NEWS Rupert Murdoch says Apple’s iPad is a ‘game-changer’ for news media Thursday, August 05, 2010
•••Global media chief Rupert Murdoch says Apple’s iPad will be a ‘game changer’ for newspapers.
The chairman and chief executive of News Corporation said the iPad would allow publishers to attract new readers to their mastheads.
‘It’s a real game changer in the presentation of news,’ Mr. Murdoch said on Thursday during a conference call for the company’s full year profit results.
‘We will have young people reading newspapers. We will have different looking types of newspapers.’
News Corp owns newspapers in the U.S., U.K., Australia and elsewhere.
Mr. Murdoch said he expected to see hundreds of millions of these devices around the world.
‘There will be all sorts of things we can do with them,’ Mr. Murdoch said.
‘As they develop technologically, we have got to to develop our methods of presentation of news.’
News Corp chief operating officer Chase Carey said the iPad ‘really starts to deliver on the promise of multimedia’ for the first time.
In terms of charging for online content, The Times and Sunday Times newspapers in the U.K. started slugging users $1.59 (£1) a day, or $3.18 (£2) a week, to access their content online from the start of July.
Mr. Murdoch said there had been a positive response, but declined to say how many people had paid for subscriptions.
‘We have had a very encouraging number of people subscribing at a good price,’ he said.
‘But we think we are on the right strategy there and we think it’s going well.’
Mr. Murdoch also flagged changes to News Corp’s social networking portal MySpace, which he said was going through a major overhaul under a new management team.
‘It will look very, very different in a few months to what it’s looked for the last few years,’ Mr Murdoch said.
‘We are going to see it out for some time yet.’ • Latest News & Headlines » Home « • Source(s): News Corporation
NEWS News Corp. Posts $875 Million Profit as Ad Sales Rise Wednesday, August 04, 2010
•••Media and entertainment giant News Corp. reported, Wednesday, that it has swung to profit in the fiscal fourth quarter on the back of strong performance from its television networks division which posted impressive ad sales.
News Corp. said its net profit in June quarter was $875 million or $0.33 per share as against loss of $203 million or $0.08 per share in the year ago period.
The company said its revenue moved up 5.7 percent to $8.11 billion.
Analysts, on average, had expected News Corp. to report profit of $0.20 per share on revenue on $7.87 billion.
However, operating profit, or sales minus the cost of goods sold and administrative expenses, slipped 1.7 percent year-on-year in June quarter to $932 million from $948 million.
The media conglomerate said its earnings were driven by strong performance put up by its television networks division, which accounted for more than half of its operating income.
Profits at domestic channels surged by 30 percent while international channels improved 40 percent. Overall, operating profit at cable television networks division, which include channels such as Fox News Channel and FX, surged 31 percent to $563 million on the back of advertising revenue which jumped 11 percent. The division also saw double-digit growth in revenue from fees paid by cable, satellite and fiber video providers.
Operating profit at News Corp.’s broadcast television division also surged 13 percent to $113 million on improved ad sales offsetting higher programming expenses at the company’s national broadcast network – Fox Broadcasting.
The group’s filmed entertainment division also did well but could not beat third quarter performance. Operating income in June quarter dropped 32 percent year-on-year to $137 million. In March quarter, profit stood at $497 million. At the time of announcing third quarter earnings, News Corp. had warned that one should not expect stellar performance from this division in the fourth quarter, largely due to an expected year-over-year decline in the film business due to the timing of releases.
The newspapers and information services division, which include the Wall Street Journal, Barron’s, MarketWatch and Dow Jones, also reported 20 percent surge in profit to $115 million on higher ad revenue, though it was below Street estimates.
The company’s digital media division, which include social networking site MySpace, however, disappointed, reporting an operating loss of $174 million in the June quarter on lower search and advertising revenue. News Corp. said MySpace is set for a “major overhaul.”
News Corp.’s satellite TV division also disappointed, reporting a 37 percent slide in operating income to $97 million on the back of continued weakness at Sky Italia.
To reduce dependence on the economically sensitive advertisement-based revenue, News Corp. said it is beefing up its portfolio of subscription-based assets. In June, it said it has made a bid for the 61 percent stake of pay-TV operator British Sky Broadcasting Group Plc (BSkyB) it doesn’t already own.
“The opportunity for us to expand the scale of our franchises is significant, including through taking advantage of the continual technological advances that will broaden the reach of our core content and distribution businesses,” News Corp. CEO Rupert Murdoch said in a statement.
The company’s full-year results were more impressive.
News Corp. said its net profit in fiscal year 2010 was $2.5 billion, helped primarily by blockbuster movie “Avatar.” DVD sales of other films like “Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs,” “X-Men Origins: Wolverine” and “Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian” also bumped up its profits. In the prior year, News Corp. incurred a net loss of $3.4 billion, which included a one-time pre-tax impairment and other charges of $9.2 billion.
“These results underscore just how well positioned we are – fiscally, operationally and strategically – for further growth across all of our markets,” Murdoch said.
Shares of News Corp., which owns Dow Jones, Wall Street Journal, New York Post, MySpace and 20th Century Fox among other things, closed up 1.61 percent at $13.85. Following the financial results announcement, the company’s shares were up 3.25 percent in the after-market hours. • Latest News & Headlines » Home « • Source(s): News Corporation
NEWS Facebook Installs Panic Button For Children Monday, July 12, 2010
•••Young Facebook users will be able to report suspicious online behavior with the launch of a new ‘panic button’ targeting sex offenders.
Children can use the button to report abuse to the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre (CEOP) and Facebook.
The application will automatically appear on the homepage of every user aged between 13 and 18.
The launch follows months of negotiation between Facebook and CEOP, the government law enforcement agency tasked with tracking down online sex offenders.
CEOP called for the panic button to be installed in November but Facebook has resisted the idea.
Bebo became the first network to add the button, followed by MySpace while Facebook maintained that its own reporting systems were adequate.
However pressure mounted on Facebook following the rape and murder of Ashleigh Hall, 17.
Ashleigh was killed by a 33-year-old convicted sex offender, posing as a teenage boy, whom she met on Facebook.
Forty-four police chiefs in England, Wales and Scotland, signed a letter backing CEOP’s call for a panic button on every Facebook page.
Users will be able to bookmark the Click CEOP service or add it as an application to find information about online safety.
Jim Gamble, chief executive of the CEOP Centre said: ‘Our dialogue with Facebook about adopting the Click CEOP button is well documented – today however is a good day for child protection.
‘We know from speaking to offenders that a visible deterrent could protect young people online.’
Facebook’s Joanna Shields added: ‘There is no single silver bullet to making the internet safer but by joining forces with CEOP we have developed a comprehensive solution which marries our expertise in technology with CEOP’s expertise in online safety.’
James Brokenshire, U.K. Minister for Crime Prevention said: ‘It’s a sad fact that we are now seeing more cases where sex offenders are using social networking sites to conceal their identities in order to contact children.’ • Latest News & Headlines » Home «
NEWS Mozilla stokes Firefox 4 with first beta build Wednesday, July 7, 2010
•••Mozilla released its web explorer Firefox 4‘s beta version Wednesday, PC World reported.
Firefox explorer, considered to be the largest rival of Microsoft Windows’ Internet Explorer, has upgraded to its newest version with multiple technologies in line with future Internet developing trend.
The beta version imitated Google chrome and a few other browsers by putting the tabs on top and providing webpage crash protection features.
Mozilla provides its Firefox users with versions used in operation system including Microsoft Windows, Apple’s Mac and the Linux OS.
The newly released beta version of Firefox is expected to widely compete with IE as the most popular Internet browser in the scientific arena. • Latest News & Headlines » Home « • Source(s): Mozilla Corporation
NEWS Google’s China webpage licence under review Wednesday, July 7, 2010
•••Google Inc’s application to renew its Chinese Website license (Internet Content Provider license) is currently under review, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology said yesterday.
But the ministry didn’t give a deadline for the license review.
It was the Chinese regulator’s latest response regarding the fate of Google China, which recently stopped redirecting automatically web searchers on China’s mainland to its Hong Kong site and applied to renew its license in the world’s largest Internet market last month.
“Google’s annual check-in is under way but there’s no detailed deadline for the result because its submission is relatively late,” said ministry spokesperson Wang Lijian.
The ministry is the body responsible for renewing and reviewing Internet content provider licenses.
Google shut down its mainland-based search engine on March 22 and rerouted users to its Hong Kong site.
It stopped the automatic redirect because regulators told the company its Internet license would not be renewed if it kept it going.
“We re-applied for the license at the end of last month and we are waiting for the results now,” said Marsha Wang, Google China’s spokesperson.
At present, only “music,” “translate” and “shopping” links, in Chinese, appear on the Google China webpage.
Visitors to google.cn will also see a tab that says, in English, “We have moved to google.com.hk.”
Clicking on that takes users to the Chinese-language site in Hong Kong.
Google clearly doesn’t want to give up the Chinese market, with more than 300 million netizens on the mainland. On the other hand, it has said it does not want to subject its Web searches to what it considers censorship under Chinese law. • Latest News & Headlines » Home «
NEWS U.K. police probing alleged Google privacy breach U.K. Police Investigating Alleged Google Privacy Breach Through Public Wi-Fi Networks Tuesday, 22 June 2010
•••Britain has become the latest country to open an investigation into whether Google violated communication and privacy laws by mistakenly gathering data over public Wi-Fi networks.
London’s Metropolitan Police says it is looking into complaints that the search engine’s ‘Street View’ project picked up people’s online activities through unprotected networks.
It says it is determining what offences, if any, were committed.
Privacy International, a London-based privacy watchdog that filed the case with police, says it had received complaints from members of the public who feared their personal data could be at risk.
The French independent privacy watchdog CNIL said last week that Google, following a complaint, had handed over personal data sucked up by its technicians.
The attorney general of the U.S. state of Connecticut is also looking into whether Google broke the law.
Attorney General Richard Blumenthal announced on Monday that his office will lead a multi-state probe of “Google’s deeply disturbing invasion of personal privacy.”
“Street View cannot mean Complete View – invading home and business computer networks and vacuuming up personal information and communications,” Blumenthal said.
Similar probes have begun in Germany, Australia and New Zealand, where police are investigating Google and some of the internet giant’s employees for collecting private information while they photographed streets for the Google Maps website. • Latest News & Headlines » Home «
NEWS U.S. States step up ante against Google over wireless data Tuesday, 22 June 2010
•••The attorney general of a U.S. state is looking into whether Google broke the law by capturing people’s personal data from wireless networks.
Attorney General Richard Blumenthal announced on Monday that his office will lead a multistate probe of “Google’s deeply disturbing invasion of personal privacy,” which has drawn ire and scrutiny in an array of countries.
“Street View cannot mean Complete View – invading home and business computer networks and vacuuming up personal information and communications,” Blumenthal said.
Similar probes have begun in U.K., Germany, Australia and New Zealand, where police are investigating Google and some of the internet giant’s employees for collecting private information while they photographed streets for the Google Maps website.
Blumenthal said people had a right to know what information Google gleaned, how it was done and why.
He also wanted the internet giant to detail what safeguards are in place to fix the situation.
“While we hope Google will continue to cooperate, its response so far raises as many questions as it answers,” Blumenthal said.
“Our investigation will consider whether laws may have been broken and whether changes to state and federal statutes may be necessary.”
Blumenthal has asked Google to explain how and when it learned its Street View bicycles and cars were capturing data from unencrypted wireless networks and why they recorded the quality of wireless networks they passed. • Latest News & Headlines » Home «
NEWS Google’s new search index Caffeine goes live Wednesday, June 9, 2010
•••Internet giant Google has given its search engine capabilities a jolt with the launch of a new indexing system dubbed ‘Caffeine’.
The new system will process hundreds of thousands of pages simultaneously every second, and promises to serve content 70 percent fresher than the current algorithm, including material derived from real-time Web technologies, such as Twitter. Google’s ‘Caffeine’ is understood to take up nearly 100 million gigabytes of storage in one database.
Previously, Google would assess a fraction of the Web each night, index it and push it out in its results.
With Caffeine, as Google crawls the Web and finds new information, it indexes it immediately.
The ‘Caffeine’ formula has slashed the average search response time to about half that of ‘old’ Google, and is geared to decipher complex keyword strings with greater ease – things that search engine experts say Microsoft really hit on when it released Bing. • Latest News & Headlines » Home « • The Official Google Blog: Our new search index: Caffeine • Source(s): Google Inc. – Carrie Grimes, Software Engineer
NEWS Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg announces new privacy tools Your privacy is important to us! Thursday, May 27, 2010
•••Facebook on Wednesday overhauled its privacy controls to fend off mounting criticism that it is betraying the trust that has made it the world’s biggest online social-networking service.
‘It’s been a pretty intense few weeks for us, listening to all the feedback coming in from all the changes we’ve made,’ Facebook’s 26-year-old founder Mark Zuckerberg said as he unveiled simplified privacy controls.
‘Our teams internally have been cranking for the last couple of weeks.’
Facebook unveiled a redesigned privacy settings page to provide a single control for content and ‘significantly reduce’ the amount of information that is always visible to everyone.
Facebook also said it is giving users more control over how outside applications or websites access information at the service.
‘This is a pretty big overhaul to the system we already have,’ Zuckerberg said while outlining the changes during a press briefing at the social network’s headquarters in the California city of Palo Alto.
‘Now we are making it so there is less information that has to be public. People want a simple way to control the way information is shared with third parties, so that is what we are doing.’
The revamped privacy controls will roll out in the coming days, according to Zuckerberg.
Facebook last month sparked criticism from U.S. privacy and consumer groups, U.S. lawmakers and the European Union by adding the ability for partner websites to incorporate data regarding members of the social-networking service.
NEWS Facebook preparing to make changes to privacy settings in response to criticism Saturday, May 22, 2010
•••Facebook on Saturday said it plans to simplify privacy controls at the popular social-networking service to appease critics.
‘We’ve spent the last couple of weeks listening to users and consulting with experts in California; Washington, DC, and around the world,’ Facebook spokesman Andrew Noyes said in response to an AFP inquiry.
‘The messages we’ve received are pretty clear. Users appreciate having precise and comprehensive controls, but want them to be simpler and easier to use.’
Facebook contended that members like new programs rolled out at the California-based internet hotspot but want easy ways to opt out of sharing personal information with third-party applications or websites.
‘We’re listening to this input and incorporating it into innovations we hope to announce shortly,’ Noyes said.
Facebook has been under fire from U.S. privacy and consumer groups, U.S. lawmakers and the European Union over new features that critics claim compromise the privacy of its more than 400 million members.
The features introduced last month include the ability for partner websites to incorporate Facebook data, a move that would further expand the social network’s presence on the internet. Four U.S. senators, in a letter to Facebook co-founder Mark Zuckerberg, said they were worried that personal information about Facebook users is being made available to third party websites.
The senators also expressed concerns that ‘Facebook now obligates users to make publicly available certain parts of their profile that were previously private’.
Sharing personal information should be an ‘opt-in’ procedure in which a user specifically gives permission for data to be shared, privacy advocates argue.
Coming Facebook refinements are not expected to include a shift to an opt-in model.
Facebook vice president of global communications Elliot Schrage has been adamant that online privacy is taken very seriously at the company.
‘These new products and features are designed to enhance personalisation and promote social activity across the internet while continuing to give users unprecedented control over what information they share, when they want to share it, and with whom,’ Schrage said.
MySpace on May 17 announced plans to simplify its privacy settings as it seeks to differentiate itself from social network rival Facebook, which has eclipsed the News Corp-owned social networking service.
‘The last few weeks have been fraught with discussion around user privacy on social networks,’ MySpace co-president Mike Jones said in a blog post without directly mentioning Facebook by name.
‘While MySpace at its core is about discovery, self expression and sharing, we understand people might want the option of limiting the sharing of their information to a select group of friends,’ Jones said. Jones said MySpace, which was bought by News Corp. in 2005 for $580 million, is ‘planning the launch of a simplified privacy setting for our user profiles.
‘While we’ve had these plans in the works for some time, given the recent outcry over privacy concerns in the media, we felt it was important to unveil those plans to our users now,’ he said. • Source(s): Facebook Inc. and MySpace / Digital Media Group / News Corporation
NEWS Google ranked world’s most valuable brand Thursday, April 29, 2010
•••Google was crowned the world’s most valuable brand on Wednesday by a research firm that found technology firms dominate when it comes to how much a name is worth in today’s markets.
Google, IBM, Apple and Microsoft topped global stalwarts Coca-Cola, McDonald’s, and Marlboro in a Top Ten brand value list packed with seven technology companies.
Google’s brand was worth more than $114 billion, a 14 percent climb from 2009, according to the annual Millward Brown Optimor ‘BrandZ Top 100 Most Valuable Global Brands’ report. U.S. technology titan IBM saw its ‘brand value’ surge 30 percent to $86 billion while the worth of Apple’s name climbed 32 percent to $83 billion, according to the report.
Factors taken into consideration in the ranking include customer loyalty and opinions regarding brands and how they influence earnings.
Microsoft ranked fourth with its brand valued at slightly more than $76 billion, just ahead of the nearly $68 billion that Coca-Cola’s brand was said to be worth.
China Mobile, General Electric, and Vodafone claimed the eighth through tenth spots respectively.
Social-networking powerhouse Facebook made it onto a separate Top Twenty technology brands list for the first time with its company name value at $5.5 billion.
Electronics powerhouse Samsung saw the largest jump in brand value, soaring 80 percent from the previous year to $11.3 billion.
‘Technology brands demonstrated their pervasiveness in our daily lives,’ Millward Brown said in a release. ‘Use of social media was a key trend across many of the successful brands.’
The overall value of the Top 100 brands rose four per cent to more than two trillion dollars, according to Millward Brown, which specialises in advertising, marketing communications, media and brand equity research.
‘This ranking has elevated the importance of building brands among some of the world’s most successful companies,’ said Millward Brown global chief executive Eileen Campbell.
‘CEOs and CFOs around the world should be asking their brand and marketing teams how they can leverage brand to both protect and grow the business.’
An investor who put their money into a Brandz portfolio five years ago would have earned a double-digit return as opposed to losing cash with a set of stocks based on the SP 500 index, according to Millward Brown.
‘In the past, many companies were quick to cut their marketing spend during a down economy,’ said Joanna Seddon, head of Millward Brown Optimor.
‘A new trend has emerged in the wake of the recession as more companies realised the importance of maintaining and even increasing budgets to support brand loyalty and engagement.’ • Source(s): MillwardBrown
NEWS Google Acquires LabPixies Google Acquires LabPixies For $25 Million Tuesday, April 27, 2010
•••Google has bought an Israeli company that develops mini-programs for the web known as widgets in the latest in a string of acquisitions.
The Mountain View, California-based Google announced the purchase of LabPixies in a blog post. Terms of the transaction were not disclosed.
LabPixies already makes widgets for iGoogle, Google’s personalised homepage service.
‘We decided that we could do more if we were part of the same team, and as such, we’re thrilled to announce the acquisition of Labpixies,’ Don Loeb, a member of the iGoogle team said.
‘The team will be based in our ever-growing Tel Aviv office and will anchor our iGoogle efforts across Europe, the Middle East, and Africa,’ Loeb said.
‘We are looking forward to working with Labpixies to develop great web apps and leverage their knowledge and expertise to help developers and improve the ecosystem overall,’ he said.
Besides iGoogle, LabPixies has also developed widgets for Google’s Android mobile phone operating system and the iPhone.
Widgets developed by LabPixies include calendars, news feeds, to-do lists and games.
Google has been on a buying spree for the past few months, snapping up a number of small startups including DocVerse, Picnik, Aardvark and Plink.
Chief executive Eric Schmidt said in a conference call with analysts in January that Google planned to acquire about one company a month this year.
● Ran Ben – Yair, CEO LabPixies, said, “We deal with Google to see a golden opportunity for our team to fit in workspace sharing with us the same desire – to millions of users the ultimate online experience.'”
● Prof. Yossi Matias, director of Google R & D Center in Israel, said, “We believe that the combination of LabPixies center staff will allow us to continue strengthening the web platform, and make it attractive than ever for developers and users around the world.” He added that “Google believes in innovation and creativity Israel, and will continue to pursue collaboration with – for start-ups in the future local.” • Source(s): Google Inc. & LabPixies
NEWS Apple Market Cap Bigger Than Microsoft? Not Quite Yet, It Isn’t Saturday, April 24, 2010
•••Boosted by upbeat investor reaction to its strong earnings report this week, Apple on yesterday became the second largest company on the S&P 500 Index in terms of market capitalization, surpassing software giant Microsoft. Revenge, they say, is a dish that is best served cold. And if this is true, then Apple must be pleased as punch to see itself in the second spot in the S&P 500, second only to Exxon Mobil.
While coming second is in itself notable – with the notable exception of coming first – what must be especially pleasing to Apple is the company it has replaced – Microsoft.
To understand this, you must travel back in time to 1988. In that year, Apple filed a case against Microsoft, claiming that the Windows graphical user interface (GUI) infringed upon the Mac’s “look and feel.” Of course, since Apple had itself borrowed the Mac’s look and feel by looking at products from Xerox and feeling that the GUI is a good thing, the judges of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ruled that Apple cannot get patent-like protection for the idea of a GUI.
What is more humiliating than being beaten by an opponent? Running back to the same opponent for help when you are down. And Apple was forced to do this in 1997, when Steve Jobs announced that Apple would join Microsoft to release new versions of Microsoft Office for the Macintosh, and that Microsoft made a $150 million investment in non-voting Apple stock. The money made a huge difference to Apple because in 1997 Apple was in deep trouble and was facing a huge finance crunch.
Enough history. Cut to the here and now. Apple is on top and has ousted Microsoft to become the No 2 company on the S&P index. It would be wrong to say that its iPod, iPhone and iPads are selling like hot cakes – it would perhaps be better to say that hot cakes are selling like iPads.
Purists may argue that the S&P 500 represents merely float-adjusted market cap. In fact, as Marco Tabini posted on macworld.com, “Microsoft’s full market cap still outstrips Apple’s by $275 billion to $241 billion.”
True, Microsoft’s market cap is still higher, but Apple has one psychological advantage that was once enjoyed by Microsoft in the PC era – the ability to drive the direction of the market. Now, Apple decides what happens.
Want proof? The iPad now accounts for 26 per cent of all of the mobile traffic on wired.com. The site is so impressed that they are making their Flash-heavy pages iPad compatible. “We are aware of the irony that the majority of wired.com’s videos, which use an Adobe Flash-based player, don’t play on the iPad. We’re working on that, starting with our homepage,” wrote Dylan F. Tweney in an article that appeared on the site.
Many many moons ago, when Steve Jobs hired John Sculley from Pepsi, he is reputed to have asked him, “Do you want to spend the rest of your life selling sugared water or do you want a chance to change the world?” Scully didn’t change the world. In fact, during his regime, Microsoft threatened to discontinue Office for the Mac if Apple did not licence parts of the Mac GUI for use with Windows. And those days, Microsoft got what it wanted. But it looks like iPad has just turned the tables.
• What is S&P 500? The S&P 500 is a free-float capitalization-weighted index published since 1957 of the prices of 500 large-cap common stocks actively traded in the United States. After the Dow Jones Industrial Average, the S&P 500 is the most widely followed index of large-cap American stocks. It is considered a bellwether for the American economy.
NEWS Social Networking Crime on the Rise Wednesday, April 21, 2010
•••Computer security vendor Symantec Corp says 240 million distinct malicious programs were identified last year, double the number found in 2008.
In its Internet Security Threat Report for 2009, the company said there was a growing number of web-based attacks, with social networking sites used to lure users to malicious websites.
Symantec’s senior vice president of security technology and response Stephen Trilling said the scale of cyber attacks and global nature required international cooperation.
‘Attackers have evolved from simple scams to highly sophisticated espionage campaigns targeting some of the world’s largest corporations and government entities,’ Mr. Trilling said in a statement.
The company said there was 240 million new malicious programs, double the prior year’s number, with the Sality.AE virus, the Brisv Trojan and SillyFDC worm most frequently blocked by its software.
Symantec said these unsolicited emails made up 88 percent of all email observed in 2009, reaching a high of 90.4 percent in May, despite government attempts to crackdown on spam emails.
Symantec said about 85 percent of spam messages were sent from so-called botnets, or networks of compromised computers that were centrally controlled.
‘Throughout 2009 Symantec saw botnet infected computers being advertised in the underground economy for as little as three cents per computer,’ the company said.
The report said cyber criminals were increasingly targeting enterprises, where they had the potential to benefit from compromised corporate intellectual property.
‘Attackers are leveraging the abundance of personal information openly available on social networking sites to synthesize socially engineered attacks on key individuals with targeted companies,’ it said.
NEWS Cyberattack on Google Said to Hit Password System Execute a cyber attack with kits for just $700! Wednesday, April 21, 2010
•••A December cyberattack on Google Inc computers hit the company’s password system that millions of people worldwide use to access almost all of the company’s Web services, a popular U.S. newspaper reported, citing a person with direct knowledge of the investigation.
The closely-guarded program is considered a crown jewel at Google, enabling users and employees to sign in with their password only once to operate various services including e-mail and business applications, the newspaper said in its April 20 edition.
Google did not immediately return a call seeking comment.
Code-named Gaia for the Greek goddess of the earth, and still in use under the name Single Sign-On, the program was described publicly only once at a technical conference four years ago, the newspaper said.
The intruders do not appear to have stolen passwords of Gmail users, and Google quickly started to bolster security, the newspaper said.
But the theft leaves open a possibility, perhaps faint, that the intruders may find weaknesses that Google might not know about, the newspaper said, citing independent computer experts.
Google disclosed the hacking on January 12, reporting a detection of “a highly sophisticated and targeted attack on our corporate infrastructure originating from China that resulted in the theft of intellectual property from Google.”
The Mountain View, California-based company said the attack appeared to target Chinese human rights activists, and that only two Gmail accounts appeared to have been accessed.
Google at the time said it would stop censoring search results on Google.cn. In March, it closed its China-based Web search service and began redirecting users to an uncensored portal in Hong Kong. That decision came amid heightened tensions between China and Washington, D.C.
Execute a cyber attack with kits for just $700!
Cybercrimes are no longer the domain of the tech-savvy-just splash out $700 and one can buy an attack kit online, reveals an internet security report.
Symantec, which monitors one-third of the Internet through its software, has discovered a marked increase in sales of crimeware – or attack kits – in the past 12 months.
Attack kits automatically create customised malicious code designed to steal any type of information.
An attack kit, Zeus, can be purchased online for $700 in an underground economy forum.
The kit allows the user to access infected computers and steal email and banking details and passwords.
Last year, it sent out phishing messages to 1.5 million Facebook users and nine million phishing emails.
“The kits have lowered the entry point into cybercrime,” Fox News quoted said Symantec vice president and managing director Craig Scroggie as saying.
“They make it easier for an unskilled attacker to compromise a computer and steal information, whereas in the past you needed to have the skill to write these things.”
Scroggie said “tens of thousands” of the attack kits had been sold, helping create 90,000 unique variations of the Zeus toolkit.
Other known crimeware tools include the Fragus Exploit Kit and the Spyeye.
NEWS Search with fewer keystrokes and better spelling Friday, April 16, 2010
•••Google says it has enhanced its search engine to make it easier for people to find what they seek online despite spelling slips.
Google expanded automatic correction of misspelled search words to include 31 languages and improved software crafted to figure out correct spellings of people’s names.
‘Did you make a typo while looking for ‘chocolate strawberries and cream’ in Italian?’ Google technical staff member Pandu Nayak asked rhetorically while showing an example in a blog post.
‘The right word is so close you can taste it.’
The Mountain View, California-based internet search giant also finetuned a feature that suggests search terms based on where searchers are located.
Google last year launched a ‘Suggest’ feature that recommends queries based on which country people are in. Search suggestions are now more localised if queries are made in U.S. cities.
‘Just as people in the United Kingdom often look for different things than people in United States, we’ve found that people in Seattle tend to look for different things than people in Dallas,’ Nayak said.
‘In San Francisco ‘bart’ is probably not Bart Simpson; it’s probably Bay Area Rapid Transit,’ he added, comparing a search on a popular cartoon character name to a regional commuter rail system acronym. • Source(s): Google – Pandu Nayak, Member of Technical Staff
NEWS Google helps sleuth out Twitter accounts Thursday, April 15, 2010
•••Google Labs launched Follow Finder, a new service that recommends a list of Twitter users to follow. Google analyzed Twitter’s social graph and it’s able to recommend other Twitter users that are followed by people who follow the users you do.
New feature dubbed Follow Finder, according to its blog. Revealed at Twitter’s Chirp developers conference this week, Follow Finder tries to uncover more Twitter accounts, or tweeps, that you may want to follow based on the ones you have already accumulated.
To use the service, enter your Twitter username at the Follow Finger page. Google then looks at the people you already follow, finds other accounts who follow the same or similar people as you, and then conjures up a list of new people to add to your network. Google breaks down the list into two categories: accounts followed by people who follow the same ones you do and the accounts of people with similar follower lists.
If you see an account you want to follow, click on the name to open Twitter, log in, and add that account to your network. In other Twitter-related news, Google’s real-time search results have been enhanced with a timeline restricted to Twitter messages.
“The first page will show you the familiar latest and greatest short-form updates from a comprehensive set of sources, but now there’s a new chart at the top. The chart shows the relative volume of activity on Twitter about the topic,” explains Google.
For now, Google’s timelines show Twitter messages posted since February 11, but Google promises that they will be extended to the entire Twitter archive. After all, Google paid Twitter to have access to the data.
NEWS Twitter snags more than 100 million users Wednesday, April 14, 2010
•••Microblogging sensation Twitter has signed up more than 100 million users and hopes to snag hundreds of millions more in coming years by making the service easier and more accessible on mobile devices like cell phones.
Twitter continues to grow. According to its co-founders Biz Stone and Evan Williams, who were far short on numbers, the service microblobbing now has nearly 105 million (105,779,710) users. Unless it’s users with an account without one knows if they are actually active. Every day they are 3,00,000 new Twitter accounts that are open.
Several studies have shown that the publication of tweets is mainly confined to a core group of users. These famous short messages of 140 characters are still published at a rate of 55 million per day, and there is no doubt that Twitter is a phenomenon to watch.
Search engines in particular are not mistaken. While Twitter treats 19 billion search queries per month ($ 600 million per day), Google manages over 90 billion it lends a special interest. The search giant has announced the launch of a new feature in English which can be traced back through time to dig into the archives of Twitter. A journey time for the moment limited to February 11, 2010 but will soon be extended until March 21, 2006.
At the same time, Bing Microsoft has started testing its real-time search with a few users in the United States by displaying the search results page of Twitter stream. Recall that for Google, this real-time search was launched for everyone.
Recently, Twitter has made some changes on its website to display on the home page a selection of the best tweets of the day. This week, the major announcement that Twitter will nevertheless remain of Promoted Tweets and an attempt to find a new means of monetization.
NEWS Facebook rejects suggested ‘Panic Button’ for pages Tuesday, April 13, 2010
•••Facebook has announced an overhaul of its online safety measures that include the redesign of its abuse reporting system. But British users are concerned the new features still don’t go far enough.
Facebook’s “Safety Center” features new tools for parents, teachers, teens and law enforcement; it’s the first major endeavor from the social networking site and its four-month-old global safety advisory board.
Some new features of the safety center include four times more content on staying safe, such as dealing with bullying online, an interactive portal and a simpler design. But the company has not announced the installation of a panic button on every page as British officials had urged it to do.
Jim Gamble, chief executive of the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre, said the social networking giant did not agree to his demands outright at a meeting in Washington but he felt they were moving in the right direction.
Speaking after a four-hour meeting yesterday, Mr. Gamble said Facebook was close to “doing the right thing” but urged the website to turn “words into action”.
“They are one small step away from doing the right thing,” he said.
“I am more optimistic than when I came. They are not saying no, that is very clear.
“There is no doubt they are looking to improve their position around child safety and we recognise that. What I am looking for is turning words into action.”
The showdown came after controversy in Britain over Facebook’s refusal to include a “panic button” on its pages after the conviction of a serial rapist who used the site to lure and murder a teenage girl.
Peter Chapman posed as a young boy to lure 17-year-old Ashleigh Hall to her death in north-east England.
Calls have since grown for the inclusion of the buttons – which allow youngsters who feel threatened online to quickly contact a number of sources of help, such as CEOP or anti-bullying helplines.
Politicians, police and anti-bullying groups have voiced outrage that the online giant will not bow to demands to include the system.
“In our view they are experts at creating a fantastic online environment but they are not experts in law enforcement, the power of deterrents and the reassurance it brings for mums and dads,” Mr. Gamble said.
The other problem with a “panic button” is that it could lead to a false sense of security. If someone truly is aware of an online emergency, they are better off calling 911 or its equivalent in whatever country they are in.
NEWS Topeka: A different kind of company name Thursday, April 1, 2010
•••Early last month the mayor of Topeka, Kansas stunned the world by announcing that his city was changing its name to Google. We’ve been wondering ever since how best to honor that moving gesture. Today we are pleased to announce that as of 1AM (Central Daylight Time) April 1st, Google has officially changed our name to Topeka. We didn’t reach this decision lightly; after all, we had a fair amount of brand equity tied up in our old name. But the more we surfed around (the former) Topeka’s municipal website, the more kinship we felt with this fine city at the edge of the Great Plains.
In fact, Topeka Google Mayor Bill Bunten expressed it best: “Don’t be fooled. Even Google recognizes that all roads lead to Kansas, not just yellow brick ones.”
For 150 years, its fortuitous location at the confluence of the Kansas River and the Oregon Trail has made the city formerly known as Topeka a key jumping-off point to the new world of the West, just as for 150 months the company formerly known as Google has been a key jumping-off point to the new world of the web. When in 1858 a crucial bridge built across the Kansas River was destroyed by flooding mere months later, it was promptly rebuilt — and we too are accustomed to releasing 2.0 versions of software after stormy feedback on our ‘beta’ releases. And just as the town’s nickname is “Top City,” and the word “topeka” itself derives from a term used by the Kansa and Ioway tribes to refer to “a good place to dig for potatoes,” we’d like to think that our website is one of the web’s top places to dig for information.
In the early 20th century, the former Topeka enjoyed a remarkable run of political prominence, gracing the nation with Margaret Hill McCarter, the first woman to address a national political convention (1920, Republican); Charles Curtis, the only Native American ever to serve as vice president (’29 to ‘33, under Herbert Hoover); Carrie Nation, leader of the old temperance movement (and wielder of American history’s most famous hatchet); and, most important, Alfred E. Neuman, arguably the most influential figure to an entire generation of Americans. We couldn’t be happier to add our own chapter to this storied history.
A change this dramatic won’t happen without consequences, perhaps even some disruptions. Here are a few of the thorny issues that we hope everyone in the broader Topeka community will bear in mind as we begin one of the most important transitions in our company’s history:
• Correspondence to both our corporate headquarters and offices around the world should now be addressed to Topeka Inc., but otherwise can be addressed normally. • Google employees once known as “Googlers” should now be referred to as either “Topekers” or “Topekans,” depending on the result of a board meeting that’s ongoing at this hour. Whatever the outcome, the conclusion is clear: we aren’t in Google anymore. • Our new product names will take some getting used to. For instance, we’ll have to assure users of Topeka News and Topeka Maps that these services will continue to offer news and local information from across the globe. Topeka Talk, similarly, is an instant messaging product, not, say, a folksy midwestern morning show. And Project Virgle, our co-venture with Richard Branson and Virgin to launch the first permanent human colony on Mars, will henceforth be known as Project Vireka. • We don’t really know what to tell Oliver Google Kai’s parents, except that, if you ask us, Oliver Topeka Kai would be a charming name for their little boy. • As our lawyers remind us, branded product names can achieve such popularity as to risk losing their trademark status (see cellophane, zippers, trampolines, et al). So we hope all of you will do your best to remember our new name’s proper usage:
Finally, we want to be clear that this initiative is a one-shot deal that will have no bearing on which municipalities are chosen to participate in our experimental ultra-high-speed broadband project, to which Google, Kansas has been just one of many communities to apply. • Source(s): Eric Schmidt, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Topeka Inc. • (April Fools!!!)
••• Global media chief Rupert Murdoch says Apple’s iPad will be a ‘game changer’ for newspapers.
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