New Mac 'game' plays Russian roulette with your files

Looking for an ideal holiday gift for that brooding philosophy student in your life? It's reminiscent of classic arcade games like Space Invaders, but with a sobering twist: Each time you destroy an alien, the game deletes a file from your Mac. Check out Lose/Lose. Forever.

Get touched by an alien, you lose. Created by Zach Gage, a digital artist in New York City, Lose/Lose puts the player in the position of shooter as aliens rain down from above. Kill an alien, you score points-but you also vaporize a random file from your home directory. The game is clearly intended to be food for thought rather than mindless entertainment. If your ship is destroyed, the game deletes itself from your hard drive.

Above the download link on his site, Gage issues a warning-in large, red, all-capped lettering-that Lose/Lose permanently deletes files from your hard drive. Or maybe it is. "By way of exploring what it means to kill in a video-game, Lose/Lose broaches bigger questions," Gage writes on his site. It's not meant for hardcore gamers. Gage himself doesn't seem entirely clear on what those bigger questions are. This calls into question the player's mission ... Is the player supposed to be an aggressor?

He meanders through a few ideas, including the value of data versus the value of real objects and the question of what the real point of the game is. "[T]he aliens will never actually fire at the player. Or merely an observer, traversing through a dangerous land?" If it's the latter, you don't have to be a great thinker to know that Lose/Lose won't go viral anytime soon. That hasn't stopped people from downloading it. Symantec, the Maytag repairman of the Mac software world, says it considers the game a potential security threat and will begin detecting it as OSX.Loosemanque. A list of high scores on Gage's site includes a few "Losers" who claim to have eclipsed 4,000 points. If nothing else, it's a way to kill time while you reformat a hard drive.

Google barks back at Microsoft over Chrome Frame security

Google hit back at Microsoft today, defending the security of its new Chrome Frame plug-in and claiming that the software actually makes Internet Explorer (IE) safer and more secure. "Accessing sites using Google Chrome Frame brings Google Chrome's security features to Internet Explorer users," said a Google spokesman today. "It provides strong phishing and malware protection, absent in IE6, robust sandboxing technology [in IE6 and on Windows XP], and defenses from emerging online threats that are available in days rather than months." Although both IE7 and IE8 include a "sandbox" defense dubbed "Protected Mode," the feature works only when the browsers are run in Vista (IE7 and IE8) or Windows 7 (IE8). Google's Chrome Frame , however, prevents malicious code from escaping the browser - and worming its way into, say, the operating system - on Windows XP as well. Bazdukas blasted plug-in security in general, and Chrome Frame specifically, while taking the latter to task because it busts IE8's private browsing features. "Chrome Frame breaks the privacy model of IE," claimed Bazdukas. "Users are not going to be able to use IE's privacy features, something that's not made apparent to users. Yesterday, Microsoft warned users that they would double their security problems by using Chrome Frame, the plug-in that provides better JavaScript performance and adds support for HTML 5 to Microsoft's browser. "Running a browser within a browser doubles the potential attack surface in a way that we don't see is particularly helpful," said Amy Bazdukas, Microsoft's general manager for IE, on Thursday.

They're essentially circumvented." Google countered that its plug-in is secure. "Google Chrome Frame ... was designed with security in mind from the beginning," the company spokesman added in an e-mail. "While we encourage users to use a more modern and standards-compliant browser such as Firefox, Safari, Opera or Chrome rather than a plug-in, for those who don't, Chrome Frame is designed to provide better performance, strong security features, and more choice ... across all versions of Internet Explorer." According to Google, Chrome Frame receives automatic, behind-the-scenes security updates with the same mechanism used by the Chrome browser itself, relieving users of manually patching the plug-in. Chrome Frame lets IE utilize the Chrome browser's WebKit rendering engine, as well as its high-performance V8 JavaScript engine. The company is also investigating bugs filed with the Chrome team by Microsoft developers, who reported that Chrome Frame broke IE8's privacy mode. The extra speed and HTML 5 support are necessary, said Google earlier this week, if IE users are to run advanced Web applications such as Google Wave , a collaboration and communications tool that Google launched in May. It's available from Google's site as a free download . Google pitched the plug-in as a way to instantly improve the performance of the notoriously slow IE, and as a way for Web developers to support standards IE can't handle, including HTML 5. The Chrome Frame plug-in works with IE6, IE7 and IE8 on Windows XP and Windows Vista.

Infoblox, Neustar form alliance

Infoblox and Neustar will announce Tuesday a strategic partnership that allows the two companies to resell each other's DNS products to enterprise customers and hints towards tighter integration of these offerings in the future. Infoblox customers include financial services firms such as VISA, healthcare companies such as Pfizer and government agencies such as the Nevada Department of Corrections. Tools cure IP address-management headaches Infoblox sells appliances that handle DNS, Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP) and IP Address Management (IPAM) functions for internal corporate networks.

Internal DNS is how employees reach enterprise IP-based applications such as VoIP. Neustar offers the UltraDNS, DNS and load balancing services aimed at helping leading e-commerce sites such as Zappos.com and BuyOnlineNow.com handle external DNS queries without investing in their own global network infrastructure. Now Infoblox will offer Neustar's cloud-based services to its customers, while Neustar will resell Infoblox appliances. "Infoblox is a sales agent for Neustar's services including a global secondary service. External DNS is how Web sites publish the latest information about their DNS and IP address changes to their customers over the Internet. In this particular service, our customers will still use Infoblox as their primary DNS but in terms of the secondary services that is handled by the Neustar cloud," explains Richard Kagan, vice president of marketing for Infoblox. "The nice thing is that it will all be done through a single pane of glass. Neustar already sells a managed internal DNS service. "Think of the Infoblox appliances as offering an extension to our service portfolio that provides internal DNS components," says Jim Leach, vice president of marketing at Neustar. It can all be managed under the Infoblox [graphical user interface.]" Infoblox also will resell Neustar's services for external bi-directional DNS and global load balancing. "These are the kinds of things that most organizations are hard-pressed to [deploy their own] infrastructure for," Kagan says. "For those capabilities, the UltraDNS cloud is authoritative." Meanwhile, Neustar will resell Infoblox appliances to its customers that are looking to upgrade their internal DNS capabilities.

Neustar and Infoblox did not announce any special offerings that would marry their products together, but Leach said "we do see ourselves doing some enhanced services through joint development." The Infoblox/Neustar alliance comes at a time when Neustar's UltraDNS services face additional competition from DNS software vendor Nominum, which announced a cloud-based service called SKYE in September.

Microsoft: Word legal foe paints cockeyed tale

Microsoft Corp. called the claim by Canadian developer i4i Inc. that it plotted to drive the company out of business "distorted," and "a breathless tale" that was not supported by the evidence, according to a court documents. But Microsoft also pressed the appeals court for a complete reversal, saying that decisions made by the Texas lower court led "to erroneous verdicts of infringement and validity, and grossly unsupportable damages." Microsoft's response brief saved its most blistering words for i4i, the Toronto-based company that in 2007 said Microsoft illegally used its patented technology to add XML editing, and "custom" XML features, to Word 2003, and later, to Word 2007. "Having little to rebut Microsoft's arguments on the merits, i4i devotes the majority of its brief to a distorted presentation of irrelevant 'evidence'," read Microsoft's brief. "i4i labors mightily to paint Microsoft pejoratively, portraying it as a once-close 'business partner' that supposedly stabbed i4i in the back and 'usurped' i4i's patented invention." Last week, i4i claimed Microsoft marketed the former's XML software to potential customers at the same time it planned to make that software obsolete by building similar features into Microsoft Word using its technology. At the least, Microsoft told the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal District, it deserves a new trial. "At minimum, a new trial is warranted," the company said in a reply brief filed Monday. Within days of a 2001 meeting between representatives of the two companies, according to an internal e-mail, someone at Microsoft said, "[I]f we do the work properly, there won't be a need for their [i4i's] product," i4i said as it linked the two events.

Microsoft's reply was the latest round in a patent infringement case that started two years ago when i4i accused the software maker of using its technology in Microsoft's popular Word software. That's nothing but a tall tale, Microsoft said. "Unfortunately for i4i, the truth is both comparatively mundane and innocent: After a handful of unfruitful meetings, i4i and Microsoft went their separate ways and Microsoft later released the custom XML functionality for Word that it had told i4i it was developing," the company's lawyers said in the brief. Last May, a Texas jury said Microsoft was guilty of patent infringement, and awarded i4i $200 million in damages. The injunction, said Microsoft, meant it might have to pull Word, and the Office 2003 and Office 2007 suites, off the market for months. In August, U.S. District Court Judge Leonard Davis added more than $90 million in additional damages and interest to Microsoft's bill, then issued an injunction that would have prevented it from selling Word 2003 and Word 2007 as of Oct. 10. Microsoft quickly won a fast-track appeal after warning the three appellate judges that the injunction would create sales chaos for the company and its partners, including Hewlett-Packard Co. and Dell Inc., the world's two largest computer makers. Two weeks ago, the court of appeals suspended the injunction while it hears and decides Microsoft's appeal.

But the company's lawyers also disputed claims made by i4i in the brief it submitted Sept. 8, particularly the conclusion that Microsoft had schemed to tout i4i's software on the one hand, and use its technology in Word on the other. "Most of the evidence demonstrates only that i4i attended certain meetings with Microsoft," the company said. "There is absolutely no evidence in this record from which a juror reasonably could infer that Microsoft had knowledge of the contents of the [i4i] patent." Nor should the injunction against selling current versions of Word stand, said Microsoft. "Even assuming that i4i had shown both competition and harm tied to that competition, an injunction is inappropriate because i4i has not shown that whatever harm it has suffered is irreparable and cannot be remedied by money damages," Microsoft stated. "Today's reply brief is an opportunity to reinforce our key assertions in this case," said Microsoft spokesman Kevin Kutz on Monday. "We believe the district court erred in its interpretation and application of the law in this case [and] we look forward to the September 23 hearing before the U.S. Court of Appeals." Kutz's reference was to the oral hearing scheduled for next week, when both parties will present their arguments before the panel of three judges. i4i was unavailable for comment on Microsoft's brief. Most of Microsoft's brief was a recitation of points made last month in its request for an appeal, when it lambasted Davis for his handling of the case and called the verdict a "miscarriage of justice." Microsoft again hit on some of the same points, criticizing Davis' rulings during the trial and arguing that i4i's patent was obvious, and thus not protected.

Oracle/Sun: Why European Union jurisdiction matters

A mild war of words is breaking out between American and European regulators on the proposed merger between Oracle and Sun. But American officials are not contesting Europe's jurisdiction over the matter and previous cases show that European regulators have broad powers over American companies that do business in Europe. Slideshow: Hottest Tech M&A deals U.S. government officials have expressed displeasure with the European Commission's objection to Oracle's planned acquisition of Sun. The European Commission issued a fine of more than $1 billion to Intel this year after finding the company guilty of antitrust violations.

In 2001, for example, Europe prevented a merger between General Electric and Honeywell even after American regulators had given the deal a green light. "If the annual turnover of the combined businesses exceeds specified thresholds in terms of global and European sales, the proposed merger must be notified to the European Commission, which must examine it," European officials explain on their official competition Web site. "These rules apply to all mergers no matter where in the world the merging companies have their registered office, headquarters, activities or production facilities. In rare cases, Europe has also blocked mergers between American companies. This is so because even mergers between companies based outside the European Union may affect markets in the EU if the companies do business in the EU." In its merger regulation, the EU stipulates that it has control over mergers in which the combined worldwide revenue of the companies involved exceeds $7.5 billion, and more than $374 million within Europe. Sun earned $11.4 billion in worldwide revenue in fiscal 2009, and $3.8 billion in Europe. In fiscal 2009, Oracle alone pulled in more than $23 billion in worldwide revenue and nearly $8 billion in the Europe, Middle East & Africa (EMEA) region. When Oracle first announced its deal to purchase Sun in April, the merger was valued at $7.4 billion.

European officials objected to "the combination of Sun's open source MySQL database product with Oracle's enterprise database products and its potential negative effects on competition in the market for database products," Sun said in a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. Although U.S. officials gave Oracle and Sun the green light, the European Commission issued a formal statement of objections this week, a decision that could scuttle the acquisition. U.S. officials issued a mild criticism of their European counterparts. "Several factors led the [U.S. Antitrust] Division to conclude that the proposed transaction is unlikely to be anticompetitive," Deputy Assistant Attorney General Molly Boast of the Department of Justice's Antitrust Division said in a written statement. "There are many open-source and proprietary database competitors. The Department also concluded that there is a large community of developers and users of Sun's open source database with significant expertise in maintaining and improving the software, and who could support a derivative version of it." The U.S. comments were described as "unusual" by a European official. The Division concluded, based on the specific facts at issue in the transaction, that consumer harm is unlikely because customers would continue to have choices from a variety of well established and widely accepted database products.

According to the Reuters wire service, a European Commission spokesman named Jonathan Todd said "That's unusual. We apply European merger control rules, they apply U.S. merger control rules," Todd said. I cannot recall any instance where the European Commission has ever issued a statement concerning ongoing investigations in another jurisdiction." Todd further noted that the United States and Europe have different methods of judging whether a deal is anticompetitive."We have our methods, they have theirs. The GE/Honeywell failure was the last time U.S. and European authorities have issued different decisions on a merger, according to the Reuters article. The Antitrust Division will continue to work constructively with the EC and competition authorities in other jurisdictions to preserve sound antitrust enforcement policies that benefit consumers around the world." Follow Jon Brodkin on Twitter. In her statement, Boast said the United States will continue to work with Europe on competition policy. "The Department and the European Commission have a strong and positive relationship on competition policy matters," Boast said. "The two competition authorities have enjoyed close and cooperative relations.

US high-tech trade deficit improves, still long way to go

Well it might not be time to break out the bubbly just yet but US high-tech exports totaled $223 billion in 2008, up one percent from $220 billion in 2007 continuing a trend that has seen tech exports rise 38% since 2002. The number represents the single largest export sector in the country, accounting for 17% of the total US exports. NetworkWorld Extra: Seven future car technologies your tax dollars are paying for Ethernet everywhere! These were some of the more telling results from the third annual Trade in the Cyberstates report by the TechAmerica trade association which also stated that US high-tech exports support 1,157,800 domestic jobs.

The US high-tech trade deficit stood at $114 billion in 2008. This amount down by $3 billion from 2007, representing the first time since 2001 the high-tech balance of trade has improved. And what were we exporting most? Still, the deficit has more than doubled since 2002, when it was $56 billion, the group stated. Well the study said photonics represented just over 12% of the exports followed by electromedical equipment at 10.2%, communications equipment at 8.3% and electronic components at 1.1%. Semiconductor manufacturing remained the largest component of high-tech exports in 2008, accounting for $59 billion worth of exports, despite declining $1.6 billion from 2007, the largest drop of all the areas. The largest gain was in the export of communications equipment, which increased by $2.5 billion from 2007 to 2008. On the other side of the coin, the largest high-tech import sectors in 2008 were computers and peripheral equipment at $95.3 billion, communications equipment at $80.4 billion, and consumer electronics $51.8 billion.

The study found that high-tech exports decreased in four areas - computers and peripheral equipment, consumer electronics, semiconductors, and industrial electronics - and increased in four areas - communications equipment, electronic components, electromedical equipment, and photonics. The leading destinations for US high-tech exports in 2008 were, in order of magnitude: Canada, Mexico, China, Japan, Germany, Singapore, Taiwan, the Netherlands, Malaysia, and South Korea. The report is a partner to TechAmerica Foundation's annual flagship publications, Cyberstates and Cybercities, which examine the high-tech industry in the national, state, and metropolitan arenas. The US held a high-tech merchandise deficit with all of these countries except Canada, the Netherlands, and Singapore.

Native iPhone support ready for Lotus Domino

IBM/Lotus said next week it will ship the long-anticipated real-time access support for the iPhone on its Domino messaging platform. In January, IBM announced that it would add support for ActiveSync to its Lotus Notes Traveler, a server add-on that provides real-time replication between mobile devices and Notes. Lotus Domino support for the iPhone uses the Apple device's mail, calendar and contact application and synchronizes data between the two platforms in real time using Microsoft's ActiveSync protocol.

It is the updated Traveler software in Domino 8.5.1, which was released Tuesday, that provides the iPhone support. Updates to Traveler in Domino 8.1.5 add remote wipe, device lock, password management, and external calendar integration to the Symbian platform. Traveler already works with devices based on Windows Mobile and Symbian. Lotus is playing a bit of catch-up as Microsoft and other vendors such as Kerio who offer push e-mail for the iPhone. Also from Network World: Lotus goes after Microsoft's 'ridiculous and fabricated' figures The only thing iPhone users have to add to their device is a configuration file that tells the iPhone how to find the user's mailbox on the Domino server. Motorola, Nokia, Palm, Sony Ericsson, Symbian also support ActiveSync on their mobile devices.

For initial set-up, the iPhone's Safari browser is used to access the Domino server and download the configuration file. Those credentials are stored on the device so the iPhone and Domino can trade data without further user intervention. When the user signs onto Domino to get the configuration file, the user's sign-on credentials are captured by the iPhone. Lotus Notes users have had to suffer with e-mail access via the iPhone's Safari browser and the Notes Web Access client. We want to support all the devices out there and this is the next one we have added." The Domino iPhone support also features limited management capabilities, including the ability to remotely wipe data if the device is lost or stolen.  Follow John on Twitter

With that configuration, users have to manually connect to the Domino server and go through each individual e-mail via the browser. "It has rich email, attachment support and calendaring capability and is the same user experience a user would get using the iPhone against Exchange or Google," said Ed Brill, director of product management for Lotus Software. "Clearly the iPhone is increasingly a component of an enterprise strategy.

US high-tech export spotlight shines on California, Texas, Florida

When it comes to exporting high-tech goods, 36 states saw more money this year with Oregon, Florida, Utah, New Hampshire, and Pennsylvania seeing the largest amounts. These were some of the more interesting results from the third annual Trade in the Cyberstates report by the TechAmerica trade association today which found that Vermont had the highest concentration of tech exports - 70% of its exports were high-tech related. California was the leading high-tech export state with $49.3 billion in exports in 2008, followed by Texas with $39.8 billion.

NetworkWorld Extra: Most notable IT layoffs of 2009 The group also found that:• While California was the leading high-tech export state with $49.3 billion in exports in 2008, down almost six percent or $3.0 billion from 2007.• Texas's high-tech exports totaled $39.8 billion in 2008, up 0.3% or $117 million from 2007, as it remained the nation's second largest state by total tech exports.• The fastest growing cyberstates on a percentage basis from 2007 to 2008 were Montana, Utah, the District of Columbia, New Hampshire, and Louisiana.• California was the leading exporter of computers and peripheral equipment, consumer electronics, semiconductors, industrial electronics, electromedical equipment, and photonics.• Texas was the leading exporter of communications equipment and electronic• components.• Tennessee was the second largest exporter of electromedical equipment, after California, and Florida was the second largest exporter of photonics, after California as well.• The nation's leading cyberstates by high-tech exports in 2008 were California, Texas, Florida, Massachusetts, and New York. The report is a partner to TechAmerica Foundation's annual flagship publications, Cyberstates and Cybercities, which examine the high-tech industry in the national, state, and metropolitan arenas. Massachusetts jumped over New York to claim the fourth place spot.

Novation Launchpad debuts

Novation has unveiled Launchpad, an easy-to-use audio controller that works with Ableton Live 8 performance software to let you create musical compositions. You can start a rhythm from a library of provided samples, layer additional sounds, and edit to create a finished song. Launchpad, which is available for $199, consists of a panel of buttons, each of which can be used to launch an audio event-a sound sample, a rhythm, a melody loop, and more. You can also use your computer's microphone input to add live vocals or other sound sources.

Designed for DJs, live performances, or studio work, its price and ease of use are designed to appeal to musical hobbyists, as well. Launchpad is a dedicated controller for Ableton Live, co-developed by Novation and Ableton. Load the Ableton Live 8 program into your computer and plug Launchpad into the USB port. These are lit by LEDs displaying clip status in real time: Yellow means a sound clip is loaded; green shows a sound is playing; red shows a clip is recording. Launchpad features a multi-color 64-button grid for launching clips and eight dedicated scene-launch buttons.

Multiple Launchpads can be connected at the same time, so people can create "Launchpad bands" in which one person launches rhythms, another bass lines, and a third melody samples, the company says. You can mix, record, add new layers, play back, adjust pitch and volume, and explore panning and various production effects. The sound sources are included in the Ableton Live software. Launchpad is USB bus-powered and measures about 9.5 inches square and less than an inch high. Launchpad comes with a custom software package: Ableton Live 8 Launchpad Edition. The recommended configuration is an Intel Mac running OS X 10.4 or later with 1GB of RAM, though it will work with a Power Mac G4 or later, 512 MB of RAM, and OS X 10.3.9 or later.

It features eight audio and eight MIDI tracks plus eight Session View scenes. Launchpad requires Ableton Live 7 or higher. It also includes Live's classic effects and allows custom mapping.

Board of directors shuffle continues between Apple, Google

Another tie between the board rooms of Apple and Google has been cut, as Arthur Levinson resigned from the board of directors of the Mountain View, Calif.-based search giant while retaining the same position at One Infinite Loop. He's been on Google's board of directors since April 2004 and Apple's board since 2000. If that sounds vaguely familiar, it's because this resignation is the mirror image of one that happened just a few months ago, when Eric Schmidt, Google's CEO, left the Apple board after questions were raised concerning a possible conflict of interest given competition between his company's Android smartphone operating system and Apple's iPhone. Levinson is the chairman of biotech firm Genenetech. In announcing Levinson's departure, Google offered no reason for the move, though it isn't very hard to guess.

Specifically, the FTC was looking into whether having board members serving at both companies violated the Clayton Antitrust Act of 1914, a section of which forbids someone from serving on the board of two rival companies when it would hinder competition. Since May, the Federal Trade Commission has been looking into whether things are too cozy between Google and Apple. The interests of Apple and Google have begun to overlap in recent years as both companies have gotten into the smartphone game-Apple with its iPhone and Google with Android. However, Business Week points out that former vice president Al Gore, who sits on Apple's board, still is listed as a "special advisor" to Google. What's more, Google is working on the open-source Chrome operating system, which could be seen as a competitor to OS X. Levinson's resignation would seem to remove the last tie between the boards of the two companies.

Nevertheless, the Wall Street Journal reports that FTC Chairman Jon Leibowitz issued a statement Monday that seemed to indicate Washington's concerns about Google and Apple have been eased. "Google, Apple, and Mr. Levinson should be commended for recognizing that overlapping board members between competing companies raise serious antitrust issues and for their willingness to resolve our concerns without the need for litigation," he said.

Beyond iTunes: streaming music services

Mention "streaming music services" around the typical gaggle of Mac users and it's like you've suggested that the Mona Lisa would benefit from the application of devils horns, an eye patch, and the words "Windoze Rulez!" scrawled across her beguiling mug with permanent marker. After all, if some music is good, more is better, right? Yet, the true multimedia Mac can greatly benefit from such services.

And more is exactly what these services provide. (Note that unlike music purchased from iTunes or Amazon, streaming tracks aren't saved on your computer and can't be synced to an iPod or iPhone-similar to listening to streaming radio stations in iTunes). Some streaming services such as Pandora and Last.fm are available for free. Other, commercial-free services such as Rhapsody and Napster, require that you pay a monthly subscription fee. Their operation is supported by advertising and they don't allow you to choose the specific tracks and albums you want to listen to. But for that fee you can listen to exactly the tracks and albums you choose. Pandora Billed as a "new kind of radio," Pandora is a streaming service that plays music based on artists and tracks you choose as well as the positive and negative feedback you provide about the music it plays.

These services shake out this way. For example, if you chose Joni Mitchell as an artist starting point, Pandora would first stream a track from Ms. Mitchell, then, perhaps, a Dar Williams track, and then other tracks it believes reflect the character of her work based on an analysis of the music. Thumbs Down lets Pandora know that it's missed the mark, and that information is considered for future tracks. If you particularly enjoy a track that comes along, click a Thumbs Up icon to tweak the settings so you get more music like this track. You can bookmark tracks and artists and move to these bookmarks to learn more about the artist as well as utilize links to purchase their work.

Additionally, Pandora's pages feature advertising and you'll hear the occasional audio ad between tracks. The free version of Pandora limits you to 40 hours of listening per month. All Pandora listeners are limited to six song skips per hour. You can upgrade to Pandora One for $36 a year. Those with free accounts can skip 12 songs total per day. Do this and the audio ads disappear as does the daily skip limit (though you're still limited to six skips per hour), and you receive a higher quality, 192kbps stream.

It bases the music it streams on the music you play on your computer or iPod as well as the Last.fm stations you create and listen to. (Any information it collects is volunteered by its users.) In addition to its analysis tools,  Last.fm compares the music libraries of its users, making recommendations based on intersecting tastes (similar to iTunes' Genius feature). When you sign on, you create a profile page, which lists the tracks you've listened to, lists similar artists you might be interested in, and features comments from other Last.fm users who've chosen to remark on the track. Pandora is not available outside of the U.S. Last.fm Last.fm is another free music community streaming service. This reflects Last.fm's emphasis on community and social networking. From within the service you find links to purchase tracks from the iTunes Store, Amazon MP3, and 7digital. Last.fm also has its commercial side.

For $3 a month you can listen to Last.fm without interruptions and do so without advertising. Last.fm is free in the United Kingdom, U.S., and Germany. While Last.fm doesn't offer on-demand listening, you can listen to a 30-second preview of any tracks it has in its library. A €3 monthly fee is required for listening outside these countries. Instead, today's Napster is a music subscription service as well as a music store where you can purchase DRM-free 256kbps MP3 files.

Napster Take a word association test a few years ago, utter the term "Napster," and the response would surely be "piracy." The notorious file sharing service that was Napster is no more. Priced at $5 a month, a Napster subscription entitles you to access to Napster's multi-million track streaming library. Napster's music can be streamed through your computer or a compatible device such as the Sonos Multi-Room Music System and Logitech's Squeezebox systems. Additionally, you receive credit for five MP3 downloads each month. Similar to the iTunes Store you can visit genre pages to find particular kinds of music. In addition to tracks and albums, Napster offers radio stations that stream particular genres of music.

These pages feature new releases, top albums, tracks, and artists; playlists, and staff picks. These stations include such genres as rock, blues, comedy, electronica, heavy metal, hip-hop, jazz, reggae, and classical. Rhapsody Real Networks' Rhapsody is another subscription music service. You can also listen to tracks from Billboard's charts as well as watch music videos. Priced at $13 a month, Rhapsody, like Napster, gives you access to millions of streaming audio tracks and you can play all of them on demand.

Also as with Napster, you can stream Rhapsody's music not only to your computer but to a Squeezebox and Sonos system. Although no downloads are included with a subscription, you're welcome to purchase unencrypted 256kbps MP3 tracks and albums from Rhapsody. TiVo subscribers can also access Rhapsody's service (Rhapsody account required). The Rhapsody experience is similar to Napster is other ways. You can also create playlists of music that you can later stream. On its Web site you'll find new releases, staff picks, top albums and tracks, and genre pages and channels. Rhapsody recently released an iPhone app that allows Rhapsody-to-Go subscribers ($15 a month) to stream Rhapsody's content to their iPhones or iPod touch.

The current Rhapsody app has met with little enthusiasm due to the generally poor quality of the stream, but company has indicated that it's working on providing better sound from its app.

Missing dot drops Sweden off the Internet

What was essentially a typo last night resulted in the temporary disappearance from the Internet of almost a million Web sites in Sweden - every address with a .se top-level down name. Problems that affect an entire top-level zone have very wide-ranging effects as can be seen by the .se incident. … Imagine the same thing happening to the .com domain, which has over 80 million domain names." The total blackout of .se lasted for about an hour and a half, Pingdom says, although aftershocks are expected to continue. "The .SE registry used an incorrectly configured script to update the .se zone, which introduced an error to every single .se domain name," says Pingdom. "We have spoken to a number of industry insiders and what happened is that when updating the data, the script did not add a terminating '.' to the DNS records in the .se zone. According to Web monitoring company Pingdom, which happens to be based in Sweden, the disablement of an entire top-level domain "is exceptionally rare. … Usually it's a single domain name that has been incorrectly configured or the DNS servers of a single Web host having problems.

That trailing dot is necessary in the settings for DNS to understand that '.se" is the top-level domain. Thanks to well-functioning surveillance system .SE discovered the error immediately and a new file with the DNS data (zone file) was produced and distributed within one hour. … The false information that was sent out affected accessibility to all .se domains for a short time. It is a seemingly small detail, but without it, the whole DNS lookup chain broke down." Sweden's Internet Infrastructure Foundation, which administers .se, issued this statement: "The cause was an incorrect software update, which, despite our testing procedures were not detected. However, there may still be some name servers that have not changed out of misinformation against the real." A spokesperson for .se, Maria Eklund told a Swedish press outlet that the issues may not be completely resolved before Wednesday. "This little mistake is going to affect Internet traffic for two days," she told the newspaper. (Speculation that it's really the fault of newly "internationalized" ICANN begins in 3 … 2 … 1.)

iTunes gains Automatically Add to iTunes feature

One of the often requested features for iTunes has been the ability to set a folder for it to watch, automatically adding any items you drop in that folder to its library. In typical Apple fashion, it's not exactly what people were asking for, but Apple's interpretation of what they want. In iTunes 9, Apple has quietly added this feature, although I wouldn't blame you for not having noticed its existence. When you install iTunes 9, it automatically creates an Automatically Add to iTunes folder in your ~/Music/iTunes/iTunes Music folder (or under ~/Music/iTunes/iTunes Media if you created a new library after installing iTunes 9). When you put an iTunes-compatible media file in this folder, it will, as the name suggests, be added to iTunes automatically.

Whenever you drop any file into that folder, it's instantly added to iTunes if the application is running. In my limited testing, I've found that it pretty much works as advertised. If not, it gets added the next time iTunes is launched. And if you ever delete or rename the Automatically Add to iTunes folder, iTunes simply creates a new one for you the next time it is launched. It even looks for files in subfolders you create and adds them to the library as well.

However, it does have a lot of caveats. You can be pretty assured that if the video was downloaded from the Internet, it will not be supported by iTunes. For one thing, iTunes's list of supported formats, especially in the video department, is comically short. In such a case, iTunes will move it to a Not Added subfolder within the Automatically Add to iTunes folder. Still, there are other problems.

But that's to be expected because iTunes has never exactly supported a host of media formats. When users asked for an option to direct iTunes to a folder, they really wanted an option to direct iTunes to any folder. So if you have a huge collection of media in your Movies folder or on an external hard disk drive containing files that you'd like to automatically add to iTunes, you'll still have to move them to that particular folder. What Apple has done, on the other hand, is created a pre-designated folder for the task and not given an option to change it to any other location. What's the point, then? Well, you say, we can just use the Automatically Add to iTunes folder as our primary movies folder, then-maybe even move it to a location of our choosing, and leave behind an alias to take its place.

You can just drag and drop them onto the iTunes icon in the Dock and be done with it. Wouldn't that work? Not only does iTunes not accept anything added to that folder if you move it, but the presence of the alias prevents iTunes from creating a new version of the folder either. Not so much. And when iTunes does add media files from the Automatically Add to iTunes folder, it moves them into its media folder and organizes them as it normally would, even if you have the option to do so disabled under iTunes's advanced preferences.

The only possible use I can see if for you to set it as the default download location for media files you purchase/download off the Internet, so that they can automatically be added to iTunes without your having to do so (and even there, Apple has recommended you don't use it for incomplete files). I hope Apple rethinks this and gives users the freedom to use any folder they want and makes iTunes stop moving the media files around if the user doesn't want it to. It also deletes any subfolders you create within that folder (although that's a logical conclusion, given that they're useless if the media files you put in them never stay there). In short, I don't think the feature is very useful in the form Apple chose to implement it. It's still a (very small) step in the right direction though.

One by one, carriers succumb to Google Voice

Ever since its launch this summer, Google Voice has presented carriers with some potentially thorny issues. Google Voice was designed in part to make it easier for users to change mobile carriers without sacrificing their phone numbers and also to give users several add-on features that are not offered by carriers. The biggest potential pitfall for carriers is that widespread adoption of Google Voice could render their networks "dumb pipes" that don't offer users any value-added services.

For example, Google Voice can provide simultaneous ringing for both landline and wireless devices using the same phone number and it can serve as a hub for SMS as it lets users send text messages from any of their devices or even right over the Web on their computer. However, America's top two wireless telcos this week indicated that they had no problem supporting Google Voice on their networks. Net neutrality proponents such as the media advocacy group Free Press have met Google Voice with enthusiasm, as they think it could give users the ability to seamlessly switch carriers if their current carrier is too restrictive of what they can and cannot use on their mobile devices. During a joint press conference with Google on Tuesday, Verizon CEO Lowell McAdam said that all Verizon phones based on the open-source Android platform would give users access to the Google Voice application. How Google Voice could change the wireless industry Although AT&T didn't mention Google Voice specifically as an application that it would allow onto its network, it's very likely that Google Voice will soon be available to iPhone users since it doesn't present the direct threat to cellular service revenues that other VoIP applications and services do.

AT&T, meanwhile, said Tuesday that it was changing its tune and allowing iPhone users to utilize VoIP applications such as Skype on the AT&T 3G network. The reason for this is that when you make a call using Google Voice, it initially goes through the standard public switch telephone network to the Google cloud, where it is then sent out as a VoIP call. But even if Google Voice won't harm carriers' ability to charge users for cell phone minutes, Gartner analyst Peggy Schoener does think it could harm carriers' profitability if users come to rely upon it for services. "It is a threat to their business model to some degree," she says. "But right now the demand for openness is trumping that. So while Google Voice will enable users to save money on typically expensive long-distance calls, it won't be an alternative to using up minutes from your standard wireless carrier in the way that Skype is. Carriers are looking at how the world is shaping up and they have to demonstrate openness and cooperation with industry newcomers." FCC action in the background While neither Verizon nor AT&T will say it out loud, one factor in their decision to allow Google Voice onto their networks could be the more active approach that the Federal Communications Commission has taken this year under new chairman Julius Genachowski.

More recently, Genachowski has also proposed new network neutrality rules that would bar carriers from blocking or degrading lawful Web traffic and that would force carriers to be more open about their traffic management practices. For example, this summer the FCC asked Google, Apple and AT&T to explain why the Google Voice application was not yet been made available for the iPhone. ABI Research analyst Jeff Orr thinks that the government's more aggressive stance toward regulating the wireless industry has been a key factor in the telcos' decision to allow Google Voice on their networks despite whatever misgivings about the application they may have. "I think that they're looking at the talk going around at the FCC looking for net neutrality, and they figure that they'll need to back off and pick the battles they want to fight," he says. "By allowing Google Voice and other VoIP applications onto their networks they say to the FCC that they can monitor their own practices and that there's not a need for legislation mandating net neutrality." Schoener agrees that FCC action is part of the reason why carriers are showing more openness on their networks right now, but she also thinks that carriers are being forced by market trends to embrace more openness as well. For instance, the past decade has seen large Internet companies such as Google and Skype become major market players with the clout to push for net neutrality regulations. "There's not a direct cause and effect between the FCC's actions and the carriers' decisions," she says. "But the FCC's stance is a part of the current trend that openness is better, and the telcos figure they can be better off in the long run if they embrace it rather than playing hardball."

Rivals mock Microsoft's free security software

Although one of the top consumer security vendors welcomed Microsoft's Security Essentials to the market, another dismissed the new free software as a "poor product" that will "never be up to snuff." Earlier today, Microsoft launched Security Essentials , its free antivirus and antispyware software suite, which has been in development for almost a year. "I think it's a good thing that they're in the market," said Carol Carpenter, the general manager of Trend Micro's consumer division. "We look forward to the competition ... and I think Microsoft's targeting of developing countries and the unprotected is a good approach." Microsoft has pitched Security Essentials, which replaced the now-defunct for-a-fee Windows OneCare, as basic software suitable for users who can't, or won't, pay for security software. And now they've decided to go for the free market, but that's a very crowded market. Not everyone, however, agreed with Carpenter. "Security Essentials won't change anything," said Jens Meggers, Symantec's vice president of engineering. "Microsoft has a really bad track record in security," he added, ticking off several ventures into consumer security that the giant has tried, including Windows Defender, an anti-spyware tool bundled with Windows Vista and Windows 7; the released-monthly Malicious Software Removal Tool; and OneCare. "Like OneCare, Security Essentials is a poor product," said Meggers. "It has very average detection rates. There's not much room to grow there." In a company blog, another Symantec employee called Security Essentials a "rerun" of OneCare , and said: "At the end of the day, Microsoft Security Essentials is a rerun no one should watch." It's no surprise that top-tier security vendors like Trend Micro and Symantec dismissed Security Essentials today.

At the time, a Symantec executive said it was a capitulation by Microsoft, which was tacitly admitting it couldn't compete . But Meggers' take today was even more bearish. "We don't like the notion of 'basic,'" he said. "That makes me very worried, because the risk on the Web today is far too high for 'basic.' Tossing a bunch of little basic tools into the computing environment doesn't make it safe." Even Carpenter had some unkind words for Microsoft. "It's better to use something than to use nothing, but you get what you pay for," she said. "But I don't think it will worry the main security vendors. They did the same thing last year, when Microsoft announced the upcoming demise of OneCare and said it would ship a free, streamlined product. If I were a free, focused security company, trying to get my upsell over time, like AVG [Technologies], then I'd be concerned." Symantec's Meggers also wondered what took Microsoft so long to come up with Security Essentials. "It takes them an entire year to remove features from OneCare, to make something even worse than OneCare?" Meggers asked. "I could have done that with three developers in three months." And that's a good clue that Microsoft won't be able to keep up with the likes of Symantec, Trend Micro and McAfee, Meggers added. "Look how long it took them to build it. When was the last time that Microsoft innovated?" The free Security Essentials can be downloaded for Windows XP, Vista and Windows 7 from the Microsoft Web site. Security needs constant innovation.

Microsoft rallies businesses to start Win 7 migrations now

In a last promotional run-up to the Windows 7 release next month, Microsoft is urging business customers to start their upgrades now with examples of customers already using the software, and another acknowledgement that the company learned lessons from how it handled Vista's release three years ago. Additionally, many customers, as has been typical with a major Windows release, opted to wait for the release of the first service pack for Vista to even consider upgrading, and then many others did not move to the OS at all. Microsoft has devoted an unprecedented level of time and attention to making sure business customers will have a smooth migration and reap financial benefits from the new OS, said Microsoft Senior Director of Product Management Gavriella Schuster, in what is likely to be the last of a series of interviews with reporters as the company prepares to release Windows 7 worldwide on Oct. 23. "The real difference that I think people are seeing with Windows 7 is a different level of quality," Schuster said. "We've never reached this level of quality before in terms of performance, reliability, ease of deployment, the tools around it." As she has in previous interviews, Schuster reiterated Microsoft's mea culpa about how the company handled preparing its business customers, ISVs (independent software vendors) and other partners for the release of Vista, which was made available to them in November 2006. At the time, drivers for key hardware and peripherals were not available, and major applications were not compatible.

Schuster assured customers that moving to Windows 7 will be a far smoother process and will set a precedent for how the company will handle desktop OS releases in the future. We have put a lot of effort in really resolving the customer friction point before we come to them [with the OS]. We are being much more proactive and we're saying to customers, 'You don't have to wait.'" Microsoft introduced case studies Monday showing that some customers have taken this advice - among them, Starwood Hotels and Resorts, the city of Miami and Dutch IT services firm Getronics - and are reporting cost-saving benefits because of this decision, Schuster said. In fact, with a release-to-manufacturing version of Windows 7 already in the hands of many business customers, they can begin to move to the OS now. "In the past customers have had to wait for ISV support, they've needed to wait for a service pack release [to deploy Windows]," she said. "Shame on us, we've learned our lesson. Microsoft has a lot riding on Windows 7 after the overall disappointment of Windows Vista and is hoping the OS will jump-start business spending on desktop software. But analysts have said that many companies still using Windows XP don't really have a choice when it comes to migrating to Windows 7 - the question is more of when they will move than if they will. Many companies put a freeze on IT spending in general in the past year during the recession, and while conditions have improved, companies remain cautious about where they put their money.

Overall, customers who have moved already are saving on the time of IT labor devoted to PC management in the range of US$89-$160 per year because of new features in Windows 7, according to the findings of case studies Microsoft released Monday. The OS allows administrators to set policies across multiple desktops for updating software and other features through back-end connections to Microsoft server software that manage these processes, Schuster said. In particular, the city of Miami said it would save $54 per PC per year on power management because of new features in Windows 7 for setting group policies. Microsoft also has changed its plans for a software package that helps customers deploy Windows across multiple desktops, she said. Originally, Microsoft had planned to release a beta of MED-V 2 sometime in the first quarter of 2010, but decided to add Windows 7 support earlier due to customer demand for it, she said. Microsoft plans to release Microsoft Desktop Optimization Pack (MDOP) 2009 R2 in late October 2009, adding Windows 7 support for all components of the suite except for Microsoft Enterprise Desktop Virtualization (MED-V). That support will come in the first quarter of 2010 with MED-V 1.1 Service Pack 1, Schuster said.

Credit-card security standards questioned, survey says

Most IT security professionals who must comply with the industry standards to protect credit card data think those standards have no impact at all on actual security, according to new study by Ponemon Institute. 10 of the Worst Moments in Network Security History And they say the main benefit of meeting the standards isn't better security, its better relationships with business partners who regard payment card industry (PCI) compliance as an easy-to-read sign that businesses are paying attention to protecting the personal data of people who use credit cards, the study says. "PCI does not necessarily mean better security within the hearts and minds of respondents," says Larry Ponemon who conducted "PCI DSS Compliance Survey" for Imperva, which makes database and Web application security products. Those objectives are a list created by the Ponemon Institute as a way to make high-level comparisons of data security among different organizations. Overall, 57% of respondents feel that PCI standards have no impact on a set of 25 security objectives that they were asked about, the survey says.

The benefit of PCI compliance cited most often by the IT security pros polled was that it improves relationships with business partners, not that it made data more secure. No. 3 was that PCI compliance did improve the overall security posture of the business. That was followed closely by helping capture more IT funding for security. PCI compliance can be used as a lever to wrest IT security funding from corporate budget makers, the survey indicates. Much of this money would be spent on the same measures anyway, even if PCI compliance wasn't an issue, Ponemon says. Saying that money will help with PCI compliance is a better argument than saying it will make data safer, Ponemon says. "If you're striving just to improve security, it's hard to get the upper echelons to see the value," he says. "They are more likely to pay for PCI because it helps in working with business partners than because it's the right thing to do." On average the 560 security pros surveyed spend 35% of their IT security budgets on meeting PCI standards.

Protections dictated by PCI would be made simply because they are sound security practices. (Read a story rating apology letters from companies after a data breach.) When asked to assess the value they receive from PCI expenditures, 43% say they get what they pay for and 23% say they get more value than they pay for. In implementing the standards, respondents pick and choose what they protect. The rest, 34%, say they get less. The majority of respondents to the survey (55%) say they direct their PCI efforts toward protecting cardholder data only, with just 12% addressing security of all personal data. The most popular tool for protecting credit card data is the firewall, followed by antivirus/antimalware products and encryption of data at rest and in motion.

Just 22% say all their applications and databases are protected in accordance with PCI standards; 25% say protection of their applications isn't compliant at all. They find those four technologies to be the most cost effective as well. Other results of the survey:* The vast majority of respondents (79%) say they have suffered at least one data breach that resulted in loss or theft of credit card information.* Endpoints and wireless devices are regarded as the two weakest links in meeting PCI security, followed by paper documents and applications, the survey says.* The top three reasons for implementing security standards are to achieve an effective security posture (48%), obtaining buy-in from management (47%) and prioritizing security requirements (46%). PCI compliance most commonly falls to the CISO or the CIO on the technology side, but corporate legal departments are equal partners overall, the study finds, indicating the complex implications of compliance.

Alcatel integrating network layers for efficiency

Alcatel-Lucent on Wednesday set a course for tighter integration of the two main components of long-haul service-provider networks, saying it will help carriers streamline their infrastructure and run it more efficiently. Now, with the Converged Backbone Transformation Solution, it is leveraging its expertise in both technologies so the two can work more smoothly together and be managed more easily. The company is a major player in carrier optical transport and is gaining ground on Cisco Systems and Juniper in IP (Internet Protocol) routing, according to industry analysts.

The payoff for enterprises that rely on carriers to interconnect their offices could be both faster provisioning and lower prices, said Ray Mota of Synergy Research Group. The two domains have remained largely separate, but Alcatel said it will bring its IP and optical systems closer together, with more flexible capacity-handling and unified management. Most service-provider networks use electronic packet routers to direct Internet and private IP traffic, but also optical infrastructure to transport data over long distances. Today's IP and optical network elements effectively just hand off traffic to each other without much interaction, and they typically are managed by separate teams, said Lindsay Newell, vice president of marketing for IP at Alcatel. If you go to an optical vendor, you get an optical answer," Newell said.

His company is best equipped to make these systems work more closely together because it has experience making both parts, Newell said. "If you go to a router vendor, you get a router answer. Alcatel says it is skilled in both. Current routers from most vendors can map one router port to one wavelength of light for optical transport. One thing Alcatel aims to provide is a more granular way of feeding traffic from IP routers into optical infrastructure. Alcatel is introducing that technology, called IP over dense wave-division multiplexing, on its service routers now. Alcatel plans to offer the ability to send traffic from multiple ports or from multiple virtual LANs into a single wavelength, Newell said.

But IP over DWDM isn't ideal, because it wastes optical capacity if there isn't enough traffic from the IP port to fill the wavelength, Newell said. Carriers can use this to make more efficient use of each wavelength, so potentially they won't have to deploy or light up as many wavelengths, he said. The company will implement the capabilities using existing and emerging industry standards, adding some proprietary features of its own but keeping its products interoperable with gear from other vendors at a more basic level. This could save space and power in carrier facilities as well as money. Also through closer integration, Alcatel will allow IP routers to send traffic straight across the optical network, bypassing unnecessary IP routing along the way. At a higher level, Alcatel said it can integrate the management of both network layers because it supplies both.

This core router bypass capability will let traffic destined from, say, Los Angeles to New York go straight to its destination without going through an IP router in Chicago, Newell said. Among other things, the IP and optical management systems will know what resources are available on each and be able to communicate fault management alarms. The Converged Backbone Transformation Solution is a set of features that will roll out over time. Ultimately, the IP network elements will be able to reroute traffic if there's a failure in the optical layer, and vice versa. Immediately, Alcatel is delivering features including IP over DWDM on service routers and the initial elements of information exchange between IP and optical, such as common alarm views and fault isolation.

Later it will offer more dynamic interaction between the layers, including dynamic provisioning for failover, Newell said. Next year, the company plans to provide static provisioning for port-level and VLAN traffic grooming. The integration ultimately can save carriers at least 30 percent in capital expenditures on a network built from the ground up with the new technology, according to Newell. Many carriers are grappling with data traffic that is growing far faster than the revenue they can collect for it, and this type of streamlining approach could help them, Synergy's Mota said. Savings for carrier networks with a large amount of existing infrastructure will be more incremental, he said.

Quick actions help financial firm avoid security disaster

While most of the IT world has been spared a devastating security attack like Blaster and Sasser for the last few years, the damage wrought by all manner lesser-known computer viruses continues to inflict corporate pain. 10 of the Worst Moments in Network Security History For example, New York City-based investment firm Maxim Group, faced a security ordeal this year when a virus outbreak pummeled the company's Windows-based desktop computers and servers. "On early April 15th, a few people called to say they were having problems with their computers," relates John Michaels, CTO there in describing how the investment firm's IT staff started to get an inkling that morning that something was terribly wrong. "After looking into it, we knew something bad was happening, affecting all our users, and my servers." Malware was disabling applications by corrupting .exe files so they wouldn't open once they were closed, while also making thousands of connections to servers, saturating the network. "It damaged all the .exe files by corrupting them," says Michaels. "People were logging on and getting a blank screen." The virus was altering the registry of the computers. Maxim Group didn't have a centralized antivirus product in place, having allowed various groups to go their own way with differing products. In response, Maxim Group told the approximately 325 computer users not to shut down the computers while Michaels and his team contacted vendors for assistance.

The decision to change that practice was made on the spot. It wasn't easy. "Symantec took about three days to identify what the variant of the virus was," Michaels says. "They said they had never seen a variant of this." The virus was finally identified as a variant on "Sality," an older virus that strikes at .exe and now also will install a backdoor and Trojan. "We asked Symantec, are we the only ones telling you about this? Antimalware vendor Symantec was called in to set up a centralized antivirus server, while also attempting to analyze what the malware was and advise on clean-up. And they said 'We have 3 million infected.'"Cleaning up more than 300 virus-riddled PCs was a huge headache. In the course of beating back Sality, Michaels says he also contacted another vendor, Cymtec Systems, whose product he had demoed, to install the security vendor's Sentry gateway, which monitors traffic and bandwidth usage, enforcing Web site policies and blocking antimalware.

Symantec advised total re-imaging of the computers, which Maxim Group undertook, a process that consumed several weeks. The reason for the Sentry gateway is to prevent employees from going to "Web sites they probably shouldn't," especially as Web surfing raises the risks of malware infection, Michaels says. To this day, Michaels says he's not sure how the Sality variant got into Maxim Group's network to explode in that April 15 outbreak. "Maybe it was a Web site or a USB device, I don't know," Michaels says. But the virus outbreak also showed there was communication from the infected PCs to what might be a botnet. "They were connecting to rogue Internet sites," Michaels says, saying Sentry would help monitor for that kind of activity in the future. But on that day things changed in terms of the investment firm deciding to enforce stricter Internet usage policies. "Before this episode, we allowed social network sites, but we don't now," Michaels says. And are the old Blaster and Sasser worms that struck with such devastation over half a decade ago gone?

Social networking sites are gaining a reputation as places where malware gets distributed, and if there's no clear business reason for using them, they're put off limits. Unfortunately not, says the "Top Cyber Security Risks" report released this week by SANS Institute in collaboration with TippingPoint and Qualys. The report — which examined six months of data related to 6,000 organizations using intrusion-prevention gear and 100 million vulnerability-assessment scans on 9 million computers to get a picture of various attack types — notes "Sasser and Blaster, the infamous worms of 2003 and 2004, continue to infect many networks."

DOJ expands review of planned Microsoft-Yahoo agreement

The U.S. Department of Justice has asked Microsoft Corp. and Yahoo Inc. to hand over more information regarding their proposed search partnership. Nina Blackwell, a spokeswoman for Yahoo, said both companies are cooperating with federal regulators. "[We] firmly believe that the information [we] will be providing will confirm that this deal is not only good for both companies, but it is also good for advertisers, good for publishers, and good for consumers," she added. A Microsoft spokesman confirmed in an e-mail to Computerworld today that the DOJ requested additional information, but added that it came as no surprise. "As expected, we received additional request for information about the agreement earlier this week," wrote the spokesman, Jack Evans. "When the deal was announced, we said we anticipated a close review of the agreement given its scope, and we continue to be hopeful that it will close early next year." Evans declined to disclose exactly what information the DOJ is looking for.

Microsoft and Yahoo announced late in July that they had finalized negotiations on a deal that will have Microsoft's Bing search engine powering Yahoo's sites, while Yahoo sells premium search advertising services for both companies. Microsoft officials contend that the deal with Yahoo will improve competition in the search market. The partnership, which was a year-and-a-half in the making , is aimed at enabling the companies to take on search behemoth Google as a united force. Matthew Cantor, a partner at Constantine Cannon LLP in New York and an experienced antitrust litigator, disagrees. He argues that since Yahoo will cease being a competitor in the search market, the DOJ is likely to say the Microsoft/Yahoo partnership is anticompetitive . In an interview today, Cantor applauded the DOJ's request for more information. "Most deals clear without a request for additional information.

Cantor said last month that when Yahoo's own search tool disappears, only two major search engines will remain - Google and Microsoft's Bing. This is not run-of-the-mill," said Cantor. "The government believes there are potential antitrust concerns raised here. Nonetheless, Blackwell told Computerworld that Yahoo is still hopeful the deal will close early next year. They would only request additional information if there was some kind of presumption that the deal will cause antitrust effects." Cantor added that he thinks it could take months for Microsoft and Yahoo to pull this new information together, perhaps until the end of this year.

Debate rages: Is Cisco a better value over 3Com, HP?

By the numbers, IT professionals buy more gear from Cisco than they do from either 3Com or HP, but its obvious by the scores of comments generated by a recent Network World article comparing the vendors, they still like to rail against the network giant and its policies.

"I see new products from 3COM, HP, Juniper, etc. as being comparable to the Cisco offering," one IT pro says, "but Cisco just keeps trudging ahead with some pretty impressive market numbers. What makes Cisco so appealing?"

Review: 10Gig Ethernet access switch shootout

Another reader responded with the theory that Cisco puts the hammer down on its resellers that try to push someone else's gear, and that customers go along with their resellers. Pervasive, though, is the Cisco cachet, which one reader says is perpetuated by Cisco resellers. "There are several aspects at play here with the "Cisco Allure" however it mostly has to do with the reseller that the end user aligns themselves with," the commenter says. "It is quite typical for a company to see a particular reseller as their 'trusted adviser' and do whatever they tell them."

Training needed to run and maintain Cisco gear was a sour note among many readers. "Find a Cisco engineer and spend all your time trying to get them to be effective on just one product line," one wrote. "This tends to drive up TCO with the need for specialized talent, not reduce it."

What several readers would rather see is someone versed in the basics of networking, not the specifics of Cisco gear. "Either they know how IP and Ethernet switching works or they don't," one reader wrote. "Or do they just know how to cut and paste from the Cisco website? When I hire people they need to have an open mind, know how IP and Ethernet switching works and a good ability to read."

One IT pro said the problem is not unique to Cisco because each vendor implements technology with its own quirks. "Some amount of retraining and learning curve is inevitable when moving from one vendor to another in order to become proficient in configuration and the use of debugging/troubleshooting tools," the IT pro wrote. "The protocols may be the same, but there can be vast differences in how you enable them with different vendors."

Each of the vendors had loyalists among the readers. One HP user says he's tried Cisco gear but sticks with HP. "We have looked a Cisco switches several times. Cisco even offered to price match HP a couple of times," the reader says. "But each time we go back to HP switches. They're solid, dependable, and full-featured. I've had one HP switch/hub die in 18 years. The reliability of HP can't be beat."

Another IT veteran says there is a tradeoff in quality picking HP over Cisco: "The value debate is clearly subjective - some people buy their clothes at WalMart, and it shows. I'll gladly pay more for a quality product that lasts." To which another reader responds: "True that. HP has a background in engineering while Cisco is an acquisition company so that makes Cisco the Walmart of networking."

Huawei and its H3C joint venture with 3Com has some fans among commenters, with one claiming it offers a complete portfolio, simple management tools and low power use. But others were harsh toward the company and its strong ties to China.

"R&D in China means 'Reverse Engineering'. No original design will come from there. Huawei is using 3Com to push their low quality and cheap products in North America," one IT pro says. But that comment was countered with this: "So, how come that a lot of the European Telecoms Carriers use Huawei? How come that large enterprises (SNCF, Israeli government, PSA, etc., etc.) have moved to H3C?"

Also an issue was the Cisco 2003 lawsuit against Huawei charging that the company unlawfully copied Cisco's IOS for Huawei products. The suit was dropped 18 months later when it seemed that rogue individuals at Huawei were misappropriating the code, not that the company authorized it as a policy. "So what you are saying," one reader quipped, "is that you get the same switch but for a much lower price, looks like an easy choice for me!"

Juniper should not be left out of the debate when weighing Cisco against other switch vendors. "The [Juniper EX switch] product range is excellent with a stronger feature set compared to the typical Cisco products," one IT professional writes.

"The HP and 3COM alternatives cut it if you want basic switching but when you push them they really start to fall apart."

IBM hosts applications in cloud for Chinese vendors

A new IBM product that allows data centers to host online applications for software vendors has been deployed in a Chinese technology park and could later appear overseas.

IBM expects the product, which offers Web-based product development tools, to speed the time to market for applications from smaller businesses. It launched the product first in China to further develop it in a region packed with small businesses, a test that could be followed with similar offerings for enterprise buyers, Thomas Li, director of the IBM China Research Lab, said in an interview.

"In China we can test out a new business model," Li said.

Companies that offer a word-processing suite, information databases and business management systems as online services have all launched their products on a central server cluster run by a software park in Wuxi, a technology city near Shanghai. Others are developing their products to offer on the platform. Companies pay the park a fee for their applications to be hosted on the shared servers.

IBM designed the hosting platform, which also offers Web-based product development and testing tools to subscriber companies. One such tool aims to reduce time spent on redundant bug testing by highlighting code changes between versions of a program. Software developers can then more easily separate the parts of a program that have been updated and need retesting from the parts already found to run smoothly, said Chen Ying, associate director of IBM's China lab.

IBM's platform for the China park, called Pangoosky, has already quickened product development at one company. The platform helped Wuxi Changrun Science and Technology launch a business-to-business e-commerce site for stainless-steel products in just a few months rather than two or three years, said Liu Lifei, general manager of the company.

The Web site is hosted on the platform's servers, and the company drew on the package of development applications to avoid having to create its own bottom-level technology, another employee said.

When businesses tap the IBM development tools, they all connect to a single instance of each application on a server. That is more efficient than the old model of running a separate instance for each user, said IBM's Li.

IBM says it has used a new technique to reduce the cost of operation for the multiple-user model. The technique involves changes to the database layer beneath an application, which maps commands between user and server, to boost efficiency while keeping each customer's data private from other users, said IBM's Chen.

The high volume of small businesses in China could eventually mean hundreds of thousands of users connecting to one instance of an application there, Li said.

IBM wants to expand the use of its product in the Wuxi software park and launch it in 100 more Chinese cities, said Li. It could then take the product to other countries. IBM researchers have held a conference in New York state to discuss a similar platform for software vendors to provide Web-based services to municipal governments, Li said.

IBM and the China park will eventually start splitting revenue gained from user fees, which will take effect for some applications next year, he said.

China is a good testing ground for products like the IBM platform because companies there often have little IT infrastructure background and are willing to try new technologies, said Li.

The IT industry is also favored by China's government as a source of prestige and economic growth. Companies registered in the Wuxi software park receive tax benefits, discounted rent and sometimes cash support. Wuxi faces competition with dozens of other cities offering similar incentives to attract IT businesses.

Google takes direct aim at Microsoft

Google this week wrapped up a flurry of activity positioning itself for a bold run at Microsoft's core businesses, but industry watchers say the search giant has a long road ahead.

Google this week unveiled its Chrome OS project, an open-source, Linux-based lightweight operating system for Internet-centric computing. The announcement comes on the heels of Google's removal of the beta labels from its Google Apps services, its debut of Google Voice, and the launch of an industry-rallying campaign called "Let's make the Web faster."

Google is targeting Microsoft's core businesses – the client OS and Office – that earned the company nearly $36 billion in 2008, and Microsoft's emerging online services strategy. 

Google's rapid fire public relations over the past two weeks wasn't so much coincidence as it was the fact that Microsoft is set to make an online services splash this week at its annual conference of partners, a juggernaut Google may need to emulate to be successful.

In addition, Microsoft is just over three months from delivering its next operating system – Windows 7, which includes a version for the netbook platform Google is targeting with Chrome OS. Google's OS won't ship for 18 months.

Google clearly is rushing to get its strategy and its services aligned for the next round of battle with the software giant, which has a product pipeline set to gush between now and the end of 2010. The questions, however, are how ready is Google, can it create something compellingly different and innovative, and if it does, what size dent can it make in the Microsoft armor?

The ramp up was slow as the Chrome OS announcement came in a very un-Google-like fashion, arriving without any active code and in the form of blogware.

"With Windows 7 about to ship, it would have been better for Google to release, rather than simply announce, an alternative for the netbook market," wrote Laurent Lachal, open source director at Ovum, in a research note. "Key to Google's OS success will be its ability to create a strong community around it. This is going to be difficult. A rethink of the project based on an alliance/convergence effort with the Ubuntu [Linux] community could help."

The Chrome OS introduction raises more questions than it answers. Google has yet to explain exactly how it will function and why it will be better than current browser access to Web-based applications.

The big challenge will be to prove that the operating system works and works well enough totrigger significant adoption. IDC forecasts that Microsoft will ship 117 million copies of Windows in 2010 with half being Windows 7.

Chipping at those numbers will be difficult since Google is only targeting the netbook subset of the personal computing market.

Experts say Google must create an exciting rush of innovation comparable to what Apple's iPhone achieved.

"This could be an opportunity to take this stuff in the browser and bring it closer to the desktop environment and make things appear to run natively from the desktop," says Al Gillen, an analyst with IDC. "This is speculation, but if Google could make that kind of leapfrog forward they could do something really interesting here."

Working in Google's favor is that it plans to offer the operating system for free to OEMs that on average pay Microsoft $40 (consumer) to $90 (business) for a copy of Windows.

But pricing doesn't discount the task Google will have building a partner network to provide applications, drivers and other peripherals to work with Chrome OS netbooks and eventually the desktop PC version Google plans to offer.

Google is already getting words of encouragement from open-source advocates such as the Linux Foundation and potential rivals such as Red Hat.

"Open source has proven to be a better model of development and the platform of the future. We look forward to seeing how [Google's] project will progress," said Leigh Day, senior director of global corporate communications for Red Hat.

But the support Google needs doesn't center on furthering the cause for Linux and open source.

"The real critical issue for now is not how well can Google create a netbook OS, it is more how can they build out a very robust and interesting partner infrastructure for building applications and tools that PC users depend on every day," says Charles King, principal analyst with Pund-IT. "We have to see some major-league ISVs buy into the Web-delivery apps that Chrome OS devices are built for."

That part of the equation is another area where Google has an awful lot of ground to make up on Microsoft, which will welcome more than 7,500 partners to its annual Partner Conference next week.

It is there that Microsoft is expected to unveil pricing for its Azure cloud computing platform and release preview code for its Office Web Apps. The Office Web Apps, slated to ship early next year with Office 2010, are one reason Google last week removed the beta tag from its Google Apps.

"For too many companies looking at commercial Gmail, the beta label was like a blinking neon light that flashed 'amateur, amateur…' " said Matt Cain, an analyst with Gartner.

Microsoft plans to weave a story of integration between the Web-based Office apps and the traditional desktop version.

The Office Web Apps will provide synchronization of e-mail, calendar and contact items between Web browsers, including Internet Explorer, Firefox and Safari; desktop applications through the Outlook client; and mobile devices from Microsoft, RIM and Apple.

It's a powerful link that could help Microsoft stem any bleeding from its Office install base to Web-based productivity applications Google will offer using Chrome OS as the interface and Google Apps on the backend.

"If you could run [Microsoft] Office on Linux or on a Google operating system, I think the other operating systems would be much more appealing," says Tom Amrhein, CIO at Forrester Construction in Rockville, Md. "The reason Microsoft has a good grasp on the desktop has less to do with the desktop than its complete domination of the office space."

Microsoft will tighten that grip with other innovations that nip at features of Google Voice that have limited integration with Google Apps.

At the Partner Conference it is expected to show Office Web Apps support for voice mail delivery to e-mail in-boxes, either via audio or transcription of the message into text. Users also will be able to communicate using IM integrated with a user's desktop Outlook address book.

Ironically, Google is in a position Microsoft has often been caught in when it has shipping and non-shipping products that need to be integrated to support a grand platform vision.

Only time will tell if Google can pull it all together.

"We do not expect Google Chrome OS to take over the world – it is a bit late for that," said Ovum's Lachal.

Network World Senior Writer Jon Brodkin contributed to this report.

Comcast lengthens IPv6 lead

Comcast continues to outpace rival U.S. cable companies in the development of next-generation Internet connectivity and content.

Last week, the Philadelphia ISP was among the first carriers to demonstrate end-to-end IPv6 transmission for residential broadband customers. IPv6 is a long-anticipated upgrade to the Internet's main communications protocol that provides more IP addresses, built-in security and easier configuration than the existing IPv4 protocol.

Comcast's demonstration, which was held at the North American Network Operators' Group (NANOG) meeting, featured IPv6-enabled Web content from three leading providers: The Planet, a Web hosting company; Netflix, a movie distribution Web site; and Limelight Networks, a video streaming service.

``We showed the community what IPv6 might look like in a residential broadband scenario, coupled with content and services,'' said John Brzozowski, chief architect for the IPv6 program at Comcast. ``What was significant was the whole collection of technologies involved and the collaborative effort it took to make it happen.''

Comcast said it will be another year before the IPv6 service it demonstrated is commercially available.

``We're entering broadband trials later this year and will probably introduce IPv6 residential service in 2010,'' said Jorge Alberni, director of corporate communications for Comcast. ``I don't know exactly when general deployment will happen.''

Also last week, Comcast announced that it would offer IPv6 transit services to its wholesale customers. Comcast has around 100 wholesale business customers, which are primarily Web hosting companies and Web content providers. Two of Comcast's wholesale customers – The Planet and BitGravity — said they were purchasing the new IPv6 transit service.

Brzozowski says Comcast's wholesale customers are worried about IPv4 address depletion, which is expected to occur by 2012. Additionally, these Web content providers are concerned that if they don't embrace IPv6 now, they'll be forced to send their content over a complex architecture of carrier-grade network address translation devices once IPv4 addresses run out. 

The Planet and BitGravity ``understand the advantages of IPv6 and that carrier-grade NATs are going to dramatically affect their businesses,'' Brzozowski said. ``They would rather see network operators focus our energies on IPv6 as opposed to working around the issues related to carrier-grade NATs.''

Brzozowski says deploying IPv6 across Comcast's network in preparation for the demonstration wasn't hard.

``It wasn't that difficult,'' he said. ``The cable industry has been making the piece-parts available for over three years now. So now this demonstration was about us taking the piece-parts that we needed to support IPv6 and standing them up for a live demo at NANOG…We received a lot of "Wows" from the audience.''

IPv6 leaders hailed Comcast's progress.

``It's a positive step forward anytime a service provider deploys IPv6 in their network, but it is especially significant to have a company the size of Comcast, with their extensive broadband Internet customer base, make this commitment,'' says Cody Christman, Director of Product Engineering at NTT America, which has been offering IPv6 transit services in the United States since 2001.

``Comcast's move is a necessary step in providing home broadband Internet customers in the U.S. access to the IPv6 Internet,'' Christman added. ``Hopefully, other broadband service providers will follow suit.''

Comcast is taking a unique approach to promoting IPv6 in the United States, by developing IPv6-based services for its customers and encouraging Web sites to offer IPv6-enabled content.

Comcast's strategy is ``to leverage IPv6 for the huge number of end-points on our network that are subscriber facing,'' Brzozowski says. ``We have a vested interest in making sure that we not only plan to enable IPv6 connectivity but that we are working with the community to enable IPv6 content and services.''

Until now, IPv6-enabled content has been rare. One of the only high-profile U.S. Web sites to support IPv6 is Google.

``The majority of Web sites still do not support IPv6,'' says Dave Siegel, vice president of IP services product management at Global Crossing, which was one of the first service providers to deploy native IPv6 on its infrastructure. But Siegel added that Comcast's move ``should increase awareness of the need to help build momentum for IPv6 overall.''

Brzozowski says it's unreasonable to expect consumers or companies to migrate to IPv6 unless IPv6-enabled content is available.

IPv6-enabled content is ``scarce but growing,'' Brzozowski said. ``We made sure that Netflix and Limelight had sufficient opportunity at NANOG to talk about their efforts to enable IPv6…They did it in about two months time.''

Following the Comcast IPv6 demonstration, Limelight Networks said it is one of the first content delivery networks to offer commercial IPv6 services.

Similarly, Netflix is now offering its members the ability to manage their rental queues and stream media by visiting www.ipv6.netflix.com.

The Planet, which hosts more than 15 million Web sites, has been offering IPv6 functionality for more than a year.

Comcast wouldn't comment on when its own Web content —including sites operated by E!Entertainment Television, Style Network and the Philadelphia Flyers hockey team-would be IPv6-enabled.

``We're working on this internally, but I can't elaborate on when,'' Brzozowski said. ``Rest assured that better than anybody else, we understand that content and connectivity go hand-in-hand.''