digiblade

Thursday, March 30, 2006

What We Can Do With Our Technology Very Soon

I’m going to step away from the day-to-day for a moment. This may or may not fit into the P2P Foundation meme but it is certainly part of the discussion. But for now, let’s dream;
It will be a world where what you see and hear is what you choose to see and hear. It is a world where the anomie of modern life will give way to a mesh of relationships based on common interests and real values. It will be a world where who you are, isn’t based on your credentials, isn’t based on your money, but is based on who you know and what you have done.
Ian Welsh calls it The Flash Society – a world where help is a word away, where tribes and guilds enmesh their members in a web of friendship, obligation, duty and protection. The technology is almost here, and the social norms are already changing as in the recent formations of Social Networking sites like myspace.
Imagine then that everything is transmitting. You are transmitting your location and whatever other information you choose to transmit. Every shop, every house, every road, every car, every item in every store – indeed everything manufactured or tagged, is tagged with information.
You wear a PDA on your wrist with a full screen, or for the truly daring a pair of visors. That PDA or visor is set both to transmit and to receive – and more importantly than receiving to screen. For in a world where every store is transmitting its location, what it sells, and its specials; in a world where all the roads are transmitting their current traffic load; in a world where those in your tribe are letting you know if they are busy, available, or inviting you to join them for a party, movie, coffee or conversation – in such a world, as with the internet today, the problem is getting the information you want.
So as you walk, shopping, you set your PDA to tell you what stores are selling shoes, to show their location relative to you, and to show any specials on high-top sneakers. If you are a fireman, your PDA is automatically downloading the fire code history, floor map and water main locations of buildings and with a simple command they come up for you. Because that information is encrypted only people like yourself, police and building inspectors can see it, your ‘Guild’.
Information is presented the same way it often is today in computer games – in iconic form or as simplified colors. Choose to see all the restaurants in a few blocks and each one might come up as a symbol – the brighter it is the closer it is, the more green it is on a spectrum of red to green the more expensive it is, and the symbol itself varies by the type of food – perhaps a roman arch for Italian food, golden arches for fast food, and a fortune cookie for Chinese.
In such a world, the world you see is the world you need to see at any given time. Those who need directions see both a mini-map and a line running in the direction they need to go. Those who are heading to Customs see a list of the documents they need, those who want food or to find a lawyer see that. And a policeman sees those who have called for help – but they don’t see him on their display unless he chooses to let them.
This expands deeply into the work world. Imagine doing inventory in such a world – you look at each section in order and your PDA does the counting for you. Indeed, depending on transmitter power you might be able to take inventory without ever leaving your office. And fraud, in such a world, is mislabeling or unlabelling items – as people will tend to assume the virtual world and the real world are the same thing.
All of this will probably eventually be controlled both verbally and kinesthetically. A pair of gloves with multiple sensors, or for those who choose, full sets of clothes are used to give instructions through intricate bodily motions. In the same way that typing is learned, people will learn to control their data devices without even thinking about it, switching fluidly from view to view; changing the information they are transmitting with a quick and nearly unconscious movement of their hands, their bodies, An ‘information data dance’; and creating new functions the same way we string words together by the rules of grammar to create sentences we’ve never said before and may never say again, yet which seem to us as nothing special.. The motion of pupils will also be tracked, and matched against the gestures of hands to select items visible only in a person’s visor or PDA.
Socially this world will be one where who you know has much less to do with the physical than it does today.
This has already begun with many Millenials, the "anti-consumers". Their lives right now are either played out in MMRPGs or in Live role-playing games. Many claim they have more friends on-line than IRL (in real life). Yes, it's about who they know, and how they connect with those people. Sure, a lot of kids their age are still consumerist, but - there is change coming, and you see it in these kids, both in my daughter’s age group and younger. The millenial generation believes in social capital in a way that I have not seen in a generation since the depression babies. In the case of the depression babies, it was all they had. In the case of the millenials, it is because the tools to make communities are now much more powerful, and have much more leverage.
They certainly believe in it far more than my generation did - which formed sub-cultures and cults by the bucket (Goth, Punk, Valley Girls), but somehow did not find the community it was looking for. Instead, the alienating forces of broadcast were abundant, and either people built pyramids, or they became, like me, lone grey wolves, carrying with them a one person sense of their role in a world. already having networks of virtual friends spread in a far net geographically. Nor can these friends be dismissed as not “real” friends, they are often truer friends than those who are friends by accident of geography, spending their time and money to help people they know mainly online. Indeed I am, personally, closing in on the point where more of my friends and business associates are people I originally met virtually than ones I met physically. And these are real relationships as measured by both money and time – thousands of dollars and thousands of hours have been spent on them, and earned by them.
My guess is that the most important of these will form out of groups centering around mutual interests and hobbies and form into long enduring networks of reciprocal\symbiotic friendships which will turn into societies with formal dues and duties. They have been called Flash tribes in the past, for the way they will be able to protect their members by quickly dispatching help to their aid and indeed I expect the first forms to be mutual aid societies, where social norms and the sharing of personal dreams that comes so easily in the virtual world leads to strong expectations that members will be there for other members who need help. It is this beginning which made me call them militias or tribes – because they will be tied together at first mainly by custom.
When traveling you will reach out to see who in your tribe lives in the area and can act as a guide, or a host. When doing research you will see who is an expert in your tribe. When doing business you will tend to use members of your tribe first, because you will know that strong social approbation will fall on those who fail to live up to their duties to a tribe member.
Oddly this world, if it turns out as it should and is not locked down by the interests of the modern world into a pattern more suitable to the current day, will also give individuals a great deal more functional freedom. Today the truth is that most people are effectively wage slaves. People work so they can do things after work, not live to work. They are dependent – their food, their energy, their clothes – everything they have, everything they need is completely disassociated from their own efforts, and fewer and fewer are able to independently generate the exchange needed to pay for those items without entering to a situation where most of the value of their work is appropriated by others.
In the new world, a world of micro-local production, or micro-local energy production where every building both consumes and produces energy; a world where design and manufacturing is simplified so that it moves into the reach of small groups of people or households, will allow many more people to actually offer the world whatever it is that they can make and produce. And in a world where the world is your customer – the odds of finding the people who want what you produce increases substantially, since if there are only a few thousand in the entire world that will be enough, while in the past unless those people happened to live near where you lived the market effectively did not exist. The younger bloggers I read are all into making things, and I'm part of an active, thriving, on-line art community. We have close to 1000 people in a local online group, creating new things every day. Kids are enthralled by Make magazine, Ready Made, anything to do with being creative and innovative and making stuff for yourself.
So, What I have described is half prediction – half plan. Some of it will happen due to the simple nature of technological change. Other parts can happen or not, the potential is there, but it is not necessary that it turn out that way. There is always a lot of money to be made in monopoly and oligopoly situations and there are always people who will seek to create the bottlenecks, government grants and gates necessary to allow them to take a toll from everyone who wants certain goods or services. The job market's like Office Space without the office, just a choice of flair and, a solution that's getting pushed hard with retail's new big slogan, "express yourself! with our stuff!". What some might call creativity and innovation others might see as living in a fantasy world, however self-sufficient, almost as bad as George W.'s. Whether it's in fullblown LARPing or Bacardi and Axe commericals.
One battle of this generation will be to ensure that those who want to make the future profitable to a few – to the winners of the last fight – are not successful. If they are, a lot of freedom and a lot of prosperity will have to wait, or will be realized elsewhere, by those who cannot afford to allow the past to strangle the future.

Skype Faces $4.1 Billion Lawsuit From Former P2P Rival

Internet phone service provider Skype Technologies said it plans to defend itself against explosive allegations that its technology is actually owned by another company, Streamcast Networks.
Skype, owned by eBay, of San Jose, Calif., has been accused of creating a secret shell firm in order to steal away some peer-to-peer technology developed by Streamcast, then use it to build the Skype service, according to a lawsuit Streamcast filed in January in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles.
The complaint seeks $4.1 billion in damages, and demands that Skype stop using the Streamcast features. Streamcast's complaint was first reported upon the week of March 27 by Andy Abramson of the Web site VoIP Watch.
The defendants are Skype and its co-founders. eBay is not named in the suit.

Wednesday, March 29, 2006

Microsoft Office 2007 Beta News and Video

I’ve been playing with this beta for a week now. You may have seen a few screenshots of the new "ribbon" interface that will replace the menubar and toolbars in Microsoft Office 2007. It doesn't seem so mysterious to me, but then I'm not really Office's average use case. If you want a better idea of what using Office's new interface is really like, I recommend this streaming preview video (direct link to WMV stream) that Microsoft has put together. It's a 13-minute marketing piece so be prepared for some awkward scripted dialogue from Real Microsoft Employees (Dear Product Manager Julie Larson-Green: The camera is over here. Please look at it.), and unless you're a corporate executive you'll probably get the gist of it in the first five minutes. Personally I'm excited about the new interface, but then I’m not a power user and am used to picking up new interfaces at the drop of a hat. For the average cube-dweller, I'm not yet convinced that it wouldn't cost companies a bundle in time spent relearning. PC World's Techlog has an interesting piece about Microsoft's impending elimination of the menubar in its products as well.

Tuesday, March 28, 2006

Bad Day For Net Neutrality

In a modest victory for broadband providers, a highly anticipated bill in the U.S. Congress does not include specific rules saying that some Internet sites must not be favored over others.

I know this is the fiftieth time I've posted on this but net-neutrality is a big freaking deal and it effects us as much, if not more than HR 1606. We all need to educate ourselves on it and follow it and lobby on it, especially with Google slanting rightward. Major bloggers are letting this one slip by. And this is an issue that binds the Left and the Right! Educate yourselves. Contact your representatives.
I'm imploring you. We're going to get hosed if the broadband providers are allowed to charge tolls and create a two lane internet.
Here are some useful links:
Net Neutrality for the non-technical
Net Neutrality is Bad for You  (an alternate viewpoint)
Worse Case scenario
Update: From a friends email, this is the kind of garbage we're up against.

US Gov't to launch investigation into Lenovo "spy" PCs

As you may recall, way back over a year ago when Lenovo announced its intentions to buy IBM, congress stepped in to call for an investigation to make sure the Commies Chinese megacorp wasn't going to be getting access to anything sensitive or secret in IBM's labs or R&D facilities. Well, obviously everything passed over kosher, but now the US State Department's placing an order for 15,000 Lenovo PCs, and the US-China Economic and Security Review Commission wants a thorough look through the machines to ensure they're not rigged with bugs and spyware. Outside dismantling every single PC and freshly installing the OS themselves, we're not sure how they would guarantee they'd be clean, which just goes to show you've really got to trust your PC manufacturer, especially if you're the government. In all reality they're probably more likely to find a Sony backdoor than a Lenovo one, anyway.[Via BoingBoing]

Monday, March 27, 2006

Microsoft Responds (but does not fix) Recent exploits regarding the Internet Explorer HTML handling vulnerability

03/28/2006 Update: This is just getting Worse The vulnerability in Internet Explorer that we reported on Friday is quickly being taken advantage of, says the Washington Post's Brian Krebs, and more than 200 web sites have been altered by hackers to include malicious code to exploit it. Sites being seeded with infectous code include small business sites that most users would never suspect of harboring malicious software. When an Internet Explorer user visits such a site, all kinds of malware may be silently installed on their computers, including programs which steal passwords and credit card numbers. Microsoft has yet to release a patch and likely won't for another two weeks when Patch Tuesday rolls around. They're still advising users to disable Active Scripting, but Krebs is recommending much more direct action that I echo: drop Internet Explorer and install Firefox or Opera. For those of you STILL using Microsoft's Internet Explorer you'll be wanting to take a look at Brian Krebs' latest update on the most recent flaws in the software and links to the new unofficial patches. The patches are free, but again, unofficial. They are designed to repair flaws that hackers can access to steal passwords. I’m starting to use Internet Explorer less…and…less. Saturday the Microsoft Security Response Center became aware of public reports of attacks on some PC users utilizing the vulnerability that Lennart posted about in Internet Explorer. Here's what we know. The attacks are limited in scope for now and are being carried out by malicious Web sites exploiting a vulnerability in the method by which Internet Explorer handles HTML rendering. To be clear, and as our advisory states, the vulnerability affects currently supported versions of Windows 2000, Windows XP and Windows Server 2003. So. What are the IE team and the MSRC doing right now? Well, first off we're working day and night on development of a cumulative security update for Internet Explorer that addresses the vulnerability. As we've been told many times, the focus should be on quality, but with a clear eye towards time. The security update is currently being finalized through testing to ensure the level of interoperability and application and web compatibility needed. Right now, the update is on schedule testing wise to be released (meeting the quality goals customers have asked for) as part of the April security updates on April 11, 2006. But as I said, we're actively keeping an eye on any attempts to utilize this in an attack. We'll release it sooner if warranted. Right now we're monitoring the attempts to exploit this vulnerability and we're working with our industry partners and law enforcement to remove the malicious Web sites using the vulnerability as they pop up. That's a key point because it's important that we work to limit the ability of attackers to utilize this vulnerability in criminal attacks. I want to caution everyone that they should take care not to visit unfamiliar or untrusted Web sites that could potentially host the malicious code. If you are concerned about exploitation of the vulnerability by websites you frequently visit though, you should follow the guidance on safe browsing at: http://www.microsoft.com/athome/security/online/browsing_safety.mspx. Enterprise customers should review our recent Security Advisory (917077) for up-to-date guidance on how to prevent attacks through exploitation of this vulnerability while we work on the update. One other thing to note. Everyone should know that the security update addressing this vulnerability is a cumulative update that contains all previous security updates for Internet Explorer, new security updates for issues unrelated to the current attacks, as well as minor non-security related changes to how Internet Explorer handles some Web pages that use ActiveX controls. For more information on these changes, you should check out security advisory 912945. The MSRC and your Internet Explorer team is working on this issue day and night. This is an ongoing issue and we will post more guidance as it becomes available.

Saturday, March 25, 2006

Internet Explorer in More Trouble After Public Release of Exploit

I reported about this vulnerability last week.
Here is the latest and it does not look good for IE:
WaPo - Security Fix - Security experts are warning that at least one set of instructions showing bad guys how to exploit an unpatched security hole in Microsoft's Internet Explorer Web browser have been posted online, and that malicious Web sites are likely to begin using the blueprints to install spyware and other unwanted junk on visitors' Windows computers.

Friday, March 24, 2006

Internet main news source for many broadband users

According to a new report released by the Pew Internet and American Life Project, "By the end of 2005, 50 million Americans got news online on a typical day, a sizable increase since 2002." Read the full report for yourself here.
I want to read the report thoroughly and report back but here are some quick initial thoughts:- Among all respondants, 23% used Internet as a primary news source. That number differentiated to 26% of respondants who used dial-up, and 43% of respondants who used broadband.

Thursday, March 23, 2006

Samsung unveils 32GB Flash-based 'HDD killer'

Samsung has launched what it reckons its the world's first 32GB NAND Flash-based hard disk drive replacement unit. The company claimed the so-called "solid state disk" can access data three times faster than an HDD can and write files one-and-a-half times more quickly - though we don't know what HDD spec it was comparing its product to. The SSD is a 2.5in form-factor product that operates at 5V and connects across a 66MHz Ultra DMA parallel ATA bus. Samsung said the unit consumes just five per cent of the energy it takes to run a hard drive. Samsung launched the product in Taiwan, the better to attract the islands' numerous notebook manufacturers, who produce almost all of the world's mobile computers. Samsung is particularly keen to get its drive into laptops, which it believes will benefit most from the SSD's lower power consumption. As the world's largest manufacturer of NAND Flash, Samsung wants to broaden the memory technology's appeal beyond MP3 players and memory cards. It has been working with Microsoft on the idea, and Windows Vista will support the use of NAND Flash caches to speed boot times. Intel recently unveiled 'Robson', an add-in card that uses a NAND Flash bank to cache operating system components to reduce start-up times and help cut battery consumption. Samsung's SSD is seen more as an alternative to an HDD than something that operates alongside one, it seems. Samsung believes the SSD market will be worth $4.5bn by 2010, up from $540m this year. ® More and related here

Apple Makes the Fastest Windows XP Machines

What a shocker. Gearlog analysts took Windows XP and loaded it onto each of the three Intel-based Mac systems in their labs. That alone is a massive accomplishment, but the real kicker--the Apple systems blew away the competition in the benchmark tests. That's right. Apple makes the fastest Windows PCs, at least by some measures. Check out the story for the benchmark results and more here.

Tuesday, March 21, 2006

New LARGE Vulnerability found in Microsoft Internet Explorer

03/23/2006 UPDATE Microsoft plans to release a pre-patch advisory with workarounds for a "highly critical" vulnerability that could put millions of Internet Explorer users at the mercy of malicious hackers. The advisory, which will be posted here, acknowledges a code execution hole that was discovered and publicly reported by Secunia Research of Copenhagen, Denmark. Secunia said in an alert that the vulnerability is due to an error in the processing of the "createTextRange()" method call applied on a radio button control. "This can be exploited by a malicious Web site to corrupt memory in a way that allows the program flow to be redirected to the heap," Secunia said in the alert, warning that successful exploitation allows execution of arbitrary code whenever the target visits the rigged Web site. The vulnerability was confirmed on a fully patched system with IE 6.0 and Microsoft Windows XP SP2. It has also been confirmed in IE 7 Beta 2 Preview, Secunia said. ...Firefox\Mozilla looking better all the time... From Jeffrey van der Stad's Blog: Last week I found a (to my knowledge) new vulnerability in the Internet Explorer 6.0 browser. With this vulnerability it is possible to run an hta-file without the users permission. The issue lies somewhere in... (Removed on Microsoft's request). I developed a working Proof of Concept and I notified Microsoft NL today. Today he writes: I suggested to visit Microsoft in Amsterdam to show them the PoC, but the Microsoft team was able to reproduce the exploit with a few suggestions.. So no trip for me.. :( Here's what Debby wrote: "We've actually been able to repro this in house, so unfortunatley, it looks like you don't need to go to Amsterdam after all. :( We have been trying to get this fix into the next IE release, but it's been a lot of work to do that as it's relatively late in the cycle. It looks like it will make it in though." Full Story At Source...

Monday, March 20, 2006

Windows Live Messenger Beta goes public ( multilingual too)

Microsoft has silently enabled access to the latest Windows Live Messenger Beta for all passports. This means that from now on you won't need an invitation in order to be able to log in. We expect the MSN pages to soon reflect this news and market the WLM Beta to all of their visitors worldwide.
I’ve been beta testing this for some time and I believe you will find the upgrade worthwhile.Windows Live Messenger Beta 8.0.0566 EnglishWindows Live Messenger Beta 8.0.0566 DutchWindows Live Messenger Beta 8.0.0566 SpanishWindows Live Messenger Beta 8.0.0566 GermanWindows Live Messenger Beta 8.0.0566 FrenchWindows Live Messenger Beta 8.0.0566 JapaneseWindows Live Messenger Beta 8.0.0566 KoreanWindows Live Messenger Beta 8.0.0566 Brazilian PortugeseWindows Live Messenger Beta 8.0.0566 Chinese (Traditional)Windows Live Messenger Beta 8.0.0566 Chinese (Simplified)Windows Live Messenger Beta 8.0.0566 PolishWindows Live Messenger Beta 8.0.0566 RussianWindows Live Messenger Beta 8.0.0566 DanishWindows Live Messenger Beta 8.0.0566 FinnishWindows Live Messenger Beta 8.0.0566 GreekWindows Live Messenger Beta 8.0.0566 HungarianWindows Live Messenger Beta 8.0.0566 ItalianWindows Live Messenger Beta 8.0.0566 ArabianWindows Live Messenger Beta 8.0.0566 SlovenianWindows Live Messenger Beta 8.0.0566 SlovakWindows Live Messenger Beta 8.0.0566 Turkish

Saturday, March 18, 2006

Net Neutrality information for the nontechnical

A San Francisco talk show on public radio station KQED had a program on net neutrality yesterday that was very easy to understand. Example: UPS and Wal-Mart trucks carrying goods down the highway. UPS carrying other people's goods, Wal-Mart carrying their own. That's fine, Wal-Mart should be able to carry their own stuff. But what happens when Wal-Mart owns the road? Won't they try to get their products to market faster? Carve off lanes for their own trucks? Change the speed limit for themselves to create a competitive advantage that pays off the investment in the highway? Michael Krasny, Host: Dave McClure, president and CEO of the U.S. Internet Industry Association Eric Hernaez, CEO of Solegy, a company that provides voice over IP and other next generation services Glenn Woroch, professor of economics and executive director of the Center for Research on Telecommunications Policy at UC-Berkeley's Haas School of Business John Sumpter, vice president of Pac-West You can listen to it here

Thursday, March 16, 2006

RFID DOA ? Already Vulnerable to Malware\Viruses.

Pranksters and criminals can infect RFID chips with computer viruses, worms and malware to cause major disruption at places where the popular tracking technology is used, according to new research by a group of European scientists. In a proof-of-concept paper presented at the IEEE Conference on Pervasive Computing and Communications March 15, researchers from the Free University in Amsterdam warned that the tainted radio-frequency identification microchips could corrupt RFID databases and cause major chaos at airports and supermarkets.
In the United States, RFID technology has been used to track pets, collect tolls on roadways and serve as a potential replacement for UPC (Universal Product Code) bar codes, but the impact on privacy has triggered protests in some quarters. But, privacy is just one hiccup, according to the ground-breaking research paper written by the university's Computer Systems Group. "[No] one expects an RFID tag to send a SQL injection attack or a buffer overflow. This paper is meant to serve as a warning that data from RFID tags can be used to exploit back-end software systems," the group said.
"RFID middleware writers must therefore build appropriate checks—bounds checking, special character filtering—to prevent RFID middleware from suffering all of the well-known vulnerabilities experienced by the Internet." The paper outlines several ways in which an existing middleware vulnerability could be exploited to launch malware code and simple viruses that can infect RFID tags and corrupt the database that connects to the tag reader.
"No one thought this possible until now," the group said, noting that it went public with the sample viruses to convince the people in charge of RFID systems that the threat is not merely theoretical.
"By making code for RFID 'malware' publicly available, we hope to convince them that the problem is serious and had better be dealt with, and fast. It is a lot better to lock the barn door while the prize race horse is still inside than to deal with the consequences of not doing so afterwards," the researchers said. In one scenario outlined in the paper, the group said the RFID-augmented labels used to expedite baggage handling can be targeted by a malicious traveler to cause chaos and panic in busy airports.
"Consider a malicious traveler who attaches a tiny RFID tag, pre-initialized with a virus, to a random person's suitcase before he checks it in. When the baggage-handling system's RFID reader scans the suitcase at a Y-junction in the conveyor-belt system to determine where to route it, the tag responds with the RFID virus, which could infect the airport's baggage database," the researchers explained.
"Then, all RFID tags produced as new passengers check in later in the day may also be infected. If any of these infected bags transit a hub, they will be rescanned there, thus infecting a different airport."
"Within a day, hundreds of airport databases all over the world could be infected," the team said, warning that an RFID virus could also carry a payload that damages the database and, for example, helps drug smugglers or terrorists hide their baggage from airline and government officials.




Quest Says They are 'Net' Nutral

The concept of net neutrality has become an issue of increasing debate and concern in recent years as users seek guarantees they will have ready access to the global Internet unfettered by government censorship or by unreasonable service charges imposed by service providers driven by the profit motive.
This has raised calls for Congress to pass legislation that would protect net neutrality and for the FCC (Federal Communications Commission) to enact and enforce policies that prevent services providers from blocking traffic or imposing new fees for Internet access.
Qwest Communications CEO Richard Notebaert on March 15 voiced his company's commitment to "net neutrality," saying his company would never block traffic or degrade network performance as a way to maintain competitive advantage.
But with the next breath Notebaert said that government regulation shouldn't prevent service providers from negotiating "commercial agreements" that allow them to deliver different types or grades of service at a specific price. The market should be allowed to determine how it will package and charge for network services, he said.
"My job has never been to degrade service or to give any customers less capability than they asked for and paid for," Notebaert said, speaking at the VON (Voice Over Network) Spring Conference here.
However, Notebaert's position raised questions in the audience about Qwest's commitment to net neutrality if these commercial agreements might tend to restrict the public access or raise the cost of accessing Internet services or content. Jeffrey Pulver, founder and chairman of Pulvermedia, the host of the Spring 2006 VON Conference, said Qwest's approach amounted to nothing less than "payola" for access to Internet content and services.
Paying for different Internet service levels would eventually cause the "Balkanization" of the Internet in which users would have limited access to different classes of content or quality of service based upon their ability or willingness to pay.
This would occur just as users are getting access to more sophisticated services, such as voice and video, he noted.
He said he didn't believe that Internet users would accept any business policy or service-level agreements that limit their access to Internet content.
Over the past year, VOIP Service provider Vonage Holdings and other VOIP service providers have complained that some high-speed Internet service providers were blocking its IP telephone traffic.

Wednesday, March 15, 2006

The Correct Image Format For The Correct Situation:


Now you have no excuse not to use the correct image formats :


  • JPEG:

  • Good:

  • Photographs

  • Game screenshots

  • Movie stills

  • Desktop backgrounds

  • Bad:

  • Windows application screenshots

  • Line art and text

  • Anywhere where fine lines or sharp color contrast is needed

  • PNG:

  • Good:

  • Text, line art, comic-style drawings, general web graphics

  • Windows application screenshots

  • When absolutely 100% quality is required (24 bit)

  • When alpha channel support is required

  • As a general replacement for anything that is a non-animated GIF

  • Bad:

  • Photos, in-game screenshots (only when quality is not important and you're looking for small files)

  • Disappointing browser support from Microsoft and others

  • GIF:

  • Good:

  • Where animations are absolutely required

  • Widespread browser support

  • Bad:

  • Patented, legal techicalities

  • Large file sizes compared to PNG for the same quality

  • Obsolete

If you still aren't too sure on which to use when, check out the samples page. If you want to see more images or test your newfound knowledge, check out the samples page which contains a bunch more images.

Wednesday, March 08, 2006

The Internet as consumer surplus engine

Martin Geddes has long described the Net as a “consumer suplus engine” to anyone who’ll listen. It takes previously bundled billable services like voice telephony, strips out the service from the connectivity components, and stops you being over-charged for the service because of lack of competition on the connectivity. Anyhow, here’s the verbatim quote from Paul Kedrosky, who has found an academic paper that puts the numbers to what’s obvious to everyone: Only about 0.2% of consumer spending in the U.S. … went for Internet access in 2004 yet time use data indicates that people spend around 10% of their entire leisure time going online… Based on expenditure and time use data and our elasticity estimate, we calculate that consumer surplus from the Internet may be around 2% of full-income, or several thousand dollars per user. Wow, that’s pretty awsome, isn’t it? You’re only paying for about 10% of the value you get from your Internet connection. That other 90% becomes a budget for other, exciting services and activities. Who knows, your non-telco job may be funded by the consumer suplus of the Net! Personally, I suspect that this report will under-estimate the real value, because it only considers monetised value, and users as consumers of content and service. How can you put a price on the value of open, democratic discussion, for instance? Here's a thought: - In physical transport (atoms), we found that there was a complex business called “logistics” which is where the profit is; “trucking” is just a small function of logistics. With data networks (bits), it’s the exact opposite; there once was a complex “bit management” industry called telecom. This is slowly, painfully fading away. It’ll get replaced by a simpler industry that just teleports bits over geographic distance. We don’t have a name for it yet. - Telecom is just another utility delivering stuff through pipes. In fact, it’s just like a water utility — except you don’t have the glamour of sewage disposal.

Tuesday, March 07, 2006

Ray Ozzie Speaks on RSS XML and His New Flavor: SSE (Simple Sharing Extensions)

http://spaces.msn.com/rayozzie/Blog/cns!FB3017FBB9B2E142!285.entry  |  Comments
For years, many companies including Microsoft have invested significantly in the open, interoperable use of XML and Web Services toward enabling programmatic interconnection between processes, services and sites across the internet.  And that investment is bearing fruit as professional developers serving enterprises use powerful tools such as the .NET family of products toward decidedly embracing SOA.  The shift from monolithic toward composite applications has progressively become a reality in the enterprise, as we turn data center-based systems into a programmatic “mesh”.
 
But in the wild world of the web, composite applications have taken a notably different path – the most popular form these days being the mashup.  Although arguably far less powerful than going the WS route, mashups demonstrate how quickly a “mesh” can form when the process of wiring together components is made easy for the “scripting-level” developers.  These higher-level developers and integrators are critical to the development ecosystem: they exist in far greater numbers than formally trained programming professionals, and more often than not they possess key domain expertise – rapidly bridging technological capabilities into real world, valuable solutions.
 
Clearly as the flexibility and potential of “mashing up” and recombining application components gets closer to someone who understands the user’s needs, the value to that user increases.
 
And this is where my head has been at the past several months.  I’ve been wondering, “what would it take to enable users themselves to wire-the-web”?
 
If you happened to read my post about Simple Sharing Extensions last fall, you’re already likely aware of my optimism about the potential of using RSS as a DNA of sorts to enable “mesh” information sharing scenarios at a grassroots level on the internet.  I believe RSS has the potential to be the “UNIX pipe of the internet”, and that one of the simplest and most pervasive “mesh” needs that many of us have is to provide connections for things such as contacts, calendar entries, messages, files and the like.
 
About a month ago, while putting together a presentation that included the obligatory March Of History related to the emergence and significance of the GUI, I was struck with a fairly stark realization.
 
In the PC world, whose pre-GUI history was experienced through various flavors of MS-DOS, one of the greatest user benefits first delivered pervasively by the GUI was the radical concept of running multiple applications simultaneously and, more importantly, using them concurrently and inter-operably.  Through rigorous style guidelines and standard controls made available to application developers, suddenly users had the power to interact in ways that bridged divergent applications.
 
And what was the most fundamental technology enabling “mash-ups” of desktop applications?
 
The clipboard.  And a set of common clipboard data formats.
 
Before the clipboard, individual applications (such as Lotus 1-2-3 with its Copy and Move operations) enabled intra-application data transfer – in a world largely designed around a single running application.  But the advent of the multi-application user environment, combined with the simplicity of the Select/Cut/Copy/Paste/Clear model, suddenly empowered the user in ways they hadn’t previously experienced.
 
In its simplest form, the clipboard enabled the user to simply grasp the concept of moving a copy of the information from one application to another (i.e. by value).
 
In its most advanced form, the clipboard enabled users to set up “publish and subscribe” relationships among applications – dynamically interconnecting a “publisher” with a “subscriber” (i.e. by reference).  You can see an early such PC application mashup in one of my old posts.
 
So … I started to think:
 
The world of the Web today is enabled by the power of a simple user model – Address/Go or Link, Back, Forward, Home.  And certain “in-page” models have emerged from the ether: clicking the logo in the upper-left is Home, search in the upper-right, Legal/Corporate/Privacy/etc at the bottom.  How we interact with shopping carts is now fairly standard.
 
But each site is still in many ways like a standalone application.  Data inside of one site is contained within a silo.  Sure, we can cut and paste text string fragments from here to there, but the excitement on the web these days is all about “structured data” such as Contacts and Profiles, Events and Calendars, and Shopping Carts and Receipts, etc.  And in most cases, the structured form of this data, which could be externalized as an XML item or a microformat, generally isn’t.  It’s trapped inside the page, relegated to a pretty rendering.
 
So, where’s the clipboard of the web?
 
Where’s the user model that would enable a user to copy and paste structured information from one website to another?
 
Where’s the user model that would enable a user to copy and paste structured information from a website to an application running on a PC or other kind of device, or vice-versa?
 
And finally, where’s the user model that would enable a user to “wire the web”, by enabling publish-and-subscribe scenarios web-to-web, or web-to-PC?
 
Just think about that last scenario. It’s a mess today.  Let’s look at the most adopted form of wiring-the-web today: RSS feeds for blogs.
 
There are three classes of generally available weblog feed readers:
1. PC-based aggregators such as NewsGator or NetNewsWire
2. Web-based aggregators such as Bloglines or live.com
3. Browser-based aggregators such as Internet Explorer or Firefox
 
Many blog sites are prepared to publish content through feeds.  But how do they suggest to the user that they establish a subscription within their preferred blog aggregator?
 
In the case of #3 above, browser designers have (thankfully) agreed upon a simple technique wherein a special icon “lights up” when a page contains feeds to which you can subscribe. This icon is: (image placeholder)
 
However, in the case of #1 and #2 above, we’re in a world of hurt
 

 
Some PC-based aggregators use custom registered URL schemes such as “scheme://feed-path”; others use techniques such as http://localhost/feed-path.  Web-based aggregators pass the feed-path in the url, e.g. http://subscriber-site/subscriber?feed-path.  The user experience for subscription is a mess.
 
And what of the promise beyond weblogs for feed-based publish and subscribe?  Today’s user experience is certainly constraining what might be.
 
After thinking about this for a while … I had an idea .
 
The idea was based on using a simple and consistent user model to wire-the-web that would assist individuals in creating their own mesh of interconnections - both web-to-web and web-to-PC.
 
Simply stated, I’d like to extend the clipboard user model to the web.
 
A few weeks ago, I approached my brother Jack – who leads a Concept Development team in my group at Microsoft – and visually sketched out and storyboarded some end-to-end user scenarios that I wanted to try to accomplish.  The scenarios were all centered on this new clipboard user model.
 
The team took me up on the challenge, and in a few short weeks had accomplished all of the scenarios, and more.  And they did it using techniques that are incredibly simple, and which work securely and are browser independent.
 
Today at O’Reilly’s Emerging Technology Conference, I’m sharing this new concept – through a brief demo and through hallway discussion.
 
I call this new concept Live Clipboard, because we view “live” efforts as those providing users with seamless end-to-end scenarios that “just work” by weaving together the best of software and the best of services.
 
The Concept Development team has created a screencast of a Live Clipboard demo, and a simple web page-based demo that you can play with.  Hopefully this will convey more vividly some of what I’ve attempted to explain above.
 
There are quite a few key influencers attending ETech, and it’s my aspiration that many of them, and many of you, will embrace this nascent technique, and “make it real” by working with us.  The goal is to create a standard that works across many different scenarios, many different types of websites, and many different PC-based applications.  In the same vein as Simple Sharing Extensions, we’re releasing our work under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike license.
 
For our part, a number of individuals from MSN and Windows Live will now be actively participating in the refinement of Live Clipboard toward ultimately implementing it on sites such as live.com.  Those who’ve seen it are quite excited about bringing this value to users.
 
I'd like you to help evolve LiveClipboard from an idea to reality - please join the discussion at: LIVE-CLIP@DISCUSS.MICROSOFT.COM
 
Enjoy, and please share.
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Monday, March 06, 2006

Vyatta to Challange Cisco IOS and other Router Operating Systems

By Phil Hochmuth Linux and open source pros who have followed the developments of the eXtensible Open Router Platform (XORP) should get to know a bit of Sanskrit - the word Vyatta, in particular. Vyatta, which means "openness" in the ancient language, is also the name of a start-up that is promoting a commercial version of the XORP software. Created by Internet researchers, XORP was developed to test out new code for routers and network equipment. Based on this code, and some of its own tweaks and modifications, Vyatta recently released a beta version of its product - a downloadable CD image that can turn any Intel-based PC into a full-fledged (albeit full-fledged beta) version of a Cisco or Juniper WAN router. The CD image includes the XORP code, and a modified version of Linux, optimized to run as a router platform (superfluous packages removed, and loose security ends tied down). Vyatta says someone using its router could save as much as 50% to 90% of the cost of buying and maintaining a proprietary WAN router from a major vendor. It's the same story as in the data center with Linux/proprietary operating system swap-outs: cheaper Intel hardware costs. Some router vendors can charge up to three times the regular cost of standard parts found at Best Buy or Circuit City, such as RAM, interface cards, power supplies and other hardware. The strength of open source is the other asset Vyatta touts. Many network equipment vendors use both proprietary and open source code in their gear, but run the software in a black box without giving users access to it. Vyatta says a potentially worldwide network of eyeballs finding bugs and shoring up vulnerabilities in its code will make it robust enough for deployments in the most critical networks - such as financial services, defense or the Internet core. Vyatta says it will follow a familiar open-source business model: offer its product for free, charging for support and consulting. Its production version is scheduled for later this year.

Visual image search with Tiltomo Search Engine

Content based visual search engine Tiltomo searches images and returns results based on their visual similarity to the source image. 'Our approach is to allow free thinking, where search results are influenced by what you see. Our system encourages you to make a broad search and narrow the types of images you like. It's as simple as searching a keyword, then clicking the image you like to see more. We feel this way of searching allows you to follow your own creative path, and find images that you might not normally look for.' Tiltomo is currently in beta, but after playing around with the search for a bit, you can start to see the potential for something like this. At the very least, it's another excellent way to discover new and interesting photography...Awesome ! Tiltomo

Saturday, March 04, 2006

Backdoor for Law Enforcement on Vista ? 'Over My Dead Body' Update

Windows Vista won't have a backdoor that could be used by police forces to get into encrypted files, Microsoft has stressed. In February, a BBC News story suggested that the British government was in discussions with Microsoft over backdoor access to the operating system. A backdoor is a method of bypassing normal authentication to gain access to a computer without to the PC user knowing. But Microsoft has now quelled the suggestion that law enforcement might get such access. "Microsoft has not and will not put 'backdoors' into Windows," a company representative said in a statement sent via e-mail. The discussion centers on BitLocker Drive Encryption, a planned security feature for Vista, the update to the Windows operating system. BitLocker encrypts data to protect it if the computer is lost or stolen. This feature could make it harder for law enforcement agencies to get access to data on seized computers. "The suggestion is that we are working with governments to create a back door so that they can always access BitLocker-encrypted data," Niels Ferguson, a developer and cryptographer at Microsoft, wrote Thursday on a corporate blog. "Over my dead body," he wrote in his post titled "Back-door nonsense." Microsoft is talking to various governments about Vista. However, the talks are about using the new operating system and BitLocker for their own security, Ferguson wrote. "We also get questions from law enforcement organizations. They foresee that they will want to read BitLocker-encrypted data, and they want to be prepared," he wrote. "Back doors are simply not acceptable," Ferguson wrote. "Besides, they wouldn't find anybody on this team willing to implement and test the back door." Windows Vista, the successor to Windows XP, is slated to be available by year's end. From 2\18\2006 From Vnunet: Microsoft may begin training the police in ways to break the encryption built into its forthcoming client PC operating system Vista. This is not the first time such links between Microsoft and the security services have received attention. In 1999 journalist Duncan Campbell alleged that Microsoft had reached a secret deal with the National Security Agency in the US to allow them backdoor access to Microsoft systems. More

Wednesday, March 01, 2006

It's Alive !...Windows Live

Windows Live Mail 5 is Live: Well, almost. It's coming very soon, we promise.  But for those who can't wait, here's a sneak peak at all the new features for Windows Live Mail Beta “M5” (M5 is geek speak for Milestone 5).  If you're a WL Mail beta tester you won’t have to do anything to get it -- your inbox will update automatically.  If you aren't a beta tester, go sign up!
 
Windows Live Portal has been updated, although still in beta it is already in the top 500 most visited websites and still climbing

New Windows Live Messenger 8 beta to be released Today

Windows Live Expo beta, a free online marketplace from Microsoft, helps customers define their own marketplace universe.
Microsoft Corp. today will release a beta version of Windows Live™ Expo (http://expo.live.com) nationwide. Previously in closed beta, Windows Live Expo is now accessible to all U.S. customers and expands the traditional classified ad concept by providing social networking and community features through a trustworthy, convenient and free online service.
“We’ve been watching our own Microsoft® internal marketplace service for the past couple of years and were inspired by employee behaviors. Regardless of the transaction, we noticed that trust and convenience are the key factors to closing a deal,” said Garry Wiseman, product unit manager for Windows Live Expo at Microsoft. “What sets Windows Live Expo apart is that people can set their own search parameters for goods and services. They can define their own marketplace universe.”
Windows Live Local technical preview (pre-beta version) will go live offering “street-side” level imagery for Seattle and San Francisco. Imagery is limited to core downtown areas of the two cities and US customers will be able to access the tech preview directly at http://preview.local.live.com  Windows Live Local technical preview will provide consumers with an early look to provide feedback on the limited release of “street-side” imagery for Windows Live Local. Additionally, consumers can utilize the imagery to augment the current road, aerial, and bird’s eye views currently available when searching for location specific information.
Also announced is that Windows Live in the future (when Vista lanches) will support Media Center. One thing that is already available in US now, which is MSN Remote Record, will be available in Windows Live. The second thing is that when you recorded TV, and you’re not at home but say in a hotel, you can watch the recording through Windows Live!Now that's cool, but I'm afraid it will be available for US only when launched.

AND FINALLY…
Microsoft Office Live was created to empower small businesses with online capabilities that previously have been unaffordable or too technologically complex for to set up and maintain. Microsoft Office Live offerings are geared to small businesses with fewer than 10 employees, and are designed to help you establish an online presence, automate key internal and external business tasks, and collaborate with employees, partners, and customers.
Our current offerings provide your business with the following:

  1. A professional Web site with a free domain name (for example, www.northwindtraders.com), company-branded e-mail accounts hosted by Microsoft, and easy design and reporting tools to create and maintain a company Web site

  2. An online repository for organizing company documents and contact information in one place to help you manage your businesses operations in a more secure and integrated manner

  3. A password-protected workspace, called a Shared Site, for online collaboration with employees, customers, partners, suppliers, and contractors

  4. A host of rich, yet simple, online applications for managing your customers, projects, and employees, as well as your sales, marketing, and company information
Here are just a few of the many Microsoft Office Live services:
Microsoft Office Live Basics. With Office Live Basics you get your own domain name (for example, www.northwindtraders.com); you can create a professional business Web site in minutes with our easy-to-use Site Designer tool. Plus, Web site traffic reports let you manage your business Web site without being a Web expert. You also get five company-branded e-mail accounts (for example, jsmith@northwindtraders.com) to help give your company the professional image it deserves. Built on Windows SharePoint Services, Office Live Basics helps your business establish a professional Web presence, with 30 MB of Web site storage. All at no charge.
Microsoft Office Live Collaboration. Also built on Windows SharePoint technology, Office Live Collaboration provides a password-protected online work environment, supplemented with richly functional business management applications. It is offered free of charge during the beta period and afterwards on a monthly subscription basis. Office Live Collaboration allows you to create any number of password-protected Web sites, called Shared Sites, for collaborating among internal employees as well as external customers, suppliers, and vendors.
As part of the Office Live Collaboration offering, you have access to more than 20 powerful and versatile business applications important to managing a business. These tools can assist you in everything from customer and project management to sales, marketing, and human resources. Because Microsoft hosts and supports the entire solution, your company saves the cost of expensive IT infrastructure and maintenance.
Microsoft Office Live Essentials. Office Live Essentials provides all of the features of Office Live Basics and Office Live Collaboration, including domain, hosting, and Web design services; password-protected Shared Sites; collaboration tools; and business management applications. In addition, it provides a Web site with 50 MB of storage, 50 e-mail accounts (with 2 GB of storage each), more advanced Web site traffic reports, and Microsoft Office FrontPage 2003 support for advanced Web design. Office Live Essentials is offered free of charge during the beta period, and afterwards at an attractively priced monthly subscription rate

Microsoft Offers Free USB Memory Sticks (in the US Only)

In its effort to get people to stop using pirated software and purchase only genuine products, Microsoft is resorting to some interesting tricks. One of these is to offer users an USB stick loaded with tons of information about MS’s licensing program, FAQs and others.This can be done by accessing a special web page with Microsoft’s new program, called “Mystery Solved”, which explains the intricate ways of licenses. After all the programs and unsuccessful strategies, the Redmond giant might finally be able to catch the user’s attention, this solution being quite elegant.All that users have to do is to fill in a form with their address and to answer some questions regarding Microsoft’s policy on licenses.The size of the USB stick is not mentioned, but the company says that it will take somewhere 6 to 8 weeks for delivery. Unfortunately, this program is for US residents only, which is rather strange considering that the piracy phenomenon hits Microsoft harder in other countries, like Russia or China.And since we are talking about licenses, it’s worth mentioning that Microsoft’s last move was to change the license agreement for OEMs. The company redefined the concept of computer and reduced it to the motherboard, which means that a newly acquired motherboard requires a new license for the operation system. Thanks bink.nu