Apple Silences Google Voice On the iPhone
There we have: more proof that the traditional carriers are very afraid of Google Voice. Now that Google Voice is starting to add new users rapidly, the traditional carriers are waking up. As a result the existing 3rd party Google Voice app for the iPhone has been removed from the iTunes store and Apple is not accepting Google's own voice app for the iPhone. Even though this same Google app already exists for the blackberry and the Android phones.
The official reason that Apple is giving is that this app duplicates functionality that already exists in the iPhone's native apps. This is true, Google voice allows you to make free long distance calls in the USA, send free SMS/text messages to anyone in the USA and make really cheap international calls. But then so do any of a dozen or so VOIP applications that are available on the iPhone already, the most popular one being Skype. Google has responded that they will look into making a browser based version of their application, and then there will be no way that Apple can block the usage of Google Voice short of legal action.
So why are carriers running scared? Well first of all there is the power of Google, nobody wants a giant like this to step into a market. Google seems to be undercutting prices for long distance and international calls as well as for sending SMS/text messages. Especially text messages are currently a gold mine for the carriers, every teenager has a need for texting if they want to keep up with their peers. Google Voice offering free texting means that fewer parents of teenagers will be forced to get an unlimited texting plan. And this explains why the carriers didn't bother blocking the Google Voice app on the blackberry and the Android phones: these phones unlike the iPhone are not very popular with the teenage crowd.
Tuesday, July 28, 2009
Thursday, July 16, 2009
Lessons from Twitter's security breach | Webware - CNET
Lessons from Twitter's security breach | Webware - CNET
This so-called Twitter security breach didn't have anything to do with the security of Twitter. Here is (supposedly) what happened. A hacker got the yahoo email address from one of Twitter's employees, managed to get the password, logged in and through reading some emails was able to get into the employee's Google account where he found a bunch of Twitter confidential information.
So why was it so easy to break into the yahoo email account? Well, Yahoo (like most other web portals) has a way to retrieve your password. You simply answer a few questions (like mother's maiden name) and you will again have access to your account. This is how the Twitter hacker got in and this is also how Sarah Palin's Yahoo email account was hacked. And why does Yahoo offer this service? Well a lot of people forget their password and this is the only way that most portals know how to solve this problem.
In order to make them easy to remember people will use simple, short passwords and they will make all their passwords the same. And if they make difficult to guess passwords then they will forget them and the portal will have to provide a password recovery service like Yahoo does. The end result, as we can see from the Twitter and Palin examples is a hacker's delight. So passwords are evil! But can we really do without?
A company called Fortknock which is still in stealth mode is promising a totally secure online experience without the need for passwords. When you login instead of being asked for username and password you are presented with four multiple choice questions about your likes and dislikes. For example "who is your most favourite singer", or "which type of food do you dislike the most". Answers to questions like these are not easy to guess by others and to make it even more difficult for the potential hacker the wrong choices are answers that other people who are very similar to you have given to the same question.
So if for example the hacker has figured out that you are from the Netherlands they might assume that your favourite singer is someone from the Netherlands. But because FortKnock will take the answers from other people who are also from the Netherlands and present them as the wrong choices, the hacker will be presented with 10 popular Dutch singers to choose from. There is a lot of statistical mathematics behind this seemingly simple authentication scheme, that shows that a system like this is just as secure as an 80 digit password that changes every time you login. (Imagine the trouble of trying to remember an 80 digit password ;-) On the user side this is as simple as it can get, you of course can remember your likes and dislikes unlike all those pesky passwords that must or must not start with a number, contain or not contain upper case letters etc. etc.
I found this company's technology so intriguing that I decided to accept their offer to make me a senior advisor, which means I will probably write some more about FortKnock in future blog entries.
This so-called Twitter security breach didn't have anything to do with the security of Twitter. Here is (supposedly) what happened. A hacker got the yahoo email address from one of Twitter's employees, managed to get the password, logged in and through reading some emails was able to get into the employee's Google account where he found a bunch of Twitter confidential information.
So why was it so easy to break into the yahoo email account? Well, Yahoo (like most other web portals) has a way to retrieve your password. You simply answer a few questions (like mother's maiden name) and you will again have access to your account. This is how the Twitter hacker got in and this is also how Sarah Palin's Yahoo email account was hacked. And why does Yahoo offer this service? Well a lot of people forget their password and this is the only way that most portals know how to solve this problem.
In order to make them easy to remember people will use simple, short passwords and they will make all their passwords the same. And if they make difficult to guess passwords then they will forget them and the portal will have to provide a password recovery service like Yahoo does. The end result, as we can see from the Twitter and Palin examples is a hacker's delight. So passwords are evil! But can we really do without?
A company called Fortknock which is still in stealth mode is promising a totally secure online experience without the need for passwords. When you login instead of being asked for username and password you are presented with four multiple choice questions about your likes and dislikes. For example "who is your most favourite singer", or "which type of food do you dislike the most". Answers to questions like these are not easy to guess by others and to make it even more difficult for the potential hacker the wrong choices are answers that other people who are very similar to you have given to the same question.
So if for example the hacker has figured out that you are from the Netherlands they might assume that your favourite singer is someone from the Netherlands. But because FortKnock will take the answers from other people who are also from the Netherlands and present them as the wrong choices, the hacker will be presented with 10 popular Dutch singers to choose from. There is a lot of statistical mathematics behind this seemingly simple authentication scheme, that shows that a system like this is just as secure as an 80 digit password that changes every time you login. (Imagine the trouble of trying to remember an 80 digit password ;-) On the user side this is as simple as it can get, you of course can remember your likes and dislikes unlike all those pesky passwords that must or must not start with a number, contain or not contain upper case letters etc. etc.
I found this company's technology so intriguing that I decided to accept their offer to make me a senior advisor, which means I will probably write some more about FortKnock in future blog entries.
Why has Yahoo allowed themselves to become the RC Cola of search?
Yahoo got started as a search engine, just like Alta Vista and just like Google. Out of these three (there are/were more) Alta Vista is the only one in this list that didn't go beyond Internet search and it is also the only one that doesn't exist anymore. The lesson here is that in order to stay in business you have to do more than just provide Internet search capabilities.
Early on Yahoo decided to become a portal with email, Instant Messaging, Flickr photos etc. etc. So Yahoo might be the RC cola of Internet search but it is number one in web based email and the truth of the matter is that people spend much more time looking at their emails then looking at their search results. In other words email web pages are a much better place to put ads in front of consumers then Internet search pages are.
Why else do you think Microsoft wanted to pay a hefty sum for Yahoo, it sure wasn't for their search technology. The real reason that Microsoft wanted Yahoo was so it could use Yahoo in its fight against Google. Without Yahoo, Microsoft decided to release their own Internet search technology called bing that now competes with Google search. And no, they will not be able to seriously damage Google's position as the world leader in Internet search, but it will keep Google on their toes, just like Google keeps Microsoft on it's toes with their Chrome Operating System.
Yahoo got started as a search engine, just like Alta Vista and just like Google. Out of these three (there are/were more) Alta Vista is the only one in this list that didn't go beyond Internet search and it is also the only one that doesn't exist anymore. The lesson here is that in order to stay in business you have to do more than just provide Internet search capabilities.
Early on Yahoo decided to become a portal with email, Instant Messaging, Flickr photos etc. etc. So Yahoo might be the RC cola of Internet search but it is number one in web based email and the truth of the matter is that people spend much more time looking at their emails then looking at their search results. In other words email web pages are a much better place to put ads in front of consumers then Internet search pages are.
Why else do you think Microsoft wanted to pay a hefty sum for Yahoo, it sure wasn't for their search technology. The real reason that Microsoft wanted Yahoo was so it could use Yahoo in its fight against Google. Without Yahoo, Microsoft decided to release their own Internet search technology called bing that now competes with Google search. And no, they will not be able to seriously damage Google's position as the world leader in Internet search, but it will keep Google on their toes, just like Google keeps Microsoft on it's toes with their Chrome Operating System.
Tuesday, July 14, 2009
Desktop PC Sales Decline For the First Time Since 2001 - desktop pc - Gizmodo
Desktop PC Sales Decline For the First Time Since 2001 - desktop pc - Gizmodo
PC desktop sales in Q1 2009 declined 8.1% compared to Q1 2008. And this is not due to the recession because sales of notebook PCs (laptops and netbooks) are up 11.7% for the same quarter. So what is going on?
Well for one the current laptops and netbooks (small laptops) are so powerful that for most consumers they have enough horse power to do anything a consumer wants to do with a computer. Only gamers and video editing enthusiasts need more power than a laptop can provide. Also the price of a netbook (about $350) is much less than that of a full desktop and need I mention laptops are portable?
Gone are the days where you had one PC desktop per family. Nowadays every member of the family has his or her own computer so a laptop makes much more sense. My son always takes his whenever he goes to visit a friend, something he couldn't do with the old family desktop PC.
So what does the future look like for laptops: well, they will either get even smaller or turn into some hybrid netbook/smart phone device that will replace the laptop as we know it. With your new Internet netbook/smart phone you will want Internet connection wherever you go, so a huge market is opening up for netbooks with integrated 3G data plans. You can now get them subsidized from Verizon or AT&T even more blurring the line between smart phones and laptops.
PC desktop sales in Q1 2009 declined 8.1% compared to Q1 2008. And this is not due to the recession because sales of notebook PCs (laptops and netbooks) are up 11.7% for the same quarter. So what is going on?
Well for one the current laptops and netbooks (small laptops) are so powerful that for most consumers they have enough horse power to do anything a consumer wants to do with a computer. Only gamers and video editing enthusiasts need more power than a laptop can provide. Also the price of a netbook (about $350) is much less than that of a full desktop and need I mention laptops are portable?
Gone are the days where you had one PC desktop per family. Nowadays every member of the family has his or her own computer so a laptop makes much more sense. My son always takes his whenever he goes to visit a friend, something he couldn't do with the old family desktop PC.
So what does the future look like for laptops: well, they will either get even smaller or turn into some hybrid netbook/smart phone device that will replace the laptop as we know it. With your new Internet netbook/smart phone you will want Internet connection wherever you go, so a huge market is opening up for netbooks with integrated 3G data plans. You can now get them subsidized from Verizon or AT&T even more blurring the line between smart phones and laptops.
Monday, July 13, 2009
U.S. and Europe Jointly Establish Cyber-Crime Force - WSJ.com
From the headline in this article it sounds like the US and Europe are joining in a anti cyber crime task force. However if you read the details then it become clear that this is not really a giant project that will "prevent identity theft, computer hacking and other computer-based crime".
What is happening is that the Italian post office (PTT), who like all other European PTTs has a banking arm, has build some interesting software to track all the money flowing over the Internet between their 14,000 branches. Other PTTs in Europe are now joining this effort and will use the Italian software to monitor all European money transactions on the Internet. Since a lot of this money flows between Europe and the US, the US secret service has decided to participate, so they can potentially track money transactions that are either illegal or money to be used for terrorist type of activities.
Now don't get me wrong, all of this is very good news, but this is not a pan-European/US joint task force on Internet Security as the headline seems to suggest. Although one could hope that this cooperation will eventually lead to a real task force that will battle "identity theft, computer hacking and other computer-based crime". Because the cyber villains themselves are organized globally across the world the only way to fight cyber crime is by having everyone across country boundaries participate.
From the headline in this article it sounds like the US and Europe are joining in a anti cyber crime task force. However if you read the details then it become clear that this is not really a giant project that will "prevent identity theft, computer hacking and other computer-based crime".
What is happening is that the Italian post office (PTT), who like all other European PTTs has a banking arm, has build some interesting software to track all the money flowing over the Internet between their 14,000 branches. Other PTTs in Europe are now joining this effort and will use the Italian software to monitor all European money transactions on the Internet. Since a lot of this money flows between Europe and the US, the US secret service has decided to participate, so they can potentially track money transactions that are either illegal or money to be used for terrorist type of activities.
Now don't get me wrong, all of this is very good news, but this is not a pan-European/US joint task force on Internet Security as the headline seems to suggest. Although one could hope that this cooperation will eventually lead to a real task force that will battle "identity theft, computer hacking and other computer-based crime". Because the cyber villains themselves are organized globally across the world the only way to fight cyber crime is by having everyone across country boundaries participate.
Sunday, July 12, 2009
The Sharedband Solution
What if your business depends on your Internet connection being available 24/7 without any downtime? What if you are using all of your available Internet bandwidth (capacity) and you want more but your provider can not offer you any more or their prices quadruple if you double your bandwidth?
Until now there wasn't much you can do but now SharedBand a UK start-up that just entered the US market has a solution for both of these problems. When you order their service they will ship you two (or more) standard routers (or you can download their software yourself into your Linksys, D-link or Netgear router). You then subscribe with two (or more) Internet Service Providers (ISP) and attach one router to the first ISP modem and the second router to the other ISP modem and then thanks to the SharedBand software the two routers will work as one; giving you twice the capacity (bandwidth) of using only one ISP and automatically redirecting all your Internet traffic to the working ISP modem in case one of them goes down.
You can even couple together different types of ISPs, for example: one of them can be a cable modem and the other one a DSL line, or combine a cable modem with a 3G data network router, the combinations are endless. $25 per month for two routers and $50 for four routers. (plus one time the price of the routers if you do not install your own software and of course your normal ISP fees).
What if your business depends on your Internet connection being available 24/7 without any downtime? What if you are using all of your available Internet bandwidth (capacity) and you want more but your provider can not offer you any more or their prices quadruple if you double your bandwidth?
Until now there wasn't much you can do but now SharedBand a UK start-up that just entered the US market has a solution for both of these problems. When you order their service they will ship you two (or more) standard routers (or you can download their software yourself into your Linksys, D-link or Netgear router). You then subscribe with two (or more) Internet Service Providers (ISP) and attach one router to the first ISP modem and the second router to the other ISP modem and then thanks to the SharedBand software the two routers will work as one; giving you twice the capacity (bandwidth) of using only one ISP and automatically redirecting all your Internet traffic to the working ISP modem in case one of them goes down.
You can even couple together different types of ISPs, for example: one of them can be a cable modem and the other one a DSL line, or combine a cable modem with a 3G data network router, the combinations are endless. $25 per month for two routers and $50 for four routers. (plus one time the price of the routers if you do not install your own software and of course your normal ISP fees).
Wednesday, July 08, 2009
Official Google Blog: Introducing the Google Chrome OS
We have seen before that everything that Google does with Gmail, Google apps, Google Voice, Google Wave etc. is aimed at getting people to spend as much time as possible on the Google web pages. All of this so they can spend more time watching the ads that Google puts on there.
The Google app strategy for example, is aimed at getting people to put their word, excel and powerpoint documents on the Google website (so they will spend more time there), but by doing so they started to compete head-on with Microsoft Office.
Microsoft is retaliating by integrating their new Win7 operating system tightly with their Azure cloud offering. With Win7 and the new release of Office your documents will automagically flow between your desktop and your Azure cloud account. So the only way that Google can counter this attack is by providing people with their own Chrome browser and Chrome operating system. Just like Microsoft they are partnering with the hardware vendors who are very willing to ditch Microsoft after so many years of being controlled by them.
The Google Chrome operating system along with the Google Chrome browser is another major step towards the empty PC: a PC/laptop/netbook that only has enough software to get you online and that doesn't store any data itself, all the data and application are in the cloud.
We have seen before that everything that Google does with Gmail, Google apps, Google Voice, Google Wave etc. is aimed at getting people to spend as much time as possible on the Google web pages. All of this so they can spend more time watching the ads that Google puts on there.
The Google app strategy for example, is aimed at getting people to put their word, excel and powerpoint documents on the Google website (so they will spend more time there), but by doing so they started to compete head-on with Microsoft Office.
Microsoft is retaliating by integrating their new Win7 operating system tightly with their Azure cloud offering. With Win7 and the new release of Office your documents will automagically flow between your desktop and your Azure cloud account. So the only way that Google can counter this attack is by providing people with their own Chrome browser and Chrome operating system. Just like Microsoft they are partnering with the hardware vendors who are very willing to ditch Microsoft after so many years of being controlled by them.
The Google Chrome operating system along with the Google Chrome browser is another major step towards the empty PC: a PC/laptop/netbook that only has enough software to get you online and that doesn't store any data itself, all the data and application are in the cloud.
Wednesday, July 01, 2009
Cisco Won't Take on Amazon in Cloud - Business Center - PC World
Cisco Won't Take on Amazon in Cloud - Business Center - PC World
Even though we are still in the hype phase of cloud computing and cloud services, smart companies like Cisco are already busy redefining their long term strategy. They realize that once customers do move away from traditional data center based services to cloud based services that the size of the IT data center market will shrink.
A lot of companies in the enterprise IT space like IBM, Microsoft, and even Symantec are changing their strategy by becoming a full cloud based service provider, meaning they are providing SaaS offerings as well as capacity (online storage or server capacity). Cisco, however is concentrating on extending their SaaS offerings by improving and extending their WebEx collaboration and IronPort services and it is using it's Unified Computing System (UCS) markitecture to sell their hardware products to whoever wants to build and efficiently manage either traditional data center or cloud capacity. In other words they are not building cloud capacity.
This seems like a smart move to me, after all in the end the cloud capacity will be a commodity and the real differentiator will be the quality, ease-of-use and longevity of the service being offered. Cisco's USC will help the cloud capacity providers to inexpensively manage their servers and storage while at the same time helping the traditional data center customers to easily move towards cloud based services.
Even though we are still in the hype phase of cloud computing and cloud services, smart companies like Cisco are already busy redefining their long term strategy. They realize that once customers do move away from traditional data center based services to cloud based services that the size of the IT data center market will shrink.
A lot of companies in the enterprise IT space like IBM, Microsoft, and even Symantec are changing their strategy by becoming a full cloud based service provider, meaning they are providing SaaS offerings as well as capacity (online storage or server capacity). Cisco, however is concentrating on extending their SaaS offerings by improving and extending their WebEx collaboration and IronPort services and it is using it's Unified Computing System (UCS) markitecture to sell their hardware products to whoever wants to build and efficiently manage either traditional data center or cloud capacity. In other words they are not building cloud capacity.
This seems like a smart move to me, after all in the end the cloud capacity will be a commodity and the real differentiator will be the quality, ease-of-use and longevity of the service being offered. Cisco's USC will help the cloud capacity providers to inexpensively manage their servers and storage while at the same time helping the traditional data center customers to easily move towards cloud based services.
Dell puts customers on fast to storage efficiency - Nationmultimedia.com
Dell puts customers on fast to storage efficiency - Nationmultimedia.com
Dell together with CommVault is trying to boost sales of their PowerVault DL2000 backup product by providing free consultancy. This game is all about the SMB backup market. The larger enterprises all have made their choice for a backup (and archiving) solution a long time ago and unless something drastic happens with the supplier they will stick with their choice.
The reason that a backup or archiving product is so sticky is that once you switch you basically loose all of your old backups and archives unless you also spend a ton of money converting them. And even then sometimes the conversion can not be done at all!
So DELL and CommVault together (along with a lot of other players) are targeting the SMB market that is finally starting to see the need for a proper backup and archiving solution. There are two major items when dealing with IT solutions for the SMB space: one they are very price sensitive and two they do not have their own IT department that they can rely on to make a choice this important.
So this is why DELL is providing free consultancy which is focusing on how data de-depulication can save the customer lots of money. I am sure the consultancy will be full of DELL "sponsored ads" but I would urge any SMB IT manager to go and find out where to save money, because once you start archiving and backing-up there is no going back.
Dell together with CommVault is trying to boost sales of their PowerVault DL2000 backup product by providing free consultancy. This game is all about the SMB backup market. The larger enterprises all have made their choice for a backup (and archiving) solution a long time ago and unless something drastic happens with the supplier they will stick with their choice.
The reason that a backup or archiving product is so sticky is that once you switch you basically loose all of your old backups and archives unless you also spend a ton of money converting them. And even then sometimes the conversion can not be done at all!
So DELL and CommVault together (along with a lot of other players) are targeting the SMB market that is finally starting to see the need for a proper backup and archiving solution. There are two major items when dealing with IT solutions for the SMB space: one they are very price sensitive and two they do not have their own IT department that they can rely on to make a choice this important.
So this is why DELL is providing free consultancy which is focusing on how data de-depulication can save the customer lots of money. I am sure the consultancy will be full of DELL "sponsored ads" but I would urge any SMB IT manager to go and find out where to save money, because once you start archiving and backing-up there is no going back.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
