TECHNOLOGY, Microsoft Fails to Credit Kelihos Takedown Partner

Microsoft grabbed headlines Wednesday with its report about the successful takedown of the Kelihos botnet, but while the company detailed the achievements of its Digital Crimes Unit, it failed to mention the major role security firm Kaspersky Lab played in the operation.
Microsoft's Kelihos takedown announcement centered on the fact that its specialized team of lawyers succeeded in naming defendants in a botnet-related federal court complaint for the first time -- such cases usually involve unknown parties.
The named defendants were Alexander Piatti and his Czech-based company dotFREE Group SRO, which operated a second-level domain (SLD) registration service in the .cz.cc name space. This service was abused by the botnet's operators to set up hosts for their control infrastructure. A temporary restraining order was obtained by the Digital Crimes Unit in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, forcing VeriSign to suspend the cz.cc domain.
Microsoft did not disclose any technical details about how Kelihos was hijacked from its original operators because Kaspersky Lab handled that part of the operation. The security company's experts explained Thursday in a lengthy blog post how they took control of the botnet, but they probably didn't appreciate being left out of the story in the first place.
"Hey @msftmmpc [Microsoft Malware Protection Center] why didn't u mention all truth about Hlux/Kelihos botnet taking down?" Dmitry Bestuzhev, head of Kaspersky Lab's global research and analysis team for Latin America, wrote on Twitter.
"Kaspersky Lab played a critical role in this botnet takedown initiative, leading the way to reverse-engineer the bot malware, crack the communication protocol and develop tools to attack the peer-to-peer infrastructure," said Tillmann Werner, a senior virus analyst with Kaspersky in Germany. "We worked closely with Microsoft's Digital Crimes Unit (DCU), sharing the relevant information and providing them with access to our live botnet tracking system," he added.
Even the antivirus vendor's co-founder and CEO, Eugene Kaspersky, linked to his company's blog post with the message: "The flipside of the Microsoft's takedown of Kelihos (Hlux) botnet."
Kaspersky Lab currently operates the only server where computers infected with this malware connect to, which effectively puts it in control of the botnet. The company has the resources to keep this so-called sinkhole operational for a long time, but the end goal is to reduce Kelihos' size as much as possible.
Sending commands to clean the infected systems remotely would be illegal in most countries, so this won't be an easy task. Microsoft has added detection for the Kelihos malware family to its Malicious Software Removal Tool (MSRT), which is distributed to computers worldwide via Windows Update, but the effects have yet to show.
The software giant claims that not crediting Kaspersky Lab in its original announcement was the result of poor communication between the two companies. "Due to an unfortunate miscommunication between Microsoft and Kaspersky prior to the announcement, Microsoft was operating under the belief that it was Kaspersky's desire to not be proactively mentioned in the announcement --- as some partners commonly request and which we understand and respect given the sensitivity of these situations," said Richard Boscovich, a senior attorney with the Microsoft Digital Crimes Unit.
"However, we were very glad to see Kaspersky subsequently come forward with their role in the operation, because we very much want to give them the credit they deserve. Their research and unique, in-depth insight into the botnet was invaluable in this case and we are grateful for their support and determination to make the Internet safer for everyone," he added.
That being said, Microsoft did credit another partner in their original announcement, a company called Kyrus Tech, which served as a declarant in the legal case that enabled the Kelihos takedown.

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TECHNOLOGY, Google Launches Paid Premium Version of Analytics

Google has developed a paid version of its Analytics website usage monitoring service that offers better performance, more sophisticated features and broader technical support than the free product, the company said on Friday.
Analytics Premium is designed for sites with very heavy traffic that need "extra processing power" behind their analytics software so that they can collect more data, perform more complex analysis and generate more granular reports, Google said.
The paid version of Analytics will also feature advanced service offerings for things like custom implementations and around-the-clock technical support, the company said in a blog post. Google also offers service level agreements for Analytics Premium.
While developing Analytics Premium, Google worked with some of its biggest Analytics users, including Travelocity and Gucci. The service is available in the U.S., Canada and the U.K. for an undisclosed annual fee. Companies can sign up for it directly with Google or through Analytics resellers.
Google Analytics used to be a paid service back when it was called Urchin on Demand, but after Google acquired the company in 2005, it made it a free product.
Google's decision to offer Urchin on Demand as a free product rocked the website analytics market at the time, since most vendors charged for their wares. Urchin on Demand, for example, cost US$199 per month.
Since acquiring Urchin Software, Google has continued to develop and sell an on-premise version of the software, which in its most recent version -- Urchin 7 -- costs $9995 in the U.S.
However, Google from the start has encouraged customers to use Analytics, whose software is hosted by Google in its data centers in a software-as-a-service cloud model.
It's interesting to see Google come around after six years and reintroduce a paid version of the cloud-hosted product to the market for heavy-duty users who rely on Analytics to constantly evaluate the effectiveness of ad campaigns or the popularity of website content. The decision may in part reflect the increased importance websites play in businesses, and the need for companies to closely track usage to fine-tune marketing campaigns, e-commerce initiatives and content strategies.
Google said on Friday that it will continue to develop and enhance the free version of Analytics.

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TECHNOLOGY, Percona Curbs MySQL Memory Hunger

Percona has updated its version of MySQL so that the software's storage engine consumes less working memory, potentially increasing its suitability for tasks requiring an in-memory database, the company announced Friday.
The in-memory storage engine of Percona Server 5.5.15 now can hold all MySQL data types, including the previously unsupported BLOB and TEXT data types, which could also broaden its appeal to large-scale Web services companies.
If a deployment "has very small memory tables, [this version] may save a few megabytes of memory. It's no big deal. But if you are using tens or hundreds of gigabytes of data in memory, that is where you will find that our changes have an advantage," said Percona founder and CEO Peter Zaitsev.
Founded in 2006, Percona bills itself as the largest and oldest independent MySQL services vendor outside of Oracle. Internet-facing companies such as GroupOn, RightNow, Answer.Com, 37Signals and the British Broadcasting Corporation have availed themselves of Percona's services. Percona Server is an open source version of MySQL with a number of enhancements for production use. Percona sells support for the server.
For this release, the company modified the MySQL MEMORY storage engine, which was designed to store database tables in a server's working memory, eliminating the need to write each change to a disk, which can slow transaction speeds. For jobs such as hosting a website, MySQL Memory can significantly speed response times.
A number of limitations have hobbled the basic version of MySQL MEMORY, Zaitsev said. Most notably, MEMORY (formerly known as HEAP) can work only with a subset of data types allowable in MySQL, notably only those with fixed lengths.
With fixed-length data types, each entry to the database will be stored in an identically sized storage block. Because most entries won't use all the space in their storage blocks, this approach is inherently inefficient, due to all empty space it creates. "For many problems, you have to store strings of different lengths," Zaitsev said.
On disk drives, where space is relatively cheap, this waste is not a huge deal. On the more expensive RAM, however, such waste is costly.
Percona Server 5.5.15, which is based on MySQL 5.5.15, comes with an enhanced version of MySQL MEMORY that can work with any MySQL data type, including variable-length data types such as BLOB and TEXT.
EBay principal developer Igor Chernyshev first developed this technology in 2008, in order to improve memory usage for that company's services. His version allowed entries encoded in the VARCHAR data type to be stored at their natural lengths, rather than at a larger fixed length. Percona then added support for the TEXT and BLOB data types, both of which can be used to store large strings of text.
How much memory this version will save will vary greatly from one implementation to another, Zaitsev said. It could cut as much memory requirements by as much half or even more, on the data types formerly used. It also opens the use of in-memory databases to organizations that only use variable-length data types before, and were not willing to convert the data to a fixed-length data type.
In-memory databases are growing increasingly popular as more organizations set up Web-facing or real-time systems, which need to be as responsive as possible. Oracle's TimesTen, SAP's HANA database and VoltDB all serve this market as well.
Joab Jackson covers enterprise software and general technology breaking news for The IDG News Service. Follow Joab on Twitter at @Joab_Jackson. Joab's e-mail address is Joab_Jackson@idg.com

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TECHNOLOGY, Uh Oh: The Cloud is the New 'Bring Your Own' Tech for Users

A new study by cloud monitoring provider Opsview finds that more than two thirds of U.K. organizations are worried about something called "cloud sprawl." Cloud sprawl happens when employees deploy cloud computing-based applications without the involvement of their IT department. In the U.S., we call these "rogue clouds," but it looks like this situation is becoming an international issue -- and reflects the same "consumerized IT" trend reflected by the invasion of personal mobile devices into the enterprise in the last 18 months.
Here's my take on this phenomenon: If IT does its job, then those at the department levels won't have to engage cloud providers to solve business problems. I think that most in IT disagree with this, if my speaking engagements are any indication. However, if I were in IT and somebody told me they had to use a cloud-based product to solve a problem because they could no longer wait for IT, I would be more likely to apologize than to tell them they broke some rule. Moreover, I would follow up with guidance and learn how to use the cloud myself more effectively.
[ In the data center today, the action is in the private cloud. InfoWorld's experts take you through what you need to know to do it right in our "Private Cloud Deep Dive" PDF special report. | Also check out our "Cloud Security Deep Dive," our "Cloud Storage Deep Dive," and our "Cloud Services Deep Dive." ]
In the rogue cloud arena, most uses of cloud computing are very tactical in nature. They might include building applications within Google App Engine to automate a commission-processing system, using a cloud-based shared-calendar system for project staffers, or using a database-as-a-service provider to drive direct marketing projects. You name it.
The threat to those in IT is more than the security issues they point to when they push back on rouge clouds. Their reaction is more likely related to the fact that they are made to look bad when those they should be serving have to go outside of the company for their solutions. Perhaps driven by embarrassment or prioritizing the assertion of control higher than helping business units succeed, the reaction of most in IT is to create or republish policies prohibiting the use of unauthorized platforms -- and perhaps knock a few heads together to make that "thou shall not" policy clear to all.
I believe a different approach is required. Those in IT should interpret cloud sprawl as an indication that they could be doing a better job in setting the path forward into the cloud. Instead of fighting the users, figure out how to leverage the cloud as a way to help employees do their jobs better, and even help the business units do so directly. It's a new concept for many of us.
This article, "Uh oh: The cloud is the new 'bring your own' tech for users," originally appeared atInfoWorld.com. Read more of David Linthicum's Cloud Computing blog and track the latest developments in cloud computing at InfoWorld.com. For the latest business technology news, follow InfoWorld.com on Twitter.

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TECHNOLOGY, Italian Firm Takes on Skype Deal in a David-Goliath Battle

A complaint by a small Italian firm to the European Commission could derail Microsoft's acquisition of Skype.
Messagenet, based in Milan, has written to the Commission to warn it about the probable antitrust ramifications arising from the merger of Skype and Microsoft. As a result, the Commission may demand the unbundling of Skype from Microsoft's dominant Windows Office suite before approving the proposed deal.
Microsoft's US$8.5 billion acquisition of Skype is its biggest ever and would allow the company's new Windows phones to compete directly with Google and Apple smartphones.
But Messagenet owner Andrea M. Galli, claims the deal would increase Skype's dominant position in the market of Internet-based telephony and video-telephony and fears that "the primary effect of the merger will be to exclude potential competitors from the market." Skype currently has around 124 million regular users. Messagenet, which offers Internet fax, SMS messaging and VoIP services, has around 390,000 registered users.
Besides urging the Commission to make unbundling Skype from Windows a condition of the merger, Messagenet wants the European competition authorities to force Skype to make its phone services interoperable with other Internet phone providers. Galli told the Italian press that he had asked for the coding information required to do so, but that Skype had not responded.
To date the Commission has looked critically at any alleged "tying" of Microsoft products, particularly Windows applications, but would not comment further on this case. Spokeswoman Amelia Torres said, however, that the committee will consider all the letters received in relation to the deal.
The merger is due to go ahead next Wednesday, but the Commission still has the power of veto. The deal was approved by U.S. authorities in June.
Follow Jennifer on Twitter at @BrusselsGeek or email tips and comments to jennifer_baker@idg.com.

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TECHNOLOGY, Nokia Readies Linux OS for Low-end Smartphones

Nokia has underlined the importance of low-cost smartphones and now it appears that the company is developing a Linux-based OS for smartphones that will cost less than US$100 without subsidies.
The new OS is code-named "Meltemi," and the project is being led by Mary McDowell, Nokia's executive vice president in charge of mobile phones, according to sources familiar with the matter, the Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday.
The company has been hinting at plans for a reboot of its low-end smartphone portfolio. At its Connection event in Singapore Nokia said that Qt -- a Linux-compatible cross-platform application and user interface framework -- would be a good fit for lower-end devices, and before that McDowell said that Nokia needs to find a replacement for Series 40, according to Carolina Milanesi, research vice president at Gartner.
"So if you put the two together, we can see where this would fit in," said Milanesi.
Series 40 is the OS Nokia today uses on its feature phones, a product segment that is going away as users want smartphones. Nokia dabbled with a Linux phone two years ago, introducing the N900 running Linux.
On the record, Nokia is keeping mum about its plans.
"Of course, we don't comment on future products or technologies. However, I can say that our Mobile Phones team has a number of exciting projects in the works that will help connect the next billion consumers to the Internet," a spokesman said via email.
Nokia choosing Windows Phone over Android has put the company in a tight spot when it comes to low-end smartphones. There is no question that Android is pushing the price of smartphones to levels that are considerably lower than that of smartphones based on Windows Phone in the near-term, which means that Nokia has a gap in its portfolio, according to Ben Wood, director of research at CCS Insight.
"That means Nokia either needs to scale up Series 40 and make it a more robust competitor with a smart-like experience or look at alternative options, and [Meltemi] could be one of the other options," said Wood.
Nokia can't afford to bet its entire future on Windows Phone and if it wants to remain the volume leader it needs to step up its efforts in the low-end smartphone segment, he said.
The low-end smartphone market is increasingly important and will become the largest smartphone market segment, according to Francisco Jeronimo, research manager at IDC. Sales of less expensive smartphones are already growing faster that high-end models in Western Europe and the availability of low-end smartphones will be crucial to increase sales in emerging markets, he said.
The opportunity is so big that no one can afford to ignore it, not even Apple, Jeronimo said, adding that he won't be surprised if the company releases a cheaper version of the iPhone next week.
For Nokia, a logical venue for the public launch of Meltemi would be at Nokia World in London at the end of October. The drawback is that Meltemi risks being drowned by the expected launch of Nokia's first Windows Phone, according to Wood.

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TECHNOLOGY, Jobs Tried to Settle Samsung Patent Dispute in 2010

Former Apple CEO Steve Jobs made contact with Samsung in July 2010 in an attempt to settle the patent dispute that has seen the two companies engage in a legal battle on four different continents, a court has heard.
Richard Lutton, a senior director at Apple and the company's patent attorney, told a Federal Court in Sydney that Jobs initiated contact but wasn't involved in the talks the two companies had about the Samsung Galaxy smartphone, Bloomberg reports.
"Samsung is an important supplier with whom we have a deep relationship. We wanted to give them a chance to do the right thing," Lutton told the court when under questioning by Samsung's lawyers.
The hearing concerns the fate of the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 and whether it should be allowed to go on sale in the country. Samsung has already postponed the Australian launch of the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 and launched a countersuit against Apple, saying that the iPad and iPhone infringe wireless patents owned by Samsung.
A ruling in the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 case is expected next week. Earlier this week, Apple told the court that Samsung must have known that it was infringing its patents. "It must have been as plain as the Opera House to Samsung that the Apple patents were right in front of its eyes and they were wide open," one of Apple's lawyers told the court.
Samsung is expected to launch legal challenges against the next-generation iPhone as soon as it is launched, claiming that "for as long as Apple does not drop mobile telecommunications functions, it would be impossible for it to sell its i-branded products without using our patents".
Other legal disputes between Apple and Samsung are taking place in courtrooms all around the world including the Netherlands, the UK and Japan. In all, there are reckoned to be more than 20 cases between the two companies taking place.

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TECHNOLOGY, Samsung Stokes 7-inch Tablet War with Galaxy Tab 7 Plus

Just two days after Amazon made waves announcing its new 7-inch tablet at a $199, Samsung wants to douse the Kindle Fire with a reloaded 7-inch Galaxy Tab 7.0 Plus. It's not likely Samsung will be able to compete on price - given the beefy specs on this tab - but it will be competitive when it comes to speeds and feeds. Friday's announcement by Samsung doesn't mention price.

The Specs
For starters there's a 1.2 GHz dual-core processor running Android Honeycomb 3.2, front and rear cameras shooting 2 megapixels and 3 megapixels, respectively, and HSPA+ connectivity. Samsung is pitching the "enhanced portability" of this Galaxy Tab hard, with its thinner and lighter body, measuring 9.96mm wide and weighing in at 345g.
Other specs include 1 GB of RAM, the familiar 16GB and 32 GB storage options, 1024 x 600 resolution, HD video recording and playback up to 1080p, with the Samsung TouchWiz interface over top of it all.
Stoking the Tablet War Fires
While the timing could be a coincidence, coming just two days after the Amazon announcement, it feels like part of Samsung's notion is to revamp its 7-incher and show off all the bells and whistles that are missing in the Kindle Fire.
Samsung says the tablet will be available starting in Indonesia and Austria in late October and gradually rolled out globally including the US and Europe.

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TECHNOLOGY, Dragon Go Update Improves Voice Search Capabilities

Released just two months ago, the voice-driven search app Dragon Go is finding more things to talk about with its latest update.
A search app from Nuance, Dragon Go lets you say what it is you're looking for directly into your iPhone (or third- and fourth-generation iPod touch, if you've got an external microphone). The app not only recognizes what you're saying, it can turn that statement into a search query and automatically produce results from specific content providers such as Google, Wikipedia, Yelp, and others. All told, Dragon Go features more than 200 content providers who can supply the answers to your voice-driven needs.
Thursday's 1.1 update added support for more utilities, including Ask.com and WolframAlpha for general search results. That powers a new question-and-answer feature in Dragon Go, allowing the app to better respond to specific questions.
The Dragon Go update also introduces support for Spotify and Netflix, giving users access to streaming media. A Spotify Premium user could request a song and have it play on demand. (Such a request would also allow users to pull up a music video or download the song from iTunes.) For those more into watching shows, asking the voice app to play a TV show will instantly find the best place for streaming episodes of that program.
As well as entertainment, Dragon Go can also come in useful when you're on the move. The update improves its Yelp integration with a new map view accessible from within the Yelp tab. That supplements the app's earlier ability to look up reviews for nearby restaurants.
Finally, the latest version of Dragon Go adds Google+ support. You can tell the app to look up profiles of specific Google+ users. Previously, Dragon Go had offered Twitter and Facebook support.
Dragon Go is a free download from the App Store. You'll need iOS 4.0 or later to run it.

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TECHNOLOGY, Amazon Silk: Pros and Cons

The release of a new browser these days is more likely to elicit yawns than zeal, but Amazon changed that with the release of Silk for its new Fire tablet. While the fundamental idea of splitting a browser's functions between a mobile device and the cloud has been tried by others, most notably Opera, the Internet's largest retailer has taken that idea to a new scale.
Giving Silk that kind of dual personality has many benefits, but there are some drawbacks, too. Here are some pros and cons about the browser.
Pros
Because much of the work of rendering web pages is done in the cloud, Silk can perform faster than your typical mobile browser. With some web pages requiring access to multiple domains and downloading of hundreds of files, handing that task off to the much more powerful computers in Amazon's Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) frees up computing resources and bandwidth that would otherwise be consumed locally on your tablet.
Rendering pages in the cloud also allows the size of the browser cache on the Fire to be reduced. That saves storage space, always a good idea on mobile devices which typically have storage constraints.
Silk keeps its connection to Amazon's cloud always open. That reduces latency -- the time lag between issuing a command and a function being completed -- when you launch the browser and begin surfing the web.
Tying Silk to the cloud also allows Amazon to use its predictive technologies to guess what web pages you'll be asking for before you ask for them. That can speed up performance, too.
Another advantage of Silk is that content can be tailored to Fire before it reaches the device. Large images on a web page can be compressed to meet the real estate requirements of the tablet's screen. Amazon says that even JavaScript code found on web pages can be compiled into ARM machine code by its servers, which would boost the web page's performance on its tablet. The end result is delivery of web pages that consume less bandwidth and perform better when they're displayed in Silk.
Cons
Having Amazon's cloud acting as a middleman between a user and the Internet raises obvious questions about privacy. If you worry about Facebook tracking your activity on any web page containing a "like" button, your anxiety levels should skyrocket at the prospect of Amazon tracking your every move on the Web. Amazon says the information it gathers will be kept anonymous, but are you willing to gamble that it will remain anonymous when some government agency, either domestic or foreign, or some lawyer with a discovery order shows up on Amazon's doorstep demanding to look at the data?
Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos wields a Kindle Fire.Security is also an issue in Silk. Because you're always interacting with Amazon's cloud, you're never directly interacting with secure websites. So when you log into your bank, for example, that information is given to Amazon, which conveys it to your financial institution. Do you really want Amazon sitting between you and your money?
To Amazon's credit, it allows you to turn off Silk's cloud features and use it like a typical browser. That would address the privacy and security problems that could arise from using the software, but then you'll lose all the advantages of processing browser activity in the cloud.
Another problem with not receiving content directly from a website is that you don't know how long it took Amazon to configure the content it sends to you, or, in the case of cached pages, how long they may have been sitting in the cloud. In addition, there may be times when you don't want compressed content from a website. You may want the 3MB photo served up by the site and not the 30KB version EC2 sends to you.
Finally, proliferation of the Silk approach to browsing could pose problems for all web surfers in the future. If major browser makers with cloud clout decide to adopt the Silk model, not only will Amazon know your every move on the Web, but so will Google, Apple and Microsoft.

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Google Chrome Could Beat Firefox by Year-End

Google's Chrome advertising push seems to be paying off, as the browser climbs closer to overtaking Mozilla's Firefox.

Since January, Chrome's browser market share has climbed roughly one percentage point per month, while Firefox's share has fallen by roughly 0.4 percent per month, according to data from StatCounter. Chrome's current share sits at 23.16 percent, compared to 27.49 percent for Firefox.
As Computerworld's Gregg Keizer points out, Chrome's rate of growth and Firefox's rate of decline put the browsers on track to switch places in market share as soon as December. Microsoft's Internet Explorer still has a commanding lead with 41.89 percent share, but its share is steadily falling.
StatCounter's findings are echoed by other firms that measure browser share. NetApplications also keeps track of the browser market, and gives Firefox a stronger lead over Chrome (22.57 percent for the former, 15.51 percent for the latter.) But even by NetApplications' metrics, Chrome could overtake Firefox by mid-2012.
Google has aggressively marketed Chrome with sentimental TV advertisements, including one that shows a father using YouTube, Gmail, and other Google services to create a digital time capsule for his young daughter. The ads started airing in May, and the two following months saw Chrome's sharpest market share increases of the year.

Firefox, meanwhile, has drawn criticism for a new rapid release schedule. The six-week cycle brings new features to the browser on a regular basis, but it also has caused problems with squashing bugs and breaks some add-ons.
Chrome is also stealing market share from Internet Explorer. This could be in large part due to Microsoft's push to kill Internet Explorer 6. Both Microsoft and third-parties are encouraging companies to drop the aging browser, and while IE as a whole is in decline, Internet Explorer 9 is quickly gaining market share, especially on Windows 7 PCs.
None of these metrics take smartphones, tablets and other mobile devices into account, but the mobile market is dominated by whatever browser is preloaded on the device. Apple's Safari 5.0 for iOS has the big lead with 46.15 percent share, followed by 15.15 percent for Android Browser 4.0, according to NetApplications. Firefox accounts for just 0.03 percent of the mobile market.

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TECHNOLOGY, Facebook Faces Complaints Over Data Retention Practices

Facebook's data retention practices are under investigation by Ireland's Data Protection Commissioner following a series of complaints filed by a European group critical of the social networking site.
A total of 22 complaints have been filed with the Data Protection Commissioner by Europe v. Facebook, a group that claims the company is at odds with European privacy laws governing how companies manage personal data.
Facebook has sought to deflect criticism over its data handling practices, maintaining that it complies with data protection laws around the world.
The complaints concern a range of issues, such as how Facebook deals with deleted posts and contacts, or Facebook's privacy policy, which the group claims is unclear. The group said it filed the complaints in Ireland because Facebook's user agreement says that users outsde the U.S. and Canada are entering into an agreement with Facebook Ireland, which is also the company's European headquarters.
Many of the issues brought up by Europe v. Facebook came about after members of the group asked Facebook for personal data stored on them by the site. Facebook is required under European law to respond to such requests. The group published redacted data obtained by some of its supporters to show what kind information Facebook stores. The group's website contains instructions for how people can request the data Facebook stores about them.
The Data Protection Commissioner's office was already planning to audit Facebook before the complaints were filed, but the process has now been accelerated, said Ciara O'Sullivan, spokeswoman for the office.
The Data Protection Commissioner will undertake an investigation of the complaints and also an audit of Facebook, which will involve visiting the company's facilities in Dublin and "looking more generally at how they process personal data," O'Sullivan said. The audit will begin next month.
The commissioner is not obligated to make the findings public, but due to the size of the investigation and scrutiny of Facebook, O'Sullivan said she expects some findings to be publicly released by the end of the year.
Facebook said in a statement on Friday that it has regular contact with the Data Protection Commissioner, and "we look forward to demonstrating our commitment to the appropriate handling of user data as part of this routine audit."
The company did briefly address in its statement some of the issues in the complaints. People who requested their Facebook data found that information they thought they had deleted was still present in the file.
Facebook said that "this is mostly likely due to the user removing a post from a specific place on Facebook rather than deleting it, or because we needed to retain information for a limited period for an investigation. We're continuing to work on ways to make this process as seamless as possible."
The company also addressed a claim that photo tags are applied without a person's consent. In August, Facebook changed the tagging feature so that people can choose to approve a tag before the photo shows up in their own profile. Users can also adjust their privacy settings to turn off "Tag Suggestions," a feature that uses facial recognition to help a user's Facebook friends to automatically identify and tag the user in their photos.
But data protection officials in Germany do not believe that feature that complies with the law. Hamburg's Data Protection Agency (DPA) contends that Facebook should obtain users' consent before their biometric data, used to enable the tagging feature, is stored.
The DPA has been regular contact with Facebook on the issue over the last couple of months, said Johannes Caspar, head of the agency, on Friday. Facebook is supposed to come back with a solution that is satisfactory for the DPA by Oct. 15, he said.
"There are a lot of detailed questions that are not solved at this point," Caspar said. "For me, it's disappointing to see how long we have to discuss these things."

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TECHNOLOGY, Search Engine Blekko Hauls in $15M Russian Investment

Russia's biggest search engine, Yandex, has invested US$15 million in U.S. search startup Blekko, as part of $30 million funding round.
The Russian search engine acquired a minority interest in Blekko and CEO Arkady Volozh will join the board of directors. Yandex is Russia's leading search engine and most visited website.
The other $15 million in the round came from Australian investor MLC Private Equity and CMEA Capital, PivotNorth Capital and US Venture partners.
Yandex invested in Blekko because the company is interested in its search algorithms. "We love Blekko and think it's a great product – a quality search engine that organically combines search algorithms with expert opinions. We believe the outlook for this approach is strong and that the Blekko team is poised to make it a success," Volozh said.
Blekko was founded in 2007 and its search engine was launched in November 2010. Blekko lets users create their own search engine that provides results about a specific topic. This so-called vertical search engine aims to do that by drilling down into Web content using what the company calls "slashtags" -- subject-specific search terms that are put at the end of searches preceded by a slash "/". Using this system Blekko wants to cut out spam sites and help searchers find what they are looking for faster.

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TECHNOLOGY, iPhone 5 and iOS 5: What We Know So Far

Apple revs its next generation iPhone and iOS 5 mobile operating system next week. The details of Apple's announcement are unknown, but the veil of Apple silence is lifting - quickly. Earlier this week Apple sent out invitations to an October 4 event, tagged “Let’s talk about iPhone.” With the announcement date so tantalizingly close, it’s time to take a look at what we know so far about the next iPhone and iOS 5.
What We Know: iPhone 5
Design: Two theories prevail about what the next iPhone will look like. Theory one is an all-new design device (iPhone 5), which would feature a tear-shaped design with a metal back and a slimmer body, while theory two (iPhone 4S) is that it would look identical to the iPhone 4, but with bumped-up specs. A survey pointed that the iPhone 5 is the most anticipated of the two by consumers.
Features: Regardless of the design of the next iPhone, there are same sure-fire bets over the specs. It’s expected the A5 dual-core processor currently found on the iPad 2 to make its way to the new iPhone, as well as more RAM and a higher-resolution camera, possibly 8 megapixels.
Availability: October 4 is expected to be only the announcement date of the new iPhone, with Apple Insider tipping that the weekend starting Friday, October 14 is the one you’ll want to put aside for queuing outside your nearest Apple store. If Apple uses the iPad 2 model and releases the phone 10 days after the announcement, then October 14 or 15 could see the new iPhone reach the first consumers.
Carriers & Price: The new iPhone is expected to cost $199 with a two-year contract, just as with previous iterations of the device. The iPhone is now currently available on AT&T and Verizon, and Sprint is anticipated to be the next in line to get the new iPhone this year, says the Wall Street Journal, but not T-Mobile.

What We Know: iOS 5
Known Features: Developers had a chance to play with a beta version of iOS 5 for a few months now, and Apple showcased the major new features as well. The big changes in iOS 5 include several improvements to Mail and Safari, a notification center similar to Android’s, Twitter integration and iMessage, an instant messaging platform for iOS devices. iCloud, Apple’s cloud storage solution is also integrated in iOS 5, so you can re-download purchased music, apps or books to any of your devices or computer, while the master copy resides with Apple.
Surprise Features: Apple is believed to have kept back from the iOS 5 beta one surprise feature – the integration of voice assisted functions in the iPhone. Anecdotal evidence from the likes of 9 To 5 Mac surfaced over the past few weeks that you will be able to dictate texts and emails your iPhone, as well as have incoming messages read to you by the phone.
Availability: If Apple sticks to previous OS release schedules, then iOS 5 should be available a few days ahead of the next iPhone, in order to avoid Apple’s servers melting down. Apple Insider reports Apple has blacked out employee vacations October 9 through to 12 too, which indicates the possible arrival date of iOS 5 to current iPhone 3GS and 4 owners, as well as iPad owners and the 2009 and 2010 models of iPod Touch.

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TECHNOLOGY, Cisco to Launch Free iPad/iPhone Video App

Cisco announced improvements to its video product line Thursday to make it easier for businesses to capture and share video, including a free app coming soon for iPad and iPhone.
The free app will make Cisco's existing Show and Share software available for iPad and iPhone in late October through the Apple App Store, Cisco officials said via a Webcast this week.
Show and Share is Cisco's video-sharing software, which allows users to search and watch videos as well as record and upload their own videos. That software has been available on other hardware, but until now not for the iPad and iPhone.
Also, Cisco said it is integrating its existing Show and Share with its Media Experience Engines 3500 and itsTelePresence Content Server, although it didn't yet name the products that will provide the integration. Also, a new software release of the 3500 allows it to support Flash, H.264 and Windows Media formats.
An existing software tool called Pulse Video Analytics will soon allow searches of video content by keyword or speaker in the Cisco Show and Share product.
Finally, Cisco announced a Media Deliver Engine 50 Integrated Services Router Virtual Blade. The new module works in Cisco routers at the edge of networks to optimize the way video is cached and streamed to branch offices in an attempt to lower costs. Timing for release of the module was not announced.
Guido Jouret, chief technology officer for Cisco's Emerging Technologies Group, told analysts and reporters on the Webcast that Cisco's goal is to allow video "to reach anyone, on any device at any time."
Matt Hamblen covers mobile and wireless, smartphones and other handhelds, and wireless networking for Computerworld. Follow Matt on Twitter at @matthamblen or subscribe to Matt's RSS feed . His e-mail address is mhamblen@computerworld.com .
Read more about mobile apps and services in Computerworld's Mobile Apps and Services Topic Center.

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TECHNOLOGY, iPhone 5 Demand High Ahead of Unveiling

The new iPhone that Apple is expected to announce on Oct. 4 is already on the shopping list of many BlackBerry and Android users. Research from InMobi, an independent mobile ad network, found that 41 percent of mobile users in North America and Canada plan to buy the new iPhone.
The study found that more than half of BlackBerry users polled are planning to switch to the iPhone 5, and some 27 percent of Android owners are willing to do the switch, alongside 51 percent of current iPhone users. If these figures prove to be true, it could be the most successful phone launch for Apple to date.
Out of the potential switchers, the study says that more than 50 percent of respondents said they would buy the iPhone 5 within the first six months of availability. This could help Apple increase its market share from 27 percent in June to a dominant 41 percent, the study predicts.
Before you read too much into these numbers, InMobi’s study refers to the iPhone 5 based on speculation that the new device would be an all-new iPhone, featuring a larger screen and a new design. An iPhone 4S -- a slightly improved iPhone 4 on the inside -- would not fare as well with consumers, according to the study. In that case, less than 15 percent of consumers would be willing to drop their Androids (11 percent) and BlackBerrys (28 percent) for a new iPhone.
Android devices have outsold iPhones 2-to-1 in the past three months, according to a Nielsen survey this week. Nielsen is also weary of the impending iPhone launch, saying “Every time Apple launches a new iPhone or makes it available on a new wireless carrier, there is an increase in their sales.”
Are you holding out your smartphone purchase for the next iPhone? Sound off in the comments.

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TECHNOLOGY, What's In Your Facebook File? More Than You Think

Pop quiz: What do Facebook and the FBI have in common? They’re both keeping files on you – only Facebook’s is probably a lot more extensive.
No, this is not paranoia. Thanks to European privacy laws, Facebook friends across the pond can request their complete Facebook logs -- the same files Facebook would send to law enforcement agencies pursuant to a court order.
As Forbes blogger Kashmir Hill reports, the Europe vs. Facebook site has posted a handful of redacted copies of Facebook dossiers. The file for one user who’s been an active member since 2007 runs to 780 printed pages – and hers isn’t the largest one.

Meet Your Secret Facebook Dossier
What’s in that file? More than you might think. Aside from the usual stuff people can glean from your public account, your Facebook file lists your credit card numbers, if you’ve provided any, and a whole lot more.
As they say on TV cop shows, anything contained within your Facebook file may be used against you in a court of law – as well as by divorce attorneys, people who are suing you, or private investigators just looking for dirt.
Here’s some of the information your Facebook file can reveal, as well as how it might be used.
Whom you’ve been avoiding. The document lists every friend request and how you responded – including people you’ve quietly turned away. So my mother isn’t good enough to be in your friends list, eh?
Whom you’ve been poking. The file lists every person you’ve poked and when you poked them, as well as who’s poked you back. It seems you’ve been having a nice little pokefest with your best friend’s spouse; what other kinds of poking have you two been up to?
Where you were last summer. Your dossier notes every time you’ve logged into Facebook and the IP address you used, as well as any check-ins you made. The IP address alone can give you a general idea of someone’s location; matched up with information from an ISP account, it can get pretty exact. So you said you were in Seattle on the dates in question, but you logged into Facebook six times from Los Angeles; would you care to explain that to the jury, Mr. Simpson?
What you were really doing. The file records every Facebook event you’ve been invited to, and how you RSVP’d. It’s not proof you actually attended an event you said “yes” to, but it’s enough to raise suspicion. So you claimed to be in Des Moines on a business trip last February, but you RSVP’d to that Swinging Singles Weekend in Cancun. I’ll just have my divorce attorney draw up the papers…
Whom you’ve been chatting up. Chat and message logs, including content, are also part of the files – including messages you’ve deleted. Hope you haven’t been having naughty sex chat with someone who isn’t your significant other, because Facebook never forgets.

You may have deleted that message, but Facebook hasn't.
Other info in the file: The unique ID of every computer you’ve used to log on, the apps you’ve installed, alternate names you use, groups you belong to, photos you’ve uploaded, political and religious views, and much more. So even if you’ve made this stuff private online, it’s there in your file for any one with a court order (or who's expert at pretexting) to read.
To request your Facebook file you have to provide a scan of a government-issued ID, as well as your mailing address, phone number, the email address you use to log on to Facebook, your correct birthdate (it has to match the one on your Facebook account – so no more lying about your age), and the law under which you are requesting the data. That last one is going to be tough for US members, since there are no laws requiring companies like Facebook disclose this information to ordinary citizens. (Though there should be one, and I bet eventually there will be.)
I made my request citing the US Constitution. In about 40 days I’ll find out if it worked. If it did, I should receive a CD with my Facebook dossier on it contained in a PDF file.
[UPDATE: Guess not. Just got a robo-email saying Facebook won't comply with my request, "as this form is only applicable in certain jurisdictions." Now I really do want a law like the EU has.]
If you just want to archive your Facebook activity, you can do that from your Accounts page. But it won’t contain any of those juicy nuggets that the cops, PIs, and divorce attorneys crave.
Got a question about social media? TY4NS blogger Dan Tynan may have the answer (and if not, he’ll make something up). Visit his snarky, occasionally NSFW blog eSarcasm or follow him on Twitter:

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TECHNOLOGY, Presented By: Do you have what it takes?

AppId is over the quota
AppId is over the quota

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TECHNOLOGY, SAIC, Others Pay $22.7 Million to Resolve Contracting Case

Science Applications International (SAIC), a subcontractor and two former government employees will pay nearly US$22.7 million to resolve allegations that they rigged bids for a $3.2 billion supercomputing contract with the U.S. General Services Administration, the U.S. Department of Justice announced Thursday.
Whistleblower David Magee, a former computer scientist at the U.S. Naval Oceanographic Major Shared Resource Center in Mississippi, alleged that two top-ranking employees at the center helped steer the contract to SAIC and subcontractor Applied Enterprise Solutions, owned by a former government employee.
SAIC will pay $20.4 million to resolve Magee's False Claims Act lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Mississippi, the DOJ said in a press release. Applied Enterprise Solutions and its CEO, Dale Galloway, will pay nearly $2.2 million, and former government employees Stephen Adamec and Robert Knesel will pay $110,000, the DOJ said.
SAIC is confident its conduct was "lawful and in keeping with standard industry practice," a spokeswoman said. "But in the end the company decided it was more important to focus attention on managing the company rather than incurring the risks, costs and distractions of continued litigation."
Galloway did not return an email seeking comment.
The Mississippi center provides high-performance computing services for the U.S. Department of Defense, according to court documents. The contract, in which SAIC and Applied Enterprise Solutions teamed with Lockheed Martin, was to provide technology support services for the National Center for Critical Information Processing and Storage at the Mississippi center, the DOJ said.
SAIC was paid $116 million under the contract, the DOJ said. The DOJ joined the lawsuit against all the defendants except Lockheed Martin shortly after Magee filed the case. Lockheed Martin has previously settled the case for $2 million.
Adamec is the former director of the Mississippi center, while Knesel was deputy director, according to court documents. Magee's lawsuit alleged that the two of them worked with Galloway on the GSA contract. Galloway, former director of the DOD's Space and Naval Warfare Systems Command Information Technology Center, resigned in June 2003 and started Applied Enterprise Solutions with his wife, according to court documents.
Adamec and Knesel shared nonpublic, advance procurement information with the SAIC team, the lawsuit alleged. The two former government employees shared information with the SAIC team before providing that information to other bidders, and they wrote a contract that favored the SAIC team, the DOJ and Magee alleged.
Whistleblowers in False Claim Act contracting lawsuits can share in the money recovered by the DOJ.
Grant Gross covers technology and telecom policy in the U.S. government for The IDG News Service.

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TECHNOLOGY, Italian Internet Activists Protest Proposed Law

Italy's Internet activists gathered in front of Rome's ancient Pantheon Thursday to protest a new law they say will throttle freedom of expression on the Web.
The new rule, due to be presented in parliament next week as part of a bill to restrict the use and publication of telephone wiretaps, would oblige all online publications to publish a correction within 48 hours of receiving a request or risk a €12,000 (US $16,000) fine.
Critics say the law would have a particularly devastating effect on citizen bloggers and is intended to protect the interests of Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, whose image has been severely battered by the publication of police telephone taps that have cast an embarrassing light on his unorthodox private life.
Luca Nicotra, secretary of the activist association Agora Digitale, said his organization was calling on all lawmakers to support amendments to the bill that would limit its effects to professional news organizations only.
"A newspaper has the ability to respond to requests that may be illegitimate. The ordinary citizen does not," Nicotra told a crowd of around 100 people gathered in front of the massive Roman temple, which dates from the second century AD.
"It's easy to imagine this instrument being used in an intimidating way," said a leaflet distributed by Agora Digitale at the rally. "Any citizen writing on the web, who doesn't have a newspaper's legal department to defend him, will be induced to accept requests for corrections even when convinced that he has written the truth, causing people to censor themselves in order to avoid the risk of a fine."
Giuseppe Giulietti, an opposition lawmaker and founder of Articolo 21 (www.articolo21.org), an association dedicated to the defense of journalistic freedom, said he would appeal against the law to the European Court of Human Rights if it was passed in its present form by the Italian parliament.
Opponents of the law were setting up a committee of media law specialists to assist bloggers and anyone else who ran into difficulty because of it, Giulietti said. "If there is a democratic emergency we will be present to support you, wherever you are," he said.
Articolo 21 encouraged journalists to take an oath of professional honor pledging to remain faithful to their duty to inform, despite the new legislation. "I swear that ... I will provide any information that is in the public interest and of social importance, " the pledge states in part.
Antonio D'Amati, a media law specialist, encouraged bloggers and journalists to ignore the new rule. "I don't think I'm committing a crime when I tell journalists that they must take no notice of this future law. No one can be convicted for having done their journalistic duty," D'Amati told the protesters, some wearing sticky notes over their mouths bearing the words "No gag."
In an interview with the magazine www.micromega.it, the former president of the Privacy Authority, Stefano Rodota, said the new rule was doubly dangerous for bloggers: The size of the fine was enough to wipe out most normal bloggers and many were liable to miss the 48-hour deadline because they did not update their blogs on a regular basis.
"It's also unsatisfactory that this request for a correction makes no mention of the reality of the facts (shouldn't there be a prior investigation into the accuracy or otherwise of the correction?)," Rodota said.
Antonio Leone, a lawmaker who supports the government, defended the new law, saying it was less severe than a previous bill promoted by the opposition.
"Talking about a 'gagging law' and organizing protest rallies in Rome is a sign that some people want to continue to wallow in gossip, used as a weapon of political struggle," Leone said. "That's a mortal blow to civilization, to democracy and to the right of every individual to privacy."

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TECHNOLOGY, Romance Scams Pick on Divorced, Lovelorn

Research out of the UK today says that perhaps as many as 200,00 people have been victims of online romance scams and the same study says over one million people personally know someone who has been scammed by one of these heartless fraudsters.
The online research was conducted by the UK's University of Leicester found that 52% of people surveyed online had heard of the online romance scam when it was explained to them and that one in every 50 online adults know someone personally who had fallen victim to it. The results confirm the law enforcement belief that this type of crime is often not reported by those affected, in many cases due to embarrassment at having been duped, or through a continuing hope that there will eventually be a genuine romance, the study found.
[RELATED: Online Dating for Nerds: Looking for Love in All the Wrong Postings]
According to the FBI's IC3, scammers use poetry, flowers, and other gifts to reel in victims, the entire time declaring their "undying love." These criminals also use stories of severe life circumstances, tragedies, deaths in the family, injuries to themselves, or other hardships to keep their victims concerned and involved in their schemes. Scammers also ask victims to send money to help overcome a financial situation they claim to be experiencing. These are all lies intended to take money from unsuspecting victims, the IC3 says.
The romance scam is particularly cruel in that perpetrators spend long periods of time grooming their victims, working out their vulnerabilities and when the time is right to ask for money. "It is our view that the trauma caused by this scam is worse than any other, because of the 'double hit' experienced by the victims - loss of monies and a 'romantic relationship'. It may well be that the shame and upset experienced by the victims deters them from reporting the crime. We thus believe new methods of reporting the crime are needed," said the authors of the study, Professor Monica Whitty, a psychologist and professor of contemporary media at the University of Leicester, and Dr. Tom Buchanan, a psychologist at the University of Westminster.
[More on online scams: FBI details worst social networking cyber crime problems]
According to the UK's Serious Organized Crime Agency (SOCA) romance fraud is organized crime, usually operating from outside the UK. Criminal groups make initial contact with potential victims through online dating sites and social networking sites, and will try to move the 'relationship' away from monitored online space before defrauding people of what can amount to large sums of money, the researchers said. In some cases, even when victims cannot, or will not, send money, scammers involve them instead in money laundering by asking them to accept money into their bank accounts.
Romance fraud is by no means a problem only in the UK. It is routinely listed by the FBI as one of the most popular scams. In fact the marriage of Britain's Prince William in April caused the FBI to issue a romance scam alert in the U.S. because the scammers came out of the woodwork.
Scammers search chat rooms, dating sites and social networking sites looking for victims. The principal group of victims is over 40 years old and divorced, widowed, elderly, or disabled, but all demographics are at risk, the IC3 stated.
IC3 complainants most often report Nigeria, Ghana, England, and Canada as the location of the many scammers.
The Army Times newspaper story detailed the growing trend of fraudsters stealing the identities of U.S. Army soldiers from social network sites and then using that information to set up false profiles on Internet dating sites. The profiles are used to dupe prospective dates out of their money. But there are other consequences too.
From the Army Times: "The unwitting soldiers are sometimes victims when their loved ones discover the online profiles and believe their soldiers are looking to cheat. [Master Sgt. C.J. Grisham, who uses his blog, "A Soldier's Perspective," to expose scammers using the soldier dating con] said the scam is a new twist on the so-called Nigerian 419 advance fee scam, and its popularity is growing, fueled by soldiers' routine use of social networking sites and the Internet's penetration into Third-World havens for con men. 'In the past year, the traffic on my site related to the scams I write about has tripled,' Grisham said. 'I'll get 30 to 40 comments a day and 20 e-mails a day asking me to look into whether or not they're being scammed.'"
Follow Michael Cooney on Twitter: nwwlayer8
Read more about wide area network in Network World's Wide Area Network section.

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TECHNOLOGY, Nerf Gun Gets Modded With an Antique Chair

[Photo: faustus70 on Etsy]Remember when toys used to be made out of real metal, and not this chintzy chromed-plastic stuff we have today? At least we can go back to the old days by DIY-modding stuff--or go even further back, like Lincoln-logs era, by strapping antique wood to a Nerf gun.
Wait, what?
Etsy seller faustus70 (aka Neil Taylor) had a Nerf N-Strike Barricade gun and an “at least” 75-year-old wood chair lying around, and he thought, why not put these together? He refashioned the standard-issue Nerf into a “steampunk big daddy gun”, wrapped in wood planks held together by hand-cut aluminum strips and hand riveted in place.
Hard. Core. [Photo: faustus70 on Etsy]
Of course, the whole thing still works as a Nerf gun, complete with the 10-dart barrel magazine and top chamber access. But the modifications also made the Nerf gun even better with a taller stock, 3x scope, metal paint, and the whole badass steampunk aesthetic.
Sadly, it does look like this particular steampunk big daddy gun, previously listed for $300, has already been sold. But according to faustus70’s profile, he takes commission jobs and has done even more awesome mods, such as the Alien Pulse Riffle or Warhammer 40K Bolters.

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TECHNOLOGY, Twitter Analysis Reveals Global Human Moodiness

Twitter, Facebook and other social media sites are often criticized for encouraging people to share thoughts of little consequence, though social scientists are finding these electronic missives, when assembled en masse and analyzed with big data tools, can offer a wealth of new information about how people think and act.
A pair of researchers from Cornell University are the latest to mine social networks for such academic insight. Scott Golder and Michael Macy analyzed 509 million Twitter messages emitted over a period of two years by 2.4 million users across 84 different countries. From this data, they have gleaned that people have the same daily cycle of moods, regardless of their culture or language.
A paper summarizing the work, "Diurnal and Seasonal Mood Vary with Work, Sleep, and Daylength Across Diverse Cultures," is in Thursday's issue of the journal Science.
Beyond the immediate results, the work points to a possible new path in academic research, that of mining social networks for academic insight, the researchers said.
"The paper illustrates the opportunities for doing social and behavioral science in a new way," Macy said. "The growing tendency for human beings all over the globe to interact with one another using digital devices opens opportunities for research that were unimaginable even five years ago."
"Far from seeing conversations as mundane and useless, we see value in the fact that they are real-time, time-stamped messages produced by people on the spot for sharing with their friends," Golder added.
The researchers used Twitter's API (application programming interface) to gather the messages. They set up a six-node cluster to extract the data, which arrived packaged in XML, and converted the results into flat files. They then used a 55-node Hadoop cluster, running at the Cornell University Center for Advanced Computing, to analyze the dataset.
The analysis tool they used, Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count, links specific words to various positive and negative moods. Messages that might include words such as "awesome," "fantastic" or "pretty" could indicate a positive state, whereas words like "remorse," "abandonment," "fear" or "fury" indicate a negative state of some sort.
The results showed people tend to be more chirpy in the morning and during weekends. The messages revealed that they wake up happy and slowly grow more disgruntled and sour as the day goes on, though their affect usually rebounds in the evening. This behavior happens on both weekdays and weekends, though the weekend tweets usually start about two hours later than the weekday ones, perhaps because people are sleeping in.
Even in countries where the weekend is not Saturday and Sunday (in the United Arab Emirates, for instance, people work Sunday through Thursday), these patterns were evident.
While the findings may seem obvious, the Cornell work is actually the first full-scale study to show this behavior in empirical form, the researchers contend. Twitter proved valuable in this study because it captures the affect of the individual in real time, Golder said. Typically, clinical studies are done either by bringing subjects to a lab and watching their behaviors -- an unnatural environment for studying day-to-day activities -- or surveying them, an approach limited by fallibility of the subjects' memories.
Also, some subjects "are just not very good at being aware of what their feelings are," Golder said. "It's a big advantage to access people's words in a setting that is natural and spontaneous."
The work, funded by the U.S. National Science Foundation, was done under a research group led by Macy, which combines sociologists and computer scientists to pursue computer-assisted social science research projects. Golder's background is in linguistics and computer science. Prior to joining Cornell, he worked as a research scientist for Hewlett-Packard.
The project "required some engineering know-how, and that will be something that will have to be more and more important for empiric social sciences," he said.
Other parties have also been investigating this new technique of analyzing human activities through the quantitative analysis of their written output, a practice some scholars call culturonomics. In 2010, Google Labs launched a text analysis tool that allows researchers to execute numerical text analysis against Google's massive store of digitized books, which dates back centuries.
This week, Google incorporated the tool, called NGram Viewer, directly into its Google Books service.
Also this week, Twitter has released the source code for its Storm stream processing engine, data analysis software that should help researchers and other users analyze multiple Twitter feeds as they are updated.
Joab Jackson covers enterprise software and general technology breaking news for The IDG News Service.

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TECHNOLOGY, Tablets, Smartphones to Get Speed Boost With New Memory

A new form of mobile DDR3 memory that can speed up tablets, smartphones and laptops could appear in devices starting as early as late next year, with adoption ramping up in 2013, analysts said on Thursday.
Low-power DDR3 memory -- also called LPDDR3 -- will bring a bigger data transfer pipe to tablets and smartphones, which could translate into better performance and longer battery life, analysts said. Standards-setting organization JEDEC (Joint Electron Device Engineering Council) is defining the specifications for LPDDR3, which draws heavily from conventional DDR3 DRAM found in PCs today.
The mobile memory will replace LPDDR2, which is found in current smartphones and tablets like Apple's iPad. Memory maker Samsung Electronics this week said it had developed a 4GB LPDDR3 DRAM unit, which it called the industry's first. The mobile memory can transfer data at up to 1,600 megabits per second, which is 1.5 times faster than LPDDR2, while consuming 20 percent less power.
Tablets and smartphones will need to switch to a faster form of memory as devices and applications become more resource intensive, said Mike Howard, principal analyst for DRAM and memory at IHS iSuppli.
"As far as viewing and recording high-definition content, it's going to be a better experience with LPDDR3 because of the bandwidth available," Howard said.
Mobile memory is key in bringing more multitasking to devices, Howard said. As hardware advances to include faster processors and higher resolution screens, LPDDR3 will keep the ball rolling on switching between videos, phone calls and other applications, Howard said.
In addition to better performance, LPDDR3 memory is designed to consume less power than its predecessor, said Dean McCarron, principal analyst at Mercury Research. A combination of low-power consumption and more bandwidth could prolong battery life on tablets and smartphones, McCarron said.
"It is allowing lower power consumption that has an immediate benefit everywhere," McCarron said.
The memory type will initially be found in tablets and high-end smartphones, where performance matters more, McCarron said. But as is the case with most new technologies, LPDDR3 initially won't be cheap, but as production ramps, LPDDR2 will be phased out and its successor will appear in more devices. As adoption increases, prices will fall and that will be reflected in the prices of smartphones and tablets.
"Eventually all these technologies become a commodity," McCarron said.
Intel has also been pushing the use of low-power memory in ultrabooks, which is being promoted by the chip maker as a category of thin-and-light laptops with tablet-like features. Analysts said that there are still a lot of unknowns about components that may be used in ultrabooks, but LPDDR3 may be in those PCs in coming years. LPDDR3 offers close to a 15 percent power reduction compared to standard DDR3, according to JEDEC.
JEDEC is still developing LPDDR3 specifications, but that could be finalized soon, Howard said. Backing of the mobile memory could ramp once the specification is finalized. The world's top DRAM makers include Samsung, Hynix Semiconductor, Elpida Memory, Micron and Nanya, all of which are members of JEDEC.
JEDEC did not immediately respond to requests for comment on when it would finalize LPDDR3, but analysts estimated that it could be finalized by the end of the year.
In prior renditions of synchronous DRAM such as SDRAM, DDR and DDR2, JEDEC pushed hard on speed without worrying too much about power, said Jim Handy, director of Objective Analysis. With DDR3 and LPDDR3, JEDEC worked to bring the power specifications back down while continuing to increase speed.
But adoption typically depends on other parts of the system, Handy said. For cell phones it's less sudden than it is in PCs, where a single supplier dictates which interface the chipsets are going to support. But the power advantage is a sufficiently compelling reason for device makers to quickly switch over to LPDDR3.
"I would anticipate a quick conversion of cell phones to LPDDR3. In tablets, so far Apple is the only supplier of any significance, so adoption depends solely on their moves," Handy said.
It's hard to predict when Samsung will ramp up production of LPDDR3, Handy said.
"Samsung has announced products lately that don't show up in production systems for over a year," Handy said.

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TECHNOLOGY, 51% of Gamers 'Against 3D Consoles'

Sony and Nintendo are very much into 3D at the moment, and some (unverified, probably unfounded but plausible) rumors suggest that the next generation of Xbox console may be 3D enabled too. Games comparison and marketplace site Playr2.com decided to investigate whether this is what gamers really wanted.

1,001 self-professed gamers took part in the site's survey, to which 51% responded that they would not welcome the introduction of 3D technology to future console releases. 47% said they would welcome the tech, while 2% remained unsure.
Of those who stated they would not be in favor of the new tech, 44% dismissed it as "unnecessary," while 28% said they had played a 3DS and were "unimpressed." 22% of these respondents felt that 3D tech would actively "impair the gaming experience."
73% of all respondents claimed they were not in favor of 3DTVs. "Impracticality" was given as the main reason for this. 65% of respondents indicated that they would be interested in purchasing a next-generation Xbox, regardless of whether or not it was 3D compatible. Of this 65%, a little over half currently owned a 360, while 37% currently owned a PS3.
"Rumors are constantly flying around about the next big console releases, so we wanted to see what gamers would think about the possibility of a 3D enabled console," said Simon Kilby, founder of Playr2.com. "It was surprising to see that the majority were against it, but many seemed to be disappointed by the technology on the Nintendo 3DS and wouldn't like to see the technology spread to other consoles. 3D, given its current popularity in cinema and television, does seem to be the next logical step in gaming; but I think developers will have to be careful to tackle the issues that the Nintendo 3DS seemed to raise with motion sickness and the like. Our study proves that many think it to be unnecessary, or even an impairment on the gaming experience; so it will be interesting to see what happens when the consoles are finally released."
The trouble with 3D right now is that it is mostly unnecessary and superfluous. Because developers and publishers can't rely on players having 3D hardware -- except in the case of the 3DS, where it's possible to switch it off -- they can't specifically design games around the 3D concept. As such, 3D effects simply become window dressing rather than an integral part of gameplay. The fact that current consoles have to render 3D visuals at half the resolution of 2D right now also puts something of a dampener on the whole experience.
Those of you reading who do have a 3DS and/or a 3DTV -- do you find that 3D adds anything to your gameplay experience, or is it simply something that looks cool?
This article originally appeared on GamePro.com as Study: 51% of Gamers 'Against 3D Consoles'

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TECHNOLOGY, FAQ: Oracle OpenWorld's Burning Questions

Oracle's OpenWorld conference, which kicks off Sunday in San Francisco, could be the biggest one yet for the company, which entered the hardware game last year through the purchase of Sun Microsystems and is closing in on US$40 billion in revenue.
But the bigger the company, the more questions it has to answer about its future directions and past promises. The tens of thousands expected at OpenWorld and its sister JavaOne conference will be in search of all the details.
An Oracle spokeswoman declined to comment on the company's planned announcements for OpenWorld, but through interviews with industry experts, reasonable speculation and some digging, here's a look at some of the most important questions facing Oracle going into the show.
The final word on Fusion Applications?
It's no longer fair for anyone to say Oracle's long-awaited Fusion Applications aren't real, but they aren't yet generally available in the traditional sense. Oracle recently put the next-generation suite into "controlled availability," where customers must undergo a type of readiness assessment before Oracle lets them buy anything.
For the past couple of years, Oracle has pulled back dramatically on the Fusion Applications hype as development on the next-generation suite chugged to a conclusion. Fusion is supposed to combine the best attributes of Oracle's other ERP (enterprise resource planning) lines, such as E-Business Suite and PeopleSoft, along with pervasive BI (business intelligence) functionality.
"It's important for them to say 'we're open for business with Fusion' and show some customer adoption" at OpenWorld this year, said Forrester Research analyst Paul Hamerman.
Oracle Senior Vice President Steve Miranda is expected to do something along those lines during a keynote address and customer panel discussion on Wednesday.
There are other gaps for Oracle to fill in the Fusion Applications story, namely just how the reported SaaS (software-as-a-service) option will work and be priced. So far, pricing has only been released for the on-premises versions.
Oracle also could make clearer what current E-Business Suite, JD Edwards and PeopleSoft customers are entitled to under their maintenance payments in terms of an upgrade to similar Fusion modules.
Customers shouldn't expect too many scary surprises, according to Frank Scavo, managing partner of the IT consulting firm Strativa.
"Oracle's got to make this attractive from an economic perspective, otherwise there's going to be tremendous inertia," he said.
But Oracle should also give existing customers a sense of what's in store if they don't immediately upgrade to Fusion, Scavo added. "Clearly, Fusion is the future. What kind of investment can [the installed base] expect for their maintenance dollars going forward? Are they going to see the best features of cloud computing, mobile technology and social [software]?"
All eyes on Exadata and Exalogic?
Observers expect Oracle to announce a number of new engineered systems that combine software and hardware, much like its initial forays in this area, the Exadata database machine and Exalogic application server.
"We expect Oracle to discuss customer adoption of its Exadata solutions, which continues to be impressive," Forrester Research analyst James Kobielus said via email.
Oracle has also indicated that Exalogic has been doing well, but specifics on that front have been fairly slim compared to Exadata. More specific adoption rates or details on high-profile Exalogic deals could come at OpenWorld.
As for those new machines, Oracle couldn't wait for OpenWorld to announce one of them. Last week, it rolled out the Oracle Database Appliance, sort of a miniature version of Exadata aimed at SMBs. On Monday, it unveiled an Exadata-like "supercluster" machine based on its SPARC chips.
At the show, it's possible that Oracle will announce new appliances that target specific software products, including Fusion Applications.
Any evidence the 'soup-to-nuts' stack play is working?
Exadata and Exalogic are part of Oracle's ongoing attempt to position itself as a one-stop shop for IT buyers, with the ability to sell customers everything from storage to business applications in tightly engineered packages.
This strategy has an obvious downside to overcome, namely the specter of total lock-in to a single vendor.
Therefore, it will be interesting to see whether Oracle can show off a high-profile customer or two at OpenWorld who has bought into the super-stack vision in a big way, not just as an Exadata or Exalogic user.
As it turns out, one of those customers may end up being Oracle itself.
Oracle Chief Corporate Architect Edward Screven and systems chief John Fowler are scheduled to deliver a keynote on Wednesday that will "present the latest on Oracle's engineered systems and talks about how Oracle runs its business on Oracle hardware and software--and the success it is achieving by doing so."
Hullabaloo about Hadoop?
The Hadoop open-source framework for large-scale data processing is getting major interest from many vendors in the database and data warehousing arena. So far, Oracle hasn't made a huge investment. But it could lay out broader plans for Hadoop at OpenWorld.
"Oracle has been conspicuous for its absence from the Hadoop market," Kobielus said.
At least one possibly new Hadoop-related product will be discussed. "Oracle's loader for Hadoop lets you use the power of Hadoop to process data and load the results into Oracle Database for analytics," reads a description for a demo to be held at OpenWorld.
In addition, Oracle CEO Larry Ellison said earlier this year that the company would launch a "big data accelerator" involving Hadoop at OpenWorld.
Oracle's in-memory computing play
Rival SAP has been rebuilding its long-term software strategy around HANA, an in-memory database that is the brainchild of co-founder Hasso Plattner and technology chief Vishal Sikka.
Ellison, whose flagship Oracle database currently powers many an SAP installation, has been somewhat dismissive of HANA's potential and said Oracle has been in the in-memory game for a long time, in an apparent reference to Oracle's TimesTen software, an in-memory database cache acquired in 2005.
OpenWorld is supposed to feature the debut of an "in-memory accelerator" for Exadata, according to remarks Ellison made earlier this year. But it's not clear whether this will constitute an entirely new product or something based on TimesTen.
Movement on mobility?
Hamerman is also looking for Oracle to flesh out its strategy for mobile applications. "They've been a little bit behind on mobile," he said. That's in contrast to SAP, which through the purchase of Sybase has made mobile development a central pillar of its strategy moving forward.
The OpenWorld schedule includes a number of mobile-oriented sessions, with application development and customer case studies among the topics, but it's not clear that Oracle has a high-level statement of direction on mobility planned for any of its keynotes. However, the likely place for such a thing will be during Monday's talk by Thomas Kurian, executive vice president of product development.
Larry talks cloud computing: Seriously this time?
Much attention at OpenWorld traditionally gravitates toward Ellison's main keynote address, which is held on Wednesday and usually contains its biggest news announcements.
But Ellison is also scheduled to appear Sunday evening during a welcoming ceremony for attendees.
Ellison will "provide an overview of this week's major product announcements," according to a statement on Oracle's website. "Learn about new engineered systems from Oracle that offer extreme performance, convenience, and cost savings. Hear the latest news about Oracle Fusion Applications, the new standard for business. And see how Oracle products are redefining cloud computing for the enterprise."
All of which begs the question, what's Larry got in store for Wednesday?
Believe it or not, Ellison's talk is supposed to focus solely on cloud computing, the marketing of which he has famously mocked in the past for being excessive "gibberish" improperly applied to old technologies.
Now OpenWorld attendees are set to get the definitive word on cloud computing, which is described by Oracle's site as "the #1 IT priority today," straight from Ellison himself.

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TECHNOLOGY, Microsoft Fails to Credit Kelihos Takedown Partner

Microsoft grabbed headlines Wednesday with its report about the successful takedown of the Kelihos botnet, but while the company detailed the achievements of its Digital Crimes Unit, it failed to mention the major role security firm Kaspersky Lab played in the operation.
Microsoft's Kelihos takedown announcement centered on the fact that its specialized team of lawyers succeeded in naming defendants in a botnet-related federal court complaint for the first time -- such cases usually involve unknown parties.
The named defendants were Alexander Piatti and his Czech-based company dotFREE Group SRO, which operated a second-level domain (SLD) registration service in the .cz.cc name space. This service was abused by the botnet's operators to set up hosts for their control infrastructure. A temporary restraining order was obtained by the Digital Crimes Unit in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, forcing VeriSign to suspend the cz.cc domain.
Microsoft did not disclose any technical details about how Kelihos was hijacked from its original operators because Kaspersky Lab handled that part of the operation. The security company's experts explained Thursday in a lengthy blog post how they took control of the botnet, but they probably didn't appreciate being left out of the story in the first place.
"Hey @msftmmpc [Microsoft Malware Protection Center] why didn't u mention all truth about Hlux/Kelihos botnet taking down?" Dmitry Bestuzhev, head of Kaspersky Lab's global research and analysis team for Latin America, wrote on Twitter.
"Kaspersky Lab played a critical role in this botnet takedown initiative, leading the way to reverse-engineer the bot malware, crack the communication protocol and develop tools to attack the peer-to-peer infrastructure," said Tillmann Werner, a senior virus analyst with Kaspersky in Germany. "We worked closely with Microsoft's Digital Crimes Unit (DCU), sharing the relevant information and providing them with access to our live botnet tracking system," he added.
Even the antivirus vendor's co-founder and CEO, Eugene Kaspersky, linked to his company's blog post with the message: "The flipside of the Microsoft's takedown of Kelihos (Hlux) botnet."
Kaspersky Lab currently operates the only server where computers infected with this malware connect to, which effectively puts it in control of the botnet. The company has the resources to keep this so-called sinkhole operational for a long time, but the end goal is to reduce Kelihos' size as much as possible.
Sending commands to clean the infected systems remotely would be illegal in most countries, so this won't be an easy task. Microsoft has added detection for the Kelihos malware family to its Malicious Software Removal Tool (MSRT), which is distributed to computers worldwide via Windows Update, but the effects have yet to show.
The software giant claims that not crediting Kaspersky Lab in its original announcement was the result of poor communication between the two companies. "Due to an unfortunate miscommunication between Microsoft and Kaspersky prior to the announcement, Microsoft was operating under the belief that it was Kaspersky's desire to not be proactively mentioned in the announcement --- as some partners commonly request and which we understand and respect given the sensitivity of these situations," said Richard Boscovich, a senior attorney with the Microsoft Digital Crimes Unit.
"However, we were very glad to see Kaspersky subsequently come forward with their role in the operation, because we very much want to give them the credit they deserve. Their research and unique, in-depth insight into the botnet was invaluable in this case and we are grateful for their support and determination to make the Internet safer for everyone," he added.

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TECHNOLOGY, Stream and Share Your Files Anywhere with LaPlug

Sharing and streaming files across your home network and Internet gets easier with the introduction of a network-friendly external dives, called LaPlug, from the storage and wireless device firm LaCie.
The black boxy LaPlug ($74.99) is not a hard drive; rather it lets you plug a USB storage device and printer into the unit and instantly shares those devices across a home WiFi network. File sharing and streaming can also be performed over the Internet through the box, too.
You can use LaPlug as a WiFi device—it supports WiFi b/g/n—or connect it to your network through the unit's gigabit Ethernet connection.
Software interface for the LaCie LaPlug
After connecting LaPlug to your network, you can plug an external USB hard drive, "thumb" drive or printer into one of its four USB 2.0 ports—three at the rear of the unit and one in front of it—and you're ready to stream video and music files, using DLNA/UPnP, to smartphones, tablets and game consoles like the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3.
In addition to letting you stream and share files on a USB hard drive, LaPlug will let you perform system backups to it, too. LaPlug includes backup software for Windows-based computers and supports Apple's backup software, Time Machine. It will also support a variety of disk formats, such as FAT32, NTFS, HFS and HFS+ (both journal and non-journal).

This latest offering by LaCie appears to be designed to compete with a similar device called the PogoPlug. PogoPlug also distributes a free software program for sharing files over the Internet.

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TECHNOLOGY, Lego Combines the Digital and Physical in iPhone Game

Danish toy company Lego is pushing its toys into the mobile age with the Life of George iPhone app, which combines a digital and physical gaming experience.
The new Lego game consists of a free iPhone app, a set of bricks and a play mat that acts as a green screen. The goal is to build the image shown on the screen as fast as possible in real life. When players finish building the model they have to take a photo of the structure with their iPhone or iPod Touch to see if they succeeded. The app will calculate a score based on accuracy and speed.
Life of George is a 12-level game built around the Lego character George, who is a software engineer by day and an adventurer by night. Each level consists of 10 models and the game can be played alone or against a competitor. There is also a mode called "my life" that allows players to come up with their own designs. The self made models can be stored in the app's virtual scrapbook.
The company was looking for "a fun way to combine both physical and virtual play into one product," Paal Smith-Meyer, head of new business at Lego, explained in a statement. George has his own Facebook page where gamers can follow his endeavors and pick up hints to new game levels and app updates.
The game is exclusively sold in the U.S. and will remain available on iOS for now. Apps for other mobile OSes are likely to appear in the future, said Amanda Santoro, assistant brand relations manager at Lego. She could not say if there are any other Lego app games planned.
Life of George hits the shelves of Lego stores at Oct. 1 and will also be available online. The set costs $22.99.

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TECHNOLOGY, NinjaVideo Founders Plead Guilty to Copyright Infringement

Two founders of movie download site NinjaVideo.net have pleaded guilty to charges related to copyright infringement, the U.S. Department of Justice said.
Hana Beshara, 29, of Las Vegas, pleaded guilty Thursday to conspiracy and criminal copyright infringement in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia. Last Friday, Matthew David Howard Smith, 23, of Raleigh, North Carolina, pleaded guilty to the same charges in the same court.
Beshara and Smith were among five alleged founders of the website indicted on six counts by a grand jury in Virginia earlier in September. Both face five years in prison on each count they pleaded to.
The remaining three defendants face a jury trial starting in February.
NinjaVideo.net, which operated from February 2008 until it was shut down by law enforcement in June 2010, allowed visitors to download infringing copies of hundreds of television shows and movies, including some movies still playing in theaters, the DOJ said. Visitors could download much of the infringing content free, but those who paid US$25 obtained access to private forum boards that contained a wider range of infringing material, the agency said.
NinjaVideo also generated income from advertising, the DOJ said. Beshara told prosecutors that she and the other founders collected more than $500,000 while the site was active, and she received more than $200,000 of the profits, the DOJ said. As part of her plea agreement, Beshara agreed to forfeit assets seized by U.S. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement's Homeland Security Investigations in June 2010, including cash, an investment brokerage account, two bank accounts, a PayPal account and one Internet advertising account.
Beshara referred to herself as Queen Phara and "the face and the name behind Ninja," and was the day-to-day administrator of the site, the DOJ said. In that role, Beshara supervised the website and at times directed the release of infringing copies of specific movies and television shows, including through uploads of copyright works by members of the group to computer servers around the world and in the Eastern District of Virginia.
Beshara released frequent podcasts to communicate with NinjaVideo visitors, the DOJ said. In the NinjaVideo Manifesto, she said the site was part of a protest against the movie industry.
"You have done this," she said. "You, the studios with your inflated budgets and your ridiculous salaries. You have fed the mob insignificant tidbits about celebrity antics in order for them to pay out their retirement funds in popcorn prices. But not all amongst this mob are sheep. Sites like NinjaVideo force innovation upon you. This entire community does."
Smith designed much of the NinjaVideo website, the DOJ said.
Grant Gross covers technology and telecom policy in the U.S. government for The IDG News Service.

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TECHNOLOGY, Researchers Fashion Wearable Copper Wire Memory

[Photo: AIP Advances]We’ve already got wearable technology down when it comes to lighting and an augmented reality interface, but what about storage? Two NASA scientists have figured out a way to weave copper wire into a form for memory storage.
Jin-Woo Han and Meyya Meyyappan of the Center for Nanotechnology at NASA Ames Research Center developed the memory fiber. The design uses two 1-mm copper and copper oxide wires interweaved in a crisscross pattern sandwiched together by a small piece of platinum. The resulting structure forms a resistive memory circuit that can retain data, which can be read and rewritten when a current is applied, for more than 100 days.
This e-textile design follows the same basic crosshatched properties of real fabric, so it would be fairly easy to form wearable memory into any piece of clothing. Now all we need to do to make ourselves a real walking-talking mobile-computer is to put together all the mobile sensor, storage, processing, displays, and power source solutions into one package—that will hopefully look cooler than the “cyborgs” in Snow Crash.
[AIP Advances via PhysOrg via Popular Science]

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TECHNOLOGY, How Adobe Flash Lost Its Way

Adobe has long dreamed of establishing Flash as a premier cross-device rich application development platform, but as the competition mounts, those hopes appear to be dwindling. This could be Adobe's last chance.
As its annual Max developer conference approaches, Adobe has announced details of the forthcoming Flash Player 11, along with AIR 3, the latest iteration of the Adobe Integrated Runtime desktop app based on Flash technology. Among the top features of the new versions is hardware-based 2D and 3D graphics acceleration, which Adobe promises will make Flash content run "1,000 times faster."
In addition, Adobe has hinted that the Max keynotes will unveil "a new company initiative that reimagines content authoring" and transform "the creative process across mobile devices, personal computers, and the cloud."
Even if Adobe delivers on its grand pronouncements, all this may prove too little, too late. Once, Flash was near-ubiquitous. Today, as consumers move away from desktop PCs toward smartphones, tablets, and other devices, Flash's influence is waning. Apple stopped shipping the Flash Player with new Macs in 2010 and forbade it outright on iOS devices, amid scathing criticism from then-CEO Steve Jobs. Now comes word that the Internet Explorer 10 browser for Metro, Microsoft's new Start screen shipping with Windows 8, will not support any plug-ins, including Flash.
If Adobe hopes to reignite interest in the platform now, what it ships this year can't merely be iterative. It must be downright spectacular.
Advantage: Silverlight
Flash fans are sure to point out that Windows 8 will also ship with a desktop version of IE10 that still supports the plug-in; Google ships its Chrome browser with a version of Flash built in as well. Increasingly, however, this is beside the point. On the Web, Flash faces the growing challenge of HTML5. Soon, Web developers are likely to turn to Flash for only the most media-rich applications -- such as those that need access to Webcams and microphones.
Some will also argue that although Metro-style IE10 won't support the Flash plug-in, it won't support the Silverlight plug-in, either. Silverlight has long been viewed as Microsoft's direct competitor to Flash, and critics see this latest development as a victory for Adobe and an admission on Microsoft's part that Silverlight is a failure. But they're wrong.
Silverlight as a brand seems to be fading out of view, but its technology definitely is not. The top way to build apps for Windows 8's Metro environment is using a combination of HTML5, JavaScript, XAML, and .Net-managed code -- in other words, pretty much all the same stuff that goes into Silverlight apps. When you develop apps for Metro, you essentially are a Silverlight developer.
The message is clear: Instead of creating Silverlight content to be served over the Web and wedged into a browser window via a plug-in, developers can use the same skills, technologies, and techniques to offer the same content as first-class apps for Windows, using touch-centric Metro-style UIs.
I'll argue that it's not Silverlight that has failed, but Flash. Flash on Android tablet devices offers only mediocre performance, and Adobe has done little to encourage developers to consider touch first. In comparison, Microsoft is practically beating Metro developers over the head with touch. Adobe enables developers to create desktop apps, too, using AIR, but it has never been successful at encouraging users to try them. Unlike Metro, AIR apps aren't well-integrated into the OS and require users to install a separate runtime before they'll run. Adobe could have offered an "AIR desktop" that worked very much like Metro, but it lacked the vision.
All alone in an app-centric world
The bigger picture -- which I've touched on before -- is that major platform vendors are increasingly encouraging developers to create rich applications not to be delivered via the browser, but as native, platform-based apps. That's long been the case on iOS and other smartphone platforms, and now it's starting to be the norm on Windows. Each step of the way, Adobe is getting left behind.
For example, the other platform that uses HTML5, JavaScript, XAML, and .Net as its core development technologies is Windows Phone 7. If you're a Silverlight or Metro developer, you'll feel right at home with the Windows Phone SDK. Adobe has long claimed to be working with Microsoft to bring Flash to the Windows Phone platform, but that seems increasingly unlikely now.
Flash's fortunes on other mobile platforms haven't been much better. I mentioned that the Flash Player on Android is a mixed bag; AIR apps tend to work better, but relatively few Android developers have taken up the technology. On BlackBerry PlayBook tablets, Flash support has been blamed for poor battery life.
Adobe says the latest versions of its Flash tools can be used to create apps for iOS, too. That's true, but it's a little misleading. You still can't run Flash content directly on iOS; instead, you must package your code as AIR apps, then use Adobe's tools to cross-compile them into native iOS code. That makes cross-platform development easier, but it's not the same thing as true portability, and Apple could effectively withdraw the capability at any time, either by changing its APIs or by altering its terms of service. Similarly, Adobe expects "Flash-based apps will come to Metro via Adobe AIR," but it's unclear what advantage this will give developers over XAML, the native Silverlight technology.
Sorry, Adobe, no sale
Perhaps Adobe's biggest problem, however, is that it's something of a relic as developer-oriented vendors go. How many people have access to the Flash runtime is almost a moot point, because Adobe doesn't make any money from the runtime directly; it gives it away for free. Adobe makes its money from selling developer tools. Given the rich supply of free, open source developer tools available today, vendors like that are few and far between. Remember Borland? Or Watcom?
Compare that to what Apple, Google, and Microsoft are all doing. They're building complete, vertically organized software development, sales, and distribution channels, offering developers everything from platforms, tools, and SDKs to the online stores to sell their wares. That offers advantages, particularly to small developers, but more important, it means the platform vendor gets to take a cut of every sale.
Adobe tried something similar with Adobe InMarket and the AIR Marketplace. Neither were particularly successful with developers or customers. More important, neither brought in any revenue for Adobe (the AIR Marketplace being a "marketplace" in name only). Both were shuttered Aug. 31, with Adobe encouraging developers to use other companies' app stores to market their AIR apps. Once again, Apple, Google, and Microsoft each get their cut; Adobe gets nothing -- yet another missed opportunity.
While I look forward to what Adobe will announce at the Max conference, I can't help but view it with a healthy dose of skepticism. Adobe says it will "transform the creative process." Increasingly, one question sticks in my mind: For whom, exactly? Hasn't Adobe noticed the transformation that has already happened?
This article, "How Adobe Flash lost its way," originally appeared at InfoWorld.com. Read more of Neil McAllister's Fatal Exception blog and follow the latest news in programming at InfoWorld.com. For the latest business technology news, follow InfoWorld.com on Twitter.

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