Astronomers creating 3D map of the universe

A group of astronomers looking to better understand dark energy have started creating a three-dimensional map of the universe. The researchers hope to complete that part of the map by 2014, the university said. The first segment of the 3-D map is being designed to include data from 1.4 million galaxies and 160,000 quasars according to the University of Arizona , which is part of the project.

The team is using a 2.5-meter telescope, equipped with two powerful special-purpose instruments, at Apache Point Observatory in New Mexico. Scientists have not announced how long it might take to create the whole map. "Making a three-dimensional map is essential to understanding why the universe is expanding at an ever-accelerating rate," said University of Arizona astronomy professor Daniel Eisenstein , director of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey III. A collaboration of 350 scientists are working on the survey, also known as SDSS-III. The mapping project, known as the Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey, or BOSS, is part of SDSS-III. Astronomers long have been trying to figure out dark energy . Experts theorize that about 70% of the universe is made up of dark energy. They have so far collected astronomical data on a thousand galaxies and quasars. The universe, which is believed to be driven by the mysterious force known as dark energy, is expanding at an accelerating rate. Following the Big Bang theory, it was believed that the universe was created out of a massive explosion. The rapid expansion has mystified scientists.

It was theorized that the pull of gravity would slow the universe's rate of expansion over time, but in 1998 the Hubble Space Telescope determined that the expansion actually is speeding up, not slowing down. It's a very odd thing," said Eisenstein. "Gravity pulls things together, so you'd expect gravity would be pulling the universe back together so that it would expand at a decelerating rate. According to NASA , scientists generally believe that dark energy, while its particulars are uknown, appears to be causing the universe's increasing expansion. "We're trying to understand why that is. But something is causing the universe to expand at an accelerating rate. The BOSS team, which is made up of personnel from 42 different institutions, is focused on measuring the spectra, or colors, of galaxies and quasars.

Either we misunderstand how gravity works on the largest scales, or there's some extra thing in the universe that actually causes gravity to repel structure." Here on Earth, the Large Hadron Collider , which is the world's largest particle collider , is also looking for clues about the ingredients of dark energy and its effect on the expansion of the universe. That information enables astronomers to determine how far away and how far back in time the celestial objects they're observing are. "The data from BOSS will be the best ever obtained on the large-scale structure of the universe," said BOSS principal investigator David Schlegel of the U.S. Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, in a statement.

Cisco bolsters routers to spur IPv6 migration

Cisco this week enhanced its IPv6 offerings for its carrier core and edge routers in an effort to ease the eventual migration from IPv4. The Carrier-Grade IP Version 6 Solution line includes a new hardware module for Cisco's CRS-1 router, and software for that system as well as for the ASR 9000 edge router. By 2015, there will be 15 billion IP endpoints on the Internet. Cisco also unveiled professional services offerings to assist customers in the transition from IPv4 to IPv6. The evolution of the Internet Cisco says there are 700 days left until the last block of IPv4 addresses are allocated. The IPv6 enhancements rolled out this week are intended to provide a bridge from IPv4 to full IPv6 network while at the same time preserving existing IPv4 addresses to ease the migration.

IPv6 has 340 undecillion unique addresses - or more than 50 billion billion billion - for each person on earth, more than enough to continue to support the demand for IP addresses, Cisco says. IPv4 has a finite set of unique addresses, numbering approximately 4 billion, which is rapidly depleting due to the growth of Internet-connected devices and smart devices. However, the protocols of IPv4 and IPv6 are not directly compatible, so migrating a network from IPv4 to IPv6 requires preservation of IPv4 while orchestrating a gradual and prudent transition to IPv6. This has been a chief reason why the industry has been procrastinating on this migration even though IPv6 was developed a decade ago. It's probably something to take seriously two to five years from now but (carriers) have to start to prepare." With that, Cisco unveiled the Carrier-Grade Services Engine for the CRS-1. Deployed deep in the core of service provider's network, this module supports large-scale, high-throughput network-address translation (NAT). At the edge, Cisco rolled out Carrier-Grade IPv6 Solution for its ASR series routers. But with IPv4 addresses facing imminent depletion, the time may have come to accelerate the adoption of IPv6. "I do think we've reached the point where we should be concerned about it," says Glen Hunt, an analyst at Current Analysis. "The biggets problem might be that we've been crying wolf about IPv6 and defining ways to get around attacking the problem. This is software that helps enable NAT at the edge of a network for smaller or distributed IP networks.

These are professional services designed to make the transition to IPv6 smooth and reduce the risk to network operations. The software is intended to first tunnel IPv6 addresses through IPv4; and then perform the inverse function as IPv6 addresses outnumber IPv4. Lastly, Cisco is offering services for the Carrier-Grade IPv6 Solution implementation. The services include initial planning and IPv6 readiness assessment to design and implementation. All products will be available in early 2010. Cisco did not disclose pricing.

Keep an eye on temps, and other holiday season security tips for retailers

Temporary workers brought in to help during the busy holiday shopping season can sometimes pose a data security risk for companies. The council oversees the implementation of mandatory security standards for protecting credit and debit card data across the payment industry. Retailers that hire temporary help need to keep a watchful eye on them to reduce the risk of data compromises, said Bob Russo, general manager of the PCI Security Standards Council. With many retailers hiring temporary workers to handle extra business, vigilance is key, Russo said. "Management needs to hover at this time of the year, especially with temps," he said.

Proper access controls also need to be in place to prevent temporary workers from gaining access to other systems, he said. Temporary workers who handle credit card data or are involved in any form of payment processing need to follow appropriate security procedures. Training and background checks also need to be done as much as possible, he said. "When you hire somebody as a full-time employee, you have time to do independent checks. But if there is a way to perform checks, even if it is simply verifying references, it's important to do so, he said. "You've got to hope for the best but plan for the worst," in such cases, he said. You can't do that at the end of the year when you are trying to make the Christmas rush and you have about 40 to 45 days to make money," he said. Here are some other measures that security experts suggest retailers take to minimize data compromise risks during the holiday season: Monitor the use of temporary cash registers and handheld scanners.

It's a good idea to bolster physical security around these devices to ensure they are not tampered with, Russo said. Many retailers tend to increase their use of handheld scanners and satellite cash registers to speed up the payment process during the busy season. Without monitoring, it's easier to install a card-skimming device on a satellite register for instance, than it is in on a point-of-sale device in a permanent checkout lane. Install additional video cameras to monitor the use of such devices. Look also for signs of tampering with PoS devices, such as raised or broken seals, he said.

Review log data daily. Checking them daily for red flags is a good idea at any time, but even more so during the holidays, Russo said."Though you might not be able to stop a data breach, you can mitigate them if you are watching those logs daily. System and transaction logs can reveal a lot of information about the security of a payment system. It's a pretty common sense kind of thing," he said. The fraud detection systems that online retailers use can sometimes flag legitimate transactions. "It's generally better to manually review suspect and suspended transactions that may be legitimate rather than lose good sales and customers by rejecting them outright," said Avivah Litan, an analyst with Gartner Inc. Assign more staff to perform manual reviews of suspected/suspended transactions.

Implement "hard" firewall policies. Also train or refresh call center and customer service staff on fraud prevention procedures. "Social engineering of call center representatives is a favorite ploy of the fraudsters," she said. Use a white list of known good addresses to preclude the possibility of card and payment data going anywhere outside the enterprise firewall except to your payment processor, Litan said.

Fingerprints not enough for future security government systems

In the emerging world of advanced security systems at the FBI  and http://www.networkworld.com/news/2009/092309-dod-wartime-biometrics.html ">Department of Defense, DNA, facial recognition, iris scans and palm prints will play a larger role in investigations than the traditional fingerprint. Though NGI will initially be a fingerprints repository like the existing IAFIS, palm prints are being added in as well. Both agencies have embarked on biometrics-system makeovers that may eventually include mass-scale DNA biometrics storage for investigative purposes.  Under what's called the Next-Generation Identification (NGI) program, the FBI is looking toward replacing its current Integrated Automated Fingerprint Identification System (IAFIS) for a totally revamped biometrics system that over the years will not only be a repository for individuals' fingerprints, but also store additional biometrics expected to include iris scans, 2D-to-3D facial imaging, palm prints, voice and DNA. Slideshow: The changing face of biometrics "We see the December, January timeframe for rolling this out," said Kevin Reid, section chief for the biometrics services sector at the FBI, who spoke on the topic at this week's Biometric Consortium Conference.

And 2D-to-3D facial imaging, iris, and especially DNA profiles are all of interest to the FBI for its NGI system in the future. The U.S. Department of Defense has embarked on a similar biometrics project with its Next Generation Automated Biometrics Identification System (NG-ABIS). The older ABIS it replaces was basically a fingerprint-oriented system that has mainly been used in hunting down dangerous insurgents and terrorists in wartime Iraq and Afghanistan. Louis Greve, executive assistant director of the FBI's science and technology branch, this week called DNA the most accurate biometric known today, along with fingerprints. At the core of the DoD's NG-ABIS is an upgraded database guarded under high security at a location in West Virginia. Corp.

NG-ABIS was put in place earlier this year under a contact with Northrop Grumman. Ken Lehman, vice president of identity management at Northrop Grumman's information systems division in McLean, Va., says NG-ABIS is based on an Oracle database with Java Enterprise Web Services and includes a search engine from L-1 Identity Solutions. NG-ABIS "has more scalability," says Lehman. "We can add new modalities as they come into play, not just fingerprints. The older ABIS used the HP Superdome supercomputer for fingerprint storage. A new modality is palm prints, for example." It's anticipated that multiple biometrics types will help in more quickly and definitively identifying an individual for stronger match rates that add up to an individual's biometrics match score.

But for investigative purposes, one thing holding back use of DNA as a reliable identifier of an individual is the time and labor associated with analyzing DNA samples today manually in laboratories equipped for that purpose. The DoD has long kept a "DNA dogtag" database of enlisted personnel whose main purpose is helping identify those whose lives are lost in service. So the DoD and FBI are teaming on some things, such as sponsoring research on creating so-called rapid DNA analysis. He said researchers believe DNA doesn't change over an individual's lifetime. It's envisioned by some as a self-contained kit that would automate and speed the manual processes involved in DNA analysis today, which typically run from several hours to days, say experts. "Each person has a unique DNA profile, except identical twins, and each person's DNA is the same in every cell," said Peter Vallone, research chemist in the biochemicals sciences division at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), who spoke on the topic in a presentation made at the Biometric Consortium Conference. NIST, in conjunction with academic institutions that include the Lincoln Laboratory at MIT, is coordinating the research on rapid DNA analysis.

It would be like "a lab on a chip," he said. The goal is to have a system that can take a swab of DNA, such as from the inside of an individual's cheek, and have that testing completed as automatically as possible within an hour. There's no specific timeframe for introducing such as kit, and it will probably take several years, but there's optimism it can be done. Ironically, IBM is a sub-contractor on the winning Lockheed Martin NGI contract, so IBM will be involved on the NGI project, points out Barbara Humpton, vice president, security and citizen protection in Lockheed Martin's information systems and global services division. The FBI's long-term transition from IAFIS to the NGI biometrics system upgrade is being conducted under a 10-year $1 billion contract awarded to Lockheed Martin in February 2008, though a protest led by competitor IBM delayed the contract's finalization under May of this year. It's not yet clear what IBM's exact role will be, though Humpton said the FBI just a few weeks ago approved a conceptual design plan as part of a critical review to decide elements of NGI. She said she wasn't at liberty to discuss details, though it's been made public that MorphoTrak has been selected for the 10-fingerprint biometrics piece of NGI. The role of other vendors will be made clear over time as additional technology reviews are done, says Humpton.

But it does seem likely the FBI will be taking a services-oriented architecture (SOA) route. The FBI is expected to start taking delivery of new computers for NGI early next year. John Mears, director of biometric solutions at Lockheed Martin's information systems and global services division, says the advantage of a services-oriented framework is that you can "plug in a different biometric modality, such as finger, face and iris." There's the prospect ahead of adding a DNA piece, too, especially if the rapid DNA profiling technology is developed, he notes. This would be a game-changer for biometrics, he notes, subject to policies and laws associated with DNA around the world, not to mention the court of public opinion.

Kindle has best sales month in November, Amazon says

November was the best sales month ever for the Kindle e-reader, even before traditionally heavy sales on Cyber Monday, Amazon.com Inc. said early today. Manufacturers of e-readers have been closed-mouthed about sales figures, and even analysts widely disagree on how many have sold. Notably, the online bookseller didn't say how many Kindles it sold in November. For all of 2009, the analysts' sales tallies range from 2 million to about 5 million. "Kindle is a great gift for anyone who loves to read and it's flying off the shelves faster than any other product Amazon sells," said Ian Freed, vice president of Amazon's Kindle division.

The fact that the Kindle device is shipping immediately may be Amazon.com's main reason for making today's announcement, drawing attention to Kindles remaining in stock compared to e-readers from other device makers that are sold out. The latest Kindle generation, released in October , sells for $259 and is available for immediate shipment, Amazon.com said. For example, the $259 Nook from Barnes & Noble Inc., was due to hit bookstores today after several weeks of pre-sales, but was recently reported out of stock , with deliveries starting after Jan. 4. Sony also said on Nov. 18 that its Daily Edition e-reader might not make it to buyers before the end of the year. But analyst firm iSuppli Corp. predicted 5 million e-readers will be sold in 2009, an estimate recently confirmed by iSupply analyst Vinita Jakhanwal. Forrester Research in early October said sales of e-readers from all makers will be about 900,000 in November and December, bringing the total number of units sold in 2009 to 3 million units, up from 2 million in an earlier projection. Analyst Nick Hampshire at MediaIdeas, however, said recently that far fewer than 5 million e-readers will sell in 2009, and said 5 million is the amount he is estimating for all of 2010, when iSuppli is predicting 13 million will be sold.

HDTVs, Blu-Ray Players Push Web Connections

Connected TVs, set-top boxes, and Blu-ray Disc players aren't new, but they continue to make new connections with Web sites and services, from YouTube and Netflix to Amazon and Internet radio sites. Some offer a lot more than others, but all are building up their portfolios of Web video and interactive services. The definition of "connected" varies widely between consumer electronics vendors.

Some of the newest entries were on display last week at the CEDIA (Custom Electronic Design and Installation Association) event in Atlanta. Available on networkable Bravia sets, the video service will also appear on a new networkable Sony Blu-ray Disc player, the BDP-N460, which will ship later this fall priced under $250. (Sony Bravia TVs also offer Web content such as stocks, weather, and Twitter, via their Bravia Widgets.) LG Electronics, meanwhile, announced the addition (via a firmware upgrade later this month) of the Vudu on-demand service to the Netcast Entertainment Access service on its $399 BD390 Blu-ray Disc player. Sony, which already offers movies, TV shows, and music from some two dozen partners, including Amazon movies on demand, Slacker radio, and YouTube, announced that it will add Netflix to its Bravia Internet Video lineup later this fall. The service already offers access to CinemaNow, Netflix, and YouTube content. And Samsung's networkable Blu-ray Disc players, including the BD-P1600, BD-P3600, and BD-P4600, will add YouTube access to the existing Pandora and NetFlix services.

Samsung's Internet@TV service, which already had a dozen Yahoo widgets, now offers on-screen access to Rallycast fantasy sports applications, including Facebook messaging and access to team stats. Pioneer, meanwhile, demo'd a new platform for connected electronics. The prototypes at CEDIA featured everything from video-on-demand services to backup. Code-named Project ET, it is designed to allow device designers and/or consumers to choose the content and services they want by clicking on menu buttons in the service's Web portal. Pioneer officials said the platform could exist on a set-top box of its own or on a Blu-ray Disc player or other networkable device (one demo setup featured a Blu-ray player with 1 terabyte of built-in storage.

The company hopes to show a product based on the platform within the next few months.

The other iPhone lie: VPN policy support

It turns out that Apple's iPhone 3.1 OS fix of a serious security issue - falsely reporting to Exchange servers that pre-3G S iPhones and iPod Touches had on-device encryption - wasn't the first such policy falsehood that Apple has quietly fixed in an OS upgrade. Before that update, the iPhone falsely reported its adherence to VPN policies, specifically those that confirm the device is not saving the VPN password (so users are forced to enter it manually). Until the iPhone 3.0 OS update, users could save VPN passwords on their Apple devices, yet the iPhone OS would report to the VPN server that the passwords were not being saved. It fixed a similar lie in its June iPhone OS 3.0 update. The fact of the iPhones' false reporting of their adherence to Exchange and VPN policies has caused some organizations to revoke or suspend plans for iPhone support, several readers who did not want their names or agencies identified told InfoWorld.

Worse, it revealed that Apple's iconic devices have been unknowingly violating such policies for more than a year. "My guess is the original decision to emulate hardware encryption was made at a level where there wasn't much awareness of enterprise IT standards. One reader at a large government agency describes the IT leader there as "being bitten by the change," after taking a risk to support the popular devices. "I guess we will all have to start distrusting Apple," said another reader at a different agency. [ Apple's snafu on the iPhone OS's policy adherence could kill the iPhone's chances of ever being trusted again by IT, argues InfoWorld's Galen Gruman. ] Last week's iPhone OS 3.1 update began correctly reporting the on-device encryption and VPN password-saving status when queried by Exchange and VPN policy servers, which made thousands of iPhones noncompliant with those policies and thus blocked from their networks. (Only the new iPhone 3G S has on-device encryption.) Apple's document on the iPhone OS 3.1 update's security changes neglected to mention this fix, catching users and IT administrators off-guard. After all, this is a foreign language for Apple," says Ezra Gottheil, an analyst at Technology Business Research. "However, once the company realized the problem, it made a spectacularly dumb choice. Instead, it allowed itself to be seen in the worst possible light. The change was necessary and inevitable, but Apple could have earned some points by coming clean at the earliest opportunity. This is the result of a colossal clash of cultures.

Even when it is trying, Apple cannot force itself to think like an enterprise vendor." Apple's advice to users on addressing the Exchange encryption policy issue is to either remove that policy requirement for iPhone users or replace users' devices with the iPhone 3G S. IT organizations can also consider using third-party mobile management tools that enforce security and compliance policies; several now support the iPhone to varying degrees, including those from Good Technology, MobileIron, and Zenprise.

Lotus goes after Microsoft's 'ridiculous and fabricated' figures

Lotus Software GM Bob Picciano has grown tired of the "hot wind" blowing out of Redmond carrying claims that Exchange is displacing Notes and is singling out CEO Steve Ballmer and COO Kevin Turner as the main culprits spreading "ridiculous and fabricated" information. They are still utilizing capabilities from other aspects of the Lotus portfolio," said Picciano. Exchange alternatives: Front ends and back endsA look at Exchange 2010 "Microsoft is making claims in the marketplace around 4.7 million people have exchanged e-mail from Notes to Exchange and that is just a ridiculous fabricated figure," said Picciano, who took the reins at Lotus in 2008. "Every time they sell a [client access license] they count that as a competitive migration." "People need to recognize that Kevin Turner and Steve Ballmer have blown a lot of hot wind from Washington and there is not much substance or truth to what they are espousing in the marketplace," Picciano said. "They were so bold as to say there are entire countries that have migrated off of Notes and that is utterly ridiculous." Picciano says all the talk has "got me pretty worked up that they would be so bold to make such erroneous statements and not be challenged." The Lotus Software GM says many of the reference companies cited by Microsoft when it made its "4.7 million people" comment in July "are still licensing Lotus Notes technology and still utilizing e-mail and applications from Lotus.

At Microsoft's annual meeting this summer for financial analysts, Turner heaped on more numbers during his presentation at the event. "We've taken out almost 13 million Lotus Notes [seats] the past three years. … Now, the thing that I would tell you is there's still 15 — we count — there's still 15 million out there." He cited SharePoint Server as the "fastest-growing, hottest product in the history of Microsoft," and pegged it as a catalyst in the fight against IBM. Picciano said the counter was last week's news that U.S. Bank was replacing Microsoft's SharePoint platform by standardizing on the Notes 8.5 client and would roll out Lotus Connections social networking tools, the Sametime real-time platform and Lotus Quickr, which is IBM's alternative to SharePoint. He said PNC Bank and Continental Tire are joining U.S. Bank in getting rid of Microsoft's Exchange, Office and SharePoint. On Tuesday, Picciano threw out his own numbers saying a total to 15,421 companies have picked IBM over Microsoft since 2008 in the worldwide integrated collaborative environment market as defined by IDC. In addition, Picciano says customers are expanding their investment in Lotus software and he cited as examples Accenture, BASF, Chrysler, Coca-Cola, Colgate-Palmolive, Continental AG, Finishline, General Motors, GlaxoSmithKline, Gruppo Amadori, KBC Bank, Nationwide, Novartis, Phillips Electronics and PNC Bank. In January, Picciano said more than 12,000 new companies in 2008 bought their first Notes/Domino licenses. People understand what Kevin's motivation is and the prancing around in front of partners and talking about this.

And he said half of the Fortune global 100 are Notes/Domino users. "It's important to put [Microsoft's claims] into perspective and call it what it is, a bunch of fabrication," Picciano said. "Kevin is feeling that he is under a bit of pressure. It's duplicitous and overshadows the real truth." Follow John on Twitter.

NASA ready for Mars rocket test flight Tuesday

NASA is set to launch a test flight of its new Ares I-X rocket that is designed to replace the aging space shuttle fleet and eventually spirit humans to Mars . NASA announced today that the test vehicle is slated to take off some time between 8 a.m. and noon tomorrow from Kennedy Space Center's Launch Pad 39B. The space agency noted that Ares I-X rocket is the first non-space shuttle craft to be launched from the Pad 39B since the Apollo program's Saturn rockets were retired more than 25 years ago. "For those of us who've lived with the shuttle and grew up looking at Saturn Vs, it's obviously a little different than what we're used to seeing," said Jon Cowart, one NASA's two Ares I-X deputy mission managers, in a statement. If the 1.8-million-pound, 327-foot-tall rocket doesn't launch on Tuesday, the take-off will be rescheduled for Wednesday, according to NASA. The space agency noted on its Web site that it's looking for tomorrow's flight to gauge the dependability and characteristics of the rocket's hardware, facilities and ground operations. Bad weather could stand in the way of the big test launch, though, as meterologists say that there's only a 40% change of good weather in the four-hour window.

With more than 700 sensors on board, Ares I-X is wired to relay ascent data back to engineers on the ground. NASA reported that the rocket's four first-stage, solid-fuel booster segments come from the space shuttle program. The Ares I-X combines technology from several different operations. A booster segment contains Atlas-V-based avionics, and the rocket's roll control system comes from the Peacekeeper missile. NASA's Ares rockets are expected to return humans to the moon and later take them to Mars. However, the launch abort system, simulated crew and service modules, upper stage, and various connecting structures are original.

NASA has been planning on a move to the moon and then on to Mars for several years now. With budgetary concerns in the forefront, the review is looking at possible alternatives to programs already in the pipeline. The space agency has been working toward setting up a lunar outpost by 2020. However, the schedule, if not the mission itself, has come into some question as President Barack Obama's administration oversees an independent review of NASA 's human space flight activities.

1Password 3 beta now open to all

Encumbered by passwords? Want to help out some classy Mac developers in their quest to kill bugs dead? Eager to try unreleased software?

If you missed out when Agile Web Solutions was offering a private beta of 1Password 3 to customers on Snow Leopard, there's good news! 1Password 3 is now available as a public beta for one and all. Feel special? Yes, that means you. You should! 1Password 3's new features include 1PasswordAnywhere, which allows you to open a 1Password Agile Keychain as a folder with a password-protected Web interface on any operating system. Software Licenses now have their own category, complete with icons and a new vault-like appearance.

You can even add and edit existing items in your Agile Keychain from the browser, but only on Mac OS X computers that have 1Password 3 installed and the Agile Keychain selected. There's also a separate dashboard for iPhone and iPod Touch syncing that will allow you to sync just the passwords you want to 1Password Touch. 1Password 3 also features touch gestures inspired by those in Apple Mail; a brand new UI; metadata tags to better organize items; the ability to create, edit and remove fields for Login and Wallet items; and 64-bit support for Snow Leopard. First, it requires that you're running at least Mac OS X Leopard 10.5. Second, since it's a beta, you really should backup your 1Password Keychain just in case this beta spawns the dread lord Cthulhu and your passwords are dragged into an inky black abyss. (We are assured that this is a very remote possibility, but you can never be too careful.) Finally, it'd be nice if you had an account at Agile Web Solutions' support forums to tell the developers about bugs you've found or learn about bugs that have been discovered by fellow beta testers. Before you give this software a try, you need to be aware of a few things. It's all part of being a good beta tester.

If you've purchased 1Password 2 before then, fear not! The beta of 1Password 3 is free for everyone, but the full version will cost $40 with the same 100% money back guarantee as 1Password 2. If you've bought 1Password 2 after February 1, you'll get an upgrade for free. You can upgrade a single user today for the limited time price of $20 or upgrade a family license for $30.

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.