Microsoft Goes Quantum Computing

Software giant Microsoft is focusing a lot of its R&D money on quantum computing.

Will Sprint Cut It’s Staff?

Sprint’s new CEO Marcelo Claure addressed employees for the first time and promised price reductions are coming very soon, according to a report.

Sprint didn’t deny the report of Marcelo’s comments. A spokesman also confirmed Friday that Sprint is “focusing on providing the best value in the market.”

According to the account of Claure’s comments, he told workers, “We’re going to change our plans to make sure every customer in America thinks twice about signing up to a competitor.” The report, which first appeared in LightReading.com, also said that “very disruptive” rate plans are coming this week.

Sprint didn’t dispute Light Reading’s report, but a spokesman said Sprint is not commenting on “any potential pricing plans before they are announced.”

The spokesman, Doug Duvall, said Marcelo held his first all-employee town hall meeting before a standing-room-only crowd. He added: “He shared his passion for his family, work and soccer team and his commitment to leading Sprint. He discussed Sprint’s challenges and pledged to get Sprint ‘back in the game’ by focusing on providing the best value in the market, completing our network build and optimizing Sprint’s cost structure.”

By confirming Sprint wants to offer the “best value in the market,” it’s pretty clear that Sprint, the third-largest U.S. carrier, will soon wage a price war with the T-Mobile, the fourth-largest U.S. carrier that has quickly been gaining on Sprint.

Analysts recently said Sprint’s recent “Framily plan” isn’t competitive in the market, which former CEO Dan Hesse acknowledged in late July before his departure on Monday.

The Sprint Framily plans costs $160 a month for 4GB of data, but comes with overage charges and won’t allow tethering. Meanwhile, T-Mobile has a family plan offered through September that costs $100 a month for four lines and 10GB of data, although each line is limited to 2.5GB.

Hesse had earlier described subscriber plans Sprint was testing that have tiers of data and unlimited data.

According to Light Reading, Claure also told employees that price cuts are needed because Sprint’s network isn’t at the level of performance and reach that it should be. “When you have a great network, you don’t have to compete on price,” he reportedly said. “When your network is behind, unfortunately you have to compete on value and price.”

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FCC Mandates Text-To-911

The U.S. Federal Communications Commission voted last week to require U.S. mobile carriers and many text-messaging apps to support functionality that allows texting emergency dispatch centers, even after questions about whether the centers will be ready by the deadline.

The commission’s vote requires U.S. mobile carriers and some texting apps to put emergency text-to-911 functionality in place by the end of the year.

Even though the nation’s four largest mobile carriers have all added text-to-911 functionality this year, less than 2 percent of the nation’s 6,800 emergency dispatch centers are ready to receive texts, said Commissioner Ajit Pai. The commission’s action will give smartphone users the impression they can send text to emergency responders, when many will not be able to, he said.

The FCC’s action “encourages the public to dive into text-to-911 functionality, when in reality, there’s hardly any water in the pool,” Pai said. “The order is sure to result in massive consumer confusion, and therefore will endanger, rather than advance, public safety.”

FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler applauded the largest mobile carriers — Verizon Wireless, AT&T, Sprint and T-Mobile USA — for adding text-to-911 functionality. The agency needs to push other carriers and emergency dispatch centers, called public-safety answering points or PSAPs, to do the same, he added.

“A lot of time of has passed since [the four largest] carriers stepped up and did something voluntarily, and the other carriers serving the consumers of America did not,” he said. “If you don’t step up to your responsibility, we will.”

Smartphone users should still call 911 if possible, but text-to-911 services need to be more widely available, Wheeler said.

The adoption of text-to-911 will let smartphone users contact police and other emergency responders when it’s not safe to talk on the phone, Wheeler said. It will also aid people with hearing or speech disabilities, he noted.

“Texting is now as important a function on a mobile device as talking,” Wheeler said. “Some of those text messages are cries for help.”

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Zeus Attached To Cancer Email Scam

Thousands of email users have been hit by a sick cancer email hoax that aims to infect the recipients’ computers with Zeus malware.

The email has already hit thousands of inboxes across the UK, and looks like it was sent by the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE). It features the subject line “Important blood analysis result”.

However, NICE has warned that it did not send the malicious emails, and is urging users not to open them.

NICE chief executive Sir Andrew Dillon said, “A spam email purporting to come from NICE is being sent to members of the public regarding cancer test results.

“This email is likely to cause distress to recipients since it advises that ‘test results’ indicate they may have cancer. This malicious email is not from NICE and we are currently investigating its origin. We take this matter very seriously and have reported it to the police.”

The hoax message requests that users download an attachment that purportedly contains the results of the faux blood analysis.

Security analysis firm Appriver has since claimed that the scam email is carrying Zeus malware that if installed will attempt to steal users’ credentials and take over their PCs.

Appriver senior security specialist Fred Touchette warned, “If the attachment is unzipped and executed the user may see a quick error window pop up and then disappear on their screen.

“What they won’t see is the downloader then taking control of their PC. It immediately begins checking to see if it is being analysed, by making long sleep calls, and checking to see if it is running virtually or in a debugger.

“Next it begins to steal browser cookies and MS Outlook passwords from the system registry. The malware in turn posts this data to a server at 69.76.179.74 with the command /ppp/ta.php, and punches a hole in the firewall to listen for further commands on UDP ports 7263 and 4400.”

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Can BB Benefit From The WhatsApp Deal?

Facebook Inc’s awe-inspiring $19 billion bid for fast-growing mobile-messaging startup WhatsApp sent shares of BlackBerry Ltd surging after the closing bell as early as Wednesday, as investors were cheered by the lofty valuation for the messaging platform.

The deal sent shares in BlackBerry up as much as 9 percent in trading after the bell because it put a rough valuation metric around the smartphone maker’s own BlackBerry Messaging service.

BlackBerry Messaging, or BBM as it is more commonly known, was a pioneering mobile-messaging service, but its user base has failed to keep pace with that of WhatsApp, in part because BlackBerry had long refused to open the service to users on other platforms.

WhatsApp, with a user base of some 450 million, has grown rapidly. Its service works on Apple Inc’s iOS platform, Google Inc’s market-dominating Android operating system, along with devices powered by both the Windows and BlackBerry operating systems.

BBM remains popular, even though BlackBerry devices have waned in popularity. Late last year, the Waterloo, Ontario-based smartphone maker finally opened the messaging platform to users of iPhones and Android devices, and the service currently has over 80 million active users.

However, investors have attributed little value to the asset within the company. On Tuesday, Raymond James analyst Steven Li, in a note to clients, broke out a sum-of-parts valuation of the company and pegged the value of BBM at merely $240 million, or $3 per user.

Facebook’s valuation of WhatsApp translates into roughly $42 per user, and that could lead investors and analysts to rethink their valuation of the asset within BlackBerry.

BlackBerry has given no indication it is keen to sell the asset. While there has been some speculation that BlackBerry may seek to carve out the unit, or even sell it, the company’s new Chief Executive John Chen has so far said that BBM remains a core asset for the company.

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3D Printer Goes Retail

MakerBot, a 3D printer maker which opened two new retail stores last week, is among the companies trying to bring the cutting-edge digital manufacturing technology to Main Street consumers, but skeptics say the debut may be premature.

MakerBot, a unit of Stratasys Ltd, opened retail stores this week in Boston and in Greenwich, Connecticut, both of which are twice the size of MakerBot’s first store, 1,500 square feet in downtown Manhattan.

The company offers designs for more than 100,000 items through its “Thingiverse” online user community. The products range from knick-knacks like zombie sculptures to jewelry, sink drains and even medical devices. They are printed using its line of corn-based plastic fibers in more than a dozen colors.

“For most people 3D printing is futuristic science fiction. We’re here to make it real,” said CEO Bre Pettis, who cut the ribbon at the store on Boston’s fashionable Newbury Street using scissors made on one of MakerBot’s Replicator printers which start at $2,199.

Pettis, who has purchased splashy magazine ads to promote 3D printers as holiday gifts, believes there could soon be a 3D printer on every block in America.

Yet some technology experts say 3D printers may not be ready for prime time because they are still much less user friendly than most modern consumer electronics.

“There is so much hype,” said Pete Basiliere, an analyst at technology research firm Gartner. “People are getting a little bit misled as to how easy it is,” he said.

Some investors also are skeptical of 3D printing’s readiness for the market. Short-seller Citron this week published an article questioning the earnings of Germany’s voxeljet AG’s, and shares in the sector fell, including those of MakerBot parent Stratasys and rivals 3D Systems Corp and ExOne Co.

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Is Skype Involved In Spying?

Luxembourg’s data protection authority is investigating Microsoft-owned Skype for its alleged cooperation with the U.S. NSA’s Prism spying program, according to the agency.

Luxembourg’s data protection authority, CNPD, is investigating Skype’s links to NSA spying programs after receiving several complaints, said Tom Kayser, a spokesman for the authority. “I can’t really talk about the details of the investigation because it is still ongoing,” he said.

Skype, which has its European headquarters in Luxembourg, allegedly cooperates with the NSA through a program exploring the legal and technical issues involved in making customer calls available to intelligence and law enforcement agencies. The Guardian newspaper first reported the investigation.

The CNPD has powers to ensure that multinational companies based in Luxembourg respect national law, and often receives complaints from the data protection authorities of other European Union member states.

Privacy campaign group Europe-v-Facebook filed one of the complaints in June. That filing was part of a barrage of complaints filed in various countries against European subsidiaries of tech companies that are allegedly involved in the NSA’s spying program, including Facebook, Apple, Microsoft and Yahoo.

Under Luxembourg data protection law service providers and operators are required to ensure the confidentiality of communications and related traffic data.

“No person other than the user concerned may listen to, tap or store communications or the traffic data relating thereto, or engage in any other kinds of interception or surveillance thereof, without the consent of the user concerned,” reads the law’s unofficial English translation.

Violators can face up to a year in prison and/or a fine up to a!125,000 ($170,000). The court dealing with the matter can also order companies like Skype to stop any processing that conflicts with the law on pain of a periodic monetary penalty determined by the court.

“We regularly engage in a dialogue with data protection authorities around the world and are always happy to answer their questions,” a Microsoft spokeswoman said in an email. “It has been previously widely reported that the Luxembourg DPA was one of the DPA’s that received complaints from the ‘Europe v Facebook’ group so we’re happy to answer any questions they may have.”

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Hacked Companies Still Not Alerting Investors

At least a half-dozen major U.S. companies whose computer networks have been breached by cyber criminals or international spies have not admitted to the incidents despite new guidance from securities regulators urging such disclosures.

Top U.S. cybersecurity officials believe corporate hacking is widespread, and the Securities and Exchange Commission issued a lengthy “guidance” document on October 13 outlining how and when publicly traded companies should report hacking incidents and cybersecurity risk.

But with one full quarter having elapsed since the SEC request, some major companies that are known to have had significant digital security breaches have said nothing about the incidents in their regulatory filings.

Defense contractor Lockheed Martin Corp, for example, said last May that it had fended off a “significant and tenacious” cyber attack on its networks. But Lockheed’s most recent 10-Q quarterly filing, like its filing for the period that included the attack, does not even list hacking as a generic risk, let alone state that it has been targeted.

A Reuters review of more than 2,000 filings since the SEC guidance found some companies, including Internet infrastructure company VeriSign Inc and credit card and debit card transaction processor VeriFone Systems Inc, revealed significant new information about hacking incidents.

Yet the vast majority of companies addressing the issue only used new boilerplate language to describe a general risk. Some hacking victims did not even do that.

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