IT-Code-News: IT News HeadLines (Ars Technica) 04/03/2010

Thursday, March 4, 2010

IT News HeadLines (Ars Technica) 04/03/2010

Gripe site prevails in domain cybersquatting case

A gripe site that incorporates a company's entire trademark into its domain is still protected under the First Amendment, a US District Judge has ruled. In the case of Career Agents Network v. careeragentsnetwork.biz, the judge said that the gripe site made no effort to bolster its own business and was noncommercial, therefore protecting it from Career Agents Network's trademark claims and cybersquatting accusations.

Like most gripe sites, careeragentsnetwork.biz began after a customer of the Career Agents Network (CAN) became dissatisfied with the services provided. CAN provided a "business in a box" type service that included training, software, support, consultants, and more for anyone who wanted to get a business off the ground quickly. Lawrence White said he paid $49,000 for these services in 2008, but eventually discovered that the business was "not as lucrative as represented."

Read the comments on this post

Spanish arrests mark the end of dangerous botnet

A massive botnet of up to 12.7 million infected PCs has been dismantled after Spanish police, working in conjunction with a Canadian security firm, have arrested the botnet's operators. The Mariposa botnet first emerged in December 2008, and was used to steal credit card and bank details from infected PCs. The malware driving it was spread through instant messaging, USB thumbdrives, and peer-to-peer networking.

Defence Intelligence, the Canadian firm involved in the bust, started investigating the botnet in spring 2009. The company discovered that the botnet had command and control servers based in Spain, and so joined forces with Spanish firm Panda Security. With their input, the authorities knocked the botnet offline around Christmas. Luck was on the investigators' side; the Internet services used by the hackers were willing to cooperate with the investigation, and most critically, one of the botnet's operators then tried to regain control of the botnet directly from his own PC. This mistake allowed the investigators to identify him and track him down.

The arrest of the operators of such a large botnet is unusual. Operators of smaller networks are easier to identity (smaller networks have less traffic to hide in), so arrests are relatively common. Operations such as Microsoft's recent disabling of the Waledac network may take the botnet offline, but the operators typically remain free to try again. The nature of the Mariposa network made catching the perpetrators particularly important; while botnets like Waledac and Conficker are used predominantly for spamming (annoying and illegal, but relatively harmless as these things go), Mariposa's harvesting of financial information made it much more dangerous.

The hackers themselves—unnamed, per Spanish privacy rules—appeared to be quite ordinary, far from the genius hacker stereotype. They were Spanish citizens with no prior criminal convictions, aged 31, 30, and 25. They depended on their connections in the criminal underworld to get them the resources necessary to start and operate the botnet. Though the network had likely made them rich—investigators are still examining bank records to determine just how much money was made—this was not reflected in their lifestyles. If convicted, they face up to six years in prison for hacking. Further arrests related to Mariposa are also expected.

Read the comments on this post

Citing underperformance, hedge fund offers $2B for Novell

Hedge fund Elliot Associates has made a bid to acquire software vendor Novell. In a public letter to the company's board of directors, the hedge fund offered $5.75 per share (a 49 percent premium), placing Novell's value at $2 billion dollars. Elliot Associates is already one of the largest institutional shareholders of Novell, with roughly 8.5 percent of the company's stock.

Novell's NetWare platform was once a widely-used server operating system, but its popularity swiftly declined with the emergence of Linux. Novell responded to that trend by entering the Linux market itself, acquiring Ximian and SuSE in 2003. Novell has made significant inroads in the Linux space, but has had difficulty competing with Red Hat on the server side. Although Novell is still an active contributor to Linux desktop and server technologies, the company is gradually shifting its focus towards development tools—particularly the Mono framework, which has been modestly successful and is attracting a growing audience of commercial software developers due its suitability for mobile uses and embedding.

Read the comments on this post

Microsoft open-sources clever U-Prove identity framework

More and more personal, private information is being used and stored online than ever before, and at the same time, attacks on that information are increasing in frequency and sophistication. Phishing is a growth industry—it's very profitable to trick people into handing over names, passwords, credit card numbers, and so on, so that their finances can be pillaged. Important activities like banking and filing tax returns are being performed, and these need strong proof of identity. On the other hand, there's no reason why a storefront like, say, iTunes, needs to know your identity; it only needs to know that the money being handed over is yours to hand over.

Ultimately, we want to be able to securely make transactions without giving third parties the ability to masquerade as us; we want to be able to visit websites and make purchases without those sites being able to track us or combine different pieces of information to draw a more complete picture of us; we want to be able to be able to disclose some information about ourselves, but not everything. The U-Prove framework, released as a CTP today by Microsoft, aims to solve these problems.

Read the comments on this post

The beta for Blur on the 360 starts March 8; we have keys

The last time we tried to give away beta keys for a game the beta was pushed back, but hope springs eternal. Activision has given us 300 keys for the multiplayer beta of Blur on the Xbox 360, and we would like you to have them.

How do you get one? Very simple. Just e-mail giveaways@arstechnica.com with the subject line "I liked them better than Oasis anyway." Sure, it's obscure, but being obvious is boring!

We do have a few more instructions for you. When you receive your key, you need to enter it into this site, not into Xbox Live. When the beta begins, you'll receive a code that you can put into your Xbox 360 to access the game.

The beta begins March 8, and features the multiplayer portion of the game. See you online!

Read the comments on this post

TiVo turns the DVR into a Flash-based app platform

TiVo may have pioneered the home DVR market, but its leading position hasn't helped it stave off competition from cable providers, who have offered bundled services that integrate with their broadcast offerings, and avoid the up-front investment in hardware. The company announced on Tuesday a revamped hardware and software combination that it hopes will help it regain some momentum. The new products feature greater integration with Internet content, increased interactivity, and better support for HDTVs, all run by an interface developed using Adobe Flash.

The new hardware comes in 320GB and 1TB capacities, and features cable card and coax inputs, plus a standard array of video outputs, along with support for a nice range of resolutions: 480i, 480p, 720p, 1080i, and 1080p. Both of the new units include optical audio out, but the Premier XL, in addition to the larger drive, is THX certified, and comes with software that enables fine-grained adjustment of the home theater experience. Ethernet, USB 2.0, and eSATA connectors allow communication with a wide range of additional devices (a wireless N adaptor will be sold separately).

Read the comments on this post

Why we tweaked our copyright notice

A couple of weeks ago, we ran an article on the various overbroad copyright notices one finds in books and on TV sports. You know the sort of thing—"any other use of this telecast or any pictures, descriptions, or accounts of the game without the NFL's consent is prohibited." The piece focused on a pair of lawyers who had complained about such notices back in 2007, and we wanted to know what had happened with those complaints. The short answer: not much.

Readers pointed out that our own footer contains a pretty strong copyright statement of its own: "The material on this site may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, cached or otherwise used, except with the prior written permission of Condأ© Nast Digital."

But of course, you can reproduce and distribute and cache much of this information for a variety of reasons under US copyright law. We told readers that we would look into the issue, and Editor-in-Chief Ken Fisher agreed to ask our corporate lawyers about making a small change to the notice.

The lawyers had no problem with the proposed change, and we pushed out the updated page code this weekend. The notice now says, "Except where permitted by law, the material on this site may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, cached or otherwise used, except with the prior written permission of Condأ© Nast Digital."

It's not a major change, and the notice doesn't alter anyone's rights under US law one way or the other. We do think it was important to make clear in such notices that there are limits to copyright law, however, and that the company's claims to its material are not so absolute as such notices can make them sound.

Read the comments on this post

We're so good at medical studies that most of them are wrong

It's possible to get the mental equivalent of whiplash from the latest medical findings, as risk factors are identified one year and exonerated the next. According to a panel at the American Association for the Advancement of Science, this isn't a failure of medical research; it's a failure of statistics, and one that is becoming more common in fields ranging from genomics to astronomy. The problem is that our statistical tools for evaluating the probability of error haven't kept pace with our own successes, in the form of our ability to obtain massive data sets and perform multiple tests on them. Even given a low tolerance for error, the sheer number of tests performed ensures that some of them will produce erroneous results at random.

The panel consisted of Suresh Moolgavkar from the University of Washington, Berkeley's Juliet P. Shaffer, and Stanley Young from the National Institute of Statistical Sciences. The three gave talks that partially overlapped, at least when it came to describing the problem, so it's most informative to tackle the session at once, rather than by speaker.

Read the comments on this post

feature: The science and technology of air traffic control

The typical image people have of air traffic control (ATC) is that of a group of people in an airport tower who coordinate aircraft activity by staring at radar screens that use points of light to represent aircraft. While not fundamentally incorrect, this isn't a fair representation of the extent of ATC operations. This article will flesh out that simplistic image and introduce you to the equipment, technologies, and procedures that go into keeping aircraft and air travelers safe in the air and on the ground. We'll look at the way air traffic control is organized, and explore the communication technologies that air traffic controllers use to keep in touch with air crew and ground personnel. We'll also look at the radar technologies used to keep track of aircraft, and we'll end with a brief look at some next-generation technologies.

Read the comments on this post

Apple loses one, gains one in employee shuffle

Long-time Apple executive Pablo Calamera has left Apple in favor of a CTO gig elsewhere, while former Mozilla security chief Window Snyder started work at 1 Infinite Loop on Monday. Pablo will become the CTO at Thumbplay, a company specializing in ringtones and streaming music, while Snyder will work as a senior security product manager at Apple.

According to the Thumbplay announcement, Calamera served as director of MobileMe service while at Apple. Despite the service's less-than-stellar reputation during his time there. Thumplay saw fit to scoop up Calamera. The newly branded CTO spent time at Danger Inc. and WebTV Networks, among others, before joining Apple.

As noted by PC World, the Snyder hire comes on the heels of her time managing security consultants at Microsoft and working on Windows XP and 2003 Server. What Snyder will do at Apple remains unclear, but the two variants of Safari (Windows and Mac) or the iPhone OS seem to be likely candidates for her expertise.

Read the comments on this post

Pocket-sized downloads: Ars explores DSiWare and PSP Minis

With the release of the PSP Go and the DSi, both Sony and Nintendo brought small, downloadable games to traditional gaming handhelds. It's a concept that has been met with mixed success on the iPhone and other mobile platforms, spawning both a refreshing wave of creative new games and a glut of shovelware. But several months after the launch of the DSiWare shop and PSP Minis on the PlayStation Network, both services are still struggling to find their legs.

Ars spoke with several developers to get their perspectives on the burgeoning marketplaces.

Read the comments on this post

Microsoft rivals push to send browser ballot on world tour

The lobbying group European Committee for Interoperable Systems (ECIS) today called on antitrust regulators worldwide to follow the European Commission and pressure Redmond into offering a browser ballot, similar to what the company began serving yesterday to European customers via Windows Update, everywhere. The ballot is offered to consumers on Windows XP, Windows Vista, and Windows 7.

ECIS members include Adobe Systems, Corel, IBM, Nokia, Opera, Oracle, RealNetworks, Red Hat, and Sun Microsystems. It was Norwegian browser maker Opera that first filed a complaint with the European Union in December 2007, accusing Microsoft of violating EU antitrust law by bundling IE with Windows. And the company isn't satisfied yet. "Opera is a member of ECIS, which supported the complaint to the European Commission because it promoted the ECIS core values of competition, interoperability and consumer choice," reads a statement in an ECIS press release today. "Microsoft agreed to change its business practices in the face of formal charges from the Commission. Consumers deserve the same unbiased browser choice on all the world's more than 1 billion personal computers." Of course, Opera doesn't rule the ECIS alone, but given that the lobbying group is mainly composed of Microsoft rivals, we doubt any of them would object to Opera's proposition.

Meanwhile, Microsoft has dismissed the ECIS' call to arms. "The issues in the Internet Explorer case have already been the subject of extensive legal action in several other countries around the world, including the United States, which have each developed their own legal solutions which are different than the browser choice screen pursued by the European Commission after years of litigation," a Microsoft spokesperson told Ars.

Microsoft is not obligated to take the ballot screen outside the boundaries of the EU, but the push from ECIS could spur other consumer groups, competition agencies, and antitrust regulators to band together against the software giant. It worked in Europe, but will it work in the rest of the world?

Read the comments on this post

Detached teens use Internet and TV more—or vice versa?

Parents of Internet- or TV-addicted teens finally have confirmation of something they have long suspected: the more screen exposure teenagers get, the more detached they are from those around them. Those are the findings of a paper set to be published in the March issue of the Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine, which examined the relationship between adolescent screen time and social involvement with parents and peers. Though the paper doesn't quite say that Internet and TV are the cause of the detachment, it's clear that the two are related.

The paper, called "Adolescent Screen Time and Attachment to Parents and Peers," surveyed behaviors of 3,043 New Zealand students in 2004. Among the findings were a 4 or 5 percent increase in detachment to parents for every hour spent watching TV or surfing the Web, respectively. It's not all about the parents, either—more time spent gaming was associated with low attachment to peers as well. More time spent reading offline and doing homework was associated with higher attachment to parents.

Read the comments on this post

Oxygen-enriched booze makes for less-intense hangover

New research shows that ingesting oxygen-enriched alcoholic beverages can help the body metabolize them faster than normal drinks, without affecting how well or quickly the body absorbs the drink in the first place. While the process might produce a less-intense hangover, oxygenated drinks that dissipate more rapidly won't exactly help customers get their money's worth.

Three oxygen molecules are used to metabolize each unit of alcohol into water and carbon dioxide, and the body obtains oxygen from three sources: the skin, the lungs, and the stomach. Oxygen sourced from the stomach is used most intensively of the three, particularly for alcohol metabolization: breathing can increase the oxygen in the liver up to 8 percent, while oxygen from the stomach can increase it as much as 43 percent (Translation: taking a few deep breaths so you can drive home from the bar is not terribly effective).

Given this difference, scientists figured they could introduce more oxygen to the stomach along with alcohol, and the body should metabolize the alcohol faster. To test their idea, 49 volunteers were fed sets of equally alcoholic drinks, with one group drinking beverages that had been oxygen-enriched up to 20-25 parts per million, and the control group drinking beverages with oxygen at 8 ppm. They found that the oxygenated drinks were absorbed as fast as the regular drinks, and got the participants just as drunk. But, when testing their blood alcohol levels, researchers found that the oxygenation helped the volunteers scrub alcohol from their systems, getting them down to a 0.05 percent BAC about half an hour faster.

The utility of oxygenating drinks from the customer point of view remains unclear (unless quick and efficient nights of partying or micro-binges at lunch become popular). Maybe all the oxygen bars that have been sitting in disuse since the late 90s will find themselves in the spotlight again when club owners combine them with beverages to produce a new, "safer" drink. However, until hangovers can be isolated and eliminated, regular alcohol will probably remain popular.

Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research, 2010. DOI: 10.1111/j.1530-0277.2010.01155.x

Read the comments on this post

Valve mystifies gamers with Portal update

Portal's eerie symbolism was ramped up another notch this week when Valve announced a patch that has gamers playing what seems to be an alternate reality game within the platformer. The update to the game doesn't seem to include much new content at first glance, but what has been added is clearly only the beginning of a much bigger trip down Valve's latest rabbit hole.

Today's announced update was accompanied by a short, cryptic note: "Changed radio transmission frequency to comply with federal and state spectrum management regulations." When you next boot up the game, there is a radio in your cell that broadcasts morse code when you hold it and stand on the red button in the first level (as seen in the video below). It turns out there are a total of 26 different radios in the game now, and they all have morse code.

The game's new achievement, "Transmission Received" is unlocked when you discover the first morse code radio broadcast. Not only that, but the sound the radios make when a radio is thrown into a force field is extremely unnerving.

Enterprising Steam community members rooted around the game files and discovered a new group called "dinosaur" that contained a ton of morse code audio, as well as some images that seemed to be corrupted by strange data.

Over at the Steam forums, there's a full list of the Dinosaur files, as well as translations and/or posted images with each corresponding filename. This is clearly the first piece of a much larger puzzle, though speculation is running rampant about just what Valve is playing at. Popular opinion points to the update acting as a teaser for Portal 2, which seems logical since the morse translations imply that GladOS is in the process of rebooting. For the moment, though, the game is afoot and players are investigating the mystery with gusto.

Read the comments on this post

NVIDIA's Optimus transforms into smaller ION 2

After an initial burst of enthusiasm and despite NVIDIA's repeated attempts to show me the light, I'm no longer particularly clear on the case for ION in netbooks—who are all of these people who are playing WoW and watching HD movies on their 1024x600 netbooks? Isn't "netbook performance" an oxymoron? Nonetheless, whatever the case is, it just got stronger with the announcement of ION 2.

ION 2 is pretty much what you'd expect given the Optimus announcement from early last month: an NVIDIA discrete GPU plus Intel's Pine Trail mobile platform. There are, however, a few twists on the idea that are specific to the netbook. First, let's take a look at the overall platform.

Read the comments on this post

OpenSolaris not dead; might not get all new Solaris features

Oracle's assimilation of Sun is moving forward, but there are still some unanswered questions about what the database giant will do with Sun's diverse assortment of technologies. Some of Sun's more whimsical and esoteric offerings, such as the Java-based Project Wonderland virtual world platform, were swiftly sent to the chopping block.

Due to the absence of specific assurances from Oracle, Some members of the OpenSolaris community became concerned about the fate of the open source variant of Sun's UNIX platform. Some of the concerns were voiced in an open letter to Oracle that was published in February by OpenSolaris developer and evangelist Ben Rockwood. Oracle responded to those concerns last week during an OpenSolaris community IRC meeting. The company plans to continue moving OpenSolaris forward but might make some adjustments to the development model.

According to a report at Datamation that describes what transpired during the meeting, Solaris product manager Dan Roberts told the OpenSolaris community that Oracle intends to continue supporting the project. The upcoming OpenSolaris 2010.03 release is still on track for delivery. Although this is good news for OpenSolaris users and developers, there is still some uncertainty about the manner in which Oracle will manage the project. Roberts suggested that some new features might not be released as open source as Oracle begins investing heavily in Solaris development.

Read the comments on this post

Senate takes companies to task for ignoring Internet freedom

Earlier this year, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton gave a speech in which she made it clear that Internet freedom would be a major theme of the US government's attempts to get information to the citizens of repressive governments. Things haven't change much in the interim, with the conviction of Google executives in Italy serving as a reminder that it's not simply repressive regimes that put companies in legal hot water. With those events as a backdrop, the US Senate's Judiciary Committee heard testimony today on Internet freedom that emphasized how challenging it will be to find a way to open up the flow of information in repressive regimes.

The Google-Italy case did figure briefly, as an example of how even a country with values that have a significant overlap with those of the US can have significant legal differences when it comes to online activities (Italy lacks the US' safe harbor provisions for hosts of user-generated online content). Still, the hearings focused primarily on those nations, such as China and Iran, that exercise significant control over online content.

Read the comments on this post

Apple's ITC complaint names HTC phones, 10 other patents

As we reported, Apple filed a federal lawsuit against HTC Tuesday claiming infringement of 10 of Apple's patents related to smartphone technology. Apple said that HTC violated 20 of its patents, and the remaining 10 are covered under a parallel complaint with the ITC. That complaint also names essentially every current HTC product as infringing devices.

The complaint, unlike the federal lawsuit, specifically calls out HTC smartphones by name. Devices suspected of infringement include the Nexus One, Touch Pro and Pro2, Touch Diamond, Tilt II, Pure, Imagio, Dream (aka T-mobile G1), myTouch 3G, Hero, HD2, and Droid Eris.

Several of the devices run Google's Android operating system, though the rest run a version of Microsoft's Windows Mobile operating system. Neither of the complaints specifically target either Google or Microsoft, however. Likewise, Apple has yet to file any complaint against Palm over its webOS-based Pre or Pixi smartphones, though COO Tim Cook alluded that could happen last year.

The 10 patents in question in the ITC complaint include:

5481721: Method for Providing Automatic and Dynamic Translation of Object Oriented Programming Language-Based Message Passing Into Operating System Message Passing Using Proxy Objects
5519867: Object-Oriented Multitasking System
6275983: Object-Oriented Operating System
5566337: Method and Apparatus for Distributing Events in an Operating System
5929852: Encapsulated Network Entity Reference of a Network Component System
5946647: System and Method for Performing an Action on a Structure in Computer-Generated Data
5969705: Message Protocol for Controlling a User Interface from an Inactive Application Program
6343263: Real-Time Signal Processing System for Serially Transmitted Data
5915131: Method and Apparatus for Handling I/O Requests Utilizing Separate Programming Interfaces to Access Separate I/O Services
RE39486: Extensible, Replaceable Network Component Systems

Those patents are related to technologies used in the iPhone and iPod touch as well as Macs running Mac OS X. Notably, they are all software patents, and software patents have a contentious status in the US. However, Apple states in its complaint that these patents have some litigation history and that a number of companies (the list of which is redacted as confidential) license these technologies. The federal case, in contrast, requests the 10 patents listed in the suit be declared as valid, suggesting they have yet to be tested in court.

One tidbit that caught our eye in the ITC complaint is that NeXT remains a separate, wholly owned subsidiary of Apple. Both Apple and NeXT are named as complaintants.

Read the comments on this post

New ACTA leak shows major resistance to US-style DRM rules

The leaks keep coming for the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA). A new leak from Europe has revealed the inner workings of the negotiating process through a 40+ page document showing each country's positions on key provisions of the treaty.

While most of the negotiating is quite technical, what stands out most sharply is the international resistance to the US-drafted proposals on DRM "anticircumvention" rules. Let's take a look at some of the key differences among parties.

Read the comments on this post

Scammers use Twitter, Facebook for $150k bridal show scam

Scammers took advantage of brides-to-be and exhibitors last week when they set up a Twitter account to promote a nonexistent bridal show. The scammers had set up the Twitter account as if they were representing The Boston 411, a legit community info site for Bostonites, and promoted preregistration for the bogus show to both attendees and exhibitors. Needless to say, the Twitter account, the site, and the bridal show were all scams, and police are on the hunt for those behind the charade.

According to the Boston Globe, police began their investigation into the scam last week but held a press conference Monday to alert victims of the scam. Some 5,000 people paid for $15 tickets to the show, while 200 businesses shelled out $350 to $4,000 in hopes of exhibiting. Because the show was promoted to be taking place between March 5 through 7 (next weekend), police wanted to give victims the chance to cancel any travel plans they might have made.

The Twitter account in question has been promoting the show since September of 2009 and has somehow gotten 185 followers, despite the fact that nothing but that has been tweeted in the history of the account. Still, word of the show apparently reached far and wide, with interested parties getting out their wallets for nothing more than a (no longer available) Facebook page and a PayPal account. According to the Globe, scammers also managed to pull in at least one radio producer who had created ads for the show in exchange for a discounted booth rental.

On the one hand, it's hard to say what victims should have done differently to avoid this kind of scam. The promotion looked like it came through legitimate channels and it's not uncommon for bridal shows to sell preregistration tickets at a discount. A hundred people see it on Twitter, register, tell their friends, and boom. On the other hand, looking at that Twitter timeline sets off our spam radar.

If you or anyone you know has any information on what happened, the Boston police would like to hear from you at victims.bpd@cityofboston.gov.

Read the comments on this post

HTC feeling Apple's fury over smartphone patents

Apple has filed a lawsuit against smartphone maker HTC, alleging that it violates as many as 20 patents that Apple has on the iPhone interface and hardware architecture. A parallel complaint has also been filed with the International Trade Commission to block imports of devices that violated the patents in question.

"We can sit by and watch competitors steal our patented inventions, or we can do something about it. We've decided to do something about it," Apple CEO Steve Jobs said in a statement. "We think competition is healthy, but competitors should create their own original technology, not steal ours."

Read the comments on this post

Ex-CEO Darl McBride might buy SCO's iPhone software business

SCO is still drowning in its own fail sauce but hasn't completely suffocated yet. The company's Chapter 11 Trustee has proposed selling off SCO's mobile technology business for some quick cash. The prospective buyer is said to be none other than Darl McBride, the company's much-despised former CEO, according to a report by Groklaw.

SCO, a former vendor of proprietary UNIX systems, launched an unsuccessful litigation assault on Linux in 2003. The company claimed that Linux was developed with proprietary technologies that were misappropriated from UNIX. Although SCO publicly claimed to have incontrovertible proof to back up its accusations, internal memos later revealed that the company's own audits had found no evidence of infringement. SCO's case completely fell apart in 2007 when a judge ruled that SCO never even owned the rights to UNIX. SCO was ordered to pay millions of dollars to Novell, the rightful owner.

SCO has been struggling for survival and has used every trick in the book to avoid liquidation. The company still hopes that it can win on appeal, despite the fact that it no longer has the necessary resources to continue the fight. SCO's latest survival tactic is a scheme to sell off its mobile business for $35,000. Groklaw says that the buyer, Mobility Inc. Holdings, is affiliated with Darl McBride, the former CEO of the SCO Group. McBride is generally viewed as the architect of SCO's demise and the front man of the litigation strategy.

SCO's mobility business includes a suite of FranklinCovey-branded iPhone applications. When Judge Kevin Gross issued a scathing rebuke against SCO's stalling tactics last year, he commented that the company's mobile technology had little value. The Chapter 11 Trustee acknowledges that SCO no longer has the capital to continuing developing its mobile technology by itself.

Read the comments on this post

WinMob 6.5 to Windows Phone 7 Series upgrades to be rare

It's long been known that Microsoft would have much tighter hardware requirements for Windows Mobile 7 than any previous version of its mobile operating system. Therefore, the general expectation for upgrades to the new version have not been hopeful: if you want Windows Phone 7 Series device, the fact that you have a Windows Mobile phone right now does not mean you can avoid buying a new phone.

Natasha Kwan, General Manager for Microsoft's Mobile Communications Business in the Asia-Pacific region, recently went on record that Microsoft would be very strict about what phones will be upgradable: she told APC that the HTC HD2 touchscreen smartphone "doesn't qualify because it doesn't have the three buttons" (it has five). HD2 owners will be unable to upgrade the device to Windows Mobile 7 when the OS is released later this year despite the fact the device meets many of the criteria laid down in Microsoft's Chassis 1 spec, including a 1GHz Qualcomm processor, a high-resolution capacitive touch display, a five megapixel camera, and a 3.5mm headphone jack.

This statement has been widely extrapolated to mean that all Windows Mobile 6.x phones will not be allowed to move on up. That's simply not the case. "For Windows Phone 7 Series we are enforcing a strict set of hardware requirements to ensure a consistently great experience for end-users and developers," a Microsoft spokesperson told Ars. "While we cannot confirm that WM6.X phones that satisfy those requirements will be upgradeable, every Windows Phone 7 Series device will be upgradeable with improvements and features we deliver with subsequent Windows Phone 7 Series releases."

Devices with Windows Phone 6 Starter Edition are expected to sell alongside devices from Windows Phone 7 Series.

The good news here is that Microsoft plans on maintaining a much more consistent experience across its many different devices with its rigid Windows Phone 7 Series hardware requirements. The bad news is that it comes at the loss of many of its current faithful Windows Mobile customers.

Read the comments on this post

EU cracks down on "bill shock" roaming horror stories

Heard the one about the German tourist who downloaded a TV program in France and got whacked with a â‚¬46,000 mobile Internet bill? How about the UK student who racked up almost آ£8,000 in roaming data charges in two months?

Hopefully these stories will surface less often thanks to the latest move by the European Union. As of Monday, EU-governed mobile companies must offer their wandering customers a monthly cut-off limit for roaming broadband access. Once their bill goes past that specified sum, they'll be informed that their mobile connection to the Internet has been blocked.

Read the comments on this post

No comments:

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)