Sponsoer by :

Friday, September 23, 2011

HP stock hits 6-year low after Whitman named CEO (AP) : Technet

Sponsored

HP stock hits 6-year low after Whitman named CEO (AP) : Technet

HP stock hits 6-year low after Whitman named CEO (AP)

Posted: 23 Sep 2011 09:14 AM PDT

– Fri Sep 23, 12:14 pm ET

NEW YORK – Hewlett-Packard Co.'s stock sank Friday to its lowest level in six years, as investors worried that new CEO Meg Whitman isn't the right person to turn the company's fortunes around.

The stock was down 90 cents, or 4 percent, at $21.90 in midday trading. In the morning, the stock hit $21.50, its lowest level since May 2005. Broader market gauges were up slightly after a week of volatile trading.

HP announced late Thursday that former eBay CEO Meg Whitman was taking over from Leo Apotheker, who spent just 11 months on the job. Among other things, the company's board of directors was dissatisfied with the way he announced that HP is looking to get rid of its PC division.

Investors are now looking for clarity about the company's direction. Chairman Ray Lane said in a CNBC interview Friday that the company isn't looking at "getting out of the PC business." But he followed that up by saying the company is still evaluating its options for the division, which is the world's largest maker of PCs.

Uncertainty about the company's strategy is coupled with doubts about Whitman. She led eBay for ten years, taking it from a startup to one of the dominant e-commerce companies. But analysts point out that she has no experience in enterprise technology and, indeed, no expertise outside the consumer sphere. They also note that eBay is a fraction of HP's size.

"While we believe the decision to replace Leo Apotheker was a good one, we are disappointed with the naming of Meg Whitman as HP's permanent CEO, and believe that this sentiment is shared by most investors and large HP shareholders," Sanford Bernstein analyst Toni Sacconaghi said Friday. "We believe the company was remiss in not conducting a comprehensive CEO search."

Atop Meg Whitman's worries: H-P's size (AP)

Posted: 23 Sep 2011 03:20 PM PDT

By JORDAN ROBERTSON, AP Technology Writer Jordan Robertson, Ap Technology Writer – Fri Sep 23, 6:20 pm ET

SAN FRANCISCO – Meg Whitman's primary job as Hewlett-Packard Co.'s new CEO will be to restore a sense of direction at a company that has lost its way after a decade of leadership lapses and disjointed deal-making.

With 320,000 employees, more than $125 billion in annual revenue and a broad swath of businesses, the technology conglomerate needs a leader who can quickly decide on a clear path and convey that to customers and shareholders.

The company's stock hit a 6-year low Friday, a day after Whitman got the job following HP's firing of Leo Apotheker. HP has lost $60 billion in market value since Apotheker's predecessor, Mark Hurd, resigned amid a sexual harassment scandal last year.

In technology, size isn't always an asset, as HP is learning. One of the biggest challenges for Whitman will be to figure out how big HP needs to be. It's a key question that has tripped up a string of CEOs, from Carly Fiorina and her hard-fought battle to buy Compaq Computer, to Mark Hurd and his $20 billion acquisition spree and 50,000 job cuts, and Apotheker's poorly received plan to steer HP away from lower-margin areas of computer hardware.

No one has figured out the right balance, which has made the top job at HP one of the hardest CEO slots to fill.

HP, which was founded in the 1930s as a maker of sound equipment, is no stranger to long and difficult transformations. But, under Whitman, the company could shrink substantially. Revitalizing the company depends on whether she can lead a major transformation. Indeed, analysts believe HP needs to emulate IBM Corp., whose dire financial situation in the 1990s forced a complete exit from consumer markets.

IBM's transition, however, was brutal. The Armonk, N.Y.-based company shed more than 150,000 workers in the 1990s as the company lost nearly $16 billion over five years. It, too, sold its PC division, and HP's flirtation with following suit indicates its willingness to aggressively pursue IBM's model. IBM has thrived in recent years because of a focus on high-margin services and software deals.

One of Whitman's most pressing concerns: what to do with the world's biggest personal computer business, which supplies a third of HP's revenue but is its least profitable division.

Last month, Apotheker said that business would go up for sale in a badly blundered announcement that hastened his demise. His disclosure likely devalued the business in the eyes of potential buyers. Many analysts now speculate that HP has no choice but to keep the business and work on repairing strained relationships with customers. Whitman says a decision, on whether to keep it or possibly spin it off, should come by the end of the year.

Carving out the business would be a tricky kind of surgery.

"This idea of a spinoff is very complicated," said Steve Diamond, an associate professor at Santa Clara University School of Law. "Tearing apart a business unit of that size is like taking out organs. It's very painful. It's like dividing Siamese twins. It's very, very difficult to do and you don't know how it's going to come out."

PCs and printers are areas where HP leads. But the company wants to abandon those businesses because its profit margins on those units are thin. In the more profitable areas where HP needs to expand, it is playing catch-up. In technology services it has to contend with none other than market leader IBM Corp. HP's technology services division is one of several businesses that Apotheker identified as the victim of underinvestment. The company will also try to make further inroads into computer networking, a segment dominated by Cisco Systems Inc.

Another drastic move of Apotheker's that Whitman will need to usher to completion is the company's decision to kill off HP's fledgling tablet and smartphone businesses, conceding defeat in fast-growing consumer markets.

With all the tough tasks on Whitman's to-do list, the mixed reactions to her appointment are understandable. HP's stock sank Friday to its lowest level in six years. The stock fell 90 cents, or 4 percent, to $21.90. In the morning, the stock hit $21.50, its lowest level since May 2005.

Raymond James analyst Brian Alexander said that "investors should rightfully question the board's quick trigger" decision to immediately name a replacement CEO. "Clearly Ms. Whitman is a well-respected Silicon Valley executive with a long history of strong leadership and execution," Alexander wrote in a Friday research note. "That said, it remains to be seen if Ms. Whitman is capable of running a $120 billion technology juggernaut that is facing a crisis of confidence."

Even so, Whitman's decade-long stewardship of eBay Inc. has won over some market watchers, who say her strong personality will help focus HP's disparate businesses.

"For a company this size, there are so many different businesses, you need a good leader, someone that people respect, and this board is not going to push around Meg Whitman," said Brian White, an analyst with Ticonderoga Securities. "I think it's a good choice. It doesn't mean she'll succeed. She has her work cut out for her. But the odds are she'll have more success than Leo."

The stock decline carries a glimmer of hope, according to some analysts. It may have fallen so far that it's due for a rebound.

Alexander, for instance, has a $34 price target on the shares, more than $10 per share higher than where they're trading now. Jefferies & Co. analyst Peter Misek has a target price of $40 per share, and rates HP's stock a "buy."

AP Interview: Samsung to step up Apple patent war (AP)

Posted: 23 Sep 2011 05:35 AM PDT

By KELLY OLSEN, AP Business Writer Kelly Olsen, Ap Business Writer – Fri Sep 23, 8:35 am ET

SEOUL, South Korea – A top Samsung executive says the company will take a bolder stance in its patent battle with smartphone and tablet rival Apple, which Samsung claims has been "free riding" on its patented wireless technologies.

"We'll be pursuing our rights for this in a more aggressive way from now on," Lee Younghee, head of global marketing for mobile communications, said Friday in an interview.

Lee, a senior vice president at Samsung, did not say what form the South Korean company's stronger stance would take or if there would be more lawsuits. But her remarks suggest a definite change in tone. She described its previous approach as "passive."

So far, Samsung has mostly spoken about the dispute through press releases and comments by anonymous company officials in South Korean and foreign media. The public nature of the comments appeared to back up recent South Korean media speculation the company was planning to go on the offensive.

The fight began when Apple sued Samsung in April in the United States, alleging the product design, user interface and packaging of Samsung's Galaxy devices "slavishly copy" the iPhone and iPad.

Samsung has responded with its own lawsuits accusing Apple of violating its intellectual property. The fight has spread to 10 countries, according to Samsung, including the U.S., South Korea, Germany, the Netherlands and Australia.

The battle is all the more complex as Apple and Samsung are not only competitors in the fast-growing global market for smartphones and tablet computers, but also have a close business relationship.

Samsung Electronics Co., the world's biggest manufacturer of memory chips and liquid crystal displays, supplies some of the key components that go into Apple Inc. products.

Lee said that Samsung has kept that relationship in mind amid the dispute with the Cupertino, California-based company, and has largely been pulling its punches.

"We've been quite respectful and also passive in a way" in consideration of those links, Lee said during the interview in her office at Samsung's headquarters building in southern Seoul. "However, we shouldn't be ... anymore."

Lee said that Samsung holds numerous patents covering wireless telecommunications technology. Samsung says such patents cover key functions including allowing a mobile phone user to speak on the phone and receive an e-mail at the same time.

"We believe Apple is free riding" on such Samsung patents, Lee said.

Apple reacted to Lee's comments by reiterating its claim Samsung has violated its intellectual property.

"It is no coincidence that Samsung's latest products look a lot like the iPhone and iPad, from the shape of the hardware to the user interface and even the packaging," said Seoul-based spokesman Steve Park. "This kind of blatant copying is wrong and we need to protect Apple's intellectual property when companies steal our ideas."

Lee's comments came after a German court ruled earlier this month that Samsung cannot directly sell its new Galaxy Tab 10.1 tablet in the country, saying the design too closely resembles Apple's iPad 2. Samsung has appealed the decision.

Samsung ranked No. 2 globally in smartphones behind Apple in the second quarter of this year, according to U.S.-based market research firm IDC, which cited the growing global popularity of the Galaxy S smartphones. In overall mobile phones, Samsung ranks second behind Finland's Nokia Corp.

The Suwon, South Korea-based company got a late start in smartphones after Apple shook up the industry with the launch of the iPhone in 2007, but has come on strong.

Lee painted an optimistic portrait of Samsung's future growth and said she believes it can eventually take the No. 1 spot in smartphones and mobile phones.

"We are striving to continue this growth momentum and someday we can imagine that we can be in the leading position," she said, emphasizing that Samsung has a broad array of hardware, functions, operating systems — Google's Android, Microsoft's Windows and Samsung's own bada — prices and presence in global markets.

"We are aware of the importance of branding so we'll be reinforcing this Galaxy branding," she said of the Android-based devices.

Regarding Google Inc.'s proposed $12.5 billion deal to buy mobile phone maker Motorola Mobility, Lee said the plan has not changed Samsung's relationship with the Mountain View, California-based search engine.

"We still have a very good relationship," she said. "We are working very closely with Google."

Lee joined Samsung in 2007 from French cosmetics maker L'Oreal. Makeup and mobile phones have a lot in common, she said, in that both are focused on individual expression.

Mobile phones, she said, are not just technology, but "a culture and showing who I am, where I belong, how trendy I am."

Tecca TV: TechLife on Obama’s homebrew, 3D printing for kids, human suspended animation, and more! (Yahoo! News)

Posted: 23 Sep 2011 05:57 PM PDT

Just Show Me: How to create a playlist in iTunes (Yahoo! News)

Posted: 23 Sep 2011 05:50 PM PDT

Clarins Gets into Social Gaming on Facebook (Mashable)

Posted: 22 Sep 2011 05:06 PM PDT

Lauren Indvik Lauren Indvik – Thu Sep 22, 8:06 pm ET

[More from Mashable: The Post Launches Social Reader As a Newspaper For Facebook]

In a seemingly usual move for a cosmetics company -- not to mention a French one -- Clarins launched a casual game on Facebook earlier this week called Spa Life.

Facebook games are not unusual among beauty brands, per se; MAC, for instance, launched a game called Cute Pinball to drive interactivity around its Quite Cute collection earlier this year. What's unusual about Spa Life is that it's set in an virtual world populated with avatars, aligning it more closely to games like Second Life and FarmVille than Cute Pinball.

[More from Mashable: What Facebook's Changes Mean for Marketers]

Spa Life, which was built by game developer Freshplanet, is a time management game that recreates the challenges of running an actual spa. Players must manage an ever-increasing flow of visitors in search of pedicures, facials and the like, lest potential customers get impatient and leave the salon, damaging its reputation in the process.

The game is only lightly branded. In fact, players won't have any interaction with Clarins product until roughly an hour into the game, when they can opt to treat their customers to Clarins rather than generic products to make them happier. Players are even incentivized to purchase upgrades using Facebook Credits (i.e. real cash) as they would be in a non-branded game.

Jonathan Zrihen, CEO and president of Clarins's North American division, says it was the demographics of casual gamers on Facebook that first attracted him to the idea of developing a Clarins game. (According to an ISG survey last year, the average social gamer is a 43-year-old woman.)

"I knew about the craziness of Zynga games, but I didn't realize the demographic was so much in line with the demographics of our products," Zrihen says. "I was also impressed by the level of engagement these games create. So it was great to pair [Freshplanet's] expertise in gaming with our 50-plus years of experience managing spas."

Although I didn't get far enough in the game myself, Zrihen tells me that players can eventually redeem points acquired in the game for real products and samples from Clarins. The company is also considering attaching game points to Clarins products to encourage sales among those who become truly hooked on the game.

The goal is less about pushing online sales through the game, however, than about increasing Clarins's fan base and engagement rate on Facebook.

"We don't want to be pushy on this," he says. "If we have more people following Clarins [on Facebook], it will have an effect on our ecommerce sales, but the main goal is to increase awareness of the brand. We want our [current] followers to play and invite their friends to play and become engaged."

Although the game is already available to Clarins's entire global fanbase, the company is working to localize the game for different markets. A version for France, for instance, will be translated into French and staged on a Parisian rather than an American street. More than 100,000 people have already installed the app on Facebook.

This story originally published on Mashable here.

Groupon says sales half earlier figure, loses COO (AP)

Posted: 23 Sep 2011 05:10 PM PDT

By RACHEL METZ, AP Technology Writer Rachel Metz, Ap Technology Writer – Fri Sep 23, 8:10 pm ET

SAN FRANCISCO – Groupon Inc. chopped its stated revenue by more than half in an updated SEC filing Friday as it corrected the way it accounts for money it receives selling coupons. The online deal site also said that its chief operating officer, Margo Georgiadis, has gone back to Google, where she worked before joining Groupon in May.

Groupon, which offers consumers a variety of deals each day targeted for their preferences and city, has been preparing for its initial public offering. It first filed registration papers with the Securities and Exchange Commission in June.

The company's restatement Friday indicates it is still planning on an IPO, though it's uncertain when that will occur. A media report this month indicated the company may delay its plans due to the stock market's volatility.

In the revision, instead of giving the total amount its customers pay for coupons as its revenue, Groupon now uses the amount it actually keeps. That's is because Groupon always gives a cut of its total take to the merchants where coupons will be redeemed — most often restaurants or spas.

Groupon is now saying its 2010 revenue was $312.9, instead of $713.4 million. And its revenue in this year's second quarter was $392.6 million, it now says, not $878 million, as it reported before. The change barely affects Groupon's reported losses.

The amended filing also included most of a memo Groupon CEO Andrew Mason sent to employees last month that was leaked to the press. The SEC imposes a "quiet period" on companies before an IPO, limiting what they can say publicly.

In the memo, Mason spoke positively about the company and defended Groupon's use of an unusual profit metric in its initial IPO registration, a move it reversed in August. The original filing used a metric that excluded the site's large costs for marketing and subscriber-acquisition. Groupon later removed the metric, known as "adjusted consolidated segment operating income," or ACSOI.

Mason announced Georgiadis' departure Friday on Groupon's blog, saying she will become president of Google's Americas region. He said Groupon's sales, channels, international and marketing teams will now report to him.

Google Inc. confirmed that Georgiadis had been re-hired to take over for Dennis Woodside, who will now lead the search company's integration of Motorola Mobility Holdings Inc., which it said in August that it plans to buy for $12.5 billion.

In the blog, Mason quoted Georgiadis as saying in a note that the decision to leave was "hard" and she has "complete confidence in the team's ability to realize its mission."

Yahoo received inquiries from many parties: memo (Reuters)

Posted: 23 Sep 2011 04:38 PM PDT

By Alexei Oreskovic Alexei Oreskovic – Fri Sep 23, 7:38 pm ET

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – Yahoo Inc has received inquiries from multiple parties about "potential options," but the struggling Web company expects to take months to decide its future, the company's co-founders and chairman said in a letter to employees on Friday.

"Our advisers are working with us to develop ideas that we will pursue proactively," read the letter, a copy of which was obtained by Reuters.

Yahoo retained Allen & Co to help it conduct a "strategic review" after it fired Chief Executive Carol Bartz earlier this month.

"They are fielding inquiries from multiple parties that have already expressed interest in a number of potential options," read the letter on Friday, signed by Chairman Roy Bostock and co-founders Jerry Yang and David Filo.

Private equity firm Silver Lake Partners is among the parties that have been in touch with Allen & Co, according to a source familiar with the matter.

Yahoo's board has started a search for a permanent CEO, the letter said, but provided no details on the progress of the search, or whether the company has hired an executive recruiting firm to oversee the search.

At an all-hands meeting the day after Bartz was fired, Yang said the company was not for sale, according to another source familiar with the matter. Although Friday's note did not explicitly mention a sale of the company, it said the company was exploring various options to "structure the best approach for the company."

"While we will move with a sense of urgency, this process will take time," the letter said. "Months, not weeks."

A Yahoo spokesman declined to comment on the memo.

(Reporting by Alexei Oreskovic; editing by Andre Grenon)

Hong Kong's 1st Apple store mobbed on opening day (AP)

Posted: 23 Sep 2011 09:25 PM PDT

By KELVIN CHAN, AP Business Writer Kelvin Chan, Ap Business Writer – 35 mins ago

HONG KONG – Apple Inc. opened its long-awaited first store in Hong Kong on Saturday, with thousands of fans of the computer and gadget maker pouring in on the first day.

Some Apple enthusiasts had camped out for nearly two days to secure a place at the head of the line and be among the first to walk through the doors of the new store.

The store is located on two floors linked by a glass spiral staircase in Hong Kong's upscale International Financial Center Mall, in the city's central business district.

The Cupertino, California-based company's products are wildly popular in mainland China. The Hong Kong store follows the opening of a third Shanghai store on Friday as the company boosts its presence in a key market. It also has two stores in Beijing.

"I've always wanted to participate in this kind of event, to enjoy the atmosphere. It's cool," said 17-year-old Liu Jia-rong, a high school student from Shenzhen, across the border from Hong Kong in mainland China. Liu said he had been waiting for the day that an Apple store would open near his home. He was one of the first to enter the store after joining the line at about 4 p.m. Friday.

The first person in line arrived sometime on Thursday evening, according to security guards.

Store staff handed out free T-shirts to the first 5,000 people in line, which snaked out the mall and over a long footbridge to nearby ferry piers. Some 300 people have been hired to staff the store, one of 30 that the company plans to open in the current quarter.

"I don't want to buy anything, I actually have everything already. I just want to feel the experience," said Henry Men Youngfan, a 27-year-old doctoral student who owns an iPhone, a Macbook Pro, an iPod Shuffle and an iPad. He traveled from his home in Beijing for the event, the fourth opening of an Apple store he has attended.

Apple executives said earlier this year that China was "very key" to Apple's record earnings and revenue in the quarter that ended in June.

Revenue was up more than six times from a year earlier to $3.8 billion in the Greater China region, which also includes Hong Kong and Taiwan, Apple's chief operating officer, Timothy Cook, said in July.

"I firmly believe that we're just scratching the surface right now. I think there is an incredible opportunity for Apple there," Cook said at the time.

However, analysts noted that Apple is far short of an ambitious goal set by executives early last year of opening 25 stores in the region by the end of 2011

"China is a place with big potential, and that's probably why Apple is investing in this place and trying to ramp up their marketing and sales efforts," said Sandy Shen, a Shanghai-based research director at Gartner Inc.

Shen said the new Hong Kong store may put a small dent in the city's "gray market" for Apple products, which is thriving because there is not enough supply to satisfy the huge demand for iPads and iPhones. A parallel market has sprung up with shops selling Apple devices originally bought in other countries such as the United States and brought in by couriers to be resold at hefty premiums.

Analysts See Two New iPhones Coming In October (NewsFactor)

Posted: 23 Sep 2011 02:33 PM PDT

Mark Long, newsfactor.com Mark Long, newsfactor.com – Fri Sep 23, 5:33 pm ET

Two new iPhone models -- including a lower-priced smartphone similar to the iPhone 3GS – are expected to be introduced at Apple's fall media conference next month, the investment firm Jefferies said Friday. The firm's analysts believe the event tentatively set for Oct. 4 also will "focus on iOS 5 and its cloud-service capabilities."

Among other things, Jefferies expects Apple's new flagship model -- "which could be called the '4S', as Apple appears to have vacillated on the name" -- will sport a higher-resolution camera, a slightly larger screen and have a slimmer profile.

"We also expect the announcement of a lower-priced iPhone that will basically be a lower-cost 3GS," the financial firm's analysts wrote in an investor note.

Rival investment firm Piper Jaffray is predicting that Apple's iPhone unit shipments will grow 81 percent this year in comparison with the iconic device maker's 2010 iPhone sales.

"In the second half of calendar year 2011 specifically, we are modeling for 55 percent year-over-year growth," said Piper Jaffray analyst Andrew Murphy. "[This] factors in an iPhone launch in the second half of 2011 with at least one, and at most two new models."

T-Mobile Deal in Doubt

Apple's iPhone refresh appears to be well positioned to attract the attention of consumers going into this year's holiday shopping season. In the United States, Jefferies expects multiple wireless carriers -- including Sprint -- will begin selling the new iPhone in mid-October, though T-Mobile may not be one of them.

"We had believed that T-Mobile (more than 34 million subscribers) would also carry the iPhone 5 [in the fourth quarter]," Jefferies' analysts wrote. "But now [we] believe this could be delayed, possibly due to the pending AT&T acquisition."

With many mature market economies currently in a tailspin, it remains to be seen whether Apple will be able to handily beat Wall Street's iPhone unit-sales expectations for the latter half of this year. Still, Apple will have plenty of opportunities to grow iPhone sales in largely untapped emerging markets.

"We expect an iPhone launch at China Telecom (more than 108 million subscribers) in [the first quarter of 2012]," Jefferies' analysts wrote.

Chip Patent Dispute

Recent media reports citing sources at companies participating in the iPhone's supply chain suggest that Apple's new flagship model will integrate a dual mode GSM/CDMA baseband chipset from Qualcomm and an 8-megapixel rear camera. What's more, Jefferies said it expects Apple's new flagship iPhone model to feature the same A5 chip found in the iPad 2.

On Thursday, VIA Technologies filed a lawsuit against Apple claiming that the microprocessors deployed in Apple's smartphones, tablet computers, portable media players and other computing devices infringe on two of the chipmaker's patents.

"VIA has built up an extensive IP portfolio consisting of over 5,000 patents as a result of significant investments in world-class technology research and development," said VIA Technologies CEO Wenchi Chen.

"We are determined to protect our interests and the interests of our stockholders when our patents are infringed upon," Chen said.

The patents at issue reportedly cover microprocessor functionality featured in Apple iPhone, iPad, iPod and Apple TV devices. The disputed technologies include the method and apparatus for double-operand load as well as the instruction set for bi-directional conversion and transfer of integer and floating point data, VIA said.

Hands-on with Facebook's Timeline (Digital Trends)

Posted: 23 Sep 2011 04:57 PM PDT

Molly McHugh Molly Mchugh – Fri Sep 23, 7:57 pm ET

Cover photo


Facebook introduced the Timeline at yesterday's f8 event, a new take on the profile. But this is no understated update: It's a full-blown makeover. Timeline will be rolling out slowly in the near future, but give yourself a head-start with this hands-on guide, as well as our Timeline FAQ.

Amazon schedules event for next week; is this its tablet unveiling? (Digital Trends)

Posted: 23 Sep 2011 02:32 PM PDT

Molly McHugh Molly Mchugh – Fri Sep 23, 5:32 pm ET

amazon tablet android samsung

Last we heard, an Amazon tablet of some sort was due to hit this fall. And if the online retailer's event scheduled for next week means what we think it does, then everything's right on schedule. According to the Associated Press, Amazon will hold a press conference September 28, next Wednesday, most likely to announce its new Android tablet.

Amazon's expected to launch a family of tablets, starting with a 7-inch version this October and later introducing a 10-inch model. The manufacturer is said to be the best chance in the war on the iPad, while other Android manufacturers have struggled to compete with Apple's dominating tablet. A low price, popular household name, and Amazon's growing cloud service and app store are speculated to translate into success for the anticipated tablet.

Stayed tuned until next Wednesday at 9 a.m. EST when Amazon hopefully unveils its new gadget.

Personalized Internet radio provider Stitcher raises $10 million (Appolicious)

Posted: 23 Sep 2011 02:30 PM PDT

Not so simple: U.S. spy agency trying to go mobile (Reuters)

Posted: 23 Sep 2011 11:16 AM PDT

By Tabassum Zakaria Tabassum Zakaria – Fri Sep 23, 2:16 pm ET

ORLANDO, Florida (Reuters) – Troy Lange knows that just mentioning cellphones is enough to give security officers heartburn at the National Security Agency.

Lange, as the NSA's mobility mission manager, is developing a smartphone that he wants to bring inside the super-secret U.S. spy agency to access classified information and apps while on the move. He wants it to work as easily as any of the smartphones those that are so ubiquitous in the outside world.

That is no small vision for an agency where entire buildings are designated as Sensitive Compartmented Information Facilities, known as SCIFs in spy speak, with many restrictions to ensure the handling and discussion of secret information stays secure.

Visitors to the Fort Meade, Maryland, NSA complex are not allowed to bring outside cellphones into the building.

Lange argues that using smartphones inside areas that deal with secret material will increase efficiency.

"I want to get this into everybody's hands" -- every employee in the Defense Department, intelligence community and across government, he said, while acknowledging that kind of talk makes "the security people's heads pop off."

He is working on a pilot project expected to begin running late this year or early next year using a smartphone that looks like any bought in stores but with security configurations to allow top-secret communication.

The NSA, which protects government computer networks from cyber threats and conducts electronic eavesdropping to detect national security threats, is known for its top-flight technological expertise.

But what is an everyday tool for the public -- a mobile device for conducting business and personal chores -- is a source of great concern inside intelligence agencies because of the potential for being hacked or unauthorized transmission of secrets.

That means there will have to be a culture change at the NSA, Lange said as he explained his vision in an interview with Reuters and during a three-day NSA conference in Florida that ended Thursday.

'HOW COOL WOULD THAT BE?'

"It's moving away from this whole concept between a classified device and an unclassified device," Lange said. "It's the information that is classified. So the intent is how can I gain access to that classified information in a mobile way."

His pilot project uses commercially available smartphones and software that would then be configured in-house with necessary security features.

"Think of the capabilities that would be in the hands of the warfighter when every one of them has a mobile device with which they could communicate back to their general," he said.

"So you have boots on the ground, they have the camera on their phone, they can say look what's going on here and be able to bring that information all back to the decision-makers in real time and have them act in real time. How cool would that be? And it's secure," Lange said.

The U.S. government has secure cellphones but they are bulky and limited to making calls up to top-secret level and connecting to the Secret Internet Protocol Router Network (SIPRNet).

Generals and others have been known to become so frustrated with the existing devices that they switch to personal cellphones to conduct classified conversations, according to a former U.S. official.

Lange said that if he wants access to email on the NSA's stand-alone computer network now, he has to sit at a desk -- "and I'm never at my desk." He cannot get on it even on a laptop that is approved to hold information within a SCIF.

"I still don't have that connectivity to a network, which means that the only way I can get to any of my data -- email, calendar invites, you name it -- I have to sit down at a wired station to get to it," Lange said.

He also envisions a classified app store down the road, wifi inside a SCIF, and the ability to use the same phone to make public calls through a mechanism that would switch off the classified network by a trigger such as dialing star-nine.

"All of these things that people do and have gained incredible efficiencies from, we are not because we haven't figured out how we can use this kind of technology within a building," Lange said.

(Editing by Warren Strobel and Bill Trott)

Blockbuster offers streaming for Dish customers (Reuters)

Posted: 23 Sep 2011 05:39 PM PDT

By Lisa Richwine Lisa Richwine – Fri Sep 23, 8:39 pm ET

(Reuters) – Blockbuster unveiled a video streaming service limited to Dish Network satellite subscribers, a move to better compete with movie rental giant Netflix and rival cable and satellite TV providers.

For non-Dish subscribers, the company plans to unveil an online streaming plan later this year, Blockbuster president Michael Kelly told Reuters in an interview.

Blockbuster, the once-dominant video store chain, is trying to rebuild its brand in an increasingly crowded market with backing by deep-pocketed parent company Dish.

The streaming push comes as Netflix has stumbled with an unpopular price increase and other missteps that have sent the company's shares tumbling 50 percent in two months.

Called Blockbuster Movie Pass, the new subscription service will start at an additional $10 a month for streaming plus movie and video game DVD rentals by mail and at the company's more than 1,500 stores.

At Netflix, mail plus streaming starts at about $16 a month.

"It's definitely not a Netflix killer, but I do think it offers a lot of value for Dish customers," said Tony Wible, an analyst with Janney Montgomery Scott who has a "sell" rating on Netflix.

Shares of Netflix gained 0.65 percent to close at $129.36 on Nasdaq. Dish shares rose 5.35 percent to $26.76, also on Nasdaq.

Movie Pass starts October 1. It will be free for one year for new Dish customers who sign up by the end of January for certain packages that cost at least $40 a month. The streaming option will carry new movie releases from Walt Disney Co and Sony provided by Starz, the cable channel operator set to pull its content from Netflix in February.

The Blockbuster streaming library is smaller than the Netflix online catalog of more than 20,000 titles. Dish will offer more than 3,000 movies for streaming to TV and more than 4,000 for computers, plus hundreds of TV shows.

Movie Pass will be "a good retention tool" for Dish, Pacific Crest Securities analyst Steve Clement said. "I don't know how compelling it will be for new" subscribers, he said.

Cable and satellite providers have been losing customers as entertainment options grow.

Adding the new package to Dish satellite TV service, which has about 14 million subscribers, offers consumers a broad menu of entertainment options by mail, television, streaming or in-store, Dish Network CEO Joe Clayton said.

"Hulu is very good at doing TV shows. Netflix is good at movies. No one is doing all of the above like we are doing," Clayton said at a news conference in San Francisco.

In response to the Blockbuster news, Netflix noted it offered streaming without requiring a satellite subscription.

"We still offer this amazing value without a cover charge," Netflix spokesman Steve Swasey said.

Last week, Netflix cut its subscriber forecast by 1 million, saying it expects to end the third quarter with 24 million subscribers as it faces cancellations from price increases. The last time Netflix reported a subscriber decline was the second quarter of 2007 when Blockbuster was aggressively pushing a DVD rental package called Total Access.

Blockbuster said it picked up 500,000 new subscribers, a combination of paying and free-trial customers, in the past 30 days. The company does not disclose its total subscribers.

"The biggest negative for Netflix in the addition of new competitors isn't that they are going to steal away subscribers, it's that it potentially increases the cost of buying content," Piper Jaffray analyst Michael Olson said.

(By Lisa Richwine in Los Angeles and Paul Thomasch and Sinead Carew in New York; Editing by Derek Caney, Richard Chang and Carol Bishopric)

Amazon expected to unveil tablet next week (Reuters)

Posted: 23 Sep 2011 02:13 PM PDT

– Fri Sep 23, 5:13 pm ET

(Reuters) – Amazon.com Inc, which revolutionized reading with its Kindle e-reader, is expected to unveil a tablet computer next week that analysts say will seriously challenge Apple's market dominating iPad.

Amazon on Friday invited media to a press conference to be held in New York next Wednesday, declining to provide further details.

But analysts were confident that the world's largest Internet retailer will introduce its long-awaited tablet computer this year to expand in mobile commerce and sell more digital goods and services.

"Wednesday is tablet day," BGC partners analyst Colin Gillis told Reuters.

The tablet has been awaited as a strong competitor to Apple Inc's iPad. Apple has sold about 29 million of the devices since its launch in April 2010.

"The real issue here is that, you know, it is likely going to be good for consumers; is this going to be good for shareholders?," Gillis said. He wondered whether Amazon would price the tablet below those of rivals -- and thereby do little to boost margins.

"Knowing Amazon, it is likely to be a very aggressive price," Gillis said.

In much the same way Amazon's Kindle e-reader was priced low to quickly get traction among readers the company is likely to keep the price of its tablet low to attract users and sell other content and services, one analyst said.

"It's a marketing tool to build a relationship with customers and sell them cloud (computing) services," said James McQuivey, an analyst with Forrester Research.

While Amazon has remained tight lipped even about the device's existence, the TechCrunch blog earlier this month said the Amazon tablet also will be called Kindle.

It will be a 7 inch device with a full color, touch screen, run on Google's Android software and cost $250, the blog said, well below the price of the least expensive iPad.

Robert Baird & Co analyst Colin Sebastian said in a note last month than an Amazon tablet would be a "game-changer." Sebastian forecast the device could sell 3 million units in its first year.

The tablet could pose a major threat to Apple because of the Kindle's popularity and the movie and music services Amazon sells.

Forrester's McQuivey said the device also takes aim at Barnes & Noble Inc's NookColor device, which hit the market last year and features tablet functionalities.

Several technology companies like Research In Motion and Samsung have introduced tablets that sold poorly. Hewlett Packard Co announced recently it would abandon its tablet.

Amazon shares finished the day up 0.2 percent at $223.61 on Friday on Nasdaq. The stock had traded as low as $219.06, but rallied as invitations to the media event began arriving.

(Reporting by Dhanya Skariachan, Phil Wahba and Alistair Barr in New York; Editing by Derek Caney, Gerald E. McCormick and Carol Bishopric)

Thomson Reuters sells risk unit to Vista (Reuters)

Posted: 23 Sep 2011 08:41 AM PDT

By Isabell Witt and Claire Ruckin Isabell Witt And Claire Ruckin – Fri Sep 23, 11:41 am ET

LONDON (Reuters) – Thomson Reuters (TRI.TO) said it has agreed to sell its trade and risk management software business, which includes flagship product Kondor, to private equity firm Vista Equity Partners.

The value of the sale was not disclosed.

The loan to support the leveraged buyout is expected to be around $200 million, sources familiar with the deal told Thomson Reuters LPC.

The debt financing will be provided by a group including GE Capital (GE.N), ING (ING.AS), Lloyds (LLOY.L) and Royal Bank of Canada (RY.TO), sources familiar with the deal said.

Vista beat bids from other private equity firms including Cinven, Bridgepoint and Montagu Private Equity.

Thomson Reuters, which provides news and information services, said it will now begin a consultation process with works councils, unions and employee representatives and a final sale and purchase agreement to the proposed transaction is expected to close by January 31, 2012.

Barclays Capital acted as sole financial advisor to Thomson Reuters.

The trade and risk management business operates under the Thomson Reuters enterprise solutions business.

Kondor provides trade and risk software as well as liquidity risk systems for treasury and cash management operations. Its main competitors include Misys (MSY.L), SunGard (BAINSD.UL) and French software solutions company Murex.

In April, Thomson Reuters said it expects to raise about $1 billion from the sale of its enterprise risk management and investment accounting software businesses, along with previously announced sales of a legal education product and Scandinavian legal and tax and accounting units.

In June Thomson Reuters said it also planned to sell a unit of its healthcare business. In 2010 the unit had revenues of about $450 million.

(Additional reporting Jennifer Saba; Editing by Chris Wickham and David Cowell)

LulzSec Hacker Exposed by the Service He Thought Would Hide Him (The Atlantic Wire)

Posted: 23 Sep 2011 01:08 PM PDT

Adam Martin Adam Martin – Fri Sep 23, 4:08 pm ET

On Thursday, the FBI arrested two suspected hackers who allegedly participated in Anonymous and LulzSec attacks. One of them, Cody Kretsinger, faces 15 years in prison for allegedly helping break into the Sony Pictures website with an SQL injection and publishing user data. As we described on Thursday, the indictment against Kretsinger says he used what's called a proxy server to hide his identity while carrying out the attack. But on Friday it emerged that the site he allegedly used to disguise his identity cooperated with police working to track him down. That's got some in the online privacy community very nervous.

Related: LulzSec's Enemies List Might Be Its Members' Undoing

The federal indictment against Kretsinger charges that he used a proxy server site called Hidemyass.com to disguise his Internet protocol address. Very basically, a proxy server works as an intermediary stop for a signal between one computer and another. By transmitting data through the proxy, a hacker can hide his or her ISP from the target. But since the proxy server gets between the machines on either end of that exchange, it is in a position to know details about the hacker. And if somebody investigating a hacking job gets access to that server, it can reveal their identity. That's apparently what happened in the investigation into Kretsinger. The details of that search haven't been made public yet, but a post on Hidemyass's blog says the company cooperated with police investigating the LulzSec actions. 

It first came to our attention when leaked IRC chat logs were released, in these logs participants discussed about various VPN services they use, and it became apparent that some members were using our service. No action was taken, after all there was no evidence to suggest wrongdoing and nothing to identify which accounts with us they were using. At a later date it came as no surprise to have received a court order asking for information relating to an account associated with some or all of the above cases. As stated in our terms of service and privacy policy our service is not to be used for illegal activity, and as a legitimate company we will cooperate with law enforcement if we receive a court order (equivalent of a subpoena in the US).

Normal businesses do indeed regularly obey court orders. But something doing business as Hidemyass.com might not be thought to be a normal business. The service claims that "the world-wide-web should be world-wide and not censored in anyway," after which it goes on to highlight its popularity among protesters in Egypt when the government blocked access to Twitter. As the group Privacy International noted on its blog, that sets them up as "supra-legal arbiters of morality" who can choose to cooperate with some government requests and not others. Sony and the federal government see LulzSec hackers as criminal miscreants, but LulzSec sees itself as a revolutionary group.

Related: LulzSec Scoffs at Report the U.K. Arrested One of Them

The notion that a proxy server could or would identify its users to investigators has privacy advocates crying foul. "HideMyAss.com is 'probably' run by the FBI. I know I would have put a number VPN and anonymizers out there hoping they would use them," wrote one (hopefully tongue-in-cheek) commenter on Ars Technica. Jason, who writes the blog Securityphile and doesn't publish his last name, tweeted, "hide my ass privacy service just became sell my ass to the feds." In the comments on the Privacy International blog post, PI technology adviser Eric King wrote: "There are many services who make far less grandiose claims about 'complete privacy' whose architecture inherently prevents them from being able to track or log users' activity. AirVPN and the Tor Project both offer similar services we'd happily recommend." AirVPN, for its part, issued a lengthy statement on Friday reassuring its customers of its own privacy safeguards and advising rattled users on how to take their own. 

Related: How Two LulzSec Hackers Slipped Up

But for LulzSec members who have already used Hidemyass.com, the damage is done. Only one, named "neuron," mentions it in the leaked IRC logs, but since Kretsinger went by the handle "recursion" it's a safe assumption there's at least one other user out there who may be on the hook.
at 10:00 PM

No comments:

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)

My Blog List