By Grant Gross
IDG News Service (Washington Bureau)
March 11, 2010

WASHINGTON - The Chinese government is likely behind recent cyberattacks on U.S. government Web sites and on U.S. companies in an apparent effort to quash criticism of the government there, an expert on U.S. and Chinese relations said Wednesday.

There’s no conclusive proof that recent attacks on Google and dozens of other U.S. companies are directed by the Chinese government, but logic would point to official Chinese involvement, said Larry Wortzel, a member of the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission and a former U.S. Army counterintelligence officer.

Google complained in January that it and several other U.S. companies were victims of recent cyberattacks coming from inside China. It is “not clear” who ordered the attacks, but it appears the Chinese government was involved, said Wortzel, who has served in the U.S. embassy in China.

There is a group of skilled hackers in China that routinely attacks systems to spy on political dissidents, said Wortzel, speaking during a U.S. House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee hearing. Chinese government agencies and Communist Party organizations would be the likely recipients of information obtained by hackers, he said.

“I concede that I cannot prove this beyond a reasonable doubt in a court of law,” Wortzel added. “There may be a group of patriotic hackers in China who just hate criticism of the Communist Party and would take such action. But I believe such persistent, systematic and sophisticated attacks, some of which have taken place in the United States, in China, in Germany and in the United Kingdom, most likely are state-directed.”

Multiple efforts to reach the Chinese embassy in Washington, D.C., for comment by telephone Wednesday were met with busy signals. Information on the “contact us” page on the embassy’s Web site has been deleted.

In addition to attacks on Google and other U.S. companies, attacks from inside China are targeting U.S. military, technical and scientific information, Wortzel said.

“Not all of this cyber-espionage may be government-controlled,” he said. “There may be plenty of cyber-espionage entrepreneurs in China who operate outside government control that could be working on behalf of Chinese companies or the 54 state-run science and technology parks around the country.”

But the U.S. Department of Justice is prosecuting several espionage cases involving defense and other U.S. technology being turned over to unidentified Chinese officials, Wortzel said. “Let us be candid,” he said. “A logical person would conclude that some of this activity is directed by the Chinese government.”

Several members of the House committee used the hearing to criticize the Chinese government’s filtering of Web content or its tracking of online dissidents. Wednesday’s hearing was the second in Congress this month on other countries’ efforts to censor the Internet.

More than 70 people are in prison in China for posting information online, said Representative Chris Smith, a New Jersey Republican. Other countries have put bloggers and Web journalists in prison as well, he said.

Representative Brad Sherman, a California Democrat, suggested the U.S. should suspend imports of Chinese goods in protest of widespread copyright violations and theft of intellectual property. U.S. businesses should tell Congress to “get tough” with the Chinese government, he said.

“When you ask them for specifics, they basically ask that we beg in a louder voice, which is not effective with China,” Sherman said. “The business community is totally unwilling to say, ‘Well, why don’t we have a week where we block our ports to Chinese imports?’”

Robert Holleyman, president and CEO of the Business Software Alliance, said a “record needs to be built very quickly” on the effect of intellectual property theft by the Chinese on U.S. businesses. The U.S. government should then file trade complaints against China, he said.

Sherman said he doubted that tactic would work. “Are you proposing action that would, in any way, diminish Chinese access to U.S. markets?” he said. “I guarantee delay and failure unless you’re willing to support, and the business community is ready to support, action at the ports. In these bilateral [discussions], we’ll throw paper at them, and they’ll throw paper at us.”

Representative Dana Rohrabacher, a California Republican and outspoken critic of the Chinese government, suggested the U.S. government set new ground rules for U.S. businesses to operate in China. He didn’t detail what new ground rules he wanted, although he said China should not have the same trading rights that other U.S. trade partners have.

“You can’t treat gangsters and tyrants as if they are the same as democratic leaders and honest people and expect there not to be some problems developing,” he said. “We have our business community stepping on themselves trying to get over there to make a profit.”

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By Carrie-Ann Skinner
PC Advisor (UK)
March 11, 2o10

LONDON - Google, Facebook and eBay are among the tech giants that have slammed the government’s plans to tackle internet piracy, claiming it will “threaten freedom of speech”. 

In a letter to the Financial Times, the group of companies, which also includes UK ISPs such as BT and TalkTalk, said the amendment to the Digital Economy Bill has “obvious shortcomings” and will lead to an “increase in internet service providers blocking websites accused of illegally hosting copyrighted material without cases even reaching a judge”. 

The amendment to Clause 17 of the bill, which was passed by the House of Lords last week, gives High Court judges the power to force ISPs to block access to any website with a “substantial” amount of copyright infringing content, such as YouTube. 

“Endorsing a policy that would encourage the blocking of websites by UK broadband providers or other internet companies is a very serious step for the UK to take”, the companies said.

“There are myriad legal, technical and practical issues to reconcile before this can be considered a proportionate and necessary public policy option. In some cases, these may never be reconciled. These issues have not even been considered in this case.”

The companies claim the amendment has been rushed through without consultation with industry or consumers.

The letter comes at BT chief executive Ian Livingstone suggested web users accused of illegally downloading should be fined rather than face a temporary suspension from the web.

The Digital Economy Bill also sets out a ‘three strikes’ rule that will see web users accused of illegally file-sharing issued with warning emails and letters.

Repeat offenders will face technical measures, which the government said would be in the form of ” a bandwidth restriction, a daily downloading limit or, as a last resort, temporary account suspension”.

Livingstone told the BBC the proposals go against natural justice, and instead they should be fined, which they could chose to pay or fight in court. 

He said this method would “create a fund”, although he didn’t specify what the cash would be used for, an would create “some good, rather than getting some hurt out of people infringing copyright”.

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By Paul Krill
InfoWorld (US)
March 10, 2010

SAN FRANCISCO - Google will launch on Tuesday evening Google Apps Marketplace, providing a venue for third-party, cloud-based applications to supplement Google’s own online applications.

The program enables integrations with such applications as Google Gmail, Documents, Sites and Calendar. All told, the effort begins with 50 vendors participating, including Atlassian, NetSuite, Skytap and Zoho.

[ InfoWorld's Paul Krill reported earlier today that developers received a boost in native development capabilities for the Google-backed Android mobile phone platform. ]

“Tonight, what we’re doing is we’re announcing a business-to-business marketplace for Google Apps users, where the idea is that we want to help users get more applications for Google Apps from third-party developers,” said Chris Vander Mey, Google senior product manager, in an interview on Tuesday afternoon. Among the applications is a small business payroll system from Intuit, called Intuit Online Payroll, and Box.net’s self-named content management system.

Users can link to an application via the UI in Google applications, offering benefits like single sign-on and sharing of data between Google Apps and third-party applications. Centralized administration also is featured.

“As you purchase applications, they’re automatically integrated into your domain,” Vander Mey said. Applications can be installed within a domain via a four-click process. Google Apps Marketplace could be compared to the Apple App Store for iPhone applications or the Salesforce.com Force.com cloud application platform, said Vander Mey.

At Box.net, an official cited integration benefits of Google Apps marketplace.

“Basically, we’re now pretty deeply integrated with Google Apps,” said Jennifer Grant, vice president of marketing at Box.net. Users can access Box.net directly from applications such as Gmail, she said.

“Before, they would have to go to Box.net as a separate application,” Grant said. Users can add Google Docs documents to a Box.net workflow and send out email alerts.

Participation in Google Apps Marketplace is open to customers of the Premier, Standard and Education editions of Google Apps. Applications are linked to the marketplace via REST Web services and APIs including OpenID and OAuth.

“We expect [the marketplace is] going to significantly help Google Apps adoption and also help adoption of our partner apps,” Vander Mey said. “We’re going to bring 25 million users to these partner companies.”

Google began offering online applications five years ago, having reached the 25 million-user mark last weekend, said Vender Mey. More than 2 million businesses use the applications, he said.

Google will pass on 80 percent of revenues from Google Apps Market sales to participating partners and keep the remaining 20 percent.

Some of the other application partners include Aviary, Batchbook, Bookfresh, Expensify, OfficeSync, Shoeboxed.com, and SuccessFactors.

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By John E. Dunn
Techworld.com
March 8, 2010

LONDON - Criminals re-used an attack from 2008 to hit the Internet with a huge wave of ransomware in recent weeks, a security company has reported.

In the space of only two days, 8 and 9 February, the HTML/Goldun.AXT campaign detected by Fortinet accounted for more than half the total malware detected for February, which gives some indication of its unusual scale.
The attack itself takes the form of a spam email with an attachment, report.zip, which if clicked automatically downloads a rogue anti-virus product called Security Tool. It is also being distributed using manipulated search engine optimisation (SEO) on Google and other providers.

Such scams have been common on the Internet for more than a year, but this particular one features a more recently-evolved sting in the tail. The product doesn’t just ask the infected user to buy a useless licence in the mode of scareware, it locks applications and data on the PC, offering access only when a payment has been made through the single functioning application left, Internet Explorer.

What’s new, then, is that old-style scareware has turned into a default ransom-oriented approach. The former assumes that users won’t know they are being scammed, while the latter assumes they will but won’t know what to do about it.

The technique is slowly becoming more common - see the Vundo attack of a year ago - but what is also different is the size of this attack, one of the largest ever seen by Fortinet for a single malware campaign.
Fortinet notes that Security Tool is really a reheat of an old campaign from November 2008, which pushed the notorious rogue antivirus product Total Security as a way of infecting users with a keylogging Trojan.

“This is a great example of how tried and true attack techniques/social engineering can be recycled into future attacks,” says Fortinet’s analysis.

According to Fortinet, the ‘engine’ pushing the spike in ransom-based malware is believed to be the highly-resilient Cutwail/Pushdo botnet, the same spam and DDoS system behind a number of campaigns in the last three years including the recent pestering of PayPal and Twitter sites.

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By Jeff Bertolucci
PC World (US)
March 8, 2010

SAN FRANCISCO - Google’s got its head in the cloud–again. The search giant today announced that it has bought DocVerse, a software startup that makes an online collaboration plug-in for Microsoft Office. The Wall Street Journal reports that Google paid $25 million for the San Francisco-based developer, which was founded in 2007 by former Microsoft employees Shan Sinha and Alex DeNeui.

The DocVerse deal wraps up an acquisitive week for Google, which announced Monday that it gobbled up online photo-editing site Picnik.

Office, Meet Apps

So what are Google’s intentions for its latest conquest? “Our first step will be to combine DocVerse with Google Apps to create a bridge between Microsoft Office and Google Apps,” write DeNeui and Sinha in their DocVerse blog. Their plug-in currently allows MS Office users to work collaboratively on Excel, PowerPoint, and Word documents, even when they’re offline.

If implemented correctly, DocVerse’s Office-to-Apps bridge can help Google position its Apps communications and collaboration suite as a viable alternative to Microsoft products in the enterprise market. A collaborative tool that enables seamless (or at least pretty good) integration between the competitors’ business apps could only serve to help Google and harm Microsoft, which has reigned over the enterprise market for years.

A Cloudy Outlook

The DocVerse acquisition fits nicely with Google’s cloud-based view, and with the search company’s not-so-subtle efforts to dethrone the desktop-centric MS Office.

“The future of productivity applications is in the cloud,” blogs Google Apps group product manager Jonathan Rochelle. “But we recognize that many people are still accustomed to desktop software. So as we continue to improve Google Docs and Google Sites as rich collaboration tools, we’re also making it easier for people to transition to the cloud, and interoperate with desktop applications like Microsoft Office,” Rochelle writes.
Google recently added advanced data backup and recovery capabilities to all components of the Apps suite. It also introduced mobile device management tools for users of Google Apps Premier and Education Edition. Today’s DocVerse announcement is yet another sign of Google’s business-market play.

Microsoft, of course, is developing its own cloud-based strategy too. Its upcoming Office 2010, for instance, will feature numerous Web-based enhancements, including scaled-down online versions of core Office desktop apps.

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By Jaikumar Vijayan
Computerworld (US)
March 4, 2010

FRAMINGHAM - The difficult task of identifying the true sources of cyber attacks remains one of the biggest challenges in the development of a national cybersecurity strategy, former Department of Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff told Computerworld in an interview at the RSA Security conference here today.

Chertoff, who is participating in a panel discussion at the conference, said there is a growing need for the U.S to create a strong, formal strategy for responding to cyberattacks against American interests.

Such a strategy would need to clearly articulate possible U.S. responses to attacks, which could include diplomatic and other tools.

Chertoff noted that by comparison, physical attacks are relatively easy to track down and respond to. “In the Cold War we could attribute an attack. It was clear where it came from and we could respond,” he said.

Finding the source of cyber attacks, though, is far more complicated, he said. While investigators could find the physical systems from which an attack is launched, the owner of the systems could have nothing to do with the criminal activity.

Similarly, he said, it is very difficult for investigators to determine whether attacks are state-sponsored or are being carried out by individuals on their own.

Chertoff said that defense officials still have to determine specific potential responses to cyberattacks, which could include disconnecting attackers from the internet, using diplomatic tools or military action. “We haven’t really laid down the rules of the road yet,” he said. “It’s challenging.”

Chertoff’s comments come amid growing calls for the U.S. to develop a clearly spelled out formal strategy for dealing with threats in cyberspace.

Recent attacks against Google and other companies from within China, along with dozens of similar attacks against numerous federal agencies in recent years have increased the call for developing a strong strategy.

For example, in a white paper published last month by the Cyber Secure Institute, General Eugene Habiger, a former commander of U.S. Strategic Command for nuclear and deterrence forces, said: “For deterrence to work, the threat of retaliation must be credible enough to alter the cost benefit analysis of our cyberadversaries.

Habiger acknowledged in the white paper that effective cyber attacks can be launched “just as easily from a Starbucks in our own nation’s capital as a cave in Pakistan,” making retaliation extremely difficult.

“Modestly sophisticated cyberattacks leave almost no trace, no return address,” he said. “It becomes extremely to effectively retaliate when you cannot say with certainty who attacked you,” he said.

Jaikumar Vijayan covers data security and privacy issues, financial services security and e-voting for Computerworld . Follow Jaikumar on Twitter at @jaivijayan , send e-mail to jvijayan@computerworld.com or subscribe to Jaikumar’s RSS feed .

Read more about security in Computerworld’s Security Knowledge Center.

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By Sharon Gaudin
Computerworld (US)
March 4, 2010

FRAMINGHAM - The already heated online search war cranked up a notch in recent days as Google officials openly blamed Microsoft for triggering the European Commission’s antitrust probe into its activities.

Analysts say that if true, Microsoft’s decision to seek an EC antitrust investigation into Google activities would mark the latest move in its continuing effort to knock the high-riding search vendor down a peg or two.

The EC announced late last month that it had launched an antitrust investigation of Google based on complaints from three firms, two with connections to Microsoft.

Over the past year or so, Microsoft has been spending a lot of money and development resources to capture some of Google’s 60% share of the search market. But while the release of Microsoft’s Bing search engine last summer did garner a lot of attention, Google still maintains the dominant position it has held in the search market for years.

Now Microsoft appears to be taking a different route — creating a legal storm that would distract Google officials and keep them from focusing on the future of the business.

“Against Google’s level of control,” any effort to compete directly in the search business “could take [Microsoft] a lot of years and a massive investment,” said Rob Enderle, an analyst with the Enderle Group. “This approach [using legal means to distract Google] potentially shortens their time and the investment.

“The disparity in market share is simply too large for them to close the gap unless Google makes a massive sustained mistake or is hit by a successful antitrust action,” he added.

Whit Andrews, an analyst at Gartner Inc., said it’s no surprise that the Microsoft-Google battle would enter a new realm, in this case the courtroom.

“I think that search is the most important crossroads in the history of information,” Andrews said. “I expect the striving conflict among the most powerful companies and countries in the world to intensify.”

In a conference call with journalists last week, Julia Holtz, Google’s top antitrust lawyer, blamed Microsoft for sparking the probe. “Microsoft is our competitor, and that explains many actions,” she said.

She noted that the three companies whose complaints triggered the investigation included Ciao, a German company acquired by Microsoft in 2008.

“Ciao [was] a long-time AdSense partner of Google’s, with whom we always had a good relationship,” Holtz said in a blog post. “However, after Microsoft acquired Ciao in 2008, we started receiving complaints about our standard terms and conditions. They initially took their case to the German competition authority, but it now has been transferred to Brussels.”

She also noted that a second complainent, Foundem, a U.K. price comparison site, is a member of of a trade group called iComp , which is largely funded by Microsoft.

French legal search engine ejustice.fr was the third company whose complaint against Google is under investigation by the EC.

Microsoft responded to Holtz’ charge by contending that Google responded to the EC investigation by pointing fingers rather than answering the charges.

Dave Heiner, vice president and deputy general counsel at Microsoft, added in a blog post that “Google hasn’t been shy about raising antitrust concerns about Microsoft in the last few years. Ultimately what’s important is not who is complaining, but whether or not the challenged practices are anticompetitive.”

Enderle noted that in the past, Microsoft frequently complained that rivals like Oracle Corp., Sun Microsoystems Inc. and Google were behind antitrust probes that targeted its actions.

Stuart Williams, an analyst with Technology Business Research, said users shouldn’t assume that Microsoft’s apparent legal challenge to Google indicates that it’s decided that Bing is not up to the challenge of taking on the search giant. It simply means that Microsoft is using all the tools in its arsenal.

“Both vendors have strong search technologies; the cases are not indications that either is throwing in the towel,” said Williams. “Large corporations can fight in the market as well as in the courtroom.”

The analysts do note that no matter who prompted the antitrust investigation, Google should prepare itself for the legal challenge.

“If you think about it, the validity of the charge should be based on the validity and substance of the evidence, not on whether a large competitor brought it to the enforcement agency’s attention,” said Enderle.

“I think this is a natural progression. Google’s should have been to anticipate that the fight they helped start with Microsoft would likely come back to haunt them. It’s like firing a nuclear bomb with the belief that the other side won’t turn around and use it against you.”

The antitrust action appears to be the latest battele in an escalating battle between Google and Microsoft on several fronts, from enterprise applications to operating systems and now especially to the burgeoning search market .

Nancy Gohring and Paul Meller of the IDG News Service, contributed to this article.

Sharon Gaudin covers the Internet and Web 2.0, emerging technologies, and desktop and laptop chips for Computerworld . Follow Sharon on Twitter at @sgaudin , send e-mail to sgaudin@computerworld.com or subscribe to Sharon’s RSS feed .

Read more about government in Computerworld’s Government Knowledge Center.

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By Mikael Ricknäs
IDG News Service (Stockholm Bureau)
March 4, 2010

HANOVER - The first of Nokia’s Cseries handset comes with integrated support for Facebook in the address book, and support for e-mail and instant messaging.

The Symbian-based smartphone will start shipping in the second quarter and cost €135 (US$180), before taxes and subsidies. Going against current smartphone trends, the C5 is a candybar-shaped device with a numerical keypad.

The phone has integrated support for Facebook and MySpace. Users can share location with the latest version of Ovi Maps, which offers free walk and drive navigation, according to Nokia.

The list of supported e-mail services on the C5 include its own Ovi Mail, Microsoft’s Windows Live Hotmail and Google’s Gmail. Users can also communicate with instant messaging services like Google Talk and Windows Live Messenger.

Users can also surf the web using HSPA (High-Speed Packet Access), take pictures using a 3.2-megapixel camera, and store content on an included 2GB microSD card. There is support for cards that can store up to 16GB

The C5 will ship in Europe, Asia, the Middle East and Africa. The company didn’t provide any details on U.S. availability.

The Nokia portfolio now consists of for series: C, X, E and Nseries. The number following the letter signals the level of functionality on offer – 1 being the lowest and 9 being the highest, according to Nokia. That means the new C5 sits in the middle of Nokia’s family of entry-level smartphones. So far, the company hasn’t launched E or N series devices that use the new naming convention, and it isn’t commenting on when that will happen, it said.

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By Sharon Gaudin
Computerworld (US)
March 3, 2010

FRAMINGHAM - The already heated online search war cranked up a notch in recent days as Google officials openly blamed Microsoft for triggering the European Commission’s antitrust probe into its activities.

Analysts say that if true, Microsoft’s decision to seek an EC antitrust investigation into Google activities would mark the latest move in its continuing effort to knock the high-riding search vendor down a peg or two.

The EC announced late last month that it had launched an antitrust investigation of Google based on complaints from three firms, two with connections to Microsoft.

Over the past year or so, Microsoft has been spending a lot of money and development resources to capture some of Google’s 60% share of the search market. But while the release of Microsoft’s Bing search engine last summer did garner a lot of attention, Google still maintains the dominant position it has held in the search market for years.

Now Microsoft appears to be taking a different route — creating a legal storm that would distract Google officials and keep them from focusing on the future of the business.

“Against Google’s level of control,” any effort to compete directly in the search business “could take [Microsoft] a lot of years and a massive investment,” said Rob Enderle, an analyst with the Enderle Group. “This approach [using legal means to distract Google] potentially shortens their time and the investment.

“The disparity in market share is simply too large for them to close the gap unless Google makes a massive sustained mistake or is hit by a successful antitrust action,” he added.

Whit Andrews, an analyst at Gartner Inc., said it’s no surprise that the Microsoft-Google battle would enter a new realm, in this case the courtroom.

“I think that search is the most important crossroads in the history of information,” Andrews said. “I expect the striving conflict among the most powerful companies and countries in the world to intensify.”

In a conference call with journalists last week, Julia Holtz, Google’s top antitrust lawyer, blamed Microsoft for sparking the probe. “Microsoft is our competitor, and that explains many actions,” she said.

She noted that the three companies whose complaints triggered the investigation included Ciao, a German company acquired by Microsoft in 2008.

“Ciao [was] a long-time AdSense partner of Google’s, with whom we always had a good relationship,” Holtz said in a blog post. “However, after Microsoft acquired Ciao in 2008, we started receiving complaints about our standard terms and conditions. They initially took their case to the German competition authority, but it now has been transferred to Brussels.”

She also noted that a second complainent, Foundem, a U.K. price comparison site, is a member of of a trade group called iComp , which is largely funded by Microsoft.

French legal search engine ejustice.fr was the third company whose complaint against Google is under investigation by the EC.

Microsoft responded to Holtz’ charge by contending that Google responded to the EC investigation by pointing fingers rather than answering the charges.

Dave Heiner, vice president and deputy general counsel at Microsoft, added in a blog post that “Google hasn’t been shy about raising antitrust concerns about Microsoft in the last few years. Ultimately what’s important is not who is complaining, but whether or not the challenged practices are anticompetitive.”

Enderle noted that in the past, Microsoft frequently complained that rivals like Oracle Corp., Sun Microsoystems Inc. and Google were behind antitrust probes that targeted its actions.

Stuart Williams, an analyst with Technology Business Research, said users shouldn’t assume that Microsoft’s apparent legal challenge to Google indicates that it’s decided that Bing is not up to the challenge of taking on the search giant. It simply means that Microsoft is using all the tools in its arsenal.

“Both vendors have strong search technologies; the cases are not indications that either is throwing in the towel,” said Williams. “Large corporations can fight in the market as well as in the courtroom.”

The analysts do note that no matter who prompted the antitrust investigation, Google should prepare itself for the legal challenge.

“If you think about it, the validity of the charge should be based on the validity and substance of the evidence, not on whether a large competitor brought it to the enforcement agency’s attention,” said Enderle.

“I think this is a natural progression. Google’s should have been to anticipate that the fight they helped start with Microsoft would likely come back to haunt them. It’s like firing a nuclear bomb with the belief that the other side won’t turn around and use it against you.”

The antitrust action appears to be the latest battele in an escalating battle between Google and Microsoft on several fronts, from enterprise applications to operating systems and now especially to the burgeoning search market .

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By James Niccolai
IDG News Service (San Francisco Bureau)
March 3, 2010

SANTA CLARA, CALIFORNIA - It’s not easy being Steve Ballmer. The Microsoft CEO was asked for the umpteenth time Tuesday if his company will ever be number one in search.

“There’s no good answer to this question. If you say yes you seem like you’re arrogant and if you say no it looks like you have no faith. So the answer is yes, someday,” Ballmer said.

“The truth is, the number one thing Google benefits from is they did it right first,” he said.

Ballmer was interviewed on stage Tuesday at the Search Marketing Expo in Santa Clara, California, by Danny Sullivan, editor in chief of Search Engine Land and a longtime search industry watcher.

A cornerstone of Microsoft efforts is a search and advertising deal with Yahoo, in which Microsoft Bing will become the search engine for Yahoo’s Web sites, with Microsoft taking a share of revenue, and Yahoo will handle search ad sales for both companies’ largest advertising customers.

The deal is about increasing Microsoft’s search volume, which helps it to fine-tune its search engine to give better results, and about bringing more eyeballs for advertisers, Ballmer said.

He was asked if Yahoo will survive as a search company as Microsoft tries to “climb over it” on the way to the top. “Growing overall search share is job number one, and we need them to be successful with us,” Ballmer said.

The CEO revealed that he’s not a big Twitterer. He’s said he’s more likely to share his thoughts in a blog post than “a set of short tweets.”

“I’m more of a consumer than an author in the real-time environment,” Ballmer said.

But he does have a stealth Twitter account under an undisclosed name. “I was tweeting basketball scores, but you wouldn’t know it unless you were a parent in the Lakeside basketball community,” he said.

Asked if Microsoft should buy Twitter, Ballmer said it’s “not clear” that would be a good move, and the microblogging service might be better off staying independent.

“They have a lot of credibility with the user community. Would they have that same credibility if they were captive [to Microsoft]? That’s not clear,” he said.

Facebook “very much wants to be an independent company, so we’ll continue to work the partnership with them,” Ballmer said.

Sullivan asked Ballmer if Microsoft is using smaller search companies as a way to raise antitrust complaints against Google. The European Commission said last week it was examining complaints against Google filed by three companies, some of which are linked to Microsoft.

“We’re not being silent, we’re expressing some of the issues and frustrations we see. Certainly sometimes that is unsolicited, but often times it’s because we’ve been asked,” Ballmer said.

“There are a set of issues we think are worth commenting about,” he said. “Ultimately, what’s lawful and unlawful is the purview of regulators. Don’t we know it,” he said, referring to Microsoft’s own history with antitrust regulators.

Asked if Google has a “lock-in” on publishers or advertisers that makes it harder for other companies to compete, Ballmer said there are “a lot of places where it is hard to break through,” but he said the conference wasn’t the right place to “itemize” Microsoft’s concerns.

He did suggest that Google retains data about advertisers’ campaigns that those companies might benefit from sharing with other search providers. “There are still things Google holds in,” Ballmer said.

Sullivan asked the audience of a few hundred advertisers, marketers and consultants if any of them were “frustrated” with Google’s behavior, and only one or two hands in the room went up.

Search will be a bigger share of Microsoft’s business going forward, Ballmer said.

“I guarantee search is going to be a growing share of Microsoft’s profits. That means it’s first got to break even, then get bigger, but that’s a growing share the way I do my math,” he said.

The biggest opportunities in search are in divining user intent and helping them complete a task, he said — something Google and Yahoo are also working on. He gave the example of his own frustration trying to gather data about debt as a percentage of countries’ gross domestic product.

“I knew what I wanted, I could have drawn an Excel spreadsheet and I just wanted to search to get the data to put in the spreadsheet. That shouldn’t be that hard,” he said.

Microsoft will keep investing in Cashback, a program in which Microsoft pays partial refunds to customers who make purchases through sponsored links on its site. But the company might make some changes while keeping the basic concept intact. “It hasn’t worked fantastically, in the sense it hasn’t completely changed the economics of the business. But it has certainly had positive results, so I’d expect us to continue Cashback.”

Microsoft seems to have learned something from the privacy backlash that hit Google Buzz, its social networking project. Privacy is “a lot more in our mind post the buzz around Buzz,” Ballmer said.

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By Nancy Gohring
IDG News Service (Seattle Bureau)
March 1, 2010

SEATTLE - Microsoft and Google are stepping up their war of words. This time it’s Microsoft’s turn: It says Google is pointing fingers rather than addressing the European Commission’s investigation into the search giant.

Earlier this week, the European Commission acknowledged that it had begun looking into three antitrust complaints filed against Google. In response, Google has defended its search policies but has also blamed Microsoft for triggering the investigation, because Microsoft owns one of the companies that complained and is linked to another.

“Google is telling reporters that antitrust concerns about search are not real because some of the complaints come from one of its last remaining search competitors,” Dave Heiner, vice president and deputy general counsel at Microsoft, wrote in a blog post on Friday.

There’s a reason for that, he said. “Complaints in competition law cases usually come from competitors,” he wrote. “Google hasn’t been shy about raising antitrust concerns about Microsoft in the last few years, either. … Ultimately what’s important is not who is complaining, but whether or not the challenged practices are anticompetitive.”

Microsoft, which has faced its share of antitrust complaints, is “among the first to say that leading firms should not be punished for their success,” he said. “Our concerns relate only to Google practices that tend to lock in business partners and content (like Google Books) and exclude competitors, thereby undermining competition more broadly.”

From its side, Google on Thursday generally described its search ranking technology and said it never manually chooses results. One of the companies that complained to the commission, Foundem, suggests otherwise. Foundem believes it was essentially blacklisted from Google’s search results for a while because the company competes with Google.

Google also stressed the challenges involved in processing hundreds of millions of queries a day. The company didn’t reveal anything new about the way it handles search, but it said news of the Commission’s investigation had prompted “lots of questions” about how Google’s ranking works.

Google dominates the European search market, with about 85 percent market share in many countries, while Microsoft’s Bing typically has closer to a 3 percent share.

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By Gregg Keizer
Computerworld (US)
March 1, 2010

FRAMINGHAM - Microsoft has several other botnets in its crosshairs, and believes it can use the same legal tactic against them that it deployed last week to strike at the Waledac botnet’s command-and-control centers.

But the company also admitted that it had not yet severed all communications between the controllers of Waledac and the thousands of compromised Windows computers used by hackers to pitch bogus security software and send a small amount of spam.

“This shows it can be done,” said Richard Boscovich, senior attorney with Microsoft’s Digital Crimes Unit. “Each botnet is different, of course, but this is another arrow in the quiver. This is not the last [effort]…. We have other operations on the drawing board.”

Last Wednesday, Microsoft announced that it had been granted a court order that yanked nearly 300 sites from the Internet. Those sites, Microsoft said, were a key link between hackers and the PCs that make up the Waledac botnet. The legal tactic, which garnered accolades from many security professionals as a precedent-setting move, resulted in what Microsoft called “a major botnet takedown” of Waledac, a fact that some researchers disputed.

The same method can and will be applied to other botnets, Boscovich said. He declined to say which zombie PC army is next on Microsoft’s hit list. “Of course this is scalable,” he said when asked whether the legal action against Waledac would work against other botnets, or was a one-off. “This is another tool we can now use, another mechanism that is available.”

In fact, when Microsoft officials sat down in early January to decide which botnet to target, they started with a list of six, then narrowed it to three, from which they selected Waledac. The remaining five unnamed botnets remain on Microsoft’s list.

“We wanted to challenge ourselves technically,” said Boscovich when asked why Waledac was chosen. “From the technical standpoint, it had a certain reputation.”

Waledac does have a reputation. The malware that infects victimized PCs was created by, and the botnet is maintained by, hackers who previously flooded the Internet with the Storm bot from early 2007 through mid-2008. Waledac’s makers “definitely know the ins and outs,” Joe Stewart, director of malware analysis at SecureWorks and a noted botnet researcher, said last Thursday.

Boscovich admitted that Waledac wasn’t the world’s biggest botnet, but said several things recommended it for the debut of Microsoft’s legal approach to bot smashing. Among them: The identified command-and-control domains were all registered with one domain registrar, VeriSign, which made it easier to coordinate the site shutdowns; and Microsoft had been in contact with several independent researchers who had dug deep into the malware’s code and the botnet’s behavior.

Even as Microsoft said it would again swing the legal sword, it also admitted it had not completely cut ties between the infected PCs and the hackers who control them.

“They were severely impacted [by the legal action], and we expect the severity of the impact to increase over the next several days,” said T.J. Campana, a senior program manager who works for Boscovich in the company’s Digital Crimes Unit. When asked whether communications between the Waledac hackers and the botnet’s PCs had been comprehensively severed, Campana answered, “By and large, the answer is no.”

Last week, Microsoft claimed it had grabbed control of more than 60,000 bots in the Waledac collection after the court order shuttered the 277 targeted domains. Several security researchers, however, questioned whether the tactic would cripple Waledac , or even disrupt its activities, since hackers have multiple mechanisms for passing commands to machines infected with Waledac.

As a fall-back, Waledac bots can communicate to their controllers “indefinitely” using IP (Internet Protocol) addresses that are hard-coded into the bot Trojan, SecureWorks’ Stewart said last week.

Campana acknowledged those alternate command-and-control links within Waledac, and said Microsoft is attacking those as well. He declined to provide details of what Microsoft was doing, or when — or even if — the Waledac bots would be unreachable by their makers. “In addition to the legal action against the domains, we have taken other technical measures,” said Campana. “At this point, we’re still working that angle and actively adapting our measures.”

Several message security and spam filtering companies and organizations, including Google ’s Postini and the U.K.-based SpamHaus, also disputed Microsoft’s claim last week that Waledac was a “major distributor of spam” and that crippling it would reduce spam.

Symantec’s MessageLabs also weighed in on the impact issue, and like other vendors, downplayed Waledac’s significance. “There’s been no real noticeable effect of the takedown,” Matt Sergeant, a senior anti-spam technologist with MessageLabs, said in an e-mail. “It’s one of the smallest botnets out there, and the court order appears to have had very little effect on its output.”

Microsoft countered, saying it’s too early to gauge its anti-Waledac moves. “We’re still looking at the impact this has had,” said Campana, referring specifically to the monitoring Microsoft’s doing of the volume of spam addressed to Windows Live Hotmail accounts. “It’s somewhat premature to say ‘yay or nay’ yet.” The next one or two weeks will tell the tale, Campana agreed.

But Boscovich would not promise that Microsoft would make Hotmail spam data public. “We’ll look at that [decision] fairly soon,” he said.

It isn’t the first time that Microsoft has said it has crippled a botnet built by this group of hackers. In April 2008, the company took credit for crushing the Storm botnet — Waledac’s predecessor — saying that the malware search-and-destroy tool it distributes to Windows users every month disinfected so many bots that the hackers threw in the towel .

As with the Waledac take-down, researchers at the time disputed Microsoft’s claim that it had beaten Storm into submission.

Campana urged Windows users to run the Microsoft-made Malicious Software Removal Tool (MSRT) to scrub Waledac from infected systems, and up-to-date anti-virus software to keep it off still-clean machines. “This is definitely a preventable issue,” he said.

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By Nora Terrado

Despite the prevalence of conspiracy theories and climate change skepticism, man-made global warming is a widely accepted fact, and one that most scientists agree upon. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the leading body for the assessment of climate change, established by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), suggests that the observed increase in global temperatures is very likely due to observed increase in human greenhouse gas concentration.

Green computing, the practice of efficient and ecofriendly IT, is becoming today’s norm. Addressing the need to minimize the environmental impact of computing resources, which accounts to three percent of the world’s greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, has become even more crucial as computers play increasingly important roles in our daily lives.

Coincidentally, pundits believe that IT itself is the answer to addressing the eco-compliance needs of the remaining 96% to 97% of GHG contributors.

The work has already been started as IT companies the world over tread on the green path. Many corporations are adapting environmentally sustainable ways to conduct their business, with some even going great lengths to accommodate full ecological compliance. Citing a survey, Jose Iglesias of Symantec Corporation writes, “of more than 1,000 large enterprises in 15 countries, nine out of 10 IT organizations see their role in minimizing their company’s environmental footprint as very or extremely significant.”

The high-tech industry, during the 2009 Climate Change Summit in Copenhagen, has pledged substantial reduction of its carbon footprint. According to TheDailyGreen.com’s Brian Clark Howard, technology titans Google, Intel, Hewlett-Packard, Dell, Lenovo, Microsoft, Yahoo and Sun Microsystems have all joined with the EPA, the World Wildlife Fund and others to develop an ambitious industry-wide goal of slashing the amount of energy computers consume. The Climate Savers Computing Initiative has the goal of reducing computer energy use by 50% by 2010.

“If there’s follow-through, the scheme is expected to save $5.5 billion in energy costs and cut emissions by 54 million tons a year, the equivalent of 11 million cars or 20 coal-fired power plants,” writes Howard on 5 Signs the Computer Industry is Going Green.

Philippine companies are not far behind the green trend. Across sectors, Filipino organizations have followed, and in some cases, are leading the new green revolution.

In real estate, Ayala Land is developing the country’s foremost eco-sustainable community. Nuvali, located 40 minutes south of Metro Manila, is touted as the country’s largest and most environmentally friendly business district.

One of Nuvali’s first tenants is relationship management service provider, Convergys. Its Nuvali TechnoHub features green architecture and boasts an abundance of trees and shrubbery for better environmental air quality and habitat enhancement.

The energy sector also fronts key players in the sustainability practice. One of the more popular companies in this industry is Solar Electric Company (Solarco), developers of the E-jeepney, which is known as pioneers of home solar system in the Philippines.

On the other hand, ECHOStore leads the retail sector in promoting the use and consumption of environmentfriendly products. Located at Fort Bonifacio, the store doubles as a hub where people can exchange ideas about sustainable living.

From the corporate to the individual level, green computing is slowly being adapted by Filipino users.

Forecasts on green computing point upward as manufacturers take notice of the increasing environmental awareness of consumers, prompting further research and development of earth-friendly products.

A study by the US-based Consumer Electronics Association indicates that more consumers are inclined towards buying “green” electronics, with 89% expecting their next purchase to be “green.”

Cost poses as a huge hurdle for Filipino consumers. However, the practice of green computing and eco-friendliness in general enjoys continually growing support in the country.

In 2009, 15 million Filipinos in 647 cities and towns participated in the hour-long lights off initiative of Earth Hour, a considerable jump from a year earlier which garnered one million participants. The 10-fold jump in the number of participants was attributed to the Filipinos’ increasing awareness of climate change and its effects, according to Philippine Daily Inquirer.

Thanks to the media, particularly the Internet, the global citizenry is becoming more aware of the adverse effects of climate change. With the effective tools of mass communication, it is only an issue of doing away with apathy and adopting genuine concern for Mother Nature that separates us to a greener future.

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By Gregg Keizer
Computerworld (US)

FRAMINGHAM (02/23/2010) - Intel was targeted by “sophisticated” attacks last month, about the same time that Google reported its network had been breached, allegedly by Chinese hackers.

In its annual report filed Monday with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Intel confirmed that it had been hit in January.

“We regularly face attempts by others to gain unauthorized access through the Internet to our information technology systems by, for example, masquerading as authorized users or surreptitious introduction of software,” read the 10-K filing. “These attempts, which might be the result of industrial or other espionage, or actions by hackers seeking to harm the company, its products, or end users, are sometimes successful. One recent and sophisticated incident occurred in January 2010 around the same time as the recently publicized security incident reported by Google .”

Intel did not reveal whether the attacks had accessed or stolen confidential company information, an admission that Google made last month when it broke the news that it, and other major Western corporations, had been struck with what it called “highly sophisticated and targeted” attacks.

According to online reports, including a story published by Reuters this morning, Intel spokesman Chuck Mulloy denied any connection between the attacks against Google and his own firm. “The only connection is timing,” Mulloy told the news service.

Only a few companies have joined Google in admitting that they were hit with attacks that relied on an exploit of a then-unpatched vulnerability in Microsoft ’s Internet Explorer 6 (IE6). Adobe was one corporation that stepped forward, while Juniper Networks and Symantec said they were investigating suspicious activity on their networks; news reports at the time claimed that Yahoo , Dow Chemical and Northrop Grumman were also attacked.

Although Google has maintained that around 30 companies were hit by Chinese hackers, other researchers have countered, saying that their investigations have uncovered a much larger number of victims .

A report last week by the New York Times implicated computers at a pair of Chinese schools; those schools, however, have denied playing any part in the attacks.

Intel did not reply to a request for comment on the attacks.

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By Owen Fletcher
IDG News Service (Beijing Bureau)
February 22, 2010

BEIJING - Google has finished its acquisition of video-compression-technology vendor On2 Technologies, boosting its efforts in online video.

The deal closed after gaining approval from On2 shareholders and was valued at US$124.6 million, Google said in a brief statement late Friday. The figure was about $18 million more than the value stated when the companies announced the acquisition last year.

On2 provides video compression technologies for mobile video, embedded devices, Adobe Flash Player and VoIP (voice over Internet Protocol). Its customers include Skype, Nokia, Sony and Adobe, according to its Web site.

Google last year said On2 would provide it with video compression technology and that it hoped the acquisition would help further innovation in online video quality.

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By Jon Brodkin
Network World (US)
February 19, 2010

FRAMINGHAM - Facebook is now the second most popular Web site in the United States, passing Yahoo with 133 million unique visitors in January, according to new research.

Yahoo lost the No. 1 spot to Google in February 2008, and now sits in third place, according to Web analytics research by Compete.

“It’s been two full years since we’ve seen a shakeup at the top — in February 2008, Google overtook Yahoo as number one, and never looked back,” the research states. “Is Facebook’s next conquest the Google traffic throne?”

Facebook drew 133.6 million unique visitors in January, while Yahoo pulled in 132 million visitors. Google still leads the way with 147.8 million visitors, or nearly half the U.S. population.

Facebook is king of the Web when it comes to the amount of time people actually spend online, however.

“In January, 11.6% of all time spent online was spent on Facebook (compared to 4.25% for Yahoo and 4.1% for Google),” Compete says.

Twitter is also on the upswing, according to separate research released this week.

Twitter attracted 21.79 million unique visitors in January, an increase of 9% over the previous month, according to an article in Venture Beat. The traffic increase has mainly been driven by Google, which recently started posting Twitter status updates in search results.

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By Sharon Gaudin
Computerworld (US)
February 19, 2010

FRAMINGHAM - Today’s decision by U.S. and European regulators to let Microsoft Corp. and Yahoo Inc. join their search businesses could significantly heat up competition in a business that in recent years has been dominated by Google Inc.

“This could be a big change for the search industry,” said Dan Olds, an analyst at Gabriel Consulting Group. “It combines the search efforts of two large players that both have a small search presence, but have a lot of resources and assets which they can devote to competing against Google.

“I think that this will ramp up both competition and innovation . Yahoo and Microsoft now have one common enemy — Google. And they will devote all of their energies toward making their search a more attractive option both for users and advertisers,” Olds added.

Microsoft and Yahoo - both major Google rivals in multiple businesses — announced this morning that both the U.S. Department of Justice and the European Commission have approved a agreement between the two firms to have Microsoft’s Bing search engine power Yahoo’s sites. Microsoft and Yahoo signed the agreement last summer pending regulatory approval.

The companies disclosed today that a joint engineering team will begin adapting Bing for the Yahoo site “in the coming days” and that they hope the engine is added to the Yahoo site, at least the United States, by the end of this year.

The partnership, which includes Yahoo selling premium search advertising services for both companies, is a direct attack on rival Google, which has long dominated the search market. Google accounts for more than 64% of worldwide searches, according to multiple research firms.

In an email to Computerworld , Google spokesman Adam Kovacevich said the search company welcomes the new competition.

“There has always been robust competition in our industry, which keeps us on our toes and benefits users,” wrote Kovacevich. “We compete against a number of alternatives, including traditional search engines, vertical search sites, social networks, and other forms of online and offline advertising.”

While most analysts agreed that the Microsoft-Yahoo search plan doesn’t present a short term problem for Google, Olds said the search giant should keep a close eye on on their longer-term actions.

“Google definitely needs to take this threat seriously,” Olds said. “Their two biggest and most well-heeled search competitors are now joined at the hip with the single goal of taking away Google’s biggest, and essentially only revenue source. This definitely should get their attention.”

“They need to realize that this is a new entity that is going to go all out against them,” he added. “Even though Bing alone hasn’t made a lot of headway against Google, it did make a significant splash when it was introduced and that served notice that Microsoft is serious about competing and raising the bar. With Yahoo, they now have a shot to make it more of a fight. I think this is really the best chance anyone has to be a viable competitor to Google.”

Ezra Gottheil, an analyst at Technology Business Research, said that a combined Microsoft and Yahoo search business faces a very tough task to take any market share away from the very well funded Google.

“Google’s the leader in search, just like Microsoft’s the leader in operating systems and PC applications,” Gottheil said. “Knocking off the leader is difficult. It’s not like Microsoft has been underspending on search. Bing needs to be significantly better to grow faster.”

Allen Weiner, an analyst with Gartner, Inc., doesn’t expect the Microsoft-Yahoo combination will cause any panic withing Google’s walls.

“Is Google worried? Not in any way, shape or form,” said Weiner. “It’s a company that’s not short on hubris. Even if they have any minor degree of anxiety, I think they’re in the don’t-let-them-see-you-sweat mode. I don’t think they’re motivated by a lot of externality.”

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By Dan Tynan
PC World (US)
February 17, 2010

SAN FRANCISCO - Enough with bickering cell phone technologies, messaging systems that won’t talk, incompatible file formats, and TV remotes that spread like kudzu across your coffee table. We’ve been dealing with some of these problems for more than a decade, and it’s time for things to improve.

Here are ten technologies that cry out for standardization–tomorrow if possible, though yesterday would be even better.

What tech do you want to see standardized? Post your thoughts in the comments below.

1. One World, One Plug

Over the years I’ve used hundreds of chargers, plugs, AC/DC adapters, power bricks, and wall warts for my laptops, cell phones, MP3 players, digital cameras, GPS units, and other gadgets. No two were interchangeable. It’s not merely stupid, it’s a landfill nightmare.

USB-based AC adapters are a step forward, but you still have to deal with six kinds of USB connectors. If your camera uses a Mini-A USB charger and your smart phone is Micro-B, you’re just as stranded as if they used completely unrelated chargers. You may be able to buy a “universal” charger that lets you plug in a laptop and other devices, but only if the vendor supplies adapters designed for your particular gadgets. What a pain.

What the world needs now isn’t love sweet love–it’s a power adapter that works with every portable device. Last year, most of the big handset makers agreed to standardize on Micro-USB chargers by 2012. (The most prominent exception? Apple, of course.) For the past three years, groups like Green Plug have been lobbying consumer electronics companies to adopt a single plug standard, but so far they have little to show for their efforts. You can add your voice to the chorus at the I Want My Green Plug site.

2. A Real Universal Remote

Like everyone I know, I have a basket crowded with remotes (including several not-so-universal “universal” ones) on my coffee table. All of them do more or less the same thing, but each one is slightly different. Does every TV, DVD, DVR, set-top box, and stereo manufacturer really need to redesign the wheel?

We need one remote that controls everything and doesn’t require a 45-minute video tutorial, tedious trial-and-error experimentation, memory-hogging software, constant updating, or the services of a Home A/V specialist. That, or maybe Project Natal-like gesture recognition, so we can just wave our hands to control our A/V gear. Even better: brain implants. That way my wife and I can fight over what to watch without having to speak to each other.
3. Virtual Instruments That Rock Around the Clock

When I’m down for a virtual gig–whether I’m due to play Rock Band on the Xbox 360 or Guitar Hero III on the PS3–I want to be able to strap on my ax and go. Sadly, only a handful of guitars and drum kits work across multiple rhythm-game titles on a single console system (see this confusing chart for details–or this one, or this one). The good news? The situation is steadily improving, as Harmonix and Activision belatedly recognize the folly of playing battle of the band instruments.

Looking for virtual instruments that span not only the games but all the consoles? Shine on, you crazy diamond. You might as well wait for the Beatles to reunite.

4. A Single Data-File Format

Cross-platform compatibility? Feh. Mac and Windows PCs have coexisted for a quarter of a century, and yet people still have problems moving files between them–and that’s without the commplications presented by Linux and other computing platforms. Want to move data between different types of applications or open a file stored in an older format? You’ll have better luck printing it out and retyping it.

Most of the 1000+ file formats that now exist are native to a single application. We need a single editable format that all platforms can display accurately (and with full formatting) and that the user can move easily between applications. No tedious file conversions, no mystery fonts, no deciding which arcane ASCII character set to use. Just save it, send it, and open it–and no surprises inside the box.
For the past four years, the OpenDocument Format Alliance has been promoting an XML-based format that makes Office Suite documents accessible across platforms and applications. ODF enjoys endorsements from international governments and support in products like Google Docs and Open Office. But until Microsoft beefs up its support for ODF, that movement isn’t going anywhere.

5. Smarter Smartphone Batteries (and Keyboards)

If your flashlight runs out of juice, you can pop down to the local Kwik-E-Mart and get some C batteries. If your TV remote conks out, Apu will happily sell you some AAs. But when your cell phone battery expires, you have to contact your handset manufacturer or carrier to get a replacement. Worse, you can’t swap batteries between different handsets. Are individual cell phone models really so special that each requires its own battery technology?

The IEEE’s Cell Phone Battery Working Group is set to hold its first meeting this month, primarily to improve battery life and to devise standardized packaging for smartphones, but maybe they’ll seize the opportunity to address interoperability, too. Unfortunayely, considering the pace at which the IEEE usually ratifies standards, cell phone brain implants are likely to come sooner than a single-battery standard.

While we’re on the topic of redesigning cell phones, let’s talk keyboards. On computers, symbol keys don’t wander willy-nilly around the QWERTY layout (not in the United States, anyway). But every cell phone keyboard I’ve ever used has been unique. Is there some law requiring handset makers to put the @ sign and other symbols on a different key from one model to the next? It sure seems that way.

6. Universal Avatars

No, not the movie with the blue-skinned space cats. As we move into Web 3D, each of us will need a single virtual persona that can do battle in World of Warcraft, wander the lonely streets of Second Life, hang out (in two dimensions) on Facebook, and do anything else that requires a digital doppelgänger.

Several companies and groups–including IBM, Linden Lab, Multiverse, and the Web3D consortium–are working on standards that would allow online avatars to travel between virtual worlds; however, no univatars have received passports yet. Give me the metaverse, and give it to me now.

7. Region-Free DVDs and Blu-ray Discs

Planning to cross the pond with a Blu-ray disc of Jennifer’s Body or Ice Age 3? You might as well leave them at home; they’ll play only on machines sold for the U.S. market. In fact, most DVDs and about one in three Blu-ray discs are designed to play only on machines in the geographical region where they were sold. Regional encoding: Let’s party like it’s 1997.

The reason, as usual, is money: Studios want to be able to charge higher prices for their discs in certain parts of the world without being undercut by imports from places where they sell them for less. As we move away from attaching entertainment to molecules and toward delivering it via bits, this too shall pass.

8. Secure Security Software

Everybody knows what a word processor and a spreadsheet are supposed to look like. But what about a firewall, or antispyware software? Is that jumble-o-bits you just downloaded and installed protecting your computer, or is it malware in disguise?

“You can buy a $5 padlock at your local hardware store and count on it to secure your garden shed, because padlocks are manufactured to standards,” observes Melih Abdulhayoglu, CEO of antimalware firm Comodo and founder of the Common Computing Security Standards Forum.

But there’s no padlock equivalent for PCs. “Anybody can label any software ‘firewall’ or ‘antivirus’ and convince people to install it on their computers,” Abdulhayoglu says.

The CCSS Forum is working to establish baselines for features and performance in security software, as well as ways to develop objective ways to distinguish legitimate security vendors from bad guys–kind of a Good PC-keeping Seal of Approval. So far, however, category heavyweights like McAfee and Symantec have not signed on.

9. IM Clients That Speak the Same Language

One VoIP service can reach pretty much any other phone service, thanks to standards such as the SIP and H.323 protocols. But if you want to send a message from Skype to AIM, Windows Messenger, or Google Talk, you might as well use carrier pigeons.

Third-party apps like Trillian Astra support multiple IM clients, but they give you limited access to the clients’ features and they require frequent upgrading. People have been talking about solving this problem for more than a decade. Can’t we all just agree to agree?

10. One Cell Network to Rule Them All

Imagine there’s no telecom; it’s easy if you try. No AT&T hell below us; above us only sky. Imagine endless spectrum, open to any device (oooh oooh, ooh-hoo-woo).

Yes, we are dreamers, but we’re not the only ones. Back in January 2008, when Google bid on the old analog TV spectrum at the FCC’s auctions, many people hoped the search giant would solve the headaches caused by rival cell technologies and control-freak telecoms by offering cheap, open, ubiquitous radio spectrum.

But Verizon and AT&T won most of those auctions, and an open cellular network has yet to emerge. We still hold out hope, though, that one day they’ll join us–and the world will speak as one.

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By Matt Hamblen
Computerworld (US)
February 16, 2010

FRAMINGHAM - In separate announcements from Barcelona today, three traditional powerhouses in computing and communications — Microsoft , Intel and Nokia — kick-started major revamps to their technology to adapt to a quick-changing smartphone and mobile device market that’s increasingly dominated by Google and Apple . 

“Microsoft is in a bigger ’start over’ penalty box than Intel and Nokia, but it really is a start over for all of them,” said Jack Gold, an analyst at J. Gold Associates about the announcements made at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. “Microsoft does have a much steeper road to climb to get back into the game than Nokia/Intel does.”

Intel joined Nokia in unveiling Meego , a Linux -based open operating system to be used in smartphones, netbooks, connected TVs and tablets. Meego combines features from Intel’s Moblin OS and Nokia’s Maemo OS. Devices using Meego are expected to arrive in the second half of 2010. 

Meanwhile, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer touted Windows Phone 7 Series software that’s expected to be running on smartphones due out by the 2010 holiday season on a variety of carriers globally, including AT&T in the U.S.
Ballmer said the new version of Microsoft’s operating system for mobile phone will bring “more consistency in the hardware platform and in the user experience” than earlier versions.

In both announcements, it was obvious that the three companies are adjusting to the market success of Apple Inc.’s iPhone and the coming iPad tablet, as well as Google Inc. The search company is behind a host of software applications for a variety of upcoming Android OS smartphones and devices that it helped create in its sponsorship of the Open Handset Alliance.

Gold said that Microsoft has “basically had to nuke its existing OS and start over,” while Intel and Nokia could blend most of the existing code in Moblin and Maemo to create Meego.

Ballmer did not describe Windows Phone 7 Series as a start-over, of course, but implied it comes in reaction to past criticism of Windows Mobile OS and its decline in sales in late 2009.

“We have a chance to make a major impact on the [smartphone] market… (with the new OS),” Ballmer said. “We had to step back and recast.”

Ballmer also didn’t go as far as he did last fall when he told investors that Microsoft had “screwed up with Windows Mobile” and had shuffled its Windows Mobile team to regain lost ground. 

Updated user functions in Windows Phone 7 include concepts such as “hubs” that display a page of contacts called “people,” for example. Other hubs will be labeled “office” for note-taking and synchronizing documents with a PC; “games,” for integrating with the Microsoft Xbox live online community; and “music+video” for synchronizing the smartphone with Microsoft’s desktop Zune jukebox and music store software.

Windows Phone 7 will also provide a touchscreen Qwerty keyboard as in some Windows Mobile 6.5 devices, Ballmer said.

Even with new innovations, Microsoft will continue to employ a licensing model where phone manufacturers pay a fee for Microsoft software, Ballmer said, offering no details. He also argued that “free” software in open operating systems such as Android might not really be free.

Gold called the Meego announcement a positive for both Intel and Nokia. It will help Nokia make a “direct assault” on the enormous momentum behind Google’s Android and Chrome, and will help Intel attack the ARM chip architecture used in smartphones and other smart personal devices, he said. ARM chips, developed and licensed by ARM Holdings, are used extensively in smartphones and mobile phones; Intel has developed the Atom chip to compete directly with ARM.

But Gold said “it remains to be seen if anyone besides Intel and Nokia will embrace Meego.” He believes Nokia will hold onto its existing Symbian OS for lower-end mobile phones, but needs something like Meego for higher end smartphones down the road.

Nokia dominates the smartphone market today with its Symbian OS, but Android is projected to catapult to the No. 2 spot behind Nokia by 2012, according to Gartner Inc. and IDC. 

While Apple’s total share of the smartphone market is well behind Symbian’s, the company’s growth year-over-year — and excitement over next month’s arrival of the iPad — that make it such a challenge for traditional companies like Microsoft, Intel and Nokia. 

Matt Hamblen covers mobile and wireless, smartphones and other handhelds, and wireless networking for Computerworld . Follow Matt on Twitter at @matthamblen or subscribe to Matt’s RSS feed@matthamblen or subscribe to . His e-mail address is mhamblen@computerworld.com .

Read more about mobile and wireless in Computerworld’s Mobile and Wireless Knowledge Center.

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By Matt Hamblen
Computerworld (US)
February 16, 2010

FRAMINGHAM - Google ’s recently announced plan to set up trial fiber optic networks in the US with ultra-high speed Internet connections puts the long-running national debate over Net neutrality back into high gear. 

A hot topic of discussion and debate in government and telecom circles since at least 2003, Net neutrality, actually involves a broad array of topics, technologies and players. Here’s a primer for those looking to get up to speed fast:

What is Net neutrality’? 

At its core, the Net neutrality movement in the U.S. refers to efforts to keep the Internet open, accessible and “neutral” to all users, application providers and network carriers. In theory, this means, for example, that one carrier would not be allowed to discriminate against an application written by a third party (such as Google Voice) by requiring its users to rely on the carrier’s own proprietary voice applications. A carrier’s walled-garden browser, which allows access to only certain Web sites, is also not seen as neutral by many neutrality proponents.

The term Net neutrality is clearly politically laden. It isn’t used that much by the U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) in its deliberations on the matter. (The FCC is weighing a national broadband policy it hopes to present to Congress next month.) Traditional carriers don’t use the term that much either, since they often argue there is nothing wrong with the openness of the Internet, something Google and a variety of public interest groups dispute.

What is the FCC doing with Net neutrality?

 The FCC wears many hats, from auctioning off wireless spectrum to administering long distance telephone service to helping set long-term Internet policy. The Net neutrality issue is encapsulated by the FCC in a document issued last Oct. 22: the open Internet “Notice of Proposed Rulemaking” ( download PDF) . 

That document has generated comments from many interested parties in the industry. The FCC said in its executive summary (Section 16) that it wanted comments on the “best means of preserving a free and open Internet, however it is accessed.” The agency also lists six principles it hopes to codify in law, including four taken from an Internet Policy Statement first issued by the FCC in 2005. Those four principles are to allow users to: access lawful Internet content; run applications and use services of their choice; run devices of their choice that don’t harm the network; and benefit from competition among carriers, content providers and application providers.

Two newer principles include one that would require service providers to treat all lawful Internet content applications and services in a non-discriminatory manner and another requiring them to disclose information about network management to users as well as content, application and other service providers.

Significantly, FCC Chairman Julius Genachjowski said in a video presentation in October that the proposed rules were “not about regulating the Internet,” a comment that has led to continued debate about what he means (subscription required). 

In fact, the October written notice, in section 14, specifically said: “The rules we propose today address users’ ability to ACCESS the Internet and are not intended to regulate the Internet itself….”

On March 17, the FCC is expected to deliver a formal report to Congress on its National Broadband Plan, which was required in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. Progress on the plan is outlined by the FCC at a separate Web site . 

Biggest players in the Net neutrality debate?

One group of traditional cable, wireless and telecommunications providers has taken an active role in the debate: Netcompetition.org , which has posted a list of its members on its e-forum site. The site, which includes short papers on its positions, has one standing headline over a counting clock that reads, “What’s the problem?” The clock notes that more than seven years has gone by “with no need for any Net neutrality mandate!” 

The other big block of players is an array of citizen actions groups loosely aligned with Google and other companies that want to offer new and different uses for the Web but don’t generally run networks carrying Internet data. Google communicates mainly on its official blog, where it announced on Feb. 10 its experimental fiber network . That blog entry includes links to Google’s comments to the FCC from July 2009 where it promoted “open, ubiquitous broadband connectivity” as a means of improving American competitiveness. 

Among various public interest groups active in Net neutrality issues is Free Press , a Washington-based nonprofit group that praised Google’s high-speed broadband experiment. It also said Google’s announcement “follows a trail already blazed by Verizon’s FiOS network, which has fiber optic cables capable of speeds comparable to what Google proposes.” 

What’s next?

Congress will be the major battleground for Net neutrality, even though it has already taken up bills in recent years that included the Internet Freedom Preservation Act of 2007 and measures to protect how various service providers work together in sharing applications and services. 

The Internet Freedom Preservation Act of 2009, H.R. 3458, may be the broadest, and is now before the House Committee on Energy and Commerce. Sponsored by Rep. Edward Markey (D-Mass.), Anna Eshoo (D-Calif.) and 21 co-sponsors, it would amend the Communications Act of 1934, establish a national broadband policy, and safeguard consumer rights . 

Markey has called the FCC’s non-discrimination principles a complement to the House bill .
Matt Hamblen covers mobile and wireless, smartphones and other handhelds, and wireless networking for Computerworld . Follow Matt on Twitter at @matthamblen or subscribe to Matt’s RSS feed@matthamblen or subscribe to . His e-mail address is mhamblen@computerworld.com .

Read more about networking and internet in Computerworld’s Networking and Internet Knowledge Center.

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By Mike Elgan
Computerworld (US)
February 15, 2010

FRAMINGHAM - Everybody’s talking about Google Buzz. Most of that chatter is centered on how to use it, and whether it’s better or worse than Twitter or Facebook. Almost all the talk is about using Buzz from a PC.

Now it’s time to meet the other Google Buzz. For people with the latest iPhone or Android phone, Google Buzz will soon become an amazing, indispensable app — and a glimpse into the future for all of us.

Two weeks ago, I wrote a piece in this space called “Google Quietly Changes the World Again.” I pointed out that two new features rolled into the mobile version of Google Maps, called “Near me now” and “Explore right here,” partially realized the long-held vision of “virtual graffiti.” The idea is to post “invisible messages” in the air, which could be read by a cell phone if you’re in that same location.

That’s what the mobile version of Google Buzz does.

“Near me now” and “Explore right here” functionality is baked right into the mobile version of Buzz. That, combined with cell phone GPS capability and Twitter-like posting, is mobile magic.

Plus, Google adds some wicked voodoo. When you launch the mobile Buzz app and touch the “Nearby” button, you’ll see all recent posts near your location, listed in order of proximity.

A button just above the message area lists all the businesses nearby, also listed by proximity. You can choose the restaurant or store you’re at, or choose the “best available location” option. That’s powerful, because GPS is only approximate.

You can choose not to reveal your location at all or you can reveal your general location or specify exactly which building you’re in, all with a click or two. To the best of my knowledge, it’s not possible to exactly specify nonbusiness locations, such as your home. That’s probably a good thing.

All that sounds vaguely similar to location features on Twitter, or location apps in Facebook. But those implementations are vastly inferior, and far less immediately usable.

More important, I believe Google Buzz will trigger a culture-changing “network effect.” That’s where a snowballing of usage occurs: The more people use a network, the more valuable it becomes; the more valuable it becomes, the more people use it — just like, say, the Web, e-mail or cell phones.

Google Buzz on a PC is a closed experience in two ways: First, you need Gmail to fully experience it. Second, you get messages only from people you’re following. With Google Buzz on a PC, you’re blind to non-Gmail users, and also to everybody you’re not following.

Google Buzz on a phone is the opposite: You don’t need Gmail. And you can see the tweets of people whether you’re following them or not. In the “Nearby” mode, you’re automatically “following” whoever happens to be or has been near wherever it is you are. And they’re following you. When you leave the area, you stop “following” them and start “following” the people near your new location.

The power of Google Buzz on a GPS-enabled cell phone is abstract, and it must be experienced to fully understand it. But until you do, let me tell you eight things you can do with Google Buzz on a compatible iPhone or Android device that can change your life:

1. Promote your business

Last year, one of the big stories on Twitter was food trucks selling cupcakes or Korean barbecue via tweets. Bakeries would tweet when fresh cookies were coming out of the oven. Small businesses of all kinds were first promoting their Twitter feeds, then using those feeds to promote time-sensitive information to customers.

Google Buzz can do the same thing, but with two very big differences. First, you don’t need to know about the business in advance, and second you don’t need to follow anyone. When you use Buzz to check what’s going on in your location, you get the posts about it all — cupcakes, Korean, cookies, you name it — without following any of them and without any advanced knowledge or action.

If you own a small business that relies on foot traffic, embrace Buzz immediately. You can broadcast the availability of specials or sales. You can even use the real-time nature of Buzz to implement flex pricing. Too many loaves of bread, empty theater seats or other perishable items? Cut the price and broadcast the sale. People nearby will see it and come running. In addition to selling to existing customers, you’ll win new ones.

2. Share your ‘business card’ at industry events

I believe my fellow tech pundits will truly “get” the power of mobile Buzz at the next major IT industry event. Here’s what will happen: The early adopters will start an invisible, back-channel, ad-hoc social network during the show based only on GPS location. In other words, people won’t need to know the URL for the official message board or chat room. They’ll just use Buzz’s “Nearby” mode, and everybody nearby will be a conference attendee.

People will introduce themselves to fellow attendees by broadcasting their Google Profiles page — a kind of “business card exchange.” A few speakers will draw crowds by promoting their presentations on Buzz. Attendees will arrange meet-ups. The people on Buzz will get more out of the conference.

At the IT industry conference after that one, nearly everyone will be using Buzz. From there, it will spread to non-tech conferences. Within a year, I think Buzz will become the de facto source of information and networking at all industry events.

3. Find a lost pet

Seen fluffy? If you staple a photo printout to a telephone pole, hardly anyone’s going to see it. But if you post it on buzz with a picture, anyone within 10 miles can see it. Just post the picture online somewhere, e-mail the link to your phone, copy the link from e-mail and paste it into the post window in Google Buzz’s “Nearby” mode. It becomes part of the public stream for your neighborhood. Same goes for ads about yard sales, bake sales and other suburban events.

4. Leave a note for future Buzz users in the same location

Let’s say you go on a breathtaking hike in the woods, and discover a hidden waterfall. Why not post a message with Buzz that will be forever associated with that location. You can alert future hikers about how to find the waterfall.

5. Talk to your neighbors

Google Buzz by default creates a neighborhood chat room. By selecting the “Nearby” mode in a residential area, all messages will be those posted by neighbors. It’s fuzzy, too. If someone on the edge of your neighborhood chimes in, someone else on the edge of her neighborhood might join the chat. Conversations could literally spread like a virus.

6. Read and write restaurant reviews

When you’re in “Nearby” mode, you can select a drop-down menu of businesses. If you’re standing in front of a restaurant, why just read the menu? Read the reviews. Or, if you’ve just finished a meal, you can quickly write your own review. In either case, tap the “More info” link next to the name of the establishment, which takes you to Google’s info page on the place. The info page includes details about the restaurant, plus a place for customers to write reviews.

7. Talk to other people at a concert or other public event

If you’re at a concert, in line for an Apple launch, attending a family reunion or at a Space Shuttle launch, you can take part in the Buzz conversation that will be going on. You might gain valuable intelligence (the location of a bathroom without a long line) or just have fun discussing the event with others.

8. Get help

Let’s say you’re visiting New York City, and find yourself with urgent logistical questions. “Which one is the real Original Ray’s Pizza?” “How do I get from where I am to Brooklyn on the subway?” “Does anybody want to sell me an umbrella? I’ll give you 20 bucks!” In a crowded place like New York, I expect you’d get instant answers from people physically located within 100 yards from where you are.

Those are just eight things I can imagine with Google Buzz on iPhone, Android and, later, no doubt, other phone platforms. What can you imagine? What will emerge that nobody can yet imagine? It’s a new mobile world out there.

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By Juan Carlos Perez
IDG News Service (Miami Bureau)
February 12, 2010

MIAMI - U.S. residents continue to shift their search engine use from Yahoo to Microsoft, a trend that started in mid-2009 after Microsoft introduced its new Bing engine and the companies signed a deal to partner in search.

Yahoo’s share of U.S. search queries dropped to 17 percent in January, from 17.3 percent in December, while Microsoft’s share jumped from 10.7 percent to 11.3 percent, comScore said Thursday.

Back in April, before the launch of Bing and the signing of the search deal, Yahoo had a 20.4 percent share of queries, while Microsoft’s was 8.2 percent.

Google remains the dominant player with 65.4 percent of January queries, down 0.3 of a percentage point from December but up from a share of 64.2 percent in April.

Yahoo’s search-share slide is bad news for the search advertising revenue of the company, whose deal with Microsoft hasn’t been implemented because it hasn’t received regulatory clearance yet.

Yahoo officials have said repeatedly that search advertising remains a very important revenue stream for the company. While it intends to outsource the back-end search functions to Microsoft, Yahoo will continue to innovate in its search sites’ front-end interface features.

When they announced their search deal in July 2009, the companies stressed the need to combine forces both on the technology and the sales sides in order to present end-users and advertisers with a stronger search alternative to Google.

However, what appears to be happening in the interim before the deal gets implemented is that Bing is hurting Yahoo’s search popularity, while Google continues coasting along at the top.

The 10-year search deal calls for Microsoft to not only power Yahoo’s search properties but also be in charge of selling search ads. In exchange, Microsoft will share revenue for ads monetized on Yahoo search sites and on those of Yahoo’s search network partners.

For example, during the first five years of the agreement, Microsoft will pay an 88 percent commission to Yahoo for search ads monetized on Yahoo sites.

Thus, it’s key for Yahoo to retain, and ideally grow, search traffic on its sites, now and when the Microsoft deal kicks in.

Back in July, Yahoo estimated that, when fully implemented, the search deal would boost its annual operating income by about US$500 million, provide capital expenditure savings of about $200 million and increase annual operating cash flow by about $275 million.

It will be interesting to see if these estimates have to be adjusted down when the deal is implemented if Yahoo’s search share continues to dip.

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By Jaikumar Vijayan
Computerworld (US)
February 11, 2010

FRAMINGHAM - Security industry analysts and lawmakers will get an unprecedented chance next week to evaluate how the government might respond to a cyber-attack on critical infrastructure targets.

The Bipartisan Policy Center (BPC), a Washington-based non-profit established in 2007 by several lawmakers, will host a simulated nation-wide cyber-attack next Tuesday for a group of former administration and national security officials, who will be playing the roles of Cabinet members.

The goal of the simulation, called Cyber ShockWave, is to see how officials in key government positions would react to a real-time cyber- attack, and to evaluate the split-second decisions they may be required to take to deal with it, a BPC alert noted.

Those playing the roles of various cabinet members include former DHS secretary Michael Chertoff, the former Director of National Intelligence John Negroponte, former White House Homeland Security Advisor Fran Townsend and former White House press secretary Joe Lockhart.

The participants, none of whom will have any advance information on the simulated attacks, will be expected to advise the President on the unfolding attacks and craft a response to them. The event is scheduled to take place at Washington’s Mandarin Oriental Hotel.

A report in The Atlantic said that a considerable effort is being put into making the exercise as realistic as possible.

A production company has been hired to recreate a White House situation room in the Mandarin hotel, and professional scriptwriters will aid security experts in creating the simulated attack.

The whole exercise itself was developed by former CIA director general Michael Hayden and several others, including former New Jersey governor Thomas Kean and Congressman Lee Hamilton, both of whom were co-chairs of the 9/11 commission. Companies and organizations that are participating in the effort include General Dynamics, Georgetown University and PayPal.

This is not the first time that BPC has organized a similar exercise. In 2007, it hosted Oil Shockwave, an oil crisis simulation, in which nine former cabinet and national security advisors participated. The purpose of that exercise was to explore the economic and national security implications of a prolonged crisis in the oil industry.

This month’s planned cyber-security simulation comes amid growing concerns over state-sponsored attacks against critical IT assets. The recent cyber-attacks against Google and more than 30 technology companies allegedly by operatives based out of China have highlighted what many say is the need for a formal U.S. policy for deterring and responding to such attacks.

Jaikumar Vijayan covers data security and privacy issues, financial services security and e-voting for Computerworld . Follow Jaikumar on Twitter at @jaivijayan or subscribe to Jaikumar’s RSS feed . His e-mail address is jvijayan@computerworld.com .

Read more about cybercrime and hacking in Computerworld’s Cybercrime and Hacking Knowledge Center.

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By Juan Carlos Perez
IDG News Service (Miami Bureau)
February 11, 2010

MIAMI - In its continuing quest to speed up the Internet, Google has decided to build what it calls “ultra high-speed” broadband networks in some parts of the U.S., the company announced Wednesday.

The fiber networks will deliver 1GB bps (bit per second) connections to homes at prices that will be “competitive,” the company said. The services would cover between 50,000 and 500,000 people.

“Our goal is to experiment with new ways to help make Internet access better and faster for everyone,” wrote Google product managers Minnie Ingersoll and James Kelly in a blog post.

Google wants to help promote the creation of ultra high-speed networks because they are necessary for next-generation Internet services and applications that are bandwidth intensive in areas like education, health and entertainment.

Google will offer its networks through what it calls an “open access” model, so that customers have access to multiple service providers.

“We don’t think we have all the answers – but through our trial, we hope to make a meaningful contribution to the shared goal of delivering faster and better Internet for everyone,” they wrote.

Local governments and residents can nominate their communities through March 26 through this page. Google will later announce the locations selected.

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By Juan Carlos Perez
IDG News Service (Miami Bureau)
February 10, 2010

MIAMI - Google has given Gmail a social-networking component with its introduction of Buzz, a service built inside of the webmail product that lets users post and share content in similar ways as they do in sites like Facebook and Twitter.

How successful Google will be in convincing Gmail users to shift their social-networking tasks over to Buzz remains to be seen. Google believes Buzz offers enough improvements over existing social networks.

Specifically, Buzz has been designed to help users deal with the often massive amount of information they receive through their social-networking sites.

“Increasingly, it’s becoming harder and harder to make sense and find the signal in the noise,” said Bradley Horowitz, a Google vice president of product management, at a press conference on Tuesday.

The problem is only going to get worse, as people continue to find value in and embrace social media, he said. “We all feel this bombardment, this fatigue of having to go manually through and try to make sense of the torrent of information that’s washing over us,” he said. “This has become a large-scale problem, the kind we’re good at [solving at] Google.”

However, as Google officials acknowledged, Buzz right now has no links into Facebook, the world’s largest social-networking site with more than 400 million members. This means that Buzz, at least for the moment, exists in parallel with Facebook, without the two of them intersecting, thus offering no help for users of that site, a major gap in Buzz’s coverage.

As for Twitter, users can’t post to Twitter from Buzz right now, but they can direct their Twitter posts to Buzz, as well as other content they post on public sites, like the Flickr and Picasa photo sharing sites from Yahoo and Google, respectively.

Google opted to build Buzz into Gmail because Gmail contacts lists are an underlying, existing social graph for users, officials said.

“Today, with Google Buzz, we’re introducing a new way to share and communicate inside of Gmail. Buzz is like an entirely new world inside of Gmail,” said Todd Jackson, Google Buzz product manager.

Jackson highlighted a number of areas in which Google believes Buzz improves upon existing social-networking sites. For example, Buzz builds a list of friends automatically, based on the Gmail contacts a person interacts most with. In addition, Buzz lets users include thumbnails when sharing Web links, making them more graphic and attractive. Buzz also lets users attach various degrees of access to posts, from completely public to limited to hand-picked friends.

Leveraging its Gmail core, Buzz makes every post a Gmail conversation that gets updated in real time as friends add comments to it. Buzz also recommends posts from people who aren’t necessarily on one’s list of friends, based on certain “signals” that the content might be of interest. Likewise, it also buries posts from friends that it determines are unlikely to appeal to the user.

“This is Google being Google, doing what they always do: collect everybody’s information, organize it, become an intermediary and serve up ads around it. This plays to their classic strategy,” said Jeremiah Owyang, an Altimeter Group analyst, in an interview.

Buzz will be rolled out over the coming days to all Gmail users. Later on, a version of Buzz will surface in Google Apps, the collaboration and communication suite for workplaces.

Buzz will also be available on mobile devices in various places, including the Google.com mobile home page; at buzz.google.com>, a Web-based application for the iPhone and Android devices; and as a new layer on Google Maps for Mobile.

Google is playing catch-up in the social-networking field. Its Orkut social-networking site is popular in specific countries but doesn’t come close to matching the worldwide popularity of Facebook.

“Google has a history of being late to the game when it comes to social, and they often are hit and miss,” Owyang said.

With Buzz, Google is trying to leverage the connections people have made on its webmail service, a move similar to ones from other providers of Internet communications services, such as Yahoo and AOL, with their respective IM and webmail products.

Owyang sees Buzz going deeper into social connections than the Yahoo and AOL attempts. He predicts the Google product will enjoy a certain degree of success but fall short of being a blockbuster.

“I’m optimistic there will be moderate Buzz adoption. I wouldn’t say this will be the complete next social network,” he said.

Augie Ray, a Forrester Research analyst, said in an e-mailed statement that he expects people to give Buzz a test drive but doubts there will be a massive migration to it from Twitter and Facebook.

“While bringing relevance filtering to the noisy social media world could prove a significant advantage, this doesn’t — yet — seem to be enough to pull people away from the networks they’ve already created elsewhere,” Ray wrote.

“Buzz could end up supplementing rather than replacing users’ other social networks for now,” Ray added.

Competitively, Buzz is aimed squarely at Facebook, Owyang said. “This is a direct blow against Facebook. This is absolutely competitive,” he said.

Facebook has become a serious Google competitor in areas beyond the core social-networking features. For example, in Facebook, people share photos, watch videos, read news articles, search the Web, play games, exchange private messages, text chat and listen to music. Along the way, Facebook has become the fourth-most-popular site in the U.S., where it accounts for 7 percent of people’s time spent online, according to comScore.

Google’s Horowitz said Buzz is in its early stages and that Google has many opportunities to extend and improve it in the coming months.

For example, it would make sense to integrate Buzz with Google Wave, the application that meshes e-mail, IM and document sharing, he said.

Google wants to aggressively provide APIs (application programming interfaces) in Buzz to help external developers build new applications for it and integrate Buzz with existing sites and software, said Vic Gundotra, a Google engineering vice president.

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By Carolyn Duffy Marsan
Network World (US)
February 08, 2010

FRAMINGHAM - YouTube confirmed that it now supports IPv6, the long-anticipated upgrade to the Internet’s main communications protocol, in a blog post published Friday.

“We’re proud to make YouTube available over IPv6 and to begin streaming videos from a select number of sites worldwide to our Google over IPv6 partners,” wrote Lorenzo Colitti, a Google network engineer. “With YouTube on board, we now have a significant amount of content delivered on IPv6 and a real audience/traffic for it.”

IPv6: The essential guide

Earlier in the week, ISPs guessed that YouTube had begun production-level support for IPv6 because they saw a huge surge of IPv6 traffic leaving YouTube’s data centers worldwide.

In his blog post, Colitti said support of IPv6 was necessary to allow more people and devices to attach directly to the Internet.

IPv6 is “a win for openness and new applications because any device can connect to any other device on the Internet,” Colitti wrote. “It’s even a win for security, because it’s harder for hackers to find your computer and attack it.”

The Internet is running out of addresses using the current version of the Internet Protocol, known as IPv4. IPv4 uses 32-bit addresses and can support approximately 4.3 billion devices.

More than 90% of IPv4 addresses have already been assigned. The conventional wisdom of the Internet industry is that the rest of the IPv4 addresses will be allocated in 2012.

That’s why Web sites like YouTube are upgrading to IPv6. With 128-bit addresses, IPv6 can support so many devices that only a mathematical expression — 2 to the 128th power — can quantify its size.

In order to use YouTube’s new IPv6 service, users will need an IPv6 connection from their ISPs.

More IPv6 connections should be available to U.S. consumers soon, given that Comcast recently announced a series of IPv6 trials.

Google is a leader in IPv6 deployment, having already IPv6-enabled its Search, Alerts, Docs, Finance, Gmail, Health, iGoogle, News, Reader, Picasa, Maps, Wave, Chrome and Android products.

Other popular Web sites – including Facebook, Yahoo and eBay – are committed to deploying IPv6 within the next 18 months.

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By Carolyn Duffy Marsan
Network World (US)
February 5, 2010

FRAMINGHAM - The most popular Web sites are under increasing pressure to add support for IPv6, a long-anticipated upgrade to IPv4, the Internet’s main communications protocol.

That pressure was ratcheted up a notch this week, with the news that Google has IPv6-enabed YouTube, its video streaming site. Google already offers IPv6 access on its main search service and many other popular Web services. (For details on how seven of the largest sites are doing, see our list below.)

IPv6-enabled Web content is “one of the things we need to have,” says Timothy Winters, a senior manager at the University of New Hampshire Interoperability Laboratory (UNH-IOL), which provides IPv6 product testing. “As all of these LTE and wireless broadband networks go to IPv6, the content providers have no choice but to create mobile content and make it IPv6 aware.”

Winters said Comcast’s recent announcement that it is running IPv6 trials is another sign that it’s time for popular Web sites to support IPv6.

“We are starting to see these major Web sites embracing IPv6,” Winters says, pointing out that Netflix demonstrated IPv6 access last year. “It’s pretty easy to turn a basic Web server on to support IPv6…The biggest problem is the client software. That’s why a lot of Web sites create separate IPv6 sites like Google and Netflix where you go if you have an IPv6 address because they don’t want the site to [be slow.]”

For example, eBay is running IPv6 in its lab and plans to deploy the new protocol on its internal corporate network this year. The public-facing eBay Web site will be upgraded for what’s called dual-stack IPv4 and IPv6 access in 2011.

“IPv6 is the next generation. It’s the future of the Internet, at least for those people who want to see the Internet continue to grow and continue to be part of the infrastructure,” says Peter Manzella, senior director of global network services for eBay. “We are obviously on board with that.”

Manzella says eBay’s network services team has experienced no problems with its IPv6 testing so far.

“We do not expect any difficulties,” he says. “We need to understand it. We need to make sure when we transition to it, it’s seamless. … There are security concerns that we need to test … .We need to take the precautions that are necessary to ensure our community has a safe experience on the site.”

IPv6 solves the problem that ISPs and other network operators face as the Internet runs out of IPv4 addresses, which is expected to happen in 2012. Less than 10% of IPv4 addresses remain unallocated as of January.

IPv4 uses 32-bit addresses and can support approximately 4.3 billion individually addressable devices on the Internet. IPv6, on the other hand, uses 128-bit addresses and can support so many devices that only a mathematical expression — 2 to the 128th power — can quantify its size.

John Curran, president and CEO of the American Registry for Internet Numbers, is urging Web sites to enable IPv6 access to their Web sites by Jan. 1, 2012. ARIN doles out IPv4 and IPv6 address space to ISPs in North America.

Here’s where seven of the Internet’s top Web sites stand in terms of IPv6 development:

1. Google

Google is the undisputed leader in IPv6 adoption. Google supports IPv6 with its Search, Alerts, Docs, Finance, Gmail, Health, iGoogle, News, Reader, Picasa, Maps, Wave, Chrome and Android products. Last week, Google added IPv6 support to YouTube. Google engineers have said they want to be ready with IPv6-enabled content when ISPs begin giving their customers IPv6 addresses.

2. Facebook

With more than 350 million active users — 65 million of them accessing the site through mobile devices — Facebook is planning its deployment of native IPv6 to its network backbone. Facebook says it wants to support both IPv4- and IPv6-aware clients. A company spokeswoman says Facebook “fully expect[s] to support native IPv6 user requests by the midpoint of this year.”

3. eBay

Leading e-commerce site eBay has IPv6 running in its lab and will deploy IPv6 on its internal corporate network in the next six to eight months, Manzella says. “In terms of the Web site eBay.com, we will begin a phased approach of moving to IPv6 by the end of this year,” he says. “It will be completed by the middle of next year.”

4. Yahoo

Yahoo is an active participant in the IPv6 community, discussing the topic at Internet Society and North American Network Operators’ Group (Nanog) meetings. Yahoo has started IPv6 peering around the world with various ISPs. It isn’t serving up Web pages to IPv6 users yet, but a company spokesman says the popular portal plans to support IPv6 “as soon as possible.”

5. Microsoft

Microsoft operates two of the Internet’s most popular Web sites: Windows Live, with its Bing search engine, and the Microsoft Network, also known as MSN. While Microsoft wouldn’t respond to our queries about when these two sites will be IPv6 enabled, we were able to find IPv6 traffic coming from the autonomous system numbers that power these Web sites. We also found Microsoft engaged in IPv6 peering arrangements with at least nine carriers worldwide including Hurricane Electric, the Internet’s leading IPv6 backbone network.
6. Wikipedia

The free online encyclopedia won’t say when its main Web site will support IPv6. But Wikipedia IPv6-enabled its mail server and bug tracker application in 2008. Other miscellaneous services such as lists.wikimedia.org, svn.wikimedia.org and download.wikimedia.org also can be reached via IPv6. Back in 2006, Wikipedia briefly turned on IPv6 services but shut them down because of performance problems.
7. Twitter

Twitter wouldn’t comment on its IPv6 plans. As of August 2009, 19% of Americans said they used Twitter, according to a Pew Internet Life survey. These Twitter users are more mobile than average Internet users, with 40% of them accessing the Internet via cell phones. This trend means Twitter is under the gun to provide IPv6 support before carriers such as Verizon roll out their next-generation mobile networks, which mandate IPv6 support.

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