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Friday, February 4, 2011

Report: Hackers penetrated Nasdaq computer network (AP) : Technet

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Report: Hackers penetrated Nasdaq computer network (AP) : Technet

Report: Hackers penetrated Nasdaq computer network (AP)

Posted: 04 Feb 2011 09:32 PM PST

– 1 min ago

NEW YORK – The computer network that runs the Nasdaq Stock Market has been penetrated by hackers multiple times during the past year, according to a newspaper report.

The Wall Street Journal reported on its website late Friday that federal investigators are trying to identify the perpetrators and their motive.

People familiar with the investigation say the exchange's trading platform, the system which executes trades, was not compromised, according to the report.

A person involved in the Nasdaq investigation told the newspaper that so far the perpetrators "appear to have just been looking around."

Nasdaq officials declined to comment.

Possible motives include financial gain, theft of trade secrets or a national security threat designed to damage the exchange, the newspaper said.

The Secret Service initiated the probe involving New York-based Nasdaq OMX Group Inc. last year. The FBI is also investigating the breach and White House officials have been informed.

Investigators have not yet been able to track the cyber break-ins to any specific individual or country, but people with knowledge of the case told the newspaper some evidence points to Russia. However, they point out that hackers could be just using Russia as a conduit.

In 1999, a group of hackers calling itself "United Loan Gunmen" infiltrated the computer that runs the websites for Nasdaq and the American Stock Exchange.

The hackers left a taunting message and also claimed to have briefly created for itself an e-mail account on Nasdaq's computer system, suggesting a broader breach in security. But at the time, Nasdaq officials said there was no evidence they manipulated financial data.

___

Information from: WALL ST. JOURNAL

How Google removed the muzzle on Twitter in Egypt (AP)

Posted: 04 Feb 2011 02:32 PM PST

By MICHAEL LIEDTKE, AP Technology Writer Michael Liedtke, Ap Technology Writer – Fri Feb 4, 5:32 pm ET

SAN FRANCISCO – Even before his first day on the job at Google, Ujjwal Singh was trying to figure out how to use his passion for the spoken word and the company's technological prowess to help Egyptians bypass government efforts to muzzle the massive protests there.

Singh, 38, helped start an online service that lets fans share voice messages with the likes of Miley Cyrus and the Jonas Brothers. Google bought the startup Jan. 25, and a Google product team leader trying to figure out a way around Egypt's recent Internet blackout asked Singh for help before he reported to work.

A weekend of brainstorming and programming later, Speak2Tweet was born — a service that lets people call a phone number and leave a message, then posts a link to the message to Twitter.

It allowed Egyptians to communicate even as the regime of President Hosni Mubarak cut Internet and cell phone services for days, trying to squelch furious protests in the streets of Cairo demanding an end to his three decades of authoritarian rule.

By the time Singh started his job Monday, his service was already part of the uprising.

"He designed, built and launched his first product before he started at Google, which is now our all-time record," says Steve Crossan, a Google product manager who has been working at the Internet search leader for five years.

Almost 2,900 spoken tweets had been posted as of Friday afternoon on the Twitter account (at)speak2tweet. Some of the heaviest volume came after access to both Twitter and the Internet was restored in Egypt earlier this week. The alternative method of tweeting has turned into a forum for longer-form expression because the voice recordings aren't confined to Twitter's 140-character limit.

Another Twitter account, (at)AliveInEgypt, has been set up to transcribe the messages, which are mostly in Arabic, into text. An Internet radio station also is playing the voice recordings at http://egypt.periszkopradio.hu.

The service has been used to express outrage, indignation, fear, exhilaration and pleas for help in the fight to oust Mubarak. "This corrupt regime must be eliminated," said one of the translated tweets on AliveInEgypt. Another said: "For all our Arab Brothers, for all the men in Tahrir Square. Please help us, stand with us, if you abandon us we will die."

One woman, speaking in English, said it would take more than an Internet blackout to silence her. "The last time when they did this I was completely freaked out," she said. "I was so scared that they are going to, like, shoot us all and nobody would know about us. This time I am not scared at all. I feel like I want to tell them, `Bring it on.'"

There is no way to verify that every tweet came from the site of the protests, or even from Egypt. When the service can trace the country code of the call, it adds a note, or hashtag, specifying the location.

The service's use was limited by the very problem that created it: Without Internet access, most Egyptians didn't know Speak2Tweet existed, says Jillian York, a project coordinator for the Berkman Center for Internet & Society in Harvard University.

Even so, it provided a vital link between Egypt and the rest of the world, says Cynthia Wong, director of the Center for Democracy & Technology's Project on Global Internet Freedom. As the word of the service spreads, York expects it to attract more voice messages because only about one-fourth of Egypt's population has Internet access.

"It's important for activists and companies to do everything they can to keep the channels of communication open when a government is trying to shut them down," Wong says.

The service got its start Jan. 28, when Crossan began to wonder how people might be able to get their messages out to a mass audience without the help of Internet or text messaging on mobile phones.

Crossan says he wasn't interested in making a political statement — he just wanted to tackle a complex problem that also might further Google's crusade to "organize the world's information and make it universally accessible."

So Crossan contacted a former Google colleague, Katie Stanton, who now oversees Twitter's international services. She referred him to Benjy Weinberger, another former Google employee who is now a Twitter engineer. The two men spent the rest of Friday swapping ideas through instant messages and e-mail.

Cooperating with Google on the project was a no-brainer for Twitter. "Twitter is more about human communications than technology," Stanton says. "We want people's voices to be heard."

Initially, Crossan and Weinberger tinkered with a system that would interpret the tones of a telephone keypad and translate the sounds into tweets. After that idea proved too complicated, Crossan remembered something he had read earlier in the week: Google had just acquired a Palo Alto, Calif., startup called SayNow, which developed technology that lets teens exchange spoken messages with celebrities.

Crossan, 39, decided to contact SayNow's founders, Singh and Nikhyl Singhal, about the problem before they were scheduled to start work for their new parent company.

Crossan was helping his 2-year-old son ride a bike for the first time in a neighborhood park Saturday morning when he heard back from Singh. The two men figured they might be able to develop a voice-to-tweet service by building on the same technology SayNow used.

"Voices capture emotion, personality and the moment," Singh says. "It gives you the intangible that you can't get through text and data."

The idea had another appeal: It would work whether the person was calling on a rotary telephone or a smart phone.

With the help of Google employees in Switzerland and Australia, the new tweeting service was taking shape late Saturday night when Crossan realized he had overlooked one detail: He hadn't even told Google what he was doing.

That wasn't a major oversight because Google co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin have always encouraged engineers to devote 20 percent of their time to pet projects. In theory, the freedom is supposed to foster new ideas and drive employees to work harder so their pet projects might turn into actual products more quickly.

The formula worked well in Google's early days, but the pace of innovation has slowed as the company grown to more than 24,000 employees. Google CEO Eric Schmidt is stepping aside from that job in April and handing the reins to Page as part of an effort to weed out bureaucracy and accelerate decision-making.

In Crossan's case, he saw that one of his bosses, Bradley Horowitz, happened to be online late Saturday. Crossan e-mailed him about the new service. Crossan said Horowitz told him the idea was "awesome." Crossan and Singh spent the rest of the night spent coding.

Although the speak-to-tweet service was available before dawn Sunday morning, it didn't attract a lot of attention until Google announced it on its corporate blog Monday afternoon.

Now, Crossan and Singh are hoping the speak-to-tweet survive will survive long after Egypt quiets down. If nothing else, they say it will serve as a reminder that phones still can serve another purpose besides texting and surfing the Web.

___

Online:

http://egypt.periszkopradio.hu

Zuckerberg dad: Mark got computer exposure young (AP)

Posted: 04 Feb 2011 01:07 PM PST

By BETH J. HARPAZ, Associated Press Beth J. Harpaz, Associated Press – Fri Feb 4, 4:07 pm ET

NEW YORK – Mark Zuckerberg's father said in a radio interview Friday that an early exposure to computers inspired his son's interest in technology, and he encouraged parents to support their children's strengths and passions with a balance of "work and play."

"My kids all grew up around the office and were all exposed to computers," said Dr. Edward Zuckerberg, a dentist. "There are advantages to being exposed to computers early on. That certainly enriched Mark's interest in technology."

Zuckerberg said he computerized his offices in 1985. His son Mark Zuckerberg, cofounder and CEO of Facebook, was born in 1984 and was raised in the house where his father's dental offices are located in Dobbs Ferry, N.Y., in suburban Westchester.

The dentist spoke for an hour on Westchester station WVOX in an interview with Paul Feiner, supervisor of Greenburgh. Dobbs Ferry is a village in the town of Greenburgh.

The dentist said his own computer science background was "limited" — he majored in biology in college — but he said he's "always been technologically oriented in the office" and "always had the latest high-tech toys," including an early Atari 800.

"It came with a disk for programming," he said. "I thought Mark might be interested and I imparted that knowledge to him. From there it took off."

He said Mark got a book on programming, but "ultimately his ability to program was self-taught."

Feiner and a number of callers to the live radio program asked Zuckerberg for advice on parenting.

"Probably the best thing I can say is something that my wife and I have always believed in," he said. "Rather than impose upon your kids or try and steer their lives in a certain direction, to recognize what their strengths are and support their strengths and support the development of the things they're passionate about."

Zuckerberg said he "didn't believe in physical discipline" but added that certain behaviors require parents to let children know "right there on the spot, this is a behavior that will not be tolerated. If you impart your dislikes about certain negative behaviors early in their lives, they will learn to understand what your feelings on certain matters are."

Zuckerberg said he was not familiar with a new best-seller called "Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother," which recommends pushing children to succeed academically in part by limiting extracurricular activities.

Zuckerberg said he doesn't want to portray himself as an expert on childrearing, but he said: "I think that extremes in any form in parenting are not good. Children need to be well-rounded. There's a place for work and a place for play."

He described Mark as "a good student" with "a special affinity for math and sciences," as well as a "very quiet guy" who "doesn't like to boast about his accomplishments." He said that when Mark was named Time magazine's person of the year, his famous son remarked that "it must have been a really slow year. He's very humble."

"I'm proud of his accomplishments and the accomplishments of all my kids," he added. Mark's sister Randi is marketing director for Facebook, his sister Donna is a Ph.D. candidate in classics at Princeton, and the youngest, Arielle, is a senior at Claremont McKenna College with a minor in computer science. Her dad said "she's doing a job search right now."

Asked for his opinion of the movie "The Social Network," Zuckerberg said, "If I sat back and looked at it as a movie and not as a story about my son, it was a tolerable experience." But he added that there were aspects of the film "which did not accurately reflect the way certain situations occurred. That was disturbing to me."

Asked by a caller whether his wife, Karen, worked when their children were young, he said, "My wife was a superwoman. She managed to work and be home. We had a unique situation because my office was in the house. I highly recommend it if it works for your occupation. It did afford the ability to work and be home with the kids at the same time."

Karen Zuckerberg is a psychiatrist but she helps out in her husband's office.

Zuckerberg said he uses Facebook to promote his dental practice and spends about an hour a day on the site. He also still does Mark's "routine dental care."

Lady Gaga collaborator talks "Born This Way" album (Reuters)

Posted: 04 Feb 2011 05:02 PM PST

By Jason Lipshutz Jason Lipshutz – Fri Feb 4, 8:02 pm ET

NEW YORK (Billboard) – When Lady Gaga leaked the lyrics to "Born This Way" online last week, the pop star also revealed the production team behind her highly anticipated next single.

Along with Gaga and Interscope producer/songwriter Fernando Garibay, the music is credited to DJ White Shadow -- a Chicago producer and mixtape specialist whose real name is Paul Blair.

As one of the primary collaborators on the Gaga's "Born This Way" album, DJ White Shadow says that he is spending "20-hour days" in the studio to help finish the set in time for its May 23 release.

The producer found some time to check in with Billboard.com and share a few details about his collaboration with Gaga, her new album and the sound of its first single, which is set to debut on February 13.

Billboard: How did you come to work with Lady Gaga on "Born This Way?"

DJ White Shadow: Gaga was listening to my mixtapes after someone she knew heard me DJ in a club in L.A. One day Gaga e-mailed me and asked me if I made my own beats. I said yes, sent her some, and she hit me back, this time on the phone, asking if I wanted to work with her on some stuff. I said okay.

Billboard: When and where did you record the song "Born This Way?" How would you describe the sound of it?

Shadow: She made it. She came up with the idea, she wrote it. She is a genius. We recorded it around the world, on the road, in whatever was available. It sounds like it reads, but not like you think until you hear it.

Billboard: Did you work on any other album tracks?

Shadow: Yes. I have been working on this record for well over a year. It has been awesome. Sonically it is much more complex. It's beautiful. Like a golden spaceship touching down on a rainbow runway in a field of fresh mint.

Billboard: What are you working on now?

Shadow: Finishing this record. Making remixes. Listening to yacht rock. The usual.

(Editing by Zorianna Kit)

RIM Pushing WebWorks for Phone, PlayBook Development (PC World)

Posted: 04 Feb 2011 05:50 PM PST

Stephen Lawson Stephen Lawson – Fri Feb 4, 8:50 pm ET

Research In Motion's BlackBerry WebWorks Application Platform lets developers use standard Web tools to create applications that work like native programs on RIM's smartphones and PlayBook tablets, company officials said Thursday.

WebWorks, a rebranded version of the BlackBerry Widgets development platform that now uses the WebKit Web rendering engine, was released last September at the BlackBerry Developer Conference in San Francisco. On Thursday, RIM returned to San Francisco to give more details about WebWorks, which has been made open source and is available through the open-source development site GitHub. WebWorks is RIM's first application environment for both smartphones and the PlayBook tablet, which is scheduled to go on sale by the end of March. A beta version of the WebWorks SDK (Software Development Kit) for Tablet OS was introduced last month.

RIM rebranded Widgets to emphasize that it can be used to create entire applications instead of just the small on-screen tools usually associated with widget platforms, said Christopher Smith, senior director of research and development for the BlackBerry Development Platform.

"A WebWorks application is a complete application. It has full access to all the native methods on the device. All of the data, all of the services," Smith said. All the security tools and policies on the BlackBerry platform also apply to that app, he said.

"Under the hood, we are actually wrapping the Web engine in a native container," Smith said. For BlackBerry smartphones, that wrapper is Java, and for the upcoming PlayBook, it is based on Adobe Flash and Air, he said.

With WebWorks, developers can program in HTML5, CSS and JavaScript and create applications that are far richer than typical Web-based offerings, said Jeff Jackson, senior vice president of software at RIM. It's hard to tell the difference between Web and native applications based on appearance or capability, Jackson said. At the event, RIM demonstrated multimedia applications on the PlayBook that were written with the standard Web tools, such as an animation program written entirely in CSS.

The company offers WebWorks in addition to its native BlackBerry development environment because many mobile developers don't want to learn new programming tools to write apps for each vendor's platform, Smith said. James Pearce, senior director of developer relations at framework vendor Sencha, agreed with that view and said Web-based tools are a good common denominator.

"The Web is a crazy thing to bet against," Pearce said.

Using standard Web-based technologies is a smart strategy for RIM, which is unlikely to attract the kind of following that the iPhone and Android platforms have built up among developers, said IDC analyst Will Stofega. It lowers the hurdles to getting into BlackBerry development, which could encourage more developers to write for BlackBerry phones and the PlayBook, he said.

There are more than 19,000 applications in the BlackBerry App World store now, and about 35 million mobile users have downloaded apps so far, with a current rate of about 2 million downloads per day, Smith said. But that pales in comparison to Apple's iPhone App Store, which has more than 300,000 apps available, and the Android Market, which app tracking company AndroLib has estimated at about 200,000. The iPhone App Store recently celebrated its 10 billionth download. AndroLib recently estimated the Android Market has had 2.5 billion downloads.

Stephen Lawson covers mobile, storage and networking technologies for The IDG News Service. Follow Stephen on Twitter at @sdlawsonmedia. Stephen's e-mail address is stephen_lawson@idg.com

Android Web Market still a bit wonky, but coming along (Appolicious)

Posted: 04 Feb 2011 12:24 PM PST

Facebook to unveil Menlo Park campus next week (Reuters)

Posted: 04 Feb 2011 05:23 PM PST

– Fri Feb 4, 8:23 pm ET

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – Facebook, which turned seven on Friday, already needs new offices.

The world's largest social network invited reporters to an event on Tuesday to showcase a new campus in Menlo Park, adjacent to its current headquarters in Palo Alto, California.

"We're holding a press event on Tuesday, February 8, at Menlo Park City Hall regarding a campus that will fit our long-term business needs," a Facebook spokesperson said. "We look forward to sharing more at that time. "

Facebook, founded in a Harvard dorm room in 2004, secured $1.5 billion in its latest round of financing, led by Goldman Sachs.

The social networking site, which has more than 2,000 employees, displaced Google Inc to become the most visited Web site in the U.S. in 2010 according to Experian Hitwise.

Facebook has grown rapidly and has more than half a billion global users compared with about 100 million in August 2008.

(Editing by Carol Bishopric)

Galaxy Tab Gets Hacked, Finally Runs Gingerbread (PC World)

Posted: 04 Feb 2011 02:55 PM PST

Elizabeth Fish Elizabeth Fish – Fri Feb 4, 5:55 pm ET

Owners of the Samsung Galaxy Tab have so far waited pretty patiently for Google to upgrade the tablet from Froyo (a not-so-tablet-friendly version of Android) to Gingerbread. But it would seem one developer got a little too impatient waiting for the update, so got to work adding Android 2.3 themselves.

XDA Developers Forum member "Technomancer" managed to devise a hack that allows the Samsung Galaxy Tab to successfully run Gingerbread. All the hack takes is one downloadable file and an unprotected bootloader that can run Euro ROMs. Sadly, it appears to be a little fiddly.

There are minimal instructions on how to run this hack so is best left to more confident tinkerers. It is also still a little buggy, with only basic functions like WiFi, voice calls and 3G data and GPS working fully for most. Though Technomancer and the XDA crew are currently working on the bugs, so stay tuned for an even more stable update or at least make a backup.

[XDA Developers]

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Verizon sees 'record' first-day sales with iPhone (AP)

Posted: 04 Feb 2011 04:07 PM PST

By PETER SVENSSON, AP Technology Writer Peter Svensson, Ap Technology Writer – Fri Feb 4, 7:07 pm ET

NEW YORK – Verizon Wireless on Friday said its first day of taking online orders for the iPhone produced record sales, and it's stopped taking orders until Wednesday.

The cell phone carrier said that in just two hours Thursday morning, between 3 a.m. and 5 a.m., more customers had ordered the phone than in the full day of any previous phone launch.

The company didn't specify how many iPhones had been ordered. It halted orders at 8:10 p.m. Thursday, and said it will resume taking orders at 3 a.m. on Wednesday.

It's only taking orders from current Verizon subscribers. The phone will be available in stores for the general public next Thursday, but supplies are likely to be tight.

AT&T Inc. has so far been the exclusive carrier of Apple Inc.'s popular phone in the U.S. It activated 15.2 million of them last year. Analyst estimates for Verizon iPhone sales this year vary widely, from 5 million to 13 million. Analysts expect the sales to Verizon subscribers will be strong, but the big question is how many iPhone buyers will be jumping ship from other carriers.

Barclays Capital analyst James Ratcliffe wrote in a research note Friday that he had been expecting that AT&T would still be able to add a net 250,000 subscribers on contract-based plans in the first quarter, but news of the strong iPhone pre-orders on Verizon prompted him to lower that forecast to zero.

Verizon shares fell 7 cents to close at $36.31. AT&T shares fell 2 cents to $27.97. Both stocks are close to their two-year highs.

Verizon is offering trade-in rebates for new customers, which can help offset the cost of breaking a contract with AT&T. For instance, it's offering $212 for a 16-gigabyte iPhone 4 in good condition. AT&T's fee for breaking an iPhone 4 contract early is $325, but that's pro-rated by $10 per month.

On Thursday, Verizon revealed that it will slow down traffic for heavy data users on unlimited plans if they're hogging the local cell tower. This only applies to subscribers signing up for a new data plan, or renewing a contract. Since the unlimited data plan is required for the iPhone, Verizon is reserving the right to throttle all iPhone traffic.

It also said it will conserve data capacity by recoding all online video requested by data subscribers. It said the effect on image quality should be minimal.

This Is Why You Always Pay Your Web Designer (Mashable)

Posted: 04 Feb 2011 01:32 PM PST

Jolie O'Dell Jolie O'dell – Fri Feb 4, 4:32 pm ET

The cattier corners of the web have been tittering over a certain chiropractor's website gone awry, courtesy of a disgruntled and allegedly unpaid web designer.

The designer in question, whose identity is currently (and fortunately for said designer) unknown, created a website for a chiropractic firm, Winona Chiropractic Center, provided hosting services the site. When the firm allegedly "failed to pay any of their total web design bill, despite repeated attempts by their web design agency to collect," the designer, who claimed to have "a childish sense of humor," hijacked the site as his or her own personal billboard of bitterness.

"Please note that I have waited years for this business to pay," stated the "new and improved" version of the site. "I have hosted their site for free since about 2007. This is me giving up."

The rant continued, "Personally, I wouldn't trust a doctor of any kind who couldn't pony up for what, in the grand scheme of things, is a small charge for their web design. Do what you will, though."

The site gathered some attention starting with a Reddit thread or two; but apparently, the piqued digital creative responsible suffered from an acute fit of remorse late in the afternoon because the page has now been entirely removed.

The Internet being the slice of magic that it is, we're able to reproduce the page here:

Click for large version.

We certainly do agree that the designer's actions were childish, but the long-simmering rage that builds when deadbeat clients refuse to pay their bills can cause folks to go a little bonkers after a few months, to say nothing of a couple years.

Web devs and designers, we want to know, has a client ever refused to honor your invoice? Vote in the poll, and in the comments, let us know how you handled the situation -- especially if your solution was particularly mature, effective or at least funny.




Image courtesy of iStockphoto, clintspencer

Verizon claims record iPhone pre-order sales, AT&T offers more free stuff (Appolicious)

Posted: 04 Feb 2011 10:59 AM PST

Canada court overturns government ruling on Globalive (Reuters)

Posted: 04 Feb 2011 02:34 PM PST

By Alastair Sharp Alastair Sharp – Fri Feb 4, 5:34 pm ET

TORONTO (Reuters) – A Canadian court struck down on Friday a federal government move to allow Globalive, a company with substantial foreign control, to operate a wireless service in Canada.

The Federal Court judgment said the government's decision to overturn a federal telecoms regulator's ruling, which sought to prevent Globalive from operating, was "null and void in that it was determined on a basis in law not provided for in the Telecommunications Act."

The court decision will not go into effect for 45 days, leaving room for an appeal or changes to be made to privately held Globalive's ownership or management structures.

Globalive launched wireless services in Canada under the Wind Mobile brand in December 2009, and has since signed up more than 250,000 subscribers to its low-cost, no-contract and unlimited calling plans.

The regulator, the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC), had blocked Wind Mobile from operating, ruling it was not sufficiently Canadian-owned due to its financial backing from Egypt's Orascom Telecom.

Canadian law restricts foreign ownership to 20 percent of a telecom company's voting shares. Direct and indirect foreign control is limited to 46.7 percent.

Orascom Telecom holds 32 percent of the voting shares in Globalive and 65 percent of the total equity. It also provided the company with a $800 million loan guarantee.

"We are currently examining our options but this is not over yet. We don't intend to back down," said Anthony Lacavera, Globalive's chairman.

Industry Minister Tony Clement, who made the initial ruling allowing Wind Mobile to operate, said the government was also studying the ruling and considering its options.

"Our government stands with consumers who want more competition," he said on the microblogging website Twitter.

Clement said on Thursday his government would overturn another CRTC ruling if the regulator did not reconsider it. The ruling, which the regulator later said it would reconsider, would have forced usage-based billing on all Internet service providers.

The Globalive case, docket number T-26-10 in the Federal Court in Ottawa, was brought to court by competitor Public Mobile which, like Globalive, bought wireless spectrum in a 2008 government auction.

Public Mobile was supported in its submission by Canada's major established wireless providers: Telus, BCE Inc's Bell Canada, Rogers Communications and Shaw Communications.

"In my view, Public Mobile has more foreign influence than Globalive and yet they were not subjected to a public review," Globalive' Lacavera told Reuters in a telephone interview. "They are a smaller competitor and they are not seen as a threat by the incumbents."

Public is backed by MC Ventures and Columbia Capital.

(Reporting by Alastair Sharp; editing by Rob Wilson and Peter Galloway)

85 percent of US adults own cellphone: survey (AFP)

Posted: 04 Feb 2011 11:11 AM PST

– Fri Feb 4, 2:11 pm ET

WASHINGTON (AFP) – Mobile phones are the most popular gadget among adult Americans followed by computers, digital music players, game consoles and electronic book readers, according to a new survey.

The survey by the Pew Research Center's Internet & American Life Project found that 85 percent of Americans 18 and older own a cellphone and 90 percent of all adults live in a household with at least one cellphone.

Fifty-nine percent of American adults own a desktop computer, 52 percent own a laptop computer and four percent own a tablet like Apple's iPad, Pew said in the study, "Generations and their gadgets."

Forty-seven percent own an iPod or another MP3 digital music player and 42 percent own a game console.

Five percent own an e-book reader like Amazon's Kindle.

Only nine percent of those surveyed do not own any of the devices although the percentage of "gadget-less" rises to 20 percent among Americans aged 66 to 74 and to 43 percent among those 75 or older.

Americans between 18 and 34 were more likely to own a laptop computer (70 percent) than a desktop computer (57 percent). Only 28 percent of Americans 75 and older own desktops and only 10 percent own laptops.

Digital music players are most popular among the 18 to 34 crowd with 74 percent of so-called "Millennials" owning one, Pew said, and the percentage decreasing steadily by age.

Game consoles are equally popular among adults aged 18 to 34 and those 35 to 46, with 63 percent of both age groups owning the devices and the number falling to 38 percent among those between the ages of 47 to 56.

Pew said the survey of 3,001 American adults was conducted in August and September and has a margin of error of plus or minus three percentage points.

Remains of the Day: Ad nauseam (Macworld)

Posted: 04 Feb 2011 04:30 PM PST

Dan Moren Dan Moren – Fri Feb 4, 7:30 pm ET

It's Super Bowl weekend, and you know what that means: commercials, commercials, commercials. Verizon and AT&T are lobbing shells at each other via ads, while Motorola is prepping a familiar-looking spot for its Xoom tablet. Also, what do doctors and leopards have in common? Strangely enough, the iPad. The remainders for Friday, February 4, 2011 will return after these messages.

Answer (YouTube)

Sure, Verizon got a dig in at AT&T's expense with its latest ad, but that doesn't mean it gets the last laugh. AT&T has retaliated with a spot touting its iPhone's ability to handle voice and data simultaneously, sending an important message to consumers that AT&T is the network for schlubby guys who forget their anniversaries. Gold.

The Xoom Super Bowl Ad: 1984 Meets 2011 (Gizmodo)

A brief taste of the Super Bowl spot for Motorola's forthcoming Android-based Xoom tablet has definite hints of Apple's classic 1984 commercial (look no further than the e-book the guy's reading or what the mindless drones are wearing). Because imitation is the sincerest form of, uh, inspiration.

The Checkup - FDA approves iPhone, iPad app for docs (Washington Post)

Next time you head to the hospital, don't be surprised if you see your doctor carrying an iPad. She's not just playing Words with Friends—she's looking inside your brain. Or the rest of your body, thanks to a newly FDA-approved app for viewing MRI, PET, and CT scan results. Word has it that the forthcoming iPad 2 can be rubbed on afflicted area to repair it with its magical healing aura.

How to get a job at Apple (Electricpig)

Looking to send your resume out to Cupertino? The Electricpig team has put together a host of tips to improve your chances, including what to study, how to dress for the interview, and tips about the company's corporate culture. Meanwhile, the follow-up piece, "How not to get a job at Apple," includes handy pointers like discussing your personal shrine to Steve Jobs, ending your sentences with "boom," and wearing a homemade suit of brushed aluminum.

And Now, a Video of Jungle Cats Playing with an iPad (Gizmodo)

The folks at North Carolina's Conservator Center loaded up their iPads with Hiccup's Game for Cats iPad app and gave their resident big cats a chance to try and catch virtual mice. For heaven's sake, people, these are proud, noble creatures! Shame on you.

(ohmygoditssoadorable)

Wall Street Beat: Business Software, E-commerce Shine (PC World)

Posted: 04 Feb 2011 02:10 PM PST

Marc Ferranti Marc Ferranti – Fri Feb 4, 5:10 pm ET

With most tech bellwethers having reported financial results, the earnings season is coming to a close, but BMC, NetSuite, AOL and IAC results this week offered insights into aspects of business IT and the Internet sector.

In addition, comScore Friday had good news for e-commerce, reporting that 2010 fourth-quarter online retail sales estimates reached a record US$43.4 billion, an increase of 11 percent compared to the year-earlier figure. The growth was the fifth consecutive quarter of year-over-year increases, comScore said.

Market growth in the tech sector recently has been ascribed mainly to strong sales for business IT vendors, but the comScore figures come as a vote of confidence in the consumer retail arena.

"Retail e-commerce had a strong fourth quarter, growing 11 percent versus last year as holiday season spending was bolstered by an improving sentiment among some consumer segments and by retailers' discounting and promotions," said comScore Chairman Gian Fulgoni in a statement.

During the week, vendors of corporate software reported strong sales, echoing results from their larger counterparts earlier in the season.

Business service and automation software maker BMC Wednesday reported that revenue for the quarter ending Dec. 31 was $540 million, a record and up 6 percent from the year earlier. Net income was $109 million, down from $111 million a year earlier. Excluding one-time charges, however, income was $143 million, up 1 percent from 2010.

BMC looks well-positioned, reporting $594 million in bookings for the quarter, up 10 percent from the year-earlier period.

"Our service automation, SaaS, and cloud solutions all continue to show strong increases in customer demand," said Bob Beauchamp, BMC's chairman and chief executive officer, in the company's earnings statement.

BMC remains bullish on the year, forecasting a earnings per share of $2.92 to $3.02, compared to estimates of $3 by analysts polled by Thomson Reuters.

Another enterprise software maker reporting an increase in sales was NetSuite. The hosted business software maker Thursday said total revenue for the fourth quarter of 2010 was $52.1 million, a 21 percent year-over-year increase. The company continues to lose money, though losses are narrowing slightly. The company's fourth-quarter loss was $6.4 million compared to a loss of $6.5 million a year earlier.

There were also mixed results reported by Internet companies this week, as AOL said quarterly revenue declined by 26 percent to $596 million. The company, in the middle of a turnaround effort led by CEO Tim Armstrong, a former Google executive, was hit by a sharp 29 percent drop in ad revenue, to $331.6 million. Earnings were $66.1 million, a sharp increase from $1.4 million a year earlier -- but the year-earlier figure suffered from a one-time $106 million restructuring cost.

As a result of higher-than-expected cost reductions, the company's earnings per share beat expectations.

"I am very proud of what we accomplished in 2010 as we began the year with a significant restructuring of AOL and ended the year with a significantly improved balance sheet, a number of exciting new products and a new culture focused on winning," said Armstrong in a statement.

It will take more than cost cuts, however, to turn around its ad sales efforts as it goes up against Google, the dominant giant in the business.

On the the other hand, IAC, the Internet group that owns search sites including Ask.com and Dictonary.com, seems to have built up momentum lately, matching Google's growth rate (though from a much smaller base). The company Wednesday reported a 27 percent jump in revenue, to $451.4 million, and a profit of $87 million, compared to a loss of $1 billion in the year-earlier period. The year-earlier loss was due mainly to huge write-downs in its search properties.

IAC said its sales increase was largely a result of increasing revenue from the company's toolbars, which allow users to see information from search results without actually visiting websites.

The tech-heavy Nsdaq was headed to close higher, at 2769, up by 15.42 Friday afternoon. The Dow was up 28 at 12091 and the S&P was up 3.77 to 1310. Strong tech results have been a big market driver, but government figures Friday showing that the unemployment rate fell last month to 9 percent -- the lowest point since April 2009 -- likely boosted confidence.

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ARM CEO: No Rush to Design a 64-bit Server Chip (PC World)

Posted: 04 Feb 2011 03:20 PM PST

Agam Shah Agam Shah – Fri Feb 4, 6:20 pm ET

ARM is considering 64-bit extensions for its CPU designs, but their absence today doesn't harm its chances in the server market, ARM CEO Warren East said this week.

Some server applications benefit from 64-bit processors but ARM can still address a sizeable chunk of the server market with its current 32-bit designs, East said during a conference call to discuss the company's financial results.

"There are certainly server applications today for which ... a lack of 64-bit is not a barrier. A 32-bit processor is perfectly adequate to address [typically] multicore configurations and blades with multiple multicore chips," East said.

The company's upcoming Cortex-A15 is a 32-bit design that can extend to 40 bits, and ARM is considering 64-bit addressing in future processors after that, East said.

"It's logical to suppose that at some stage in the future ARM will extend its architecture in that direction, and it would certainly be helpful as and when we have those sorts of products," East said.

ARM, which licenses CPU designs to chip manufacturers such as Texas Instruments and Qualcomm, started talking about server processors in 2008, when system makers began experimenting with servers based on low-power netbook chips. The company entered the server market in November when Marvell announced an ARM-based quad-core chip for servers. Calxeda and Nvidia are also developing chips based on ARM cores.

ARM's chances in the server market depend on the server types, workloads and developers, said Dean McCarron, principal analyst at Mercury Research.

A fairly high volume of servers, such as Web servers, deal with limited data sets and 32-bit addressing, which ARM can immediately address, McCarron said. Its chances are slimmer in high-end servers that need 64-bit addressing to execute tasks quickly, McCarron said.

While the server market is not easy to break into, it could be lucrative for ARM as server chips are generally priced higher than smartphone processors.

ARM will need to develop a 64-bit chip sooner rather than later if it hopes to tackle the server market, said Dan Olds, principal analyst at Gabriel Consulting Group.

ARM-based designs could be used in high-performance computers as a low-power alternative to x86 chips, Olds said. They could serve as a co-processor on systems where graphics chips do a bulk of the number crunching.

"With HPC servers, they are going to be needing it soon," Olds said.

Indeed, ARM processors could be headed for high-performance computers through Nvidia's Project Denver, the code name for a CPU intended for PCs, servers and supercomputers. Nvidia hasn't announced a release date for the products.
at 9:53 PM

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