Sony's Live with Walkman is built for music, Facebook

With its 3.2-inch, 480 x 320 pixel display and 1GHz processor, Sony Ericcson’s latest Walkman-branded phone isn’t anywhere near the high end. And its not meant to be.

Built with Facebook in mind, Live with Walkman features extensive integration with the social network, allowing users to access Facebook’s features via the phone’s photo gallery, phonebook, and calendar.

Music also plays a big part with the device, which shouldn’t be surprising considering its name. Live with Walkman is bundled with a dynamic music recommendation app, which pulls music and video recommendations from Facebook friends. Sony’s Qriocity service is also present, as is its sound quality-boosting XLoud technology.

Available later this year in both black and white, the Live with Walkman is still without an official price point. But we’d wager Sony Ericcson will price the device pretty low.

Source : zdnet

Tablet shipments to near 250 million in 2017

Tablet shipments are set to explode in the coming years, a new study from research firm In-Stat has found.

According to the company's estimates, worldwide tabletshipments will approach 250 million units in 2017. The firm says iOS and Android will secure over 90 percent of the tablet space between them, while Windows will come in "a distant third."

If In-Stat's shipments numbers turn out to be accurate, it would make for significant growth in the tablet market. Earlier this year, DigiTimes cited market watchers who claimed iPad shipments will reach between 35 million and 36 million this year. Android tablet shipments, those market observers claim, will hit about 19 to 20 million this year. Next year, those figures will grow to approximately 55 million for the iPad and about 45 million for Android devices.

That report followed claims earlier this year from research firm Strategy Analytics, which said tablet sales could hit $49 billion in 2015. In 2009, the research firm noted, tablet sales were essentially zero, marking meteoric growth in that market.

However, as In-Stat pointed out in its study today, only companies that jump on the bandwagon will be successful in the coming years. The company said that firms who do not support "one of the leading OS platforms" will face demise "due to lack of application support."

That already appears to be the case. Last week, HP announced that it was discontinuing its WebOS platform and TouchPad tablet. That device, which came with a 9.7-inch display and only launched last month, was dogged by sluggish demand. In fact, AllThingsD reported last week that big-box retailer Best Buy was only able to sell a fraction of its inventory of TouchPads.

Aside from running the right operating system, In-Stat warns that vendors must also remember to offer up large displays in their future slates. The company said that by 2017, tablets with displays ranging in size from 9 inches to 11 inches will own 56 percent of the market.

Apple may introduce a radically different Mac product family by year's end

With consumers embracing a rapid shift away from traditional computers and towards a growing array of mobile devices, Apple may be preparing to introduce a distinct family next-generation Mac designs unlike anything seen to date, a vague rumor suggests.

Citing an anonymous source within the Cupetino-based company's Asian supply chain, hit-or-miss macotakara.jp claims Apple with the help of its component suppliers is gearing up to introduce Macs that are "absolutely different from current products," possibly by the "end of this year."

The brief report goes on to state that although the source could provide no further details on the matter, the designs of the news Macs mark such a departure from Apple's existing offerings that they could be brought to market under a new brand or product name altogether.

As such, the latest rumor appears to be describing an initiative separate from Apple's reported efforts (1, 2) to transition its flagship line of MacBook Pro notebooks into slimmer enclosures akin to the MacBook Air, dropping traditional hard disk drives in favor of solid state drives and jettisoning optical disc drives completely.

For its part, macotakara.jp has a mixed track record in predicting Apple's future product directions. Though it accurately reported that Apple would introduce its second-gen iPad in March and push out the release of the iPhone 5 until much later in the year, other reports about new MacBook Airs featuring high-speed 400MBps flash memory and a flat-back iPad 2 did not pan out.

The Japanese publication has also issued a flurry of other claims over the past several months that remain pending, including rumors that Apple will return to an aluminum back sideon the iPhone 5 and that the company is testing MacBook Airs powered by the same A5 chip found inside the iPad 2.
Source : appleinsider

What is a next-generation firewall?

If there is a simple way to describe the difference between a next-generation firewall and a traditional firewall, it is "more detailed controls." In firewall terms, people talk about "widening the 5-tuple."

Firewall managers like to use the term "5-tuple," borrowing "tuple" from the world of databases. The "5-tuple" means the five items (columns) that each rule (row, or tuple) in a firewall policy uses to define whether to block or allow traffic: source and destination IP, source and destination port, and protocol.

For example, to allow traffic to a Web server at 1.2.3.4 from the Internet, a typical 5-tuple would include source IP and port of "any" (or "*"), destination IP of 1.2.3.4, destination ports of 80 and 443, and destination protocol of TCP — with an action of "allow." There's variation in every firewall on the market, but at the core of every one you'll find a set of rules that look more-or-less like that: 5-tuples.

Next-generation firewalls "widen" the firewall rule base by adding elements (columns) to each 5-tuple, starting with "application" and "user identity" and perhaps going wider still, factoring in other elements such as "reputation."

Trend Micro Titanium steels itself for 2012

Trend Micro overhauled its security suites last year to great success. The company changed everything about the programs, from introducing a cloud-based detection engine on up through an interface with fast transitions and even the name, rebranding the suites as Trend Micro Titanium. Available exclusively today from CNET Download.com, this year's Titanium Maximum Security 2012 (download), Titanium Internet Security 2012 (download), and Titanium AntiVirus Plus 2012 (download) offer far fewer and far less dramatic changes, but they do include some improvements that ought to keep the suite competitive.

In addition to last year's Smart Protection Network, which forms the heart of the Trend Micro's cloud-based detection by creating a real-time, always-updated database of user security encounters, two new engines have joined the fold. One is designed to detect and remove the "fake antivirus" malware, also known as ransomware, that plagues many. The other stops botnets that might've infected your computer.

Value-added enhancements cover both the useful, like bundling one free license for Trend Micro's SmartSurfing for Mac, and the gimmicky, like a selection of new interface skins for the Windows version. Does anybody spend so much time in their security suite that they want to skin it?

There's SafeSync for storing files online and syncing them among your various devices, and Trend Micro considerately gives you a decent 10 GB to play with if you buy Titanium Maximum Security. Titanium Internet Security users get 2 GB. You also get a local encrypted vault for file protection. There's a PC optimizer that cleans your Registry and temp files, and deletes browsing history and cookies. Of course, your browser does that, too.

One excellent "extra" is mobile security. Titanium Maximum Security 2012 comes with free licenses for iOS andAndroid security apps, which offer lost phone tracking, antivirus, and SMS blockers. The Trend Micro toolbar forFirefox and Internet Explorer warns you about malicious links posted to Facebook and Twitter, as well as search, although there's no support yet for Google Chrome.

When it comes to benchmarks, Trend Micro 2012 was frustratingly uneven. Its Quick Scan was the fastest CNET Labs has tested so far this year, with the slowest of the Titanium suites coming in at more than 400 seconds faster than the second-fastest suite, and they also had the lightest touch on computer shutdown times. However, Titanium had the biggest impact on system boot times, with the Titanium suite that was fastest at boot still adding 20 seconds more than the next-slowest competitor. In the era of security suite-free Windows 7 computers that often take no more than 30 to 40 seconds to boot, and tough competition from Macs and Chromebooks that can boot in 20 to 30 seconds, doubling a computer's boot time is unacceptable.

Trend Micro Titanium 2012 looks nearly identical to the Titanium suites from 2011.

(Credit: Screenshot by Seth Rosenblatt/CNET)

Third-party labs that look at the efficacy of virus detection and removal found Trend Micro 2012 equally uneven. While scoring high on threat detection and blocking, and earning low false positive scores, the Titanium suites did not do well on infection removal.

Price-wise, Trend Micro Titanium Maximum Security retails for $79.95; Titanium Internet Security retails for $69.95; and Titanium AntiVirus Plus retails for $39.95. These prices skew towards the higher-end of security suites, and are in the same ballpark as Kaspersky and Norton. However, online deals can often be found for cheaper.

Basically, Trend Micro Titanium Maximum Security's a good, solid security option if you've got a nice, shiny new computer and you don't want anything to happen to it, see? But if you've got either an Android or an iOS device, the free mobile security is a sweet cherry on top to have.

Buyers snap up Hewlett-Packard's discounted TouchPad tablet

US buyers have been snapping up HP's defunct TouchPad tablet for $US99 per unit Source: Supplied

HEWLETT-PACKARD'S defunct TouchPad tablet has virtually sold out in the United States after its price was slahed from $US499 to $US99.

HP's decision to drop the price to as low as $US99 touched off a weekend buying rush that the company called "overwhelming."

The sudden interest came after HP said it was discontinuing its tablet and smartphone efforts, after disappointing sales and unfavourable reviews.

HP cut the price of its least-expensive 16 Gigabyte TouchPad to $99.99 from $499.99. The price on a 32 Gigabyte version was reduced to $149.99 from $599.99.

The Palo Alto company said it is still exploring alternatives for webOS, the well-regarded software that powered the TouchPad.

HP's decision to jettison remaining inventory at rock-bottom prices instantly became the talk of the technology press in the US on the weekend.

Blog posts were quickly published with rolling updates containing lists of stores and online sites where the device was still available.

Demand was so heavy that by Sunday, the website slickdeals.com was filled with "sold out" notices in red next to such popular retailers as Amazon.com, B&H Foto, Fry's Electronics, Target and Walmart.

A saleswoman at a Best Buy store in San Francisco said all the TouchPads in the Bay Area were sold out by Saturday night.

Eager customers scouring retailers turned their attention to stores that hadn't yet dropped the TouchPad's price, and reported multiple calls with sales representatives and methods for getting the price reduced.

"If you buy at full price, they will price match in 10 days to their own store if price drops," a person wrote about Barnes & Noble Inc.

The retailer still was charging $407.95 for the TouchPad, of which slickdeals estimated there were 14,000 in stock. Barnes & Noble wasn't available for comment.

Other consumers debated whether the device was good value even at the lower price.

"They are utterly worthless now," a person commented on a cnet.com article about the sale. "Amen," responded another.

Others disagreed, starting a Twitter campaign called "#saveWebOS" with pleas to keep the platform going and tweets from customers who had been awaiting H-P's next generation smartphones and tablets.

"My dreams are dashed," said a Twitter user who called herself Cheryl. "Thanks (for nothing) @HP."

Whose Smartphone Customers Use the Most Data Per Month? AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile or Verizon?

Electronista doesn’t have to work too hard to convince me that mobile phone companies’ wireless data plans charge way too much for people who do not even come close to their plan’s monthly data quota. Here, they report on a study by Validas.

Study: tiered data plans still unfair for many subscribers (Electronista)

Are You Leaving Data On The Table With Your Smartphone Plan? (Validas)

Two-thirds of the way through my billing cycle, I have only used 350.78MB of the 4GB available in my plan. This is despite even the hours of tethering use (I pay for iPhone 4 hotspot option).

According to Validas, Sprint has the highest smartphone data use of the big four int the U.S. Sprint’s users consume an average of 778.8MB per month with a median of 371.0MB. AT&T users are at a distant second with an average of 425MB used per month with a median of 155.8MB (less than half of Sprint users’ median). Validas points out that Sprint’s unlimited data plan may encourage their customers to use more data than other carriers with data use constraints.

Validas’ data supports the claims made by mobile phone companies that a relatively small group of users consume a great deal of data compared to the majority of data using customers. The large disparities between the mean (average) and median for each mobile phone company supports this claim.

Source : socialtimes

Chrome Improves Security, Usability as Firefox Slips

I used to be a big fan of Firefox, now I find myself using Chrome more and more. Here are some illustrations of what I see, from my Defensive Computing perspective, as the downward trend in Firefox and the improvements in Chrome.

One Defensive Computing advantage of Chrome over Firefox is that it asks before running Java applets.

This wasn't always the case. I had a copy of Chrome version 10 hanging around, for example, and it runs applets indiscriminately. But, after reports of old versions of Java being frequently exploited to install malicious software, Google added the warning shown below. Good for Google.

And, it turns out that somewhere between Chrome version 11 and the current version, 13, this feature has been improved.

On a Windows computer, I recently logged in to the GoToMyPC website to remotely control another computer. When Java is installed, GoToMyPC runs an applet that transparently invokes an EXE to connect to the remote computer. Without Java, it first downloads the EXE which you have to run manually.

This time, rather than simply asking permission, Chrome blocked the GoToMyPC Java applet because the installed copy of Java was out of date (see below).


The Java plug-in was blocked because it is out of date

Gone is the button to always run Java on this site, replaced instead by an "Update plug-in" button that links to a download page at java.com. The installed copy of Java was Version 6 Update 25; the latest, at the time, was Update 26.

This is pure gold. It tells the user what they need to know, when they need to know it. Firefox does not do this.

As Chrome seems to improve, Firefox seems to be sliding.

In the good old days, Firefox was great about informing users of new versions. It put up a window in the middle of the screen that said, in effect, you have version x and version y is now available, would you like to download it. It was simple, clear, informative and effective. Those days though, are long gone.

Firefox got rid of the big window in the middle of screen and went to a small window in the bottom right corner. Worse still, this small window only displayed for a couple seconds before disappearing. Many times I missed what it said with no obvious way to get it back.

But, at least when you updated to a new version/release of Firefox, the first page it displayed welcomed you to version x.y.z.

Now, even that's gone. When updating from Firefox version 5 to 6 the new welcome screen, shown below, merely says that "Your Firefox is up to date." No more version numbers.

This is by design. Mozilla no longer likes version and release numbers. The plan is to phase them out,even from the Help -> About window. I kid you not.

Asa Dotzler, of Mozilla, in a "let them eat cake" moment wrote:

When a user opens the About window for Firefox, the window should say something like "Firefox checked for updates 20 minutes ago, you are running the latest release ... If a user needs the full version information they can get it from about:support.

I've used Firefox for years and had no idea there was a hidden "about:support" page.

To me, this is symptomatic of user interface problems with Firefox. Frankly, I found the redesign introduced with version 4 a step back, not forward.

Another example can be found in a new addition to the Help -> About window in Firefox 6 which now reports that "You are currently on the release update channel."

Say what?

While reasonable people can disagree about a user interface, installing bug fixes in a timely manner is unquestionably important. And it is here that Chrome truly shines compared to Firefox.

In a nutshell: Chrome self-updates quickly and quietly. Firefox does not.

Rather than worrying about showing end users a version number, Mozilla should do more to make the version number irrelevant by having Firefox auto-update itself and the installed add-ons.

Yes, Firefox does have an option to self-update (Tools -> Options -> Advanced -> Update tab -> Automatically download and install the update checkbox). But, from what I can tell, the check for updates only happens when the end user does Help -> About. That doesn't strike me as very automatic.

Adding developer-oriented features seems to be the priority for Firefox. My preference is for Defensive Computing features.

Techies that help others with their computer can do their friends/family a favor by installing Chrome and making it the default browser.

Source : pcworld