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Review: With iPad 2, Apple one-ups itself (AP) : Technet |
- Review: With iPad 2, Apple one-ups itself (AP)
- Friend the pope? John Paul II gets Facebook page (AP)
- Engadget's Editor in Chief Resigns as AOL Shakeup Continues (Mashable)
- People turn ever more to web in times of crisis (AFP)
- Lawmakers' cell phones often out of public reach (AP)
- Nokia gives CEO $6.2M to offset lost Microsoft pay (AP)
- Lady Gaga, Taylor Swift, and More: Best Celebrity Twitter Pictures (The Daily Beast)
- Platform for Concertgoers Launches Android App in Time for SXSW (Mashable)
- Will I be alive tomorrow, asks Japanese woman on Internet (Reuters)
- DoubleDragon leads iPhone Games of the Week (Appolicious)
- Geek Reads: Part Two of The Hacker Crackdown (PC World)
- Lawson Software gets $11.25 per share bid (AP)
- Infor Makes Unsolicited $1.84B Bid for ERP Vendor Lawson (PC World)
| Review: With iPad 2, Apple one-ups itself (AP) Posted: 10 Mar 2011 12:28 PM PST SAN FRANCISCO – With the original iPad, Apple brought an attractive, easy-to-use tablet computer to the masses at a reasonable price — a feat numerous companies are trying to top. With Friday's release of the iPad 2, Apple is pulling further ahead, with improvements that make an already excellent tablet even more enticing. It goes to show that when it comes to tablets, Apple refuses to be bested. The new iPad is skinnier, faster and slightly lighter. It comes with cameras for video chatting and snapping photos, while keeping the same prices, ranging from $499 to $829 depending on the configuration. Competitors such as Motorola Mobility Holdings Inc. and Samsung Electronics Co. sell good tablets of their own, with many of the same features. Motorola's new Xoom even has a higher-resolution screen than the iPad. Still, nobody has been able to match the iPad's simplicity, innovation and style. The iPad 2 looks much like the first iPad, though it has a sleeker, lighter body with a curved back. All this helps the tablet fit more naturally in my hands, and the modified shape makes it easier to hold for extended e-reading sessions, for example. Among the most noticeable changes is the inclusion of cameras, one on the front and one on the back. This is something I've been hankering for, as the iPad's crisp display, measuring 9.7 inches diagonally, seemed like the ideal canvas for video chat. The subsequent arrival of several tablets with front and rear cameras made it practically a necessity for iPad 2. Fortunately, Apple thought so, too. Both cameras on the iPad 2 work with the company's FaceTime video chat application and the back camera shoots high-definition videos. A friend I chatted with over FaceTime moved pretty smoothly on the iPad's screen, though the image could have been much sharper. With the front camera, my friend could see me. If I switched to the back camera, I could show him my surroundings. You can take still photos, too, though I found this awkward given the tablet's size. The results were not fantastic, but self-portrait fans will find the front-facing camera useful for composing new profile photos for Facebook. The new iPad has Apple's new dual-core A5 chip, which helped applications open more quickly than on the older iPad. The original never felt slow, but the faster I can start a new game of "Plants vs. Zombies," the better. Add to that a new version of Apple's iOS software. The new processor and the new iOS combined to improve Web surfing, as I could load up pages noticeably faster over my home Wi-Fi network. As expected, videos loaded quickly and generally streamed flawlessly. The new software allows you to share music and videos from your iTunes library on multiple Apple devices on the same Wi-Fi network. And it now lets you set the iPad's mute switch to function as a screen lock, which makes it much easier to prevent my Netflix movie from rotating mid-scene just because I've shifted my butt on the couch. The updated iOS comes with iPad 2 and is available as a free download for the original iPad and the two most recent models of the iPhone and iPod Touch. On Friday, Apple is also rolling out iPad versions of its iMovie video-editing software and GarageBand software for recording and editing music. I tried GarageBand ($5) and was wowed by how simple it was and how well it took advantage of the iPad's touch screen. If you're musically inclined, you can pick up your guitar and adjust its sound through GarageBand's bevy of amplifiers and effects pedals. If you don't play an instrument (or feel lazy), you can swipe through a list of "smart" virtual instruments. A guitar with preset chords lets you strum by swiping the screen. You can arrange drums on a grid based on how noisy and complicated you want the beat to sound. The coolest part is how sensitive the virtual instruments are. Start beating your fingers on a virtual drum kit, and you can hit the drums and cymbals harder or softer. You'll get different sounds if you hit the ride cymbal in different places, and you can even tap the rim of the snare instead of just hitting the drum itself. It's quick and easy to record and edit songs, then save or e-mail them to a friend (who will hopefully applaud your artistic endeavors). When playing back my musical masterpiece and other content on the iPad 2 I did long for a second speaker — there is just one on its back. Fortunately, that lone speaker did sound quite crisp, even with the sound turned all the way up. Like the first iPad, the iPad 2 is rated for up to 10 hours of battery life, and it performed like a champ. Playing a mix of videos streamed from YouTube over Wi-Fi and saved on the iPad itself, I got a bit more than 10 hours of entertainment before it died. You can buy versions that work with either AT&T's or Verizon Wireless' cellular network, rather than just AT&T before. Unfortunately, it will only connect to these carriers' older 3G networks. Verizon's 4G network is already live, and AT&T plans to launch its 4G network in the summer. (In the meantime, AT&T is calling an upgraded version of its 3G network "4G.") The Xoom gets points here because it will be possible to upgrade it to use Verizon 4G. The cheapest iPad connects only through Wi-Fi, however. You can also get it in black or white — before, your only option was black. Without question, the iPad 2 is a great tablet. Still, this doesn't mean the first iPad is ready for the trash can. It's still a stellar gadget, and now it's cheaper (while supplies last) with the arrival of a successor. Should you feel the urge to have the latest and greatest, however, go for it. Chances are, it will be the best tablet in town — at least until the arrival of the iPad 3. |
| Friend the pope? John Paul II gets Facebook page (AP) Posted: 12 Mar 2011 02:15 PM PST VATICAN CITY – The Vatican will unveil the latest installment in its social media transformation next week — a Facebook page dedicated to the upcoming beatification of Pope John Paul II, officials said. The site, which will link to video highlights of John Paul's 27-year papacy, is designed to promote the May 1 beatification. But it may well continue beyond given the global and enduring interest in the late pontiff, Vatican officials told The Associated Press. The Vatican's first attempt at an event-themed Facebook page — to promote Pope Benedict XVI's September trip to the United Kingdom — is still active six months later and updated near-daily with 10,000-15,000 regular fans checking in, said Monsignor Paul Tighe, the No. 2 in the Vatican's social communications office. "What we found is that Facebook doesn't just share information, it creates community," Tighe said in an interview Friday. "People begin talking to each other and sharing ideas." That interactivity — and the potential it brings to the church's evangelization mission — is behind the Vatican's new social media push, the culmination of which will be launched at Easter with a new Vatican information web portal whose contents are specifically designed to be tweeted, posted and blogged. The portal will serve as a one-stop-shop aggregator of news from the Vatican's various information sources: Vatican Radio, Vatican Television, the Vatican newspaper L'Osservatore Romano, the Holy See's press office and Fides, the Vatican's missionary news agency, Tighe said. The Vatican's current website — http://www.vatican.va — will remain since that's more of a stable site with basic information about the Holy See, key Vatican documents and offices, and papal activities. The new site, rolled out first in English and Italian and then other languages, will be more news-based, bringing together onto one page the current disorganized web presence of Vatican media. Designed thematically, with each format's take on, say, the Japan earthquake or the Libyan uprising posted together, it will be multimedia focused but specifically designed for social media use, so people can tweet, post and blog its contents onto their own friends and fans, Tighe said. "For us it will be a beginning of drawing on the riches of what we have, of our existing communications apparatus, and integrating that to ensure that its formally working with new media," he said. The Vatican's communications and public relations woes are well known: muddled papal messages, flat-footed responses to crises like the sex abuse scandal and a certain lack of Internet savvy that allowed, to cite one egregious case, for the pope to lift the excommunication of a Holocaust-denying bishop. (Benedict now says he never would have rehabilitated the bishop had he known his views about Jews, which were widely available with a Google search.) That said, the Holy See has improved getting its message out online, with a dedicated YouTube channel and Twitter accounts, and its increasing presence on Facebook. Pope Benedict XVI has spoken out recently about how the church's message can get out effectively and in entirely new ways using the interactivity of social media. "A lot of our communications in the past was: I have a message. I broadcast it. TV takes it, radio takes it, newspaper takes it, and people passively receive it," Tighe said. "With the Internet you have this possibility of getting people's comments, getting their responses, and also of hearing their questions." Benedict himself will take a step in that direction on April 22, Good Friday, when he responds to questions posed by the faithful that were submitted online. His prerecorded responses will air on Italian state television, and presumably then find their way onto YouTube. "This is a beginning, in a simple way, of allowing the pope to interact with the questions of people and allowing people a direct form of access to the pope," Tighe said. "With time we'll see how different initiatives can develop, but the commitment there is to interactivity, to engagement." __ Online: Vatican's YouTube channel http://www.youtube.com/user/vatican Vatican Facebook page for pope's U.K. visit http://www.facebook.com/papalvisit Website for beatification cause of Pope John Paul II http://www.karol-wojtyla.org |
| Engadget's Editor in Chief Resigns as AOL Shakeup Continues (Mashable) Posted: 12 Mar 2011 11:39 AM PST Joshua Topolsky, editor in chief of Engadget, has just announced that he is leaving the popular AOL-owned technology news site. Topolsky has been with Engadget for nearly four years and has held the role of editor in chief since 2008. According to Kara Swisher at All Things D, managing editor Nilay Patel is also on his way out. These departures come just two days after AOL announced the layoffs of 900 employees -- including 200 editorial staffers -- as part of its restructuring and re-organization process in the wake of its acquisition of the Huffington Post. According to Swisher, Topolsky's decision was not related to The Huffington Post deal -- in fact -- Arianna Huffington tried to persuade Topolsky to stay. It appears, however, that some of the same issues that saw the departure of associate editors Paul Miller and Ross Miller back in February -- notably issues over the so-called "AOL Way" and the editorial direction of Engadget's parent company -- may have driven the latest departures. In a blog post announcing his exit, Topolsky says that he won't be "leaving the industry or the news game" and that he has a "few fantasy projects in mind." Topolsky also writes that he will continue on in a role as editor-at-large and will be hosting a few more episodes of the Engadget Show. Historically -- AOL has been very hands-off in its dealings with Engadget. If that policy has changed (which remains unclear), more departures might be on their way. |
| People turn ever more to web in times of crisis (AFP) Posted: 12 Mar 2011 07:41 PM PST HONG KONG (AFP) – The earthquake off the coast of Japan and the resulting tsunami has proven, yet again, how the Internet offers an information lifeline to the world in a time of crisis. The Internet was designed so that US military communications could withstand a nuclear war, but is proving equally resilient in the face of natural disasters and even seismic shifts in global politics. As the waves smashed into the Japanese coastline following the 8.9-magnitude earthquake 130 kilometres (80 miles) east in the Pacific ocean on Friday, a tsunami of images was also soon hitting the web. In scenes worthy of any Hollywood disaster movie, a massive wave was shown rolling in from the sea, and one of the most watched and shared videos was of water slowly engulfing the city of Sendai's airport. Small aircraft, cars and trucks were shown scattered amongst the shattered debris of buildings like an unruly child's toy box. And what looked like prefabricated factory units were shown floating under a bridge as drivers spun their cars and trucks around to try to outrun the waves. Nearly five million people tuned in to video sharing site YouTube on Saturday to watch one raw, unedited video of the wave chewing away at Japan's coastline. Several other videos had notched up between three and four million hits. Hundreds of people commented on the videos across the web and shared information, from social network giant Facebook to micro-blogging site Twitter -- as well as local, Japanese language websites. And the Internet also functioned as a virtual crisis centre as sites such as Google's people finder service helped locate loved ones and offered help and support to survivors. As the floodwaters subsided, worried friends and relatives leapt onto their computers to find information about people who had not been heard from since the mighty wave crashed ashore. Google's person finder service had notched up more than 81,000 records of people leaving messages seeking information on friends and family by 0300 GMT Sunday. The site was updating, in English and Japanese, by the hundreds every few minutes. A random search of the common Japanese surname "Sato" brought up hundreds of results, many of them for people living in Sendai -- the city that faced the brunt of the thunderous body of rolling water. Gunduzhan posted a message seeking Aki Sato, a dentist from Sendai who studied at Ohu University in Koriyama. A photo of the pretty young woman was also posted on the site. "Looking for Aki Sato," the post read. "Last heard from after earthquake but before tsunami." Another post seeking Fatima Sato had some good news -- "Mom is ok. She is on her way home." The international and Japanese Red Cross also set up a similar site. And micro-blogging site Twitter was updating every second with messages of good will, of condolences and offering aid. A service was being shared on Twitter allowing people the chance to donate to the Red Cross via text message, the donation being added to phone bills. Some tweets were posted by international celebrities such as the American singer Lady Gaga, who launched a bracelet to support the relief effort. She asked her legion of fans -- whom she calls "Little Monsters" -- to buy a bracelet on her website saying, "We Pray for Japan," for donations of $5 or more. All proceeds will go to relief efforts, she said. Useful links: The English version of the Red Cross website was being set up at www.icrc.org/eng/familylinks-japan The English version of the Google friend finder service can be found here: japan.person-finder.appspot.com/?lang=en Facebook's Japan tsunami page can be found here: www.facebook.com/#!/japan.tsunami.2011 YouTube videos: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k4w27IczOTk&feature= http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-DSSssHxm4Y&feature= http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dm2Hr-1l1MM&feature= http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=80CH_XkpSCE&feature=
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| Lawmakers' cell phones often out of public reach (AP) Posted: 12 Mar 2011 09:08 PM PST COLUMBUS, Ohio – It was 1992 and Ohio Senate President Stanley Aronoff was on the golf course when his cell phone rang. The Republican lawmaker stepped away from his companions, Coca-Cola executives, to take the call. When the exchange was over, Aronoff and then-Democratic House Speaker Vernal Riffe had agreed to wedge an unpopular carbonated beverage tax into that year's state budget. At a penny per 12 ounces, the decision would cost distributors of Coke and other sodas $67 million — that's $148 million in today's dollars. And it happened right under their noses. Lawmakers are increasingly conducting public business on their personal cell phones, through calls and text messages. Yet the numbers for those phones and the bills that show whom lawmakers called or texted and when are largely unavailable to the public for review. Legislatures don't pay those bills, which is among the reasons that records related to the phones aren't considered public under state law. Records requests submitted by The Associated Press to the Ohio Senate, the Ohio House and Gov. John Kasich seeking the personal cell phone numbers of top staff, lawmakers and the governor, along with related phone bills, revealed that no such public records exist. All that turned up was a list of House staff members' cell phones that had been typed up for internal distribution — no information for lawmakers themselves. It is the same in most other states. Only a few, including Florida, Colorado and Tennessee, have placed electronic communications under their open-records laws, according to the Reporters Committee on Freedom of the Press. In Michigan, the high-profile case of former Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick, whose text messages with his lover and top aide were forced into the open by the state Court of Appeals in 2008, set an early precedent for establishing officials' texts and cell phone records as public. But that doesn't mean public bodies are compelled to keep such records, nor that texts retained by a private company can be reached through open-records laws. And the law isn't even decided on what legal standard to apply to text messages. Are they phone calls, e-mails or memos? Some states have moved toward shielding, rather than opening, the records. Just in the past week, Utah Republican Gov. Gary Herbert signed into law a measure to prohibit release of public officials' text messages, voice mails and other electronic communications, amid concern that access had been abused by journalists. Brenda Erickson, a senior research analyst for the nonpartisan National Conference of State Legislatures, said 31 states including Ohio ban or limit the use of electronic devices on the floors of House and Senate chambers. Erickson said such policies are generally aimed at controlling disruptions, not preventing inappropriate communication between or among lawmakers — or limiting lobbyists' reach. Cell phone and texting restrictions are often not effective in committee hearings, the front line on any bill, she said. "It happens all the time, and people do it to avoid disclosure," said Neil Clark, a former Senate finance director and longtime Statehouse lobbyist in Ohio who facilitated Aronoff's cell phone call on the pop tax, which was later repealed. The practice means silent text messages can fly between a lawmaker and a lobbyist seeking to sway his or her vote without a public hint of the interaction. A list of cell communications that took place on the day of a hearing would not be a public record. Clark said he asked legislative leaders to extend a ban on texting during floor sessions to Ohio committee hearings. As a lawyer who has extensively explored privacy issues, Aronoff says whether the bill for the cell phone he used that day on the golf course in 1992 is a public record is not a simple question. For one thing, lawmakers are generally protected by "legislative privilege," which shields certain communications so lawmakers aren't impeded from freely doing their jobs. "These things are never quite as easy because these are both constitutional rights: the right of privacy and the right to know," Aronoff said. "From the beginning of our country, these have been two rights that are bumping into each other and you can make good cases for all of them. Is giving truth serum right or not?" Aronoff retired as Senate president in 1996. Riffe, the House speaker, died in 1997. Erickson said the cell phone conundrum began with the best intentions. Legislatures trying to save taxpayers money opted not to pay for lawmakers' private cell phones. As the technology has become pervasive, legislators have been able to circumvent public disclosure by avoiding their more likely public land lines. Many avoid their state-sponsored e-mail accounts, too, recognizing that those communications are more readily available through public records requests. And there is another twist, Erickson says: Even state legislators' activity on taxpayer-funded phones has been determined to be confidential in some recent court challenges to public records laws. "It's one of those Catch-22 situations," Erickson said. "Do you require everything to be open and then penalize constituents who are requesting confidentiality, or close everything and have ethical problems arise later on?" |
| Nokia gives CEO $6.2M to offset lost Microsoft pay (AP) Posted: 12 Mar 2011 03:20 PM PST WASHINGTON – The executive hired to turn around mobile phone maker Nokia is getting $6.2 million to make up for the paychecks he lost when he left Microsoft last fall. Nokia CEO Stephen Elop received a payment of about $3.2 million (2.3 million euros) last October, according to a filing Friday with U.S. regulators. He is due to receive another $3 million this October. Elop also received about $710,000 (510,000 euros) to cover money he had to repay Microsoft and another $435,000 (312,000 euros) to reimburse him for legal fees related to his move from Microsoft. Nokia, based in Finland, set Elop's first-year salary at 1.05 million euros ($1.46 million) and gave him other long-term incentives that included 500,000 stock options. Elop joined Nokia Corp. in September, ending a two-year stint at Microsoft Corp. He announced last month that Nokia's phones will switch to an operating system made by Microsoft in an attempt to revive the phone maker's fortunes. Although it remains the world's leading mobile phone maker, Nokia has been losing market share to Apple Inc.'s iPhone and handsets relying on Google Inc.'s Android operating system. |
| Lady Gaga, Taylor Swift, and More: Best Celebrity Twitter Pictures (The Daily Beast) Posted: 12 Mar 2011 05:40 PM PST |
| Platform for Concertgoers Launches Android App in Time for SXSW (Mashable) Posted: 12 Mar 2011 07:54 AM PST Music fans, you have T-minus four days to finalize your schedule for SXSW Music. Luckily, concertgoing platform SuperGlued is out with a brand new Android app to help users plan their jams. SuperGlued is a New York-based service that launched in 2009, and it's basically a slicker version of "Foursquare for bands," Flowd — but more focused on fan utility. Music fans can use the apps and website to find upcoming shows in their area, and interact with those shows by tweeting, posting photos, checking in via Foursquare, and browsing other checkins and social media shares — all within the app. One can also purchase tickets via the service, and create a profile detailing favorite and past concerts. Previously, SuperGlued was only available on the iPhone [iTunes link], but now an Android app has hit the market. Now, Droid-toters can download the app to check out a calendar of SXSW shows, sorted by day, artist or venue; create their own schedules; see where their friends are located in real time; learn about bands; see what others are saying via Twitter, Facebook and Foursquare; and add friends via an integration with the aforementioned services. Sadly, the Android app lacks the recommendation feature, which, on the iPhone, scans your library to show you bands you might like. Also, you can't listen to bands via the app, as in the Festival Explorer Austin Edition. Still, that app doesn't have an Android edition, so SuperGlued offering has the advantage there. How do you plan to keep track of bands at SXSW? Image courtesy of Flickr, Stephan Geyer |
| Will I be alive tomorrow, asks Japanese woman on Internet (Reuters) Posted: 12 Mar 2011 06:06 AM PST TOKYO (Reuters) – Thousands of people in tech-savvy Japan swamped the Internet in the hours after a devastating earthquake and tsunami to tell loved ones they were safe, but social networking sites were also flooded with worries about an explosion at a nuclear plant. At least 1,300 people were killed, media said, and thousands of homes flattened as a huge deluge of seawater swept inland in the north of Japan, engulfing roads, farmland and villages. When news spread on Saturday of a radiation leak at a nuclear power plant run by Tokyo Electric Power Co (TEPCO), after an explosion at the facility, many messages on social networking sites were panic-stricken. "Came back home at 8 in the morning after the depressing night...Now, the nuclear power plant has exploded and we might already be exposed to radioactivity," said a 23-year-old female office worker from Tokyo on a Facebook page. "I just don't know what to do, what's coming next, and will I be alive tomorrow?" she asked. Elsewhere in the world, from the foothills of northern India to crowded cities in the United States, Japanese on vacation used Twitter, Facebook and the Japanese service mixi to get in touch with family after the disaster knocked out phone lines. "Can't get through via fone.. but Toru got through Facebook. Thank God for Facebook!" read a status message of a Tokyo resident. "Yep! It brings down dictators, it reunites loved ones," was one of the comments. Others were not so lucky. "I still cannot contact with my family and friends after the tsunami," posted a female student from Sophia University in Tokyo. "Information is necessary for me." Many had reservations about the ability of authorities to deal with the disaster. "I can't trust TEPCO," said a person with the handlename Tanuki Atsushi on mixi, the Japanese social networking site. "They should not stop working to limit damage to the public even if this is not going to be a big accident like Chernobyl," said another user named papa. The nervous reaction online was a response to the firm's chequered past. In 2002, the president of the country's largest power utility was forced to resign along with four other senior executives, taking responsibility for suspected falsification of nuclear plant safety records. The company was suspected of 29 cases involving falsified repair records at nuclear reactors. It had to stop operations at five reactors, including two damaged in the latest tremor, for safety inspections. Some vented their anger over the disaster on the government of unpopular Prime Minister Naoto Kan. "I don't think the shaky DPJ deserve to be called politicians," said one Twitter user referring to the ruling Democratic Party of Japan. "Do you think I will ever support them? No never." (Editing by Raju Gopalakrishnan) |
| DoubleDragon leads iPhone Games of the Week (Appolicious) Posted: 12 Mar 2011 04:00 AM PST |
| Geek Reads: Part Two of The Hacker Crackdown (PC World) Posted: 12 Mar 2011 09:30 AM PST Hello and welcome back to the second installment in our weekend Geek Reads column! This week we were all a little busy in the office writing about Apple's iPad 2 launch and the disaster relief efforts in Japan, so we thought it might be fun to try out a new format (and save ourselves the headache of having to actually talk to each other in person.) Last week we talked about the weird origin of the American phone system and the benevolent hegemony of Ma Bell. In Part 2 of Bruce Sterling's Hacker Crackdown, we finally dig into the meat of America's war on cybercrime and discover where terms like phreaker, hacker and phile came from. We also meet the principal players in this tragicomedy, including the U.S. Secret Service, the Legion of Doom and a wayward hacker known as Fry Guy; Steve Jackson Games and Sterling himself even make a brief appearance. Nate Ralph : Oh hai. David Daw : I now call this meeting of the He-Man Woman Hater's Club to order! Alex Wawro : Part 2 of the Hacker Crackdown! Wherein shit gets real bad, real quick. Nate: Well then, shall we get to chatting about this book? Nate: And fear-mongering up the proverbial wazoo, e.g.; phreakers being the nihilistic scourge of the heart. (Plz Mr Sterling, tell us what you really think.) Alex: hang on, I scribbled some notes in the margins...lemme grab my iPad real quick... David: Yeah I dunno, I think he does a pretty good job of ripping into pretty much everybody in this section and in ways that don't really deny what's fundamentally good or cool about any one group. Alex: True, though his bias is showing pretty badly when it comes to harmless teenage hackers vs. the go-getters & good ol' boys at the Illinois State Police David: I dunno, this is reading ahead a bit... Alex: That's a risky proposition. David: ...but he really isn't that biased against the cops in this; I think he thinks there are bad cops... Alex: Oh I agree, he's really quite even-handed. David: ...but he also clearly thinks there are some bad hackers. Alex: Or at least, some awfully foolish ones. David: See, I think he likes those; or maybe we should just stop attributing motive. Alex: I found it fascinating to consider how difficult it is for the American justice system to crack down on information thieves. We have all these Constitutional principles of free speech, free assembly etc. That are constantly at odds with our concerns about state subversion and rebellion being fomented by internal agents There are some strong parallels to contemporary concerns about national security David: Yeah but I think the real fascinating thing that they keep bumping up against is that they just have no conception of what the hell is going on; like, they want the Legion of Doom to be structured like a drug cartel. Alex: Yeah, totally; If Sterling is to be believed, the authorities very much envisioned a legion of black-clad hackers seated around a shadowy table. David: Well I mean the concept of people doing this just to do it is sort of bizarre from the outside, and not exactly the criminal mindset. Alex: Exactly! When information becomes a commodity, suddenly exploration and experimentation become a crime. Nate: The "hacker" mindset... it's about exploration. Whereas Sterling describes phreakers as... I'm not entirely sure what to make of that sect, actually; "proto-trolls" was the vibe I got. The original 4chan, wreaking havoc on corporate voice terminals "for the lulz." Alex: True. David: I guess... Alex: I read them more as free speech hippies, but that's not far from becoming a modern-day troll. David: They might be slightly more focused than that; Anonymous rather than 4Chan in general. Like, there's a political agenda there, unfocused though it may be. Alex: That's true! Very Assange-esque, wanting to "stick it to the bastards." Nate: Right. But sticking it to the bastards because they're doing "evil" things, or sticking it to the bastards because... they're the phone company? I don't think there's anything especially "noble" about the phreakers (as described here.) Alex: True, but it's their experimentation that eventually led to the codification of hacker techniques on every BBS. If they hadn't been rooting around in Ma Bell's innards for the hell of it, I think hacker culture would have developed significantly slower. David: Also, I don't think they're described as ignoble exactly; Sterling just has a very peculiar way of looking at revolutionaries (especially failed revolutionaries) as if they are somehow quaint. Alex: I appreciate his honesty; since most of this happened before I was born, it's nice to have a historian who appears (relatively) unbiased. That said, it's fascinating to see the early roots of the geeky hacker fiction I grew up on. Nate: He's an outsider, looking in. That's my (admittedly uninformed) take on his viewpoint. Alex: Oh I dunno, near the end of Part 2 our narrator reveals his personal connections to Steve Jackson and some of the cyberpunk authors affected by the eponymous Hacker Crackdown. David: Well yeah but he's writing about 3 or 4 mutually exclusive extremely insular viewpoints; he SHOULD be writing as an outsider, even when he's not. Alex: Right, and for the most part I believe his account; but it's not hard to see why he approaches the law enforcement angle with some cynicism. David: Yeah they kinda go off the rails toward the end of this section. Alex: Also....BBS systems? Modems? FidoNet? I can barely remember a few of these things, and....dayum. David: It's all coming back man. Nate: Does anyone else remember the Anarchist's Cookbook? David: There was a whole thing I was reading about bringing back fido-net and BBS's. Alex: yessss! David: Because they were actually better distributed than the web. Anyway, yeah the Anarchist's Cookbook. Nate: That's how I defined "phreaking" as a kid. A sort of analog, physical version of what the hackers were up to Alex: Yeah, I don't think I was capable of understanding UNIX subversion at that age. For me, hackers and anarchists were synonymous. Nate: There was a political subtext there, sure. Stick it to the man. But for the most part, it felt like kids being kids, with a whole lot of criminal activity worked in for good measure. But phreaking as he knew it has disappeared. Alex: True. If anything, The Hacker Crackdown reinforces the notion that hackers never have a reason; they're just doing it because they can. And because they can, they attract hangers-on and groupies. Alex: (And tech journalists, which are basically the same thing.) Nate: I call "hanger on." Alex: I've never made any secret of being a Google groupie. Eric Schmidt can take me home any time he wants. Nate: There's no way in hell you're editing that out. Alex: ....sooo...hacking the E911 protocol. Serious business, amirite? David: Man just wait till you actually read the thing; right now it's fascinating because like, I talked a bit last week about how Sterling has a way of making mundane things sound science-fictional and I love his account here of file sharing. I mean, it's just file sharing and information wanting to be free and it being easier every day to copy digital information but it reads like you're reading the first 3 chapters of Outbreak or something. Alex: Absolutely. Maybe it's just the abysmal data speeds they were stuck with back then, but every download seems to mean something; every file seems important. I wonder if that's because of how Sterling writes, or because data is fast becoming valueless. David: I think it's a combination of the two. Like, that really was the culture; I'm just old enough that I remember getting data being an act with value, and being kinda weirdly sacred in a way because it was so weird and difficult. Alex: Absolutely. David: ...and I was never getting something as weird or high-profile as Phrack even. Alex: As an impressionable (and horribly geeky) teenager I read a ton of cheesy cyberpunk fiction, and was heavily into games like Shadowrun; I remember a weird period in the early 90's when "paydata" was a thing. David: Yeah the part about where hackers come from struck home for me because like, I got a modem young. Alex: and you were hooked, huh? David: I racked up the 400 buck phone bill. Alex: yesssss! I racked up nearly 200 bucks one weekend just trying to play Doom II with my friend via IP. I had to work it off with extra chores for six months, and the sucka spawn-camped me to boot Nate: Nice. David: If I had been just a bit older, or if AOL took a bit longer to come out with a flat-rate plan I totally would have been trying to steal time off of telecoms (and I was in the Atlanta area so apparently it would have been easy!) Alex: Oh man! You could have met a member of the Legion of Doom at a McDonald's drive-thru and never. even. known. David: Ha! Well we all could have since they were apparently everywhere. Nate: The same holds true today. Alex: ...I still can't believe the Secret Service was involved. Does anyone remember why? 'Cuz I can't. Nate: The telephone company was big business. When someone threatens vital infrastructure, well, you call in the big guns. David: I think it's because of the wire fraud stuff which technically means Office of the Treasury, which means Secret Service. I could be wrong though. Alex: Google, don't fail me now! Also, holy crap Google has basically rendered hacker culture moot; (unless you want to start talking about the deep web, or cracking isolated systems) you don't need to trade codes for philes anymore. All the information you could ever want about anything is instantly aggregated at your command Nate: Nah, "hacker culture" has simply gone further underground. A quick trip through IRC will make that clear. There are plenty of things you can't get through Google, or torrents, or whatever (for good reason). Obscure anime. Old, unpopular movies. Kiddie porn. Etcetera. Alex: Seems like the best way to get rid of hackers is open up rather than crack down. David: there's a great Cory Doctorow talk about how Google is the greatest file-sharing software in existence and it's really awkward because it's AT GOOGLE and he's asking them to raise their hand if they ever pirated something (and used Google to do it) and everyone is like, sheepishly raising their hand. Alex: Ha! Also, apparently the U.S. Secret Service got involved once we caught foreign hackers cracking codes for contract pay from the KGB Nate: Never forget the old fark/reddit adage, "Let them have BitTorrent, shut up before they find out about Usenet," etc. Alex: Yeah, I could crack wise about 90's era 1337 h4xx0rz for hours, but alas I've got actual work to do.... But I am curious to see what happens next. Nate: Yeah, we should find some way to wrap this up coherently. Alex: Especially since Sterling hints at the rise of the Electronic Frontier Foundation in the next section and they're like, four blocks from my house. Nate: Well aren't you just in the center of everything Alex: Not to mention a bunch of awesome bars and taquerias ....yeah, actually my neighborhood is pretty sweet. I think I'll give up this fool's dream of tech journalism and go hang out at Twitter - Facebook - RSS | Tip us off This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
| Lawson Software gets $11.25 per share bid (AP) Posted: 12 Mar 2011 01:40 PM PST ST. PAUL, Minn. – Lawson Software says it's talking with two firms about their unsolicited offer to pay $11.25 each for all of Lawson's shares. The deal would value the company at more than $1.8 billion. Lawson shares closed at $11.55 on Friday following a report Tuesday that the company was exploring a sale. Shares closed Monday at $9.88. Lawson Software Inc. acknowledged the offer from business-software company Infor and private-equity firm Golden Gate Capital late Friday. The company, which makes software for businesses, says talks are continuing, but its board has not decided whether it wants to sell the firm. It also says that there is no guarantee that a deal will be made. Lawson says it has hired Barclays Capital to help it evaluate the proposal, as well as other "strategic alternatives." |
| Infor Makes Unsolicited $1.84B Bid for ERP Vendor Lawson (PC World) Posted: 11 Mar 2011 09:20 PM PST Lawson Software received an unsolicited buy out offer of US$11.25 per share, or around $1.84 billion, from rival ERP (enterprise resource planning) software vendor Infor. Lawson confirmed the offer from Infor and its parent, private equity firm Golden Gate Capital, late Friday. A deal had been rumored all week. The offer price is slightly below the $11.55 per share Lawson's stock closed at on Friday. Lawson did not provide the overall value of the deal. The $1.84 billion figure was derived from the total number of shares outstanding the company reported in its most recent quarterly earnings statement in January. Infor, along with Lawson, is one of the industry's largest remaining ERP vendors after SAP, Oracle and Microsoft. Lawson reported $736.4 million in revenues during its fiscal 2010 and had a market capitalization of $1.89 billion on Friday. Lawson has retained Barclay's Capital as an advisor on the potential deal, and "has not made any determination to sell the company or engage in any other strategic transaction," according to a statement. It will not comment further on the possible acquisition until an agreement is finalized, talks are ended or Lawson's board completes a review of the offer, the statement adds. Infor did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Last year, the company named former Oracle co-president Charles Phillips as CEO. Phillips was known at Oracle for his key role in that company's long string of acquisitions over the past several years. Rumors that Lawson would be sold have swirled since activist investor Carl Icahn took a stake in the company last year. Icahn is known for his tendency to push for changes in company strategy that he believes would benefit stockholders, including a sale. The deal makes sense for Infor, as it gives the company inroads into verticals such as health care and human resources, said analyst Ray Wang, CEO of Constellation Research. That said, "Lawson would be fine on its own as an independent company," as its CEO, Harry Debes, has done a solid job, Wang said. Chris Kanaracus covers enterprise software and general technology breaking news for The IDG News Service. Chris's e-mail address is Chris_Kanaracus@idg.com |
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