Lawmaker urges FCC clampdown on access charges

A senior Democratic lawmaker on Tuesday urged the Federal Communications Commission to help cut fees that major U.S. phone carriers charge rivals for access to high-capacity lines serving business and wireless customers.

Rep. Edward Markey (D-Mass.), chairman of the House telecommunications subcommittee, said the FCC should reinstate regulations that would force Verizon Communications and AT&T to provide affordable access to high-capacity fiber-optic lines.

"Unless this market failure is corrected, (the fees) could have a negative impact on all wireless broadband deployment...Markey said at a subcommittee hearing.

The FCC is nearing a decision on whether to tighten regulations over the fees that can be charged for the high-capacity, "special access" lines.

The major carriers have been able to get price restrictions relaxed in some U.S. markets that the FCC deems competitive under procedures set up by the agency in 1999.

Rivals such as Sprint Nextel and XO Communications argue that major carriers like Verizon and AT&T have taken advantage of the deregulated market to boost special-access fees in recent years, depriving rivals of money they need to build out competing broadband networks.

Executives with AT&T and Verizon told lawmakers at the hearing it would be a mistake to re-impose regulations because the market for special access is already highly competitive.

"Re-regulation of special access services is unnecessary and inappropriate," Parley Casto, AT&T assistant vice president, told the subcommittee.

The FCC could decide within the next two weeks whether to clamp down on the access fees, as well as a related request by some carriers to lift other network-sharing requirements in some major U.S. cities.

Analysts say the five-member Commission is split over the issue between Republicans and Democrats. One of the three Republicans, Robert McDowell, holds the swing vote.

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"The future of competition in telecommunications hinges on whether we address the special-access market failure," Sprint Chairman Gary Forsee told lawmakers. Forsee and some others at the hearing argued that inflated access fees are an "overcharge bonanza" adding up to $7.4 billion a year.

But Verizon and AT&T said the market has a growing number of competitors and declining prices.

"The FCC...should affirm the current special-access policy that removes government-regulated pricing where competition exists in the market," Tom Tauke, Verizon executive vice president, said in prepared remarks.

That argument got a sympathetic response from many Republicans on the subcommittee, including ranking Republican Fred Upton of Michigan.

Watching TV on the laptop--and on the cheap

This isn't a problem, except when I get glimpses of what I might be missing, like when the New York Mets choked and it was all anybody could talk about in the office that day.

I also happened to catch some episodes of Animal Planet's Meerkat Manor on a public hospital TV recently. I was captivated by the story of matriarch meerkat "Flower" and her tragic death from a cobra bite while saving her pups in the Kalahari desert. I just had to watch the next episode to see which of her daughters would win the power struggle to succeed her. But how could I do that without cable or even a TV?

I went on a search for some of my old--and new--favorite TV shows on the Internet. The one caveat: it had to be free, because this TV dilettante wasn't paying for anything other than my phone and DSL broadband service.

While I pay about $30 a month for phone and DSL, my neighbors spend anywhere from $70 to $140 for cable and Internet access, depending on the number of channels and level of service. That cost difference, plus the desire to avoid having a boob tube around, means the laptop is the only screen in my home.

I may be odd, but I'm not alone. A whole 2 percent of U.S. households are TV-less, according to Nielsen. (OK, so I'm almost alone). And nearly 16 percent of American households with Internet access watch television broadcasts online, a report released this week by The Conference Board and TNS Media Intelligence found.

Networks and studios are recognizing this trend. While paid downloads make more money for content producers, ad-supported video streaming is growing--it's expected to bring in $117 million in revenues this year for producers of prime time and daytime TV programming alone, up from $43 million last year, according to Adams Media Research.

My first step to becoming an Internet couch potato was to search for Meerkat Manor online. I found a link at the top of the search engine's sponsored results section that led to the Discovery Channel site, where I could watch the last four episodes after installing a video player.

The video quality was poor and the transmission was glitchy. It really ruins the timing of jokes when (Jon) Stewart's mouth is saying one thing and you are hearing something else.

There was a 10-second ad for Oust air freshener that ran before the show started, and then the Meerkats were on, in all their anthropomorphic glory. I could watch them for hours, but unfortunately, a commercial break came. I was subjected to a 30-second ad this time, from the same air freshener company. Time to check e-mail.

As soon as I heard the commercial end I was back to the screen for more Meerkat adventures. The video quality, while it didn't seem quite as clear as on a TV, was beautiful. And then, before you knew it, the exact same commercial as before came up. This same ad was shown three times during the show. I somehow thought I would be spared the commercials by watching TV on the Internet. I was wrong.

One of the great laments I've had about not having a TV the past few years is that I miss my daily dose of humor--The Daily Show With Jon Stewart. So, I quickly found myself on the Comedy Central site, where Stewart's monologue from the day before started right up in a very small window. There are also sections called "Most Recent Videos" and "Last Week's Highlights." I watched Stewart poking fun at the Republican presidential debate and then conducting an awkward interview with Vice President Cheney's wife, Lynne.

But what if I don't just want highlights? What if I want to watch the entire show? While watching a show in segments like this might make for more efficient TV viewing, I missed watching the flow of an entire show, where Stewart and his cohorts often make references to things that happened before the commercial break.

In addition to the fact that the site seemed to be showing the same ad for each of the highlights I viewed, I was squinting to see the screen because the video window was so small. The video quality was poor and the transmission was glitchy. It really ruins the timing of jokes when Stewart's mouth is saying one thing and you're hearing something else.

Next, I went straight to TV network Web sites. On ABC, I launched the full episode player, which offered a full screen and mini mode. I had heard that tech entrepreneur and Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban was on Dancing with the Stars, so I thought I'd check that show out.

I was very pleased to see that I could click a button to skip the ad that kept repeating (in this case for Garnier Nutritioniste) shortly after it began. But I was disappointed that I was only able to watch a condensed version of the program for the Web audience, in which they only show the results and highlights and not all the dance numbers. I like watching ballroom dancing, so that was a bummer.

More to Mac sales than a halo

It's very easy to take a look at Apple's stellar fourth quarter and conclude that the long-awaited iPod "halo effect" is in full swing and move onto something more pressing, like handicapping the World Series.

Are Mac sales really soaring simply because people like iPods?

(Credit: James Martin/CNET Networks)

For years as the iPod took over the digital music player market, we all wondered whether it was a one-hit wonder, whether Apple could translate that success into increased Mac market share. Millions of people who might not have used an Apple product since they spent the third grade playing Oregon Trail on an Apple II were re-introduced to Apple through the iPod, and for the last year or so, they would appear to be trying the other things on the menu.

Apple announced Monday that Mac shipments were up 34 percent during the last quarter, the most successful period of computer sales ever for Apple (neé Computer) Inc. Overall, Apple sold 2.2 million Macs, 400,000 more than the previous record for Mac sales set just last quarter.

The iPod often gets the credit for increased Mac shipments, described as the "halo effect" over past years. The thinking is that iPod customers, having enjoyed their iPod experience and having seen Apple in a new light, might be more inclined to pick up a Mac while shopping for a new iPod case and realizing their old PC is woefully out of date.

But despite the recent results, it's still just not that simple. Apple said during its earnings conference call that half of the customers who bought Macs at its retail store last quarter were new Mac owners. Viewed against total Mac shipments of 2.2 million during the quarter, that's actually not all that many brand-new Mac users.

Apple sold 473,000 Macs at its retail stores. That means we're talking about something like 200,000 people last quarter who were new to the Mac--assuming some number of people bought multiple Macs to send the twins off to college--and the rest are Mac veterans upgrading to a new Macbook or one of the new iMacs. It's fair to assume that there was some percentage of new Mac customers who bought their systems online or through other channels, but an Apple representative declined to share any statistics on the percentage of new buyers in those other areas.

Obvious as it may seem, it's really hard to quantify the halo effect. Believe me, I've just spent the last several hours trying. The numbers seem simple: Apple has sold more than 120 million iPods to date, and Mac shipments are growing much faster than the overall market.

But Hewlett-Packard's worldwide shipments are growing twice as fast as the overall market. Acer's worldwide shipments are growing at nearly four times the overall market. Even in the U.S., where Apple does the majority of its business and is the third-leading PC vendor, everyone but Dell is growing much faster than the overall market. HP might have a brand name in printers, but nobody, even HP, has a consumer product with nearly the cachet of the iPod.

Maybe Mac shipments are growing because people have had two or three Windows PCs in their lifetime, and are looking for something different. Maybe Mac shipments are growing because people are upgrading older PowerPC-based systems to Intel-based systems. Maybe younger buyers, a larger segment of the population than us Gen Xers, prefer the Mac over the PC. And, yes, maybe Mac shipments are growing because of the amazing swirl around Apple in 2007 spearheaded by the iPhone.

It would be silly to say the iPod has had no effect on the way Apple is viewed by the public. Anyway you slice it, the iPod contributed to a more positive impression of the company among those who hadn't always supported Apple as a matter of principle.

But I'm not convinced that you can draw a direct line between iPods and Macs. Are you more likely to buy an HP PC because you own (and like) your HP printer? Are you more likely to buy a Sony television because you've spent thousands of quality hours with your PlayStation 2? Maybe, maybe not.

I will throw this out there: I think more people are buying Macs because there is no longer a penalty for switching to a Mac. After all, you can run Windows on a Mac, open and edit Word documents in Mac OS, and you probably spend most of your time on one Web page or another that doesn't care what operating system is in control.

With only small technical differences to worry about, the purchasing decision comes down to branding and marketing. Apple may resonate in your brain because you like your iPod, but I'd argue that the company's combination of world-class marketing, a laser-like focus on design, and the decision to switch to Intel's chips has done more for Mac sales than any one factor alone.

Wi-Fi dream lives on San Francisco's

Citywide Wi-Fi is not dead in San Francisco.

At least that's what the city's chief information officer Chris Vein said Monday at a panel at the MuniWireless conference in Santa Clara, Calif.

Vein told attendees at the conference that the city is simply "taking a deep breath" while it figures out its next step.

"Nothing has changed in terms of our strategy," he said. "A lot has happened in the last three years, so we are at the stage now where we're listening and learning to figure out what our next move should be."

That said, Vein added that he fully expects the initiative to move forward and take shape in the Mayor Gavin Newsom's next term. Newsom, who in 2004 put forth the idea of offering free Wi-Fi access to all citizens, is expected to easily win his re-election campaign in November. And Vein said that the mayor expects to have an even more "audacious" term this time around.

In August it looked like San Francisco's Wi-Fi dreams were dead in the water. EarthLink, which had won the contract to build and operate the network, wriggled out of the deal as its new CEO and company restructured the company and basically laid off half of its staff. As part of the restructuring, the company greatly scaled back its Wi-Fi efforts.

Google, which was going to provide the advertising to support the free tier of service, is also out of the deal. Vein said he hasn't heard much from Google and is not in talks with the company or anyone else to kick-start the effort.

But the network will live on, he said. Citizens of San Francisco will vote on whether they want a citywide Wi-Fi network in November, when the issue is put up as a nonbinding ballot initiative. Despite many community based Wi-Fi efforts, many in San Francisco expect the ballot to pass easily.

But there are still many big questions that must be answered. For example, what will the San Francisco network look like? Who will own it and operate it? And what kinds of services will be available?

Mayor Newsom has gone on record several times saying that he believes a public/private partnership, like the one the city struck with EarthLink and Google is the answer. But some people on the Board of Supervisors would like to see the city take more ownership of the network to ensure control of the infrastructure.

San Francisco is one of many cities that have been forced to pull back on plans to build a citywide network. The main reason is finding a business model to support such networks. EarthLink clearly doesn't see the financial upside to a deal in which it bears most of the expense and risk to build the network.

San Francisco's main reason for building the Wi-Fi network is to bridge the digital divide and provide low-income citizens with affordable broadband access. Because the social merits of building and operating such a Wi-Fi network is a tough sell to many private partners, some cities are making public safety or improved government efficiency as their primary focus for building new networks. And they are promising to be anchor tenants, who guarantee service providers a set amount of business every year for using the network.

That's exactly what cities such as Minneapolis, Minn., and Providence, R.I. Minneapolis has committed to being an anchor tenant for 10 years. Its Wi-Fi network was put to the test this summer when it helped with recovery efforts during the aftermath of a major bridge collapse. And Providence uses a Wi-Fi network to help police better patrol city streets. Other cities are using Wi-Fi for remote surveillance, controlling traffic, lights and automatically reading parking and water meters.

Vein said that those kinds of applications are also being considered for San Francisco. In fact, he sees big potential in having city building inspectors use handheld Wi-Fi devices to access records and file reports remotely while they are in the field. He said that some of these applications will likely be addressed as part of the city's plans for the wireless network.

But he emphasized that bridging the digital divide through free or low-cost broadband access would continue to be the city's main focus in pushing the initiative forward. In part, providing free Wi-Fi access is an easier to sell politically in San Francisco, a city that has always kept the needs of poor and underprivileged citizens as a top priority. By contrast, pushing the project as a way to improve government efficiency could be viewed more suspiciously.

"In a city like San Francisco, there are some 200,000 people who are without broadband," he said. "And there are a lot of race and socioeconomic issues that come up as a part of this that politicians often need to address."

Whatever the final plan ends up being, Vein said that many of the issues and concerns that were brought up during the EarthLink negotiations will still be there and will need to be addressed.

"The same challenges of addressing privacy, health, and security concerns will still be there regardless of the business model and technology used," he said. "So we need to come together to address those concerns."

Proper ID for a Zombie PC

If you can't tell by its ravenous appetite, glassy-eyed stare, and leprous casing, how do you know whether your system has become one of the living dead?

How do I tell if my computer is a zombie?

Wendell Daar, via the Internet

Talk about a scary phenomenon! Through a virus or worm, a criminal takes over your PC, which behaves normally until it receives instructions over the Internet to mass-mail spam, take down a company's network as part of a Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack, or log your keystrokes to gain access to your bank account. When it's done, your system reverts to acting like a normal PC.

You can't easily tell if your PC has been zombified. The usual malware warning signs--computer slowdowns, odd behavior--apply to zombies, though they could easily be signs of lesser problems. Watch your firewall software for strange outgoing traffic. Run multiple online virus scanners (browse to How Can I Tell If My PC Has Caught a Virus? for details). Also check out the 15-day free trial of Symantec's $30 Norton AntiBot utility, which specifically looks for bot infections. Still, don't consider yourself safe in the event that AntiBot doesn't turn anything up.

Some zombie or bot software can hide itself from virus and malware scanners by installing a rootkit. Free rootkit-revealing software such as Sophos Anti-Rootkit and Sysinternals' RootkitRevealer can help, err, root those infections out.

Though your ISP can identify zombies among its clientele, that doesn't necessarily mean you can contact the company's support staff and reach someone who knows what you're talking about.

I got mixed results with my own ISP, AT&T Yahoo. When I phoned tech support, I reached someone who'd never heard of a zombie. An e-mail query yielded another ignorant reaction, but a forceful rejoinder from me produced a useful-sounding letter promising to inform me of any suspicious behavior.

Unfortunately, according to Trend Micro network architect Paul Ferguson, it's not in ISPs' economic interest to be especially diligent or helpful about this. "The vast majority do nothing at all," he warned me.

If e-mail bounces back to you with a message that you've been blocked, your address may be on a spam blacklist--most likely as a result of being zombified. More than 100 such blacklists exist, and many ISPs use one or more of them to block the IP addresses of known spammers. If you're on one or two such lists, most of your mail will get through, but some will not.

Even if your e-mail isn't bouncing, it's a good idea to find out whether you've been blacklisted. First, go to http://checkip.dyndns.org/ To view the IP address you send out to the world--probably your router's. Select the displayed address and choose Edit, Copy to copy it to your clipboard.

There are several blacklist reporting sites. My favorite is Robtex. Paste your IP address into the only field on the page, and click Go. Robtex will list a great many blacklist sites. If any of them are red, you've got a problem. Use the list's contact information to find out why you're on that list and how to get off of it.

Finally, remember that prevention is the best medicine. Keep Windows and your antivirus, firewall, and other security software up-to-date. Those precautions will reduce the chances of infection from almost certain to reasonably unlikely.

Senators face new pressure to renew Net tax ban

With only weeks to go before a federal halt to Internet access taxes expires, a handful of Senate Republicans is applying a new form of pressure on the Democratic leadership.

Sen. John Sununu (R-N.H.) on Wednesday reintroduced an identical version of his bill from January that would make permanent an existing moratorium set to end November 1. Unless Congress passes his proposal--or at least another temporary extension--there won't be anything stopping most state and local governments from taxing Internet access, including DSL (digital subscriber line), cable modem and BlackBerry-type wireless transmission services.

The difference this time is that Sununu filed the proposal under a Senate procedure known as Rule 14, which makes it eligible for immediate consideration on the Senate floor. That's significant because bills typically must first be cleared through subcommittee and committee votes--a process that can be time-consuming, as has been the case this year.

Last week, the Senate Commerce Committee, of which Sununu is a member, was supposed to vote on a bill that would have extended the ban for four more years. But at the last minute, committee chairman Daniel Inouye (D-Hawaii) inexplicably yanked the bill from consideration.

The committee released a statement the next day saying "further negotiations were warranted," but it's still unclear when it will reschedule a vote. The House of Representatives Judiciary Committee, which is considering similar legislation, also hasn't scheduled its own vote yet, an aide said Thursday.

In a statement on Wednesday, Sununu asserted that he's confident the Senate Commerce or Finance committee would return to the bill. Still, he said, he took the latest procedural step because he believes enacting legislation to make the Internet tax ban permanent is so important that there's a need to "keep every door open."

Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky and Sens. Trent Lott (R-Miss.) and John McCain (R-Ariz.) joined Sununu in introducing the bill, but another original cosponsor--Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), who was the author of the first Internet tax ban back in 1998--did not. His office didn't respond immediately to requests for an explanation.

What will happen next remains unclear. Because state officials and Internet and broadband companies still disagree over whether a permanent ban is advisable, it has appeared increasingly likely in recent months that simply a finite extension, to be revisited again in a few years, will ultimately pass. (Some Republicans have said they believe they have enough votes to enact a permanent ban, but Democratic leaders have been less willing to make that commitment.)

A spokesman for Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) deferred to the Commerce Committee to give further details on the bill's next step, and committee aides didn't respond immediately to requests for comment Thursday.

IBM, Google detail joint initiative

IBM and Google on Monday released details on their "academic cluster computing initiative" to provide data centers for remote computer programming.

The centers would allow a larger number of students and programmers to have access and processing power for writing software code involving massive amounts of data over the Internet, a practice known as "cloud computing."

The program, which is already under way at the University of Washington, will also be rolled out at Carnegie-Mellon University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Stanford University, the University of California at Berkeley and the University of Maryland. IBM and Google will provide hardware, software and services.

"The goal of this initiative is to improve computer science students' knowledge of highly parallel computing practices to better address the emerging paradigm of large-scale distributed computing," said IBM in a statement.

Parallel computational computing is the process by which one common task is broken down into a multitude of data packets that are simultaneously processed across multiple servers. The practice, when applied using remote servers accessed via the Internet, is referred to as cluster computing, or "cloud" computing.

The method can be used to improve efficiency for common tasks and to more easily complete difficult tasks that require extreme amounts of processing power, such as gene sequencing.

In addition to the university programs, both Google and IBM are going to provide free resources for the public.

Three different university curricula on topics related to cluster computing are available through a Creative Commons license. All three are offered by the University of Washington in conjunction with Google.

Google is also offering a series of free video lectures on cluster computing that it used for its own Summer 2007 interns. <

IBM will provide Hadoop, an open-source software platform for developing clusters, as well as a collaboration Web site for universities and students via the IBM Innovation Factory .

Microsoft announced its own cloud-computing initiative in July that it said would include opening up Windows Live to developers.

Watch for Seven Microsoft Patches Next Week

Microsoft Corp. last week slated seven security updates for release next Tuesday that target vulnerabilities in Windows, Internet Explorer, Outlook Express, Word and SharePoint.

Of the seven bulletins expected Oct. 9, four will be rated "critical," Microsoft's highest ranking, while the remainder will be labeled "important," the next-lower rating. What details Microsoft was willing to share prior to the patches' debut were posted to the prepatch notification filed on the company's Web site this morning.

"Looks like a pretty normal advance notification to me," said Andre Protas, director of preview at eEye Digital Security.

Windows will account for three of the seven updates, and one of the four critical fixes. The solitary critical bulletin affects Windows 2000, Windows XP Home SP2 and Windows Server 2003, Microsoft said.

The three remaining critical updates will address one or more vulnerabilities in Outlook Express, the e-mail software bundled with Windows, and Windows Mail, Vista's name for the program; Internet Explorer (IE); and Microsoft Word. Every version of IE will need a patch, according to the affected software section of the notice, including IE 7 on Vista, the edition Microsoft has repeatedly touted as its most secure browser ever.

While all versions of Outlook Express harbor a critical bug, as does Word 2000, the flaws in other flavors of Microsoft's entry-level mail client and word processor were designated as important.

"The Word vulnerability is undoubtedly a file parsing bug," said Andrew Storms, director of security operations at nCircle Network Security Inc., referring to the numerous flaws that Microsoft has patched in Office document formats since January 2006. "And the IE bug shows that Vista's protections are not aiding the browser like Microsoft had hoped.

Three critical vulnerabilities in IE7 have been patched so far this year, excluded those being addressed next week. The most recent was a vector markup language flaw fixed in August.

There are no in-the-wild Outlook Express or Windows Mail vulnerabilities in Danish bug tracker Secunia's database, but Storms hinted that he is familiar with the bug slated to be patched next Tuesday. "I have to take the Fifth," he said when asked if he knew of any vulnerabilities. Both e-mailers were last patched in June, when four holes were plugged in Windows Mail's handling of the MHTML protocol.

Storms was more forthcoming when talking about one of the updates judged important. Tagged only as Bulletin 5 for the moment, it affects Windows Server 2003 and Windows 2000 SP4, but not Windows XP or Vista. "It could be a man-in-the-middle attack," Storms theorized. "Maybe a server-side service is vulnerable, like DNS or DHCP."

He also remarked on the description Microsoft pinned to the bulletin; under Impact of Vulnerability, it listed Spoofing. "I don't remember seeing that before," he said. "That might be a good sign, that Microsoft is getting better at categorizing threats."

All versions of Outlook Express harbor a critical bug, as does Word 2000, but the flaws in other flavors of Microsoft's entry-level mail client and word processor were designated as important.

Windows will also get two out of the three important updates on Tuesday, with SharePoint Services 3.0 receiving the third. The SharePoint fix was originally scheduled to have been released last month, but at the last minute, Microsoft yanked that one without an explanation.

Assuming Microsoft releases all seven bulletins, users will have dealt with 61 updates so far this year, four fewer than same period in 2006.

Watch for Seven Microsoft Patches Next Week

Microsoft Corp. last week slated seven security updates for release next Tuesday that target vulnerabilities in Windows, Internet Explorer, Outlook Express, Word and SharePoint.

Of the seven bulletins expected Oct. 9, four will be rated "critical," Microsoft's highest ranking, while the remainder will be labeled "important," the next-lower rating. What details Microsoft was willing to share prior to the patches' debut were posted to the prepatch notification filed on the company's Web site this morning.

"Looks like a pretty normal advance notification to me," said Andre Protas, director of preview at eEye Digital Security.

Windows will account for three of the seven updates, and one of the four critical fixes. The solitary critical bulletin affects Windows 2000, Windows XP Home SP2 and Windows Server 2003, Microsoft said.

The three remaining critical updates will address one or more vulnerabilities in Outlook Express, the e-mail software bundled with Windows, and Windows Mail, Vista's name for the program; Internet Explorer (IE); and Microsoft Word. Every version of IE will need a patch, according to the affected software section of the notice, including IE 7 on Vista, the edition Microsoft has repeatedly touted as its most secure browser ever.

While all versions of Outlook Express harbor a critical bug, as does Word 2000, the flaws in other flavors of Microsoft's entry-level mail client and word processor were designated as important.

"The Word vulnerability is undoubtedly a file parsing bug," said Andrew Storms, director of security operations at nCircle Network Security Inc., referring to the numerous flaws that Microsoft has patched in Office document formats since January 2006. "And the IE bug shows that Vista's protections are not aiding the browser like Microsoft had hoped.

Three critical vulnerabilities in IE7 have been patched so far this year, excluded those being addressed next week. The most recent was a vector markup language flaw fixed in August.

There are no in-the-wild Outlook Express or Windows Mail vulnerabilities in Danish bug tracker Secunia's database, but Storms hinted that he is familiar with the bug slated to be patched next Tuesday. "I have to take the Fifth," he said when asked if he knew of any vulnerabilities. Both e-mailers were last patched in June, when four holes were plugged in Windows Mail's handling of the MHTML protocol.

Storms was more forthcoming when talking about one of the updates judged important. Tagged only as Bulletin 5 for the moment, it affects Windows Server 2003 and Windows 2000 SP4, but not Windows XP or Vista. "It could be a man-in-the-middle attack," Storms theorized. "Maybe a server-side service is vulnerable, like DNS or DHCP."

He also remarked on the description Microsoft pinned to the bulletin; under Impact of Vulnerability, it listed Spoofing. "I don't remember seeing that before," he said. "That might be a good sign, that Microsoft is getting better at categorizing threats."

All versions of Outlook Express harbor a critical bug, as does Word 2000, but the flaws in other flavors of Microsoft's entry-level mail client and word processor were designated as important.

Windows will also get two out of the three important updates on Tuesday, with SharePoint Services 3.0 receiving the third. The SharePoint fix was originally scheduled to have been released last month, but at the last minute, Microsoft yanked that one without an explanation.

Assuming Microsoft releases all seven bulletins, users will have dealt with 61 updates so far this year, four fewer than same period in 2006.

New Hybrid Hard Drives From Samsung and Seagate

These drives promise the best of both the magnetic-hard-disk and flash-disk worlds. Do they live up to that promise? We test two to find out.

When they were introduced a couple of years ago, hybrid hard drives seemed enticing. Pairing a standard hard drive with a flash component sounded like a good way to deliver on the theoretical performance boosts that flash can offer while still providing the long-standing price, capacity, and performance benefits of hard disks. We've now tested the first two hybrid hard drives to reach market, and we've discovered some clear benefits--but other results were inconclusive.

Seagate Momentus 5400 PSD

We looked at Seagate's Momentus 5400 PSD drive, announced today, and Samsung's SpinPoint MH80 drive, released this summer. Both models are 2.5-inch, 160GB notebook drives with 256MB of nonvolatile flash memory cache on board. The hard-drive industry concentrated on introducing the new technology in laptop drives because notebooks would be more likely to reap the benefits that hybrid tech promises, including faster boot time and power savings.

In the Test Center

The PC World Test Center examined the $190 Seagate Momentus 5400 PSD and the $299 Samsung SpinPoint MH80 alongside a $250 non-hybrid Hitachi Travelstar 7K200 (HTS722020k9SA00). We tested all three drives on a Dell Inspiron 1520, running a Core 2 Duo T7300 2-GHz CPU and 2GB of memory. Click the icon below to see a chart of our test results.

To test the hybrid drives, we did a fresh installation of the 32-bit version of Microsoft Windows Vista Ultimate and updated the drivers and BIOS. Surprisingly, we had to wait about 20 minutes for the operating system to recognize each hybrid drive. Once each drive was recognized, however, an NVCACHE tab appeared in the driver properties, and the drive was ready to work with Vista's ReadyDrive technology, which uses the drive's flash cache. You must run Windows Vista to use a hybrid hard drive.

To prepare the system to take advantage of any power savings the hybrid drive would provide, we entered the Power Options control panel and, under the Balanced power profile, changed the settings to enable the Windows Hybrid Hard Disk Power Savings Mode. Our experience was, in fact, much like that of someone who was upgrading their existing notebook with Vista and a hybrid hard drive.

The minimum requirements for using a hybrid drive are tied in with Vista's minimum requirements: Beyond having a system that runs Windows Vista and uses a Serial ATA interface, Seagate suggests that your PC have 2GB of memory, a dual-core or quad-core CPU, the latest BIOS revision (less than one year old), and the newest drivers. Seagate notes that hardware drivers can have an impact on a hybrid's benefits, though the company doesn't go into detail on this point in its reviewer's guide; when asked, the company stated that slow drivers can affect a PC's boot performance.

Power Savings Confirmed

The Hitachi drive is a performance model that spins at 7200 rpm, in contrast to the 5400-rpm speed of the Samsung and Seagate drives. However, the Hitachi model is representative of the direction notebook computing is going, as increasingly we're seeing mainstream and power notebooks with a 7200-rpm drive inside.

As such, it was no surprise that the Hitachi drive was the fastest at our timed hard-drive write tests. The Hitachi model required 154 seconds to copy 3.06GB of files and folders, versus the Seagate's 208 seconds and the Samsung's 217 seconds.

On our read tests, the difference was much smaller. The Hitachi required 25 seconds to search through its files, while the Seagate needed 29 seconds and the Samsung took 30 seconds. On our Panda virus-scan test of 6.12GB of files, the Hitachi and Seagate tied at 34 seconds, and the Samsung was just a shade behind at 36 seconds. Whether we can attribute those tight results to the hybrid models' use of 256MB of nonvolatile cache is uncertain, but the flash memory could be a factor.

Halo Games Maker to Be Independent of Microsoft

Microsoft said yesterday that it was giving up its controlling ownership of Bungie Software, the video game subsidiary that developed the hugely popular Halo franchise, including its latest iteration, Halo 3.

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Bungie, based in Kirkland, Wash., said it planned to return to its roots as an independent game studio, a move that eventually will cost Microsoft exclusive ties to one of the most successful and sought-after teams of game developers.

Harold Ryan, president and studio head of Bungie, said that he had been working for months on a plan to separate the studio from Microsoft, based in nearby Redmond, Wash. Mr. Ryan said that the companies had a good working relationship, but that developers at Bungie yearned to work for themselves, not a corporate owner.

“It’s an emotionally creative point of view,” he said of the decision to take the studio independent. “That’s the state we wanted to be in.”

Neither Mr. Ryan, nor Shane Kim, the head of Microsoft’s game studios, would discuss the financial terms. Microsoft originally acquired Bungie in 2000 for an undisclosed amount.

Bungie’s Halo games have been of singular significance to Microsoft in the development of its video game machine business.

Halo has been available exclusively on Microsoft’s Xbox video game consoles. That has meant the game’s popularity has helped drive consumers to the Xbox consoles rather than to competing systems made by Nintendo and Sony.

Microsoft said that since Halo 3 hit the market last week, it had rung up more than $300 million in sales. It has been selling at a faster pace than Halo and Halo 2, which combined sold nearly 15 million copies, Microsoft has said.

Mr. Kim said the separation furthered Microsoft’s aim of getting blockbuster hits for its consoles. “It was in our best interest to support Bungie’s desire to return to its independent roots,” he said.

At least initially, important aspects of the relationship between Microsoft and Bungie will remain intact.

Mr. Ryan said that Bungie planned to continue to develop games exclusively for the Xbox platform. He said that at some point, Bungie would have the right to develop games for other platforms, but he declined to say when.

Bungie has 113 employees. Evan Wilson, a video game industry analyst with Pacific Crest Securities, said that leading employees of Bungie had bought out majority ownership from Microsoft. “Bungie and Microsoft clearly had different creative directions,” Mr. Wilson said.

He added, “Bungie lost some key employees over the years, which while not uncommon for studios, may be an indication of that.”

BlackBerry 8820 Embraces Enterprise Wi-Fi Trend

RIM moves to fight the iPhone's dominance in the field of Wi-Fi-enabled devices with its BlackBerry 8820. Although just released in July, the iPhone is already the country's leading Wi-Fi-enabled device, according to analyst firm M:Metrics. Out of 1.9 million U.S. mobile devices with Wi-Fi, M:Metrics' numbers show the 8GB iPhone at the top of the list with 287,198 users.

That the wild consumer popularity of Apple's iPhone has quickly brought it to the head of the Wi-Fi pack is hardly surprising, but enterprises are also embracing Wi-Fi and Research In Motion's new BlackBerry 8820, which is designed to capitalize on that trend.

Close behind the iPhone in M:Metrics' rankings is the enterprise-friendly Cingular 8125 Pocket PC, with 240,865 users.

"Adding Wi-Fi to a RIM device makes a lot of sense," Mark Donovan, a senior research analyst at M:Metrics, told eWEEK Oct. 3. "We're certainly seeing Wi-Fi break out on the high end [of smart phones]. It's another arrow in the quiver."

Click here to read an eWEEK Labs review of the BlackBerry 8820.

With Wi-Fi capability, BlackBerry 8820 users on the AT&T network are able to link with their companies' wireless campus networks or access e-mail and browse the Web at Wi-Fi hot spots even in the few countries in which AT&T does not have data roaming agreements.

Along with Wi-Fi, the BlackBerry 8820 includes built-in GPS through TeleNav, push-to-talk technology and the core RIM infrastructure of e-mail and call management. "It will make a road warrior very, very happy," Donovan said.

The device provides support for 802.11a, b and g, with enterprise security features, extending the BlackBerry platform to business customers at public hot spots and on wireless LANs, as well as through home Wi-Fi networks.

That AT&T is the carrier for both the iPhone and the BlackBerry 8820 is hardly surprising, analysts said.

"They are just segmenting their market," Donovan said. "The iPhone has a clear focus on consumer interests, but the locked-down devices are not going to see much interest from enterprises."

AT&T claims the quadband BlackBerry will allow users to wirelessly connect in at least 135 countries, more than is offered by any other U.S. carrier. Customers can also use the BlackBerry 8820 to make or receive wireless phone calls in more than 190 countries.

Check out eWEEK.com's Mobile & Wireless Center for the latest news, reviews and analysis on mobile and wireless computing.

Adobe Readies Visual Programming Tool

Adobe MAX previewed 'Thermo,' to help designers build rich Internet applications.

Elizabeth Montalbano, IDG News Service

Adobe Systems Inc. next year will release a visual tool for designers to help them more quickly and easily build RIAs (rich Internet applications) and work better with developers writing code on the back end.

The tool, code-named Thermo, allows designers to draw a picture of what an application will look like and then, without having to write code, generate applications from those pictures that have the full ability to interact with users, said Mark Anders, vice president of engineering for Adobe. He and Adobe Product Manager Steven Heintz demonstrated the tool on stage during Tuesday's keynote at the Adobe MAX 2007 user conference in Chicago.

Adobe, like Microsoft Corp. and other companies providing tools to develop RIAs, are trying to solve the problem of how designers and developers work together, since their processes are very different. It has been traditionally difficult for designers' vision for the visual presentation of the application to come to fruition once developers code the logic of the application. Moreover, designers that are visually oriented are not typically good coders, and it has been difficult for them to create an application that truly meets their vision for it with the tools available today.

According to Anders, Thermo should help solve these problems by allowing designers to turn their visual representation of an application into a working program before it gets to developers. "We're really trying to make it so that designers don't have to change the way they work, and what they give to a developer makes more sense," he said.

Thermo, which is in the early stages of development, is built on the Flex Builder development environment, a tool the company already offers to help bridge the gap between developers and designers. Flex provides workflows developers can recognize to render visual parts of the application so it's easier for them to add visual elements to an RIA. Designers using Thermo don't have to write code for their applications, but they can choose to view the source code and see it in a Flex Builder editor that they can work with if they want to, Anders said.

An early preview of Thermo should be available for designers next year, though Adobe has not set a date for a full release of the product. Adobe usually provides preview releases of new technology that is not fully baked to developers and designers so they can start using it to build applications as well as give the company feedback.

Adobe Maps Future of Flash, Flex, AIR

At the Flashforward show, Adobe shows off new and upcoming features to key technologies.
BOSTON—Adobe's chief software architect, Kevin Lynch, mapped out the direction of some of the company's core technologies for developers and designers in a speech to Adobe designers and developers here Sept. 19. Speaking at the Flashforward 2007 Conference, Lynch discussed the ongoing developments occurring with Adobe technologies, including Flash, Flex and the Adobe Integrated Runtime (AIR, formerly code-named Apollo), in a keynote presentation that was essentially a preview of the Adobe Max conference slated to run Sept. 30 through Oct. 3 in Chicago. Lynch said Adobe has been making "incredible progress" with AIR, and a beta of the technology will be available "in the next couple of weeks" to coincide with the Max event. In a separate talk, Mike Chambers, principal product manager for developer relations at Adobe, described AIR as "a cross-platform run-time that allows Web developers to leverage existing development skills to build and deploy Web applications to the desktop." AIR applications can be built in Flash, Flex, HTML and AJAX (Asynchronous JavaScript and XML), he said. "It's not just about Flash. You don't need to know any Flash" to use AIR, Chambers said. Adobe has been working on AIR for nearly five years in various forms, yet "it's still early" in the process of shaping the technology into a product, Lynch said. "We're focused on enabling these apps to run well on the desktop—taking advantage of Flash, as well as HTML and PDF," he said. Adobe and BEA Systems are teaming up on Web applications. Read why. AIR is designed to be usable in both online and offline modes and detects when the user has a network connection, Lynch said. The second beta of AIR will also support access to local file system archives, user notification, applications updates, drag-and-drop capability and local storage, among other features, Lynch said. Lynch demonstrated applications based on Adobe's AIR, some of which he said had never been shown before. Among those demonstrated was one from the Adobe AIR sample applications Web site called Pixel Perfect, a utility for measuring the size of objects on a user's desktop. Other AIR-based applications included Art Musheen, the Digimix Project, Finetune and the Buzzword word-processing application. Hitting on Adobe's most famous technology, Lynch mentioned that the next version of the company's Flash Player is code-named Astro and will be discussed in greater detail at the Max conference. He did, however, demonstrate many of the capabilities of an upgrade to the current version of the product, Flash Player 9. The upgrade, known as "Moviestar," enhances the video capabilities of the player, he said. "We're really focused on video technology and helping you create experiences," Lynch said. Indeed, Adobe is intent on helping developers and designers plan, acquire, produce, manage, publish, deliver and play back video content, he said.

Adobe Releases Flex Builder Linux Alpha

mikepotter writes "Adobe announced Flex Builder Linux Alpha at the Adobe MAX conference today. This is a native Linux port of the Flex Builder IDE (based on Eclipse) for building rich Internet applications. 'Flex Builder Linux is a plugin-only version of the Flex Builder that you can use to build Flex applications on Linux. We wanted to get an early release out with the base Flex Builder features so you could begin to provide us with your feedback and let us know your priorities for additional features.'"

Adobe plots its path on the Web

Much of the future success of Adobe Systems hinges on the work done by its Platform business unit headed by Kevin Lynch, the company's chief software architect.

But if the pressure's getting to him, it's not showing. Plus, he figures, Adobe's got the Web at large working for him.

Adobe makes the bulk of its money from packaged software in its Creative Suite, which includes Photoshop, Illustrator and other creative design tools.

As it looks ahead, Adobe is trying to diversify into online services for consumers and businesses. And it would like to keep its audience of Web developers and designers loyal and not lose them to Microsoft, which is increasingly competing with Adobe.

That's where Adobe's Platform group comes in. It designs the plumbing that will allow Adobe product groups to offer online services and other companies to write cutting-edge applications.

For Web developers, it has made more sophisticated tooling with Flex. More significant is the Adobe Integrated Runtime (AIR), cross-platform software that enables Web applications to run on a desktop.

During the company's Max 2007 conference, Lynch, who came to Adobe through its acquisition of Macromedia in 2005, spoke to CNET News.com about Adobe's strategy and its big bet on the Web.

Q: The big announcement from the first day was that you bought the company that made Buzzword, a Web word processor. Why are you getting into that business that Microsoft Office is in? Lynch: We thought that (Buzzword) was just a great example of potential of the runtimes that we are working on and also a great application in its own right. So it's not so much as getting into the Office market space as it's just seeing a great Web application that has a lot of potential and shows what the technology can do. And I think it's a good example of the direction that we think that application development is really having now.

Video: Transitioning to Web apps From the Max 2007 conference in Chicago: CNET News.com's Martin LaMonica talks with Adobe's Kevin Lynch about the company's shift into Web applications.

But Buzzword is also part of your whole services push. Give us an idea of where you're going with services and how you intend to make money on them? Lynch: Well, services is a new area for Adobe. We've been doing some services for a while like Connect, which enables you to collaborate online. What we're working on now, however, is a number of new services for designers and developers. So the Share beta is a way to store documents that you are working on with other people. And that's a gigabyte of space--it's a free service. We're also providing APIs (application programming interfaces) so you can build your own rich Internet applications around that service. We think that's going to be kind of a foundation service for us and a lot of other services and tools that work with that. Buzzword of course will be one of the first applications that will be hooking up to Share so you can work on documents on Share or you can work on them locally.

Also we're working on what we see is some enabling services for collaboration applications. So voice is a really important technology for communicating with somebody else live, so we are working on embedding voice capabilities into the clients of the Web so you can actually build a rich Internet application with extremely high-quality voice communications. And that's code-named Pacifica.

And the second one is one to enable rich collaborations. So screen sharing, white boarding, seeing someone else's video inside your application...The last one is in many ways the first one which is Scene7, the dynamic imaging service.

So these are all base-level services--imaging, voice, collaboration, documents--and that's because we are just getting started in this space. But it has a lot of potential for other services as well.

iRobot's Angle on the future: More profit

Robots are increasingly the go-to gadgets for both mundane and highly difficult tasks, whether it's cleaning your house or protecting a soldier in combat.

There has always been a cultural tug-of-war between the embrace and fear of robots. At iRobot, that split is made manifest in product lineups.

It's almost as if iRobot were two companies. There is iRobot, the maker of friendly housecleaning robots like Roomba that can be bought at stores like Target and Amazon.com. And then there is iRobot, the military contractor with robots that can not only detect snipers, weapons and chemicals, but could also be mounted with deadly weapons.

The company is also caught between being an innovator and a profit maker. While consumers may be looking for an iRobot lawnmower, shareholders, faced with slowed growth and increased net losses, are looking for a profit.

This week, the company debuted a revamped version of its Roomba. iRobot CEO Colin Angle sat down with CNET News.com at his company's Burlington, Mass., headquarters to discuss where robots can go from here and where his company fits in.

Q: Why did you decide it was time for the Roomba to be redesigned? Angle: Where the current version of the robot would fall down, we just wanted to find ways of making it last longer and be more and more durable. As you increase this utility and people go from vacuuming with the Roomba once a week to every single day, it creates a huge challenge as far as just making a product so durable that it'll last.

How many years do you think that this particular model is going to last the average consumer? Angle: I think it's designed to last three to five years if being used every single day. So, it's very durable.

You have the PackBots for the military and the Dirt Dog for tougher vacuuming. Is iRobot going to get into commercial and industrial markets, or are you going to stick with consumer and military? Angle: The robot industry is only at its early stages. There are hundreds, if not thousands, of wonderful applications for robots. Throughout our 17- to 18-year history, we've explored many different opportunities for robots to create value and we're only currently pursuing a few today. That is helping people maintain their homes and helping our soldiers get more eyes and ears in very, very dangerous places.

Industrial cleaning, optimizing production and exploration for oil, mining, landscaping--they are all great applications which we're very interested in doing. I know other companies are interested in finding ways of making these types of machines and, you know, over the next 5 to 10 years many of these devices will most likely come into being.

From iRobot? Angle: Well, if not us, then others. We can only invest so much every year on these new applications and trying to demonstrate to the world that not only are robots exciting, new, plenty of opportunity, but also that it's a good business. We've committed to our investors and Wall Street that we're going to focus on growth, focus on improving our bottom line and develop not just as a technical developer, but as a business and industrial leader in this space. Because ultimately that will lead to more investment, more attention, a more rapidly growing marketplace. And if another company is starting to figure (something) out and is doing good work, maybe they'd become someone we can acquire and become part of iRobot.

iRobot phones home, cleans gutters

iRobot CEO Colin Angle introduces the Looj gutter-cleaning robot at DigitalLife 2007 in New York on Thursday.

The Looj, whose photos were accidentally leaked earlier by the Federal Communications Commission's Web site, is a robot for cleaning gutters on the outside of the home. While it looks neat, the robot is more or less a home-helping tool that works by remote control.

iRobot CEO: Forget 'The Jetsons'

NEW YORK--iRobot would rather people forget their 1960s futuristic robotic home fantasies and appreciate practical robots that work.

The iRobot home is certainly not The Jetsons cartoon home from what company Chief Executive Colin Angle presented on Thursday at DigitalLife 2007.

"I'm asking everyone today to say goodbye to The Jetsons, goodbye to Hollywood robots...That's as likely as us going to live in bubble homes above the ground...And welcome perhaps a little boring looking, but fantastically capable robots," said Angle.

Angle took the audience through the entire lineup of iRobot's consumer robot line including the new Roomba 500 series vacuum, the Scooba, the DirtDog shop-vac robot and the Vero pool-cleaning robot.

He then unveiled and demonstrated two new robots for the home, the Looj and the ConnectR. While the Looj does deal with the outdoors, it's not the lawnmower robot competitor to Husqvarna Auto Mower that people had speculated iRobot might offer.

Instead, the Looj is a remote-control gutter-cleaning robot that uses an auger to break up debris, paddles attached to the auger to fling the debris out of the gutter and a small brush for sweeping. It costs $99 and is available now from the iRobot Web site, with a roll-out to stores in the coming weeks, according to Angle.

The second robot, the ConnectR, is a communication robot that offers two-way audio, a Webcam and the ability to move around a room. It connects to a local wireless network and can be controlled from anywhere through a Web-based application. The ConnectR will be available next year.

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"I'm guilty personally of making very cool but impractical walking robots for years before I realized this is the point. If we want to change the world, we have to create robots that perform and deliver practical results. There's this tension of cool versus practical," he said.

Despite the ConnectR price tag of about $499, Angle insisted the iRobot home is not for the privileged few. The company is offering the ConnectR at a discounted price of $199 in exchange for feedback. While anyone can apply for the program, iRobot is only offering the deal to a limited number of people.

"The robot home done well is going to give you more control and opportunity in your life. The iRobot home is absolutely not the sole domain of the tech elite, the digerati, the tech gadget guys," he said.

On the road to robot race

After a two-year break since its last robot race, the U.S. government's Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency will hold the semifinals of its Urban Grand Challenge from October 26 through October 31. Thirty-five teams are expected to descend on the dusty town of Victorville, Calif., to race their modified robotic cars through a mock city at the former George Air Force Base, pictured here.

DARPA has sponsored three challenges so far to help foster development of robotic cars in private industry, and meet the U.S. government's goal of replacing one-third of combat ground vehicles with driverless cars by 2015. Its competitions took a leap forward in 2005 when five teams completed the 132-mile desert course that was laid out and Stanford University claimed the $2 million first-place prize for finishing in the fastest time.

The Urban Challenge will likely be much harder, however. Teams' robots must drive a 60-mile course on city streets and deal with much more external stimuli than on the desert terrain. University and private industry teams are furiously preparing for the semifinals and to make the 20-team cut for the finals on November 3. Winner of first place will take home $2 million; second place, $1 million and third, $500,000. Here is a selection of the urban race competitors.