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Sony: Credit data risked in PlayStation outage (AP) : Technet

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• Sony: Credit data risked in PlayStation outage (AP)
• Amazon.com's profit tumbles more than expected (AP)
• Google replants its garage roots in tech workshops (AP)
• How to start streaming movies with Netflix (Yahoo! News)
• Asus Eee Pad Transformer sells out online on day one (Yahoo! News)
• QR Code Resume Makes Your Embossed Paper Look Lame (Mashable)
• Sina has no immediate plan to list microblog operations: CEO (Reuters)
• Sony Playstation suffers massive data breach (Reuters)
• Hackers swiped PlayStation Network user data: Sony (AFP)
• Haiti's Martelly seeks new taxes to help schools (AP)
• Facebook Facial Recognition Could Get Creepy (PC World)
• Blagojevich jury selection enters last stretch (AP)
• New iPad game Snooker Club is a real looker (Appolicious)
• T-Mobile Suspends Its Bobsled Facebook App (PC World)
• YouTube Ready To Challenge Netflix with Movie Rentals (NewsFactor)
• Which Tablet Is Best for You? (PC World)
• MIPS Porting Google's Android 3.0 OS for Its Processors (PC World)
• What Your Business Can Learn from the Amazon Cloud Outage (PC World)

Sony: Credit data risked in PlayStation outage (AP) Posted: 26 Apr 2011 08:50 PM PDT By RYAN NAKASHIMA and JORDAN ROBERTSON, AP Business Writers Ryan Nakashima And Jordan Robertson, Ap Business Writers – 35 mins ago LOS ANGELES – Sony Corp. said Tuesday that the credit card data of PlayStation users around the world may have been stolen in a hack that forced it to shut down its PlayStation Network for the past week, disconnecting 77 million user accounts. Some players brushed off the breach as a common hazard of operating in a connected world, and Sony said some services would be restored in a week. But industry experts said the scale of the breach was staggering and could cost the company billions of dollars. "Simply put, one of the worst breaches we've seen in several years," said Josh Shaul, chief technology officer for Application Security Inc., a New York-based company that is one of the country's largest database security software makers. Sony said it has no direct evidence credit card information was taken, but said "we cannot rule out the possibility." It said the intrusion was "malicious" and that the company had hired an outside security firm to investigate. It has taken steps to rebuild its system to provide greater protection for personal information and warned users to contact credit agencies and set up fraud alerts. "Our teams are working around the clock on this, and services will be restored as soon as possible," it said in a blog post Tuesday. The company shut down the network last Wednesday after it said account information, including names, birthdates, email addresses and log-in information was compromised for certain players in the days prior. Sony says people in 59 nations use the PlayStation network. Of the 77 million user accounts, about 36 million are in the U.S. and elsewhere in the Americas, 32 million in Europe and 9 million in Asia, mostly in Japan. Purchase history and credit card billing address information may also have been stolen but the intruder did not obtain the 3-digit security code on the back of cards, Sony said. Spokesman Satoshi Fukuoka said the company has not received any reports yet of credit card fraud or abuse resulting from the breach. Shaul said that not having direct proof of credit card information theft should not instill a sense of security, and could mean Sony just didn't know what files were touched. "They indicated that they're worried about it, which is probably a very strong indication that everything was stolen," he said. If the intruder successfully stole credit card data, the heist would rank among the biggest known thefts of financial data. Recent major hacks included some 130 million card numbers stolen from payment processor Heartland Payment Systems. As many as 100 million accounts were lifted in a break-in at TJX Cos., the chain that owns discount retailers T.J. Maxx and Marshalls, and some 4.2 million card numbers were stolen from East Coast grocery chain Hannaford Bros. Those attacks allegedly involved a single person: Albert Gonzalez, a Miami hacker who was sentenced last year to 20 years in prison for the attacks. The Ponemon Institute, a data-security research firm, estimated that the cost of a data breach involving a malicious or criminal act averaged $318 per compromised record in 2010, up 48 percent from the year earlier. That could pin the potential cost of the PlayStation breach at more than $24 billion. Alan Paller, director of research for the SANS Institute, a security training organization, said that even if credit numbers weren't stolen, knowing someone's name, email address and which games he or she likes can lead to expertly crafted scam e-mails. Knowing billing histories can be even more harmful, since they can identify big spenders. "If you know someone's spent a lot on gaming, they could be a spectacular target," he said. The PlayStation break-in serves as a reminder of the danger of large-scale breaches, even as hackers gravitate toward smaller attacks that target specific, valuable data and are harder to detect. Some PlayStation users appeared to shrug off the danger although they were taking precautions. Joshua Delgado, a 36-year-old self-employed gamer in Moreno Valley, said he now wants to check to see if the credit card he registered on the network was one that had recently expired or not. For now, he's no longer playing the multiplayer shooter game, "MAG," nor is he renting movies over the system any more. "There are worse things that are going on in the world — it's a game," he said. "But I'm disappointed that they weren't more prepared for something like this." The theft of credit card numbers has taken on a routine feel, even though instances of mega-breaches have been declining. Verizon's latest annual security report, one of the industry's most authoritative analyses, found that the number of compromised records in cases examined by it and the U.S. Secret Service dropped from a record-breaking 361 million in 2008 to under 4 million last year. The decline was the result of more targeted attacks, as well as the lack of major breaches to inflate the numbers. Michael Brant, a 52-year-old railway worker in Columbus, Ohio, said the network outage prevents him from playing "Call of Duty" on a team with his 8-year-old grandson against potential online opponents, who have numbered above 150,000 at any one time. He's been able to catch up on TV shows and news in the down time and he didn't seem worried about the possible loss of data. "Everybody gets hacked," he said. Brant said he would not hold a long-term grudge against Sony "as long as they get the stuff back up and running and nobody has to suffer from it." ___ Robertson reported from San Francisco. Associated Press Writer Shino Yuasa in Tokyo contributed to this report. Online: http://blog.us.playstation.com/2011/04/26/update-on-playstation-network-and-qriocity

Amazon.com's profit tumbles more than expected (AP) Posted: 26 Apr 2011 03:13 PM PDT By JORDAN ROBERTSON, AP Technology Writer Jordan Robertson, Ap Technology Writer – Tue Apr 26, 6:13 pm ET SAN FRANCISCO – Amazon.com said Tuesday that its net income fell 33 percent in the latest quarter, a steeper drop than Wall Street expected as the online retailer poured more money into expanding its operations. While Amazon's profit was a disappointment, its revenue topped expectations. The company's management says that the stronger sales mean Amazon needs more warehouses and upgraded technology, which require bigger investments that cut into earnings. The world's biggest online retailer is also facing competitive challenges from Wal-Mart Stores Inc. and other rivals, and is spending to shore up its lead. Amazon's expansion is also being complicated by ongoing battles with states over when Internet retailers should be forced to collect sales taxes from their customers. And Amazon's Web hosting service, one of the Seattle-based company's biggest new initiatives, suffered an embarrassing setback last week. Major websites that use the service, including Foursquare and Reddit, crashed or suffered slowdowns, raising questions about the reliability of Amazon's "cloud computing" offerings. Shares of the Seattle-based company dropped about 6 percent when the results were reported after the stock market's close Tuesday. They recovered some and down $3.05, or 1.7 percent, to $179.25. The stock's recovery from its extended-trading lows appeared to reflect investors' belief that Amazon's expansion may be costly but will make the company more competitive. Thomas Szkutak, Amazon's chief financial officer, said the higher expenses were directly related to higher demand for the goods sold on Amazon. "We're just seeing tremendous growth, and because of that we're having to invest in a lot of capacity," he said on a conference call with reporters. He added that Amazon's international sales took a hit from the deadly earthquake and tsunami in Japan on March 11, which also cut into Amazon's profit. The company said after the market closed that its net income was $201 million, or 44 cents per share, down from $299 million, or 66 cents per share, a year ago. The earnings were well short of the 61 cents per share that analysts polled by FactSet expected. But revenue rose 38 percent to $9.86 billion, ahead of the $9.54 billion that analysts were forecasting, and up from $7.13 billion a year ago. Amazon's second quarter revenue guidance also topped analysts' projections. Amazon says it expects revenue of $8.85 billion to $9.65 billion. Analysts were expecting $8.75 billion.

Google replants its garage roots in tech workshops (AP) Posted: 26 Apr 2011 11:36 AM PDT By MICHAEL LIEDTKE, AP Technology Writer Michael Liedtke, Ap Technology Writer – Tue Apr 26, 2:36 pm ET MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. – Amid all the free food and other goodies that come with a job at Google Inc., there's one benefit a lot of employees don't even know about: a cluster of high-tech workshops that have become a tinkerer's paradise. Workers escape from their computer screens and office chairs to weld, drill and saw on expensive machinery they won't find at Home Depot. Besides building contraptions with a clear business purpose, Google employees use the shops for fun: They create elaborate holiday decorations, build cabinets for their homes and sometimes dream big like the engineers working on a pedal-powered airplane with a 100-foot wingspan. The "Google Workshops" are the handiwork of Larry Page, who co-founded Google with Sergey Brin in a rented garage. Page authorized the workshops' opening in 2007 to try to reconnect the company with its roots. Google, which has kept the workshops under wraps until Tuesday, gave The Associated Press an exclusive tour shortly after Page reclaimed his original job as CEO on April 4. The workshops offer a peek into ways Page may try to make the Internet giant work with the verve and creativity of a garage-bound entrepreneur. Page believes the 13-year-old company needs to return to thinking and acting like a feisty startup as it faces competition from younger Internet stars such as Facebook, Twitter and Groupon. "There is a feeling here at Google that all good things start in a garage," said Greg Butterfield, an engineering lab manager who oversees the workshops. "Larry wanted to create the same kind of environment he and Sergey had when they started Google — a sort of a playground or sandbox for pursuing their ideas." Originally known as the "Pi" Shop, the geeky getaway is open only to a privileged few among Google's 26,300 employees. To gain entry, workers must pass a test that includes such questions as "When you are using a band saw, what speed would you use to cut through aluminum?" There are four separate rooms — for metal, wood, welding and electronics — tucked into an isolated corner of Google's 4.3-million-square-foot headquarters in Mountain View. Besides heavy-duty equipment, such as an oscilloscope, plasma cutter and miter saw, there are some children's toys. One piece of gadgetry currently under construction in the shops partially consists of Legos — the same material that Page once used to build an inkjet printer, years before creating Google. The projects that have emerged from the workshops include a giant tricycle that was designed to haul around 250 pounds of high-tech photo equipment. The trikes are used to supply the company's online mapping service with pictures of streets and other areas inaccessible by cars. Engineers have used the shops to work on early prototypes of smartphones that run on Google's Android software, and they have customized parts for the automated, driverless cars that the company has been testing. There are other products still under development in the shops; the company declined to discuss them. Most Google employees, though, use the shops for personal purposes. The ideas percolating in the workshops are so unpredictable that employees are encouraged to drop off scrap metal or other detritus just in case the junk might suit someone's project. During the AP's recent visit, a couple of old wheel axles and the rusted tailgate from a truck were sitting in the welding shop. "You never know what you are going to find in here," Butterfield said. Google isn't the only place in Silicon Valley where computer-coding engineers can show off their industrial might. A venture called TechShops sells memberships starting at about $100 per month to use heavy machinery for wood, metal, plastics and textiles. Besides the San Francisco Bay area, TechShops operates in Raleigh, N.C. Google's workshops are free to all employees, like virtually all the company's perquisites. But the workshops are much more exclusive than Google's other benefits. All employees must be certified to run the machinery before they are issued a badge to enter. The screening usually falls to Rodney Broome, 63, a veteran machinist who teaches the craft at nearby San Jose City College when he isn't busy as the foreman of Google's workshops. "I feel like I am running my own company within the company here," Broome said. Just as they do when they are trying to get hired at Google, employees have to pass a test. About 300 Google workers, or 1 percent of the work force, have been certified so far. Most of them are engineers, although badges have been given to a few who work in ad sales. Broome said there have been no injuries in the workshops so far. The screening standards are so strict that a college degree in mechanical engineering wasn't enough for Google software engineer Ihab Awad. He attended a local high school's wood shop class for a semester before earning Broome's clearance. Awad also won Broome's approval to use the welding equipment. His biggest accomplishment so far: a rocket-shaped bar equipped with a keg to pour beer at the end of long days in the office. "The workshops are my No. 1 perk at Google," Awad said during a break from a welding project. "They're the main reason I will be a Googler for life."

How to start streaming movies with Netflix (Yahoo! News) Posted: 26 Apr 2011 05:45 PM PDT By Tecca tecca – Tue Apr 26, 8:45 pm ET Post by Michael Arcand: Netflix started out as a mail-order DVD rental service, adding instant streaming as a side benefit for some of its subscription plans. As streaming became more popular, the company introduced a streaming-only subscription option to its lineup. With this option, you can stream an unlimited amount of video from Netflix's vast array of offerings. Interested? Keep reading to find out how to get started. What is instant streaming video? Instant streaming video is pretty much exactly what it sounds like. There's no file download involved; the data is constantly transferred while you are watching the video. This usually means no wait time, unless your system needs to buffer a bit before playing your selection. So you're probably wondering what the big deal is, right? After all, we just described YouTube. But the real value lies in the types of videos available. Netflix offers a wide variety of television shows and movies for instant streaming. These aren't viral videos of cats flushing the toilet or other such internet phenomena — which can be fun, but probably isn't something you're looking to pay for. On Netflix you can expect to find anything you might see in a physical video rental store: the latest movies and television shows on DVD and Blu-ray, as well as plenty of old favorites. The other thing you won't find on Netflix instant streaming — but will find on sites like YouTube and Hulu — is commercials. This has been a major point of contention with the free streaming site Hulu, which offers a pay-for Plus option that's similar to Netflix. Even though you pay just as much for Hulu Plus as Netflix Instant, Hulu interrupts your shows with commercials. Components you need In order to make streaming video work well enough that you're willing to pay a subscription fee every month, you're going to need some special equipment. The first thing you'll need is a broadband internet connection. The faster the speed, the better off you will be. Slower connections may be able to connect to the service, but you will find yourself watching lower quality video or spending extra time waiting for the video to load. Though Netflix Instant started as a service to stream video to your computer, it has expanded to many other devices that connect to your TV for a prime time viewing experience, including the Nintendo Wii, Sony PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, and many brands of Blu-ray players. Some internet-ready TVs will also connect to Netflix without any other equipment needed. Not sure if your device is ready for Netflix? Check Netflix's interactive device list. Whichever device you are going to use to connect to your TV, you will need a way to connect it to your internet service. The gaming systems mentioned have built-in wifi, so if you already have a wireless router installed, connecting is a breeze. If wireless isn't an option for you, these devices can all be connected via a wired connection using standard networking cable; just make sure you get a cable long enough to meet your needs. Older model televisions will work just fine with these devices, but if you've got an HDTV, you'll want to be sure and get the best connection possible. Netflix allows for HD streaming, so to get the quality you're paying for, be sure your device is hooked to your television with a HDMI cable. Signing up and signing in Signing up with Netflix is as simple as going to the website and filling out your information. The first month is free and after that, streaming-only service costs $7.99 a month. If you're really a movie buff, you might even opt for a more expensive subscription packages that will give you access to Blu-ray discs as well as standard DVDs. With plans ranging from just 1 DVD at a time and 2 rentals per month (with no streaming) up to 8 at a time and unlimited streaming time, there's something for everyone. After you get your account set up on a computer, you'll be able to log in from your Netflix-ready device. You may have to look through a few menus to find it, but there should be a Netflix application: launch it, enter your account information, and it will give you an activation code. You'll need to return to the Netflix website and enter this code to activate streaming to the device. (Just follow the instructions on the screen and you can't lose!) Once the code is entered, you're ready to start watching movies! But be aware that there is a limit on how many devices you can activate to use with your account. Only 6 devices may be registered at a time, including personal computers, so keep this in mind when you go to add your PC, iPad, iPhone, etc. If you decide that a device isn't really being used and needs to be deactivated in order to add a new device, this can be done manually from within your account settings. Find your favorites Finding something to watch on Netflix instant streaming can be done in many different ways. You can search for something in particular, or you can browse by categories. As you rate movies that you've already watched, Netflix will suggest new items that you might enjoy. You can even look and see what's popular in your geographic area and pick from that list as well. With thousands of selections to choose from and more distribution deals being struck all the time, Netflix's library of available videos is constantly growing. While some videos are only available for a limited time, new material is added monthly. As you find items to watch, you can also designate items to be added to your instant queue. The instant queue provides quick access to things that you already know you want to watch, so you don't have to go searching for them again. If something isn't available for streaming, Netflix will offer other similarly themed selections for you to choose from. Be sure to rate as many movies and TV shows as you can, because this will help Netflix build a recommendation list based on your viewing preferences and ratings. The more you rate, the better its suggestions will be. You can find some real gems just browsing Netflix's recommendations. With more and more devices supporting Netflix instant streaming, there's no reason not to make the move to this technology. Who knows? Maybe one day this will replace your cable service completely! [Image credit: Netflix] More from Tecca: Hulu Plus vs. Netflix: Picking the best movie and TV streaming service Streaming Weekly: Amazon vs. Netflix More about Netflix

Asus Eee Pad Transformer sells out online on day one (Yahoo! News) Posted: 26 Apr 2011 04:19 PM PDT By Taylor Hatmaker taylor Hatmaker – Tue Apr 26, 7:19 pm ET Apparently, the iPad isn't the only tablet in town capable of selling out. While the Asus Eee Pad Transformer might not have the big-name appeal of its Apple rival, the $399 16GB Honeycomb tablet managed to sell out online at Best Buy's website in its first day on sale. We doubt the Eee Pad Transformer's bizarre show spoof ad is behind the tablet's sales success: at $399, the Transformer is the cheapest way to get a taste of Android's Honeycomb OS — not to mention that the thing can pull an Atrix-like trick by docking into a keyboard station to turn into a makeshift laptop. Of course, the Eee Pad Transformer's good looks and under-the-hood Honeycomb might not be the only explanation. Since Asus reportedly put more emphasis on the tablet's U.K. debut, U.S. inventory numbers were likely on the small side to begin with. [Via: Android Police] More from Tecca: T-Mobile offering limited-time $100 discount on G-Slate tablet More about Android 3.0, Honeycomb More about tablets

QR Code Resume Makes Your Embossed Paper Look Lame (Mashable) Posted: 26 Apr 2011 04:53 PM PDT Brenna Ehrlich Brenna Ehrlich – Tue Apr 26, 7:53 pm ET [More from Mashable: Coming Soon to YouTube: Major Hollywood Films?] Prepare to feel really inadequate about your chosen resume font. This dude has fashioned a custom QR code resume that is sure to break up the monotony of any HR person's day. Made by Victor Petit -- who was looking for an internship, but recently scored one -- this resume is reminiscent of band Cassius's video and accompanying app [iTunes link] for "I Love You So." It features a QR code in the middle of a picture of a face (on the back of a printed resume) that unlocks a video of the missing mouth on your phone. [More from Mashable: YouTube Video of the Day: Woman Makes Origami Crane With Her Tongue] "I realized during my previous job search that getting an interview at a communication agency is the hardest part of the process," says Petit. "I tried to create a CV that would enable me to express myself vocally as soon as they read the paper version. The combination of a sheet of paper and a QR code felt like the best way to reach that goal." We're not sure what exactly Petit's skills are from the video alone -- it has no sound -- aside from being extremely awesome. This story originally published on Mashable here.

Sina has no immediate plan to list microblog operations: CEO (Reuters) Posted: 26 Apr 2011 08:59 PM PDT – 33 mins ago BEIJING (Reuters) – Sina Corp, China's largest Internet portal, has no immediate plans to list its microblog operations, its chief said on Wednesday. Sina, which operates China's top Internet portal and the highly popular Twitter-like Weibo messaging service, will diversify into e-commerce and online games next year, Charles Chao told an industry conference in Beijing. Chao said the reason for restructuring Weibo recently was that it was a new business model that needed space to grow. "Eventually we will make money from it, I have full confidence...our priority is to build up the platform," he said. Sina had previously said it expects Weibo will start generating revenue in the first half of 2011 by selling virtual items and advertising space. Sina competes with Tencent Holdings and Oak Pacific Interactive in the social networking space. Tencent Holdings Ltd told Reuters this month it expects an increase in microblog subscribers to 200-300 million by the end of the year from 160 million now as social networking services gain popularity in the country. Local media reported recently that Facebook may be in talks with Baidu Inc to launch a China social networking site. Baidu declined to comment while Facebook said it is evaluating its China options. (Reporting by Melanie Lee; Writing by Soo Ai Peng; Editing by Jacqueline Wong and Ken Wills)

Sony Playstation suffers massive data breach (Reuters) Posted: 26 Apr 2011 08:43 PM PDT By Tim Kelly and Liana B. Baker Tim Kelly And Liana B. Baker – 49 mins ago TOKYO/NEW YORK (Reuters) – Sony Corp suffered a massive breach in its video game online network that allowed the theft of names, addresses and possibly credit card data belonging to 77 million user accounts, in one of the largest Internet security break-ins ever. Sony said it learned of the breach in its popular PlayStation Network on April 19, prompting it to shut down the network immediately. Sony did not tell the public about the stolen data until Tuesday, hours after it launched its new tablet computers in Japan. An "illegal and unauthorized person" obtained names, addresses, email addresses, birth dates, usernames, passwords, logins, security questions and more, Sony said on its U.S. PlayStation blog on Tuesday. A Sony spokesman said it took "several days of forensic investigation" after learning of the breach before the company knew consumers' data had been compromised. The news sparked fury among users. "If you have compromised my credit information, you will never receive it again," read one message on the PlayStation Network blog from a user under the name Korbei83. "The fact that you've waited this long to divulge this information to your customers is deplorable. Shame on you." The electronics conglomerate is the latest Japanese company to come under fire for not disclosing bad news quickly. Tokyo Electric Power Co was criticized for how it handled the nuclear crisis after the March 11 earthquake. Last year, Toyota Motor Corp was slammed for being less than forthright about problems over a massive vehicle recall. The shutdown of the PlayStation Network prevented owners of Sony's video game console from buying and downloading games, as well as playing with rivals over the Internet. Sony said it could restore some of the network's services within a week. Alan Paller, research director of the SANS Institute, said the breach may be the largest theft of identity data information on record. The online network was launched in the autumn of 2006 and offers games, music and movies to people with PlayStation consoles. It had 77 million registered users as of March 20, a Sony spokesman said, almost 90 percent of them in Europe or the United States. Sony shares fell 0.3 percent in Tokyo by 0240 GMT, underperforming a 0.8 percent rise in the benchmark Nikkei index. MAJOR SETBACK The breach is a major setback for the Japanese electronics maker. Although video game hardware and software sales have declined globally, the PlayStation franchise is a substantial profit source and remains a flagship product for Sony. Sony intends to use PlayStation games to lure consumers to buy its first tablet computers. The company will start selling the tablets later this year to compete against Apple Inc's iPad and aims to overtake Samsung Electronics to become No. 2 in the burgeoning market. The company also plans to launch a new hand-held games device, the Next Generation Portable, by the end of the year. Children with accounts established by their parents also might have had their data exposed, Sony said. Sony said it saw no evidence credit card numbers were stolen, but warned users it could not rule out the possibility. "Out of an abundance of caution, we are advising you that your credit card number (excluding security code) and expiration date may have been obtained," Sony said. Analysts said that while Sony has notified customers of the breach, it had still not provided information on how user data might have been compromised. "This is a huge data breach," said Wedbush Securities analyst Michael Pachter, who estimated Sony generates $500 million in annual revenue from the service. "The bigger issue with Sony is how will the hacker use the info that has been illegally obtained?" Sony said it had hired an "outside recognized security firm" to investigate. The company said user account information for the PlayStation Network and its Qriocity service users was compromised between April 17 and April 19. Paller said Sony probably did not pay enough attention to security when it was developing the software that runs its network. In the rush to get out innovative new products, security can sometimes take a back seat. "They have to innovate rapidly. That's the business model," Paller said. "New software has errors in it. So they expose code with errors in it to large numbers of people, which is a catastrophe in the making." He suspected the hackers entered the network by taking over the PC of a system administrator, who had rights to access sensitive information about Sony's customers. They likely did that by sending the administrator an email message that contained a piece of malicious software that got downloaded onto his or her PC. Hackers have stolen personal data in the past from large companies. In 2009, Albert Gonzalez pleaded guilty to stealing tens of millions of payment card numbers by breaking into corporate computer systems at companies such as 7-Eleven Inc and Target Co. Sony said its users could place fraud alerts on their credit card accounts through three U.S. credit card bureaus, which it recommended in its statement. The company declined to comment on whether it was working with law enforcement or other parties in its investigation. Sony has reported the breach to Federal Bureau of Investigations, the New York Times reported on its website. Democrat senator Richard Blumenthal also sent a letter to the Japanese firm asking it to explain why it didn't notify PlayStation owners sooner. (Additional reporting by Isabel Reynolds in Tokyo and Jim Finkle in Boston; Editing by Lincoln Feast, Anshuman Daga and Dean Yates)

Hackers swiped PlayStation Network user data: Sony (AFP) Posted: 26 Apr 2011 07:53 PM PDT – 1 hr 39 mins ago SAN FRANCISCO (AFP) – Sony warned that hackers stole password, birthday and other data about users of its PlayStation Network that connected PlayStation 3 (PS3) consoles to online games, films and more. PlayStation Network and Qriocity streaming music service were turned off April 20 in the wake of an "external intrusion," according to Sony spokesman Patrick Seybold. While the cyber attack was still being investigated, Sony said it believed that PlayStation Network and Qriocity service users' names, addresses, birthdates, passwords, and email addresses were swiped. "While there is no evidence at this time that credit card data was taken, we cannot rule out the possibility," Sony said in an email message being sent out to PlayStation Network and Qriocity users. "It is also possible that your profile data, including purchase history and billing address (city, state, zip), and your PlayStation Network/Qriocity password security answers may have been obtained." Sony shut off PlayStation Network and Qriocity to investigate the breach and bolster defenses, according to Seybold. "We have a clear path to have PlayStation Network and Qriocity systems back online, and expect to restore some services within a week," Seybold said. Efforts to fix the situation include re-building the system to strengthen network infrastructure, according to Sony. Players were still able to take part in games offline on the consoles, but lost the ability to challenge others on the Internet, stream movies, or get other services. PlayStation Network launched in November of 2006 and boasts about 75 million registered users. Sony did not indicate whether it identified a culprit in the intrusion. Internet vigilante group Anonymous had vowed retribution against Sony for taking legal action against hackers who cracked PS3 defenses to change console operating software. A message signed by Anonymous at website anonnews.org early this month announced an "Operation Payback" campaign aimed at Sony because of its cases against the two hackers, one of whom cut a deal to settle the case. Anonymous argued that PS3 console owners have the right to do what they wish with them, including modifying them.

Haiti's Martelly seeks new taxes to help schools (AP) Posted: 26 Apr 2011 05:36 PM PDT By TRENTON DANIEL, Associated Press Trenton Daniel, Associated Press – Tue Apr 26, 8:36 pm ET PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti – Haiti's president-elect announced Tuesday that he intends to impose taxes on money transfers and international cellphone calls to help finance schools across the chronically impoverished country. Michel "Sweet Micky" Martelly, who last week was declared the official winner of a March 20 presidential runoff but will not take office until May 14, said Haiti's three telecommunication companies have agreed to charge an additional 5 cents a minute to help bankroll schools. The levy on international phone calls with companies Digicel, Voila and Haitel would raise roughly $36 million annually, Martelly said. The program, he added, would take effect June 1 if lawmakers approve the plan. During campaigning, Martelly pledged to ensure that all children in Haiti receive a free education. Haitian parents now spend the bulk of their salaries on education but few of their children learn much because the quality of schools is considered so dismal. Martelly said his government will also approach money transfer businesses to see if they would agree to donate a dollar for each remittance sent to Haiti to help fund schools. He also said that restructuring Haiti's popular lottery might generate income for bettering education. He disclosed few details of these proposals, however. Martelly's education plans were unveiled at a press conference as international election observers sift through contested results for 19 legislative races from the March 20 runoff. The U.S. Embassy in Port-au-Prince and the United Nations expressed concerns over discrepancies between the final results released last week and preliminary results released April 4. The new results showed that candidates in 19 races received thousands of votes that they didn't have in the initial results, and expanded the presence of Haiti's ruling Unity party in parliament. Martelly, a first-time politician who won 67 percent of the vote in the country's presidential elections, is not a member of Unity. Martelly has called for an investigation into the reversals but said little on the matter Tuesday. "The vote of the population should be respected," he said. "We can't build democracy with a stolen election." (This version CORRECTS day of announcement to Tuesday instead of Monday. )

Facebook Facial Recognition Could Get Creepy (PC World) Posted: 26 Apr 2011 06:00 PM PDT Megan Geuss Megan Geuss – Tue Apr 26, 9:00 pm ET In early April, Engadget posted a short article confirming a rumor that Facebook would be using facial recognition to suggest the names of friends who appeared in newly uploaded photos. You'd be allowed to opt out of tagging, and only friends would be able to tag each other in albums. Nevertheless, a commenter beneath the story quipped, "Awesome! Now I can take pictures of cute girls at the grocery store or at the park, upload them and Facebook will tell me who they are! (I'm pretty sure that's not [how] it works but I'm sure it will get there.)" The commenter's confidence says a lot: Facial recognition may be just one more way for Facebook to push the visual part of the social graph (photos of us) toward being more public and far less private. Facebook has a history of asking for forgiveness after the fact instead of asking for permission in advance, and its new face-recognition feature could become the latest example of a seemingly innocuous development morphing into a serious threat to the privacy of our (visual) data. And as usual, some Facebook users will like the convenience of the new features so much that they will forget the privacy trade-off altogether, or just choose not to worry about it. Features You Didn't Know You Had As it stands, Facebook's current feature uses facial recognition technology to pick out faces in your photos. Once you've uploaded your album, Facebook will take you to a new screen where you can enter the name of each person below their face. Sometimes (depending on your privacy settings and the clarity of the photo), Facebook will go a step further: If a face matches one you previously tagged in another album, Facebook may suggest that person's name for you. Facebook quietly added the feature to the Privacy Settings, allowing users to disable the peppy-sounding 'Suggest photos of me to friends' option. Most Facebook users probably don't know that the extra privacy setting is there. Technological advances in the last 10 years are making it possible for computers to match images and names with impressive accuracy. Though every company using the technology handles it a little differently, the president of Applied Recognition, Ray Ganong, shared some insight into how his company's product Fotobounce gets the job done: "We scan each image as a bitmap and look for potential face images that qualify. We try to see the two eyes, and based on the eye location we reorient the face and then generate a digital signature, based on that face." Many builders of facial recognition technology base their matches on "faceprints" of people, where an engine synthesizes information using many photos of the same person from different angles or with different lighting to make a more accurate match. Given that Facebook users had uploaded 60 billion photos by the end of 2010, the prospects for accurate facial recognition on the social network are better now than ever before. Facial recognition in a social networking context is not particularly new. Third-party app builders have been offering face detection on Facebook since Face.com entered the scene in 2009 with its Photo Finder app, which scanned thousands of photos to find images in which the user appears but isn't tagged. But the difference between third-party apps and Facebook's new recognition feature is that the former have always required participants to actively opt in to the feature, whereas at Facebook the feature is turned on by default and requires the user first to learn that it's in use, and then to expressly opt out. Even then, Facebook's servers don't lose the information they've acquired for associating your face with your name. They just comply with your request not to use it for the time being. Despite the service's need to make users feel at ease about these changes, some comments from Facebook's management over the past few months have been confusing and a little defensive, adding to the impression that the company is easing in a feature that could generate negative reactions later. In September 2010, Facebook revealed that it would recognize and group similar faces together. During a public announcement regarding the new features, Sam Odio, the newly hired product manager of Facebook Photos, said "This isn't face recognition […] Picasa and iPhoto--they'll detect a face and say, 'This is Sam,' and they'll suggest that it's Sam. We're not doing that. We're not linking any faces to profiles automatically. Right now, we want to stay away from that because it's a very touchy subject." Apparently the subject wasn't quite so touchy four months later, when Facebook started suggesting the names of friends in uploaded photos. Some might argue that the facial recognition tagging feature actually gives users more privacy by increasing their chances of being tagged, and in that way discovering where their image is appearing and how it's being used. But for some, the worry is less about how friends might use your photos and more about how Facebook could use your information--and give others access to it. Even if you choose to disable the 'Suggest photos of me to friends' option, Facebook will still have the technical ability to connect your name with your image. And even when Facebook doesn't suggest the name of your friend, picking out a face and asking you to tag it is essentially the same thing as offering the name of your friend, except that it enlists you as a participant in the process. "Facebook is being really clever about it […] they're not assigning names with it, but the minute you assign a name to it you've completed the recognition," says Marisol MacGregor, head of marketing at Viewdle, a company that specializes in making lightweight facial recognition technology. Safe Now, But What's Coming? In the hands of smaller developers like Viewdle and Fotobounce, which keep little if any personal information on their company's servers, face recognition could be minimally worrisome. But in the hands of Facebook, which sits on a monster database filled with dense detail about the personal lives of more than 500 million people, the technology has the potential to be creepy. Of course, as far as we know, the company is not going any farther with its current technology than suggesting that you tag people you are already friends with in newly uploaded photos. But could Facebook ever identify people you're not friends with and suggest that you become friends with them? "Absolutely, it would be easy to do. All that data would be on that server farm. Technically, it's totally possible to expand that," says Applied Recognition's Ganong. It's not hard to imagine Facebook's "Suggest photos of me to friends" privacy setting becoming "Suggest photos of me to friends of friends" and then "Suggest photos of me to others"--essentially allowing you to take photos of strangers on the street and request a friendship. No other company except Google could realistically offer a feature that tells you the name of a complete stranger you'd seen in the park or at a concert. In 2008 the company offered face recognition on Picasa, Google's photo-sharing site, but it recently removed face-finding tech from its Google Goggles app until privacy issues could be resolved. It turns out that algorithmically finding faces is cool, but sharing faces can get scary. Though Google is a giant company, one reason why its facial recognition feature in Goggles may not work is that Google doesn't have the kind of built-in emphasis on friendship and sharing that Facebook has. Facebook's ubiquity, and its financial interest in getting people to connect, makes it perhaps the only company in the world that could roll out the ability to recognize strangers, and get users to accept it. Some people might relish the idea of being spotted and of making connections with new people, but being able to identify a face with nothing more than a camera could have serious adverse consequences. "Facial recognition is especially troubling because cameras are ubiquitous and we routinely show our faces. And of course, one can take pictures of crowds, so it scales a bit better than, say, fingerprints," says Lee Tien, Electronic Frontier Foundation senior staff attorney, via e-mail. Misidentification is another problem. Gil Hirsch, CEO of Face.com, says that his company set up a very high threshold of recognition to confirm face matches on its Photo finder app. "We don't want to send you a message saying 'Hey Megan we found a photo of you' and it's not really you," he explained. But that threshold of recognition will be different with every system, Facebook's included. Nevertheless, better and faster algorithms are slowly whittling down the likelihood of erroneous identifications. Compared to being accurately identified to a stranger, misidentification may register as a lesser concern. Tien of EFF notes, "If Facebook misidentifies someone, the consequences are not the same as when a police video-camera misidentifies you as a suspect." True, unless a misidentification implicates you in dubious activities. The imagination reels. From a business perspective, it's important to Facebook that its users tag themselves and each other in as many photos as possible. These tags create more page views, which is valuable to Facebook's advertisers. But it could go much further. If you are tagged in a photo with three friends, advertisers could tailor information to what they think you might want based on your friend's preferences. Though perhaps not at the level of an infringement of legal privacy rights, facial recognition in the hands of Facebook does permit advertisers an unprecedented level of information about how to get a message across to you. Facial recognition is a cool technology that Facebook is using to add more convenience to the act of tagging people in photos. The technology may indeed create more connections between friends, and so far it seems to pose little real threat to privacy--because for now it's all among friends. But that could change. If you are uncomfortable with facial recognition, pay a visit to your Facebook privacy settings and opt out of the feature. In the broader view, it's important that we all keep a close eye on Facebook's use of this powerful technology, and that we let tech privacy groups and lawmakers know if the technology is being abused to enrich social networking sites and their advertisers, at the expense of our privacy.

Blagojevich jury selection enters last stretch (AP) Posted: 26 Apr 2011 06:52 PM PDT By MICHAEL TARM and KAREN HAWKINS, Associated Press Michael Tarm And Karen Hawkins, Associated Press – 2 hrs 40 mins ago CHICAGO – The judge in the retrial of impeached Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich spent a third day questioning potential jurors Tuesday, including a man who had downloaded cell phone ring tones of Blagojevich's infamous curses. But he fell short of having a panel decided, as many candidates were excused because of financial hardship or for expressing strong opinions about the case. About 35 people of the several dozen Judge James Zagel has questioned so far remain in the jury pool. Zagel has said he wants 40, though, before making final decisions about the 12 jurors and six alternates who will sit in the jury box. At least part of Wednesday will be devoted to completing jury selection. Zagel said opening statements may have to wait until early next week, possibly Monday. Also Tuesday, Zagel told prosecutors that they should tone down sensational testimony offered at the first trial about how Blagojevich and his wife spent more than $400,000 on custom suits, ties, furs and other pricy clothes during a six-year shopping spree. Prosecutors did not clearly spell out to jurors just how the Blagojeviches' lavish spending was pertinent to the charges or argue that their spending money was ill-gotten. The defense has complained that evidence was introduced merely to cast their client in a bad light. "That was over the top," Zagel said about prosecutors putting so much emphasis on the clothes. But he hastened to add the defense had been even more inclined to exaggeration, saying, "If I had an over-the-top index at the first trial — the defense would be by far the winner." Among those who remain in the jury pool are a Cook County prosecutor and a self-proclaimed Republican who had downloaded the ring tones of Blagojevich on secret FBI wiretaps. He said he "was critical and cynical about both parties" but also wrote in a questionnaire about Blagojevich that, "I believe he is guilty." Those excused included several who said they would lose or jeopardize their jobs if they were chosen for what could be a lengthy trial. The retrial is not expected to last as long as the first one — which spanned 2 1/2-months — in part because prosecutors have streamlined their case. Other potential jurors said they've already decided Blagojevich is guilty or expressed opinions that Zagel ruled would make them undesirable jurors. A retired computer programmer who said he wasn't a "people person" was excused after Zagel said he likely doesn't work well with others. "I think he is a loose cannon," Zagel said. The judge decided to keep some in the jury pool who said they formed unfavorable opinions of Blagojevich because he accepted their assurances they could set aside any biases and weigh the case on the evidence alone. Several of those questioned Tuesday had some link to Children's Memorial Hospital — the focus of one allegation that Blagojevich tried to squeeze campaign cash from the Chicago facility's CEO by threatening to cancel a pediatric care reimbursement promised by the state. Many potential jurors had children who had been treated at the hospital, and one man currently works there as a nurse and said he often discusses the allegation with his colleagues. In his first trial last year, Blagojevich was found guilty of lying to the FBI but jurors couldn't reach a verdict on any other charges against him. Those included charges related to allegations that he tried to sell or trade an appointment to President Barack Obama's vacant U.S. Senate seat in exchange for campaign cash or a job after he left office. The jury foreman from Blagojevich's first trial, James Matsumoto, attended court Tuesday as a spectator, sitting on a back bench and taking notes as the judge asked questions. "I feel that there is unfinished business for me," he told reporters outside the courtroom doors. "I have questions about jury selection, just how the whole process works."

New iPad game Snooker Club is a real looker (Appolicious) Posted: 26 Apr 2011 05:00 PM PDT

T-Mobile Suspends Its Bobsled Facebook App (PC World) Posted: 26 Apr 2011 04:50 PM PDT Stephen Lawson Stephen Lawson – Tue Apr 26, 7:50 pm ET T-Mobile USA has suspended Bobsled, its free voice calling service for Facebook, less than a week after it was launched. The service, which did not require a T-Mobile account, let Facebook users download an app and call their Facebook friends who were online. It was launched on April 20. On Tuesday, T-Mobile USA notified users through a message on its Facebook page that it was suspending Bobsled. "We are voluntarily and temporarily suspending the Bobsled service as we work with our partners at Facebook to address their design questions related to differentiating the Bobsled experience from Facebook's own created properties. We apologize for this temporary disruption and are looking forward to expanding the service with other features soon," the message said. Bobsled let users call any Facebook friend who had a PC with a microphone and headset or speakers. Friends could receive calls even if they didn't have the app. It also allowed a caller to leave a private or public voicemail message. Before the suspension, T-Mobile had said it planned to add smartphone and tablet apps and the ability to make VoIP (voice over Internet Protocol) calls to mobile and landline numbers in the U.S. In response to a question on its Facebook page, the Bobsled team said it did not have an estimate for when the service would be back but would notify users as soon as it was available. It's not clear how many Facebook users downloaded the Bobsled app, but only eight users had commented on Bobsled's suspension notice within six hours after it was posted. That status update had also earned a "Like" from 13 users. 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

YouTube Ready To Challenge Netflix with Movie Rentals (NewsFactor) Posted: 26 Apr 2011 10:58 AM PDT Jennifer LeClaire, newsfactor.com Jennifer Leclaire, newsfactor.com – Tue Apr 26, 1:58 pm ET YouTube is getting ready to roll out its version of a Netflix killer. Google's user-generated content platform has reportedly put all the parts in place to launch a movie-rental service. YouTube could not immediately be reached for comment, but headlines herald the coming movie service in partnership with Hollywood studios, including Universal, Warner Brothers, and Sony. The new service would target Apple's iTunes, Netflix and, to a lesser extent, Hulu. It's a paradigm shift for a web site that built its name by airing clips of home videos. Full-length feature films are set to start streaming on YouTube in May, reports insist, and consumers can tap into new releases for just $2. There is no word yet on whether YouTube will offer an unlimited subscription service. YouTube's Second Attempt "YouTube unsuccessfully tested movie rentals in the past on a small scale. But this is a more serious effort to become a premium-content site and generate revenue from sources other than advertising," said Greg Sterling, principal analyst at Sterling Market Intelligence. "This comes as no surprise; YouTube has been moving in this direction for some time," he added. "However, Netflix is a formidable competitor and obstacle to Google's success in this area. Yet Google can succeed if the service is easy to use and the company is able to secure a wide selection of titles." So far, news reports indicate only three of the six major Hollywood studios are on board. Disney, Fox and Paramount, though, may be working out licensing deals with YouTube for the launch. YouTube previously inked a deal with the Sundance Film Festival to show independent films, but this is Google's first major move, as Sterling noted. YouTube's Evolution Netflix owns the market for online movie streaming in the U.S. Netflix boasts 23.6 million subscribers, rivaling cable operator Comcast. Apple may have an advantage over YouTube with its storm of new releases for both purchase and rent. But with 100 million YouTube visitors, the evolving video platform has an opportunity to make an impact. For the past month, there have been plenty of rumors of the coming YouTube evolution -- and some clear moves. In addition to hiring several former studio executives, Google is also reportedly spending $100 million on content for YouTube and will break out the site into about 20 channels on specific topics. YouTube will add several hours of professionally produced programming each week, according to The Wall Street Journal. In March, YouTube snapped up original video producer Next New Networks. The company adds new weapons to YouTube's arsenal: Web video production. Next New Networks exists to produce original programming and help video producers distribute -- and make money -- from their films. YouTube also bought Green Parrot Pictures. The Green Parrot technology could improve the quality of videos by sharpening the image, reducing visual noise, and rendering a higher-quality, steadier video during the uploading process. The technology has been used in major studio productions from Lord of the Rings to X-Men to Spider-Man.

Which Tablet Is Best for You? (PC World) Posted: 26 Apr 2011 06:00 PM PDT Melissa J. Perenson Melissa J. Perenson – Tue Apr 26, 9:00 pm ET Apple iPad 2 is no doubt the best-selling tablet--but does that mean it's the best tablet? To find out, I spent a few weeks testing some of the iPad's leading competitors. I learned that in a surprising number of areas, including navigation, e-mail handling, and Web browsing, the other tablets actually beat out the iPad. For this comparison, I set aside raw hardware specs. Processor speed, RAM, and ports certainly matter, but a tablet can have great specs and still be awkward and unpleasant to use. What makes or breaks a tablet is its operating system, which determines whether answering e-mail, watching video, and surfing the Web will be a pleasure or a frustration. Several tablet operating systems are poised to battle it out. While most tablet OSs come on only one brand of tablet each, Google's Android 3.0 is the choice of a growing number of manufacturers, some of which add their own custom interface as HTC does with Sense UI and Samsung does with TouchWiz. For this article I tried the iOS 4.3-based Apple iPad 2, the BlackBerry Tablet OS-based RIM BlackBerry PlayBook, and the Android 3.0-based Acer Iconia Tab A500, Motorola Xoom, and T-Mobile G-Slate. I didn't have a final version of the WebOS-based HP TouchPad (due out this summer) for unlimited testing, but I was able to spend some time with a preproduction unit. Home Screen Advantage: BlackBerry Tablet OS, Android 3.0 You'll go to your tablet's home screen again and again, so it's critical for the screen to look good and work efficiently. The elegantly simple BlackBerry Tablet OS home screen smoothly transitions as you swipe among open apps in the navigator pane that appears in the upper two-thirds of the screen. RIM has built gesture navigation into the bezel, so a simple swipe up reveals context-sensitive menus, while a swipe down reveals the full app screen. The navigator screen and gesture-swipe combo makes moving among open, multitasking apps particularly intuitive. BlackBerry's home screen also deserves props for allowing one-tap access to Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, battery, and general-settings info. The BlackBerry's notifications are subtle: Messages appear in the upper-right corner to tell you that the battery is running low, for instance. Android 3.0's home screens (you get six of them) are very different from the BlackBerry offering, but perfect for people who want detailed control over how their tools are organized and presented. The new home-screen design is cleaner than that of previous Android versions, and it makes moving app icons and widgets across the six screens easy. Widgets are a compelling addition to Android, too: Google and app developers can use them to put regularly refreshed information--such as your calendar, your most recent e-mail messages, or the latest weather--directly on your screen. Tap the widget, and you'll proceed directly to the related app itself. These shortcuts are finger friendly, but the frequently winking updates could become more clutter than convenience. The three core Android 3.0 navigation buttons (back, home, and recently accessed apps) appear at the lower left of the screen, while the status bar is situated at the lower right. Both sets of buttons are built into the display, and will rotate accordingly as you turn the tablet from horizontal to vertical. Oddly, the back button doesn't behave as you might expect: Nowhere does Android note that using the back button exits an app entirely, but that's the action it performs. The button for recently accessed apps, often erroneously referred to as the multitasking button, brings up thumbnails of the five apps you've used most recently; but even though this is intended as a shortcut, it can make your finger travel more, not less, to return to an app. I especially like the redesigned notifications, which you reveal with the tap of a finger. The Android status bar is where you'll see notifications pop up, and where you'll get easier access to oft-used settings such as airplane mode and Wi-Fi. The Apple iOS home screen is way behind the competition in many respects. It's staid and consistent, but not at all dynamic. The bottom area has room for a maximum of six docked apps, while the rest of your apps spread across one of the multiple (up to 11) home screens. App icons are static, and unlike Android 3.0, iOS doesn't allow for widgets. iOS has no set location for notifications, either; instead, it passes along alerts in intrusive pop-up boxes. Organizing apps on different screens or into folders is tiresome, whether you're trying to do so on the iPad itself or in the iTunes desktop software. And unlike other mobile OSs, iOS buries oft-used settings under the layers of the settings menu; you'll find no shortcut here. WebOS phones, the TouchPad has a home screen that uses what HP calls "activity cards." Each card represents an application, media file, e-mail message, or browser window. Cards can sit individually or in a stack in the center of the home screen, and you can flick left to right to scroll through them. I like the flexibility of breaking out activity cards, and the ability to stack related cards together, even if the sources are different apps. In addition, I like the unobtrusive notifications in the upper-right corner of the screen (tap the icon, and you can flick through your alerts right there); it also has one of the best approaches to accessing settings that I've seen. Mail Advantage: Android 3.0 Both iOS and Android 3.0 have good mail apps, but Android gets the nod, by a hair. Android's versatile, triple-pane approach to e-mail is easy to navigate. (If you don't use Gmail, though, you'll have to work with the generic e-mail app, which doesn't let you search your messages. At least you can easily organize them into folders.) More important, the behavior of Android's mail screens isn't dramatically different in the vertical versus the horizontal position. Although Apple's Mail app looks good and is easy to navigate, it annoyingly behaves in a different way based on whether you're holding the tablet in landscape or portrait mode: In landscape, it shows you two panes, while in portrait it has a pop-up pane for moving through messages and inboxes. Compared with Android, iOS puts many more limitations on what you can download, and what you can do with a downloaded file. It will save JPEGs, PDFs, and Microsoft Office documents, but you can open those files only in specific apps that are written to hook into the Mail app (for example, Pages, iBooks, or Evernote). And you can't attach a file directly to a message; to send a photo, for instance, you initiate the message from the image in the Photo Roll, not from the e-mail app. BlackBerry Tablet OS stumbles due to the fact that it lacks an integrated e-mail app. The BlackBerry Bridge feature lets you pair a BlackBerry phone with the tablet, so you can view your phone's BlackBerry Messenger e-mail, contacts, and chats on the PlayBook's larger screen. When you decouple the tablet and phone, the Messenger data disappears from the PlayBook--a feature that might frustrate consumers but should appeal to corporate IT honchos who want to limit the spread of sensitive information. The PlayBook ships with icons for AOL Mail, Gmail, Hotmail, and Yahoo Mail (along with Facebook and Twitter), but these icons are misleading since they don't bring you to actual apps--they're merely shortcuts to those services in the Web browser. The browser interface for the mail services is a poor substitute for a mobile-optimized app. For example, I couldn't add an attachment in Gmail, though I could do so--with some graphics issues--in AOL Mail. I could save attachments from Web-based e-mail, but finding those documents again was difficult, and sometimes they didn't open properly. WebOS's e-mail is similar to Android 3.0's take in that it has a multipane organization. Regrettably, individual e-mail messages can't be represented on their own activity cards unless you press, say, the reply or forward button; this action will make an e-mail message stand on its own, so you can stack it together with a Web page to create a hub of related content. You have the option of saving one or all attachments in an e-mail, or opening an attachment; however, I didn't see enough of the HP TouchPad's other apps to determine how attachments interact with them. support for Adobe Flash Player 10.2--it means that users don't miss out on the large portion of the Web that relies on Flash. Another benefit of Android: You can download alternative Web browsers, such as Mozilla's Firefox 4 for Mobile. In comparison, iOS 4.3 and BlackBerry Tablet OS feel stuck in the dark ages of Web browsing. Since their respective native browsers access only one Web page at a time, you must exit one page before you browse to another. Switching among pages is much faster and smoother in Android's tabbed design than it is on either iOS 4.3 or BlackBerry Tablet OS. And neither of those OSs updates a page dynamically. In addition, iOS's mobile Safari browser limits the number of windows you can have open at a time, and displays bookmarks as only a text list. And as with e-mail, iOS restricts how the Web browser handles downloads. You don't download files, per se; instead, if a supported file (for example, a Word doc or a PDF) is on a page, that file will open in a separate browser window. From there, you'll have the option to open the file in apps that have been hooked into the Web browser, such as Apple's iWork apps, Dropbox, iBooks, or Photo Roll. But you can't download .zip files, video files, or any file format that iOS does not support. I like the fact that the BlackBerry Tablet OS browser supports Flash, but I'm disappointed with its uneven behavior. It lets you save a JPEG to a Downloads folder that's accessible via the browser; in my hands-on tests, however, I couldn't open the JPEGs I downloaded on the device. I had similar problems with some Word docs and PDFs I downloaded, too, though other files saved and opened just fine in the PlayBook's preinstalled apps (Adobe Reader for PDFs, and the Microsoft Office-compatible Word To Go, Sheet To Go, and Slideshow To Go). Stranger still, tapping on a file didn't consistently bring up the action to save it--though when I did get the chance to save a file, the PlayBook also allowed me to rename it on the spot. Another frustration: The Download folder didn't consistently retain a history of the downloaded files; without that, or a general file browser that would let me rummage on the tablet myself, those files seemed lost to the ether. The WebOS browser on the TouchPad works much as it does on WebOS cell phones. Each browser window behaves as its own activity card, and you can stack those cards together or view them individually. Multimedia Advantage: None In addition to examining how the tablets display images and video and play music, I looked at how they allow users to import music and video, as well as to purchase it. I didn't pick an outright winner simply because no one mobile OS gets enough right in this respect. Which mobile OS you deem best for media management will depend in part on your shopping habits and on how you plan to use your tablet. The iPad's tight integration with the iTunes store makes buying new audio and video on Apple's tablet exceedingly easy. Love it or hate it, iTunes is the dominant marketplace for digital media, and the iPad benefits greatly. iTunes desktop software remains fairly good at organizing and tracking your media, as well as at syncing that media onto your tablet. However, although you can add your own videos and music--as well as photos--to the iTunes library on your PC, in order to play that media on your iPad you have to sync the tablet with your PC's iTunes library. You can't just do a quick drag-and-drop file transfer, as you can with Android 3.0. Nonetheless, if you already have an iPod or iPhone, and you shop in iTunes, the iPad will fit in perfectly with how you buy music and video. At the time of my testing, Google had no comparable music or video store for its Android OS (though persistent rumors indicate that it might soon launch Google Music, reportedly a digital storefront). With an Android tablet, you can shop at a variety of media stores--for example, the Amazon MP3 app for Android lets you buy music at the Amazon MP3 store and play it with the Amazon Cloud Player, and Samsung offers its Media Hub for music and video downloads on its Android tablets. It's great to have choices, but if you use different stores you could end up with music that you can't play together in the same music library (Media Hub content plays only inside that app, for example). Beyond the shopping, Android 3.0 is capable of solid media management--most of the time. Syncing via Windows Media Player is simple, but if you prefer to drag and drop music files, that works just fine, too. The same goes for video files, though Android 3.0 surprisingly lacks support for WMV files, among others. Most of the Android 3.0 tablets I've seen have a widescreen aspect ratio, which is perfect for HD movies. Plus, you get Flash support for online video (note, however, that Hulu generally blocks access from Android devices). Google's redesigned music player is appealing in its aesthetics and usability. Unfortunately, since Android 3.0 lacks a dedicated video player, your videos are meshed into the Gallery with your photos. And the version of Android 3.0 that ships on all of the tablets I tried has a major imaging bug: Android 3.0's Gallery app doesn't render images clearly--images look unsharp, and fuzzy. A Google rep told me that the company was aware of the problem, but offered no timeline for a fix. Sure, I like how the Gallery lets me view image EXIF data, but that information doesn't do me much good if I can't tell whether the image is actually sharp. BlackBerry Tablet OS's media handling is a mixed bag. It does some things extraordinarily well: For example, the OS can power two different graphics activities simultaneously, so you can output 1080p video via HDMI to a TV and still surf the Web on the PlayBook. In my hands-on tests, Flash video played fine inside a Web page, though it occasionally had sizing issues that made it difficult for the in-browser Flash player on YouTube (and Hulu.com video) to resize to the PlayBook's screen. You can buy music on a PlayBook through 7digital, the same DRM-free store you can use via a BlackBerry phone. RIM plans to offer a video store, but it isn't ready just yet. I appreciated how smoothly the BlackBerry Tablet OS let me exit and resume YouTube and other videos while navigating among open apps; when I popped back to a video, it resumed playback instantly, with no stutters or hesitation. This OS had no issue with playing WMV, AVI, or even .mov files I shot on my iPhone. Images looked great--crisp and sharp--but the Pictures app is fairly plain, with few options for setting up slideshows or navigating shots, and no additional options such as viewing EXIF data and other image properties. I did have difficulty getting vertical images to rotate from the horizontal (though the same images do so just fine on Android 3.0); RIM says that function will be coming in a future update. RIM makes getting content onto the PlayBook fairly easy. You have to install an app on your desktop, and then use it to transfer files to the device wirelessly (it acts as a wireless hard drive) or use the app's guided sync and transfer options. Impressively, it grabbed music from my iTunes library, skipping over some songs only because those tracks were protected by digital rights management. The music player built in to BlackBerry Tablet OS looks fine and operates smoothly, though its layout took a little getting used to and building playlists on the fly wasn't as easy as I'd like. Apps Advantage: IOS Since no tablet does everything you could want with the OS alone, you must have apps. Apple's iOS enjoys a definite advantage in this regard. At last count, more than 64,000 of the 350,000 apps in the App Store were optimized for the iPad. No matter what you want to do on your iPad, you'll likely find something that does it in the Apple App Store. In contrast, only a hundred-plus Android apps are optimized for use on Android 3.0 and the larger screens of tablets. More apps are on their way--though it's not certain how much of the current Android app boom will be devoted to tablets. And I've had mixed experiences with apps that aren't intended for Android 3.0: Sometimes they work fine, sometimes they function but look a bit off, and sometimes they crash. RIM says it launched BlackBerry Tablet OS with 3000 apps in its AppWorld store. Unfortunately none of the apps I downloaded particularly impressed me--some appeared to be simple, almost DOS-like in their design. RIM says the PlayBook will be able to run Android 2.x apps, but not 3.0 apps, sold via its AppWorld store; but the Android Player emulator that will enable the function, as well as the emulator that will run BlackBerry phone apps, won't be available until later this summer. At launch, the PlayBook lacks compelling apps to complement its (mostly) compelling hardware and mobile OS. Best Overall Impression I find a lot to like among all the contending tablet OSs, and wish I could cobble those appealing elements together into a single, awesome mobile OS. But barring that, I believe that Apple's iOS remains the best tablet operating system overall. That may be a surprise to you, given that I prefer other OSs for many of the individual functions I looked at. On the whole, however, iOS delivers the best-formed environment for both productivity and entertainment. Once Google addresses Android 3.0's drawbacks and more developers release tablet-optimized apps, Android 3.0 will be in a dogfight with iOS. But by then, who knows what Apple might introduce for iOS 5? Meanwhile, businesspeople who already depend on BlackBerry phones should value the way those handsets will interact with the PlayBook, as well as the built-in security of the platform--and for that audience, such capabilities will outweigh many of the PlayBook's other weaknesses. Samsung's Galaxy Tab 10.1 Android 3.0 slate is 0.2mm thinner than the iPad 2. This 10.1-inch model, due in June, costs $499 for a 16GB Wi-Fi unit (an 8.9-inch one is coming too). I like its thinness--and many of Samsung's interface tweaks. PlayBook: RIM's BlackBerry PlayBook gets a lot right, but it also feels like a work in progress. For now it's constrained by a limited app selection, software glitches, and choices in functionality or design that might reduce the tablet's popularity among consumers. TouchPad: HP is betting its tablet future on WebOS, which it acquired from Palm last year. The TouchPad has a 9.7-inch display and supports HP Touchstone technology for wireless transfers between WebOS handsets and the tablet. G-Slate: Also called the LG Optimus Pad, the 8.9-inch, Android 3.0-based G-Slate tablet for T-Mobile stands out thanks to its two rear cameras. The cameras enable 3D video capture; you can view the videos through the included anaglyph video glasses. Flyer: HTC's upcoming tablets--the Flyer for Best Buy and the EVO View 4G for Sprint--were unveiled with Android 2.3, but Sprint has hinted that its slate will carry Android 3.0. Support for HTC's Scribe pen lets you capture notations digitally. Iconia Tab: In early demos, Acer's Iconia Tab A500 Android 3.0 tablet seemed promising. The Wi-Fi-only tablet has an aluminum build and carries familiar-sounding specs, including Adobe Flash 10.2 support and a 1280-by-800-pixel display with a 16:10 aspect ratio. What About Windows? We've seen little movement when it comes to putting Windows on a tablet--and it may not happen in earnest until we get Windows 8. For now, Dell, Fujitsu, and MSI have said that they would aim Windows 7 tablets at vertical markets such as the education, finance, manufacturing, and medical fields. So far only Asus, Azpen, and ViewSonic have suggested that their Windows tablets are for a wider audience. Neither the default Windows interface nor the applications are finger friendly, and battery life is an issue. But the appeal of Windows on a tablet remains, as much for its novelty as for its interoperability with the software on a laptop or desktop. The longer Microsoft waits on providing tablet optimization, the more ground it will cede as tablets steal the thunder from traditional PCs and consumers come to rely on mobile OSs instead of on Windows.

MIPS Porting Google's Android 3.0 OS for Its Processors (PC World) Posted: 26 Apr 2011 03:10 PM PDT Agam Shah Agam Shah – Tue Apr 26, 6:10 pm ET MIPS Technologies on Tuesday said it was porting Google's Android 3.0 operating system, code-named Honeycomb, to work with its microprocessors. The port could lead to the faster release of Honeycomb tablets running on MIPS processors, said Art Swift, vice president of marketing and business development at MIPS. Customers asked for Honeycomb support, and porting the OS could speed up tablet development, Swift said. Honeycomb is already working on MIPS processors internally, but further optimization is needed, Swift said. He couldn't comment on when the port would be complete, but said it took 60 to 90 days to finish porting earlier versions of Android. MIPS processors are being used in a few tablets such as Cruz from Velocity Micro. Older versions of Android have already been ported to work with MIPS processors. Because Google hasn't yet open sourced Honeycomb, MIPS signed a licensing deal with Google for the operating system. Porting Honeycomb could be a big step forward for MIPS as it tries to establish a beachhead in the smartphone and tablet markets, which are dominated by ARM. Honeycomb already works on ARM-based tablets, and has been ported to work with Intel's x86 chips. MIPS, like ARM, licenses processor designs to chip and device makers. MIPS has a strong presence in markets such as networking and wireless communications, and the company's processors are also used in television sets, Blu-ray players and set-top boxes. MIPS processors include the MIPS32 1074K family of application processors, which the company is pushing into mobile devices. The 1074K is scalable up to 1.5GHz and is capable of multithreading. The company earlier this month announced it was developing 64-bit processor cores, code-named Prodigy, as it tries to raise the performance of its processors.

What Your Business Can Learn from the Amazon Cloud Outage (PC World) Posted: 26 Apr 2011 12:24 PM PDT Robert Dutt Robert Dutt – Tue Apr 26, 3:24 pm ET The servers are back up and users can once again check in on Foursquare and ask questions on Quora, but the legacy of last week's Amazon Elastic Cloud Computing (EC2) outage will live on and provide important lessons for businesses as they look to cloud computing for their IT future. While there have been high profile cloud outages before, the scale and length of Amazon's unexpected downtime, as well as the profile of some of the clients that were dragged down with it, make it all the more impactful. So while Amazon scrambles to find out what went wrong, here's how to make sure you're ready for turbulence on the way to the cloud. Amazon structures its cloud data center into Availability Zones to provide a level of redundancy. It's like designing a ship with multiple water-tight compartments, so that if one or two are damaged, the ship remains afloat. However, history has shown us no "unsinkable" ship is truly unsinkable, and to believe so is folly. Trust in your design, but always have enough lifejackets on board. Even with a major hole poked in its credibility by nearly two days of downtime, cloud computing in general and Amazon EC2 in particular still offer compelling benefits to the small business community--most notably, the capability to offload the management of complex compute demands. There are ways to mitigate some of the potential challenges of an outage like Amazon's. With some care and forethought, small businesses can still turn to the cloud as a way to reduce the time and money they stay on the "keeping the lights on" part of IT management, and increase the amount of effort they spend on innovation through technology. What Is Mission Critical? Businesses that depend on Internet connectivity, like Foursquare and Quora, are more attracted than most to the value proposition of cloud computing. The capability to scale their environment (and their bill) up or down with usage is huge. However, these are also the companies that stand to lose the most when there's downtime, as the Internet-based service literally is the business. But unless you're launching the next hot-button social media property, you're a little bit more fortunate. You can pick and choose the parts of your IT infrastructure you want to keep on-site, and outsource others to maximize profitability. The cloud doesn't have to be all or nothing. Maybe e-mail and the Website are too important to your business to be under anyone else's watch. But maybe there are some test and development workloads that can happily live on the cloud. If you're concerned about cloud provider reliability, use the cloud for workloads that won't take the business down with them if they go down or that can wait for a while should need be. Diversify, Diversify, Diversify If you are in a position where it makes sense to have even your most important IT infrastructure in the cloud for the sake of accessibility, flexibility or economics, there are ways to make it work for you. You're just going to have to make sure your cloud environment is at least as redundant and disaster-ready as is your on-location network, server and storage infrastructure. My PC World colleague Tony Bradley offers the example of SmugMug, the online photo-sharing Website that run on Amazon's cloud, and yet survived the Amazonpocalypse with nary a scratch. In SmugMug's case, it was largely a case of being in the right parts of the cloud at the right time, and not subscribing to the hardest-hit Amazon service, its Elastic Block Storage offering. But just to be sure, if the workload is critical, it may be worth investigating entering relationships with multiple cloud providers, preventing your business from falling to a single point of failure even in the cloud. SLAs Matter And while you're negotiating those deals with one or more cloud providers, take a minute to examine your service level agreements (SLAs) with any provider. SLAs should set out how your providers are rewarded when things go right, and how you're compensated when things go wrong. Especially if you're working with a local service provider which is working with an Amazon, a Google, or another major public cloud infrastructure vendor, make sure those SLAs spell out who is responsible for what should things go awry. It's worth the extra time and effort early in the relationship to make sure those SLAs are clear, comprehensive and iron-clad. If something goes wrong, you don't want your business to languish offline while your vendors pass the buck for responsibility for the outage. This is the very definition of when you want one throat to choke, and you want to make sure it's clear to whom that throat belongs. Robert Dutt is a veteran IT journalist and blogger. He covers the Canadian IT technology solution provider scene daily at ChannelBuzz.ca. You can also find him on Twitter.

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