Infection related emails accounted for almost 25% of the world's spam at its peak Monday.
By Mathew J. Schwartz
InformationWeek
September 29, 2010 12:03 PM
On Monday, online attackers unleashed a flood of emails targeting the LinkedIn social network. According to Cisco, at the attack's peak on Monday, the related emails accounted for nearly 25% of all spam globally.
The emails arrive with an innocuous-looking -- but fake -- request to become a LinkedIn contact of the sender. Clicking on the provided link launches a website where a screen asks the viewer to wait for four seconds, before redirecting to Google.
Cisco said that "during those four seconds, the victim's PC is infected with the Zeus data theft malware by a drive-by download."
Zeus -- aka Zbot -- is a sophisticated financial malware toolkit that helps criminals automatically create online attacks, supported by botnets, aimed at stealing people's finance-related credentials, such as bank account login information. In other words, rather than directly attacking bank systems, attackers simply try to fool bank users.
"Targeting social network users for distributing financial malware is a smart move for the criminals," said Mickey Boodaei, CEO of security firm Trusteer, in a statement. "These attacks are much more likely to succeed than phishing attacks on banks. Once Zeus [is] installed on the user's computer then the criminals get access not only to login information but also to real-time transactions and other sensitive information."
The masterminds behind Zeus also keep the software updated, no doubt to keep their own customers happy. Recent upgrades have added -- sometimes for an extra price -- back-door connection modules to compromised PCs, as well as anti-piracy features aimed at competitors' malware toolkits.
Unfortunately, with its latest upgrade, Zeus now appears able to target smartphones too. "What's dangerous in this approach is that the same malware controls two communication channels -- the PC and the mobile device -- and as a result can launch extremely effective attacks against banks and organizations that rely on these two channels for authentication and transactions," says Boodaei.
For example, an attacker might infect both a person's PC and smartphone, steal money, and then reroute any security-check phone calls from the bank.
"So when the bank detects a suspicious transaction and calls the customer for confirmation, the criminals can pick up the phone on the other side and do that on behalf of the customer," he said.
In this interactive Webcast from Bank Systems & Technology and Wall Street & Technology, you'll learn how to improve both your operational efficiencies and your agility in responding to constantly changing consumer demands, by cohesively marrying business process management and CRM. It happens Oct. 14.
Find out more (registration required).
http://www.informationweek.com/news/security/attacks/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=227500966&subSection=News
Thursday, September 30, 2010
House Democrats shelve net neutrality proposal
Sep 29, 9:58 PM (ET)
By JOELLE TESSLER
WASHINGTON (AP) - House Democrats have shelved a last-ditch effort to broker a compromise between phone, cable and Internet companies on rules that would prohibit broadband providers from blocking or degrading online traffic flowing over their networks.
House Commerce Committee Chairman Henry Waxman, D-Calif., abandoned the effort late Wednesday in the face of Republican opposition to his proposed "network neutrality" rules. Those rules were intended to prevent broadband providers from becoming online gatekeepers by playing favorites with traffic.
The battle over net neutrality has pitted public interest groups and Internet companies such as Google Inc. and Skype against the nation's big phone and cable companies, including AT&T Inc., Verizon Communications Inc.
and Comcast Corp.
Public interest groups and Internet companies say regulations are needed to prevent phone and cable operators from slowing or blocking Internet phone calls, online video and other Web services that compete with their core businesses. They also want rules to ensure that broadband companies cannot favor their own online traffic or the traffic of business partners that can pay for priority access.
But the phone and cable companies insist they need flexibility to manage network traffic so that high-bandwidth applications don't hog capacity and slow down their systems. They say this is particularly true for wireless networks, which have more bandwidth constraints than wired systems. The communications companies also argue that after spending billions to upgrade their networks for broadband, they need to be able earn a healthy return by offering premium services. Burdensome net neutrality rules, they say, would discourage future investments.
Waxman's proposal, the product of weeks of negotiations, attempted to carve out a middle ground by prohibiting Internet traffic discrimination over wireline networks while giving broadband providers more leeway when it comes to managing traffic on wireless networks. The plan would have given the Federal Communications Commission authority to impose fines of up to $2 million for net-neutrality violations.
For the broadband companies, Waxman's retreat is a setback. They fear the issue could now go back to the FCC, which deadlocked over the matter in August. The commission could impose more restrictive rules on the industry than a House compromise would have.
"If Congress can't act, the FCC must," Waxman said in a statement. He added that "this development is a loss for consumers."
Net neutrality was the Obama administration's top campaign pledge to the technology industry and a major priority of the current FCC chairman, Julius Genachowski, a key architect of Obama's technology platform. But frustration is growing - particularly among public interest groups - as the debate has dragged on over the past year without resolution either at the FCC or in Congress.
Waxman's proposal, in part, fell victim to today's political climate, with Republicans hoping to rack up gains in the upcoming midterm elections apparently unwilling to help Democrats make progress on such a contentious issue. With an anti-government, anti-regulation sentiment sweeping the nation - and boosting Tea Party candidates - Republicans also were reluctant to support a proposal that opponents equate to regulating the Internet.
Yet in what would have been a big victory for the phone and cable companies, Waxman's proposal would have headed off an effort by Genachowski to redefine broadband as a telecommunications service subject to "common carrier"
obligations to treat all traffic equally.
The FCC has been trying to craft a new framework for regulating broadband since a federal appeals court in April threw out its current approach, which treats broadband as a lightly regulated "information service." The agency had argued that this approach gave it ample jurisdiction to mandate net neutrality.
But the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia rejected that argument. It ruled that the agency had overstepped its authority when it ordered Comcast to stop blocking subscribers from using an online file-sharing service called BitTorrent to swap movies and other big files.
With Congress making no progress to resolve this issue, several public interest groups on Wednesday called on Genachowski to move ahead with his proposal to reclassify broadband as a telecom service.
"The FCC must act now to protect consumers by reinstating its authority over broadband," Gigi Sohn, president of the public interest group Public Knowledge, said in a statement. "We expect the FCC to do so to carry out one of the fundamental promises of the Obama administration."
But Joe Barton of Texas, the top Republican on the House Commerce Committee, said Genachowski's proposal would "stifle investment and create regulatory overhang in one of the most dynamic sectors of our economy."
http://apnews.myway.com/article/20100930/D9IHUT9O0.html
By JOELLE TESSLER
WASHINGTON (AP) - House Democrats have shelved a last-ditch effort to broker a compromise between phone, cable and Internet companies on rules that would prohibit broadband providers from blocking or degrading online traffic flowing over their networks.
House Commerce Committee Chairman Henry Waxman, D-Calif., abandoned the effort late Wednesday in the face of Republican opposition to his proposed "network neutrality" rules. Those rules were intended to prevent broadband providers from becoming online gatekeepers by playing favorites with traffic.
The battle over net neutrality has pitted public interest groups and Internet companies such as Google Inc. and Skype against the nation's big phone and cable companies, including AT&T Inc., Verizon Communications Inc.
and Comcast Corp.
Public interest groups and Internet companies say regulations are needed to prevent phone and cable operators from slowing or blocking Internet phone calls, online video and other Web services that compete with their core businesses. They also want rules to ensure that broadband companies cannot favor their own online traffic or the traffic of business partners that can pay for priority access.
But the phone and cable companies insist they need flexibility to manage network traffic so that high-bandwidth applications don't hog capacity and slow down their systems. They say this is particularly true for wireless networks, which have more bandwidth constraints than wired systems. The communications companies also argue that after spending billions to upgrade their networks for broadband, they need to be able earn a healthy return by offering premium services. Burdensome net neutrality rules, they say, would discourage future investments.
Waxman's proposal, the product of weeks of negotiations, attempted to carve out a middle ground by prohibiting Internet traffic discrimination over wireline networks while giving broadband providers more leeway when it comes to managing traffic on wireless networks. The plan would have given the Federal Communications Commission authority to impose fines of up to $2 million for net-neutrality violations.
For the broadband companies, Waxman's retreat is a setback. They fear the issue could now go back to the FCC, which deadlocked over the matter in August. The commission could impose more restrictive rules on the industry than a House compromise would have.
"If Congress can't act, the FCC must," Waxman said in a statement. He added that "this development is a loss for consumers."
Net neutrality was the Obama administration's top campaign pledge to the technology industry and a major priority of the current FCC chairman, Julius Genachowski, a key architect of Obama's technology platform. But frustration is growing - particularly among public interest groups - as the debate has dragged on over the past year without resolution either at the FCC or in Congress.
Waxman's proposal, in part, fell victim to today's political climate, with Republicans hoping to rack up gains in the upcoming midterm elections apparently unwilling to help Democrats make progress on such a contentious issue. With an anti-government, anti-regulation sentiment sweeping the nation - and boosting Tea Party candidates - Republicans also were reluctant to support a proposal that opponents equate to regulating the Internet.
Yet in what would have been a big victory for the phone and cable companies, Waxman's proposal would have headed off an effort by Genachowski to redefine broadband as a telecommunications service subject to "common carrier"
obligations to treat all traffic equally.
The FCC has been trying to craft a new framework for regulating broadband since a federal appeals court in April threw out its current approach, which treats broadband as a lightly regulated "information service." The agency had argued that this approach gave it ample jurisdiction to mandate net neutrality.
But the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia rejected that argument. It ruled that the agency had overstepped its authority when it ordered Comcast to stop blocking subscribers from using an online file-sharing service called BitTorrent to swap movies and other big files.
With Congress making no progress to resolve this issue, several public interest groups on Wednesday called on Genachowski to move ahead with his proposal to reclassify broadband as a telecom service.
"The FCC must act now to protect consumers by reinstating its authority over broadband," Gigi Sohn, president of the public interest group Public Knowledge, said in a statement. "We expect the FCC to do so to carry out one of the fundamental promises of the Obama administration."
But Joe Barton of Texas, the top Republican on the House Commerce Committee, said Genachowski's proposal would "stifle investment and create regulatory overhang in one of the most dynamic sectors of our economy."
http://apnews.myway.com/article/20100930/D9IHUT9O0.html
Monday, September 27, 2010
Wiretapped phones, now Internet?
To better track criminals, U.S. wants to be able to wiretap online communications.
By CHARLIE SAVAGE, New York Times
Last update: September 26, 2010 - 11:08 PM
WASHINGTON - Federal law enforcement and national security officials are preparing to seek sweeping new regulations of the Internet, arguing that their ability to wiretap criminal and terrorism suspects is "going dark" as people increasingly communicate online instead of by telephone.
Essentially, officials want Congress to require all services that enable communications -- including encrypted e-mail transmitters such as BlackBerry, social networking websites such as Facebook and software that allows direct "peer-to-peer" messaging such as Skype -- to be technically capable of complying if served with a wiretap order. The mandate would include being able to intercept and unscramble encrypted messages.
The legislation, which the Obama administration plans to submit to Congress next year, raises fresh questions about how to balance security needs with protecting privacy and fostering technological innovation. And because security services around the world face the same problem, it could set an example that is copied globally.
James Dempsey, vice president of the Center for Democracy and Technology, an Internet policy group, said the proposal had "huge implications" and challenged "fundamental elements of the Internet revolution" -- including its decentralized design.
"They are really asking for the authority to redesign services that take advantage of the unique, and now pervasive, architecture of the Internet,"
he said. "They basically want to turn back the clock and make Internet services function the way that the telephone system used to function."
But law enforcement officials contend that imposing such a mandate is reasonable and necessary to prevent the erosion of their investigative powers.
"We're talking about lawfully authorized intercepts," said Valerie Caproni, general counsel for the FBI. "We're not talking expanding authority. We're talking about preserving our ability to execute our existing authority in order to protect the public safety and national security."
Keeping up with technology
Investigators have been concerned for years that changing communications technology could damage their ability to conduct surveillance. In recent months, officials from the FBI, the Justice Department, the National Security Agency, the White House and other agencies have been meeting to develop a proposed solution.
There is not yet agreement on important elements, such as how to word statutory language defining who counts as a communications service provider, according to several officials familiar with the deliberations.
But they want it to apply broadly, including to companies that operate from servers abroad, such as Research In Motion, the Canadian maker of BlackBerry devices. In recent months, that company has come into conflict with the governments of Dubai and India over their inability to conduct surveillance of messages sent via its encrypted service.
In the United States, phone and broadband networks are already required to have interception capabilities, under a 1994 law called the Communications Assistance to Law Enforcement Act. It aimed to ensure that government surveillance abilities would remain intact during the evolution from a copper-wire phone system to digital networks and cell phones.
Often, investigators can intercept communications at a switch operated by the network company. But sometimes -- like when the target uses a service that encrypts messages between his computer and its servers -- they must instead serve the order on a service provider to get unscrambled versions.
Like phone companies, communication service providers are subject to wiretap orders. But the 1994 law does not apply to them. While some maintain interception capacities, others wait until they are served with orders to try to develop them. That can cause big delays, which the new regulations would seek to forestall.
http://www.startribune.com/nation/103836983.html
By CHARLIE SAVAGE, New York Times
Last update: September 26, 2010 - 11:08 PM
WASHINGTON - Federal law enforcement and national security officials are preparing to seek sweeping new regulations of the Internet, arguing that their ability to wiretap criminal and terrorism suspects is "going dark" as people increasingly communicate online instead of by telephone.
Essentially, officials want Congress to require all services that enable communications -- including encrypted e-mail transmitters such as BlackBerry, social networking websites such as Facebook and software that allows direct "peer-to-peer" messaging such as Skype -- to be technically capable of complying if served with a wiretap order. The mandate would include being able to intercept and unscramble encrypted messages.
The legislation, which the Obama administration plans to submit to Congress next year, raises fresh questions about how to balance security needs with protecting privacy and fostering technological innovation. And because security services around the world face the same problem, it could set an example that is copied globally.
James Dempsey, vice president of the Center for Democracy and Technology, an Internet policy group, said the proposal had "huge implications" and challenged "fundamental elements of the Internet revolution" -- including its decentralized design.
"They are really asking for the authority to redesign services that take advantage of the unique, and now pervasive, architecture of the Internet,"
he said. "They basically want to turn back the clock and make Internet services function the way that the telephone system used to function."
But law enforcement officials contend that imposing such a mandate is reasonable and necessary to prevent the erosion of their investigative powers.
"We're talking about lawfully authorized intercepts," said Valerie Caproni, general counsel for the FBI. "We're not talking expanding authority. We're talking about preserving our ability to execute our existing authority in order to protect the public safety and national security."
Keeping up with technology
Investigators have been concerned for years that changing communications technology could damage their ability to conduct surveillance. In recent months, officials from the FBI, the Justice Department, the National Security Agency, the White House and other agencies have been meeting to develop a proposed solution.
There is not yet agreement on important elements, such as how to word statutory language defining who counts as a communications service provider, according to several officials familiar with the deliberations.
But they want it to apply broadly, including to companies that operate from servers abroad, such as Research In Motion, the Canadian maker of BlackBerry devices. In recent months, that company has come into conflict with the governments of Dubai and India over their inability to conduct surveillance of messages sent via its encrypted service.
In the United States, phone and broadband networks are already required to have interception capabilities, under a 1994 law called the Communications Assistance to Law Enforcement Act. It aimed to ensure that government surveillance abilities would remain intact during the evolution from a copper-wire phone system to digital networks and cell phones.
Often, investigators can intercept communications at a switch operated by the network company. But sometimes -- like when the target uses a service that encrypts messages between his computer and its servers -- they must instead serve the order on a service provider to get unscrambled versions.
Like phone companies, communication service providers are subject to wiretap orders. But the 1994 law does not apply to them. While some maintain interception capacities, others wait until they are served with orders to try to develop them. That can cause big delays, which the new regulations would seek to forestall.
http://www.startribune.com/nation/103836983.html
Tuesday, September 21, 2010
Global 'internet treaty' proposed
Deal would enshrine in law the founding principles of open standards and net neutrality, and protect the web from political interference.
By Claudine Beaumont, Technology Editor
Published: 11:46AM BST 20 Sep 2010
The proposal was presented at the Internet Governance Forum in Lithuania last week, and outlined 12 "principles of internet governance", including a commitment from countries to sustain the technological foundations that underpin the web's infrastructure.
The draft law has been likened to the Space Treaty, signed in 1967, which stated that space exploration should be carried out for the benefit of all nations, and guaranteed "free access to all areas of celestial bodies".
Under the proposed terms of the law, there would be cross-border co-operation between countries to identify and address security vulnerability and protect the network from possible cyber attacks or cyber terrorism.
It would also uphold rights to freedom of expression and association, and the principle of net neutrality, in which all internet traffic is treated equally across the network.
"The fundamental functions and the core principles of the internet must be preserved in all layers of the internet architecture with a view to guaranteeing the interoperability of networks in terms of infrastructures, services and contents," reads the proposal.
"The end-to-end principle should be protected globally."
The proposal was drawn up by the Council of Europe, an organisation, based in Strasbourg, with 47 member states that aims to promote human rights, the rule of law and democracy in Europe.
Senior figures within the internet industry have become increasingly concerned about the potential for government interference in the running of the web.
William Dutton, director of the Oxford Internet Institute, told technology blog Thinq that the recent Digital Economy Bill, in which the government sought to regulate and manage the internet unilaterally, was a good example of this.
"Everyone's worried about national governments asserting regulatory authority over the internet," he said.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/internet/8013233/Global-internet-treaty-proposed.html
By Claudine Beaumont, Technology Editor
Published: 11:46AM BST 20 Sep 2010
The proposal was presented at the Internet Governance Forum in Lithuania last week, and outlined 12 "principles of internet governance", including a commitment from countries to sustain the technological foundations that underpin the web's infrastructure.
The draft law has been likened to the Space Treaty, signed in 1967, which stated that space exploration should be carried out for the benefit of all nations, and guaranteed "free access to all areas of celestial bodies".
Under the proposed terms of the law, there would be cross-border co-operation between countries to identify and address security vulnerability and protect the network from possible cyber attacks or cyber terrorism.
It would also uphold rights to freedom of expression and association, and the principle of net neutrality, in which all internet traffic is treated equally across the network.
"The fundamental functions and the core principles of the internet must be preserved in all layers of the internet architecture with a view to guaranteeing the interoperability of networks in terms of infrastructures, services and contents," reads the proposal.
"The end-to-end principle should be protected globally."
The proposal was drawn up by the Council of Europe, an organisation, based in Strasbourg, with 47 member states that aims to promote human rights, the rule of law and democracy in Europe.
Senior figures within the internet industry have become increasingly concerned about the potential for government interference in the running of the web.
William Dutton, director of the Oxford Internet Institute, told technology blog Thinq that the recent Digital Economy Bill, in which the government sought to regulate and manage the internet unilaterally, was a good example of this.
"Everyone's worried about national governments asserting regulatory authority over the internet," he said.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/internet/8013233/Global-internet-treaty-proposed.html
Monday, September 20, 2010
UK Proposes All Paychecks Go to the State First
Published: Monday, 20 Sep 2010 | 7:57 AM ET
By: Robin Knight CNBC Associate Web Producer
The UK's tax collection agency is putting forth a proposal that all employers send employee paychecks to the government, after which the government would deduct what it deems as the appropriate tax and pay the employees by bank transfer.
The proposal by Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs (HMRC) stresses the need for employers to provide real-time information to the government so that it can monitor all payments and make a better assessment of whether the correct tax is being paid.
Currently employers withhold tax and pay the government, providing information at the end of the year, a system know as Pay as You Earn (PAYE).
There is no option for those employees to refuse withholding and individually file a tax return at the end of the year.
If the real-time information plan works, it further proposes that employers hand over employee salaries to the government first.
"The next step could be to use (real-time) information as the basis for centralizing the calculation and deduction of tax," HMRC said in a July discussion paper.
HMRC described the plan as "radical" as it would be a huge change from the current system that has been largely unchanged for 66 years.
Even though the centralized deductions proposal would provide much-needed oversight, there are some major concerns, George Bull, head of Tax at Baker Tilly, told CNBC.com.
"If HMRC has direct access to employees' bank accounts and makes a mistake, people are going to feel very exposed and vulnerable," Bull said.
And the chance of widespread mistakes could be high, according to Bull. HMRC does not have a good track record of handling large computer systems and has suffered high-profile errors with data, he said.
The system would be massive in terms of data management, larger than a recent attempt to centralize the National Health Service's data, which was later scrapped, Bull said.
If there's a mistake and the HMRC collects too much money, the difficulty of getting it back could be high with repayments of tax taking weeks or months, he said.
"There has to be some very clear understanding of how quickly repayments were made if there was a mistake," Bull said.
HMRC estimated the potential savings to employers from the introduction of the concept would be about £500 million ($780 million).
But the cost of implementing the new system would be "phenomenal," Bull pointed out.
"It's very clear that the system does need to be modernized… It's outdated, it's outmoded," Emma Boon, campaigner manager at the Tax Payers' Alliance, told CNBC.com.
Boon said that the Tax Payers' Alliance was in favor of simplifying tax collection, but stressed that a new complex computer system would add infrastructure and administration costs at a time when the government is trying to reduce spending.
There is a further concern, according to Bull. The centralized storage of so much data poises a security risk as the system may be open to cyber crime.
As well as security issues, there's a huge issue of transparency, according to Boon.
Boon also questioned HMCR's ability to handle to the role effectively.
The Institute of Directors (IoD), a UK organization created to promote the business agenda of directors and entreprenuers, said in a press release it had major concerns about the proposal to allow employees' pay to be paid directly to HMRC.
The IoD said the shift to a real-time, centralized system could be positive as long as the burden on employers was not increased. But it added that the idea of wages being processed by HMRC was "completely unacceptable."
“This document contains a lot of good ideas. But the idea that HMRC should be trusted with the gross pay of employees is not one of them," Richard Baron, Head of Taxation at the IoD, said in the release.
A spokesperson for Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne was not immediately available for comment.
http://www.cnbc.com/id/39265847
By: Robin Knight CNBC Associate Web Producer
The UK's tax collection agency is putting forth a proposal that all employers send employee paychecks to the government, after which the government would deduct what it deems as the appropriate tax and pay the employees by bank transfer.
The proposal by Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs (HMRC) stresses the need for employers to provide real-time information to the government so that it can monitor all payments and make a better assessment of whether the correct tax is being paid.
Currently employers withhold tax and pay the government, providing information at the end of the year, a system know as Pay as You Earn (PAYE).
There is no option for those employees to refuse withholding and individually file a tax return at the end of the year.
If the real-time information plan works, it further proposes that employers hand over employee salaries to the government first.
"The next step could be to use (real-time) information as the basis for centralizing the calculation and deduction of tax," HMRC said in a July discussion paper.
HMRC described the plan as "radical" as it would be a huge change from the current system that has been largely unchanged for 66 years.
Even though the centralized deductions proposal would provide much-needed oversight, there are some major concerns, George Bull, head of Tax at Baker Tilly, told CNBC.com.
"If HMRC has direct access to employees' bank accounts and makes a mistake, people are going to feel very exposed and vulnerable," Bull said.
And the chance of widespread mistakes could be high, according to Bull. HMRC does not have a good track record of handling large computer systems and has suffered high-profile errors with data, he said.
The system would be massive in terms of data management, larger than a recent attempt to centralize the National Health Service's data, which was later scrapped, Bull said.
If there's a mistake and the HMRC collects too much money, the difficulty of getting it back could be high with repayments of tax taking weeks or months, he said.
"There has to be some very clear understanding of how quickly repayments were made if there was a mistake," Bull said.
HMRC estimated the potential savings to employers from the introduction of the concept would be about £500 million ($780 million).
But the cost of implementing the new system would be "phenomenal," Bull pointed out.
"It's very clear that the system does need to be modernized… It's outdated, it's outmoded," Emma Boon, campaigner manager at the Tax Payers' Alliance, told CNBC.com.
Boon said that the Tax Payers' Alliance was in favor of simplifying tax collection, but stressed that a new complex computer system would add infrastructure and administration costs at a time when the government is trying to reduce spending.
There is a further concern, according to Bull. The centralized storage of so much data poises a security risk as the system may be open to cyber crime.
As well as security issues, there's a huge issue of transparency, according to Boon.
Boon also questioned HMCR's ability to handle to the role effectively.
The Institute of Directors (IoD), a UK organization created to promote the business agenda of directors and entreprenuers, said in a press release it had major concerns about the proposal to allow employees' pay to be paid directly to HMRC.
The IoD said the shift to a real-time, centralized system could be positive as long as the burden on employers was not increased. But it added that the idea of wages being processed by HMRC was "completely unacceptable."
“This document contains a lot of good ideas. But the idea that HMRC should be trusted with the gross pay of employees is not one of them," Richard Baron, Head of Taxation at the IoD, said in the release.
A spokesperson for Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne was not immediately available for comment.
http://www.cnbc.com/id/39265847
19 Gadgets That Changed The World
Jake Widman 09/20/2010
Every so often, a device comes along that changes the way we live our daily lives and things are never the same again. With today's digital technology, such devices may come more frequently than in the past, but our list revolutionary gadgets extends back two centuries.
Read more here: http://www.informationweek.com/news/galleries/hardware/reviews/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=227400522&pgno=1&isPrev=
Every so often, a device comes along that changes the way we live our daily lives and things are never the same again. With today's digital technology, such devices may come more frequently than in the past, but our list revolutionary gadgets extends back two centuries.
Read more here: http://www.informationweek.com/news/galleries/hardware/reviews/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=227400522&pgno=1&isPrev=
States working harder to collect online sales taxes
With budgets in crisis, enforcement efforts gather steam
By Alex Johnson
Reporter msnbc.com
updated 9/17/2010 7:39:27 AM ET
It’s too early to know exactly how much the Nebraska chapter of the March of Dimes raised this week at its annual Signature Chefs Auction in Omaha, but odds are that more than 10 percent of the charity’s proceeds are going straight to the tax man.
That’s because the March of Dimes went online when it bought about 4,000 T-shirts from a Florida vendor to give to donors during its March for Babies Walk last April. The charity often buys supplies and other materials online, and it also raises money online by selling items at auction — racking up a big tax bill in each case.
“We didn’t know that,” said Rosemary
Specifically, it is taking away about $26,000, the amount the State of Nebraska says the March of Dimes owes for unpaid taxes on the April purchase and other online transactions over the past five years.
Opbroek acknowledged that “we owe the money,” which she said would have to come out of proceeds from this week’s fundraiser. Assuming the final tally is the same as last year’s, about $215,000, the state tax bill will eat up nearly 13 percent of the donations.
The law the March of Dimes stumbled over is similar to statutes in most other states — arcane regulations that mean you are probably a tax scofflaw, along with just about everybody else who has bought something online. That’s roughly 80 percent of all U.S. adults, Nielsen Online calculates.
The reasons are complicated, because they involve variations in tax codes in the 46 states (plus the District of Columbia) that collect sales taxes, not to mention thousands of local tax regulations across the country. That leads to confusion even among advocates for or against enforcing existing tax policies on online purchases, which are often misleadingly characterized as attempts to “create” a new “Internet sales tax.”
Sales taxes or similar levies have always been in place on most online purchases in most states. But they are almost never paid. And with their budgets in crisis, states are more determined than ever to get their share.
Do you have a ‘physical nexus’?
The confusion boils down to who does the collecting and when. As with everything involving tax legislation, there are exceptions and other complications from state to state. For example, if you live in Delaware, Montana, New Hampshire or Oregon, which have no sales taxes, none of this applies.
Under a 1992 Supreme Court ruling, businesses are responsible for collecting sales taxes on every sale they make in a state where they have a “physical nexus.” In other words, if the business has a store, an office or even a single sales rep in your state, it’s supposed to tack the state’s sales tax onto your bill.
Online retailers like Amazon.com typically don’t add the tax, except in the states where they’re based or where they have physical facilities like warehouses or distribution centers. Amazon, for example, collects sales taxes only in Washington (its home state), Kansas, Kentucky, North Dakota and New York.
The tax is still supposed to be paid, however. And if the seller’s not responsible, then you, the buyer, are. In general, you’re supposed to voluntarily file your own report and pay the standard tax on your out-of-state online purchases. (The appropriate forms are available on state tax agency websites, revenue officials are happy to remind you.)
But it turns out that the vast majority of Americans are completely unaware of those rules, so the forms don’t get filed and the taxes don’t get paid — to the tune of $8.6 billion in 2010 alone, the National Conference of State Legislatures estimates.
That’s a big problem, because sales taxes (as they’re called when they’re handled by a retailer) and use taxes (as they’re called when the customer handles them after an out-of-state transaction) most often pay for schools and public safety.
“It’s just a lack of education,” said Adrienne Fairwell, a spokeswoman for the South Carolina Department of Revenue, which is estimated to have missed out on $94 million in uncollected online taxes last year.
“There are taxpayers that are willing to comply with the law and remit the appropriate amount of taxes that are due, but they don’t know that that’s what they’re supposed to be doing,” Fairwell said.
South Carolina, like most states, relies on consumers to be honest. But if you happen to be audited and you haven’t paid up, you could be in for a world of hurt.
“The Department of Revenue realizes that there is concern and there are issues with collecting the use tax,” Fairwell said. “But we aggressively go after that.”
‘Amazon laws’ draw support
As the economic downturn has gouged ever-bigger holes in their budgets, officials have started to turn up the heat. That’s why Nebraska Tax Commissioner Douglas A. Ewald went after the March of Dimes — one of several charities he said the state is pursuing.
Numerous other states are considering legislation or studying proposals that would crack down on non-payment of online taxes:
• The Alabama Department of Revenue is sending letters to random taxpayers, telling them to review their last three years of online purchases and send in a check.
• In February, Colorado enacted the so-called Amazon law, declaring that online retailers were part of an “economic nexus” with state residents. Under the law — which has been challenged in
federal court — Amazon and other online retailers are required to calculate the sales tax on every transaction and tell their customers how much they have to pay the state. They’re also required to
disclose the identities of their customers and how much they spent, which has set off a fierce dispute over Coloradans’ privacy rights. Amazon says the law was enacted “over our strong objections.”
• Three other states have enacted laws like the Colorado statute since 2008: New York, Rhode Island and North Carolina. And at least a dozen more are considering following their example.
Rep. William Delahunt, D-Mass., in July introduced legislation that would give states legal authority to compel payment of taxes on online purchases, as long as they sign up for the Streamlined Sales and Use Tax Agreement, which the NCSL and the National Governors Association created in 1999. So far, 23 states have joined the effort to set up a nationwide tax collection standard.
Delahunt’s bill is before the House Judiciary Committee and its prospects are unclear, but it has picked up the vocal support of influential industry groups like the National Retail Federation and the Retail Industry Leaders Association. They argue that besides funding vital state programs, a national standard would even the playing field for in-state businesses that have to go through the red tape of calculating and collecting taxes for the state.
“The Internet retailer, when they’re not collecting that sales tax, they’ve got a 5 percent advantage,” said George C. Peyton, vice president of the Virginia Retailers Federation, which is backing an Amazon law in Virginia.
For Amazon and other online outfits, “it’s almost like having a sales tax holiday every day,” Peyton said.
Kelly Justice, owner of the Fountain Bookstore in Richmond, is among those lobbying for such a measure in Virginia. She said that it’s only fair and that she is willing to assume the tax collection burden for her online customers in other states that enact Amazon laws.
"There are advantages to the Internet; I don’t dispute that,” Fountain said. “But I think that we really need to look at seriously playing with the same rules.”
For consumers, a rude awakening
The wild card in the deck is how everyday consumers will react.
Sharif Johnson of Columbia, S.C., was flummoxed when he learned that he was supposed to pay taxes on his Internet purchases, “because from my understanding, you don’t have to — that’s what I always
understood.”
South Carolina’s laws are typically perplexing, or, as James Rowson, another Columbia resident, put it, “totally unrealistic with all that we have to keep track of.”
Residents like Rowson are expected to keep track of their online purchases. At the end of the year, they’re supposed to categorize each purchase by the county where the item will predominantly be used and apply the sales tax as calculated by that county — a special headache for someone who might live in a county with a 6 percent sales tax but run a business in a neighboring county with an 8 percent levy.
The calculation is supposed to go on line 26 of the state return, where it’s labeled not as “sales tax” but as the less familiar “use tax.” The check, of course, is supposed to go to the state.
The law is similarly complex and similarly ignored in Florida, where Amanda Grout of Panama City said she spends hundreds of dollars a year buying books and clothes online but has never paid the use tax.
“I’m not going to go out of my way to go fill out all these forms and mail them in to pay more money,” Grout said. In a sentiment that must hearten backers of the streamlined national tax agreement, she
added:
“The only way I would do it is if they set it up on eBay or the website and forced me to do it.”
© 2010 msnbc.com Reprints
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/39159604/ns/business-personal_finance/#
By Alex Johnson
Reporter msnbc.com
updated 9/17/2010 7:39:27 AM ET
It’s too early to know exactly how much the Nebraska chapter of the March of Dimes raised this week at its annual Signature Chefs Auction in Omaha, but odds are that more than 10 percent of the charity’s proceeds are going straight to the tax man.
That’s because the March of Dimes went online when it bought about 4,000 T-shirts from a Florida vendor to give to donors during its March for Babies Walk last April. The charity often buys supplies and other materials online, and it also raises money online by selling items at auction — racking up a big tax bill in each case.
“We didn’t know that,” said Rosemary
Specifically, it is taking away about $26,000, the amount the State of Nebraska says the March of Dimes owes for unpaid taxes on the April purchase and other online transactions over the past five years.
Opbroek acknowledged that “we owe the money,” which she said would have to come out of proceeds from this week’s fundraiser. Assuming the final tally is the same as last year’s, about $215,000, the state tax bill will eat up nearly 13 percent of the donations.
The law the March of Dimes stumbled over is similar to statutes in most other states — arcane regulations that mean you are probably a tax scofflaw, along with just about everybody else who has bought something online. That’s roughly 80 percent of all U.S. adults, Nielsen Online calculates.
The reasons are complicated, because they involve variations in tax codes in the 46 states (plus the District of Columbia) that collect sales taxes, not to mention thousands of local tax regulations across the country. That leads to confusion even among advocates for or against enforcing existing tax policies on online purchases, which are often misleadingly characterized as attempts to “create” a new “Internet sales tax.”
Sales taxes or similar levies have always been in place on most online purchases in most states. But they are almost never paid. And with their budgets in crisis, states are more determined than ever to get their share.
Do you have a ‘physical nexus’?
The confusion boils down to who does the collecting and when. As with everything involving tax legislation, there are exceptions and other complications from state to state. For example, if you live in Delaware, Montana, New Hampshire or Oregon, which have no sales taxes, none of this applies.
Under a 1992 Supreme Court ruling, businesses are responsible for collecting sales taxes on every sale they make in a state where they have a “physical nexus.” In other words, if the business has a store, an office or even a single sales rep in your state, it’s supposed to tack the state’s sales tax onto your bill.
Online retailers like Amazon.com typically don’t add the tax, except in the states where they’re based or where they have physical facilities like warehouses or distribution centers. Amazon, for example, collects sales taxes only in Washington (its home state), Kansas, Kentucky, North Dakota and New York.
The tax is still supposed to be paid, however. And if the seller’s not responsible, then you, the buyer, are. In general, you’re supposed to voluntarily file your own report and pay the standard tax on your out-of-state online purchases. (The appropriate forms are available on state tax agency websites, revenue officials are happy to remind you.)
But it turns out that the vast majority of Americans are completely unaware of those rules, so the forms don’t get filed and the taxes don’t get paid — to the tune of $8.6 billion in 2010 alone, the National Conference of State Legislatures estimates.
That’s a big problem, because sales taxes (as they’re called when they’re handled by a retailer) and use taxes (as they’re called when the customer handles them after an out-of-state transaction) most often pay for schools and public safety.
“It’s just a lack of education,” said Adrienne Fairwell, a spokeswoman for the South Carolina Department of Revenue, which is estimated to have missed out on $94 million in uncollected online taxes last year.
“There are taxpayers that are willing to comply with the law and remit the appropriate amount of taxes that are due, but they don’t know that that’s what they’re supposed to be doing,” Fairwell said.
South Carolina, like most states, relies on consumers to be honest. But if you happen to be audited and you haven’t paid up, you could be in for a world of hurt.
“The Department of Revenue realizes that there is concern and there are issues with collecting the use tax,” Fairwell said. “But we aggressively go after that.”
‘Amazon laws’ draw support
As the economic downturn has gouged ever-bigger holes in their budgets, officials have started to turn up the heat. That’s why Nebraska Tax Commissioner Douglas A. Ewald went after the March of Dimes — one of several charities he said the state is pursuing.
Numerous other states are considering legislation or studying proposals that would crack down on non-payment of online taxes:
• The Alabama Department of Revenue is sending letters to random taxpayers, telling them to review their last three years of online purchases and send in a check.
• In February, Colorado enacted the so-called Amazon law, declaring that online retailers were part of an “economic nexus” with state residents. Under the law — which has been challenged in
federal court — Amazon and other online retailers are required to calculate the sales tax on every transaction and tell their customers how much they have to pay the state. They’re also required to
disclose the identities of their customers and how much they spent, which has set off a fierce dispute over Coloradans’ privacy rights. Amazon says the law was enacted “over our strong objections.”
• Three other states have enacted laws like the Colorado statute since 2008: New York, Rhode Island and North Carolina. And at least a dozen more are considering following their example.
Rep. William Delahunt, D-Mass., in July introduced legislation that would give states legal authority to compel payment of taxes on online purchases, as long as they sign up for the Streamlined Sales and Use Tax Agreement, which the NCSL and the National Governors Association created in 1999. So far, 23 states have joined the effort to set up a nationwide tax collection standard.
Delahunt’s bill is before the House Judiciary Committee and its prospects are unclear, but it has picked up the vocal support of influential industry groups like the National Retail Federation and the Retail Industry Leaders Association. They argue that besides funding vital state programs, a national standard would even the playing field for in-state businesses that have to go through the red tape of calculating and collecting taxes for the state.
“The Internet retailer, when they’re not collecting that sales tax, they’ve got a 5 percent advantage,” said George C. Peyton, vice president of the Virginia Retailers Federation, which is backing an Amazon law in Virginia.
For Amazon and other online outfits, “it’s almost like having a sales tax holiday every day,” Peyton said.
Kelly Justice, owner of the Fountain Bookstore in Richmond, is among those lobbying for such a measure in Virginia. She said that it’s only fair and that she is willing to assume the tax collection burden for her online customers in other states that enact Amazon laws.
"There are advantages to the Internet; I don’t dispute that,” Fountain said. “But I think that we really need to look at seriously playing with the same rules.”
For consumers, a rude awakening
The wild card in the deck is how everyday consumers will react.
Sharif Johnson of Columbia, S.C., was flummoxed when he learned that he was supposed to pay taxes on his Internet purchases, “because from my understanding, you don’t have to — that’s what I always
understood.”
South Carolina’s laws are typically perplexing, or, as James Rowson, another Columbia resident, put it, “totally unrealistic with all that we have to keep track of.”
Residents like Rowson are expected to keep track of their online purchases. At the end of the year, they’re supposed to categorize each purchase by the county where the item will predominantly be used and apply the sales tax as calculated by that county — a special headache for someone who might live in a county with a 6 percent sales tax but run a business in a neighboring county with an 8 percent levy.
The calculation is supposed to go on line 26 of the state return, where it’s labeled not as “sales tax” but as the less familiar “use tax.” The check, of course, is supposed to go to the state.
The law is similarly complex and similarly ignored in Florida, where Amanda Grout of Panama City said she spends hundreds of dollars a year buying books and clothes online but has never paid the use tax.
“I’m not going to go out of my way to go fill out all these forms and mail them in to pay more money,” Grout said. In a sentiment that must hearten backers of the streamlined national tax agreement, she
added:
“The only way I would do it is if they set it up on eBay or the website and forced me to do it.”
© 2010 msnbc.com Reprints
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/39159604/ns/business-personal_finance/#
Friday, September 17, 2010
Computers set for quantum leap
By Clive Cookson in Birmingham
Published: September 16 2010 19:18 | Last updated: September 16 2010 19:18
A new photonic chip that works on light rather than electricity has been built by an international research team, paving the way for the production of ultra-fast quantum computers with capabilities far beyond today's devices.
Future quantum computers will, for example, be able to pull important information out of the biggest databases almost instantaneously. As the amount of electronic data stored worldwide grows exponentially, the technology will make it easier for people to search with precision for what they want.
An early application will be to investigate and design complex molecules, such as new drugs and other materials, that cannot be simulated with ordinary computers. More general consumer applications should follow.
Jeremy O'Brien, director of the UK's Centre for Quantum Photonics, who led the project, said many people in the field had believed a functional quantum computer would not be a reality for at least 25 years.
"However, we can say with real confidence that, using our new technique, a quantum computer could, within five years, be performing calculations that are outside the capabilities of conventional computers," he told the British Science Festival, as he presented the research.
The breakthrough, published today in the journal Science, means data can be processed according to the counterintuitive rules of quantum physics that allow individual subatomic particles to be in several places at the same time.
This property will enable quantum computers to process information in quantities and at speeds far beyond conventional supercomputers. But formidable technical barriers must be -overcome before quantum -computing becomes practical.
The team, from Bristol university in the UK, Tohuku university in Japan, Weizmann Institute in Israel and Twente university in the Netherlands, say they have overcome an important barrier, by making a quantum chip that can work at ordinary temperatures and pressures, rather than the extreme conditions required by other approaches.
The immense promise of quantum computing has led governments and companies worldwide to invest hundreds of millions of dollars in the field.
Big spenders, including the US defence and intelligence agencies concerned with the national security issues, and governments - such as Canada, Australia and Singapore - see quantum electronics as the foundation for IT industries in the mid-21st century.
Computing's great leap forward
Why quantum computing?
To make use of properties that emerge on an ultra-small scale.
"Entanglement" - the ability of subatomic particles to influence one another at a distance - and "superposition" - the fact that a particle does not have a definite location and can be in several places at once - are the two most important properties.
Yes, it's weird but why is it useful?
Because quantum particles can do very many things at the same time, unlike an electronic "bit" in conventional computing. The use of quantum particles, or "qubits", permits parallel computing on a scale that would not be possible with conventional electronics.
What particles are you talking about?
Many scientists are working with atoms or ions trapped in ultra-cold conditions. But the latest discovery by the Bristol-led team uses photons - light particles.
How does a quantum chip actually work?
There are several models. The Bristol version sends "entangled" photons down networks of circuits in a silicon chip. The particles perform a co-ordinated "quantum walk", whose outcome represents the results of a calculation.
Of course, special software and input-output devices will have to be developed to make practical use of the device.
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2010.
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/8c0a68b0-c1bc-11df-9d90-00144feab49a.html
Published: September 16 2010 19:18 | Last updated: September 16 2010 19:18
A new photonic chip that works on light rather than electricity has been built by an international research team, paving the way for the production of ultra-fast quantum computers with capabilities far beyond today's devices.
Future quantum computers will, for example, be able to pull important information out of the biggest databases almost instantaneously. As the amount of electronic data stored worldwide grows exponentially, the technology will make it easier for people to search with precision for what they want.
An early application will be to investigate and design complex molecules, such as new drugs and other materials, that cannot be simulated with ordinary computers. More general consumer applications should follow.
Jeremy O'Brien, director of the UK's Centre for Quantum Photonics, who led the project, said many people in the field had believed a functional quantum computer would not be a reality for at least 25 years.
"However, we can say with real confidence that, using our new technique, a quantum computer could, within five years, be performing calculations that are outside the capabilities of conventional computers," he told the British Science Festival, as he presented the research.
The breakthrough, published today in the journal Science, means data can be processed according to the counterintuitive rules of quantum physics that allow individual subatomic particles to be in several places at the same time.
This property will enable quantum computers to process information in quantities and at speeds far beyond conventional supercomputers. But formidable technical barriers must be -overcome before quantum -computing becomes practical.
The team, from Bristol university in the UK, Tohuku university in Japan, Weizmann Institute in Israel and Twente university in the Netherlands, say they have overcome an important barrier, by making a quantum chip that can work at ordinary temperatures and pressures, rather than the extreme conditions required by other approaches.
The immense promise of quantum computing has led governments and companies worldwide to invest hundreds of millions of dollars in the field.
Big spenders, including the US defence and intelligence agencies concerned with the national security issues, and governments - such as Canada, Australia and Singapore - see quantum electronics as the foundation for IT industries in the mid-21st century.
Computing's great leap forward
Why quantum computing?
To make use of properties that emerge on an ultra-small scale.
"Entanglement" - the ability of subatomic particles to influence one another at a distance - and "superposition" - the fact that a particle does not have a definite location and can be in several places at once - are the two most important properties.
Yes, it's weird but why is it useful?
Because quantum particles can do very many things at the same time, unlike an electronic "bit" in conventional computing. The use of quantum particles, or "qubits", permits parallel computing on a scale that would not be possible with conventional electronics.
What particles are you talking about?
Many scientists are working with atoms or ions trapped in ultra-cold conditions. But the latest discovery by the Bristol-led team uses photons - light particles.
How does a quantum chip actually work?
There are several models. The Bristol version sends "entangled" photons down networks of circuits in a silicon chip. The particles perform a co-ordinated "quantum walk", whose outcome represents the results of a calculation.
Of course, special software and input-output devices will have to be developed to make practical use of the device.
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2010.
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/8c0a68b0-c1bc-11df-9d90-00144feab49a.html
Thursday, September 16, 2010
USB 3.0 Finally Arrives
Adoption is faster than with previous versions -- but we want more, now. Here's why.
Melissa J. Perenson, PC World
Jan 10, 2010 8:57 pm
When you're in front of your PC, waiting for something to transfer to removable media, that's when seconds feel like minutes, and minutes feel like hours. And data storage scenarios such as that one is where the new SuperSpeed USB 3.0's greatest impact will be felt first. As of CES, 17 SuperSpeed USB 3.0-certified products were introduced, including host controllers, adapter cards, motherboards, and hard drives (but no other consumer electronics devices). Still more uncertified USB 3.0 products are on the way, and they can't get here fast enough.
Glance Backward
The beauty of USB 3.0 is its backward compatibility with USB 2.0; you need a new cable and new host adapter (or, one of the Asus or Gigabyte motherboards that supports USB 3.0) to achieve USB 3.0, but you can still use the device on a USB 2.0 port and achieve typical USB 2.0 performance. In reducing some overhead requirements of USB (now, the interface only transmits data to the link and device that need it, so devices can go into low power state when not needed), the new incarnation now uses one-third the power of USB 2.0.
The theoretical throughput improvement offered by USB 3.0 is dramatic -- a theoretical 10X jump over existing USB 2.0 hardware. USB 2.0 maxed out at a theoretical 480Mbps, while USB 3.0 can theoretically handle up to 5Gbps.
Mind you, applications like storage will still be limited by the type of drive inside; so, for example, you can expect better performance from RAIDed hard drives or fast solid-state drives (SSDs) than from, say, a standalone single drive connected to the computer via USB 3.0.
The real-world examples are fairly convincing -- and underscore USB 3.0's advantage for high-def video, music, and digital imaging applications. Our early test results are encouraging as well: We tested Western Digital's My Book 3.0, the first USB 3.0-certified external hard drive. The performance was on a par with that of eSATA-but the benefit here is that USB 3.0 is a powered port, so you don't need to have another external power supply running to the drive (as you do with eSATA; unless the eSATA drive you're using is designed to steal power from a USB port while transferring data over the eSATA interface).
New Entries
While the WD drive was the first to announce, a slew of other hard drive makers either announced products at the show, or discussed plans to release products in the coming months. Among them: Seagate (which is doing a portable drive), LaCie, Rocstor, and Iomega. Even non-traditional hard drive vendors like Dane-Elec and A-Data showed products they billed as USB 3.0 (the latter two even had USB 3.0-connected SSDs, the first external drives to use solid-state storage inside.
One of the things to look for in the coming months is the certified SuperSpeed USB 3.0 logo. Products are currently filling the queues at the official certification testing labs, but presence of that certification logo will give you some peace of mind that the product you're buying truly does live up to the USB 3.0 spec.
Given that the certification labs are jammed up, though, you can expect companies to release USB 3.0 products without official certification.
(Buffalo Technologies' drive, released late 2009, is not certified; LaCie's drives are in the process of certification, but will initially carry LaCie's own logo for USB 3.0, and will gain a sticker on the box once certification is completed.) And in those cases, it will be hard to know whether the device truly lives up to its performance potential.
Compatibility Guarantee
And this time around, the way the USB spec is written, says Jeff Ravencraft, consumers should have an easier time finding products that are truly USB 3.0. Before, in the transition from USB 1.1 to USB 2.0, the USB 2.0 spec was written in a way where it "encompassed low, full and high-speed USB,"
explains Ravencraft, president and chairman of the USB Implementers Forum.
"Since those are all encapsulated in the USB 2.0 spec, [vendors] could have a certified product that's low-speed, but still call it USB 2.0.
"We don't have that issue with USB 3.0 To claim you're USB 3.0, you have to deliver 5Gbps. There's no other way to get the certification."
Ravencraft adds that the group is prepared to protect the USB 3.0 logo, to make sure that only manufacturers who go through certification use it.
"We'll take legal action if anyone infringes on our marks."
By end of year, Ravencraft says the loggerjam of products awaiting certification should be past, and the organization's network of worldwide test labs will be handling USB 3.0 certification.
According to In-Stat Research, by 2013, more than one-quarter of USB 3.0 products will support SuperSpeed USB 3.0.
Ravencraft says this is the fastest ramp up of USB products he's seen in the past ten years, across the previous versions of USB.
I say the change can't come fast enough. The trick, though, will be getting the interface into our notebooks (without requiring a kludgy ExpressCard adapter). So far, though, only HP and Fujitsu have announced limited USB 3.0 support on notebooks. And Taiwanese notebook and desktop maker MSI indicated that it wouldn't have USB 3.0 until, at the earliest, the third-quarter of this year; product managers for both notebooks and desktops cited manufacturing concerns like chipset availability in large quantities, and the need to test USB 3.0 chipsets.
And in the meantime, the only announced peripherals remain storage devices.
At next year's CES, it's likely we'll hear more about specific consumer electronics devices such as digital cameras and camcorders and video cameras moving to USB 3.0. Hopefully by then we'll start getting a critical mass of PC hardware with USB 3.0 integrated, too.
http://www.pcworld.com/article/186566/usb_30_finally_arrives.html
Melissa J. Perenson, PC World
Jan 10, 2010 8:57 pm
When you're in front of your PC, waiting for something to transfer to removable media, that's when seconds feel like minutes, and minutes feel like hours. And data storage scenarios such as that one is where the new SuperSpeed USB 3.0's greatest impact will be felt first. As of CES, 17 SuperSpeed USB 3.0-certified products were introduced, including host controllers, adapter cards, motherboards, and hard drives (but no other consumer electronics devices). Still more uncertified USB 3.0 products are on the way, and they can't get here fast enough.
Glance Backward
The beauty of USB 3.0 is its backward compatibility with USB 2.0; you need a new cable and new host adapter (or, one of the Asus or Gigabyte motherboards that supports USB 3.0) to achieve USB 3.0, but you can still use the device on a USB 2.0 port and achieve typical USB 2.0 performance. In reducing some overhead requirements of USB (now, the interface only transmits data to the link and device that need it, so devices can go into low power state when not needed), the new incarnation now uses one-third the power of USB 2.0.
The theoretical throughput improvement offered by USB 3.0 is dramatic -- a theoretical 10X jump over existing USB 2.0 hardware. USB 2.0 maxed out at a theoretical 480Mbps, while USB 3.0 can theoretically handle up to 5Gbps.
Mind you, applications like storage will still be limited by the type of drive inside; so, for example, you can expect better performance from RAIDed hard drives or fast solid-state drives (SSDs) than from, say, a standalone single drive connected to the computer via USB 3.0.
The real-world examples are fairly convincing -- and underscore USB 3.0's advantage for high-def video, music, and digital imaging applications. Our early test results are encouraging as well: We tested Western Digital's My Book 3.0, the first USB 3.0-certified external hard drive. The performance was on a par with that of eSATA-but the benefit here is that USB 3.0 is a powered port, so you don't need to have another external power supply running to the drive (as you do with eSATA; unless the eSATA drive you're using is designed to steal power from a USB port while transferring data over the eSATA interface).
New Entries
While the WD drive was the first to announce, a slew of other hard drive makers either announced products at the show, or discussed plans to release products in the coming months. Among them: Seagate (which is doing a portable drive), LaCie, Rocstor, and Iomega. Even non-traditional hard drive vendors like Dane-Elec and A-Data showed products they billed as USB 3.0 (the latter two even had USB 3.0-connected SSDs, the first external drives to use solid-state storage inside.
One of the things to look for in the coming months is the certified SuperSpeed USB 3.0 logo. Products are currently filling the queues at the official certification testing labs, but presence of that certification logo will give you some peace of mind that the product you're buying truly does live up to the USB 3.0 spec.
Given that the certification labs are jammed up, though, you can expect companies to release USB 3.0 products without official certification.
(Buffalo Technologies' drive, released late 2009, is not certified; LaCie's drives are in the process of certification, but will initially carry LaCie's own logo for USB 3.0, and will gain a sticker on the box once certification is completed.) And in those cases, it will be hard to know whether the device truly lives up to its performance potential.
Compatibility Guarantee
And this time around, the way the USB spec is written, says Jeff Ravencraft, consumers should have an easier time finding products that are truly USB 3.0. Before, in the transition from USB 1.1 to USB 2.0, the USB 2.0 spec was written in a way where it "encompassed low, full and high-speed USB,"
explains Ravencraft, president and chairman of the USB Implementers Forum.
"Since those are all encapsulated in the USB 2.0 spec, [vendors] could have a certified product that's low-speed, but still call it USB 2.0.
"We don't have that issue with USB 3.0 To claim you're USB 3.0, you have to deliver 5Gbps. There's no other way to get the certification."
Ravencraft adds that the group is prepared to protect the USB 3.0 logo, to make sure that only manufacturers who go through certification use it.
"We'll take legal action if anyone infringes on our marks."
By end of year, Ravencraft says the loggerjam of products awaiting certification should be past, and the organization's network of worldwide test labs will be handling USB 3.0 certification.
According to In-Stat Research, by 2013, more than one-quarter of USB 3.0 products will support SuperSpeed USB 3.0.
Ravencraft says this is the fastest ramp up of USB products he's seen in the past ten years, across the previous versions of USB.
I say the change can't come fast enough. The trick, though, will be getting the interface into our notebooks (without requiring a kludgy ExpressCard adapter). So far, though, only HP and Fujitsu have announced limited USB 3.0 support on notebooks. And Taiwanese notebook and desktop maker MSI indicated that it wouldn't have USB 3.0 until, at the earliest, the third-quarter of this year; product managers for both notebooks and desktops cited manufacturing concerns like chipset availability in large quantities, and the need to test USB 3.0 chipsets.
And in the meantime, the only announced peripherals remain storage devices.
At next year's CES, it's likely we'll hear more about specific consumer electronics devices such as digital cameras and camcorders and video cameras moving to USB 3.0. Hopefully by then we'll start getting a critical mass of PC hardware with USB 3.0 integrated, too.
http://www.pcworld.com/article/186566/usb_30_finally_arrives.html
Monday, September 13, 2010
Microsoft strolls into white space
Ten days until we can join them
By Bill Ray
Posted in Wireless, 13th September 2010 14:32 GMT
It's ten days until the FCC will tell us the hows and whos of white space spectrum, but Microsoft has already switched on its campus-wide white-space network and is expecting great things.
The Microsoft network was demonstrated a month ago, as part of the company's propaganda war to convince the FCC to allocate the white spaces the way Redmond wants, and is now providing connectivity to shuttle busses and buildings across the 200-hectar campus from only two hot-spots - Wi-Fi on steroids indeed.
Microsoft, along with Google, wants white space radios ("white fi" as Redmond terms it) to be unrestricted. Ideally such devices would use detect-and-avoid technology to establish which TV-broadcast frequencies aren't being used locally, and then make use of them.
Unfortunately such detect-and-avoid technology dosen't actually work, for both technical and architectural reasons. Even if it did not everyone wants the free-for-all that Microsoft is proposing, and with the FCC set to announce its decision in ten days (23 September) the submissions to the regulator are increasing in both frequency and acrimony, with companies desperate to ensure that their opinions are heard.
The FCC has already said that white spaces - TV channels that aren't being used locally - will be made available for other purposes, but there are lots of details still to be decided.
Given the failure of detect-and-avoid the FCC decided to back up detect-and-avoid with a national database: devices will be required to report their location to the database, which allocates a frequency to that device for a set time period after which it is required to check back again.
How often devices check with the database has proved a contentious question, and it seems there will be two kinds of device. Mode 1 devices are stationary and might only have to check in daily, while Mode 2 (portable) devices will have to check in every few minutes but only have to contact the nearest Mode 1 device to do that. Those numbers are hotly debated, particularly as it looks as though the FCC is going to drop the detect-and-avoid requirement to keep the kit cheap.
Not that anything is decided yet - one consortium, led by FiberTower, has been lobbying hard to have some channels reserved for point-to-point backhaul. In its filings FiberTower argues that a 75-mile link could be established for as little as $200,000, as compared to over $2m to achieve the same thing at microwave frequencies.
Such connections would, of course, require protection as they would be carrying commercial backhaul. Other lobbyists, such as those representing the Wireless Internet Service Providers, argue that FiberTower's proposals would hand white spaces to the cellular operators (the biggest users of backhaul), which was hardly the idea.
Other arguments surround the minimum and maximum antenna heights - currently the minimum is 10 metres, taller than most domestic homes, while the maximum is 30 metres, to keep the range low, but both are still being debated along with the reservation of a couple of channels for the licenced wireless microphones that have been lurking in white space for the last few decades.
Deployments like Microsoft's, and those put up by Spectrum Bridge, show what white space can do, but things will change once everyone is trying to do the same thing in the same spectrum. The FCC is treading carefully, but come 23 September at least half and probably more of those involved will be claiming the end of the world as we know it, and not in a good way. R
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/09/13/white_space/
By Bill Ray
Posted in Wireless, 13th September 2010 14:32 GMT
It's ten days until the FCC will tell us the hows and whos of white space spectrum, but Microsoft has already switched on its campus-wide white-space network and is expecting great things.
The Microsoft network was demonstrated a month ago, as part of the company's propaganda war to convince the FCC to allocate the white spaces the way Redmond wants, and is now providing connectivity to shuttle busses and buildings across the 200-hectar campus from only two hot-spots - Wi-Fi on steroids indeed.
Microsoft, along with Google, wants white space radios ("white fi" as Redmond terms it) to be unrestricted. Ideally such devices would use detect-and-avoid technology to establish which TV-broadcast frequencies aren't being used locally, and then make use of them.
Unfortunately such detect-and-avoid technology dosen't actually work, for both technical and architectural reasons. Even if it did not everyone wants the free-for-all that Microsoft is proposing, and with the FCC set to announce its decision in ten days (23 September) the submissions to the regulator are increasing in both frequency and acrimony, with companies desperate to ensure that their opinions are heard.
The FCC has already said that white spaces - TV channels that aren't being used locally - will be made available for other purposes, but there are lots of details still to be decided.
Given the failure of detect-and-avoid the FCC decided to back up detect-and-avoid with a national database: devices will be required to report their location to the database, which allocates a frequency to that device for a set time period after which it is required to check back again.
How often devices check with the database has proved a contentious question, and it seems there will be two kinds of device. Mode 1 devices are stationary and might only have to check in daily, while Mode 2 (portable) devices will have to check in every few minutes but only have to contact the nearest Mode 1 device to do that. Those numbers are hotly debated, particularly as it looks as though the FCC is going to drop the detect-and-avoid requirement to keep the kit cheap.
Not that anything is decided yet - one consortium, led by FiberTower, has been lobbying hard to have some channels reserved for point-to-point backhaul. In its filings FiberTower argues that a 75-mile link could be established for as little as $200,000, as compared to over $2m to achieve the same thing at microwave frequencies.
Such connections would, of course, require protection as they would be carrying commercial backhaul. Other lobbyists, such as those representing the Wireless Internet Service Providers, argue that FiberTower's proposals would hand white spaces to the cellular operators (the biggest users of backhaul), which was hardly the idea.
Other arguments surround the minimum and maximum antenna heights - currently the minimum is 10 metres, taller than most domestic homes, while the maximum is 30 metres, to keep the range low, but both are still being debated along with the reservation of a couple of channels for the licenced wireless microphones that have been lurking in white space for the last few decades.
Deployments like Microsoft's, and those put up by Spectrum Bridge, show what white space can do, but things will change once everyone is trying to do the same thing in the same spectrum. The FCC is treading carefully, but come 23 September at least half and probably more of those involved will be claiming the end of the world as we know it, and not in a good way. R
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/09/13/white_space/
Wednesday, September 8, 2010
Small businesses feel squeezed by Obama policies
By V. Dion Haynes
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, September 6, 2010; 12
Last year, even as he struggled through the worst of the recession, Chris Upham said revenue at his District-based real estate and construction businesses doubled -- allowing him to hire two agents.
But Upham said he hasn't increased his staff thus far in 2010 and he doesn't expect to for the remainder of the year.
That's because his taxes rose sevenfold. And he said he anticipates they'll increase again if the Bush tax cuts for people earning $250,000 and above expire at the end of the year.
As small businesses try to plot their recovery, attention is turning to what many owners consider burdensome policies -- higher taxes, new accounting procedures and health-care mandates. Even as the government tries to help with an array of small-business initiatives, many owners say the intervention is as much a hindrance to hiring as the faltering economy.
Their perceptions are important because the Obama administration is counting on small-business owners like Upham, whose ranks represent more than half the U.S. workforce, to jump-start the economy, much like they did after downturns in the early 1990s and 2001.
"We did well last year, hired two people, but the taxes ate through the income we had," Upham said.
Upham said business picked up substantially with the Obama tax credit for first-time home buyers before dropping off when it ended. With the administration efforts, he said, he feels like he's taking one step forward and two backward.
"It seemed like we were moving up, [and now] consumer confidence is down," he added. "What I want government to do is not raise taxes -- decrease them to allow us extra money for hiring."
The White House appears poised to respond to a growing backlash from businesspeople about the crush of higher taxes. Among the ideas being explored were a temporary payroll-tax holiday and permanent extension of the expired research-and-development tax credit, ways to offset the impending elapse of tax cuts for the top 2 percent of households.
"I will be addressing a broader package of new ideas next week," President Obama said Friday at a news conference held to comment on the Labor Department's August unemployment data. The report showed weak economic growth -- 67,000 private sector jobs added in August, down from 107,000 in July -- and that the jobless rate ticked up to 9.6 percent from 9.5 percent.
The conventional wisdom is that small businesses would be willing to expand their payroll if capital were more readily available to them. Small businesses suffered more in the credit crunch than their larger counterparts because they rely almost solely on banks for their financing.
Last year, the Obama administration allocated hundreds of millions of dollars to increase loan guarantees and to reduce borrower fees for small businesses, classified by the government as firms with 500 employees or fewer. The program proved to be wildly popular: Before the money ran out last spring, the number of loans approved soared 90 percent.
"There's a direct correlation between access to capital and job growth," said Molly Brogan, spokeswoman for the National Small Business Association. "If people are able to get loans and financing, they're able to grow their business and that includes creating new jobs."
Obama, who wants to revive the program, last week urged Senate Republicans to support a Democratic proposal to cut taxes for small businesses and establish a $30 billion loan fund providing them easier access to credit.
"There's one thing we know we should do -- something that should be Congress's first order of business when it gets back -- and that is making it easier for our small businesses to grow and hire," Obama said in a Rose Garden speech. "We know that in the final few months of last year, small businesses accounted for more than 60 percent of the job losses in America."
Yet to date, existing loan programs haven't yet spurred much hiring. Surveys conducted by the National Federation of Independent Business and the National Small Business Association show owners much less optimistic in recent months about their prospects of hiring and growing than they were late last year and earlier this year.
Even supporters of loans say the government investment likely won't pay off until consumers start spending and business owners start feeling more confident. "If everyone is saving and not spending and their clients are hurting economically, small businesses have to be a bit more cautious" about hiring, Brogan said.
In the Washington region, hiring is picking up at small businesses experiencing an increase in demand for their goods and services. For Luc Brami, principal of Gelberg Signs in Northwest Washington, and Craig Savarick, director of executive recruiting firm Capital Search Group in Vienna, an incentive came in the form of an Obama initiative: a temporary exemption from payroll taxes on every unemployed person they hired.
"For four people we hired, it will be a $9,000 savings," Brami said.
"We got a [tax] break and put it back into the company," he added. "We can buy equipment and get a credit, too."
In all, the administration has implemented about a dozen small-business programs, including a health-care tax credit; more opportunities for women business owners to receive government contracts; and cuts in capital gains taxes.
"Our view is that the financial crisis put multiple barriers in the way of small businesses and the appropriate policy response has to be aggressive and multifaceted instead of looking for one silver bullet," said Gene Sperling, counselor to Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner on small-business issues.
But Brian Bethune, chief U.S. financial economist at IHS Global Insight, asserts that the initiatives coupled with numerous other new regulations are making owners feel overburdened, overregulated and less secure about the economy.
"They may see it as more interference," Bethune said, "they see it as bureaucratic intrusion."
Some business owners and advocates complain that some of the programs contradict one another. Stephanie Cathcart, spokeswoman for the National Federation of Independent Business, said benefits from the payroll tax exemption business owners use when they hire unemployed people are mitigated by provisions in the health-care overhaul law that reduce a tax credit when businesses hire.
"It's counterintuitive," she said. "Frankly, a lot of these initiatives fall short."
Brogan of the National Small Business Administration said a new accounting regulation dramatically increases the requirements associated with providing documentation to the government on businesses' vendors, a rule that on average will multiply the average number of 1099 tax forms an owner files every year to 86 from 10.
"This will take the money they'd spend to hire a part- or full-time employee and give it to accountants," she said.
Dinesh Sharma, president of government contracting firm Washington Business Group in Chantilly, said he ruled out using the payroll tax exemption, believing the savings couldn't justify the tens of thousands of dollars he'd spend in salary and health insurance for a new employee.
"We're not large enough to hire someone just to take the benefit of a small tax break," he added. "The burden is more than the benefit."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/09/03/AR2010090305
391_pf.html
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, September 6, 2010; 12
Last year, even as he struggled through the worst of the recession, Chris Upham said revenue at his District-based real estate and construction businesses doubled -- allowing him to hire two agents.
But Upham said he hasn't increased his staff thus far in 2010 and he doesn't expect to for the remainder of the year.
That's because his taxes rose sevenfold. And he said he anticipates they'll increase again if the Bush tax cuts for people earning $250,000 and above expire at the end of the year.
As small businesses try to plot their recovery, attention is turning to what many owners consider burdensome policies -- higher taxes, new accounting procedures and health-care mandates. Even as the government tries to help with an array of small-business initiatives, many owners say the intervention is as much a hindrance to hiring as the faltering economy.
Their perceptions are important because the Obama administration is counting on small-business owners like Upham, whose ranks represent more than half the U.S. workforce, to jump-start the economy, much like they did after downturns in the early 1990s and 2001.
"We did well last year, hired two people, but the taxes ate through the income we had," Upham said.
Upham said business picked up substantially with the Obama tax credit for first-time home buyers before dropping off when it ended. With the administration efforts, he said, he feels like he's taking one step forward and two backward.
"It seemed like we were moving up, [and now] consumer confidence is down," he added. "What I want government to do is not raise taxes -- decrease them to allow us extra money for hiring."
The White House appears poised to respond to a growing backlash from businesspeople about the crush of higher taxes. Among the ideas being explored were a temporary payroll-tax holiday and permanent extension of the expired research-and-development tax credit, ways to offset the impending elapse of tax cuts for the top 2 percent of households.
"I will be addressing a broader package of new ideas next week," President Obama said Friday at a news conference held to comment on the Labor Department's August unemployment data. The report showed weak economic growth -- 67,000 private sector jobs added in August, down from 107,000 in July -- and that the jobless rate ticked up to 9.6 percent from 9.5 percent.
The conventional wisdom is that small businesses would be willing to expand their payroll if capital were more readily available to them. Small businesses suffered more in the credit crunch than their larger counterparts because they rely almost solely on banks for their financing.
Last year, the Obama administration allocated hundreds of millions of dollars to increase loan guarantees and to reduce borrower fees for small businesses, classified by the government as firms with 500 employees or fewer. The program proved to be wildly popular: Before the money ran out last spring, the number of loans approved soared 90 percent.
"There's a direct correlation between access to capital and job growth," said Molly Brogan, spokeswoman for the National Small Business Association. "If people are able to get loans and financing, they're able to grow their business and that includes creating new jobs."
Obama, who wants to revive the program, last week urged Senate Republicans to support a Democratic proposal to cut taxes for small businesses and establish a $30 billion loan fund providing them easier access to credit.
"There's one thing we know we should do -- something that should be Congress's first order of business when it gets back -- and that is making it easier for our small businesses to grow and hire," Obama said in a Rose Garden speech. "We know that in the final few months of last year, small businesses accounted for more than 60 percent of the job losses in America."
Yet to date, existing loan programs haven't yet spurred much hiring. Surveys conducted by the National Federation of Independent Business and the National Small Business Association show owners much less optimistic in recent months about their prospects of hiring and growing than they were late last year and earlier this year.
Even supporters of loans say the government investment likely won't pay off until consumers start spending and business owners start feeling more confident. "If everyone is saving and not spending and their clients are hurting economically, small businesses have to be a bit more cautious" about hiring, Brogan said.
In the Washington region, hiring is picking up at small businesses experiencing an increase in demand for their goods and services. For Luc Brami, principal of Gelberg Signs in Northwest Washington, and Craig Savarick, director of executive recruiting firm Capital Search Group in Vienna, an incentive came in the form of an Obama initiative: a temporary exemption from payroll taxes on every unemployed person they hired.
"For four people we hired, it will be a $9,000 savings," Brami said.
"We got a [tax] break and put it back into the company," he added. "We can buy equipment and get a credit, too."
In all, the administration has implemented about a dozen small-business programs, including a health-care tax credit; more opportunities for women business owners to receive government contracts; and cuts in capital gains taxes.
"Our view is that the financial crisis put multiple barriers in the way of small businesses and the appropriate policy response has to be aggressive and multifaceted instead of looking for one silver bullet," said Gene Sperling, counselor to Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner on small-business issues.
But Brian Bethune, chief U.S. financial economist at IHS Global Insight, asserts that the initiatives coupled with numerous other new regulations are making owners feel overburdened, overregulated and less secure about the economy.
"They may see it as more interference," Bethune said, "they see it as bureaucratic intrusion."
Some business owners and advocates complain that some of the programs contradict one another. Stephanie Cathcart, spokeswoman for the National Federation of Independent Business, said benefits from the payroll tax exemption business owners use when they hire unemployed people are mitigated by provisions in the health-care overhaul law that reduce a tax credit when businesses hire.
"It's counterintuitive," she said. "Frankly, a lot of these initiatives fall short."
Brogan of the National Small Business Administration said a new accounting regulation dramatically increases the requirements associated with providing documentation to the government on businesses' vendors, a rule that on average will multiply the average number of 1099 tax forms an owner files every year to 86 from 10.
"This will take the money they'd spend to hire a part- or full-time employee and give it to accountants," she said.
Dinesh Sharma, president of government contracting firm Washington Business Group in Chantilly, said he ruled out using the payroll tax exemption, believing the savings couldn't justify the tens of thousands of dollars he'd spend in salary and health insurance for a new employee.
"We're not large enough to hire someone just to take the benefit of a small tax break," he added. "The burden is more than the benefit."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/09/03/AR2010090305
391_pf.html
More than 400 US Banks Will Fail: Roubini
Published: Friday, 3 Sep 2010 | 3:00 AM ET
By: Patrick Allen
CNBC Senior News Editor
Even if the US and European economies manage to avoid a double dip, it will still feel like a recession, while more than half of the 800-plus US banks on the "critical list" are likely to go bust, according to renowned economist Nouriel Roubini of Roubini Global Economics.
The second half of the year will remain weak as tailwinds become headwinds, Roubini told CNBC on the shores of Lake Como, Italy at the Ambrosetti Forum economics conference.
"In the second half, fiscal policy becomes a headwind, no more cash for clunkers," Roubini said. "The positive scenario is that growth will be below par."
Roubini recently said the chance of a double-dip recession in the US was now more than 40 percent.
"The big risk is that there will be a downturn in markets that could impact the bond, the equity and the credit markets," he said.
"Job losses have been higher, the US jobs number will show that. There is no private sector jobs growth," he said. "Consumption is weak, exports are weak and housing is weak."
"If there is no final sales and no final demand, companies will not invest,"
he added.
New Normal Coming and More Banks Will Fail
Roubini said he believes hopes of decoupling will be dashed as the slowdown in the US impacts China, Japan and the euro zone.
"In Europe, Germany is strong but the rest of the continent is pretty dismal," he said. "The rest of the world cannot cope without the prop of the US consumer. Chinese growth in the second half will be 7 percent."
"Get used to it," Roubini said. "Deleveraging has to continue as governments and consumers deleverage in the developed world."
"We have to expect the new normal," he added. "We do not need a double dip for it to feel like recession."
"The biggest banks have been backstopped, but 800-plus small- and medium-sized banks in the US remain on the critical list and half of those will go bust," Roubini said.
Roubini said corporate and consumer debt problems will get worse and that there are more problems ahead in the commercial and residential property market.
"Policy makers are running out of bullets, the problem is we need fiscal consolidation, fiscal policy is constrained by the debt problem, monetary policy is becoming ineffectual," he said.
Roubini, known as Dr. Doom to most and voted as Roubini the Realist by CNBC.com readers, said further quantitative easing is pointless as interest rates are already low.
"We are in a liquidity trap and we have insolvency problems," he said.
"What we need is credible spending plans over the medium term on health care, welfare and retirement age," Roubini said. "This will create a fiscal constraint lasting well into next year."
"The best growth over the next 18 months will come from the domestically-focused Brazil, which will outgrow China for the first time in 20 years," he added.
C 2010 CNBC.com
http://www.cnbc.com/id/38986777
By: Patrick Allen
CNBC Senior News Editor
Even if the US and European economies manage to avoid a double dip, it will still feel like a recession, while more than half of the 800-plus US banks on the "critical list" are likely to go bust, according to renowned economist Nouriel Roubini of Roubini Global Economics.
The second half of the year will remain weak as tailwinds become headwinds, Roubini told CNBC on the shores of Lake Como, Italy at the Ambrosetti Forum economics conference.
"In the second half, fiscal policy becomes a headwind, no more cash for clunkers," Roubini said. "The positive scenario is that growth will be below par."
Roubini recently said the chance of a double-dip recession in the US was now more than 40 percent.
"The big risk is that there will be a downturn in markets that could impact the bond, the equity and the credit markets," he said.
"Job losses have been higher, the US jobs number will show that. There is no private sector jobs growth," he said. "Consumption is weak, exports are weak and housing is weak."
"If there is no final sales and no final demand, companies will not invest,"
he added.
New Normal Coming and More Banks Will Fail
Roubini said he believes hopes of decoupling will be dashed as the slowdown in the US impacts China, Japan and the euro zone.
"In Europe, Germany is strong but the rest of the continent is pretty dismal," he said. "The rest of the world cannot cope without the prop of the US consumer. Chinese growth in the second half will be 7 percent."
"Get used to it," Roubini said. "Deleveraging has to continue as governments and consumers deleverage in the developed world."
"We have to expect the new normal," he added. "We do not need a double dip for it to feel like recession."
"The biggest banks have been backstopped, but 800-plus small- and medium-sized banks in the US remain on the critical list and half of those will go bust," Roubini said.
Roubini said corporate and consumer debt problems will get worse and that there are more problems ahead in the commercial and residential property market.
"Policy makers are running out of bullets, the problem is we need fiscal consolidation, fiscal policy is constrained by the debt problem, monetary policy is becoming ineffectual," he said.
Roubini, known as Dr. Doom to most and voted as Roubini the Realist by CNBC.com readers, said further quantitative easing is pointless as interest rates are already low.
"We are in a liquidity trap and we have insolvency problems," he said.
"What we need is credible spending plans over the medium term on health care, welfare and retirement age," Roubini said. "This will create a fiscal constraint lasting well into next year."
"The best growth over the next 18 months will come from the domestically-focused Brazil, which will outgrow China for the first time in 20 years," he added.
C 2010 CNBC.com
http://www.cnbc.com/id/38986777
Google Feature to Speed Web Searches
* SEPTEMBER 8, 2010, 5:13 P.M. ET
Google Feature to Speed Web Searches
By AMIR EFRATI
SAN FRANCISCO-Google Inc. on Wednesday introduced a change to its widely used Web search engine that speeds up the time it takes to find and deliver results.
The new feature, called "Google Instant," shows search results that change as each letter in a word is typed into the search box. At present, a search begins when the word is typed and the "enter" key struck. The feature is being rolled out in the U.S. and six European countries this week and will be introduced more broadly later, the company said.
Google Inc. on Wednesday introduced a change to its widely used Web search engine that speeds up the time it takes to find and deliver results. WSJ's Julia Angwin discusses with Simon Constable on Digits.
At a demonstration at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the Mountain View, Calif., company showed how the search engine now tries to predict what customers are searching for and instantly displays results before they finish typing. One engineer who wanted weather information typed in the letter "W" into the search box and immediately got the local weather forecast above other search results.
Marissa Mayer, vice president of search product and user experience, said Google Instant could shave two to five seconds from the 25 seconds it currently takes, on average, to search and choose a link.
Ms. Mayer said Google made more than 500 changes to the way it ranks websites in search results and to the user experience, including rolling out automatic spelling corrections for customers who try to enter misspelled words.
Write to Amir Efrati at amir.efrati@wsj.com
Copyright 2009 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved
Read more:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703453804575479821579919484.ht
ml?mod=WSJ_hpp_MIDDLETopStories#ixzz0yyXrvrqe
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703453804575479821579919484.ht
ml?mod=WSJ_hpp_MIDDLETopStories
Google Feature to Speed Web Searches
By AMIR EFRATI
SAN FRANCISCO-Google Inc. on Wednesday introduced a change to its widely used Web search engine that speeds up the time it takes to find and deliver results.
The new feature, called "Google Instant," shows search results that change as each letter in a word is typed into the search box. At present, a search begins when the word is typed and the "enter" key struck. The feature is being rolled out in the U.S. and six European countries this week and will be introduced more broadly later, the company said.
Google Inc. on Wednesday introduced a change to its widely used Web search engine that speeds up the time it takes to find and deliver results. WSJ's Julia Angwin discusses with Simon Constable on Digits.
At a demonstration at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the Mountain View, Calif., company showed how the search engine now tries to predict what customers are searching for and instantly displays results before they finish typing. One engineer who wanted weather information typed in the letter "W" into the search box and immediately got the local weather forecast above other search results.
Marissa Mayer, vice president of search product and user experience, said Google Instant could shave two to five seconds from the 25 seconds it currently takes, on average, to search and choose a link.
Ms. Mayer said Google made more than 500 changes to the way it ranks websites in search results and to the user experience, including rolling out automatic spelling corrections for customers who try to enter misspelled words.
Write to Amir Efrati at amir.efrati@wsj.com
Copyright 2009 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved
Read more:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703453804575479821579919484.ht
ml?mod=WSJ_hpp_MIDDLETopStories#ixzz0yyXrvrqe
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703453804575479821579919484.ht
ml?mod=WSJ_hpp_MIDDLETopStories
Tuesday, September 7, 2010
Anti-Google campaign on privacy
Maggie Shiels | 09:40 UK time, Friday, 3 September 2010
The public advocacy group Consumer Watchdog is no lover of Google.
It has in fact been a constant thorn in the search giant's side and has set up a special Google website to log and monitor what it sees as its misdeeds as the firm tracks and collects data on us through our search history and browsing habits.
Now Consumer Watchdog has taken it to a whole new level with giant adverts playing on the JumboTron in New York's Times Square.
Google CEO Eric Schmidt is portrayed as a "perverter of privacy" in the guise of an ice cream man. The animated video shows a caricature of Schmidt giving out free treats to children while at the same time spying on them and collecting information on them.
Consumer Watchdog's president Jaimie Court said the aim of the adverts was to "make the public aware of how out of touch Schmidt and Google are when it comes to our privacy rights. Google knows more about us than most government agencies."
"Google's motto is 'don't be evil' and the way Eric Schmidt has been talking lately proves he has not been living up to that standard."
Specifically Mr Court is referring to Mr Schmidt's recent comments about privacy and online behaviour.
"Schmidt is out of control," said Mr Court.
"When questioned about privacy, he has said, 'If you have something that you don't want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn't be doing it in the first place.' Recently, he suggested children could change their names when they got older if they wanted to escape what was embarrassing and public in their online lives."
As well as deriding Google and its CEO in this 540ft video screen in one of America's most populous squares, Consumer Watchdog has a serious message about online privacy in general. It wants Congress to implement a "do not track me" list that prevents Google and any other internet company from tracking users' every move online.
The list would work just like the "do not call list" which has been pretty successful at stopping those annoying marketing phone calls you get just as you are about to sit down for dinner/put the baby in the bath/read the toddler a book/or enjoy a sip of wine.
Google has taken quite a bit of heat lately over privacy. Its own admission that its Street View cars had mistakenly collected snippets of information leaking from unprotected networks in people's homes resulted in criticism from privacy advocates around the world.
Google's foray into social networking with its product Buzz also lead to unwanted headlines about a cavalier attitude towards privacy.
But as the Wall Street Journal points out, Consumer Watchdog is not above reproach. The group claimed that the Street view cars could have collected national security information from members of Congress but the Journal pointed out that it made the "allegations after sitting outside the homes of the members itself and sniffing for unsecured traffic".
Google's response to the advert is sanguine.
"We like ice cream as much as anyone, but we like privacy even more," Google said in response to the BBC.
"That's why we provide tools for users to control their privacy online, like Google Dashboard, Ads Preference Manager, Chrome incognito mode and 'off the record' Gmail chat."
The California-based internet Titan said that information about its privacy tools can be found online at google.com/privacy.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/thereporters/maggieshiels/2010/09/anti_google_campaign.html
The public advocacy group Consumer Watchdog is no lover of Google.
It has in fact been a constant thorn in the search giant's side and has set up a special Google website to log and monitor what it sees as its misdeeds as the firm tracks and collects data on us through our search history and browsing habits.
Now Consumer Watchdog has taken it to a whole new level with giant adverts playing on the JumboTron in New York's Times Square.
Google CEO Eric Schmidt is portrayed as a "perverter of privacy" in the guise of an ice cream man. The animated video shows a caricature of Schmidt giving out free treats to children while at the same time spying on them and collecting information on them.
Consumer Watchdog's president Jaimie Court said the aim of the adverts was to "make the public aware of how out of touch Schmidt and Google are when it comes to our privacy rights. Google knows more about us than most government agencies."
"Google's motto is 'don't be evil' and the way Eric Schmidt has been talking lately proves he has not been living up to that standard."
Specifically Mr Court is referring to Mr Schmidt's recent comments about privacy and online behaviour.
"Schmidt is out of control," said Mr Court.
"When questioned about privacy, he has said, 'If you have something that you don't want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn't be doing it in the first place.' Recently, he suggested children could change their names when they got older if they wanted to escape what was embarrassing and public in their online lives."
As well as deriding Google and its CEO in this 540ft video screen in one of America's most populous squares, Consumer Watchdog has a serious message about online privacy in general. It wants Congress to implement a "do not track me" list that prevents Google and any other internet company from tracking users' every move online.
The list would work just like the "do not call list" which has been pretty successful at stopping those annoying marketing phone calls you get just as you are about to sit down for dinner/put the baby in the bath/read the toddler a book/or enjoy a sip of wine.
Google has taken quite a bit of heat lately over privacy. Its own admission that its Street View cars had mistakenly collected snippets of information leaking from unprotected networks in people's homes resulted in criticism from privacy advocates around the world.
Google's foray into social networking with its product Buzz also lead to unwanted headlines about a cavalier attitude towards privacy.
But as the Wall Street Journal points out, Consumer Watchdog is not above reproach. The group claimed that the Street view cars could have collected national security information from members of Congress but the Journal pointed out that it made the "allegations after sitting outside the homes of the members itself and sniffing for unsecured traffic".
Google's response to the advert is sanguine.
"We like ice cream as much as anyone, but we like privacy even more," Google said in response to the BBC.
"That's why we provide tools for users to control their privacy online, like Google Dashboard, Ads Preference Manager, Chrome incognito mode and 'off the record' Gmail chat."
The California-based internet Titan said that information about its privacy tools can be found online at google.com/privacy.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/thereporters/maggieshiels/2010/09/anti_google_campaign.html
Sunday, September 5, 2010
German court rules against YouTube over copyright AP
- Fri Sep 3, 1:54 pm ET
BERLIN - A German court ruled Friday that Google Inc.'s subsidiary YouTube LLC must pay compensation after users uploaded several videos of performances by singer Sarah Brightman in violation of copyright laws.
The Hamburg state court said the standardized question to users about whether they have the necessary rights to publish material is not enough to relieve YouTube of the legal responsibility for the content, especially because the platform can be used anonymously.
Google is evaluating the 60-page ruling but will appeal the decision, company spokesman Henning Dorstewitz told The Associated Press.
YouTube must not publish those videos any more and provide information to settle the amount of compensation in at least three cases in which Brightman videos were uploaded, it said.
The plaintiff was not identified and a court spokesman could not be reached for comment. The court statement only said the plaintiff has claimed to be the copyright holder for several of Sarah Brightman's performances.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100903/ap_on_hi_te/eu_germany_youtube_1
BERLIN - A German court ruled Friday that Google Inc.'s subsidiary YouTube LLC must pay compensation after users uploaded several videos of performances by singer Sarah Brightman in violation of copyright laws.
The Hamburg state court said the standardized question to users about whether they have the necessary rights to publish material is not enough to relieve YouTube of the legal responsibility for the content, especially because the platform can be used anonymously.
Google is evaluating the 60-page ruling but will appeal the decision, company spokesman Henning Dorstewitz told The Associated Press.
YouTube must not publish those videos any more and provide information to settle the amount of compensation in at least three cases in which Brightman videos were uploaded, it said.
The plaintiff was not identified and a court spokesman could not be reached for comment. The court statement only said the plaintiff has claimed to be the copyright holder for several of Sarah Brightman's performances.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100903/ap_on_hi_te/eu_germany_youtube_1
Friday, September 3, 2010
Cheap nano crystals promise huge storage boost 3D memory chips built from silicon
By Lucas Mearian | Computerworld US
Published: 10:10 GMT, 01 September 10
Rice University announced today that scientists there have created the first two-terminal memory chips that use only silicon, extending the limits of miniaturisation subject to Moore's Law. The new technology places multiple layers of memory capacity on the same chip, creating what is referred to as a 3D memory architecture.
According to a Rice University spokesman, the new memory technology will improve scalability by an order of magnitude compared to NAND flash technology available today. "The fact that they can do this in 3D makes makes it highly scalable," he said. "We've got memory that's made out of dirt-cheap material and it works."
In 2008, researchers at the university showed how electrical currents could repeatedly break and reconnect 10-nanometer strips of graphite, which could potentially boost flash memory capacity by many times. The Rice researchers said then that the new technology could withstand radiation and temperatures of 200 degrees Celsius that would cause solid-state disk memory to disintegrate.
At the time, the research team acknowledged that they weren't sure why their discovery worked so well. With the latest finding, the research team, including professors James Tour, Douglas Natelson and Lin Zhong, proved the circuit doesn't need the carbon to function, only silicon. During the project, Jun Yao, a graduate student in Tour's lab, was able to confirm the hypothesis when he sandwiched an insulating layer of silicon oxide between semiconducting sheets of polycrystalline silicon that served as the top and bottom electrodes, Rice said.
Yao applied a charge to the electrodes, which created a conductive pathway by stripping oxygen atoms from the silicon oxide, forming a chain of nanometer-sized silicon crystals. Once formed, the chain can be repeatedly broken and reconnected by applying a pulse of varying voltage, the University said.
"It is more than 5 times denser than 20 nanometer flash... without 3D stacking," Zhong said. "I would argue the nanowire-based solution is much more amenable to vertical stacking, which makes the technology very scalable as process technology improves. The density can be further doubled or tripled with two or three layers."
Unlike NAND flash memory, which is controlled by three terminals or wires, the new silicon memory requires two terminals, making it more viable for three-dimensional or stacked silicon arrays, multiplying a chip's capacity.
But like flash memory, chips made with silicon consume virtually no power while keeping data intact.
The nanocrystal wires are as small as 5 nanometers wide. A nanometer is one billionth of a meter. "The beauty of it is its simplicity," said Tour, a professor of mechanical engineering and materials science and computer science, in a statement.
Because the layers of silicon-oxide memory are not required to hold a charge, they can also be stacked one atop another, he added. "I've been told by industry that if you're not in the 3D memory business in four years, you're not going to be in the memory business. This is perfectly suited for that," Tour said. "Manufacturers feel they can get pathways down to 10 nanometers. Flash memory is going to hit a brick wall at about 20 nanometers," Tour said. "But how do we get beyond that? Well, our technique is perfectly suited for sub-10-nanometer circuits."
PrivaTran, a tech design company, is already testing a silicon-oxide chip with 1,000 memory elements built in collaboration with Tour's lab. "We're real excited about where the data is going here," said PrivaTran CEO Glenn Mortland, who is using the technology in several projects supported by the Army Research Office, National Science Foundation, Air Force Office of Scientific Research, and the Navy Space and Naval Warfare Systems Command Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) and Small Business Technology Transfer programs.
"Our original customer funding was geared toward more high-density memories," Mortland said. "That's where most of the paying customers see this going. I think, along the way, there will be side applications in various nonvolatile configurations."
NuPGA, a company formed last year through collaborative patents with Rice University, is also demonstrating how silicon oxide also works in reprogrammable gate arrays. NuPGA's devices will assist in the design of computer circuitry based on vertical arrays of silicon oxide embedded in "vias," the holes in integrated circuits that connect layers of circuitry.
Such rewritable gate arrays could drastically cut the cost of designing complex electronic devices, according to Tour.
http://news.techworld.com/storage/3237587/cheap-nano-crystals-promise-huge-storage-boost/?cmpid=TD1N3&no1x1&olo=daily%20newsletter
Published: 10:10 GMT, 01 September 10
Rice University announced today that scientists there have created the first two-terminal memory chips that use only silicon, extending the limits of miniaturisation subject to Moore's Law. The new technology places multiple layers of memory capacity on the same chip, creating what is referred to as a 3D memory architecture.
According to a Rice University spokesman, the new memory technology will improve scalability by an order of magnitude compared to NAND flash technology available today. "The fact that they can do this in 3D makes makes it highly scalable," he said. "We've got memory that's made out of dirt-cheap material and it works."
In 2008, researchers at the university showed how electrical currents could repeatedly break and reconnect 10-nanometer strips of graphite, which could potentially boost flash memory capacity by many times. The Rice researchers said then that the new technology could withstand radiation and temperatures of 200 degrees Celsius that would cause solid-state disk memory to disintegrate.
At the time, the research team acknowledged that they weren't sure why their discovery worked so well. With the latest finding, the research team, including professors James Tour, Douglas Natelson and Lin Zhong, proved the circuit doesn't need the carbon to function, only silicon. During the project, Jun Yao, a graduate student in Tour's lab, was able to confirm the hypothesis when he sandwiched an insulating layer of silicon oxide between semiconducting sheets of polycrystalline silicon that served as the top and bottom electrodes, Rice said.
Yao applied a charge to the electrodes, which created a conductive pathway by stripping oxygen atoms from the silicon oxide, forming a chain of nanometer-sized silicon crystals. Once formed, the chain can be repeatedly broken and reconnected by applying a pulse of varying voltage, the University said.
"It is more than 5 times denser than 20 nanometer flash... without 3D stacking," Zhong said. "I would argue the nanowire-based solution is much more amenable to vertical stacking, which makes the technology very scalable as process technology improves. The density can be further doubled or tripled with two or three layers."
Unlike NAND flash memory, which is controlled by three terminals or wires, the new silicon memory requires two terminals, making it more viable for three-dimensional or stacked silicon arrays, multiplying a chip's capacity.
But like flash memory, chips made with silicon consume virtually no power while keeping data intact.
The nanocrystal wires are as small as 5 nanometers wide. A nanometer is one billionth of a meter. "The beauty of it is its simplicity," said Tour, a professor of mechanical engineering and materials science and computer science, in a statement.
Because the layers of silicon-oxide memory are not required to hold a charge, they can also be stacked one atop another, he added. "I've been told by industry that if you're not in the 3D memory business in four years, you're not going to be in the memory business. This is perfectly suited for that," Tour said. "Manufacturers feel they can get pathways down to 10 nanometers. Flash memory is going to hit a brick wall at about 20 nanometers," Tour said. "But how do we get beyond that? Well, our technique is perfectly suited for sub-10-nanometer circuits."
PrivaTran, a tech design company, is already testing a silicon-oxide chip with 1,000 memory elements built in collaboration with Tour's lab. "We're real excited about where the data is going here," said PrivaTran CEO Glenn Mortland, who is using the technology in several projects supported by the Army Research Office, National Science Foundation, Air Force Office of Scientific Research, and the Navy Space and Naval Warfare Systems Command Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) and Small Business Technology Transfer programs.
"Our original customer funding was geared toward more high-density memories," Mortland said. "That's where most of the paying customers see this going. I think, along the way, there will be side applications in various nonvolatile configurations."
NuPGA, a company formed last year through collaborative patents with Rice University, is also demonstrating how silicon oxide also works in reprogrammable gate arrays. NuPGA's devices will assist in the design of computer circuitry based on vertical arrays of silicon oxide embedded in "vias," the holes in integrated circuits that connect layers of circuitry.
Such rewritable gate arrays could drastically cut the cost of designing complex electronic devices, according to Tour.
http://news.techworld.com/storage/3237587/cheap-nano-crystals-promise-huge-storage-boost/?cmpid=TD1N3&no1x1&olo=daily%20newsletter
Thursday, September 2, 2010
Microsoft to VMware: Windows is still relevant in the virtualization era Microsoft execs rubbish VMware CEO comments
By Jon Brodkin | Network World US
Published: 10:00 GMT, 02 September 10
Virtualization has not stripped Windows of its relevance, a Microsoft official said in response to VMware CEO Paul Maritz's argument that operating systems are no longer the centre of innovation in the IT world.
Maritz didn't actually predict that operating systems are doomed, but he did argue in his VMworld keynote that the role of operating systems in managing hardware and providing services to applications is being usurped by virtualisation software and new development frameworks like Spring and Ruby on Rails.
But the vast majority of VMware customers are still Windows customers, and VMware's technology would be useless without an operating system, Microsoft executive Mike Neil said. "If you buy a copy of [VMware's] ESX and install it on a machine, you get a blinking cursor," says Neil, the general manager of Microsoft's server virtualisation and Windows Server division. "It doesn't do you any good, right? It has no inherent value until you run an operating system in a virtual machine. The hypervisor and the virtualisation layer, which obviously VMware has been focused on, is interesting technology," he said. "It's a good feature for an operating system."
People have been predicting the demise of Windows for years, Neil continued. Maritz, interestingly, is a former Microsoft executive who led development of Windows 95 and Windows 2000. Despite leaving the Windows team only 10 years ago, Maritz said "there really hasn't been a lot of innovation inside operating systems for 20 years now."
When it comes to industry observers "predicting the demise of Windows, that was happening when Paul was in charge" too, Neil said. "I think if I was a company that was only developing a virtualisation platform, that I would try to draw attention away from where the real innovation is happening in the industry, and that's still the operating system," Neil continued. Maritz's support of Spring and Ruby on Rails also fails to mention Microsoft's .NET Framework, "the largest development platform on the planet," Neil said.
Microsoft this week took out a full page advertisement in USA Today urging customers not to sign long term contracts with VMware. The cost of such an ad is nearly $120,000, but Microsoft spokesman Patrick O'Rourke says "we get good discounts."
Microsoft is arguing that customers now have more options than just VMware when it comes to running mission critical Microsoft applications such as Exchange. They can run Exchange in the cloud through Microsoft's or third party hosted services, or use Hyper-V, the Microsoft virtualisation software included in Windows Server. Indeed, IDC is reporting that Hyper-V's market share has been growing, and at VMware's expense, although VMware still commands about 50 percent of the market, to Hyper-V's almost 25 percent.
http://www.networkworld.com/news/2010/090110-microsoft-responds-to-vmware.html?hpg1=bn
Published: 10:00 GMT, 02 September 10
Virtualization has not stripped Windows of its relevance, a Microsoft official said in response to VMware CEO Paul Maritz's argument that operating systems are no longer the centre of innovation in the IT world.
Maritz didn't actually predict that operating systems are doomed, but he did argue in his VMworld keynote that the role of operating systems in managing hardware and providing services to applications is being usurped by virtualisation software and new development frameworks like Spring and Ruby on Rails.
But the vast majority of VMware customers are still Windows customers, and VMware's technology would be useless without an operating system, Microsoft executive Mike Neil said. "If you buy a copy of [VMware's] ESX and install it on a machine, you get a blinking cursor," says Neil, the general manager of Microsoft's server virtualisation and Windows Server division. "It doesn't do you any good, right? It has no inherent value until you run an operating system in a virtual machine. The hypervisor and the virtualisation layer, which obviously VMware has been focused on, is interesting technology," he said. "It's a good feature for an operating system."
People have been predicting the demise of Windows for years, Neil continued. Maritz, interestingly, is a former Microsoft executive who led development of Windows 95 and Windows 2000. Despite leaving the Windows team only 10 years ago, Maritz said "there really hasn't been a lot of innovation inside operating systems for 20 years now."
When it comes to industry observers "predicting the demise of Windows, that was happening when Paul was in charge" too, Neil said. "I think if I was a company that was only developing a virtualisation platform, that I would try to draw attention away from where the real innovation is happening in the industry, and that's still the operating system," Neil continued. Maritz's support of Spring and Ruby on Rails also fails to mention Microsoft's .NET Framework, "the largest development platform on the planet," Neil said.
Microsoft this week took out a full page advertisement in USA Today urging customers not to sign long term contracts with VMware. The cost of such an ad is nearly $120,000, but Microsoft spokesman Patrick O'Rourke says "we get good discounts."
Microsoft is arguing that customers now have more options than just VMware when it comes to running mission critical Microsoft applications such as Exchange. They can run Exchange in the cloud through Microsoft's or third party hosted services, or use Hyper-V, the Microsoft virtualisation software included in Windows Server. Indeed, IDC is reporting that Hyper-V's market share has been growing, and at VMware's expense, although VMware still commands about 50 percent of the market, to Hyper-V's almost 25 percent.
http://www.networkworld.com/news/2010/090110-microsoft-responds-to-vmware.html?hpg1=bn
Dell walks away: HP wins 3Par for $2.4 billion
By Larry Dignan | September 2, 2010, 7:36am PDT
Hewlett-Packard on Thursday officially won storage vendor 3Par after Dell declined to match a $33 a share, or $2.4 billion, bid.
Dell’s statement on the matter ended a wild bidding war that started at $18 a share for 3Par. Dell said in a statement that it will get a $72 million breakup fee. The company added that its final offer was for $32 a share.
The 3Par bidding war reflected the animosity between two fierce rivals, Dell and HP, and the fact that there aren’t many enterprise storage players to buy.
Earlier on Thursday, 3Par said Hewlett-Packard has raised its offer to $33 a share for the storage company, or $2.4 billion, after Dell countered with a $32 a share offer. 3Par deemed HP’s bid as superior. HP had bid $30 for 3Par and Dell countered with $32 a share. Dell also revised a termination fee to $92 million.
3Par outlined what happened in a statement (my emphasis added):
Although 3PAR previously notified Dell of its intention to terminate its merger agreement with Dell, the merger agreement was not terminated and remains in full force and effect. Following 3PAR’s notice of intent to terminate the merger agreement, and prior to receiving HP’s revised acquisition proposal, 3PAR received a revised acquisition proposal from Dell in which Dell increased its offer price from $27 per share to $32 per share. Dell’s revised acquisition proposal also included an increased termination fee of $92 million payable by 3PAR to Dell as a condition to accepting a “superior proposal,” and a multi-year reseller agreement with Dell, which would by its terms be assumed by an acquirer of, or successor in interest to, 3PAR in the event of a change in control of 3PAR (including the acquisition of 3PAR by HP or another third party), and which contained fixed pricing and other terms that the 3PAR board of directors determined to be unacceptable.
Now that HP has won 3Par it will have another integration effort ahead. HP has been on a buying spree of late, but moved to reassure investors with a $10 billion buyback plan.
http://www.zdnet.com/blog/btl/dell-walks-away-hp-wins-3par-for-24-billion/38794?tag=nl.e589
Hewlett-Packard on Thursday officially won storage vendor 3Par after Dell declined to match a $33 a share, or $2.4 billion, bid.
Dell’s statement on the matter ended a wild bidding war that started at $18 a share for 3Par. Dell said in a statement that it will get a $72 million breakup fee. The company added that its final offer was for $32 a share.
The 3Par bidding war reflected the animosity between two fierce rivals, Dell and HP, and the fact that there aren’t many enterprise storage players to buy.
Earlier on Thursday, 3Par said Hewlett-Packard has raised its offer to $33 a share for the storage company, or $2.4 billion, after Dell countered with a $32 a share offer. 3Par deemed HP’s bid as superior. HP had bid $30 for 3Par and Dell countered with $32 a share. Dell also revised a termination fee to $92 million.
3Par outlined what happened in a statement (my emphasis added):
Although 3PAR previously notified Dell of its intention to terminate its merger agreement with Dell, the merger agreement was not terminated and remains in full force and effect. Following 3PAR’s notice of intent to terminate the merger agreement, and prior to receiving HP’s revised acquisition proposal, 3PAR received a revised acquisition proposal from Dell in which Dell increased its offer price from $27 per share to $32 per share. Dell’s revised acquisition proposal also included an increased termination fee of $92 million payable by 3PAR to Dell as a condition to accepting a “superior proposal,” and a multi-year reseller agreement with Dell, which would by its terms be assumed by an acquirer of, or successor in interest to, 3PAR in the event of a change in control of 3PAR (including the acquisition of 3PAR by HP or another third party), and which contained fixed pricing and other terms that the 3PAR board of directors determined to be unacceptable.
Now that HP has won 3Par it will have another integration effort ahead. HP has been on a buying spree of late, but moved to reassure investors with a $10 billion buyback plan.
http://www.zdnet.com/blog/btl/dell-walks-away-hp-wins-3par-for-24-billion/38794?tag=nl.e589
Wednesday, September 1, 2010
VMware's Maritz virtually pronounces death of Windows
By Paula Rooney | August 31, 2010, 11:08am PDT
It could not have been easy for former Microsoft exec Paul Maritz to pronounce the death of the operating system today.
Maritz, who is CEO of VMware, said during his keynote today that virtualization and new application frameworks combined represent the de facto operating system for the IT-as-a-Service era since the two layers of the new stack handle all of the hardware and application services once provided by operating systems.
Okay, Maritz did not pronounce the death of Windows verbatim but referred to the "changing role" of the OS as a legacy software layer that needs to get a new life. He did say the era of client/server is over.
"Hardware is going to virtualization and the role of abstracted services to applications is going to new frameworks," he said. "The traditional operating system won't disappear .. but is one component that need to fit into this world."
The tide is going to change with or without VMWare, he said. But yes, VMware has all the virtualization software and application framework components needed in the third era of computing.
OS gone? An obvious conclusion, but coming out of the mouth of a former Microsoft exec? Ouch.
http://www.zdnet.com/blog/virtualization/vmwares-maritz-virtually-pronounces-death-of-windows/2247?tag=nl.e589
It could not have been easy for former Microsoft exec Paul Maritz to pronounce the death of the operating system today.
Maritz, who is CEO of VMware, said during his keynote today that virtualization and new application frameworks combined represent the de facto operating system for the IT-as-a-Service era since the two layers of the new stack handle all of the hardware and application services once provided by operating systems.
Okay, Maritz did not pronounce the death of Windows verbatim but referred to the "changing role" of the OS as a legacy software layer that needs to get a new life. He did say the era of client/server is over.
"Hardware is going to virtualization and the role of abstracted services to applications is going to new frameworks," he said. "The traditional operating system won't disappear .. but is one component that need to fit into this world."
The tide is going to change with or without VMWare, he said. But yes, VMware has all the virtualization software and application framework components needed in the third era of computing.
OS gone? An obvious conclusion, but coming out of the mouth of a former Microsoft exec? Ouch.
http://www.zdnet.com/blog/virtualization/vmwares-maritz-virtually-pronounces-death-of-windows/2247?tag=nl.e589
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