July 31, 2013 by admin
Filed under Smartphones
Samsung Electronics Co Ltd is close to signing a deal to sell its popular line of Galaxy devices to the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation, sources familiar with the situation said late last Friday.
The deal would be a boost for Samsung, which is increasingly seeking to cater to the needs of government agencies, a niche long dominated by Canadian smartphone maker BlackBerry Ltd.
The FBI, with more than 35,000 employees, at present uses mainly BlackBerry devices. It is unclear whether the agency plans to replace all BlackBerry equipment with Galaxy models or whether it will use hardware from both companies.
A spokeswoman for the FBI declined to comment on the matter, saying that the selection of its new smartphones is part of an active acquisition process and any current discussions are proprietary to the government.
The imminent deal was initially reported by the Wall Street Journal late on Thursday. The WSJ also said Samsung is close to signing a smaller order for its devices with the U.S. Navy, citing people familiar with the matter.
Representatives of BlackBerry and Samsung declined to comment. BlackBerry emphasized, however, that it regards its operating system as the best in the market in terms of security features.
“The security of mobile devices is more important now than it has ever been before,” BlackBerry’s chief legal officer, Steve Zipperstein, said in an interview. “It is fair to ask why in this context anyone would consider moving from the gold standard in security, which is the BlackBerry platform.”
In May, the U.S. Pentagon cleared Samsung’s Android mobile devices and a new line of BlackBerry devices powered by the BB10 operating system for use on Defense Department networks.
Samsung has been pushing hard to convince government agencies and corporate clients that its Galaxy devices, powered by Google Inc’s Android operating system, can meet their stringent security needs.
The South Korean company hopes that the Pentagon clearance and the imminent deal with the FBI will help boost sales to security-conscious clients including banks and law firms.
Some analysts remain skeptical about whether Android can meet all security requirements of such clients, and note that the FBI itself has highlighted some vulnerabilities of the platform.
“The Android operating system hasn’t been secured properly,” said Rob Enderle, principal analyst with Enderle Group, noting that Samsung has layered technology on top of the operating system in an attempt to make its Galaxy devices safer.
One in five UK businesses experienced a DDoS attack last year according to a new survey.
Analytics firm Neustar said that while the percentage is significantly lower than that experienced by their US equivalents it is still fairly high. More than 22 percent of the 381 organisations participating in the annual trends study reported DDoS attacks, compared to 35 percent experiencing the same in a separate study carried out among US firms in 2012.
Neustar set out to measure revenue ‘risk per hour’ which is a measure of what it might cost a business in a particular sector to experience DdoS downtime. They found that the majority of organisations reckoned this at less than $1,500 per hour.
Most of the rest put it somewhere between $1,500 and $15,000 although one in four financial services firms put the number at $250,000 per hour. This cost included brand damage and unexpected customer service calls.
Oracle has issued its critical patch update advisory for July, plugging a total of 89 security holes across its product portfolio.
The fixes focus mainly on remotely exploitable vulnerabilities in four widely used products, with 27 fixes issued for the Oracle Database, Fusion Middleware, the Oracle and Sun Systems Product Suite and the MySQL database.
Out of the 89 security fixes included with this update, the firm said six are for Oracle Database, with one of the vulnerabilities being remotely exploitable without authentication.
Oracle revealed that the highest CVSS Base Score for these database vulnerabilities is 9.0, a score related to vulnerability CVE-2013-3751, which affects the XML Parser on Oracle Database 11.2.0.2 and 11.2.0.3.
A further 21 patched vulnerabilities listed in Oracle’s Critical Patch Update are for Oracle Fusion Middleware; 16 of these vulnerabilities are remotely exploitable without authentication, with the highest CVSS Base Score being 7.5.
As for the Oracle and Sun Systems Products Suite, these products received a total of 16 security fixes, eight of which were also remotely exploitable without authentication, with a maximum CVSS Base Score of 7.8.
“As usual, Oracle recommends that customers apply this Critical Patch Update as soon as possible,” Oracle’s director of Oracle Software Security Assurance Eric Maurice wrote in a blog post.
Craig Young, a security researcher at Tripwire commented on the Oracle patch, saying the “drumbeat of critical patches” is more than alarming because the vulnerabilities are frequently reported by third parties who presumably do not have access to full source code.
“It’s also noteworthy that […] every Oracle CPU release this year has plugged dozens of vulnerabilities,” he added. “By my count, Oracle has already acknowledged and fixed 343 security issues in 2013. In case there was any doubt, this should be a big red flag to end users that Oracle’s security practices are simply not working.”
July 26, 2013 by admin
Filed under Around The Net
Baidu Inc, China’s top search engine, plans to purchase app store 91 Wireless for $1.9 billion to strengthen its position in the country’s highly competitive mobile computing sector.
Baidu will buy a 57.4 percent stake in 91 Wireless, one of China’s earliest appstores, from NetDragon Websoft Inc for $1.09 billion, and the remainder from other shareholders, both companies said on Tuesday.
“It’s good for Baidu because if you look at mobile, currently apps are more popular than mobile sites because Internet download speeds are slow. So with the acquisition of this appstore, Baidu can work more closely with the apps developer and be able to enhance further their search capabilities,” said Elinor Leung, an analyst with CLSA in Hong Kong.
China’s mobile Internet market is expected to double to about 300 billion yuan ($48 billion) in 2014 from 150 billion yuan in 2012, with the number of active mobile Internet users rising to 749 million from 521 million during the same period, according to research firm Analysys International.
NetDragon’s shares lost as much as a fifth of their value on Tuesday and were down 18 percent at HK$19.74 at 0305 GMT (11.05 p.m ET)
NetDragon also said in a statement that it would scrap the planned spinoff and listing of 91 Wireless on Hong Kong’s secondary Growth Enterprise Market if the acquisition is finalized.
July 25, 2013 by admin
Filed under Around The Net
Wi-Lan has suffered defeat in its patents trial against Alcatel Lucent, Ericsson, HTC and Sony, as a Texas court decided that the firms did not infringe its patents.
Wi-Lan filed a lawsuit against Alcatel Lucent, Ericsson, HTC and Sony in 2010 claiming the firms infringed patents that relate to data transmission over wireless networks. However a Texas court ruled that the four firms did not infringe Wi-Lan’s patents and found one patent Wi-Lan asserted against HTC and two it asserted against Alcatel Lucent invalid.
Wi-Lan had asserted that Alcatel Lucent and Ericsson infringed three patents, none of which claims were upheld by the court. The firm also asserted that HTC and Sony infringed another patent, and there the court not only judged against infringement but invalidated the patent.
Alcatel Lucent and HTC both said that Wi-Lan was trying to stretch its patents to cover technology in their devices.
Sally Julien, a spokeswoman for HTC said, “HTC believes that Wi-Lan has exaggerated the scope of its patent in order to extract unwarranted licensing royalties from entities who have been focused on bringing innovation forward in their own products.”
Kurt Steinert, an Alcatel Lucent spokesman said, “We think this validates our belief that Wi-Lan was stretching the boundaries of its patents, and the jury confirmed that belief.”
Wi-Lan has managed to get several companies to license its technology including Dell and Panasonic, and in May it initiated legal proceedings against Blackberry over a patent relating to Long Term Evolution network technology. However in this case the firm did not prevail against two large telecom equipment companies and two big smartphone makers.
Microsoft has dropped the prices on its Surface RT tablets by as much as 30%, with the entry-level 32GB model selling for $349.
The 64GB Surface RT was also discounted by $150, and now sells for $449, or 25% off its former price.
When Microsoft launched the tablet, it sold the 32GB device for $499 and the 64GB configuration for $599.
Microsoft started selling the Surface RT at the lower prices Sunday, as did some of its U.S. retail partners, including Best Buy and Staples. On its website, Staples noted that the discounted prices are valid until July 20, and only while supplies last.
Microsoft’s website, however, listed no caveats, hinting that the lower prices might be permanent or at least will be honored for longer than one week.
The prices are another attempt by Microsoft to clear its existing inventory in preparation for a second-generation line of Windows RT devices. Previously, Microsoft had launched multiple deals to rid itself of the poor-selling tablet, most recently in June when it slashed prices by 60% in a bid to get universities and K-12 schools to buy the device.
Earlier, it kicked off a buy-a-Surface-RT-get-a-free-cover deal that ran until June 30. And at several conferences, including June’s TechEd North America and this month’s Microsoft Partner Conference, the company sold attendees a 64GB Surface RT for $100, 83% off list price.
Today’s sale prices were nearly Microsoft’s cost, which according to estimates of the tablet’s component prices, runs the company at least $284 for the 32GB Surface RT.
Microsoft has not abandoned Windows RT, the pared-down operating system that powers the Surface RT, but virtually every third-party OEM has either pointedly ignored the OS or publicly announced that they would not support it with devices of their own. Instead, the OEMs have flocked to Windows 8 Pro, even though some analysts question the value of touch devices on a platform whose biggest selling point is legacy software that doesn’t support touch.
Microsoft has not revealed sales figures for the Surface line — which also includes the Surface Pro, powered by Windows 8 Pro — but estimates by research firms like IDC have been lackluster.
Xen Project will release the Xen 4.3 hypervisor later today with support for ARMv7 and ARMv8 hardware.
The Xen Project overseen by The Linux Foundation produces an open source hypervisor that is a popular alternative to KVM. The project will release the Xen 4.3 hypervisor today with support for ARM servers, performance improvements and a technology preview of Open Vswitch.
The Xen Project is backed by a number of big firms including AMD, Cisco, Google, Intel and Samsung, and is one of the first hypervisors to support ARMv8 based processors along with the ARMv7 architecture. The Xen Project said it has been working with ARM server vendor Calxeda to validate Xen 4.3 on its ARMv7 and ARMv8 servers.
For the Xen Project, ARM server support, in particular ARMv8 support, will be key as servers using the architecture start to appear later this year and in volume during 2014. Given that Amazon Web Services, arguably the biggest cloud service provider around, is supporting the Xen Project, ARMv8 support in the hypervisor could be painful for VMware as it tries to compete against a free, industry supported alternative.
Lars Kurth, community manager for the Xen Project said, “The ARM server support is an exciting development for the community and we’re excited about the opportunities this will bring to customers.”
Xen 4.3 also includes improvements to power efficiency by using the MWAIT extension for processors such as Intel’s Sandy Bridge, Ivy Bridge and Haswell.
Linux Foundation VP and COO Mike Woster talked up the importance of virtualisation to the Linux and open source community. He said, “Virtualization is important to Linux and the open source community and the Xen Project is helping companies realize new levels of scalability and efficiency in areas such as cloud computing.
“With the latest release of Xen Project, organizations can advance their cloud computing strategies to deliver on customer expectations for their enterprise environments.”
The Xen 4.3 hypervisor was released yesterday.
July 22, 2013 by admin
Filed under Around The Net
Hiring of technology professionals has been increasing since the first half of this year, with new IT hires accounting for about 10% of all the job growth in the U.S. in June, according to two independent assessments.
Total tech employment reached 4.47 million in June, an increase of 22,600 jobs from the prior month, or a .51% gain, according to TechServe Alliance, an IT services industry group which tracks employment data month-to-month. The total excludes tech manufacturing employment.
Similarly, Foote Partners, which researches IT employment trends, reported a gain of 18,200 new tech jobs last month.
These gains are coming at the same time that some tech employers are cutting jobs.
IBM has cut more than 3,000 workers over the past few weeks, struggling Hewlett-Packard is still eliminating jobs, and Symantec is seeing layoffs as well.
The U.S. economy added 195,000 jobs overall in June, according to the Labor Dept.
Foote said that IT employment in the first half of this year is averaging 13,500 new jobs per month.
“While the pace of job creation in the national labor force appears stuck at 7.6% unemployment and new jobs are heavily in part-time positions and low wage full-time segments, IT jobs have been on a sustained growth upswing and wages are holding steady if not growing slightly,” said David Foote, chief analyst, in a statement.
Reports on IT employment figures from analyst can differ widely depending on what U.S. labor department categories are use in the calculations.
Another firm that analyzes the labor market, Janco Associates, reported a gain of 9,900 jobs in June based on the categories it tracks.
Despite the increase in hiring, IT salaries remain flat, said Janco.
“Based on our interviews with over 96 CIOs in the last 30 days, we concluded that CIOs are not in a great hurry to hire new staff except to meet short term needs until they see a clear trend as to what is happening with the economy,” said Janco CEO Victor Janulaitis in a statement.
Janulaitis said that “67% of the CIOs we interviewed do not see any real push to expand staffing over the next 12 months.”
After a promising start, downloads of Microsoft’s free Office for the iPhone quickly nosedived, as the latest data from a mobile app analytics company showed.
But at least 200,000 copies of the small suite — iPhone versions of Word, Excel and PowerPoint — were downloaded in the first six days.
Distimo, a Dutch firm that tracks app store market data for several platforms, including Apple’s iOS, Google’s Android, and Microsoft’s Windows 8 and Windows Phone, said Office Mobile for the iPhone debuted in the No. 10 spot on June 15, the day after Microsoft launched the free app.
That was Office Mobile’s peak: On June 16, Office Mobile slipped to the No. 19 position among all free iPhone apps, then continued to slide throughout the week of June 17-23, starting that seven-day stretch at No. 36, falling to No. 86 by Friday, June 21, and ending at No. 299 on June 23.
From June 24 to July 6, Office Mobile was not on Distimo’s leaderboard, which lists only the top 400 downloaded apps.
The number of downloads of Office Mobile for iPhone is unknown — Distimo requires a paid account to show developers the estimated downloads of their apps and those of competitors, and did not reply to questions Sunday — but the tally was probably significant.
According to Distimo, to place in the App Store’s No. 10 spot, an app must average 72,000 downloads daily. Office Mobile was ranked No. 10 on June 15. Apps ranked at No. 50 averaged 23,000 downloads daily: Office Mobile held position at No. 50 or lower for five consecutive days.
Those numbers implied that at least 200,000 copies of Office Mobile were downloaded in the six days between June 15 and June 20.
Likewise, the sharp decline of Office Mobile’s position in the App Store’s free list after just a week hints at a pent-up demand that was quickly satisfied.
Although rumors of Office on iOS had circulated since the iPad’s 2010 introduction, they heated up last November when reports claimed Microsoft would launch a mobile version of the suite this year and tie the software to Office 365. At the time, most analysts agreed that Office 365 was the smart move because it could boost interest in the subscription concept Microsoft has bet will result in more, and more regular, revenue from its Office cash cow.
Linking Office on iOS to Office 365 would also let Microsoft avoid the Apple “tax,” the 30% cut that Apple takes from all App Store sales.
Only Office 365 subscribers can use Office Mobile. Subscriptions range from the consumer-grade Office 365 Home Premium, which costs $100 annually, to several business plans that start at $150 per user per year and climb to $264 per user per year.
Oracle has changed the license of its embedded database library, Berkeley DB. The software is widely used as a key-value store within other applications and historically used an OSI-approved strong copyleft license which was similar to the GPL.
Under that license, distributing software that embedded Berkeley DB involved also providing “information on how to obtain complete source code for the DB software and any accompanying software that uses the DB software.”
Now future versions of Berkeley DB use the GNU Affero General Public License (AGPL). This says “your modified version must prominently offer all users interacting with it remotely through a computer network … an opportunity to receive the Corresponding Source of your version.”
This will cause some problems for Web developers using Berkeley DB for local storage. Compliance has not really been an issue because they never “redistributed” the source of their Web apps.Now they will have to make sure their whole Web app is compliant with the AGPL and make full corresponding source to their Web application available.
They also need to ensure the full app has compatible licensing. Practically that means that the whole source code has to be licensed under the GPLv3 or the AGPL.
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