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Malware Shift: Android Overtakes Windows as Top Security Threat

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December 11, 2012
  • In the 2013 Security Threat Report from security firm Sophos, it’s been revealed that Android is now the top market for hackers, beating out previous frontrunner Microsoft’s Windows OS.
  • “The security firm found that during a three-month period this year, 10 percent of Android-based devices experienced some form of malware attack. Just 6 percent of Windows PCs, meanwhile, were hit by an attack,” according to Technology Review.
  • Cybercriminals understand more than ever that the technological future is in mobile, making this an issue of high concern considering over 100 million Android devices shipped worldwide in the second quarter of 2012, notes the report.
  • Because Android is fairly new, especially when compared to Windows OS, users are not yet conditioned to security concerns and will click on links or open unknown apps.
  • “To make matters worse, the anti-malware tools available in the Android ecosystem just aren’t as strong as they could be,” explains the article. “Security firms are behind the times a bit. And until they catch up, we’re all at risk.”
  • According to the Saphos report, in order to stay safe, users should only surf the Web to known sites and should not download anything that could be dangerous.

Tim Cook Says Apple Will Return Some Mac Production to U.S.

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December 11, 2012
  • Apple CEO Tim Cook announced the company plans to bring Macintosh computer production from China to the States. The move, Reuters suggests, could serve as an “important test of the nascent comeback in U.S. electronics manufacturing.”
  • “Apple makes the majority of its products, from Macs to the iPhone and iPad, in China, the world’s factory floor for electronics. But like other U.S. corporations, it has come under fire for relying on low-cost Asian labor and contributing to the decline of the U.S. manufacturing sector,” the article states.
  • Apple will spend more than $100 million on the U.S. manufacturing project, according to Cook. He wouldn’t say which Macintosh products will be produced in the U.S., but said only one of the existing Mac product lines would be manufactured exclusively here.
  • “Also, while cheaper labor costs have been a key factor in encouraging U.S. manufacturers to move production to China,” notes Reuters, “wages and other costs have risen sharply — particularly in the main coastal manufacturing centers. Labor costs, moreover, account for only a tiny portion of overall expenses.”
  • Another added benefit to moving production to the U.S. is reducing the risk of intellectually property theft.
  • The company’s shares have been consistently dropping since September in light of intensifying competition from Google’s Android products, analysts say.
  • “Apple’s domestic manufacturing effort will likely buy the brand some goodwill at home, where the debate about off-shoring has heated up as the economy sputters along,” explains the article. “Beyond the marketing boost, some analysts said Apple could blaze a trail should it prove that American manufacturing of electronics can be profitable.”

T-Mobile Announces it Will Carry iPhone and Eliminate Subsidies

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December 11, 2012
  • Starting next year, T-Mobile will begin offering Apple products, including the iPhone, but CEO John Legere says the company will make customers buy the phones themselves.
  • “T-Mobile is eliminating all device subsidies in 2013, requiring new customers to pay full price for their phones up front, buy it on installment or bring their own unlocked devices,” writes GigaOM.
  • “T-Mobile will shift entirely to its unsubsidized Value Plans, which offer customers far cheaper rates for voice and particular data,” the article continues. “Traditionally carriers factor subsidies into their normal contracts rates — basically you’re paying a mortgage on your phone. With the Value program, T-Mobile is keeping the contract, but passing what it saves on subsidies back to the consumer.”
  • Eighty percent of T-Mobile’s activations in the last quarter were value plans, signaling a strong demand for the model. However, the unsubsidized price of the iPhone 5 is between $650 and $850; the phone’s popularity is largely due to carrier subsidies, so T-Mobile could face a hurdle convincing customers.
  • “T-Mobile will have to explain to customers that they will actually save money over the length of a two-year contract by paying a lower value plan rate,” notes the post.
  • “Legere said that T-Mobile would offer the iPhone in a unique way. He implied that T-Mobile could heavily finance the device, selling it for $99 and then charging $15 to $20 a month in payments over 20 months. That kind of financing plan, however, would look very much like a subsidized contract plan to the customer.”

Battling Data Brokers: Reputation.com Builds Data Privacy Vault

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December 11, 2012
  • “‘Information resellers,’ also known as ‘data brokers,’ have collected hundreds to thousands of details — what we buy, our race or ethnicity, our finances and health concerns, our Web activities and social networks — on almost every American adult,” reports The New York Times, highlighting one startup, Reputation.com, that wants to help Internet users escape the surveillance economy.
  • In addition to data brokers, there are companies that rank consumers using computer algorithms “to covertly score Internet users, identifying some as ‘high-value’ consumers… while dismissing others as a waste of time and marketing money. Yet another type of company, called an ad-trading platform, profiles Internet users and auctions off online access to them to marketers in a practice called ‘real-time bidding.'”
  • These new methods have spurred investigations from Congress and federal agencies, but they are legal — for now.
  • “As the popular conversation shifts from practices like privacy policies and opt-outs to ideas like consumer empowerment and data rights, however, marketing industry efforts have not kept pace with changing public attitudes, analysts say.”
  • “Consumers are leaving an exponentially growing digital footprint across channels and media, and they are awakening to the fact that marketers use this data for financial gain,” says Fatemeh Khatibloo, a Forrester analyst, who adds, “individuals increasingly want to know when data about them is being collected, what is being stored and by whom, and how that data is being used.”
  • Reputation.com thinks it has the solution. “For $99 per year, clients can have the company remove their personal details from databases maintained by various information resellers. They can also install company software that blocks Web tracking by 200 data brokers, advertising networks and ad trading platforms.”
  • The company’s data privacy vault, scheduled to open early next year, is designed to help consumers with their personal identity management. The data vault will serve as an authorization supervisor that manages the permissions marketers would need to access information about individuals.

Trends for 2013: Internet of Things, The Cloud, Big Data and More

By
December 11, 2012

David Alan Grier, professor at George Washington University and president-elect for the IEEE Computer Society, suggests five ways the computing world will change in the coming year.

1) “New companies and applications will bring the long-held vision of the Internet of Things closer to reality,” Grier writes for Forbes. By 2020, there will be an estimated 100 billion Internet-connected objects, triggering “an explosion of new uses by consumers and enterprises alike,” he predicts. “New types of sensors, new ways of connecting devices, and new strategies for embedded computing must be rolled out to bring IoT’s vision to the forefront.”

2) “Visualization and analytics will help solve the challenges of big data.” More and more data is collected and generated than ever before, but analyzing big data has become a significant challenge. Federal agencies and large corporations have launched research programs to address the problem of overwhelming or quickly outdated data.

3) “Enterprises will deploy hybrid clouds and consumers will embrace personal clouds.” Looking for energy-saving green approaches, companies will increase the demand for cloud computing; cloud interoperability and standards will also advance.

4) “The battle over Internet censorship and control will reach new heights,” Grier writes. “In 2013, expect to see these battles continuing, in the form of Internet filtering versus circumvention, surveillance versus anonymization, denial-of-service attacks and intrusion attempts versus protection mechanisms, and on- and offline persecution and defense of online activists.”

5) “Researchers and companies will develop new tools and approaches to help unleash the power of multicore computing,” which will be a “critical priority” in the age of parallel processing.

YouTube Takes to the Skies with Virgin America Distribution Deal

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December 10, 2012
  • YouTube has teamed up with Virgin America in what is the company’s first distribution deal with an airline.
  • “The airline will make programming on five YouTube channels — Warner Bros.’ ‘H+ The Digital Series,’ produced by Bryan Singer; WIGS’ ‘Blue,’ starring Julia Stiles; Geek & Sundry’s ‘Written by a Kid;’ ‘Crash Course’ and Barely Political’s ‘The Key of Awesome’ — available through its inflight entertainment system on December 15,” reports Variety.
  • The content will be free on all flights in the U.S. and Mexico. More content is expected to follow.
  • “For YouTube, putting the channels in front of more viewers is seen as a way to promote the programming on a new platform, where auds are eager to turn to video to bide their time during flights, and hopefully encourage them to seek out the shows after they’ve landed,” notes the article.
  • And it’s a win for Virgin America also, since it now has another partner through which to offer free entertainment to customers.
  • Virgin America is used to being the first to do things. It was the first domestic carrier to offer fleetwide Wi-Fi in 2009, enabling flyers to connect to YouTube through their own mobile devices.

Instagram Removing the Ability for Twitter Users to Embed Photos

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December 10, 2012
  • Instagram announced that it has removed support for Twitter’s expanded tweets or “Twitter cards” because the features pull users away from its own service.
  • “This is an evolution of just where we are and where we want links from our content to go,” says Instagram CEO Kevin Systrom. “This is not a consequence of us getting acquired [by Facebook]. This is a consequence of us doing the best thing for our business at this time.”
  • The expanded tweets show excerpts from blog posts, online newspapers or in the case of Instagram, full photos.
  • “Instagram at some point clearly decided that doing this transferred too much of the value of its content to Twitter instead of allowing it to capture that value itself,” reports GigaOM. “Other media companies should probably also be asking themselves similar questions about their relationship with Twitter.”
  • The article notes the complicated relationship between the two platforms; Instagram was acquired by Facebook for an estimated $1 billion, while Twitter reportedly tried to acquire the photo-sharing service before Facebook.
  • Twitter is working to become a media entity, “rather than just a dumb pipe for distributing other people’s content,” GigaOM notes. As a result, the platform has a “desire to control and monetize as much of its platform as possible, and as much of the content that flows through it.”
  • Although having links and content show up on Twitter is undoubtedly good for content creators who are trying to expand their audience, Instagram “loses more value than it gains from the expanded-tweets feature because all of its content… is displayed inside Twitter’s frame,” the post states.
  • “It is not just a conduit for your content to reach your users whenever and wherever you wish (if it ever was) — it is a proprietary network built by a company with monetization and expansion on its mind, and your content is part of that equation.”

Google+ Debuts Competitors to Instagram and Facebook Groups

By
December 10, 2012
  • This September, the social network Google+ had 100 million monthly active users. Since then, the service has attracted 135 million monthly active users, showing “a momentum story,” says VP Brad Horowitz.
  • “We’re absolutely thrilled by the adoption and uptake,” Horowitz adds, noting that Google+ features, such as the “+1” button (similar to Facebook’s “Like” button), have also increased.
  • “Such integrations have had a big impact,” the Wall Street Journal reports, “as 235 million people per month now use Google+ features across all Google sites, up from 150 million in late June, the company said.”
  • “Still, Google declined to say how much time people are spending on the Google+ site — a change from June, when it said people spend an average of 12 minutes per month there — suggesting that the Google+ website hasn’t become a major destination unto itself, like Facebook has. Facebook has said it has more than one billion active users,” the article continues.
  • Google also announced new features and the launch of its mobile photo app Snapseed on the Android platform. Similar to Facebook’s Instagram app, Snapseed allows users to add filters to photos and share them with friends.
  • “In a blog post on Thursday, Google Senior Vice President Vic Gundotra said Google+ would be adding new features including a way to form ‘communities,’ or groups of Google+ users who share a common interest such as cooking or photography,” notes WSJ. “The communities feature would allow such people to share photos and articles and do live video chats publicly or privately, meaning only within their groups.”

Apple and Google Unite for $500 Million Bid on Kodak Patents

By
December 10, 2012
  • Apple and Google have teamed to offer more than $500 million to purchase Eastman Kodak’s patents out of bankruptcy, according to people familiar with the matter.
  • “The two companies, competing for dominance of the smartphone market, have partnered after leading two separate groups this summer to buy some of Kodak’s 1,100 imaging patents, said the people, who asked not to be identified because the process is private,” reports Bloomberg.
  • Unlikely partnerships are not uncommon when they involve patent sales, since companies hope to avoid potential infringement litigation. Last year, a group including Apple, Microsoft and RIM acquired more than 6,000 Nortel patents for $4.5 billion.
  • “Apple and Google learned a lesson from the Nortel auction,” suggests Richard Ehrlickman, president of IP Offerings, a patent brokerage and consulting firm. “They have decided to come together in this process to reduce the cost of purchasing the Kodak patents, while meeting their business needs.”
  • The patents relate to capturing, manipulating and sharing digital images. “Kodak obtained commitments for $830 million exit financing last month, contingent on its sale of the digital-imaging patents for at least $500 million,” notes the article.
  • Kodak stated in court documents that the patents may be worth $2.21 billion to $2.57 billion. The company noted it has generated in excess of $3 billion in revenue by licensing digital-imaging patents to companies including Samsung, LG, Motorola and Nokia.

Social Bandwidth: Karma Launches its Mobile Virtual Network

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December 10, 2012
  • Karma, which originally launched in Amsterdam before relocating to New York City, is hoping consumers will engage in a unique social experiment involving a mobile virtual network operator (MVNO).
  • “This new data-only MVNO wants you to open your mobile broadband connection to all comers, turning your private 4G wireless modem into a public hotspot anyone can log onto,” reports GigaOM. “It sounds crazy, but there are rewards for your altruism: The more data you share, the more you receive.”
  • Karma began accepting orders last week for its $79 WiMAX hotspot, which taps into Clearwire’s 4G network in 70 cities.
  • “For that price you get free shipping and 1 GB of data that doesn’t expire. You can buy more bandwidth for $14 a gig, but if all goes according to Karma’s plans, it might be a while before you have to,” notes the article.
  • Users are initially offered 100 MB of free data when they connect to an owner’s hotspot. Karma customers could potentially accumulate nearly unlimited free data by leaving the hotspot activated in public areas.
  • Guests can use the 100 MB in one sitting or over multiple sessions. “Karma tracks data use by tying you back to a Facebook account,” notes the article. “Once that 100 MB is used up, though, it’s gone. You can either sign up as a Karma customer or bid the service farewell.”
  • FreedomPop, Fon and Open Garden are among others experimenting with social bandwidth and collective networking.
  • “But Karma sees social bandwidth as more than just a marketing tool. Rather, it’s a more efficient way to deliver mobile data,” explains GigaOM. “What’s really revolutionary about Karma is how it’s decoupling the service from the device. It’s possible to be a paying Karma customer without ever owning a hotspot — you just latch onto whatever Karma Wi-Fi signal happens to available at any location.”

Controlling Mobile: Custom Version of Android Restricts Data Access

By
December 10, 2012
  • New software for Android built by Boston startup Optio Labs will control what data you can access on your phone based on where you are, who you’re with, and more.
  • “You can dream up just about any rule — it can be your GPS location, or an indoor location detection: when you are in this specific room you can use these apps and connect to this data, but the moment you walk out we will delete the data, shut down the apps, prevent you from getting access to them,” says Jules White, Virginia Tech computer scientist and Optio co-founder.
  • “The technology’s most unusual trick is its room-specific security and access settings: the phone would only show you sensitive company data — or conversely, block things like e-mail, camera, or texting functions — when in range of a Bluetooth beacon sending a cryptographic tether,” reports Technology Review.
  • “Your location in the room (as opposed to a hallway) could be further confirmed through a signal sent via a near-field-communications device — perhaps the one in your boss’s phone, which you’d have to bump to get initial access, depending on the settings.”
  • Other businesses, including IBM and AT&T, have explored ways to increase security on company phones by restricting data access based on location or by offering remote data wiping.
  • “[Optio Labs’] technology could prevent data from falling into the wrong hands if a device were lost or stolen. It might also help enforce proper-use policies,” the post explains.
  • “Blending physical context (such as location) with the context of computing (what network you’re on, what data you’re looking at) is new, says Doug Schmidt, a computer scientist at Vanderbilt University who was a PhD advisor to White but has no financial tie to the company or technology. ‘This approach can enforce policies in specific situations where they make sense — rather than all the time.'”

Report Describes How Mobile is Leading to Multi-Screen Living Room

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December 10, 2012
  • A new report from Business Insider Intelligence looks at how mobile devices are expanding into the living room; it also notes the opportunities for new forms of advertising and applications.
  • The report discusses the battle for the living room in four categories. First, BII analyzes substitution, finding that mobile video is most often complementary to TV viewing. “Mobile video is additive, creating more opportunities for watching video — whether it’s watching a sitcom on your smartphone during a train commute, or viewing a Netflix movie at home in bed,” notes the article.
  • The report also discusses sources, or the ability to relay high-quality video wirelessly, Business Insider explains. “Wireless TV connections are becoming increasingly common, and with them, the ability to bring smartphones and tablets more easily into the mix.”
  • Next, the study covers selection, noting many attractive apps with intuitive touch-screen interfaces are already being developed for TV.
  • “When hand-held mini-tablets and smartphones are able to send signals to audiovisual equipment and home theaters, consumers gain more flexibility with a remote control based on a smartphone or tablet,” the article states.
  • Finally, the report looks at synchronization, finding that 85 percent of U.S. tablet owners use the devices while watching TV. “In order to leverage the second screen as a companion to what’s happening on the TV, media companies must successfully migrate consumers from self-initiated use of the second screen to a programmed experience,” BI writes.

Annual Internet Trends Report Details Rapid Adoption of Mobile

By
December 10, 2012
  • Mary Meeker of Kleiner Perkins has released her annual “Internet Trends Year-End Report,” in which she concludes that mobile penetration remains on an upswing, driven by interest among children and adults.
  • Meeker reports that 43 percent of children 6-10 want an iPad for Christmas and 36 percent want an iPad Mini.
  • Her report also notes that mobile devices now drive 13 percent of Web traffic, which is a 10 percent increase from her mid-year report, reports TechCrunch. Shoppers also have flocked to mobile, with 24 percent of online shopping occurring on tablets and smartphones.
  • Windows has seen its market share drop because of mobile, as it now only controls 35 percent of the market while iOS and Android combine for 45 percent.
  • Meeker explained that while iPods and iPhones both revolutionized their respective markets, the iPad has grown even faster. “And yet, Android has managed to grow six times faster than the iPhone — up from 4x at her mid-year talk,” writes TechCrunch.
  • Additionally, the report indicates mobile monetization and revenue are growing at 129 percent CAGR and Meeker anticipates a significant upside in the U.S. “for both Web and mobile advertising — to the tune of $20 billion.”

ISP Search-and-Disrupt: Copyright Alert System to Launch in January

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December 10, 2012
  • Internet service providers will roll out a new “Copyright Alert System” in January to “disrupt and possibly terminate Internet access for online copyright scofflaws without the involvement of cops or courts,” reports Wired.
  • Backed by President Obama and pushed by Hollywood and record labels, the initiative was originally intended to start by the end of this year, but was delayed by Hurricane Sandy.
  • “Software makers sided with the film industry on the scope of the piracy problem, and, befitting their geekier nature, had actual hard data to back their gloomy conclusions,” the post states.
  • “Richard Atkinson, head of Adobe’s piracy unit, said the company charts 6,000 activations a day of 7-year-old pirated versions of Photoshop, and that there were 55 million ‘illegal activations’ in the past year alone of all pirated versions of the photo-editing software.”
  • Despite the initiative, Hollywood will continue to lobby Congress and file lawsuits.
  • “It doesn’t mean you give up on litigation,” says Chris Dodd, head of the Motion Picture Association of America. “It doesn’t mean you give up on legislation.”
  • “I think this is a critical issue of our time,” Dodd added.

MPAA Chief: Hollywood and Silicon Valley Can Fight Piracy Together

By
December 10, 2012

MPAA Chairman and CEO Chris Dodd is calling for Hollywood and Silicon Valley to join together against piracy. Dodd spoke at the Content Protection Summit in Los Angeles and criticized the idea that piracy debate is just a two-sided choice between free speech or copyright protection.

“Hollywood and Silicon Valley have more in common than most people realize or are willing to acknowledge,” he said. “Not only does Hollywood work closely with Silicon Valley to create and promote films; Hollywood film and television creators are tech companies.”

“They celebrate innovation through the world’s most cutting-edge content, and they embrace technology as imperative to the success of the creators in their community,” he added.

With the Protect IP Act and Stop Online Piracy Act, Hollywood and Silicon Valley were pitted against each other, but Dodd emphasized the need “to present a united front to deal with preventing theft of intellectual property,” Variety reports. He did not, however, advocate for any new legislation.

“We can have it both ways,” he said. “We can have an Internet that works for everyone. And in order to continue providing the world’s greatest content, we must protect the rights of our creators so they can produce for their audiences and also profit from their work.”

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