL753 stops short of providing iPlayer compatibility. Come to think of it, you don't get internet video of any kind; the content portals so beloved by the likes of Panasonic, Philips and Samsung are conspicuous by their absence.
Fear not, though, as Toshiba has included a D-Sub VGA port for your laptop or PC. Dedicated computer hardware tends to deliver far better results from online services than the limited capabilities of a TV, and you're not ring-fenced by a brand, either.
CEC it and see
In other respects, the connections are impressive. Four 1080p24 compatible HDMI ports (one of which is side-mounted), two Scarts and a component input cater for just about every current source eventuality. The integral digital tuner has been endowed with a digital audio output and a CI slot for Pay-TV upgrades.
CEC device control (known here as 'Regza-Link') will enable the basic functions of many recent source components to be driven by the TV's handset – I found this worked fine on a Panasonic Blu-ray recorder.
The gloss-finished handset itself could be of better design. For a start, it's not backlit. Another criticism is its central joypad, which is surrounded by a disc of additional controls. The spacing between the two regions is insufficient, and as a result, you can accidentally nudge into effect the wrong function.
Similar criticisms can be made of the handsets supplied with recent Sony sets. However, Sony TVs take advantage of the company's excellent Xross Media Bar onscreen user interface. Compared to this, the 46SL753's menu system is plain boring. However, it's well-designed – making this Tosh easy enough to drive.
Indeed, the friendly wizard-driven auto-setup routine kicks off the flawless tuning process. The whole roster of functions can be adjusted from the menu system.
The 'SoundNavi' audio system, which boasts a non-adjustable graphic equaliser, can be optimised for wall or stand-mounting.
On the visual side, adjustments include colour temperature (with R/G/B tweaks), film stabilisation (motion smoothness), gamma and black/white level. Other features include sleep/programme timers; a proper mains switch; the ability to display real-time picture brightness/colour histograms; an 'expert' mode for colour calibration; (defeatable) Autoview sensor-based brightness/contrast adjustment according to ambient lighting conditions; plus a range of picture/sound modes and aspect ratios. Good stuff.
Performance
The proof, as ever, is in the pudding. And this Toshiba is a bit like a Sara Lee chocolate gateaux – good, but not Michelin standard.
With Blu-ray movies, I was impressed with the range and depth of colour offered here. The subjective balance of black, white and everything in between is also more than acceptable, thanks, no doubt, to the LED backlighting – although our Tech Labs rated its contrast below the standards set by much of the competition.
I couldn't fault the brightness or the resolution of intricate details, as seen in the Blu-rays of Moon and Transformers. However, I would recommend you experiment with the picture settings using a calibration disc to get the most natural picture.
Toshiba's proprietary processing isn't as obtrusive as that of some brands, with none of the awful 'greasing' of movement that makes film look so unnatural.
There was, however, a little backlight inconsistency, visible at the extremities of the screen during profoundly dark scenes – although this is something we're seeing quite often with edge LED TVs.
Switch to pics from the in-built tuner and things noticeably deteriorate. Compared to DVD playback via HDMI, SD Freeview pictures are rather soft – and a noise reduction feature does little to address the visible feathering that spoils sharply defined outlines.
Strangely, pictures from digital broadcasts received on a PC tuner and streamed via my network actually looked better. On which subject, the 46SL753's media player lacks supports for codecs such as x.264/mkv and DivX/XviD. A pity.
Deadman's chest
Sound quality, though, is atrocious. It may as well be coming from an old tea chest. Lifeless and dull, there's a serious mid-band wedginess that renders dialogue unpleasant to hear. Those disappointing sonics are an affront to well-produced music programmes such as Later... with Jools Holland.
The only good things that can be said here are a) Dolby Volume 'normalises' sound levels to reduce the 'jumps' frequently encountered when changing channel and b) the sound can be turned off altogether via a menu.
It's about time that flatscreen TV manufacturers paid more attention to audio, but for now, I'd advise any buyers of this TV to stick with external AV gear.
A 46-inch LED TV for £1,000 is not a bad deal, but Toshiba's problem – as has been the case for a few years now – is that Sony and Samsung can match that price with better featured sets. The 46SL753 leaves us hankering for the arrival of Tosh's CEVO TV more than ever.
Related Links
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CES 2011: Asus and Kinect designers offer PC motion controller
Taiwanese computer manufacturer Asus has announced plans to release a motion-controller for PC, designed by PrimeSense – the company that developed the Kinect control tech for Microsoft's Xbox 360.PrimeSense has partnered with Eee PC makers Asus, with the PC specialist also promising an online store to sell games and apps that will be compatible with the controller.
Focus on multimedia over gaming
Asus is calling the controller the "WAVI Xtion," with the focus more on multimedia control via movement, as opposed to a heavy focus on gaming as is the case with Kinect.
"PrimeSense, the leader in sensing and recognition technologies, and Asus, a leading enterprise in the new digital era, announced today that PrimeSense Immersive Natural Interaction solutions will be embedded in WAVI Xtion, a next generation user interface device developed by ASUS to extend PC usage to the living room," reads the launch press release.
"The WAVI Xtion media center for the PC leverages ultra-wide band wireless link and PrimeSense 3D sensing solution to provide controller-free interaction experiences in the living room. Users can browse multimedia content, access the Internet and social networks, and enjoy full body interaction in a more user-friendly and natural living room experience."
Asus hopes that third party developers will create apps to sell online at the "Xtion Online Store."
The news of Asus' new PC motion controller follows a slew of stories about Kinect hacks, with enterprising bedroom hackers making use of Kinect's motion tech in some interesting 'unofficial' ways.
Asus hopes to release the Wavi Xtion in February of this year. Expect more when we get a hands on with the tech at the PrimeSense and Asus booths at CES this week.
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Tutorial: How your secure your Linux system
Are you running Linux just because you think it's safer than Windows? Think again. Sure, security is a built-in (and not a bolt-on) feature and extends right from the Linux kernel to the desktop, but it still leaves enough room to let someone muck about with your /home folder. Linux might be impervious to viruses and worms written for Windows, but that's just a small subset of the larger issue. Attackers have various tricks up their sleeves to get to those precious bits and bytes that make up everything from your mugshot to your credit card details.
Computers that connect to the internet are the ones most exposed to attackers, although computers that never get to see online action are just as vulnerable. Think of that ageing laptop or that old hard disk you just chucked away without a second thought. Bad move.
With the kind of data recovery tools available today (many as a free download) it doesn't matter what OS was installed on the disk. If it holds data – corrupted or otherwise – it can be retrieved, bank accounts recreated, chat transcripts reconstructed, images restitched. But don't be scared. Don't stop using the computer.
While it's virtually impossible to make a machine connected to the internet impenetrable to attacks, you can make an attacker's task difficult and also ensure they have nothing to learn from a compromised system. Best of all, with Linux, and some pieces of open source software, it doesn't take much effort to secure your Linux installation.
There is no golden rule for security that applies in every single case, and even if there were it would have been cracked already. Security is something that needs to be worked upon, and personalised. Follow the tips and tools in this tutorial as we show you how to adapt them to your very own Linux installation.
Follow these six tips to get a safer computer the easy way
1. Keep up with security updates
All mainstream Linux desktop distros (such as Debian, Ubuntu, Fedora, etc) have security teams that work with the package teams to make sure you stay on top of any security vulnerabilities. Generally these teams work with each other to make sure that security patches are available as soon as a vulnerability is discovered.
Your distro will have a repository solely dedicated to security updates. All you have to do is make sure the security specific repository is enabled (chances are it will be, by default), and choose whether you'd like to install the updates automatically or manually at the press of a button.
For example, under Ubuntu, head over to System > Administration > Software Sources. Here, under the Updates tab, specify how frequently the distro should ping the security repository for updates, and whether you'd like to install them without confirmation, or just be notified about the updates.
The latter is a better option, because it lets you review the updates before installing them. But chances are they'll be fine, and you can save yourself some time by having your distro install them automatically.
In addition to the updates, distros also have a security mailing list to announce vulnerabilities, and also share packages to fix them. It's generally a good idea to keep an eye on the security list for your distro, and look out for any security updates to packages that are critical to you.
There's a small lag between the announcement and the package being pushed to the repository; the security mailing lists guide the impatient on how to grab and install the updates manually.
2. Disable unnecessary services
A Linux desktop distro starts a number of services to be of use to as many people as possible. But one really doesn't need all these services.
For example, do you really need Samba for sharing files over the network on your secure server, or the Bluetooth service to connect to Bluetooth devices on a computer that doesn't have a Bluetooth adapter?
All distros let you control the services that run on your Linux installation, and you should make full use of this customisation feature.
Under Ubuntu, head to System > Preferences > Startup Applications. Here you can remove check marks next to the services you wish to disable. But be careful when turning off services. Some applications might stop functioning because you decided to disable a service on which they rely.
For example, many server applications rely on databases, so before you turn off MySQL or PostgreSQL you should make sure you aren't running any applications that rely on them.
3. Restrict root access
Most distros these days don't allow you to login as root at boot time, which is good. When you have to execute a task that requires super user privileges you'll be prompted for a password. It might be a little irritating but it goes a long way to making sure that admin tasks are isolated from the user.
You can restrict access privileges for a user from under System > Administration > Users and Groups. Here you can broadly categorise a user as a desktop user or a system administrator or customise access privileges manually. By default, users are created as with 'Desktop user' permissions and can't install software or change settings that affect other users.
On the command line, the su command (on Fedora, and the like) lets normal users switch to the root account, while the sudo command (on Debian, Ubuntu, etc) grants more privileges to the user. The usage of these commands can be limited to a particular group, which prevents any user from administering the system. sudo is also the more secure of the two, and it keeps an access log under /var/log/auth.log.
Make a habit of regularly scanning the log for failed and successful sudo attempts.
4. Don't auto-mount devices
If you're really concerned about security, you need to lean on the customisation feature of the Users And Groups settings. One of the areas to look at is auto-mounting devices.
Most distros auto-mount USB drives and CDs as soon as they are inserted. It's convenient, but allows anybody to just walk up to your machine, plug in a USB disk and copy all your data. To avoid such a situation, go to to System > Administration > Users and Groups, select your user and head to the Advanced Settings > User Privileges tab.
Make sure you uncheck the boxes corresponding to the Access External Storage Devices Automatically option, the Mount Userspace Filesystems, and Use CD-ROM Drives option. When unchecked, these options will prompt the user for a password before giving them access to these devices.
You might also want to disable sharing files on the network, as well as require the user to enter a password before connecting to the Ethernet and wireless devices. By disabling access to configure printers you prevent important data from being printed.
5. Don't stay on the bleeding edge
Packages included in a desktop Linux distribution are updated regularly. Besides the official repositories, there are custom repositories for third-party software. While developers do take care to scan the packages for vulnerabilities before pushing them on to the repository, it's almost inevitable that some updates with defects do get through.
While it's good to keep the system updated, from a security point of view, not all updates are good for the system. Some updates conflict with existing installed package or may even pull in new dependencies that may make the system more prone to attack. All this is why you should only update packages if you have to.
Scan the updates and look for updates to packages that are critical to you. Most package managers also make it possible to check an update and display its changelog and a brief description of the changes. UI changes can safely be ignored or delayed until a package has been thoroughly tested. Instead, look out for and grab updates that offer a fix to existing issues with packages.
6. Don't upgrade every six months
Most major desktop Linux distributions make a new release every six months, but you don't have to install every last upgrade just because it's there. Debian, for example, offers three distributions to choose from based on the extent of the stability of the software available in it. After Debian 6.0, stable releases will be made every two years.
Other distros take a different approach to guarantee secure releases. Ubuntu marks certain releases as LTS (or Long Term Support). A desktop release of the LTS version is supported for three years, and a server release is supported for five years, which is a lot longer than the 18 months for a standard Ubuntu release.
Although not up to date, these releases are much more secure from a security point of view, with packages that are a lot more stable and more thoroughly tested than their latest versions. If running a secure system is your goal, you should think of sticking to one of these long-term stable releases and avoid the temptation to upgrade as soon as the latest version of your becomes available.
Out of the box, a Linux installation is much more secure than other operating systems. That is, until you connect to the internet. Once online, a desktop Linux installation, in its bid to be of use to as many users as possible, leaves enough room to be exposed to attacks and intrusions. Don't sweat though. Help is only a terminal away.
All Linux distros ship with Iptables, which is a part of the kernel that enables sysadmins to filter network packets. Configuring it manually is impossible for all but the elite, but in the true spirit of open source the community offers a number of graphical front-ends that make setting up a firewall a walk in the park. One such graphical firewall is Firestarter.
We didn't start the fire
Firestarter simplifies the process of configuring the settings for a firewall. It can limit access on ports that are running services that might be prone to outside attacks, and you can also use it to glance at the network traffic passing across the machine you're running it on.
Most distros bundle Firestarter in their repos, so installing it shouldn't be a problem. When you start it for the first time, the firewall launches a simple configuration wizard that prompts you to select the network interface on which it will be active.
If you have multiple devices with one connecting to the internal network, Firestarter can act as gateway and share the internet connection with the rest of the network. By default, Firestarter only filters through connections that are in response to connection requests from the firewall host. The advantage of doing things this way is that it blocks access to services like Telnet, which can be exploited to gain access to your machine without your knowledge.
Tweaking the firewall doesn't take much effort either. If you have an app that requires access on certain ports, such as a Torrent client, you need to punch holes in your firewall to allow incoming connections. That's easily done from under the Policy tab.
Right-click inside the space under Allow Service and select Add Rule. From the pull-down menu, select the service you want to allow, say Samba, select the source IP (anyone opens the port to all) and you're done.
To restrict outgoing traffic, select Outbound Traffic Policy from the drop-down list. Now you can select either the Permissive or the Restrictive option. If you select the Permissive option, you'll have to add the hosts you want to block in a blacklist. Restrictive is the opposite, and only allows connections from the listed hosts, denying the rest.
When running in restrictive mode, Firestarter will log all connection refusals under the Events tab. As you spot a connection you want to allow for your users, right-click on the entry and select the option to either allow the connection for everyone or just when it originates from a particular source.
You can also monitor active connections to the firewall from Firestarter's main interface. It shows you the status of the service, gives you a summary of inbound and outbound connections, and the amount of data that has passed through an interface. In addition to listing the source and destination of the traffic, it'll also tell you the port the data is travelling through, the service running on that port and the program that's calling the shots.
Encrypt your filesystem
If you really want to keep others from reading your files, user passwords won't cut it. For instance, there's very little to stop a user with higher access permissions, like the root user, from gawking at stuff under your home directory. What you need is to encrypt your data so that it's unintelligible to people without the means to decrypt it.
The smart way to do this is to encrypt the whole filesystem, which would automatically encrypt any data kept on it. This is where TrueCrypt shines.
It lets you carve a virtual slice out of your Linux partition that will act as a standalone encrypted filesystem. You then mount it, use it to store and read files as you would from a normal partition, then unmount it, and Bob's your uncle. When it isn't mounted, the encrypted filesystem appears to be a random jumble of bits.
TrueCrypt isn't available in any distribution's repository due to licensing issues, but installing it is a trivial affair. Grab it from its website, extract the Tar archive, and install it via the graphical setup. Just make sure your distro has the Fuse library, and the device mapper tools.
Create an encrypted volume
Before you can use TrueCrypt you'll have to create an encrypted volume to store files on, so launch the app and click on the Create Volume button. This will launch the Volume Creation Wizard, which lets you either create a virtual encrypted disk within a file or an encrypted volume within an entire partition, or even a disk such as a removable USB drive.
If you select the first option to create a virtual disk, TrueCrypt will ask you to point it to a file on the disk that'll be the encrypted volume. If the file exists, TrueCrypt will recreate it, using one of the eight encryption algorithms.
Next, specify the size of the encrypted volume and format it as an FAT filesystem, which makes it accessible from other operating systems as well as Linux. Finally, choose a password to mount the encrypted volume.
To store files on the volume you'll have to mount it. Select the file that's your encrypted volume from the TrueCrypt main interface, and press the Mount button. The app will prompt for the password of the volume before it can be mounted. You also get the option to mount the volume as read-only, if all you have to do is read files from it.
By default, TrueCrypt chooses not to remember the name of the file that's your encrypted volume. This is a security feature, and adds another roadblock in the path of an intruder. If you ask the app to remember the name of the file, anyone with physical access to the computer can select the file from a pull-down menu and mount the encrypted volume. They'll still have to get past your password though.
Once the encrypted volume is mounted you can save files to it just like you do with a normal volume. TrueCrypt uses your modern hardware at its disposal to encrypt and decrypt files on the fly; which is to say it minimises the lag due to the overhead of converting unreadable bitstream into meaningful data that can be read by your text editor or played by your media player.
When you're through, unmount the volume with the Dismount button within the program.
Think formatting a disk is enough? Think again
Removing a file from the disk seems like a simple operation: just right-click on the file and send it to the trash. Command line users may use the rm command do do the same thing.
Unfortunately, none of these methods actually deletes a file or a folder. They just hypnotise the filesystem to forget where a file is located in the disk. These newly liberated disk locations are then added to the filesystem's pool of free address, and can point to new files.
That works in theory, but in practice the humongous size of partitions means that the disk locations that hold the deleted file may actually harbour them long enough for recovery tools to reconstruct them.
That's where shred comes in. Shred overwrites a file's space on the disk to make sure the space contains only garbage. You might also want to use the --remove option to make sure it deletes the original file as well.
Shredding a file can be a lengthy affair, as it overwrites the location 25 times. You can manipulate the number of rewrites with the -n switch, like this:
$ shred --remove -n 5 -v top-secret.txt
shred: top-secret.txt: pass 1/5 (random)...
shred: top-secret.txt: pass 2/5 (ffffff)...
shred: top-secret.txt: pass 3/5 (random)...
shred: top-secret.txt: pass 4/5 (000000)...
shred: top-secret.txt: pass 5/5 (random)...
shred: top-secret.txt: removing
shred: top-secret.txt: renamed to 0000
shred: 0000: renamed to 000
shred: 000: renamed to 00
shred: 00: renamed to 0
shred: top-secret.txt: removed
Shred works well on devices like /dev/sdb, which negates the use of the --remove switch, because you wouldn't want to remove the device. There's a caveat here. Shred assumes the filesystem rewrites the file in place. This would render it useless on modern journalled filesystems such as ext3.
Shred also fails to wipe traces of the data being deleted in several places, such as the swap, RAM, and the filesystem journal. An effective and secure deletion strategy requires the secure delete tools.
Secure-delete
The secure-delete tools include srm to securely remove the files, smem and sswap to wipe traces of data from the physical and SWAP memory, and sfill to ensure the free space on the disk doesn't point to old deleted files. The tools make use of cryptographic algorithms especially designed to make sure deleted files are unrecoverable.
Once it's installed, make sure you remove the file or a directory with:
$ srm -v ../the-hole/eicar.com.txt
Using /dev/urandom for random input.
Wipe mode is secure (38 special passes)
Wiping ../the-hole/eicar.com.txt *********************************** *** Removed file ../the-hole/eicar.com.txt ... Done
Add the -r switch to recursively delete a directory. When you're done, make sure you wipe off residual traces from your RAM with smem, which may take a considerable amount of time depending on the size of the physical memory it has to wipe. You can speed up the process with the -l switch, which reduces the number of rewrite passes (this is less secure).
Top off the process by disabling swap with swapoff
Remove junk
They might not be as bad as the other operating system, but all Linux distros tend to accumulate a lot of crud over a period of time. But why blame Linux?
The junk files are the legacy of the plethora of apps you have running on top of your kernel. You can pin their habit of collecting fluff to of the way the applications are configured to give you a better user experience. And not only do all those log files, the temporary internet files and the various app caches accumulate to take up a considerable amount of disk space, they pose a great threat to your privacy.
Instead of trolling through the filesystem and emptying the various tmp/ directories, use BleachBit. It's a one-stop shop for removing all the crud that the apps have preserved.
BleachBit has a set of about 70 pre-defined cleaners, each of which works on a particular app such as Firefox, Google Chrome, Adobe Reader, OpenOffice.org and more. The cleaners are tuned to wipe the dead weight off the applications and give them a performance boost.
The lightweight BleachBit is available in the repositories of all major distributions, though you might want to grab the latest build from its website. The project also releases bonus cleaner packs for older versions.
The BleachBit GUI is divided into two frames. On the left-hand side you select the apps that you wish to clean; this expands to give you more options specific to that app. In the right-hand frame, you get a brief explanation of each of these checkable options.
Get cleaning
To clean an area, such as Firefox's cache, simply click on the checkbox next to it. Some cleanup operations require you to trawl through a large location and involve more than a simple delete operation. BleachBit will warn you when selecting such a task that might take up a considerable amount of time, for example, wiping the swap memory.
Before you ask BleachBit to zap the useless files in the apps you've selected, use the Preview button to review the list of files it'll delete. If you encounter a file that you don't want to delete, such as the cache of a particular Firefox user, you can add it to a whitelist.
This is a list of files that BleachBit will not touch, even if the broader cleaner that they come under has marked them for removal. You can specify any files or folders to bypass under the Whitelist tab under Edit > Preferences.
BleachBit also has a command line interface. For example, the following command cleans cookies under Firefox and Google Chrome:
$ bleachbit --delete firefox.cookies google_chrome.cookies
Use the --preview switch to get a list of files before removal. The CLI makes BleachBit scriptable for automated daily runs.
To add a cron job to nuke regularly created files, such as rotated logs and cookies daily at 2.00 am, edit the crontab with crontab -e and add the following line:
0 2 * * * bleachbit --delete firefox.cookies google_chrome. cookies system.rotated_logs
If daily sounds too frequent, you should at least run the app before creating backups. You can also use BleachBit to speed up certain apps, house clean the distro by fixing broken shortcuts, delete language packs and empty physical RAM and swap memory.
Browse anonymously
Pull a Keyser Soze on the internet – make it think you don't exist…
On the internet, sometimes the best form of privacy is being anonymous. It's difficult for an attacker to get to you if they can't pinpoint you on the network. And no one covers your tracks better than the combination of Privoxy and Tor.
Tor protects privacy via a distributed network of relays run by volunteers spread across the world. This helps prevent anybody monitoring your internet connections from learning what sites you visit.
Tor works with web browsers, instant messaging programs and many other TCP-based apps. But the various app protocols and associated programs can be coaxed into revealing information about the user, which is where Privoxy comes into the picture. Tor depends on Privoxy and its filtering capabilities to enhance privacy.
Begin by pulling Privoxy from your distro repositories, then head into your browser's advanced settings where you can change its proxy settings. Here just fill in 127.0.0.1 for the HTTP proxy, and specify 8118 as the port. That's all there's to it.
When you're done, start the Privoxy daemon with /etc/ init.d/privoxy start. You can now access Privoxy's interface from http://config.privoxy.org or http://p.p.
To hook up Privoxy with Tor, you first need to set up Tor's package repository. This is easily done by adding the following line to your Ubuntu or Debian installation:
deb http://deb.torproject.org/torproject.org
Replace
gpg --keyserver keys.gnupg.net --recv 886DDD89 gpg --export A3C4F0F979CAA22CDBA8 F512EE8CBC9E886DDD89 | sudo apt-key add -
If you use Yum, create a torproject.repo under /etc/ yum/repos.d with the following content:
[torproject]
name=Tor and Vidalia
enabled=1
autorefresh=0
baseurl=http://deb.torproject.org/torproject.org/rpm/
DISTRIBUTION/
type=rpm-md gpgcheck=1
gpgkey=http://deb.torproject.org/torproject.org/rpm/RPMGPG- KEY-torproject.org
Again replace DISTRIBUTION with the name of your Fedora or CentOS release, such as centos5 or fc13. Now fetch Tor via the package manager, which will also pull in additional packages like the Vidalia Tor GUI controller.
Make sure you don't install the Polipo web proxy app, since we are using Privoxy and the two might conflict because they operate on the same port.
The last step is to get Privoxy and Tor to talk to each other. For this just edit the Privoxy config file under /etc/privoxy and uncomment the following line:
# forward-socks4a / 127.0.0.1:9050
Also uncomment the following lines to make sure the local network is still reachable:
# forward 192.168.*.*/ .
# forward 10.*.*.*/ .
# forward 127.*.*.*/
Presto! Now all our internet traffic that passes through the Tor and Privoxy proxies is masked.
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Facebook worth $50 billion, Apple worth $300 billion
Facebook is now said to be valued at at $50 billion (£32.27 billion), following a new round of $500 million private investment.Elsewhere, Apple has most recently been valued at $300 billion, following a 2 per cent stock surge to kick off the new year.
Cash injection
The latest cash injection into the world's biggest online social network comes from Goldman Sachs and Russian investment firm Digital Sky Technologies.
Goldman Sachs will invest $450 million in Facebook, while DST will invest $50 million, according to a New York Times' source.
Both companies plan to raise an addition $1 billion in extra funding, according to the source, reportedly close to the deal.
"I don't think it's a replacement for a public offering, I just think it's a mechanism for delaying it," opined Jeremy Liew, managing director at venture capital firm Lightspeed Venture Partners.
Apple's latest $300 billion valuation follows a massively successful 2010, marked by the highlights of the launch of the iPhone 4 and the iPad. Apple is set to release the iPad 2 at some point early in 2011, and is also rumoured to be launching a Verizon iPhone in the US in the near future.
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AMD announces first Fusion chips
AMD has launched the first-generation of its new Fusion chips, which combine both GPU and CPU functions on the same die, something that AMD calles an APU, or accelerated processing unit. AMD is planning various changes to its line-up as 2011 shapes up to be a truly revolutionary year in terms of computing architecture.
Designed to coincide with CES and another big announcement from a certain other chip manufacturer, AMD's new chips sit on the Brazos platform.The processors used will come in two different guises – a super low-power Ontario processor needing only 9W of power – and the 18W Zacate chip for more mainstream notebooks.
AMD has turned its attention toward netbooks – a stronghold for Intel with its Atom chips.
AMD is promising huge advances in battery life from netbooks and laptops running these chips – though we'll have to wait until we get kit to see how this really pans out. Not only that, the company also hopes its expertise in graphics will hit home with buyers looking for a low power, portable netbook but who still want DirectX 11 graphics.
Bobcat and Bulldozer
Both of these chips are based on a new core codenamed Bobcat, based on a 40nm manufacturing process.
After Zacate, AMD is planning a 32nm core called Llano, which will be with us during the first half of this year. The company also will debut its long-awaited high-performance x86 multi-core CPU architecture codenamed Bulldozer.
In basic architectural terms, Bulldozer looks even more revolutionary than Intel's new Sandy Bridge.
With Bulldozer, AMD will do away with the conventional notion of CPU cores and create a much more modular chip designed to deliver a better balance of integer and floating point performance.
If Bulldozer manages even to just close the gap significantly between AMD's chips and Intel's Sandy Bridge, that will be some achievement.
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