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Tuesday, July 5, 2011

China's Baidu, Microsoft to cooperate in search (AP) : Technet

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China's Baidu, Microsoft to cooperate in search (AP) : Technet

China's Baidu, Microsoft to cooperate in search (AP)

Posted: 05 Jul 2011 01:38 PM PDT

By JOE McDONALD, AP Business Writer Joe Mcdonald, Ap Business Writer – Tue Jul 5, 4:38 pm ET

BEIJING – Chinese search giant Baidu Inc. will use Microsoft's Bing for some English-language results as the software giant tries to expand its small share of China's search market.

China has the world's biggest population of Internet users, with more than 450 million people online. Global e-commerce, search and other Internet brands have struggled to gain a foothold against aggressive local competitors in a heavily regulated market.

No financial details of the tie-up between Microsoft Corp. and Baidu were released. The Chinese company has been looking at possible expansion abroad.

Google Inc., which competes against Bing and Baidu, closed its China search engine last year after saying it no longer wanted to cooperate with government censorship.

Chinese users can reach Google's site in Hong Kong, a Chinese territory without censorship, but government filters can make access sluggish, and its China market share has declined.

For this deal, it appears that Microsoft will censor English-language Bing search results in China. Microsoft said in a statement that Bing will use "certain filtering technologies and processes to ensure that we are in compliance with local laws."

There is "obviously no legal obligation" for Microsoft to stay out of China, said Jillian York, director of International Freedom of Expression at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a civil-liberties group in San Francisco.

But she called the decision a mistake, adding that if the price of entering China is to censor search results, then Bing should have stayed out of the country.

Baidu has about 76 percent of China's search market while Google has 19 percent, according to Analysys International, a Beijing research firm. Bing's China market share is so small that Analysys counts it among "others" that have a total of 2.2 percent.

Baidu, long seen as a Google imitator, has launched a series of video and other services in an effort to differentiate itself.

In a statement, Baidu vice president Samuel Shen said the agreement with Bing will improve English search for Baidu users and raise Bing's profile in China. Baidu says its site already handles about 10 million English searches daily.

Industry analysts say a big share of future growth in Chinese search will be in the countryside, where users speak little English.

Beijing encourages Web use for business and education but tries to block access to material considered subversive or pornographic. Search engines in China are required to block results for banned sites abroad.

China's top Internet companies are profitable and growing fast but are only beginning to expand abroad.

A major Chinese portal, Sina Corp., said last month that it will launch an English-language version of its popular Weibo microblog for users abroad, entering a market dominated by U.S.-based Twitter.

Other competitors including Chinese state media outlets have jumped into China's search market since Google's departure. The government's Xinhua News Agency and state-owned phone carrier China Mobile Ltd. launched their own search engine, http://www.panguso.com, in February.

Baidu still makes nearly all its revenue in China. Its profit for the first quarter of 2011 more than doubled from a year earlier to 1.07 billion yuan ($163.5 million).

Baidu launched its first site abroad in 2007 in Japan and analysts expect more sites in other countries to follow.

Last month, Baidu announced it was investing $306 million in Qunar, a Chinese travel search engine, to become the company's majority shareholder.

Google has said its advertising revenue in China is growing despite the closure of its mainland search engine.

The company was allowed to keep sales offices in China and says its biggest opportunities are in selling advertising for local websites or to companies that want to reach customers abroad through Google's global sites.

___

AP Technology Writers Rachel Metz in San Francisco and Barbara Ortutay in New York contributed to this story.

___

Baidu Inc.: http://www.baidu.com

Budgeting for wireless data on Verizon's new plans (AP)

Posted: 05 Jul 2011 06:01 PM PDT

By PETER SVENSSON, AP Technology Writer Peter Svensson, Ap Technology Writer – Tue Jul 5, 9:01 pm ET

NEW YORK – Are you a wireless data glutton or a nibbler?

New Verizon Wireless customers will have to figure that out starting Thursday as the country's largest wireless carrier plans to roll out data plans with monthly usage caps.

Verizon said Tuesday that under the plans, new smartphone users will pay between $30 and $80 each month for plans that include 2 to 10 gigabytes of data usage. Customers who use more than their allotment will be charged $10 more for each additional gigabyte. The company currently charges $30 a month for an unlimited smartphone data plan.

This is well-trod ground — AT&T introduced capped data plans a year ago. T-Mobile USA changed its unlimited data plan in May. Although it doesn't charge overage fees, the company slows the speed at which customers can send and receive data once they hit their allotted amount.

The new Verizon plans will apply both to new customers and existing customers who are trading up to smartphones.

The tricky thing about capped data plans is that few people have a clue how much a megabyte of data is, so they don't know much to sign up for. The phones themselves aren't much help: Although they can tell you how much data you've consumed so far this month, they can't tell you which of your smartphone's myriad functions are responsible.

By contrast, a minute spent talking on the phone is easy to understand, and many people have learned roughly how many minutes they use every month.

For AT&T, the introduction of data caps has gone quite well, but some customers are complaining because their data usage reports are hard to decipher. AT&T says 90 percent of its customers on capped plans stay within the limits, but it won't say how much those who go over end up paying, on average.

Here's some help determining which plan will work for you, even if you don't know how many megabytes are in a gigabyte.

• Less than 200 megabytes per month.

For those with feature phones who want a taste of the Web, Verizon will be offering a plan with 75 megabytes per month plan for $10 per month. But any plan with less than 200 megabytes per month should be considered mainly a tease.

Email, automatic software updates and other data consumption in the background will easily eat up 75 megabytes in a month. That could leave you paying $10 or more in overuse fees — more than you would if you had chosen a more expensive plan to begin with. This plan sounds like Verizon's way of luring people to smartphones. Pick something like this, and pretty soon, you'll find you need a higher data cap.

• 200 megabytes per month.

This is a popular size, offered by both AT&T ($15 per month) and T-Mobile ($10), but Verizon won't be offering it. When it introduced this plan, AT&T said 65 percent of its subscribers consumed less than 200 megabytes.

But that was a year ago. The average monthly data consumption for a smartphone user back then was 230 megabytes per month, according to an analysis of phone bills by The Nielsen Co. In the first quarter of this year, the figure had grown to 435 megabytes per month.

Cisco Systems Inc. has lower estimates than Nielsen: 153 megabytes per month last year and 245 megabytes this year. In any case, the message is clear: a plan that was big enough last year may not be big enough this year. Subscribers seem to be discovering more fun and data-consuming things to do on their phones.

It's still possible to get by on 200 megabytes per month. If you're a light user, stay away from heavy-usage applications such as online music streaming and Netflix video. Use Wi-Fi rather than the phone's cellular network as much as possible. Wi-Fi usage doesn't count toward your data limit.

• 2 gigabytes per month.

This is AT&T's "standard" plan, for which it charges $25 per month. T-Mobile charges $20, and Verizon will charge $30. This will be enough for most people: Verizon said Tuesday that 95 percent of existing customers use less than this amount each month. And AT&T said last year that the plan would satisfy 98 percent of its smartphone users (that figure is undoubtedly lower today). If you like to stream online music or videoconference for hours on end, or watch Netflix movies, you'll blow past it.

• 5 gigabytes per month.

Verizon will charge $50 for this tier, while T-Mobile charges $30. This would be for those who spend a lot of time on their phones. Laptop cards generally come with this data limit.

_10 gigabytes per month.

Those who intend to use a ton of data may gravitate to this plan, for which T-Mobile charges $60 and Verizon will be charging $80. While unnecessary for most smartphone users, this type of plan will give you plenty of data for streaming videos and music, uploading photos and surfing the Web.

What if you don't want to bother with any of this?

Sprint Nextel Corp. offers unlimited data, seeing it as a crucial way to keep and attract customers who are tempted by an iPhone at Verizon or AT&T.

However, offering an all-you-can-eat data buffet gets expensive. Sprint raised the fees for all its smartphones by $10 per month this winter to $30.

__

AP Technology Writer Rachel Metz in San Francisco contributed to this story.

The apps that eat your wireless data (AP)

Posted: 05 Jul 2011 11:40 AM PDT

By PETER SVENSSON, AP Technology Writer Peter Svensson, Ap Technology Writer – Tue Jul 5, 2:40 pm ET

NEW YORK – If you have a cellphone with a monthly limit on how much data you can use, here are some tips on what types of phone use will gobble up your precious megabytes:

• Streaming video and videoconferencing. The biggest offender. One minute of YouTube-quality video eats up 2 megabytes. If you're on a plan that gives you 200 megabytes per month, you can't even watch Lady Gaga's "Telephone" video once per day. If you're on a 2 gigabyte plan you can, but don't make your iPhone a replacement for a TV. In either case, it's fine to indulge in YouTube and Netflix if you're on Wi-Fi.

• Streaming audio. The second biggest offender, and potentially more serious. While video is something we need to see to enjoy, Internet radio is more of an accompaniment to other activities, such as jogging or doing dishes. That means some people like to keep it on for hours. Audio consumes about a quarter of the data that video does, but 10 minutes a day will break the bank if you're on a 200 megabyte plan. One hour a day of Pandora consumes nearly a gigabyte, which you can afford if you're on a 2-gigabyte plan and don't use other data-hogging apps.

• Photos. If you're a real shutterbug, photos can consume significant amounts of data. Sending and viewing photos both count toward your monthly limit. Posting 10 photos per day eats up most of a 200 megabyte plan. If you're on a 2-gigabyte plan, you probably don't have to worry about photos.

• Maps. Navigation apps consume lots of data when they retrieve map images, up to a megabyte a minute. You're also likely to use them for long periods of time when you're away from Wi-Fi, such as when you're driving. Watch out for these.

• Web surfing. Web pages vary widely in size, so this will depend quite a bit on whether you like to visit graphically rich sites (lots of data) or spare, text-oriented ones (less data). But roughly speaking, ten pages a day will eat up about half of a 200 megabyte plan. Again, those on 2-gigabyte plans don't need to worry much about surfing.

• Facebook. Roughly equivalent to Web surfing. Status updates won't take much data, but sending photos and viewing friends' pictures will.

• Email. Most emails are tiny, in terms of data. Basically, you can send and receive email all you want, as long as they don't have attachments such as photos.

• Twitter. Like email, these short messages don't use much data, but if you follow a lot of people and click on links, usage adds up.

• Weather apps. Small, focused apps that report simple but useful things, such as the weather forecast, save data (and time) compared with looking up the same information on a Web page.

___

Online:

AT&T's data calculator:

http://www.att.com/standalone/data-calculator

Why would you want an unlocked iPhone? (Yahoo! News)

Posted: 05 Jul 2011 05:03 PM PDT

Expression-reading glasses tell you when to shut up (Yahoo! News)

Posted: 05 Jul 2011 04:51 PM PDT

Twitter Begins Allowing Direct Messages With Verified Accounts Sans Following Back (Mashable)

Posted: 04 Jul 2011 05:14 PM PDT

Emily Banks Emily Banks – Mon Jul 4, 8:14 pm ET

The back-and-forth between brand reps who manage Twitter accounts and people who try to communicate with those brands might become a little less complicated. It seems no longer will verified Twitter accounts be required to follow back the Twitter users who want to send direct messages. The Next Web is reporting that Twitter is easing up on the follow requirement so that users with a verified account won't have to follow a user who wants to message them, ask for a direct message and later unfollow them after the communication has ended.

[More from Mashable: HOW TO: Measure the ROI of a Content Marketing Strategy]

This makes a lot of sense to us. Consumers increasingly turn to Twitter to communicate with brand reps for assistance -- for instance, trying to rebook a flight after a snowstorm. But the process of @messaging, following, requesting a DM and later unfollowing is unnecessarily convoluted for accounts that are designed to handle customer service issues.

Twitter hasn't announced whether this option will be rolling out across the board, but it appears to have gone into affect for Tata DOCOMO, an Indian mobile operator. The company tweeted,"Now to DM us all you need to do is follow @tatadocomo. No need for us to follow you first. Tested and its working."

[More from Mashable: Google Loses Access to Twitter Stream, Suspends Realtime Search]

This story originally published on Mashable here.

Netflix expands online service to Latin America (Reuters)

Posted: 05 Jul 2011 04:02 PM PDT

By Jennifer Saba Jennifer Saba – Tue Jul 5, 7:02 pm ET

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Netflix Inc is expanding its online video service to 43 countries in Latin America and the Caribbean, sending its shares to an all-time high.

This is Netflix's second foray outside the United States. It began offering its services in Canada last year.

Netflix, which offers TV shows and movies over the Internet and rents DVDs through the mail, is seeking new subscribers as competitors such as Apple, Google and Hulu are moving in on Netflix's turf.

The company was widely expected to announce plans of an international move and has signaled it could push into at least two international markets a year starting in 2012.

"I think generally people were expecting a launch in one country and this was a whole region," said Atul Bagga, an analyst at Think Equity. "I think that there is a lot of room for growth in these markets."

The Latin American market has an estimated 215 million user base, compared to the U.S. with about 245 million, Bagga said.

Netflix said on Tuesday that subscribers in Mexico, Central America, South America and the Caribbean will be able to access shows and movies in Spanish, Portuguese or English later this year.

Netflix declined to comment on further expansion.

In a letter to investors in April, Netflix said it expected to have $50 million to $70 million in operating losses during the second half of the year due to its second international expansion.

INCREDIBLE RUN

Shares of Netflix have had an incredible run in recent years -- up roughly 1,000 percent since 2008. In recent months some investors have bet the stock will fall after its rocket-like trajectory.

That also could explain today's share rise, said Bagga about investors piling into the stock to cover their short position.

Once considered a friend to TV and movie studios, media conglomerates have fretted over Netflix's popularity because it threatens traditional cable and satellite providers.

The fear is that consumers will drop pricey cable packages -- known as cord cutting -- in favor of cheaper services offered by companies such as Netflix.

Netflix has more than 23 million subscribers. By contrast, Comcast, the No. 1 U.S. cable operator, had 22.8 million subscribers as of March 31.

Netflix shares hit an all-time high of $291.23, and were up 8 percent at $289.48 in afternoon Nasdaq trading.

(Reporting by Jennifer Saba in New York and Lisa Richwine in Los Angeles; editing by John Wallace, Derek Caney, Dave Zimmerman)

Ind. AG: WellPoint to pay $100K over data breach (AP)

Posted: 05 Jul 2011 03:52 PM PDT

– Tue Jul 5, 6:52 pm ET

INDIANAPOLIS – Health insurer WellPoint Inc. will pay $100,000 and take other steps after admitting it waited months to notify 32,000 Indiana customers that their Social Security numbers, health records and other personal information might have been exposed online, Indiana Attorney General Greg Zoeller said Tuesday.

The Indianapolis-based parent of Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield also agreed to provide up to two years of credit monitoring and identity-theft protection to 32,000 affected Indiana consumers and reimburse them up to $50,000 each for any breach-related losses under the agreement filed last week in Marion Superior Court in Indianapolis, Zoeller said.

Zoeller said a consumer notified WellPoint on Feb. 22 and March 8, 2010, that records containing personal information were potentially accessible. WellPoint immediately secured the site then, but didn't notify customers for three months, violating an Indiana law that requires companies that experience data breaches to notify both their consumers and the attorney general "without unreasonable delay."

"This case should be a teaching moment for all companies that handle consumers' personal data: If you suffer a data breach and private information is inadvertently posted online, then you must notify the Attorney General's Office and consumers promptly. Early warning helps minimize the risk that consumers will fall victim to identity theft," Zoeller said.

WellPoint in June 2010 notified 470,000 customers nationwide of the 137-day security breach that occurred between October 2009 and March 2010. It said then that the problem stemmed from an online program customers could use to track the progress of their applications for coverage.

Zoeller said 645,000 customers eventually were notified of the breach.

The company issued a statement Tuesday saying it has implemented security changes to prevent further breaches from occurring.

"We have received no indication that any information that may have been accessed has been used inappropriately," the statement said.

WellPoint spokeswoman Gene Rodriguez, asked if the company had settled with consumers in any other states, replied, "We are in the process of resolving all issues related to the breach." The company runs Blue Cross Blue Shield plans in 14 states and Unicare plans in several others.

Three years ago, WellPoint offered free credit monitoring after it said personal information for about 128,000 customers in several states had been exposed online. In 2006, backup computer tapes containing the personal information of 200,000 of its members were stolen from a Massachusetts vendor's office.

Apple iOS replaces BlackBerry as second most popular smartphone platform (Digital Trends)

Posted: 05 Jul 2011 06:28 PM PDT

Mike Dunn Mike Dunn – Tue Jul 5, 9:28 pm ET

ios5_imessage

We think everyone saw this one coming, or maybe even assumed this already happened a year ago. Comscore officially released its numbers for smart phone usage, and it's not looking good for RIM. The Canadian company has officially given up the number two spot to Apple for the most popular smartphone platform in the United States. In the last quarter, RIM dropped from 28.9-percent market share to 24.7 percent. This gave Apple the chance to leapfrog it, ending the quarter at 26.6-percent market share. Apple only increased its market share by 1.4 percent, but the huge loss for RIM opened the door for a change in position.

Not surprisingly, Google's Android is continuing its domination of the smartphone world. Android's market share increased 5.1 percent up to 38.1 percent of all smartphones used in the United States.  Google and Apple were the only winners: RIM, Microsoft and Palm all lost ground. Nokia's Symbian wasn't even mentioned in the press release.

As for the handset makers, it is a closer battle for the number one spot. Currently, Samsung is the top dog with 24.8 percent of the smartphones in circulation. This isn't hard to believe with its solid line of Android devices on the market, including the Droid Charge, Infuse, and soon-to-be-released Galaxy S II. Motorola, which launched the Droid X2 this quarter, remains in second place with 21.1 percent of the market.

It will be a very interesting rest of the year for the smart phone market. There are several big announcements and releases still to come. The Apple iPhone 4s/5 coming later this year, Microsoft's partnership with Nokia, and the Samsung Galaxy S II will all be big factors in how the mobile landscape will look entering into 2012.

Help the fight against obesity with the Fooducate Grocery Scanner Android app (Appolicious)

Posted: 05 Jul 2011 02:30 PM PDT

Hackers seize PayPal UK Twitter account (Reuters)

Posted: 05 Jul 2011 03:04 PM PDT

– Tue Jul 5, 6:04 pm ET

BOSTON (Reuters) – Hackers seized control of a PayPal Twitter feed for more than an hour on Tuesday, then sent out messages criticizing the payment processor in the second attack of its type in two days.

The hijacking of the PayPalUK Twitter feed came a day after hackers took control of a Fox News feed for more than five hours, then sent false tweets saying that U.S. President Barack Obama had been shot dead.

In PayPal's case, the attackers sent out messages promoting paypalsucks.com, a site devoted to what it says is "exposing the nightmare of doing business 'the PayPal way.'"

The Tweets were removed within a few hours of the hijacking. "Sorry, the profile you are trying to view has been suspended," Twitter said on its page for the PayPalUK feed.

A PayPal spokesman said via email that the attack on the Twitter account had not affected the company's operations or its internal computer networks. Officials with Twitter did not respond to emails seeking comment.

"PayPal UK is unaffected by this and has not been breached or affected," the PayPal spokesman said.

PayPal is a subsidiary of Ebay Inc, the e-commerce company.

The paypalsucks.com site said that it had nothing to do with the attack. "We never condone hacking of any kind," the site said in a statement emailed to Reuters.

(Reporting by Jim Finkle and Alistair Barr, editing by Matthew Lewis)

iPhone passes Blackberry in US: comScore (AFP)

Posted: 05 Jul 2011 03:33 PM PDT

– Tue Jul 5, 6:33 pm ET

NEW YORK (AFP) – Apple's iPhone has leapfrogged Research In Motion's Blackberry to grab fourth-place among handset manufacturers in the United States, tracking firm comScore said Tuesday.

The iPhone's share of US mobile subscribers rose to 8.7 percent in the three months ending in May from 7.5 percent three months earlier, while RIM's share fell to 8.1 percent from 8.6 percent, comScore said.

Samsung was the top handset manufacturer overall with a 24.8 percent share of US mobile subscribers, unchanged from three months earlier, comScore said.

LG was next with a 21.1 percent share of mobile subscribers, up from 20.9 percent, followed by Motorola, which fell to 15.1 percent from 16.1 percent.

Google's Android operating system was the top smartphone platform, comScore said, with a 38.1 percent share of US smartphone subscribers in the three months to May, up from 33.0 percent in February.

Apple was next with a 26.6 percent share, up from 25.2 percent, followed by RIM with 24.7 percent, down from 28.9 percent, Microsoft with 5.8 percent, down from 7.7 percent, and Palm with 2.4 percent, down from 2.8 percent.

Developer rails against Amazon Appstore (Appolicious)

Posted: 05 Jul 2011 11:30 AM PDT

Verizon Wireless nixing unlimited data for newbies (AP)

Posted: 05 Jul 2011 05:51 PM PDT

By RACHEL METZ, AP Technology Writer Rachel Metz, Ap Technology Writer – Tue Jul 5, 8:51 pm ET

SAN FRANCISCO – Verizon Wireless, the nation's largest wireless carrier, is getting rid of its unlimited data plan for new smartphone customers starting Thursday, shifting instead to limited data plans that give users between 2 and 10 gigabytes of data each month.

With the change, Verizon joins the company of fellow carriers AT&T Inc. and T-Mobile USA, which have both set limits to monthly data usage. Sprint Nextel Corp., the country's third-largest carrier, still offers an unlimited plan.

By getting rid of the all-you-can-eat data plans, carriers are trying to move users away from the expectation that they can have as much data as they want for one price and toward paying for what they really use — something that could be increasingly important as carriers invest in the rollout of higher-speed "4G," or fourth-generation, data networks.

"Let's be frank: We are setting the stage for the long term," Verizon Wireless spokeswoman Brenda Raney said Tuesday. "But it is giving customers much more control about how they want to spend their discretionary dollars on wireless."

Later this week, new Verizon Wireless smartphone users will choose between paying $30 for 2 gigabytes, $50 for 5 gigabytes or $80 for 10 gigabytes of monthly data usage. Customers who use more than their allotment will be charged $10 more for each additional gigabyte.

Competitor AT&T charges $25 per month for 2 gigabytes of data, and $45 for 4 gigabytes. The over-allotment fee is the same.

Verizon Wireless' current unlimited plan costs existing users $30 per month. And while it may sound enticing to have unlimited data usage, 95 percent of Verizon Wireless subscribers use less than 2 gigabytes per month.

Verizon Wireless customers who already have an unlimited data plan can keep it, whether or not they have a long-term contract with the company. But existing customers who want to trade up to a smartphone from a standard cell phone — often referred to as a feature phone — won't be able to get the unlimited data plan starting Thursday. A plan for feature phone users that gives them 75 megabytes of data usage per month will cost $10.

AT&T introduced capped data plans a year ago and T-Mobile changed its unlimited data plan in May. T-Mobile doesn't charge overage fees, but it does slow the speed at which customers can send and receive data once they hit their monthly allotment.

Verizon Wireless is a joint venture between New York-based Verizon Communications and Vodafone Group PLC of Britain.

Satellite maker objects to TerreStar sale to Dish (Reuters)

Posted: 05 Jul 2011 03:10 PM PDT

By Nick Brown Nick Brown – Tue Jul 5, 6:10 pm ET

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Bankrupt telecommunications firm TerreStar Networks Inc is facing two objections to its proposed sale to Dish Network Corp, including from the maker of its geosynchronous satellite.

Space Systems/Loral Inc, manufacturer of the TerreStar satellite currently orbiting the earth, filed court papers Tuesday in Bankruptcy Court in Manhattan saying the plan would pay it only a fraction of what is owed under three satellite contracts.

The plan would require TerreStar to pay about $5.6 million as a so-called cure amount, far less than the roughly $43 million Space Systems says it is owed, according to the filing.

Space Systems said it is working with TerreStar to resolve the issue, but filed the objection to preserve its rights in case talks fall apart.

AT&T Corp, a unit of AT&T Inc that sells TerreStar's satellite smartphone, also objected to the plan ahead of Tuesday's deadline.

AT&T said the plan could prevent it from seeking indemnity from Dish in certain cases where consumers claim damages against AT&T for problems related to the TerreStar phone.

An attorney for TerreStar declined comment Tuesday.

TerreStar, which tried to market the first satellite smartphone, was coveted for its roughly 20 megahertz of spectrum. It filed for bankruptcy in October with more than $1 billion in debt.

Dish, which set a $1.375 billion minimum bid for the company on June 15, won the right to buy it after receiving no competing offers.

If consummated, the sale would be at least the third major acquisition in 2011 for Dish, joining DBSD North America and Blockbuster Inc, bought for $1.4 billion and $320 million, respectively.

The TerreStar sale is slated for an approval hearing before Bankruptcy Judge Sean Lane in Manhattan on Thursday.

The case is in re: TerreStar Networks Inc, U.S. Bankruptcy Court, Southern District of New York, No. 10-15446.

(Reporting by Nick Brown, editing by Matthew Lewis)

iPad Earns One Percent of Global Web Traffic (LiveScience.com)

Posted: 05 Jul 2011 05:04 PM PDT

Samantha Murphy, TechNewsDaily Senior Writer
LiveScience.com Samantha Murphy, Technewsdaily Senior Writer
livescience.com – Tue Jul 5, 8:04 pm ET

iPad traffic is starting to get on the global Internet traffic map.

In fact, according to a report from NetMarketShare, Apple's iPad makes up one percent of Web traffic worldwide and 2.1 percent of online traffic in the United States.

These numbers are light-years ahead of Apple's tablet competitors, making iPad traffic 53 times greater than the Samsung Galaxy Tab.

This is a remarkable feat, especially since the iPad has only been on the market for over a year.

The iPad dominates about one-fourth of the mobile browser market, trailing behind Android's 31.6 percent share and the iPhone's 35.2 percent market share.

Cyberattacks on South Korea-US a test run: McAfee (AFP)

Posted: 05 Jul 2011 02:43 PM PDT

by Glenn Chapman Glenn Chapman – Tue Jul 5, 5:43 pm ET

SAN FRANCISCO (AFP) – Cyberattacks on US and South Korean military websites in March may have been a test by North Korea or sympathizers, according to a report released Tuesday by computer security firm McAfee.

"We believe this incident... has very clear anti-Korean and anti-US political motivations," McAfee said in a report titled "Ten Days of Rain."

"The combination of technical sophistication juxtaposed with relatively limited execution and myopic outcome is analogous to bringing a Lamborghini to a go-cart race," McAfee said in its findings.

"As such, the motivations appear to outweigh the attack, making this truly seem like an exercise to test and observe response capabilities," it said.

McAfee security researchers said it was 95 percent likely that the culprits behind the online assault in March were also behind July 4, 2009 cyberattacks on US and South Korean websites.

Banking, military and government websites in South Korea and sites for US forces in that country were hit with distributed denial of service attacks on March 4.

DDoS attacks overwhelm websites with requests, causing them slow down or be inaccessible.

McAfee security researcher Georg Wicherski deemed the attacks "an armed cyber reconnaissance operation of sorts" aimed at assessing defenses and reaction times of South Korean government and civilian networks.

"Knowing that would be invaluable in a possible future armed confrontation on the peninsula, since cyberspace has already become the fifth battlespace dimension, in addition to land, air, sea, and space," Wicherski said.

The DDoS attacks were made by usurping control of virus-infected computers in South Korea to overwhelm targeted websites with simultaneous requests for pages or information.

Tactics used in the attacks were more destructive than typically seen when legions of infected computers are commanded in "botnets" by hackers, according to McAfee.

The botnet in South Korea was programmed to perform DDoS attacks for 10 days and then self-destruct, frustrating investigators by overwriting or deleting files and codes to the extent the computers could not be booted up.

While the Match attacks were underway, encryption algorithms were used to mask parts of malicious code and stymie analysis by defenders.

"This wasn't a surgical strike; it was more like a sledgehammer, as most DDoS attacks are," the McAfee report said.

"The attackers relied on the encryption to buy them more time against reverse engineering until the DDoS attack window expired."

Steps were taken to ensure that the mission was executed without interruption, within the predefined attack window, and then all vehicles of attack would be destroyed, the report concluded.

Updates were sent to the botnet by servers in various parts of the world including Taiwan, Russia, Saudi Arabia, India and the United States to make it resistant to takedown, according to McAfee.

The McAfee study revealed that pieces of the malicious code used in the attacks were built by a number of different people, each with limited knowledge of the overall program.

Last week, South Korea's defense ministry announced that it would expand its cyber warfare unit to help combat growing Internet attacks from North Korea.

The ministry said its cyber command, launched in January last year, would increase the number of personnel from 400 to 500, following an earlier announcement that it would open a cyber warfare school next year.

North Korea reportedly maintains elite hacker units.

Seoul accused Pyongyang of staging the cyberattacks on websites of major South Korean government agencies and financial institutions in March this year and in July 2009.

Pyongyang rejected those allegations, accusing Seoul of inventing the charges to raise tensions.

In May, South Korea said a North Korean cyberattack paralyzed operations at one of its largest banks.

Media moguls focus on digital dollars at Sun Valley (Reuters)

Posted: 05 Jul 2011 07:28 PM PDT

By Yinka Adegoke Yinka Adegoke – 2 hrs 1 min ago

SUN VALLEY, Idaho (Reuters) – Media and technology moguls gather in Idaho this week to once more debate a shift to a digital world, but the talk this year will finally focus on how to make money off it.

Unlike in years past, this year's attendees at the Allen & Co conference in Sun Valley will discuss how to go beyond experimenting with digital services such as mobile TV, and begin thrashing out ways to overhaul long-standing business models designed for a print and video-tape era.

The annual pow-wow attended by the giants of old and new media -- from News Corp's Rupert Murdoch and Walt Disney Co's Bob Iger to Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg -- is traditionally the venue for hatching blockbuster deals.

In the past year, industry executives have increasingly talked about taking action, not protecting preexisting revenue streams -- even if that means selling digital assets like video site Hulu or failed social networking site MySpace to revamp their strategy.

The establishment is still far from certain how their diverse digital businesses will shape up, said James Schwab, a partner at Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton and Garrison.

But with newcomers such as Google Inc -- a potential buyer of Hulu to supplement its Youtube service -- and Apple Inc jumping feet-first into Web-based media and Facebook and Groupon luring away advertisers, it may be approaching crunch-time for media conglomerates.

"What they do know is that they need to engage with digital opportunities on each of these fronts," said Schwab, who has brokered numerous media deals, including the merger that created Time Warner Inc.

Hollywood studios planned this year to roll out a system called Ultraviolet, which lets consumers stream a movie bought online to mobile devices. And TV Everywhere, a proposal led by Time Warner CEO Jeff Bewkes and Comcast Corp CEO Brian Roberts, aims to allow cable customers to access their shows online away from home.

DIGITAL'S LONG SHADOW

Executives meeting in the shadow of Idaho's Pointer Mountains from Wednesday will talk also about the stuttering U.S. economy -- as they have for the past three years. A newer topic of concern will be cyber-security following a series of severe hacking incidents at Sony Corp.

But it's the long-term future of media that will top the agenda. Media executives, particularly content owners, have long been keen to avoid jeopardizing lucrative global licensing arrangements, only to see them replaced with less valuable digital ones. This has been one Hulu's challenges.

The popular TV video website raises both a conflict and opportunity for its owners. News Corp and Disney in particular may have felt the site would do better for all concerned as a stand-alone business. Hulu is also owned by Comcast's NBC Universal and Providence Equity Partners.

Several of Hulu's potential buyers are expected to attend the Allen & Co's organized event including Google, Yahoo and Microsoft Corp.

The owners have renewed long-term content licenses to make Hulu a more enticing prospect. Some observers note that Hulu still underscores how content rights-holders retain an edge over up-and-coming media players like Google, which excels at engaging an Internet audience but needs quality programing.

"Google has been trying for years to acquire eyeballs and challenge the traditional media business. But the rights-holders still hold all the cards," said Chris Marangi, a portfolio manager at Gabelli Multimedia Funds.

Hulu's potential new owners -- so far all divorced from the established content business -- will no doubt be watching Netflix Inc for signs the market is ripe for a new distribution model -- distinct from cable or satellite.

Netflix has over 20 million U.S. subscribers and is on course to overtake Comcast as the No.1 pay-video subscription service -- albeit on lower per-user revenue.

Ted Sarandos, the Netflix executive charged with inking expensive deals with content producers, is expected to be in Sun Valley and it's likely he'll be busy. He will also offer new opportunities for content owners: on Tuesday, they announced an expansion into Latin America.

(Editing by Edwin Chan and Lisa Shumaker)
at 9:39 PM

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