Archive for June, 2007
Friday, June 29th, 2007 | Posted in Apple | No Comments »
I think it’s needless to say that today is the big day, the iPhone finally comes out. After long months of anticipation, waiting and suppositions now it’s time to reveal what the iPhone is really made of. Of course all the fuss created around it could backfire on Apple, as now people have huge expectations that will be very hard to raise up to.
I’ve noticed that in these last few days there was a trend of remembering “the begining” when everybody was keen on imagining what the iPhone will look like and what’s it going to do, features, specs and all that. Then the constant evolution, media craving for new details Apple was happy to give, little by little in order to maintain the hype. So little by little we’ve learned about the touchscreen, smart keypad, Safari browser, YouTuble watching capabilities and so on. Of course there was criticism too, regarding third party applications that can only be added through Safari and regarding the fact that it won’t support formats like JavaScript or Flash.
Also many feared that the iPhone will fail because many reasons, of which still stand, such as the fact that it will be coded to only be available in Cingular. But about other matters Apple cleared all fears, let’s take the keyboard for example, a feature many feared that will render the gadget useless. But the latest movie showing off the iPhone’s keyboard looks pretty good and quite functional, thus removing any doubts.
The launch itself is a huge effort from Apple and by launch I don’t mean only the distribution of iPhones but also offering support for the new product.
“With our legendary Genius Bar support, free workshops and our One to One personal training, we’re here to help customers get the most from their new iPhone.”
Ron Johnson, Senior vice president of Retail for Apple
The iPhone will become available at 6:00 p.m in all 164 AT&T retail stores in the US. The stores will remain opened until midnight and buyers will be allowed to purchase up to two iPhones at first. Also it’s said that if you want to get your iPhone today you’ll have to buy an accessory also, if you want just the phone you’ll have to wait 3 – 5 business days for it to be delivered to you.
The best part is that starting Saturday there will be a series of workshops held in the AT&T retail stores that will teach you all you need to know about your iPhone and how can you get the best experience with it. Also customers will have the famous Genius Bar at their disposal along with the new One to One program, that will take customer to a personal level.
But until then people are waiting in front of stores to get their hands on the iPhone. And when I say waiting I mean sitting in the cold weather for a long, long time. Here you can find some pictures of people waiting in line to be the first who get the coolest gadget of the century.
And last but not least there is pricing, for now you can get the 4GB model for $499 and an the 8GB model for $599. But besides that you’ll have to add carrier prices, accessories, internet access subscriptions and so on. All in all it won’t be cheap but you’ll be surprised to find out how many people think (take a look at those people waiting in line ).
And that’s the big picture on the iPhone right now, but I’m sure all that’s going to change in a few hours when we’ll get the first ‘hands on’ impressions.
Just hours before the iPhone launch Apple has released this video that shows off the much talked-about keyboard. Many have feared that is that keyboard that will be the ‘doom’ of the iPhone, but the way I see it, it looks quite Ok.
Download link
available
As we all know Google just keeps coming up with new and crazy ideas, and this is one of them. So what they’ll basically do is to offer financial support to those who prove worthy. But before thinking of all the money you’ll make, there a couple of things you should know. Such as the fact that the program is only to gadget developers that meet the following:
This program is restricted to people who have developed a Google Gadget in our Google Gadgets directory that generates at least 250,000 weekly page views.
So you can obtain $5,000 grants to help you develop an existing gadget or you could get a $100,000 seed investment to help you develop brand new gadgets. And you don’t even need to reside in the US to benefit from Google Gadget Ventures (though if you want to go for the big $100,000 pot you’ll need to start a company in the US), all you need is a good idea and to be over 18.
So why are they doing this ? In their own words, to:
“help create an ecosystem where developers can spend more time doing what they love — building great gadgets”
It was about time AOL updated their services. Although it’s the most popular instant messaging service in the US, even AOL must improve now and then. And so they did, now you can enjoy sending e-mails and IM using the same application, for free. Also AOL has launched the AIM WIMZI Widget that allows you to chat anonymously with visitors on your site.
The improvements to the mailing service were centered on offering clients a more accessible experience. So besides IMAP access they now provide POP3 access to the mail account. That makes AOL the only big mailing provider that offers both IMAP and POP3 for free ( Google only has POP3 and no actual IMAP protocol – but that can be solved with a trick) .
Speaking of accessibility, the AIM WIMZI widget allows you to get in touch with visitors on your blog or website, while you read your email or IM with your buddies, as now all the AOL services are united in one place.
As I’m sure you all know, Digg, the famous social news site was created by Kevin Rose. Many call him the wiz-kid of today’s Internet, but what’s sure is that he’s not stopping at Digg. Not so long ago he started Revision3 an interesting new project that seems to be growing into a financial success.
Now Kevin is starting Pownce, that in the words of its maker is:
“Pownce is a way to send stuff to your friends. What kind of stuff? You can send just about anything: music, photos, messages, links, events, and more. You can do it all on our web site, or install our lightweight desktop software that lets you get out of the browser.”
So what exactly is Pownce ? Well let’s start by saying that it was started along with Shawn Allen, Leah Culver, Daniel Burka and, as all of Kevin’s projects, it has a certain Web 2.0 feel about it. And the purpose of the whole project is to let you share things with friends in an easier manner. Pownce is web-based ( although it has an optional desktop client) and for now you can share things like songs, pictures, links and even events with your personal network of friends. Of course users will also be able to rate items, thus creating an interesting social sharing site.
Right now, there are four basic things you can send: messages, links, files, and events.
You might send an event out to a dozen of your friends letting them know you’re hosting a party this Friday. They could easily get the event details you entered, respond with questions or comments and then quickly rsvp.
Say you had a great photo you wanted to share with all of your friends. Just add the file and all of your friends will get it right away. They’ll be able to reply and tell you if it’s cool. You could even post songs you recorded in your home studio to share with your friends.
Although this is radically different from the Digg we got used to already, I’m really curious if in time this could grow as as large as the above mentioned social news website.
As dual core configurations and even quad core servers are becoming more and more frequent on the market, one could wonder what’s the next step. And there are a few alternatives such as organic computing and other biologically-inspired solutions. But for now there are some real, palpable solutions we can take into consideration, and one of them is parallel computing.
Parallel processing was used since the beginning of the computational era, but it was only available for supercomputers because of serious programming issues. These programming difficulties arise when you try to make each processor handle a certain job in an efficient manner, so that all tasks are done in order and different processors won’t do the same job twice.
The novelty is brought by researchers at the University of Maryland, that in collaboration with professor Uzi Vishkin, have developed a new breed of algorithms that should allow efficient personal computers to use parallel computing technologies.
“The parallel algorithms research community has developed a theory of parallel algorithms, for a very simple parallel computation model – the Parallel Random-Access Model (PRAM).”
professor Uzi Vishkin
Unfortunately such algorithms remained at the level of theory and weren’t put in application until now. This is a step forward towards testing and developing systems that will be able to make use of parallel computing power. By using Vishkin’s creation, existing algorithms can be tested and improved, thus bringing new technologies closer to the end user.
“It will be able to exploit a wider spectrum of parallel algorithms than today’s microprocessors can, and this in turn will help bring general purpose parallel computing closer to reality.”
professor Uzi Vishkin
The prototype created by the research team over at the University of Maryland uses a circuit board upon which they mounted 64 parallel processors. Also some technical specs were given, of which I mention:
- 75 MHz – clock rate
- 1GB DDR2 – memory
- 64 (4 X 16) – number of TCUs
All of these, according to Vishkin, are standard components that are working at 75 MHz, the only difference is made by the fact they work together using the above-mentioned algorithms. Also what they say is that in the future, chips of this kind could be created in such manner that functional 1000 processor chips could be as large as a fingernail.
“Our algorithms make that feasible for general-purpose computing tasks for the first time.”
professor Uzi Vishkin
So it might take a while for this kind of technology to become fully functional, and most important, profitable so that big chip developing companies such as Intel and AMD would start using it at a larger scale. But it’s one way the home PC hardware could win a round. If things continue to go this way, parallel computing is sure to find its use, even if it won’t become as big as the creators predict now.
Thanks Dane Archer for the tip 
As Vista is seen as a secure Operating System, lately Symantec and Kaspersky started talking about possible security issues regarding Apple’s Leopard. For now OS X is relatively secure as the bulk of spyware and virus creators concentrate on Windows. This is mainly due to the fact that Windows is much more used that OS X, thus making it more desirable to infect/crack.
In this, Safari seems to be the black sheep, even if it hadn’t sucked so bad after the launch on Windows. The fact that Safari now runs on Windows, OS X and will run on the iPhone too, it will create a major breach. And I’m sure there will be plenty of people that will try to find vulnerabilities, just remember that Safari on Windows was hacked in the first two hours after the launch.
Here’s what Marc Fossi from Symantec declares:
“On June 29th, these two platforms will converge when Apple’s iPhone is released in the US. The release will potentially make writing malicious code for both an Apple product and a mobile device irresistible to some attackers. The iPhone will represent a robust mobile device platform based on OS X that allows users to send and receive HTML email and surf the Net with the Safari Web browser. Projections made by various analysts suggest that iPhone adoption will be quite high. This allows attackers to target a larger audience with malicious code designed to run on the devices,”
So even if Apple will keep the security patches coming, I don’t know just how much user data will be lost before holes in the security systems will be filled. If I were you I’d improve on security until 29th this month.
After the recent scandal involving Microsoft’s gaming console, now a new wave of criticism is on its way. It seems the problem was noticed on a 360 related forum, where users reported problems with the video signal coming from their console.
Most of them say the screen just goes all black, or black with some white lines on the bottom. One of them said red faded out then it all turned to black. Although there is no video signal, the audio output is fine and works as it should. It seems that the users experiencing this were using the console for a while but had no problems with it until now.
There is no official stance from Microsoft until now but I bet they won’t be happy about a new item on the ‘Xbox 360 issues’ list.
Recently companies are continuously looking for new markets to place their ads. So companies that formerly operated exclusively within the Internet, now use new ways to reach new markets. Take Google for example, that provides ads in newspapers and offers relations about local businesses over the phone.
But there must be a limit to all this. And Redmoon, a Texas based ISP just crossed it. What they basically do is to use the NebulaAD software, which places ads on any page you access. So if you’re in the Redmoon network you’ll see ads on every page you access, ads that are integrated within the content of the pages you see. Page creators and owners won’t even know that ads are placed on their pages and of course they don’t receive any revenue for the profit made like this.
And rest assured, the profit is quite substantial. Not having to share revenue with page owner all the money obtained from advertising go straight to Redmoon. And although there are methods to filter unwanted ads from your browsing experience I’m sure there is little if none support to this (only if we consider copyright violation of content world wide, this is a very serious problem).
As an active web developer and content creator it’s scary to think my work will be altered without my consent and even worse, that others will un-rightfully profit from it. Also as a heavy duty browser it’s confusing not knowing what is user generated and what is placed there by others to their own profit.
Sunday, June 24th, 2007 | Posted in Internet | 1 Comment »
A newly introduced law in Germany may force Google to take extreme measures regarding Gmail accounts. The new law specifies that mailing providers must obtain personally identifiable records for every German Gmail account. That basically means that Google might be required to request and then verify that every user has a valid address for example. This is not new practice as gmx.de, one of the biggest mailing providers in Germany already requests valid addresses in order to create new accounts.
This comes as part of a set of laws meant to increase security and user privacy. But Google thinks that actions like this will actually decrease user privacy, as more information will be stored. On the other hand there are other similar issues in Germany, for example owners of online communities are responsible for all the comments users make. Contrary to this, Google thinks that users enjoy the anonymity offered by Gmail and they do not plan on letting it go.
Peter Fleischer stated on behalf of Google:
“Many users around the globe make use of this anonymity to defend themselves from spam, or government repression of free speech … If the web community won’t trust us with handling their data with great care, we’ll go down in no time.”
Although, if Google should decide to close the Gmail service for Germany, there is also the possibility of losing the entire market, as people would lose their trust. It’s one more privacy issue Google has to resolve.
