Buffalo Adds Remote Access to Network Drives
Your data--anytime, anywhere. That seems to be the trend these days in network storage. And, notably, these features are migrating down to the the realm of even the less complex, single-drive network storage devices.
Buffalo Technology has introduced a firmware update for its line of LinkStation Live network-attached drives. The update adds remote access via a Web browser; you won't need drivers or software to share content. You access your content via www.buffaloNAS.com; the site lets you establish a secure connection to your drive (available in 250GB, 320GB, 500GB, and 750GB varieties, ranging in price from $229 to $649). The connection is unidirectional, though; you can only stream content or download content remotely, but not upload content.
USB Drive for Badass Geeks
Do you need a Hummer to pick up a quart of milk at your suburban grocer? Do you need a USB thumb drive that can withstand being run over by an 8000 lbs. forklift and can be submerged 200 meters under water to bring your PowerPoint presentation to work? The folks at Corsair think you might.
Memory maker Corsair unveiled its "extremely rugged" line of USB 2.0 flash drives called Flash Survivor. The drives are constructed from milled aluminum (as found in aircraft part production) and designed for geeks with a "Bring It On" attitude, Corsair says.
The Corsair Flash Survivor GT 8GB model runs $130 and Flash Survivor 4GB model runs $60. For non-badass geeks like myself, as long as the Survivor drive makes it through the washer and drier in one piece I'm sold at 8GB for $130.
Click here for more information on where to buy the drives available today.
e-gold Indicted for Money Laundering
If you follow online security news, you've heard of e-gold.com. The digital currency service purportedly allows users to transfer money without any real ID verification, which seems to make it popular with online crooks and fraudsters, like those behind last year's Cryzip extortion malware.
To recap, Cryzip ordered its victims to deposit a ransom into an e-gold account if they wanted the password to unlock their zipped-up files. It appeared to be a very clumsy extortion attempt, and I hope that few people fell prey.
The Department of Justice says it has more examples of use of e-gold accounts for nefarious purposes. According to our friends at IDG News Service, a grand jury in D.C. indited e-gold and others on Friday on charges of money laundering.
The IDG story also says the DOJ has seizure warrants for more than 55 accounts the department says are involved in money laundering.
I haven't seen hard evidence myself. But I do hear over and over how hard it is to successfully prosecute any of the bad actors in the thriving online fraud business. So if e-gold is found guilty, it could be a relatively rare win for the good guys.
I would like to encourage your readers to review the hyperlinks in our original Press Release on the e-gold.com News page. I am particularly interested in independent asessment of the transcript from the emergency hearing before Magistrate Judge Facciola of 12/29/05 and the emails between myself and the USSS circa 11/04 - 1/05. The cryzip thing by the way... our investigators busted it before there was a single victim or payment.
E-gold isn't guilty of money laundering because it doesn't deal in "money" (i.e., any national currency), but with buying and selling actual gold. It is therefore outside of any laws governing money laundering. The USSS has passed up opportunity after opportunity to go after real bad actors (child porn and wire fraud) because it meant cooperating with e-gold and making use of its vast database of transactions and IPs. This is nothing more than an attempt by the DOJ and USSS to circumvent due process and run e-gold out of business, when the company has cooperated with EVERY request to assist government investigators for over a decade, without court orders. Certain bureaucrats in the DOJ and Treasury just don't like an unregulated company using the trading of a precious metal in a fashion that "smells" like currency, because it edges in on their exclusive "turf" (money). All this talk of facilitating criminals is so much smoke screen designed to obscure the real money trail.
Sounds Like Vudu: P2P Video Direct to the TV, Fast
The New York Times this morning spends a good amount of real estate on a small Silicon Valley company called Vudu, which is selling a free-standing, streaming video set-top box. The device is similar to Apple TV, but requires no connection with a PC to operate. The Vudu box connects directly to the Internet via an Ethernet port.
Vudu says its box will allow viewers to begin watching movies in the living room immediately after order, without having to wait for a significant portion of the file to download in advance.
I hear P2P for real-time streaming and I'm immediately skeptical.
Like BitTorrent's movie service, Vudu relies on a peer-to-peer (P2P) network to push video quickly down to the set-top box. But the BitTorrent service is testament to the fact that without a critical mass of "peers" or "seeds" for a given title, downloading can be very slow going. Two friends in the digital content world say BitTorrent, the poster child of P2P, is now getting help from a content delivery network (CDN) (like Akamai) to speed video distribution.
Vudu is not the first company to serve video directly to a box on the TV. Akimbo began selling such a box in 2004. Moviebeam's set-top box catches videos broadcast over the digital frequencies used by public radio stations. Neither of these products has caught on with consumers.
Vudu will also compete with hybrid IP video devices like Microsoft's Xbox, which downloads movies from the Xbox Live Marketplace. Tivo downloads movies from Amazon's Unbox movie service. Apple TV relies on a PC running iTunes to download the video.
In the NYT article, Vudu boasts that Hollywood has seen the light on its product. It has signed content deals with all the major studios except Sony.
Big deal. Hollywood is increasingly willing to sign up for online distribution, provided the normal, paranoid digital rights management (DRM) controls are in place. What have they got to lose? It's a great way for them to make some money back on lame or otherwise unpopular titles that are rarely rented at the video store or sold as DVDs.
The studios seem far from making Internet video a primary means of distributing their content, as DVDs are now. While some big movies like Borat and Pirates of the Caribbean have shown up relatively quickly on the online services, the majority of the videos you find there are Hollywood no-names and direct-to-DVD releases circa 2000-2006.
The idea of bringing video directly to the TV via the Internet without stopping at the PC is a good one. But services like Vudu will have to deliver new, big-name movies consistently in order for consumers to even consider paying $300 for yet another piece of hardware in the living room.
A resource about satellite TV is at http://www.1-satellite-tv-facts.com/
An excellent resource about satellite TV is at Direct TV satellite, Dish Network satellite
More information about satellite TV by Direct TV can be found at
http://www.1-satellite-tv-facts.com/Direct-TV.html
http://www.1-satellite-tv-facts.com/Dish-Network.html
Corel VideoStudio 11 Edits HD Camcorder Footage
A few weeks ago I reviewed Panasonic's nifty HDC-SD1, a high-definition camcorder that records to Secure Digital Cards. I liked the camcorder, except that you can't edit the footage from it, because it records in AVCHD format, which no video-editing software recognizes.
At least, until now: today Corel released Ulead VideoStudio 11 Plus, which supports AVCHD and HDV (the other high-definition camcorder format, used by ones that record HD to MiniDV tape). It can also import .VOB files--the type that DVD-based standard-definition camcorders use.
VideoStudio doesn't yet support burning to Blu-Ray drives (Corel's MovieFactory product does, though, and Corel says Blu-Ray support for VideoStudio is in the works). However, you can use it to burn 30 minutes of HD video to a standard DVD that will play in an Xbox HD DVD drive, an HD DVD player, or a PC with a DVD player and the upcoming version of Intervideo WinDVD. Corel/Intervideo will also release a plug-in for the current version of WinDVD that will allow playback of these discs, though it hasn't announced a release date for it yet.
[Note to readers: I previously wrote that VideoStudio 11 Plus didn't output HD; please note corrections in the previous graph--Ed.]
VideoStudio 11 Plus is the one of the first Ulead products to bear Corel's name. Corel's acquisition of Ulead and InterVideo (which had been involved in merger talks) only closed in January.
Corel says the list price for VideoStudio 11 Plus is $130, and a version that doesn't do HD editing costs $90. Both should be available now.
Battery Woes Hit Apple
Another week, another laptop maker announces bad battery news. Apple says batteries in its MacBook and MacBook Pro notebooks may have performance problems. The good news, the batteries do not pose a safety risk.
The notebooks in question were sold between February 2006 through April 2007. Apple says a software update may fix the issue, but if that doesn't work you can request a free replacement battery even if you notebook is out of warranty. Here is a link to the Apple battery information page.
How do you know if your MacBook or MacBook Pro is effected? Apple recommends installing the update first and then says watch for the following symptoms:
* Battery is not recognized causing an "X" to appear in the battery icon in the Finder menu bar.
* Battery will not charge when computer is plugged into AC power.
*Battery exhibits low charge capacity/runtime when using a fully charged battery with a battery cycle count (as shown in System Profiler) of less than 300.
* Battery pack is visibly deformed
Why All the Battery Problems?
Last week Acer America recalled 27,000 batteries stating certain batteries could overheat and potentially cause a fire. The Apple notebook battery issues appear to be separate. However it raises the question: why is the industry having so much trouble with laptop batteries?
I asked battery expert Robert Spotnitz, president of Battery Design, a small firm that develops battery management software. He says the industry is in a race to build a higher performance battery for the cheapest amount of money. "The pressure to have really high energy cells (batteries) pushes things to the edge," Spotnitz says. He says the industry could build more reliable batteries, but naturally the cost of a notebook would have to rise. And no notebook makers are ready to be the first at raising prices, he says.
Spotnitz adds, even the recalled Sony batteries suspected of overheating and possible combustion, passed the industry safety standards with flying colors. The type of battery testing needed to avoid future recalls just doesn't exist today, he says.
The industry needs better more comprehensive testing of batteries, Spotnitz says. He says high profile battery recalls will likely spur that change.
I've seen all these stories of of charger fires and I think the product I'm developing can prevent them.
It is a power strip with smoke detecting shutoff. You can see it at ExactProductsInc.com
I haven't started manufacturing it (I'd prefer to license it to manufacturers and let them sell it).
I'm looking for feedback. Let me know what you think.
Mike Dayoub
I've seen all these stories of of charger fires and I think the product I'm developing can prevent them or at least prevent damage from them.
It is a power strip with smoke detecting shutoff. You can see it at ExactProductsInc.com
I haven't started manufacturing it (I'd prefer to license it to manufacturers and let them sell it).
I'm looking for feedback. Let me know what you think.
Mike Dayoub
Google Ad Attack Captured on Video
Exploit Prevention Labs put up a video that explains the attacks they found in Google sponsored links and shows an exploit in progress.
Google has pulled the ads, and says it canceled the AdWords accounts behind the ads. I asked the company if it could provide particulars about the processes they might (or might not) have in place to prevent this kind of attack ahead of time, but I didn't get anything beyond this response.
are you guys for real? This is nothing more than an info-mercial for LinkScanner... Is PC World getting paid to link this advertisment? I'm not normally mean spirited, but this is just over the top. Please spare us in the future from this commercial tripe. I expect better from you guys.
Foolishly I downloaded Exploits free version program. 3 hours later I finally managed to get it removed from my PC. System crippler? That's putting it lightly. Avoid this monster.
I'm having a very positive experience with my trial of linkscanner. when is the general public going to wake up and realize the internet is the wild west. bad guys are gaming Google, gaming affiliate programs and ad networks. Unfortunately consumers have to react as microsoft, or using firefox or a Mac, isn't going to solve the problem. why would google want to ad filters to adwords accounts? they want as much money as they can get. don't ask, don't tell. Internet brands are becoming too trusted and it looks like 3rd parties must police them.
Here Comes the Xbox 360 Elite
So, Microsoft's Xbox 360 Elite officialy goes on sale in the U.S. this Sunday.
The Elite is an upgraded version of the original 360 gaming console, but with a black exterior, 120GB hard disk drive, High Definition Multimedia Interface (HDMI) port, and a high definition video cable. It also includes a matching wireless controller and Xbox Live headset.
Here are PC World Senior Editor Melissa Perenson's initial thoughts on the game console.
And our colleagues at sister pub GamePro have an interesting take on the Elite: Eight Reasons Why the Xbox 360 Elite Isn't Elite.
Are you looking forward to this iteration of the Xbox?
Apple's Jobs Lobbies Labels to Ditch DRM
Apple is pushing its record label partners to sell DRM-free music at iTunes.
Apple sent letters to that effect to its record label partners Wednesday, according to the Apple-watchers over at MacRumors.
It should be no surprise, says Gartner analyst Mike McGuire. When Apple's Steve Jobs sent out his now-famous open letter suggesting the abandonment of DRM, he said half the music available at iTunes would be DRM-free by 2008.
So far only one label, EMI, has signed up to sell DRM-free songs at iTunes. "So now Jobs is out selling," Gartner's McGuire says.
Jobs is confident other labels will follow suit. "There are a lot of people in the other music companies who are very intrigued by it," he told Reuters Wednesday. "They're thinking very hard about it right now."
Smaller independent labels like the idea of DRM-free, but the majors remain hesitant. EMI is the third largest of the four major record label conglomerates, leaving three others to be persuaded: Vivendi's Universal Music Group, Sony BMG Music Entertainment and Warner Music Group.
Mitch Bainwol, CEO of the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), reiterated the major labels' love for DRM Thursday at a conference speech in Nashville. But he also left open the possibility of discussions on the matter.
EMI's move away from DRM might end up being a good thing for those of us whose MP3 players aren't made by Apple.
EMI's motivation for selling DRM-free music is to take a larger share of online music revenues, and there's no exclusivity in its agreement with Apple and iTunes. So EMI could easily (and probably will) sell DRM-free tracks on music services that compete with iTunes, like Microsoft's Zune Marketplace for instance.
If/when that happens, the other big labels will be under heavy pressure to follow.
Google Deletes Rogue Ads, Dangers Persist
Google has removed ads that appear alongside Google search results that re-directed users to malicious sites. But, according to security experts, the fix is temporary and search engine users should not assume sponsored links are all trustworthy.
"Search engines are just too easy a target for bad guys," says Roger Thompson of Exploit Security Labs. On April 25, Exploit Prevention Labs reported that malware distributors were using advertisements placed via Google's automated AdWords system to infect unsuspecting end-users with spyware designed to capture bank login user names and passwords.
Thompson says Google's removal of the ads is a temporary fix and that Google and other search engines need to overhaul their automated advertising systems.
McAfee Data Confirms Risky Ad Trend
Other research by security firm McAfee's SiteAdvisor division found in a December report that 8 percent of sponsored results from top search engines AOL, Ask.com, Google, MSN, and Yahoo can often lead to Web sites that contain spyware and scams, and are operated by people who love to send out spam.
SiteAdvisor reports 0.13 percent of all links on major search engines results contain browser exploits. AOL and Ask.com, it reports, have a slightly higher number of dangerous links with 0.17 percent linking to sites with browser exploits.
"Sponsored links are 2 to 4 times more likely to contain risky sites including those with exploits," says Shane Keats, a McAfee research analyst.
The report also puts into question Google's own interstitial warning page designed to prevent Google users from visiting dangerous sites. In SiteAdvisor's tests it says Google warned consumers for only 18 percent of Google general search results containing browser exploits.
McAfee SiteAdvisor, it should be pointed out, sells a browser security toolbar SiteAdvisor Plus ($20) and also gives away a reduced feature version of the toolbar.
Latest Threat is New and Nasty
According to Thompson, the way the exploit found within Google's sponsored links worked is, when someone searched on Google for "BetterBusinessBureau", for example, a list of sponsored links appeared alongside search results. If someone clicked a booby-trapped sponsored link they were the ad would redirect their browser through URLs that attempted to automatically download a virus program (MSO6-014) onto their computers before passing them along to the actual sites that were advertised.
Exploits buried in the normal search results (not sponsored) have long been a problem for search engines. The challenge scammers have had is getting their rigged sites and links seen within search results. By purchasing ads that appear at the top of search results scammers get the visibility they need to drive traffic to their exploited sites.
"People assume a level of trust when they visit a sponsored link," Thompson says. He says until search engines do more to vet the ads that are submitted all bets are off as to a sponsored link's legitimacy.
Protect Yourself
To protect yourself you should consider downloading either XPL's Linkscanner, Scandoo's toolbar, or McAfee's SiteAdvisor, all available in free versions.
Mozilla Updates Firefox 3 Release Schedule
Mozilla will be releasing monthly alpha versions of the Firefox 3 browser, followed by a planned first beta at the end of July, according to an updated release calendar.
Looking through the list of planned features for version 3, a few juicy-sounding ones catch my eye.
Continue reading "Mozilla Updates Firefox 3 Release Schedule"
New AOL Home Page Shows Yahoo Influence
If imitation truly is the greatest form of flattery, as the saying goes, then Yahoo should feel quite flattered right now. AOL's beta of its new home page looks remarkably similar to that of Yahoo's current home page design. The similarities between the two separated-at-birth sites are evident in the two screen captures seen below.
I've always respected Yahoo's home page--most notably for its generally clean look and feel. In an era of too-many pull-down menus and advertisements winking at me from every which way, Yahoo's comparatively Spartan page is like a welcomed oasis amidst the chaos of the Web.
AOL has taken Yahoo's design, and improved on it with subtle interface tweaks that enhance usability and readability. Both designs pack a similar configuration of information. Both have a modular design with a directory nav bar at left, and featured news and headline news (including basic stock market info) components stacked in the middle; at right are quick-launch buttons for key services, with an advertisement beneath that.
I like some of the tweaks AOL has made. For starters, the left nav bar panel lacks the Yahoo panel's graphical texture and uneven font sizes, making it slightly easier to read. Furthermore, by identifying the nav panel as a "Directory," AOL makes it clearer to its audience that this your launch pad to subsections within the AOL site.
Yahoo offers more variety in its top center module: You can choose from four tabbed categories--for featured stories, entertainment stories, sports stories, or life (a catch-all for lifestyle pieces ranging from recipes to HDTV facts) stories. For now, AOL's top viewer teases top stories in different sections, with a five-page feature viewer that automatically scrolls through
Overall, I think the AOL page--though not perfect--looks even cleaner than the Yahoo page. Sure, I get annoyed by plugs for AOL services I won't use, but the local section--with local info, traffic, and gas prices, is more meaningful to me as a user than Yahoo's "Pulse-What Yahoos Are Into" component, placed in a similar location on that page's real estate. Likewise, AOL's Shopping section has a broader appeal than Yahoo's "Today's Search Highlights."
Then again, I question just how much the home page matters anymore. Personally, I hardly ever stop at Yahoo's home page; instead, I just rely on the My Yahoo page I've already customized and tweaked to suit my interests.
Bill May Save Net Radio
On Thursday a bill that could save Internet radio was submitted to Congress. The bill, Internet Radio Equality Act, would stop a new royalty scheme that Internet broadcasters say will shut them down because it will cost them too much money.
U.S. Reps. Jay Inslee (D-Wash.) and Don Manzullo (R-Ill.) filed the legislation Thursday. The bill reverses a recent decision of the federal Copyright Royalty Board (CRB) to nearly triple the amount of royalties Internet radio broadcasters pay to copyright holders for playing a song.
The Copyright Royalty Board earlier this month approved a rule that would force commercial Internet radio stations, regardless of their size, to pay a new, higher flat fee to the record labels each time a song is played. Royalty rates for Web-casters - starting retroactively at $0.0008 per song in 2006 will climb to $0.0019 per song in 2010. As it stands now, the rates will go into effect May 15.
In a press release Inslee states: "This Titanic rate increase is simply untenable for many Internet radio broadcasters."
"The Internet has provided us with amazing opportunities to enjoy music, and this unfair action by the CRB threatens to take it all away," Manzullo states in the press release. "Our legislation overturns the huge rate increases and sets up a system that is fair to Web-casters, Web users and the artists whose music we all enjoy. And most importantly, it will keep music playing on the Internet."
SaveNetRadio , which is made up of Net broadcasters, applaud the bill.
The Inslee-Manzullo Internet Radio Equality Act vacates the CRB's March 2 decision and proposes Net radio stations continue paying a percentage (7.5) of revenues through 2010. Alternatively, the bill would allow Net broadcaster to choose to pay 33 cents per hour of sound recordings transmitted to a single user.
That's a far cry from the estimated 60 percent of revenue that some Web broadcasters say they'll have to pay under Copyright Royalty Board plan.
The bill faces approval and vote in the House of Representatives. The bill must also pass a Senate vote before it could be signed into law.
A PDF copy of the bill can be downloaded here.
Google's Search Experiments
Looks like Google is trying out some new ways of presenting search results, including giving separate results for blog posts, news archive stories and related searches.
When I did a search for "Sheryl Crow", for instance, I saw this at the bottom of the first page of results:
Under "Searches related to: sheryl crow" were suggestions like "sheryl crow lyrics," "sheryl crow lance armstrong" and "john mayer" (apparently the two are touring together).
Below the list of related searches is a section with three blog posts about Crow. If Google sticks with this approach, I wonder what it'll mean for the inclusion of blog entries in the main listing of search results. There were no blog entries in the main search results on this page, though there was one on the next page.
I've found it frustrating in the past to have a lot of blog entries listed in Google's search results, since many blog entries don't have the kind of comprehensive and unbiased information I'm frequently looking for when I search.
I tried another search for "Bruce Springsteen" and got a similar related searches block. Below that, was a listing of news archive results for The Boss, two stories from 2006 and one from 2005.
Whether you'll see any of these changes seems to be a crap shoot. I Googled Sheryl Crow on another PC and got the related searches list, but no separate list of blog entries. One search on "Karl Rove" yielded a block of blog entries at the bottom of the first page, but the next few times I tried the same search I got only the traditional Google results. A search for "wi-fi networking" returned plain vanilla results. One for "Web 2.0" offered related searches and a separate listing of blog posts.
Let us know if you see the changes in your browser and what you think of them.
Below are results of a few trials. If there's a pattern, it's not immediately apparent to me. Perhaps the fact that when a prominent name is entered last name first, these new results at the bottom of the page are missing, but the same name entered first name first often brings up the new results, but not always the same categories. In all cases, though, the result was consistent when I repeated the exact entry. The "--" below indicates no "extra" results:
pelosi: --
pelosi nancy: --
nancy pelosi: Searches related to
brenner paul: --
paul brenner: --
linux os: --
os linux: --
microsoft linux: News archives results
linux microsoft: New archives results
bush: Searches related to
bush george: News results for - and - News archives results
george bush: Searches related to - and - News archives results
george w bush: Searches related to - and - Blog posts about
reid harry: --
harry reid: Searches related to - and - Blog posts about
potter harry: --
harry potter: Searches related to
$1 Billion Anti-SPAM Lawsuit Filed
A Utah-based anti-spam company has filed a $1 billion lawsuit on behalf of 20,000 Internet users with the goal of ferreting out individuals who "harvest" email addresses for spammers.
The company, Utah-based Unspam Technologies, filed suit in U.S. District Court in Virginia Thursday under Virginia anti-spam law and the federal CAN-SPAM Act. Unspam consults with private companies and government agencies on spam control tactics. It filed the lawsuit on behalf of its customers in 100 countries under the name "Project Honey Pot."
Here's why. Unspam and its customers have been using a clever method of tracking email harvesters and their spammer customers. Unspam provides its customers with a software tool that sets up Web pages, called Honey Pots, which make fake email addresses available to the automated email gathering programs used by the harvesters. Those email addresses are later used (like marked bills) by investigators to track both the harvesters and the spammers who use the addresses.
This has been going on for some time now, and the project has already collected a good deal of data. Honey Pot now believes it has enough data to start the legal process, hence its action today. The group will also ask the court for permission to subpoena records from the ISPs used by suspected harvesters and spammers.
Identifying the offenders might be the easy part. Actually prosecuting them has proven a tough job in the past. The main reason is that many of spammers operate from overseas beyond the reach of U.S. laws. But Unspam believes that a large numb