Thursday, February 28, 2013

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Apple boss promises shareholders new shapes

Posted: 28 Feb 2013 05:05 AM PST

The poor man's Steve Jobs, Tim Cook has admitted that he can no longer base Apple on the single innovation of the rounded rectangle.

For the last year or so, Apple has relied on using its invention, the rounded rectangle, as its latest innovation - patent trolling - until other mobile gadget companies had to come up with new ideas.

Now, according to CNET, Cook has had to reassure shareholders (again) after dependence on the rounded rectangle had caused the company's value to plunge 37 percent in five months.

Cook had done his best to recycle the rounded rectangle cash cow, firstly by added the ability to use voice search and then by adding a map programme which helped a person get lost anywhere in the world.

Cook had to admit to shareholders that the polygon really has gone this time and new innovations are required.

He said that crack teams of Apple designers were coming up with new shapes which had never been seen before. He did not say what they were, but Apple insiders suggested that a rhombus had been ruled out because the trademark was owned by the Rome transit authority, and a circle was deemed pretty pointless. At the moment the hot favourite is understood to be an elipse, which no one has thought about yet. Apple insiders think it will be a super cool game changer.

Cook, who was just awarded a super cool game changing pay cut for his work in Apple over the last year, refused to specify what Apple's R&D team have been working on.

Some think that Apple might copy Samsung's watch or Intel's new TV-related product. All that requires is some extensive marketing to make people think Cupertino invented it first. This was what happened when Apple invented the MP3 player and the tablet.

Shareholders are still confident in the company's leadership though - the entire board was re-elected with Cook getting 99 percent of votes. This is not bad considering that there were no other candidates to vote for. But, hell, democracy is like a rounded rectangle – it goes around only if you are a square. 

China accuses US of regularly hacking military sites

Posted: 28 Feb 2013 04:01 AM PST

The Chinese People's Liberation Army is firing back at hacking accusations made by US officials and security companies earlier this month. The PLA's weapon of choice is a set of counter-accusations against the US military.

In a statement published on China's Ministry of Defence website, a spokesperson said the MoD site, along with the China Military Online site, have faced serious threats from hacking attacks. The spokesperson also pointed out that the number of attacks had risen in recent years.

The MoD said the sites came under attack 144,000 times a month in 2012 and attacks from the US accounted for 62.9 percent of all attacks last year. Furthermore, the ministry expressed its concerns over US plans to expand cyber warfare capabilities, reports ZDNet. 

The ministry also dismissed a recent report by security outfit Mandiant, which claimed to have pinpointed the origin of numerous cyber attacks on US targets to a 12-story building occupied by a PLA cyber warfare unit. The spokesperson said the report was inaccurate, unprofessional and full of loopholes.

"Chinese law forbids hacking attacks which undermine mutual networking safety behavior, [and] the Chinese government has always resolutely combated crime live action. The Chinese army [also do not] support any hacker activity," spokesperson Geng Yansheng said. 

Hackers try to steal intelligence from Europe

Posted: 28 Feb 2013 02:32 AM PST

Kaspersky Lab has discovered a hacking attempt which tried to sneak sensitive intelligence out of 20 European countries.

A statement from Kaspersky said that the attacks were a complex online assault rarely seen since the turn of the millennium.

Dubbed "MiniDuke" by researchers, malware has infected government computers in an attempt to steal geopolitical intelligence.

Governments targeted include those of Ireland, Romania, Portugal, Belgium and the Czech Republic. The malware compromised the computers of a prominent research foundation in Hungary, and two thinktanks.

Kaspersky told the Guardian the attackers had servers based in Panama and Turkey but looking at the code did not indicate where the attack had come from,

Victims' computers were infected when they opened a disguised Adobe PDF attachment to an email.

Eugene Kaspersky, founder and chief executive of Kaspersky, said MiniDuke had the potential to be "extremely dangerous" because it was an "elite, old-school" attack that used some 21st century tricks.

He said that it was an unusual cyber-attack and similar to the malicious programming from the end of the 1990s and the beginning of the 2000s.

Kaspersky wondered if these types of malware writers, who have been in hibernation for more than a decade, have suddenly awoken and joined the sophisticated group of threat actors active in the cyber world. 

Game of Thrones director "clarifies" TV piracy stance

Posted: 28 Feb 2013 02:03 AM PST

Game of Thrones director David Petrarca has been forced to clarify comments he made about online piracy not really causing many problems.

The Swords and Nubile Blonde series holds the record for being the most pirated television series in history, mostly because it is popular and the studios could not agree on getting common release dates.

Speaking last weekend to the Perth Writers Festival, Petrarca, who has worked on top telly shows including Game of Thrones and True Blood, said he did not think the downloads affected the overall success of the show.

All seems fair enough, but the problem was that it was singing off the Big Content hymn sheet which states clearly that piracy is killing off the entertainment industry and undermining the success of top shows.

According to the Sydney Morning Herald, Petrarca appears to have had a sudden change of heart. He said that some media had taken the comments out of context to make it look like he condoned illegal downloading. He clarified he's absolutely against the illegal downloading of any content.

He said that he was 100 percent, completely and utterly against people illegally downloading anything.

Petrarca said his point was that the downloads demonstrated that the shows were in such high demand that people were willing to go to great lengths to find ways to watch them, particularly in countries like Australia where the shows were not seen for some time after they air in the United States.

He said that a buzz is created by the fact that so many people want it. Petrarca said he hoped people would one day be able to legally obtain shows from anywhere in the world and not be limited by where they were.

This is still singing off the Big Content hymn sheet, as it implies that the studios do not know their arse from their elbow by trying to block distribution in an age where people can pirate films if they do not get them quickly. However, he might get away with that comment.

Petrarca said that it was his hope that technology will find a way to take care of the piracy problem as nobody wins by illegally downloading content.

He said that most pirates would be willing to pay for a show they love.

Google boss: Smartphones stole my masculinity

Posted: 28 Feb 2013 01:36 AM PST

Google co-founder and Google Glasses enthusiast Sergey Brin claims that smartphones are emasculating.

Speaking at the TED conference, Brin seemed to imply that if you use a smartphone you might as well put your family jewels in a blender and that the whole Android thing was a sure way to make real men start eating quiche.

He wants men to start using Google Glasses so that they can kick sand into the faces of nerds everywhere and score themselves a proper woman.

Brin went so far as to say that using smartphones is "emasculating" because they did not show you how to use your body.

Smartphones encourage men to walk around hunched up, looking down, and occasional rub a featureless piece of glass.

He thinks that it is much better to look at the world through Joe 90 style glasses as apparently this will make you ooze with testosterone. Brin did not say what would happen if women wore his magic specs.

Brin's remarks came after Google announced a pre-release version of the device for $1,500. To apply, would-be Glass owners have to pitch Google on Google+ or Twitter using the hashtag #ifihadglass, Network World reports.

Anyone left out of the pilot program will have a chance to buy Glass later this year when it becomes available, Brin said. The final price tag will be below $1,500 but Brin did not say how much it would cost for males to get their manhood back.

Freescale cooks up tiny ARM chip for you to eat

Posted: 28 Feb 2013 01:25 AM PST

Freescale Semiconductor claims to have created the world's smallest ARM-powered chip which has been designed to be swallowed.

The Kinetis KL02 measures 1.9 by 2 millimeters. It's a full microcontroller unit and includes a processor, RAM, ROM, clock and I/O control unit.

It has KL02 has 32k of flash memory, 4k of RAM, a 32 bit processor, and peripherals like a 12-bit analog to digital converter and a low-power UART built into the chip. There is not a lot you can do with that sort of power, but that is sort of the point.

Freescale says it is working with customers and partners on providing technology for its products that can be swallowed. As the device is so small, parents can easily sneak the chips through school gates at lunch time.

Steve Tateosian, global product marketing manager said that it is all part of a cunning plan to make chips tailored to the Internet of Things.

Freescale already works with a variety of health and wellness customers so what could be better than an internet connected colon?

Tateosian told Wired that one day it will be possible to have a chip inside your body which wakes you up and plays you music when you want it.

Of course, it makes it possible for hackers to actually crack the chip and take control of your body, but what is that when you are dealing with the process of science?

Then there is the small matter of those, usually living in America, who believe that such chips are the mark of the beast and a sign that the world is going to come to an end.

The device will go into general retail, although it has been made for a specific un-named client, so we cannot confirm that the tiny chip comes from HP sauce.

Microsoft urged to make the iPad useful

Posted: 27 Feb 2013 07:44 AM PST

In a classic effort of tail wagging the dog, Microsoft is being urged to make the iPad useful by introducing Office to the platform.

From Microsoft's perspective this is crazy as it actually gives the iPad a function, something that it has largely lacked, and takes away any advantage from Vole's own products. It also gives Apple a clearer entry into the BYOD craze.

Look at this Reuters story here. Reuters along with other outfits has taken to talking up Apple products, referring to them as "iconic", "game changing" and other approved buzzwords,  as well as insisting that tablets are killing off the PC, another part of Cupertino's reality distortion field.

In the above story Kurt DelBene, head of Microsoft's Office unit, was asked a question about what Reuters dubbed the hot-selling iPad at a Morgan Stanley technology investor conference in San Francisco. The question "why don't you make an office app for the iPad?" came from an unnamed source.

DelBene talked about online versions of Office apps, which can be accessed via a browser but do not offer the full richness of installed software. Vole had done some work with Apple to make sure that these are functional, he said.

Reuters clearly was not happy with this remark so accused him of "side-stepping questions" about any plans the software maker may have to bring its Office suite of applications to Apple's iPad. One analyst, Morgan Stanley's Adam Holt, claims the suite could generate $2.5 billion in extra revenue for Microsoft per year.

Reuters admitted that it would remove an incentive to buying Windows-based tablets, and would give Apple a huge cut of Office revenues but seems upset that the Vole is not doing it.

Instead it hit out at Microsoft for trying to steer clear of the topic in public.

Reuters wrote that over 100 million iPad owners, many of whom want to bring their devices to work, have to use the limited online versions of desktop staples Word, Excel and PowerPoint. Poor lambs, maybe they should buy something that does run this software. 

"The writer also pointed out that removing incentives to buy Windows tablets would be a blow to Microsoft's flagship Windows unit, which although less profitable than Office, is still key to the company's overall strategy."

So Microsoft should be doing it why, then? 
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