Betanews

Google Chrome 4: Yes, it's fast, but is it usable?

Scott M. Fulton, III — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 17:46:25 -0500

If, as Google says, a Web browser is not so much an application but a platform upon which a new class of applications may be built, then that platform must provide support. It needs to give its users the ability to accomplish tasks, and to devise new and better ways to accomplish them better. For as we all know now, "browser" is an inappropriate word for the thing we use to communicate with the Web using HTTP, because the Web is becoming a space for everyday applications deployment. Especially in the content industry, active work takes place within the browser, much more so than passive amusement.

To that end, a browser may serve either as a springboard or a plank. Despite Google Chrome's achievements, the crucial element of support remains missing. For all the spotlight we've given Chrome for being the fastest Web browser on Windows, it does not yet serve the purpose of supporting users and helping them to make their online tasks more efficient. This is why Google's expert tuning of its V8 JavaScript engine for Chrome is so important, because the browser has truly evolved into a JavaScript platform rather than an HTML platform.

For everyone I know who has, over the last year, made the switch from Microsoft Internet Explorer to any other browser, the reasons have had less to do with security than in the past. People who are compelled to switch are tired of how slow IE has become, and the sinking feeling that it's getting slower -- a feeling which Betanews confirmed this week with actual facts. If you're the manufacturer of a competitive browser, and you have the opportunity to offer your customer a free alternative that's close to 21 times faster overall than IE, and your brand is not only one of the most recognized in the world but the only one analysts believe can truly challenge Microsoft, you'd think there would be an exodus of mass proportion.

There has been no such exodus. The reason is because, despite the number "4" on the version currently under development, Chrome gives one the feeling that it's never been finished once.

In a way, it doesn't make sense to have a JavaScript engine that's as good as it is, running a platform that is so minimalistic. As the manufacturer of any set-top box can tell you, a viewer's entire experience in front of his TV can be ruined if the functionality of the program guide isn't solid. A browser user's bookmarks list is the counterpart of the program guide; it's "what's on," and it's also how to get there.

Not that a list of folders and bookmarks is anywhere near as informative as an STB's program guide. But for years, Firefox has had the good sense to enable users to open the bookmarks list in their sidebar, to open and close it with a keystroke (Ctrl-I) and scroll through it using a scroll bar. For IE8, Microsoft added an appealing and versatile Favorites menu that opens with the same keystroke (as part of an effort to win back refugees to Firefox). This menu starts off life as a pop-up, but can then be pinned to the left side as a sidebar. Then it too can be switched from Favorites (bookmarks) to RSS Feeds and browsing history. It's a versatile feature that Microsoft has thought through, and that performs well.

SEE THE FIREFOX/CHROME SHOWDOWN FROM THE TOP:

Firefox 3.5 vs. Chrome 3 Showdown, Round 1: How private is private browsing?: Firefox 3.5 (1), Chrome 3 (0) after 1 heat
Firefox 3.5 vs. Chrome 3 Showdown, Round 2: Are bookmarks outmoded?: Firefox 3.5 (2), Chrome 3 (0) after 2 heats
Firefox 3.5 vs. Chrome 3 Showdown, Round 3: Finding a place for more tabs: Firefox 3.5 (2), Chrome 3 (1) after 3 heats
Firefox 3.5 vs. Chrome 3 Showdown, Round 4: Finding a place for more tabs: Firefox 3.5 (3), Chrome 3 (1) after 4 heats

In Chrome 3, the Bookmarks Bar was only part of the New Tab screen, and was actually provided by a Google Web page. With Chrome 4, the Bookmarks Bar becomes a feature of the actual program (along with curious re-additions such as an actual button for the home page, a recent Google discovery). But the complete list of bookmarks is only available through an "Other Bookmarks" menu on the right. Clicking on this button pulls up a drop-down menu, whose folders in turn pull up other pop-up menus. So you're not perusing a folder tree as with Firefox or IE; instead, you're scrolling through pop-ups. And you're scrolling slow...ly... because these are classic menus; there are no scroll bars. So if you have a long bookmarks list, you're not going anywhere fast.

That I'm no fan of Chrome's bookmarks system is nothing new -- I first called attention to this last June. Back then, Chrome 3 was on the "beta" and "dev" tracks, while Chrome 2 was the version declared stable. Here I noted that Firefox 3.5 was more adept at searching for stored bookmarks by various criteria than Chrome, the browser from the company that's supposed to be known for search.

But I'm not exactly the only one screaming for functionality out here. Our own Fileforum features reviews from testers over the months who have explicitly asked why Chrome seems to be all chassis and no interface. "It's as useful as a chocolate fireguard," wrote madmike; "very bland, short on features, but competent," wrote bobad; and, "I wish they could make it look and act like Firefox," wrote CyberDoc999.

Next: Shelving basic functionality under "Other..."

Shelving basic functionality under "Other"

That the Google Chrome user might only keep eight or so Web sites on her New Tab page, plus a handful of "Other Bookmarks" in a menu that should never grow large enough to have to be scrolled; that History is a separate page and not a function you can use side-by-side with other pages; that Chrome lacks the ability to even add the searching, researching, and translating functionality that Google makes for its own Toolbar for IE and Firefox; and that the button for the home page is a new feature that's just now being tested, are all indications that Google only projects its browser will be used lightly and occasionally, by folks who'll do a Google query, read the result, and come back to Google. If that's truly the case, one wonders why Google actually bothers making its underlying JavaScript engine as good as it is -- effectively mounting a V8 engine to a tricycle.

In fairness, Mozilla Firefox also lacks that functionality. But Mozilla knows how to help users make Firefox more functional: through a wide array of add-ons, along with a developers' community that's nurtured and educated in the ways of making proper software without so much initial trial-and-error.

Plug-ins and add-ons to Chrome do exist, and forums such as this one have cropped up in anticipation of a burgeoning market in these things at some future date. But for now, the theme of these sites appears to be stuck with themes. Even now, when skinning of some applications has become an art form that has brought forth its own grass-roots competitive "Olympics," Chrome themes are a throwback to the Netscape Navigator era, sometimes comprised of celebrity photos cropped so that their faces fit just inside the tab area, decorated like the bedroom of some Disney Channel star.

Tell me you'd actually intentionally make your own Web browser look like a just-fertilized lawn.

While Internet Explorer is dog slow, and now slower by the month, version 8 has functionality and, for the first time in IE's existence, a reasonable degree of versatility. It also is relatively stable -- crashing is not its problem. Crashing is a Firefox trademark -- to this day, the "stable" version crashes on average 1.5 times per day for me, a fact which this "Firefox user" is not proud to share.

Yet even though it does exhibit greater stability, Chrome lacks the functionality that makes it adaptable to users' everyday purposes, and that enables them to take it beyond the realm of "general purpose" into "heavy duty." Google's complete inability to make that jump, to get the clue, to provide evidence of having listened to the smallest portion of tester sentiment, bewilders me completely as to whether the company has any realistic notion of what "beta" means anyway.

With Mozilla, the newest code is developed under a private track, which only means that the developers aren't taking comments from the public about it, even though it's publicly available. When it's developed enough to demonstrate in public, then it enters the "beta" track, which Mozilla code-names "Shiretoko" for 3.5 test code and "Namoroka" for 3.6. When Mozilla delays the rollout of a new build to the stable channel, it gets groans and moans from folks like me...but it's generally because real beta testers have found real problems, or have advised some really good ideas.

A full-featured browser chassis capable of running thoroughly debugged JavaScript add-ons that won't crash, and that contain the basic functionality that Microsoft and Mozilla discovered as far back as 2005, coupled with the proven superior V8 JavaScript engine, would clinch the alternative browser market in maybe one year's time. But that year has already passed for Chrome, which is already gaining a reputation as a browser that makes up for its performance superiority with slow and cumbersome functionality. As long as Google continues to not get this message, then we all need to face up to the fact that Google isn't exactly open, is it?

SEE THE FIREFOX/CHROME SHOWDOWN FROM THE TOP:

Firefox 3.5 vs. Chrome 3 Showdown, Round 1: How private is private browsing?: Firefox 3.5 (1), Chrome 3 (0) after 1 heat
Firefox 3.5 vs. Chrome 3 Showdown, Round 2: Are bookmarks outmoded?: Firefox 3.5 (2), Chrome 3 (0) after 2 heats
Firefox 3.5 vs. Chrome 3 Showdown, Round 3: Finding a place for more tabs: Firefox 3.5 (2), Chrome 3 (1) after 3 heats
Firefox 3.5 vs. Chrome 3 Showdown, Round 4: Finding a place for more tabs: Firefox 3.5 (3), Chrome 3 (1) after 4 heats

Myka announces its latest Linux-based 'net top box'

Tim Conneally — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 17:45:47 -0500

By Tim Conneally, Betanews

Early in the summer, IPTV startup Myka delivered an impressive Linux-based device which was not quite a set-top box and not quite a home theater PC (HTPC). Though the device's identity was sort of nebulous, the company's goal was crystal clear: to easily make the tons of different types of Internet video content viewable on the TV.

This week, the company has announced its second device, the Myka ION, which pushes itself up against the HTPC category. Because it's equipped with a 1.6 GHz dual core Intel Atom 330 CPU, it could even be called a "net-top box."

Whatever you want to call it, Myka is really charging toward its goal of making the vast spectrum of Web video available in an easy and compact way. Since the ION is effectively an Ubuntu 9.10 mini ITX PC, it can run popular media manager software Boxee and XMBC alongside the Hulu desktop client -- a bit of useful software which neither Boxee nor XMBC can actually run themselves.

In case the name didn't already give it away, the Myka ION is equipped with an Nvidia ION GPU which supports DirectX 10 graphics, and full 1080p HD video without overtaxing the CPUs.

The company expects it to be shipping in about four weeks, and it will be available in various configurations, with different capacity hard drive sizes (up to 1 TB) and with additional options like a Blu-ray drive, and 802.11n wireless.

We'll give it a closer look when it becomes available before the holidays.

What hath Mac wrought? A remembrance after a quarter-century

Scott M. Fulton, III — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 16:02:39 -0500

By Scott M. Fulton, III, Betanews

[ME's NOTE: This article was originally published on January 30, 2009, here in Betanews. I'm reprinting it today in honor of the memory of a man I refer to in this article, who was one of my early mentors in computing and in business, and who passed away last October 26: Elmer Zen "E.Z." Million, the proprietor of the original Southwest Computer Conference, later the CEO of private aircraft services company Million Air, and occasional candidate for some lofty, high Oklahoma office. He was a brilliant businessman, a true fiscal conservative who really did teach me how to run a business, through long hours in his office poring over accurately written ledgers. And he was the absolute antithesis of everything people assumed a "computer pioneer" was, but he was all of that and more. I dedicate this to E.Z.'s enduring memory.]

The reason there's a Macintosh today is not because of some brilliant flash of engineering genius, as many revisionists like to believe. It's because Apple had the audacity to make a few big mistakes first, and learn from them.

The main reason I wasn't escorted out of those first computer conferences, even though they typically displayed signs that expressly forbade anyone under 18 from entering, was because I looked the part of someone older who knew what he was doing. The moustache and the tailored suit somehow helped, like a rookie NASCAR driver who wanted to fit in with the big boys in the pit crews.

It helped even more to know some people. Three decades ago now, I'd gotten to know a fellow who was one of the first great regional conference organizers, a promoter and business consultant whose given name truly was Elmer Zen Million. At first, he called me "The Kid," which always made me shrink a little because that's exactly what I tried not to look like at the time. After a few years, I was Scott to him and he was E.Z., and I was exempt from the 18-or-under rule...until one year when it finally didn't matter. I was a private consultant, earning a small living, and just introducing myself to the publishers who would soon jump-start my career.

It was the winter of 1983, one month before the rule wouldn't matter anymore. By this time, a local computer store called High Technology had become one of Apple Computer's top-selling independent retailers. I used to hang around that store and drum up business for myself, finding clients and helping them set up Apple II and Atari 800 computers. They didn't mind because I'd end up sending my own customers back to them for more software, which was a high-margin business then. Folks were more interested in buying a computer that ran something weird-sounding like VisiCalc or Electric Pencil if they knew they'd have the help of someone who could give them a hand.

So High Tech had purchased the prime space at one of E.Z.'s semi-annual computer conferences, and I was there to help set up. The store manager had reserved a big chunk of his floor display for the arrival of a computer he hadn't seen yet. It was coming directly from Apple, its delivery was already a few days late, and all we knew about it was that it was not the "Apple IV" that had been rumored, and that it would cost ten thousand dollars.

"So are you sure you want The Kid around?" asked one fellow. "Who, Scott?" replied the High Tech man. "Are you kidding? I don't even have an instruction manual for this thing. He's the only hope we have."

The crate arrived after lunch, literally looking like the "major award" shipped to Ralphie's dad in the movie A Christmas Story. We were told to move our food and drinks a respectable distance from this major device since we wouldn't know how delicate it would be, or how sensitive to soda pop drops and the grease from hot dogs. Some workmen gently extracted the device from its container, a process which consumed two hours, during which I probably consumed a six-pack of Dr. Pepper. And when it was eventually set up, it was missing its startup disk.

A High Tech associate eventually found it back at the store and drove it downtown, but in the meantime, we sat pondering what this new thing was going to do. "Lisa," we'd concluded, must be a code-name and not the final brand. Somebody thought it would eventually be the Apple IV anyway, but the High Tech manager had heard from Cupertino that the Roman numerals had been declared history after "III."

I saw that Lisa came with a "puck." At least that's what I thought it was called; two years earlier, hanging around another computer conference, a guy from Tektronix instructed me on how to use its CAD/CAM system. It came with a digitizer device that you placed on a table called a "puck," and you could also slide it along the left side of the table to select functions for the program.

I had met a guy the year before who called it a "mouse," but I thought it was a stupid name, and surely not the one anyone would settle upon. It was only several years later, after sorting through the mountain of business cards I'd collected over the years, that I realized, in one of those "holy-crap" moments, that the guy was Doug Engelbart.

And since I had also been privy to a demonstration of the Xerox STAR Workstation a year or so earlier (although the fellow there also refused to call it a "mouse"), I was the one designated to flip the switch on Lisa. It took me about an hour to figure out how to boot the thing. You couldn't even pull out the diskette by yourself; a software switch made the disk slide out slowly and deliberately, like teasing a sideways sloth and being teased back. Even E.Z. laughed at me as he walked by, at one point saying, "Who would've thought Apple would be the one to make The System That Stumped Scott?"

It was mid-afternoon, and only when the electric sloth stopped spitting out cherry-bomb icons did we start drawing a crowd. Although I did hear one fellow praise the cherry-bombs, with language that stuck with me: "You know, if you think about it, that's not a bad deal," he said. "Imagine an operating system that's so smart that it knows it's hosed."

We spent the next several hours trying to guess how this most "intuitive" of systems worked, and I took extensive notes. By "we" at this point, I mean about a few hundred people -- an audience had formed outside our table. Some brought out some Samsonite folding chairs, and E.Z. started making the rounds to make sure everyone was comfortable and had refreshments.

We guessed wrong far more often than we guessed right. Ideas for what to do next were being shouted fast and furiously from folks in the crowd. The idea with Lisa was that you had this document, which you tore off from this on-screen pad using the puck. Then you used a menu to decide what to do with this open scrap of paper. Once we found LisaDraw, we started going to town with it. That's when I could let the puck go for awhile and let other people (carefully, now, this thing costs ten grand) experiment with making the arrow move the way their hands moved.

The most amazing thing I remember was how many folks were afraid of it. Psychologists who've studied the history of advertising have pointed out that it's color that attracts people to a new gadget first and foremost. People thought of the Apple II, and even Apple's logo, as being about color; this thing was monochrome and beige, like a brick of vanilla ice cream left to melt in the sun. We had decided "Lisa" couldn't possibly have been Jobs' or Wozniak's girlfriend -- perhaps a junior-high-school Spanish teacher, but not anyone close.

[Photo credit: An original Lisa advertisement, from ComputerHistory.org]

Next: The world that made the Mac...

The world that made the Mac

When younger folks today (I don't have to pretend I'm old enough anymore) ask me what it felt like to experience a Macintosh for the first time, expecting a moment of revelation as though I'd set foot on Mars, it's hard for them to understand this embryo of the Mac in the context of the world we early developers lived in. While we appreciated the Apple II for having accelerated the pace of evolution in computing, and for having been smart enough to let people tinker with its insides like with the Altair 8800 a mere three years before the II premiered, most of us in the business had the sincere impression that Apple least of all understood what our work was about. The Apple III was proof -- the only way it could run good software was when it could step down into Apple II emulation mode. And the Lisa didn't even have that.

What it did have was Motorola's 68000 processor, and now we could really see what a world of difference it would eventually bring to our lives. Back in the early '80s, the CPU ran not only the operating system and the software but whatever graphics the software was capable of doing -- it wasn't shipped off to some co-processor. Simply watching the mouse pointer move fluidly on the screen was impressive to us at the time -- more amazing, even, then creating our first plaid-patterned polygons with LisaDraw for no particular reason.

But also, the world of computing was full of so many more great names than today. Sure, IBM was marching in and would set the tone for the next few decades, but we still had Commodore, Atari, Osborne, KayPro, Ohio Scientific, HP (which had its own designs for business computers at the time), Exidy, Sinclair, Apollo, and the brand which brought me into this business in the first place, Radio Shack. The world was full, and new ideas in hardware were coming out everywhere. Sure, some geniuses in particular rocked the world, but from our vantage point, that's what everyone was doing...that's what we were doing. Steve Jobs was one of our rock stars, sure. But we had a plethora of others -- Jay Miner, Adam Osborne, Chuck Peddle, Clive Sinclair; the writers like Rodnay Zaks and Peter McWilliams; the great publishers we loved (some whom I'd later work for) like David Ahl, David Bunnell, Wayne Green; and the brilliant man whose name is so long forgotten, but who may have contributed at least as much if not more to our foundation of computing than anyone else, Gary Kildall.

It started to come together with the advent of the Macintosh Plus, with 512K -- enough memory to actually run software -- and the numeric keypad.

So when the Macintosh first entered the scene for us, you have to understand, "new" for us came every three months or so. Even then, some of us were still puzzling over the Lisa. Though we all loved the "1984" ad, our expectations of the first Mac were based on our supposition that it would be an attempt to correct the failures of the Lisa. Being priced $8,000 less certainly helped.

But even the first Macs weren't brilliant, not really. They suffered from what we all perceived to be Steve Jobs' basic nature to go with whatever he had at the time, explaining that it's all by design, and if we didn't get it, then it's our fault. The first Mac was a closed system -- oh sure, it had a serial interface that was being "pioneered" by Apple, for the connection of external devices that we were promised but never actually saw. But we couldn't get hard drives to work with the first Macs, no matter how hard we tried (SCSI would only come later). The very first Mac-only conferences, sponsored by the nation's Apple II users' groups -- easily the most friendly and the greatest computer users who ever walked this planet at any time in our history -- were literally showered with businesses whose missions were to connect real peripherals to these things. We had laser printers, for crying out loud, and they were beautiful, but we had to fit our documents on these floppy diskettes; and without compression, we were using one diskette per document easily.

And because opening up one's Macintosh to do something horrible and unsanctioned, such as hiding a hard disk, constituted a violation of the sacred and sacrosanct Apple Warranty, none of these businesses were given accreditation by Apple, and many of them were scared to even employ the Apple logo in their brochures for fear of retribution. Thus the first Mac users' groups -- the offshoots of the Apple II groups -- flourished despite Apple. In fact, at about the time he was ousted from his CEO position, many leaders of the Apple community were tired of Steve Jobs and his bloviating nature, and were more than happy to see him replaced with the down-to-earth, all-business, no-frills approach offered by John Sculley.

Throughout the duration of the 1980s, the Macintosh was never the most powerful 68000-based computer you could buy. In terms of raw processing speed, the Atari ST (the focus of my career for about four years) blew the Mac away in every single challenge, yet that computer was being peddled by a company that was as clueless about computing as FEMA was about hurricanes. And for sheer fun and excitement and creativity, the Commodore Amiga ran circles around the Mac at warp speed. Both the ST and Amiga had orders of magnitude better software going into 1987. Meanwhile, the world's best software authors all wanted to write for Mac and were stymied by all the hoops Apple made them jump through just to be certified, to get development kits, to attend the seminars, and to be treated in kind. Then something happened round about 1988, in the era of the Mac SE and the Mac IIci, when the 68020 and 68030 processors roared to life. The software got better, the systems became more reliable...HyperCard entered the public vernacular. And Apple became more desperate, more humble, and more willing to let other companies enter into its realm. There was an opening, for the first time. System 7 took bold steps forward in functionality and principle. It really took five long, painful years for the Mac to truly be born.

Indeed, the Mac's greatness derives from its designers' willingness to break barriers. Not everything they tried was novel, and let's face it, a good deal of it (just like Windows) was stolen from someone else. Many of the concept's original ideas fell flat on their face, which is the key reason none of us boot up with Workshop disks today.

The first great Macintosh: The Mac SE

The true brilliance of Macintosh is the ideal that computing can have one way of working that we can believe in and stick to. That brilliance was inside the crate the Lisa was delivered in, but it may have been too hard to notice on day one, when I flipped the switch for the first time. Back in the late '70s and early '80s, when systems crashed, we lost everything we were working on, and sometimes the disk it was stored on; even the Lisa brought forth the idea that an operating system can be all-encompassing, that you could be "in" the Lisa rather than "in" dBASE or VisiCalc or Valdocs. The computer itself could define the way its user worked.

Granted, that was a great idea that was probably born in Gary Kildall's mind before anyone else's, but Apple made it work first. It took a lot of time and patience, and some swearing -- most of which has been forgotten by revisionist history. But if you were there in the room when the switch was flipped, or if you can imagine sitting there on a folding chair and watching it happen and sharing the joys and the frustrations in equal measure, then you can truly appreciate what the Mac has brought us.

[Photo credits: Scans of the Macintosh Plus (1985) and Mac SE (1986) from Byte Magazine]

Video: Netflix on PlayStation 3

Tim Conneally — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 14:52:16 -0500

By Tim Conneally, Betanews

As a PlayStation 3 owner, I did not have the luxury of Netflix Instant streaming through my video game console until today. Now, with the aid of Blu-ray's BD-Live and a free Netflix disc which must remain loaded in the PS3, I now have access to an experience similar to the one Xbox Live Gold subscribers had on their 360s.

These discs shipped out to subscribers this week and started landing in mailboxes today.

Since last year, I have used one of the Roku streamers to watch Netflix on my TV. It's a $99 investment I've gotten a lot of mileage out of, especially with the inclusion of Amazon On Demand, which gets a number of titles that Netflix does not. Unfortunately, for as handy and affordable as the Roku device has been, it does not allow movie titles to be browsed directly on the television. Users had to build an instant queue on their PC and only that content could be browsed.

With Netflix on PlayStation 3, not only can the Instant streaming catalog be browsed, but also lists of titles recommended for the user based on his viewing habits.

Early build of Moblin 2.1 improves connectivity, but not device support

Tim Conneally — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 12:41:37 -0500

By Tim Conneally, Betanews

Until recently, netbooks seemed to be computers designed by a subtractive process. That is, you start with a notebook design, and you scale back on the cost by equipping it with lower-power processors, less on-board storage, smaller screens, and either open source software or truncated desktop operating systems.

There really hasn't been a powerful example of a "netbook experience" that was built from the ground up to differentiate the devices from their full-powered counterparts.

In March, Betanews contributor Joe Wilcox wrote a column for eWeek called "The Problem with Netbooks" where he described two paths that the form factor could take: one leading to success, the other leading to a quick demise.

These paths differed depending on where you began.

To get on the path to success in the United States, netbooks would have to be fully integrated with mobile broadband carriers who heavily subsidize them, and they would have to have a specially designed version of Windows that isn't a stripped down desktop version or a built-up mobile version.

But in Europe, it's a different story altogether, and the devices are already on the right path. Carrier subsidies there are stronger, the devices fall more in line with smartphones than notebooks, and Linux-based operating systems are more popular.

And this is why Moblin has begun to look so promising. The Linux Foundation's open source operating system designed specifically for Intel Atom-powered devices was bumped up to a project release of Moblin version 2.1 for netbooks/nettops yesterday. This release knocks out several hundred bugs and adds a number of features critical to netbooks.

The most essential of the upgrades are related to wireless data connections. Support for Ericsson's 3G mobile broadband modules has been added, and the Connection Manager now supports Ethernet, Wi-Fi, WiMAX, and 3G connections. Bluetooth discovery and pairing has also been added, which will allow users to tether their Bluetooth phone to their netbook as a 3G wireless modem.

However, Moblin has a critical shortcoming in that it doesn't yet support the Nvidia, ATI, or GMA-500 integrated graphics processor made by Imagination Technologies. The latter of these is used in all Atom Z500 series devices, also known as "Poulsbo."

While these graphics processors are found mostly in devices that wouldn't exactly fit in the netbook category -- they're MIDs, convertables, and "X-series" notebooks -- it's also used in the Nokia Booklet 3G, a 10-inch pseudo-netbook that could be a lock in Europe, and seems a perfect fit for Moblin.

Betanews sent an inquiry to the Linux Foundation asking about support for the device in Moblin 2.1, to find out whether it's been tested, whether it has to run in a reduced graphics mode or simply cannot run at all, or if there is a plan for a custom Moblin build as an alternative to Windows 7. We'll let you know what we hear back.

Early sales figures for Windows 7 nicely high, but do we know why?

Scott M. Fulton, III — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 11:32:53 -0500

By Scott M. Fulton, III, Betanews

The initial sales figures for Microsoft Windows 7 after its worldwide launch on October 22 are still being tabulated, but the early estimates sound very promising: According to industry analysis firm NPD, unit sales for Windows 7 software SKUs in the US were 234% higher -- better than triple -- the unit sales for Vista's launch, and US revenue from Win7 software sales was up 82% over Vista's launch.

But as Vista veterans will recall, that launch was botched somewhat, first by a costly delay, then by a decision to launch the product twice (first to businesses in October 2006, then to consumers in January 2007), and then by a lack of participation from partners. And there were still more reasons the Vista launch fizzled, one of which, believe it or not, included the scheduling of the launch on a Tuesday.

Windows 98, Windows Me, and Windows XP all launched on Thursdays, to moderate success or higher; and Windows 7 launched on a Thursday. You would think that since NPD's tabulation of sales figures runs between Sundays and Saturdays, the fact that the initial sales figures only reflect the first three days (plus all those pre-sales) of Windows 7 versus the first five days of Vista, would be even more impressive. Yet it's those pre-sales that may tell the real tale here, according to NPD vice president of industry analysis Stephen Baker, who credited a better-run pre-sale event from Microsoft and its retail partners as contributing to the more successful launch this time around. If you'll recall, the hype over Vista had fizzled long before January.

The top three selling SKUs in the three-day window were all upgrades: for Home Premium, followed by Professional (from Vista Business), and the Home Premium Family Pack. We don't know specific unit sales numbers, but can we draw any conclusions yet about who is doing the upgrading and why? For instance, are they XP users, or are those folks more likely to purchase new PCs with Win7 pre-installed (whose sales are not included in these NPD figures, but whose early estimates also appear positive)?

"Questions like that on hardware are hard to answer after three days of sales," Stephen Baker told Betanews this morning. "Some portion of the first three days of sales is just pent-up demand, driven by lack of product to sell in the first ten days. So in that respect, I am not sure what the initial motivators are."

In his blog post on launch day, Baker credited stores like Best Buy with their willingness this time around to cooperate with Microsoft, especially with little things like displaying Win7-based PCs -- not Vista -- during early October even before Win7 or the PCs with Win7 were available. Seeing those systems, and some of their new form factors, might contribute to some of that pent-up demand Baker told us about.

"In general, though, consumers rarely buy PCs for 'new' features," Baker told us, letting the air out of that balloon. "As a tool and a home communication necessity, PCs are most often bought on need. The latest form factor isn't or design isn't what motivates consumers to buy, it is what gets them to buy at the point-of-sale in the store. But getting them to make a decision to buy is based on need, price, and promotion."

We definitely saw the promotion part of that solution as early as August, with a respectable and, for once, not insulting advertising campaign that blanketed all media, including television. But this time around, OEMs were participating in that promotion as well, and were in sync with Microsoft's timetable, publishing early notices of markdown deals, and drumming October 22 into consumers' heads.

But that doesn't cover the need factor; and we wondered, how much did Vista contribute to that need. Since, after all, the top three selling SKUs were all upgrades, were folks really willing to dump Vista?

No, according to NPD's Baker: He believes that the factor that publishers like Betanews had been calling the "Vista perception problem" are not as pervasive as we make it out to be, especially in the consumer space. More importantly than how we may dramatize things, consumers were simply more motivated by the "refresh" aspect of the new system, says Baker.

"I would suspect that most of it is new look-and-feel, and a PC refresh without the cost," he told Betanews. "Bloggers may dislike Vista, but the vast majority of consumers really don't mind it."

The iPhone's China syndrome: Sales of 5,000 and climbing

Fri, 06 Nov 2009 10:30:32 -0500

By Richard Adhikari, MacNewsWorld

The iPhone went on sale last week in China, and it landed more or less with a thud. Cupertino's carrier partner in that country, China Unicom, announced on Tuesday that only 5,000 customers had purchased the phone thus far. At this rate, the handset may have trouble meeting sales expectations. China Unicom had pledged to sell 1 million iPhones per year.

Price could be one deterrent -- the iPhone starts at around the equivalent of USD$730. Add in monthly subscriber fees, and you're soon looking at a rather pricey phone in a country where the average income of urban workers in 2008 was less than $4,300.

Another problem could be the wide choice of devices available to the Chinese consumer. In addition to cheaper gray-market iPhone sales -- which Kevin Wang, director of China research at iSuppli, had pegged at about 1 million units per year -- the iPhone has to contend with a number of competitors. These range from Nokia phones, which dominate the market, to iPhone knockoffs to Android phones.

"It's most likely a combination of all these factors," Brian Marshall, an analyst at Broadpoint AmTech, told MacNewsWorld. However, he's optimistic that things will pick up for the iPhone. "Over time, I think the iPhone scales nicely in China," Marshall said. "I think China Unicom's figure of 1 million iPhone sales a year is conservative."

Still, Apple may need to do something about price. It had a similar experience with the iPhone in India, according to BusinessWeek. The iPhone was launched in India in August of 2008, and by April 2009, total sales were reportedly less than 20,000. As is possibly the case in China, price and competition from an entrenched market leader -- Nokia again -- are making things difficult for the iPhone in India.

Taking care of business

On the enterprise front, the iPhone seems to be making some headway.

For one thing, Medallia, which helps companies track interactions with customers in near real-time, has announced an iPhone app for what it calls "enterprise feedback management". This lets users access, monitor and respond in real-time to customer feedback across all channels, including social media.

"More and more of our customers' employees are using the iPhone at work," Amy Pressman, Medallia's president and chief financial officer, told MacNewsWorld. These users range from vice presidents to managers of individual hotels and retail stores to front line staff.

Medallia's announcement follows in the footsteps of IBM. In October, Big Blue announced that Lotus Domino 8.5.1 would natively support the iPhone.

With more than 100,000 apps now in the app store, why are these apps important to investors? Because these are meat-and-potatoes apps that will be heavily used for business-critical purposes, and their use may spur more iPhone sales.

Also, the iTunes App Store and the iPhone will gain credibility as more enterprises pick up iPhone apps, opening up another new market for Apple. "We have found that our iPhone-using enterprise customers are more interested in applications beyond email than our customers who use other smartphones," Pressman said.

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Killing off Kindle?

Meanwhile, as has been widely expected, more and more iPhone owners are using the devices as e-readers, according to research by Flurry. Flurry offers analytics, deployment and monetization tools for mobile app developers.

In September, apps categorized as "books" on the App Store outnumbered those designated as "games" for the first time, Flurry found. In October, one out of every five new iPhone apps launched was a book. Flurry's survey sampled more than 2,500 apps, 40 million consumers and four platforms -- the iPhone and the iPod touch, the BlackBerry platform, JavaME, and Android.

Whether or not sales of Amazon's Kindle e-reader will be affected by people using the iPhone as an e-reader has yet to be seen. However, with Amazon stating that holiday sales of the Kindle might set new records, it could be that the iPhone might ride another new wave of demand and see a further boost in sales.

Apple will remain strong, said Broadpoint AmTech's Marshall. He's sticking with his price target of $235 a share.

Originally published on MacNewsWorld

New European counterpart to FCC will ensure 'a more neutral net'

Scott M. Fulton, III — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 21:21:29 -0500

By Scott M. Fulton, III, Betanews

During one of the more noteworthy weeks in Europe's modern history, as the 27 member nations of the European Union prepare for a newer and more centralized executive authority, the EU will also be making way for a powerful regulatory authority for telecommunications: the Body of European Regulators for Electronic Communications (BEREC). This is the name for the new European Telecoms Authority; and whereas in the US, there remains considerable debate over whether the Federal Communications Commission can and should have regulatory authority over Internet transactions, in Europe, the debate has officially been settled: BEREC will have authority to propose regulations for telecommunications in all forms, including the Internet.

But the power for approving, exercising, and then administering those regulations has been delegated to the European Commission. So although the new telecoms authority will be comprised of the national telecom regulatory heads from each member nation, the EC will have the authority to overrule them. Negotiations over this single provision extended for hours and eventually days, according to the EC, with the central point of contention being this and only this provision.

But in the end, the agreement reached early Thursday morning essentially gave the EC everything it has asked for, without any hint of compromise.

"When the Commission, in close cooperation with BEREC, considers that a draft remedy notified by a national regulator would create a barrier to the single market," reads this morning's communiqué from the EC, referring to the continent-wide telecommunications market, "the Commission may issue a recommendation that requires the national regulator to amend or withdraw its planned remedy. The new rules also enable the Commission to adopt further harmonization measures in the form of recommendations or (binding) decisions, if divergences in the implementation of remedies persist across the EU in the longer term."

"Harmonization" is the EC's term for getting everyone's ducks in a row, and has been a favorite watch-word of Comm. Viviane Reding, whose authority over Europe's Internet industry has just increased.

Also within Comm. Reding's power will be the ability to order a country's telecom company, once it steps over the regulatory body, to divest itself of its services division if it wishes to maintain control of a majority of lines or transmitters in its given nation. This is the functional separation option introduced in the original proposal two years ago, based in principle on the spinoff of Openreach from UK-based parent BT in 2003, in one of the EC's first telecom-related antitrust actions.

A final draft of what's now called the Internet Freedom Provision will not, as some European journals had reported, guarantee broadband Internet access as a fundamental human right. What it will do, however, is guarantee that an individual's right to choose any available application over the Internet is not suppressed by a service provider's maintenance measures, privacy policies, or lack thereof. In its entirety, the new annex of the Provision reads as follows:

Measures taken by Member States regarding end-users' access to or use of services and applications through electronic communications networks shall respect the fundamental rights and freedoms of natural persons, as guaranteed by the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms and general principles of Community law.
Any of these measures regarding end-users' access to or use of services and applications through electronic communications networks liable to restrict those fundamental rights or freedoms may only be imposed if they are appropriate, proportionate and necessary within a democratic society, and their implementation shall be subject to adequate procedural safeguards in conformity with the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms and general principles of Community law, including effective judicial protection and due process. Accordingly, these measures may only be taken with due respect for the principle of presumption of innocence and the right to privacy. A prior fair and impartial procedure shall be guaranteed, including the right to be heard of the person or persons concerned, subject to the need for appropriate conditions and procedural arrangements in duly substantiated cases of urgency in conformity with the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms. The right to an effective and timely judicial review shall be guaranteed.

Final votes in the European Parliament on the creation of BEREC will take place later this month, although at this point, they're seen to be largely ceremonial. The new authority -- and the authority over that authority -- could come into existence in the first quarter of 2010.

Verizon Wireless launches new Android, Chocolate, and ruggedized phones

Jacqueline Emigh — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 19:07:17 -0500

By Jacqueline Emigh, Betanews

In New York City today, Verizon Wireless rolled out new additions to its expanding Android and LG Chocolate phone families, while also delivering sneak previews of a new, consumer-friendly ruggedized phone called the Casio G'zOne Brigade (shown above).

Like its previously announced top-of-the-line Android phone, known simply as the Droid, the less expensive Droid Eris will be available for the first time in Verizon stores tomorrow -- which is also when pricing will be revealed.

Verizon hasn't yet set pricing or an availability date for the Brigade, but sales of the Push to Talk phone from Casio will start some time over the next few weeks, said Kris Dunlap, Verizon's Push to Talk product manager, during a demo at a press event in Manhattan.

In keeping with its lower price point, the Droid Eris has a lower resolution HVGA display in comparison to the Droid's WVGA screen, and a slower processor running at 528 MHz.

More significantly, the Eris currently runs Android 1.5, in comparison to the higher-end phone's GPS-enabled Android 2.0. That means it won't be able to handle Google's turn-by-turn voice navigation until a 2.0 upgrade becomes available for the phone, officials said at the event.

Both Verizon Android phones, though, will come with the same Google applications suite and Verizon's Visual Voicemail, and both will allow downloads from the 10,000+ applications in Google's online App store.

Unlike the Droid, which is made by Motorola, the Droid Eris is manufactured by HTC. The Eris is similar in form factor to HTC's Hero, a phone offered by Sprint, but it's slightly thinner.

In another demo at the event, Lauren Southwick, a Verizon marketing manager, showed an app called Join the Band running on the Chocolate Touch. Verizon's new touch-enabled Chocolate phone is strongly focused on music playback, with features that include an FM tuner, the ability to sync music from the phone to a PC, and a music player for MP3, WMA, and unprotected AAC and AAC+, for example. You can use a special button on the phone to upload photos taken with a built-in 3.2 megapixel camera to social networking sites like Facebook.

In Join the Band, you can play along with any song you choose on a virtual drum set or piano keyboard. I thought the piano did a fine job when I banged out "Chopsticks" on it.

The Chocolate Touch's video-capable camera can take four types of shots: Normal, Panorama, Intelligent, and Facial Makeover. Southwick sent a Panorama shot she took at the event to one of my e-mail addresses.

Verizon's upcoming Brigade, on the other hand, is the third in a series of ruggedized and water-resistant phones targeted not just at people who work out-of-doors, but at those who like to bike, camp out, fish, and do other outdoor hobbies in their spare time. Like the other two recent tough phones, it meets 810F military specifications for conditions such as vibration, humidity, fog, and low and high temperature storage, Dunlap said.

Verizon hasn't readied a spec sheet yet on the Brigade. But the new horizontal clamshell device -- which will be available to all Verizon Wireless users, not just Push to Talk customers -- will be the first ruggedized phone from Verizon to come with a hard QWERTY keyboard.

Dunlap also pointed to its large display, estimating that the Brigade's screen is about the same size as that of Verizon's Voyager. The Brigade will come with a 3.2 megapixel camera with flash, video capture, and LED light.

The Chocolate Touch and Brigade phones also support Verizon's V Cast video and music services and VZ Navigator turn-by-turn navigation, while the two Droid phones from Verizon do not. Chocolate Touch will be available from VZW starting tomorrow for $79.99 after a $50 mail-in rebate.

Sophos study suggests Windows 7 UAC's default setting is self-defeating

Scott M. Fulton, III — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 16:08:26 -0500

By Scott M. Fulton, III, Betanews

A blog post Tuesday by Sophos senior security engineer Chester Wisniewski stated that recent Sophos tests revealed that User Account Control -- the part of Windows that prompts the user for permission before granting elevated privileges -- was ineffective in stopping common samples of malware from running, in a Windows 7-based system without virus protection.

Whereas two of the ten chosen malware samples for the test would not run in Win7 without UAC turned on at all, only one more sample (a low-prevalence worm code-named W32/Autorun-ATK) was thwarted by UAC. The other seven ran as though they were being blocked only by a stack of dominoes.

Those items that ran unimpeded were: Troj/FakeAV-AFY and Troj/FakeAV-AFX, two low-prevalence Trojans that pretend to be a free anti-virus test; Mal/EncPk-KY and Mal/EncPk-KP, two garden-variety spam viruses; Troj/Agent-LIW, a low-prevalence Trojan that adjusts the behavior of Internet Explorer; Troj/Zbot-JN, a variation of the Trojan that attempts to steal online banking login information by first masquerading as an anonymous e-mail request for a date; and W32/Autorun-ATC, a garden-variety worm that changes the startup script.

"User Account Control did block one sample; however, its failure to block anything else just reinforces my warning prior to the Windows 7 launch that UAC's default configuration is not effective at protecting a PC from modern malware," Wisniewski wrote.

That default configuration is a new setting for Windows 7, that's one level down (and one level less annoying for some users) than Vista's default. During the testing process earlier this year, Windows 7 generated considerable controversy for effectively enabling some applications to generate a kind of "privilege self-elevation privilege" for themselves, which some saw as a vulnerability gift-wrapped for anyone wanting to go exploiting it. Others complained about a more sweeping potential problem: that the whole point of generating the message in the first place (stopping privilege elevation) is forfeited if developers leave a back door wide open.

As Wisniewski told Betanews this afternoon, his intention was not to prove UAC pointless in and of itself, but to suggest that Windows 7 may be vulnerable right out of the box unless and until users do something above and beyond the default.

"This was a quick test to determine if the efficacy of restricting administrative rights through the use of UAC alone will protect against malware infecting a computer running Windows 7," Wisniewski told us. "I did not test how it would have behaved if UAC was dialed up, or perhaps run in what people are calling 'Vista mode.'"

But if anti-virus is the solution to the problem (of course, Sophos is an anti-virus software maker), then what good is UAC at all, even if it's dialed up? Is Chet suggesting the whole thing is pointless anyway?

"I am performing some follow-up testing, although as is the case with malicious software, it does take a bit of time to safely perform these tests. With the data I have at the moment, I am not making recommendations as to what you do with UAC," he responded, "merely warning people that it does not protect a machine effectively against malware. I think Microsoft acknowledges this with their efforts on Microsoft Security Essentials and Forefront." But isn't UAC generally effective against malicious applications that seek elevated privilege levels, even if they're not among the most dangerous viruses cited by Sophos?

"We did not select specific malicious or difficult samples, merely the most recent ten at the time. Most were 'Fake AV' even if the sample names did not indicate that. We have generic detection for malicious packers and other nastiness that proactively finds many samples...With proper anti-malware protection, Windows 7 is far safer," acknowledged Sophos' security engineer.

"One benefit that UAC could have provided," he continued, "is an additional layer of protection that would help in the event that your anti-virus has failed to detect a new sample. It does not appear from my results that this is the case."

Indiscreet tweet trips awareness of Web SSL vulnerability

Scott M. Fulton, III — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 15:20:50 -0500

By Scott M. Fulton, III, Betanews

Internet security engineers who had been meeting secretly to discuss a possible extension to Transport Layer Security (TLS) to thwart a possible low-level exploit, were compelled yesterday to reveal the existence of their meetings after another security engineer unconnected to their project went public with a conceptual framework of the very type of exploit they were working to pre-emptively patch.

The problem is essentially a repeat of what developers of TLS and its parent protocol, Secure Sockets Layer (SSL), have dealt with a handful of times in the past: the potential of man-in-the-middle attacks by malicious servers that can pass themselves off as security authenticators. As the team from wireless security service provider PhoneFactor discovered last August, it was possible using both Microsoft IIS 7.0 and Apache httpd Web servers to demonstrate a situation where a false TLS server authenticates itself to a genuine Web client, then authenticates itself to a genuine TLS server, effectively setting itself up as a go-between that's privy to the complete contents of what appears to the innocent client to be a fully encrypted SSL session.

With online bank transactions worldwide currently covered just with SSL, the potential for global exploit now that the technique behind the attack is widely known, has just become enormous.

As PhoneFactor engineer Marsh Ray blogged this morning, he first suspected the possibility of a vulnerability while doing code testing of a product that a PhoneFactor partner was developing to support its software. "We realized this situation needed to be handled with a good measure of care," Ray wrote. "Over the first part of September 2009, we began disclosing the initial group of independent security consultants for independent verification and advice on how to proceed."

With the cooperation of groups such as the Internet Engineering Task Force, a working group was formed with the objective of developing an extension to TLS. Security vendors with representatives to the IETF, Ray implied, are aware of his and supervisor Steve Dispensa's work, so it's likely that remedial code for the problem has already been developed, and is being tested now.

Without divulging the technical details, here is the basic theory of Ray's and Dispensa's discovery: During a typical TLS (SSL) session, a handshaking process initiated by a client results in the legitimate server validating the client's certificate, and the client validating the one passed by the server. From there, an exchange takes place whose result is the production of an exclusive session key. Methods exist for one or the other party to request a change in the parameters of their transactions, perhaps to switch to a different, stronger cipher suite. However, because of the "post-only" nature of HTTP -- the transaction protocol around which the TLS session is based -- moving the session over to the stronger suite cannot mean suspending transactions in progress and picking them back up again later after the move. Instead, the old session is effectively ended and a new one begins.

At least, that's what's supposed to be enabled to happen, and there's where the trouble starts. The old session is ended, but in order to renegotiate the session, the client and server have to start all over again. In a situation similar to someone's e-mail application replying to your e-mail with a message whose subject line begins, RE:, the conversation between client and server over what to change to, contains a reference to the request for renegotiation -- the request that had, when sent earlier, been encrypted.

Now it's not, and that's the problem. The certificate chain that had been encrypted is now revealed in clear text; and it becomes possible for a malicious middleman to inject code into that chain. Ray was able to demonstrate the methods to security vendors, and that's where we'll stop before we get too detailed.

On a different IETF mailing list yesterday afternoon, a security researcher with SAP, who was running tests on Microsoft IIS, effectively discovered the same concept, and disclosed his discovery in a responsible manner as well. The problem: Someone reading that mailing list effectively broadcast the news "TLS is cracked," or something to that effect, to all his friends on Twitter.

Apparently last night -- maybe in the middle of the night -- is when Ray and Dispensa began getting phone calls from partners. The news was out, and now the need to keep "Project Mogul" secret had evaporated. Though a solution has already been in the works since at least early September, the race to secure the principal protocol governing the Web's monetary transactions has just kicked into overdrive.

BlackBerry shipments grew five times faster than iPhone in Q3

Joe Wilcox — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 14:40:00 -0500

By Joe Wilcox, Betanews

Despite last week's blog and news assertions that iPhone market share had reached 30 percent or even 40 percent, today IDC put Apple's smartphone smack in its place: No. 3, with 17.1 percent worldwide smartphone market share during third quarter. A year earlier, Apple ranked ahead of Research in Motion, which has reclaimed second spot, behind Nokia.

Manufacturers shipped 43.3 million smartphones during third quarter, up 3.2 percent from 41.9 million units in second quarter and up 4.2 percent from 41.5 million units in third quarter 2008. More broadly, manufacturers shipped 287.1 million handsets, up 5.6 percent year over year, according to IDC.

Nokia's overall handset and smartphone markets shares were almost identical, 37.8 percent and 37.9 percent, respectively. For smartphones, second-ranked RIM posted year-over-year shipment growth of 35.7 percent growth, compared to 7.1 percent for Apple. While iPhone is doing quite well, BlackBerry is doing much better. RIM shipments increased from 6 million to 8.2 million units year over year, while Apple shipments grew much less -- from 6.9 million to 7.4 million units.

Last week, I blogged that "iPhone cannot win the smartphone wars" and about a month ago that "iPhone's global success is more myth than marketing reality." Same day as my post from last week, ChangeWave released survey results asserting that BlackBerry smartphone market share was 40 percent, while Apple had reached 30 percent.

On October 27th, an Apple 2.0 blog post about the ChangeWave data set off a series of follow-up/copycat reports claiming that iPhone was in "striking distance" of BlackBerry, including All Things Digital, CNET, National Post, Technologizer and The Unofficial Apple Weblog, among, many, many, many others. Reports of iPhone soon overtaking BlackBerry were seemingly everywhere late last week.

But in keeping with reservations I expressed on Twitter last week: Apple's smartphone market share is nowhere near 30 percent. It's still quite aways from 20 percent. I tweeted: "Busy street. Do you see 3 iPhones or 4 BlackBerries for every 10 smartphones? No? Why then believe ChangeWave's 30% iPhone share claim?"

Several people responded that they in fact did see numbers that high. Michael Gartenberg, Interpret's vice president of strategy and analysis, tweeted: "it's all anecdotal which means nothing. That's why we do surveys ;)" To which I responded: "Right, but you also publish methodology with those surveys. This one has only number of people. Demographics unclear."

ChangeWave's presentation of the data reflects larger problems with how online news is degenerating into a mass grab for traffic and page views. ChangeWave was highly selective, presenting only market share data on Apple, Palm and RIM smartphones. The data polarized around BlackBerry and iPhone, conflict sure to make great blog titles and news headlines, particularly with Apple an endlessly hot topic. Meanwhile, ChangeWave's online report offered scant methodology -- other than number of people surveyed -- to support its findings.

ChangWave's methodology is much different than IDC's. The survey method gives a snapshot of what people are using now, which can be a very useful metric. But typically surveys are online, with people self-selecting to participate (I can only assume that's how ChangeWave collected the data). Self-selected surveys can skew the data, particularly for devices like BlackBerry and iPhone, which might have higher connected audience -- among other factors.

By comparison, IDC's data is more exact by counting the number of smartphones actually shipped during a three-month time period. While the data is more precise, it's less likely to reveal overall usage share -- something a well-done survey can do.

Gartner also counts number of units, but differently than IDC. Gartner counts sales to end users, while IDC tracks total units shipped, which doesn't necessarily mean sold. That's why Gartner unit shipments for iPhone are typically lower than Apple's shipment data, which corresponds with IDC data. Both Apple and IDC count shipments into the channel. The difference also explains why Gartner has consistently put BlackBerry ahead of iPhone, based on actual smartphone sales.

All three methodologies are useful for measuring a product's success, but in different ways. Gartner's data will contrast against IDC's, both offering necessary views on number of smartphones shipped and those actually sold. Gartner hasn't yet publicly released third-quarter smartphone shipment data.

As for iPhone, I predict the smartphone will remain in third place as long as US distribution is locked to a single carrier. Gartner predicts that by fourth quarter 2012, Android phones will be second to Symbian-based handsets (mostly from Nokia), with BlackBerry and iPhone neck-and-neck but RIM's device ahead.

How RIM can avoid a premature endgame for BlackBerry

Carmi Levy — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 12:23:41 -0500

By Carmi Levy, Betanews

Once not so long ago, if you wanted bulletproof e-mail on a mobile device, you bought a BlackBerry. Research In Motion, the company that practically defined wireless messaging a decade ago, has done quite nicely for itself since then, garnering over 56% of the market for smartphones in the US and about 20% of the overall wireless handset market that includes smartphones as well as conventional feature phones. Its end-to-end encryption and still-unique service paradigm that routes messaging traffic through secure Network Operations Centers further endeared the platform to enterprise buyers, even as the company was successfully pushing the franchise into the consumer space.

Unfortunately for RIM, nothing stays the same in the increasingly competitive wireless market. The BlackBerry is no longer a market of one, and many of the features that defined the platform -- including push e-mail and enterprise-class security -- are no longer unique. Worse, the critical feature set for a modern smartphone has expanded to include rich Web access, broad application availability, and an integrated, Web services-aware operating system. It's no secret that the BlackBerry platform lags in all of these areas with its fine-for-the-1990s browser, relatively paltry app ecosystem, and an OS that despite regular incremental updates still betrays its decade-old roots.

As investors push RIM's share price down, and the drumbeats grow louder to aggressively address these shortcomings, the company finds itself at a crossroads. Either it radically changes the strategy that's driven its growth to-date or it risks becoming an also-ran in the US market. Nokia, whose devices once accounted for over 35% of all US sales, lost the script when it misread Americans' growing taste for affordable, feature-packed, and well-integrated smartphones. Today it's American market share languishes at barely 7%.

It's a lesson that RIM would do well to learn, because at this critical inflection point in its history, a stay-the-course mentality could doom RIM to a Nokia-like fate.

To maintain leadership in a market that grows more competitive by the day thanks to continued strength from Apple's iPhone and a rapidly building frontal assault by Google's Android, RIM needs to focus on some fundamental changes, including:

Simplify the product lineup. The almost overflowing BlackBerry product tree stands in stark contrast to the singular focus of Apple's iPhone hardware. RIM sells dozens of devices through countless carriers, often so subtly differentiated that even hard-core fans can't keep track. Sure, most BlackBerry aficionados know that a device number that ends in 30 has built-in GPS, while one that ends in 20 includes Wi-Fi. But the finely sliced marketing messages demanded by such a broad product line tend to dilute the branding effort. As beneficial as multiple devices and form factors have been in terms of appealing to consumers (and carriers) with different needs, they've also dimmed how the BlackBerry is perceived in the minds of potential buyers.
Get serious about courting developers. Application developers care about two things: development effort and profit potential. As it stands now, RIM loses on both fronts. The tools to develop software on the BlackBerry platform are too cumbersome to use, which extends development time and effort. And since the BlackBerry app market itself is just a fraction of the size of its major rivals, there's less opportunity to drive revenue. Compared to iPhone and, increasingly, Android (which already has well over 10,000 apps to RIM's 3,000 or so) it's a no-brainer: BlackBerry development loses every time. RIM has had ample time to bring a streamlined SDK to market along with easily accessible training and support resources for developers. It's also had lots of time to go for Apple's jugular and point-for-point pick off the things about iPhone development that tick developers off (I'm looking at you, opaque approval process). And to be fair, it's making progress. Just not as fast as it should.
Fix the browser. You can't write a product review of any BlackBerry without calling out its lame browser. While competitors have moved on to multitouch-capable interfaces that closely mimic the conventional desktop Web, RIM's offering hasn't changed much since it was first introduced. The result is a stripped down, slow, often frustrating online experience. In fairness to RIM, it's doing something about it. This summer, it acquired Torch Mobile, which makes the WebKit-based multiplatform Iris browser -- a deal that's expected to bring a new standard browser to the BlackBerry sometime in 2010. It can't come a moment too soon.
Find a new differentiator. Rock solid, enterprise-class, push-based e-mail is yesterday's news. And even if it wasn't, consumers don't much care about it anyway. Apple's got the application ecosystem to end all application ecosystems. Google has tight Web services integration. Palm has an innovative UI that blurs the line between local apps and the cloud. What's RIM's unique story going to be? The company isn't saying, but unless it comes up with something to differentiate itself, its good-enough strategy that matches competitors feature for feature will guarantee a long, less-than-comfortable decline as newer, more unique solutions hit the market. Motorola's Droid may hold some lessons here, as it illustrates how a hardware vendor can come back from the dead with an offering that moves the mobility bar solidly beyond basic e-mail and Web browsing.
Learn from the Storm. RIM's first touchscreen device, rushed to market to capture holiday shoppers' interest, was by all accounts a botch. Yes, it ultimately sold well, but its rocky launch tarnished the formerly invincible brand and illustrated the perils of timing product releases to unrealistic seasonal buying patterns. If the engineering isn't fully baked, no product should ever see the light of day. Similarly, devices without Wi-Fi have no place in today's market. While RIM avoided ticking Verizon off by deleting the feature from the first generation Storm, it alienated consumers who simply expect this in anything they buy today. RIM repeated the no-Wi-Fi mistake with the Tour, and one hopes it won't happen again.

While the BlackBerry franchise doesn't face an immediate risk of extinction, its long-term success -- and the success of the company that spawned it -- could be compromised...unless RIM drops the overly conservative mentality, and starts swinging for the fences. Nothing short of a radical re-think will keep the BlackBerry as dominant in the future as it has been in the recent past.

Carmi Levy is a Canadian-based independent technology analyst and journalist still trying to live down his past life leading help desks and managing projects for large financial services organizations. He comments extensively in a wide range of media, and works closely with clients to help them leverage technology and social media tools and processes to drive their business.

Is AES encryption crackable?

Thu, 05 Nov 2009 11:06:00 -0500

By Jack M. Germain, TechNewsWorld

In the field of computer technology, some topics are so frequently and fiercely disputed that they almost resemble religious feuds -- Mac vs. PC, for instance, or open source vs. proprietary software.

Other topics, though, don't see nearly the same level of high-profile debate. Take the invulnerability of the Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) encryption, for example. Governments and businesses place a great deal of faith in the belief that AES is so secure that its security key can never be broken. However, a team of researchers from Germany, France and Israel has recently demonstrated what may be an inherent flaw in AES -- theoretically, at least.

So how secure is AES really? Is AES now vulnerable to a new attack, as the researchers claim?

Maybe yes, and maybe no. The research is mainly theoretical. Still, as technology evolves, successful attacks against AES may turn up, and they may be difficult to ignore.

"Can somebody repurpose and weaken the strength of the AES algorithm? Yes. That's what cryptographers do. But we don't have to worry about AES being weakened anytime soon. Still, AES in theory has flaws. The bottom line is that AES isn't broken," Ozzie Diaz, president and CEO of wireless security firm AirPatrol, told TeckNewsWorld.

What is it?

The AES protocol is a set of three block ciphers selected by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) in 2000 after a three-year competition. NIST is a federal technology agency that develops and promotes measurement standards. Its selection ousted Data Encryption Standard (DES) as the national and international security encryption standard. DES was the most widely deployed block cipher in both software and hardware applications.

Why should you care? AES encryption is the vault that secures online information and financial transactions by financial institutions, banks and e-commerce sites. So a tear in the AES fabric means an opening for hackers to get at valuable personal and business information.

AES is used in three versions: AES-128, AES-192 and AES-256. These numbers represent the encryption key sizes (128 bits, 192 bits and 256 bits) and in their number of rounds (10, 12, and 14, respectively) required to open the vault that is wrapped around the data.

The detractors

In their published report, entitled "Key Recovery Attacks of Practical Complexity on AES Variants With Up to 10 Rounds" (PDF available here), three researchers challenged the structural integrity of the AES protocol.

Although the research suggests AES might no longer be considered theoretically secure, the crucial question facing all of us now is how far it is from becoming practically insecure, concluded Alex Biryukov and Dmitry Khovratovich (University of Luxembourg, Luxembourg), Orr Dunkelman (of Paris, France), Nathan Keller (Einstein Institute of Mathematics, Hebrew University) and Adi Shamir (Computer Science department of the the Weizmann Institute at Rehovot, Israel).

"The findings discussed in 'Key Recovery Attacks of Practical Complexity on AES Variants With Up to 10 Rounds' are academic in nature and do not threaten the security of systems today. But because most people depend on the encryption standard to keep sensitive information secure, the findings are nonetheless significant," Fred Touchette, AppRiver senior security analyst, told TechNewsWorld.

A new worry?

If AES is now theoretically compromised, the real-world impact could be considerable, according to Diaz.

"My speculation is that the greatest vulnerabilities will be for wireless systems for two reasons. Most investments in network media are in wireless systems, and there is no physical barrier to entry for accessing the network," he said.

However, some good may come from even an academic demonstration of a flaw in AES, he conceded. Inflection points always occur in an industry in the form of disruptions. A disruption to the viability of a system today will lead to innovation in filling those gaps or completely changing the rules of the game, he said.

"AES is the standard in wireless and IT encryption. It keeps the mouse trap evolving faster than the mouse can move," said Diaz.

Cracked or broken?

The AES crypto is not broken, asserted Touchette. As in previous techniques, the latest attack techniques on AES-192 and AES-256 algorithms are impractical outside of a theoretical setting.

"But they do nonetheless provide theoretical proof that versions of AES could be susceptible to attack," he warned.

When these cryptos became a new standard, they were declared completely unbreakable. Many other algorithms out there still remain unbreakable, but as long as our systems get stronger and faster, the need for longer and tougher encryption will also grow. Just because the puzzles get harder doesn't mean that people will stop trying to solve them, he added.

An early warning

"AES is not compromised. It is safe to use. There are no problems with it," Paul Kocher, president and chief scientist at Cryptography Research, told TechNewsWorld.

Still, researchers are finding that it would not take as much to crack AES as previously thought, suggested Kocher, and that makes the report a significant finding.

Users are already paranoid over attacks that they don't understand, he noted, nd while attackers do improve over time, nobody actually breaks anything, he said.

"There is plenty of software bugs for attackers to use to bypass breaking the keys. That's what keeps me awake at night, not the algorithms," said Kocher.

Originally published on TechNewsWorld

Faster or more secure? Microsoft publishes IE patch to Automatic Updates

Scott M. Fulton, III — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 10:40:34 -0500

By Scott M. Fulton, III, Betanews

Given the choice between speed and security, Betanews readers this week have been siding with security, in a show of support that suggests that Windows Vista had the right idea after all. This morning, Windows XP, Vista, and Windows 7 users who have their Automatic Update notifications turned on manual will be making that choice, as Microsoft has published update 976749 -- released as a manual update on Monday -- to its Windows Update service, not as a "security update" or anything "critical" or even "important."

It's an "Update for Internet Explorer" whose purpose is to "resolve issues that may occur after installing the Internet Explorer cumulative security update issued as MS09-054" -- one of the major updates from the last Patch Tuesday round. The issue that update addressed is a very serious one, and Windows users who are concerned about their operating system possibly being vulnerable to a new class of attack, should apply that update and also apply the patch to that update, released this morning. Many users with Automatic Updates turned on full may wake up this morning with the update already having been applied.

Those folks may notice a difference, or they may not. There will be a performance cost, at least with respect to all versions of Internet Explorer since 5.01, but also to other features of Windows that rely on Internet Explorer. Betanews readers have suggested that this performance cost will be negligible, especially for those who do not time their browser with a stopwatch.

However, Betanews tests reveal the performance hit completely wipes out at least one category of speed increase that is the subject of recent Microsoft television advertising: a faster Web experience for those who prefer IE. Our tests show that, after update 976749 is applied, IE8 on Windows 7 is no faster than IE8 on Vista SP2 on the same machine.

Right now, the vulnerability exists more in concept than in practice. Although no known exploit appears to have been discovered yet, it's the architecture behind that vulnerability that makes it very serious at the outset. Conceivably, if and when an exploit appears and a patch is published to thwart it, malicious users could craft a variation of the exploit quite easily. The problem has to do with a fundamental programming technique that could be discontinued in the future, but which is pervasive throughout applications of all classes, from Microsoft and everyone else, and not just for Windows. Microsoft is treating the issue quite seriously, judging from the company's recent communications with us.

But the defense against this problem comes at an inopportune time for Microsoft, which is working to promote Windows 7 to consumers as better than its predecessor for being both more secure and faster. Of course, there are other Web browsers, perhaps all of which perform much faster and are arguably more secure. But Microsoft had been hoping to market IE8 as a solid contender, with some features like Web Slices and Accelerators that third-party alternatives have not yet matched. Microsoft may have to take a hit for publicly securing IE -- arguably the more responsible course of action -- at a time when Windows 7 is just coming out of the gate.

New York: Intel's agreements to lower CPU prices led to overcharges

Scott M. Fulton, III — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 16:29:31 -0500

By Scott M. Fulton, III, Betanews

This morning, the State of New York filed an antitrust suit against Intel, joining its voices with those of the European Commission, Korea, and other countries in alleging that its ability to make exclusivity deals was illegal. The claims made this morning by the State Attorney General's office were not at all unprecedented. Essentially, A-G Andrew Cuomo focused on two of the issues already central to the EC's existing case against the company: its CPU purchasing deals with major PC makers Hewlett-Packard and Dell, the existence of which is no longer truly disputed.

But the theory of damages in the case may be difficult to prove, and the lawsuit complaint makes a calculated move in not really arguing damages at all, beyond the fact that they exist. While presenting more evidence than the general public has seen to date of negotiations between Intel and its leading OEMs, clearly suggesting they conspired to keep CPU maker AMD at a safe distance, that evidence also supports the notion that PC prices were rendered lower as a result of those deals, not higher.

While evidence continues to show, for example, that AMD offered HP free CPUs for entering into a deal, and that HP rejected that deal for fear of Intel retribution under its existing purchasing agreement, the complaint offers no evidence of what HP's prices for those AMD-based PCs might have been. And new evidence sheds only more light on the fact that Intel's customers used their own leveraging power to keep their buying prices low, in exchange for promises of exclusivity or near-exclusivity with Intel.

So the complaint attempts a kind of "leap of faith," a way of saying, imagine what might have happened if Intel had used that same monopoly power to raise prices instead of lower them.

Under the theory that the State of New York purchased certain PCs from OEMs (not necessarily HP and Dell), and that the contracts of those purchases assigned to the State the sole right to sue anyone for overcharges, the State is suing Intel claiming it was overcharged, specifically by whatever amount it might have saved had no such exclusivity deals been made...even though those deals led to discounts.

Once again, as was the case with the EC's Statement of Objections last May, A-G Cuomo's evidence comes from e-mails from Dell and HP, many of which suggest that although they were certainly fearful of Intel retribution should they sell more computers with AMD chips than previously agreed, that fear comes from their perception of how Intel could react, rather than what how it may have threatened to react.

For example, in a section of today's suit (PDF available here) entitled, "Intel Conveyed Threats to Dell," e-mails between Dell executives were cited, though not containing words from Intel executives.

"In preparation for upcoming funding negotiations with Intel in 2002, a Dell executive, who regularly acted as an informal liaison between Dell and Intel, explained that Intel would not tolerate a Dell shift to AMD CPUs," reads the A-G's lawsuit complaint. "Specifically, this Dell executive wrote to Michael Dell and others: 'If [Dell starts to use] AMD [CPUs], [Intel] would just give a [competitor] MOAP type dollars to match whatever we're getting -- they won't sit around and let us transfer share to AMD…'"

"MOAP" in this case referred to an early acronym for the purchasing deal then under negotiation between Dell and Intel: "Mother Of All Programs." It was later changed to "Meet Competition Program" (MCP), and was designed to be a way for Dell to specify in advance how Intel should respond to competitive offers made to Dell by another CPU supplier. Of course, there was only one of those. As evidence brought forth by the European Commission made clear, the terms of the MCP were kept oral between the two parties, under a mandate specified by Dell.

In fact, Cuomo's complaint this morning only shed more light on the degree to which Dell exercised its own leverage in the negotiations. The suit alleges that MCP was constantly renegotiated in order to determine legal -- or legal-sounding -- ways to "structure" rebates from Intel to Dell for maintaining its purchasing quotas, and for excluding AMD. But as the suit states explicitly: "As Dell's lead negotiator with Intel put it in a December 7, 2004 e-mail to his Intel counterpart, explaining that Michael Dell wanted an additional $400 million rebate payment from Intel: 'This is really easy... MSD [Michael Dell] wants $400M [million] more. I've been trying to figure out the structure...'" The suit does reveal, however, where Intel was willing to throw its weight around. For example, internal Intel e-mails cited in the suit show where, in late 2002, Sony was in purchasing negotiations with Intel. As with many major OEMs, Sony had market share target goals it wanted to meet; but so did Intel, which saw each OEM as contributing certain numbers of points to its market share segment [MSS] in consumer and business segments.

The "value" segment of the market (the low end, or "entry level") has always been where AMD has made its biggest inroads. So at this time, Intel wanted Sony to commit to exposing Intel to more MSS points in the value segment, to catch up with AMD. Citing internal Intel executive e-mails without naming the correspondents, the complaint reads, "The first executive inquired: 'Can [another Intel representative] discreetly hint to Sony that the Corp Marketing dollars are at risk if Intel's MSS with Sony in the value segment does not improve?' The second responded: 'We should not be shy about our unhappiness with our current MSS. Intimating that the program is in jeopardy if they don't get their act together and work with us on this is clearly ok.'"

Intel would be willing to co-market Sony's notebook computers, if Sony made purchasing commitments on its end. Those commitments were called "alignment," as referred to in this internal Intel e-mail: "I also told him [the Sony negotiator] that Intel…would really have to make sure Sony and Intel are well 'Aligned' before we commit to doing this kind of comarketing program…If we can get [Sony] to agree on better alignment (MSS recovery in US NB [United States notebook computers], No more surprises), then, we can move forward with co-marketing discussion. If not, we may have to think about alternatives."

"Intel forced OEMs to choose between having a 'strategic' or a 'transactional' relationship with Intel," explained the State of New York's lawsuit complaint. "In Intel's parlance, a 'strategic' relationship was one with a high degree of exclusivity or 'alignment.' An OEM which opened itself to a relationship with another microprocessor supplier -- AMD -- was regarded as desiring only a 'transactional' relationship with Intel, and Intel made clear in such cases that this would not be in the OEM's own best interest."

E-mails detailing how to explain to OEMs the virtue of "strategic" relationships with Intel -- long-term agreements with benefits dispensed over time -- imply that the Intel executive responsible for coining that phraseology was Paul Otellini -- at the time of these negotiations, Intel's Chief Operating Officer.

In a statement to Betanews this afternoon, Intel spokesperson Chuck Mulloy reiterated his company's position: "We disagree with the New York Attorney General," he told us. "Neither consumers, who have consistently benefited from lower prices and increased innovation, nor justice are being served by the decision to file a case now."

Is there any sense to Microsoft's 800 layoffs?

Joe Wilcox — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 15:14:58 -0500

By Joe Wilcox, Betanews

Today's Microsoft layoffs -- 800 employees -- are surprising. Following the last round, executives seemingly slammed the axe into the chopping block, even though the full number of 5,000 layoffs planned over 18 months hadn't been met.

Late last night, TechFlash first reported that layoffs would be coming today. Microsoft started informing employees today, in what surely has to be an unexpected misfortune. So much time has passed since the last layoffs, the threat of more surely faded. For good reasons. Until these 800 pink slips, there were reasons to be cheerful on the Microsoft campus.

Microsoft's recent fiscal 2010 first-quarter results, where cost-cutting measures helped lift profits, are reason enough to be stunned by today's layoffs. Microsoft beat Wall Street consensus. Typically companies announce layoffs right before or after troubling earnings results -- not when the numbers are good, or in this case better.

Something else: Windows 7 just launched, with Microsoft reporting strongest desktop operating licensing sales ever. Windows Server 2008 R2 released same day, and Microsoft has cued up lots of other products for preview or release, including Office 2010, Office Web Apps and SharePoint 2010, among others.

Other reasons to be cheery:

Zune HD rocks.
Windows 7 advertising looks great.
Microsoft will take over Yahoo search.
New MSN portal is in preview, and it looks good.
Bing is doing well, and the marketing campaign sizzles.
Microsoft has opened two new retail stores, in Arizona and California.
Microsoft's Professional Developer Conference opens in less than two weeks, where Azure Services Platform could actually launch for real.

Windows Mobile is the only stink coming out of Redmond right now. OK, there are Office Accounting's imminent demise and slashed Online Services fees.

So what do Microsoft executives know that you or I don't? It's the only question to ask regarding the layoffs' timing. I'll propose some possible reasons, befitting my wicked, conspiracy-thinking ways. I ask you to dispute my reasons or offer up others in comments. None of my suggested reasons are mutually exclusive.

1. Microsoft announced the layoffs now, when mood is better inside and outside the company, to finish off with the bad news. Supposedly, today's layoffs more than complete the expected 5,000. Remaining employees can throw off their sense of dread (Can you say "uplifted morale?") and Wall Street can finally focus on all those new products in the pipeline.

2. Five weeks into the new quarter, Microsoft sees the econolypse continuing to pull downward on enterprise sales, even with Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 freshly released. Microsoft already set lower expectations for Business division results, of which Office accounts for 90 percent sales. Proactive cost cutting now would be beneficial in the future, even if only to show Wall Street that Microsoft cut first and asked questions later.

3. Windows 7 OEM license orders are way down for the quarter. Fiscal 2010 first quarter's record Windows 7 license shipments corroborate earlier reports of a surge in PC component orders, which raise concerns that OEMs shipped or are shipping massive amounts of computers into the retail sales channel. Will holiday demand meet supply? For Microsoft, the answer doesn't much matter, if licensing orders are down in fiscal second quarter because they were up so high earlier.

4. Microsoft planned on tweaking employee headcounts anyway -- preparation for taking over Yahoo's search operations. This way, Microsoft can roll together all the remaining layoffs with Yahoo search integration cutbacks, which for the future would better boost employee morale and negate outside perceptions about the company. Layoffs typically generate negative press.

5. Dan Lyons hit a nerve that sent Wall Street analysts and Microsoft investors screaming. Lyons' October 29th Newsweek commentary, "The Lost Decade: Why Steve Ballmer is no Bill Gates," is a scathing indictment of Microsoft's current CEO. Commentaries like this rattle analysts, CEO peers and investors, who in turn shake a company. An attack so personal can lead to reaction or overreaction, with Ballmer putting on a tougher guy face and cutting where Wall Street would like to see it. By the way, Lyons (aka "Fake Steve Jobs") is wrong about Ballmer's leadership. That's a topic I'll blog about later.

I would be saddened and disturbed if Microsoft rewarded the Windows & Windows Live group with layoffs. Typically, launch of a new Windows version is path to Microsoft promotion, not pink slip.

Apple's App Store hits 100K apps: News or rhetoric?

Tim Conneally — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 14:19:28 -0500

By Tim Conneally, Betanews

Apple today announced that its App store has more than 100,000 apps available for download and use on the iPhone and iPod Touch. The number of applications available on the platform has been a major selling point for Apple's iPhone, and the company has made sure to keep the public informed when its catalog grows. In July, the company announced when it had hit 65,000 available apps; and In September, it let us know when it had exceeded 85,000.

In fact, ever since July 2008, when the App Store debuted with only 500 apps, the number of available applications has been used as a running tally to illustrate how much more viable a platform the iPhone is than its competitors.

In every announcement related to the App Store's number of apps or downloads this year, Phil Schiller uses the same adjective to describe the App Store: Revolutionary.

But here's the brilliant thing about this which people often overlook: The viability of Apple's platform has little to do with its own actions.

It's the same phenomenon that made social networking sites like MySpace and Facebook so successful: Any number of social networks had equally usable platforms, but they just didn't have the user momentum. People don't use a social network based upon the platform, they use it for the other people who are already there. It's the same with the App Store. Developers have rushed to put out as many apps as they can because there are people out there downloading them.

Michael Gartenberg, vice president of Strategy and Analysis at Interpret, LLC, said it very succinctly last week: "Apple didn't make iPhone a success. Microsoft didn't make Windows a success. Google didn't make search a success. People did that for them."

So is it news that 100,000 apps have been created for the iPhone and iPod Touch platform?

Yes.

But it's not an achievement by Apple. As Phil Schiller has repeatedly said, it's a revolution, an action of the people.

Performance drain: The first public perception test of the Windows 7 era

Scott M. Fulton, III — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 11:41:34 -0500

By Scott M. Fulton, III, Betanews

The key selling point for Windows 7, as emphasized in a concerted advertising campaign that stretches across both TV and the Web, is that it's leaner, simpler, and faster. It doesn't have to complete the phrase "faster than..." because we all know how to complete that phrase. Microsoft's bet for Windows 7 is that users smart enough to complete that phrase, care.

So if some of the comments Betanews has been receiving about Internet Explorer's recent problems being a non-event, or a "YAWN," really did reflect reality, then Microsoft has already lost the bet.

The security problem revealed last July at the Black Hat conference could be considered old but also latent -- it has not been exploited yet, and only recently have smarter folks looking for ways to improve security architecture shed light on it. It's a problem with how software components trade off objects of data in memory when their types are indeterminate, using a structure called variant. The receiving component learns about the variant's type through a structure that's passed along with the data, but as the Hustle Labs team demonstrated, components don't clean up after themselves in a safe way.

Microsoft has very obviously taken this revelation quite seriously, especially noting that the security team's demonstration in Las Vegas could give more malicious folks ideas they would never have conjured on their own. Last month's Patch Tuesday round reflected the degree of seriousness with which Microsoft is treating the matter.

The company's patches in recent weeks, including the patches to the patches, have resulted in noticeable and easily measurable performance degradation in Internet Explorer, both versions 7 and 8. This means that for a great many users of XP, Windows 7, and the "V-word," who use the platform they're given to run Web applications, they will notice a slowdown of one-third or more.

What's more, as it stands now, Betanews estimates that the performance differences between Internet Explorer 8 on Windows 7 and on Vista are negligible or even negative. That's right -- IE8 on Win7 is slightly slower than IE8 on Vista, at least according to yesterday's tests.

Now, what we could have done here is beat our competition to the obvious Hyperbolic Headline waiting to be harvested. You know the one I'm talking about: Windows 7 Slower Than Vista. Wouldn't that just be the Holy Grail? We'd be on Google News for a whole day, higher-ranking than Hamid Karzai's brother on the CIA payroll, more attention-grabbing than what Pamela Anderson paid to redecorate her bathroom, fresher than yet another "YAWN" about whether Nancy Pelosi would entertain removing the public option from health care!

Or not. Because apparently it doesn't matter, as the education I'm receiving from a few of my readers is attempting to enlighten me about. People use what they use, they like what they like, and they'll consume whatever's in front of them. Nancy Pelosi, Pamela Anderson, Lady Gaga, Internet Explorer...it all passes in front of consumers on a treadmill, and they don't pay any real attention to details or facts or arguments or qualitative differences.

Put another way, the argument goes like this: If security truly mattered to folks, then they wouldn't be using Windows in the first place. And if functionality and performance truly mattered, then two-thirds of the world's HTTP GET requests wouldn't come from IE. (And if quality mattered, Lady Gaga...etc.) A few microseconds given away here or there isn't really going to matter to folks whose only interaction with the net consists of waiting for Pamela's picture to download.

If that were true for everyone besides a few folks for whom the notion that stuff doesn't matter really, really matters, then Windows 7 really would be "Vista Service Pack 3" (it is, after all, internally numbered "Windows 6.1").

The "Windows 7 was my idea" campaign, which places an obvious bet that the consumer cares about things like speed and performance.

The reason Windows 7 exists as a brand name at all is because of a Microsoft change of course, a necessary one if the brand is to thrive rather than just subsist: When Microsoft bet the farm on the notion that users will be more comfortable with security than performance, it lost. Vista is a tarnished brand despite its enormous security improvements, partly because it was a slower performer to begin with, and partly because the fight to keep Vista secure was so public and so transparent to the regular user that every Patch Tuesday became a step down the ladder for Microsoft.

Wouldn't you rather be more secure than ~~more vulnerable~~ faster, a reader asked me yesterday? [Sorry, Paul, I messed up your question.] Yes, I would. But I'm an oddball. And if the pool of consumers out there were like me, there wouldn't be a Windows 7.

While technically this issue impacts all of Windows, not just Windows 7, this is a Windows 7 issue now, just as the multitudes of patches released for XP since 2007 were a Vista issue. It's Windows 7's turn on the watch tower; it's the system in the hot seat. If users after today come to believe that their systems are slower and slower and slower, even if it's Vista they're using, it will be Windows 7 that's blamed. Yes, people do care, but they also blame the most convenient target available to them. (Just ask any Democratic pollster today about the meaning of yesterday's elections.)

The fact that Microsoft has not issued its latest patch-to-the-patch as an automatic update but a manual one instead, is an indication that this time around, it's leaving the question of security-vs.-performance to the users and system admins. Granted, nobody on the malicious side of development has acquired the collective neurons yet to exploit the variant problem the way it could theoretically be exploited -- a fact for which I continually thank my local deity. But Vista proved that, for the same reason travelers feel less safe walking through airports where the security is tighter, calling attention to the "Hobson's Choice" -- to borrow a Carmi Levy phrase -- between performance and security leaves users with the impression that their systems are neither fast nor secure. If Windows were to apply this latest patch automatically, and advertise transparently that it had done so, and the result were slower systems, can't you just imagine the headlines then? Microsoft Reaches Into PCs and Makes Them Slower. Apple's marketing team would have a field day.

Transparency in computing (or government) is like honesty in dating: Everyone says it's the most important factor to them, until they get it: "I'm 44, short, and balding...and I have a latent but exploitable security deficiency."

On a scale comparable to the health care debate in Congress, the variant problem is actually just as big not only for Microsoft, but for Mozilla and Apple and Adobe and everyone else in this business. The real solution will require major changes to the way all software functions -- changes that mean we need to start talking about Internet Explorer 9 and Windows 8 and Firefox 5 and Chrome 94, now.

And people will notice the change. They'll notice because people care more than some folks think they do.

On the eve of a new EU constitution, Poland suggests distance from 'open source'

Scott M. Fulton, III — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 17:19:45 -0500

By Scott M. Fulton, III, Betanews

5:45 pm EST November 3, 2009 · A press officer with the Delegation to the European Commission in Washington contacted Betanews this afternoon, stating that the press office could not attribute the document being circulated as "EIF 2.0" this week as an official European Commission document. It is therefore not a leaked version of EIF 2.0 as was suggested elsewhere; and it's extremely unlikely that the Commission is actively considering replacing its last draft of EIF 2.0, completed in July 2008, with the version that Betanews was able to trace to the Polish Ministry of the Interior.

Just hours ago, Czech President Vaclav Klaus was the last to add his signature to a list of 26 others, effectively ratifying sweeping amendments to the Treaty of Lisbon -- effectively, the constitution of the European Union. A new centralized executive authority will be created, dramatically expanding the roles of the EU's President and formalizing the role of its own, continent-wide Foreign Minister. A country upon countries is born.

As the 27 member nations agree to cede more of their lawmaking authority to a centralized executive branch -- whose members have yet to be elected -- they continue to grapple with the subject of how they will interoperate, sharing not only information but commerce and technology, in a system where their own national laws may each be superseded. Since 2004, the EU had been looking to the open source software model as an example of free collaboration among independent entities willing to work together for the common good. And OSS proponents have shown pride in the fact that their model was directly cited by the first edition of the European Interoperability Framework (EIF), a set of formal recommendations for how countries may share public services with one another.

A draft 2.0 of the EIF has been under discussion since 2007, and has been awaiting the Lisbon Treaty amendments before starting the process of formal ratification. Now, a document that purports to be a newly proposed draft of EIF 2.0, appearing for the first time a week ago Monday on the Web site of Poland's Internal Affairs Ministry, would actually strip those OSS references from the framework, in the interest of what it calls, among other things, "administrative simplification."

The Ministry explicitly states that the document is not an actual draft. So contrary to numerous reports, the document in question is not official EU business. It does not actually contain text that may appear in the final draft, says the Ministry, beating around the bush a little bit instead of admitting that it's a mockup.

Indeed, the text of the Polish Ministry document differs substantially in both content and size (it's 56 pages shorter) than the Draft for Public Comments on version 2.0 (PDF available here), published in July 2008. But the Ministry is seeking public comment on the document, ahead of a meeting scheduled for November 12 in Malmo, Sweden, where the Ministry says the actual latest text of EIF 2.0 will be unveiled.

The fact that the Ministry's document was not titled in sync with the actual EU project name ("European Public Services" as opposed to "pan-European Public Services") should have sent up some red flags. It would appear this document is actually a kind of "floater" or "dipstick" -- a test of alternative language just to ascertain the depths of public sentiment or apathy to a change in course. The Ministry does state the document was submitted by the European Commission; however, the document itself does not carry any EC authoritative marks. Betanews has been in contact with the Delegation of the European Commission in Washington today, in an effort to ascertain the origin of the document, and will report further as we hear more. One possibility is that the origin is a legitimate commissioner seeking public input on alternative language.

That alternative language would be a radical shift from the current EIF 2.0, which not only uses OSS as a model around which to base cooperative services, but states the EU's preference for open source software as more likely to adhere to standards, and more likely to change with the needs of customers as opposed to making customers change to suit the software. The Polish Ministry version would strike that language entirely, replacing it with a suggested "Eleventh Principle" in a list of twelve. Under Principle 11, quite literally, public services would be urged to wait until the last possible moment before choosing any kind of technology investment, and then simply make whatever choice appears most adaptable at the time.

"When establishing European Public Services, public administrations should focus on functional needs and defer decisions on technology as long as possible in order to avoid imposing specific technologies or products on their partners and to be able to adapt to the rapidly evolving technological environment," reads the Polish Interior Ministry draft language. "Public administrations should render access to public services independent of any specific technology or product."

Open source software is nice because it's typically reusable, meaning it's licensed under less constrained terms than commercial products. But that's about it for OSS under the Polish suggested language. Rather than model principles of openness in government on openness in software, as does EIF 1.0, the Polish version suggests that since some software is more open than others, some governments are more open than others.

In short, the Polish version would substitute the OSS principles with something right out of science fiction, literally called the openness continuum.

"Interoperability involves the sharing of information and knowledge between organizations, hence implies a certain degree of openness. There are varying degrees of openness," the English-language text reads. "Specifications, software and software development methods that promote collaboration and the results of which can freely be accessed, reused and shared are considered open and lie at one end of the spectrum while non-documented, proprietary specifications, proprietary software and the reluctance or resistance to reuse solutions, i.e. the 'not invented here' syndrome, lie at the other end. The spectrum of approaches that lies between these two extremes can be called the openness continuum."

Governments should decide how open they should be or need to be on a case-by-case basis, the document goes on, taking into account factors such as how much they can actually afford. And it's here that the Polish document would blast the EIF's embrace of open source to kingdom come: "While there is a correlation between openness and interoperability, it is also true that interoperability can be obtained without openness, for example via homogeneity of the ICT [information and communications technology] systems, which implies that all partners use, or agree to use, the same solution to implement a European Public Service."

As the Polish Interior Ministry advises citizens, according to English translation, "We encourage all community organizations interested in interoperability topics electronically to submit comments and suggestions to the document, which can be used by the Polish delegation at the meeting on November 12."