This article was written on August 05, 2006 by CyberNet.
I think everyone has heard about Vista’s voice recognition that didn’t exactly cooperate, but are people taking it to far now?
Cafepress.com is a site where anyone can upload images and start selling them on t-shirts, mugs, hats, and much more. You receive a percentage of each sale for your creation and, of course, Cafepress also receives a nice portion.
It looks like someone has now created a t-shirt with the Vista voice mis-recoginition: “Dear Aunt, let’s set so double the killer delete select all.” I think this has gone way to far since the whole world pretty much knows about it by this point.
Ideally, we’d do our smartphone software shopping free from the specter of malicious apps masquerading as useful ones. This past weekend, however, 26 apps in the Android Market were discovered to be packing pernicious code called Droid Dream Light. Apparently, the dastardly devs who made the malware took existing apps and modified them to send details (including IMEI and IMSI info) about the infected handset to a remote server upon receiving a call. The code can also download and cue new package installations, but it needs user approval to do so. Google promptly pulled the offending apps, but their appearance serves as another reminder to be careful when downloading software on your smartphone — prudence demands minding your app permissions, lest your little green bot start stealing your personal info.
This article was written on December 11, 2007 by CyberNet.
Microsoft must be prepping for the release of Vista SP1 RC1 this week because they have posted several documents that outline some of the features found in the upcoming Service Pack. One particular document covers the notable changes that have been implemented in Vista SP1 thusfar, and it has over 10 pages worth of bulleted lists covering some of the great additions.
One item in particular caught the eye of the Neowin editors. It discusses a feature dubbed hotpatching, which will enable patching of Windows components without needing to restart your computer. More specifically, it says that Vista SP1…
Enables support for hotpatching, a reboot-reduction servicing technology designed to maximize uptime. It works by allowing Windows components to be updated (or “patched”) while they are still in use by a running process. Hotpatch-enabled update packages are installed via the same methods as traditional update packages, and will not trigger a system reboot.
This is a feature that was outlined two years ago, and was originally supposed to ship with Vista. I’m not sure if non-Microsoft applications will be able to take advantage of this improved update process, but it will surely improve the user’s experience if they can.
One concern that I do have is the security behind such a system. Will viruses and malware now be able to install and activate themselves without even needing the user to restart the system? I’m sure Microsoft has tried to plug any backdoors, but it’s inevitable that hackers will try to take advantage of this new update technique.
We’d be lying if we said the Notion Ink Adam tablet wasn’t a major disappointment, but the tiny Indian company that brought us the slate hasn’t packed it in yet — this week, Rohan Shravan announced a new round of sales, and issued a massive software overhaul for all existing Adams to go along with it. We’ve been playing with the new software for over a day now, and we can attest that the Eden 1.5 UI is much improved — it’s less flashy, but far more responsive, less prone to crashes, and generally more useful.
We’d still call it a beta, mind you, as we still managed to find some nasty bugs and slowdown while browsing around, but we’re digging the new Chords music player, the new To-Do list, and the multitasking-friendly App Manager you see above. Notion Ink also claims we’ll see better battery life in this version, and we’re putting the Adam through a thorough drain test right now. We’re also hearing that Notion Ink is still working on Android 2.3 (Gingerbread) and Android 3.0 (Honeycomb) builds. While you wait, why not click past the break for video of the new features in motion.
Update: We’re not sure about day-to-day use, but we’re not getting better results in our battery drain test — we’re still looking at under 6 hours of juice with the backlight at roughly 65 percent brightness.
Android 2.3 hit the web for Droid X owners earlier this week, but that update previously required a tethered, manual install. As of today, the update is available over the air, so cable-free purists can finally start cooking with Gingerbread on their Droid X handsets. We first saw 2.3 popping up on the device in March, but if you opted out of rooting your handset for an early look at the new OS, you can now get your feet wet with speedy navigation, a customizable dock, and an overhauled camera app.
This article was written on August 14, 2007 by CyberNet.
Another vulnerability has been found in Firefox, and this one makes it possible for a hacker to retrieve the settings and variables used in extensions. The person who discovered the flaw was able to steal a dynamically generated password created by the Fire Encrypter extension.
So how serious is this? Read for yourself:
It basically means that everyone can probe all Javascript files inside the chrome:// context and log all this information on the server through a simple Ajax instance. Furthermore it is only possible to call unregistered functions, like those that are set inside extensions by developers. This could lead to denial of service on function calls, privacy breach, information disclosure, and maybe more unseen or unknown attacks. [emphasis placed by me]
There is some concern that this could be used to get information such as whitelisted sites on Adblock, or even user details from Gmail Checker. This vulnerability hasn’t thoroughly been tested to see what’s possible and what’s not, but if some information could successfully be retrieved I’m sure other hackers could find ways to exploit this even further.
The person who discovered the vulnerability recommends that you install the NoScript extension, or use Opera because "this could lead to further more clever attacks." Staying safe online continues to get harder and harder.
Seasoned DJs have plentyofways to hone their electronica acumen, but for less experienced audiophiles, Gemini has just unleashed FirstMix — a USB-based controller designed to help the everyman get in touch with his inner Pete Tong. The device’s layout is simple enough, with two scratch wheels, rotaries and a cross fader. All you have to do is connect the panel to your laptop, select the tunes you’d like to mash up from your iTunes library and use FirstMix’s touch-sensitive jog control to scratch the night away. To help you get started, Gemini will ship its new controller with MixVibes’ Cross LE DJ software, but it’s compatible with Virtual DJ and other mixing programs, as well. If you’re interested in taking FirstMix for a spin, you can find one at retailers like Musician’s Friend, for about $100. Otherwise, you could just head past the break for a demo video, along with a full press release.
This article was written on August 11, 2008 by CyberNet.
The Wall Street Journal recently sat down with Steve Jobs to see how things are going with the newly released App Store. As expected, things are going really well. In the past month that the App Store has been available to iPhone and iPod Touch users, more than 60 million applications have been downloaded. Of course many of those are free, but many have a price tag attached which means developers are making money. Apple is making money too with the 30% that they take, but Steve Jobs pointed out that much of that goes simply towards operating costs.
If we break down the number of apps that have been downloaded, we’ll see that they are slowly declining. Keep in mind that the iPhone 3G will be launching in several new countries on August 22nd which means sales could pick right back-up again.
Day one through day 3: 10 million apps downloaded – approximately 3.3 million apps downloaded each day on average
Day four through day 10: an additional 15 million apps downloaded – approximately 2.1 million apps downloaded each day on average
Day eleven through day thirty: an additional 35 million apps downloaded – 1.75 million apps downloaded each day on average
Paid apps have brought in about $1 million dollars in sales per day. The Wall Street Journal says that if they stay at the current pace, Apple is set to make about $360 million in revenue from the App Store over a year’s time. Developers are making some decent money as well. Probably the best example of a successful game is Super Monkey Ball which has been downloaded over 300,000 times in 20 days. This means Super Monkey Ball alone has brought in $3 million.
Clearly the App Store was a smart move for Apple. During the interview, Steve jobs talked about what has set the iPhone apart from others. He said, “Phone differentiation used to be about radios and antennas and things like that. We think, going forward, the phone of the future will be differentiated by software.” Software has definitely been a big part of what has made the iPhone successful.
It looks as though T-Mobile may see what Steve Jobs does, that the phone of the future will be differentiated by software. Rumor has it that T-Mobile is preparing their own app store for the new phones they will be launching. While Apple’s App Store is only for the iPhone, T-Mobile’s store would be for multiple phones.
This article was written on March 17, 2008 by CyberNet.
Microsoft Monday
One of the bigger things that came out of Microsoft’s MIX08 event was Internet Explorer Beta 1, but there was one really interesting presentation that you probably don’t want to miss. It’s an hour and a half PowerPoint presentation that is the first-ever public look at how Microsoft Office 2007 came about after 3 years of development, and I’ve embedded the video at the end of this article for your viewing pleasure.
Microsoft Office Word 2003 had a whopping 31 toolbars in it, and Microsoft wanted to conquer the “good enough” rating that Office was frequently receiving. People couldn’t find the new features that Microsoft was adding into Office, and they knew that things had to change before it all got out of hand.
–Why a Change was Needed–
Using the menus and toolbars was a great idea when Microsoft Word was first developed. There were only a few dozen menu items, a handful of toolbars, and very little confusion. It was almost like opening up today’s WordPad, but by the time Word 2003 hit the streets there were several hundred menu items…
… and all kinds of toolbars:
Following on that track could have resulted in over 300 menu items and 50 toolbars for Word 2007! Yikes!
–Gathering Data–
Microsoft is probably king when it comes to collecting data on how their customers use their products. For example, there is the Office 2007 Customer Experience Program that you can opt-in to so that Microsoft can monitor the areas you use most in the Office suite. When designing Office 2007 they wanted to see what commands and keys were the most widely used across their applications, and so they aggregated the data into a central source:
(Click to Enlarge)
That is from just one week worth of Office 2003 data that Microsoft had collected from their users. A lot of the commands for Microsoft Word show that the arrows on the keyboard are used quite a bit, but almost across the board “paste” is the most used command. Well, that’s until you hit Outlook where “delete” is the most popular.
–Prototypes–
Microsoft has about 50GB worth of Office 2007 prototypes totaling over 25,000 images! There are about two dozen screenshots below that I’ve taken from the presentation, and many of them have aspects of Windows Longhorn (what eventually turned into Vista) in them.
Radical Changes – Microsoft of course looked at some really drastic changes that I for one am glad didn’t make their way through:
September 2003 to October 2003 – They experiment with where to put the hundreds of commands available in the different applications:
October 9 & 10, 2003 – These are the days that the Office Ribbon and the Mini Toolbar were born:
October 29 to 31, 2003 – The team wasn’t sure if the Ribbon would be able to hold all of the commands in the applications, and so they started with PowerPoint to see if they could get them all to fit:
November 2003 to May 2004 – By now it is likely that you’ve grown accustomed to the Ribbon being along the top, but they considered putting it on the side:
November 2003 – To help create a home for all of the commands available they tinkered with sliding groups located on each tab:
Winter 2003 to Summer 2004 – All of the formatting options are what take up so much room in Office, and so they tried to find a way to only show the relevant options depending on the task at hand:
–Video–
If you have an hour and a half to kill this presentation by Jensen Harris explains all of the technicalities behind each of the screenshots pictured above. If you’re like me you’ll be quite amazed at how much work they put into designing Office 2007, and it will give you a whole new appreciate for the software suite.
–How Good Is It–
Microsoft, being the stat addicts that they are, had to find out just how well Office 2007 was taking off. Was it what the customers wanted? Personally I believe that they delivered a strong product that will be well received for years to come. To get more concrete information they put a survey out there and here were the results:
As you can see a majority of users find that it is intuitive, simple, and easy to use compared to the previous versions. Congrats Microsoft, it looks like you did it!
This article was written on September 14, 2007 by CyberNet.
This is just an F.Y.I. If you use a version of Windows Live Messenger or MSN Messenger other than the most recent Live Messenger version 8.1 on Windows XP or Vista, you’re going to be forced to upgrade within the next few weeks. The security PM for Windows Live Messenger, Anand says the reason behind the upgrade is because "There is a security vulnerability in the earlier versions – MSN Messenger 6.2, 7.0, 7.5, and Windows Live Messenger 8.0."
According to security bulletin MS07-054: "Vulnerability in MSN Messenger and Windows Live Messenger Could Allow Remote Code Execution (942099). This vulnerability, which has been fixed in 8.1 and the beta version 8.5 could allow remote code execution when a user accepts a webcam or video chat invitation from an attacker. An attacker who successfully exploited this vulnerability could take complete control of the affected system."
For some of you, this isn’t a big deal because you already keep up with the latest versions, however, for others of you, this means change is in store. If you’re using MSN messenger, particularly version 6.2, it was last updated back in 2005 and it’s quite a bit different in terms of its interface and some of the features. In general, anyone unfamiliar with the new Live Messenger (compared to MSN messenger) will have to get used to it.
The reason behind the mandatory upgrade is a security vulnerability, so Microsoft needs to find a way to keep their users safe. When they start the upgrade process, any user who has an older version will be guided through updating to the latest version. They will not be allowed to log in until they’re using 8.1. To me at least, this mandatory upgrade really doesn’t seem like it’s an issue, however it is for others. In fact, there’s a petition (although it only has 31 signatures at the moment) found here asking that the mandatory upgrade be withdrawn because "many members dislike the Windows Live version, and wish to stay with their MSN Messenger version. Shouldn’t members be allowed to choose what they want, even knowing there is a security risk?"
So what do you think? Should users simply be informed that there is a security risk and then be allowed to choose whether or not they want to make the upgrade? Or is Microsoft right for forcing everybody to upgrade to their most recent, most secure version?
This is site is run by Sascha Endlicher, M.A., during ungodly late night hours. Wanna know more about him? Connect via Social Media by jumping to about.me/sascha.endlicher.
Microsoft must be prepping for the release of Vista SP1 RC1 this week because they have 
Another vulnerability 
The 
This is just an F.Y.I. If you use a version of Windows Live Messenger or MSN Messenger other than the most recent Live Messenger version 8.1 on Windows XP or Vista, you’re going to be forced to upgrade within the next few weeks. The security PM for Windows Live Messenger, 