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Skype Debuts Video Calls For Android
July 5, 2011 by admin
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Skype, which is being gobbled up by Microsoft for $8.5 billion, debuted a new service on Thursday allowing users of Android phones to make free video calls to Skype contacts, including those on Apple iPhones.
The company whose name has become synonymous with Internet calling said its updated Android app would initially support video calling on selected HTC and Sony Ericsson Phones, with more devices to follow shortly.
“We are committed to bringing Skype video calling to as many platforms as possible,” Skype’s product and marketing chief Neil Stevens said in a statement.
The move will help makers of phones based on Google’s Android software compete with Apple’s FaceTime video-calling service launched last year for the iPhone and now available on its iPad 2 tablet and Mac computers.
Video calling could also help new Skype owner Microsoft promote its Windows Phone smartphone platform, which it is merging with Nokia’s in an effort to become competitive with Android and Apple.
Apple Website Is Ripe For Hacking
July 4, 2011 by admin
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According to the Ethical Hacking group YGN, Apple’s website for developers is virtually wide open and gives the opportunity for hackers to introduce malware such asphishing attacks to gain access to subscriber’s vital personal information.
One group known as Networkworld identified three holes on Apple’s website that arbitrary URL redirects, cross-site scripting and HTTP response splitting. That said, these holes could allow hackers to arbitrarily redirect to other websites and make phishing attacks against developers login credentials more successful.
Microsoft Patents Snooping Technology
A newly patented Microsoft technology named Legal Intercept that would allow the company to covertly intercept, monitor and record Skype calls is raising privacy concerns.
Microsoft’s patent application for Legal Intercept was filed in 2009, well before the company’s $8.5 billion purchase of Skype this May. The patent was granted last week.
From Microsoft’s description of the technology in its patent application, Legal Intercept appears similar to tools used by telecommunication companies and equipment makers to comply with government wiretap and surveillance requests.
According to Microsoft, Legal Intercept is designed to silently record communications on VoIP networks such as Skype.
According to Microsoft, Legal Intercept fixes the gaps in current monitoring tools that are designed mainly for intercepting Plain Old Telephone Service (POTS). “With new Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) and other communication technology, the POTS model for recording communications does not work,” Microsoft noted in the patent application.
Michael Froomkin, a professor of law at the University Of Miami School Of Law, said that from the patent description it sounds as if the technology would allow Microsoft to do is make Skype CALEA capable.
Facebook Is Display Advertising King
Facebook’s U.S. advertising revenue will reach roughly $2.2 billion in 2011, toppling Yahoo Inc to collect the biggest portion of online display advertising dollars, according to a new study.
Facebook’s U.S. advertising revenue will give it a 17.7 percent share of the market for graphical display ads that appear on websites, according to a report released on Monday by research firm eMarketer.
Last year Facebook garnered 12.2 percent share of the U.S. market.
The figures highlights the growing clout of Facebook, the world’s No.1 Internet social network. It has seen its valuation soar to roughly $80 billion in recent transactions for its shares on the private markets as some investors anticipate it could have an initial public offering next year.
While Facebook has grabbed the top ranking, eMarketer analyst David Hallerman said the overall market for display ads, which include banner ads, video ads and Web page sponsorships, is growing robustly enough that it is benefiting numerous companies.
Verizon Ending Unlimited Data Plan In July
June 26, 2011 by admin
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We are closer to reaching the end of Verizon Wireless’s limited-time offer of unlimited data, says the Wall Street Journal‘s AllThingsD. The website reports that the wireless carrier plans to introduce new tiered pricing plans next month for new smartphone customers — including those buying Apple’s iPhone 4.
If true, the report hardly comes as a surprise. Back in January, when Verizon became the second carrier in the U.S. to offer iPhone service, the company said it would offer subscribers a $30-a-month unlimited data plan for the iPhone’s launch, but highlighted the fact that the offer was for a limited time only.
Yahoo Creates Search Tools For Smartphones
June 19, 2011 by admin
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Yahoo wants to aid in smartphone owners finding mobile applications and information about them.
On Thursday, the company is debuting a feature in its search engine called App Search, as well as application search tools for Android and iPhone devices named AppSpot.
Both the new App search feature and the mobile search tools can be used to seek applications for iPhone and Android devices, although the company expects to expand that scope in the future.
For now, Yahoo has indexed the mobile application catalogue of the Android Market and of the Apple App Store, and is convinced that it can do a better job than the search tools of those two online shops.
Finding information about mobile applications, like descriptions, ratings, reviews and recommendations, is at a rudimentary stage similar to web search in the mid-1990s, Seth said.
The way Yahoo sees it, many people today struggle to find the right mobile application among the hundreds of thousands available for Android and iPhone devices.
Chinese Government Questioned About Cyber-attack
June 18, 2011 by admin
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The U.S. State Department questioned the Chinese government regarding an attack that had temporarily shut down the website Change.org after the site hosted a petition urging Chinese authorities to release artist Ai Weiwei from custody.
U.S. deputy assistant secretary Daniel Baer raised concerns about the attack in April with China’s foreign ministry, according to an official letter sent from the State Department to U.S. Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.). Change.org obtained a copy of the letter and released it Tuesday.
The nature of those talks is still somewhat vague. The U.S. Embassy in Beijing said it had no current information on the matter and deferred to the State Department. China’s foreign ministry has yet to respond to a request for comment.
Change.org, an online petitioning platform, was the victim of a distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack originating from China on April 17. The attacks nearly brought down the site for days.
DDoS attacks can do this by using hundreds or thousands of hacked computers to drive traffic to a website. The data will become so overwhelming that the site will become inaccessible to users.
Change.org said the DDoS attacks from China continue to bring down the site intermittently. The FBI is investigating the case, said Benjamin Joffe-Walt, an editor with Change.org.
Acer Launches Sandy Bridge Notebooks
Acer updated its Timeline notebook series with Intel’s Sandy Bridge family of CPUs. The Timeline X series will come in three sizes, 13.3-inch, 14-inch and 15.6-inch and they are about an inch thick. Furthermore, the notebooks will be equipped with Acer’s PowerSmart Technology that is supposed to provide battery life of up to nine hours on models with integrated graphics and up to eight hours for those models with discrete graphics.
Apple’s iCloud Could Have A Secret Objective?
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Many analysts have come to the conclusion that Apple’s iCloud may not be designed to appeal to new customers. Apple’s iClouds service true objective is to keep existing customers locked into Apple’s iOS environment. Forester’s Charles Golvin went on to say that for people who own one or more iOS devices, they’re going to discover an even better experience.
Charles Govin also said Apple’s iCloud will keep customers because once they’ve used the service; they will hesitate to leave the Apple ecosystem because they will lose all the data they have stored. Since they do not have to worry about where their content is stored, it will make them feel that much more satisfied with their smartphone or tablet, and means that the next time they go to buy one, they’re more likely to buy from Apple.
Furthermore, Carolina Milanesi of Gartner told Computerworld, “The most important thing is that it is a complete cloud package. It shows the benefit of living in the Apple ‘house. It will be a way for Apple to retain customers in the face of a rising tide of Android-based smartphones, and growing competition from media tablets that run Google’s operating system.”
Download Defense Added To Chrome Browser
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Google has updated Chrome to version 12, adding a new feature that warns users when they’ve downloaded files from dangerous Web sites.
New to Chrome 12 is a tool that flags questionable files pulled from the Web. Chrome now shows an alert when users download some file types from sites that are on the Safe Browsing API (application programming interface) blacklist, which Google maintains.
The messages reads: “This file is malicious. Are you sure you want to continue?” If they wish, users can ignore the warning and install the file on their system’s hard drive.
“This warning will be displayed for any download URL that matches the latest list of malicious websites published by the Safe Browsing API,” said Google last April when it debuted the feature in an earlier edition of Chrome.
Safe Browsing already identifies suspicious or unsafe sites, then adds them to a blacklist. Chrome, Mozilla’s Firefox and Apple’s Safari all tap into Safe Browsing to warn users of risky sites before they actually visit them.