azaaor.org

Dell, to date, has used mostly Samsung SSDs, as has Apple. Dell has said in the past that in tests of an SSD in a Latitude notebook, it saw a 35 percent overall system performance increase over a standard 2.5-inch 5400rpm notebook hard drive–the type of hard disk drive used in ultraportable notebooks today.

Another nail in the hard-disk-drive coffin? Well, not quite. But Toshiba’s drive rivals magnetic drives in size while delivering better performance.

Toshiba will begin shipping a 256GB solid-state drive, matching Samsung, its bigger, badder rival.

The Toshiba drive delivers a maximum read speed of 120MB per second and maximum write speed of 70MB per second using a high-speed SATA 3-gigabit-per-second interface.

Solid-state drives are more expensive than hard-disk drives but are also generally more power efficient and faster.

Samples of Toshiba’s 2.5-inch SSD are available now, with mass production following in the fourth quarter, the company said. SSDs currently come in two sizes: smaller 1.8-inch form factors and slightly larger 2.5-inch designs.

Toshiba has plenty of other company in the high-capacity SSD market, too. Intel says it will ship a 160GB SSD in the fourth quarter, and Micron has stated that it plans to have a 256GB SSD in the same time frame. STEC already ships drives in this capacity.

Toshiba, like Samsung, says it has developed a controller chip that mitigates the shortcomings of MLC. The “MLC controller…achieves higher read-write speeds, parallel data transfers, and wear leveling,” the company said. Wear leveling reduces the “pounding” on one spot–that could wear out the cell–by spreading out the writes over many different cells.

(Credit:
Toshiba)

Like Samsung, Micron, and Intel, Toshiba is using multi-level cell (MLC) technology in its high-capacity drives. An MLC memory cell structure allows drive makers to build larger capacity drives at lower cost but it is not as fast as single-level cell (SLC), nor inherently as reliable. (SLC solid state drives are used currently in laptops such as the Apple MacBook Air and ThinkPad X300.)

And the two companies are duking it out in more ways than this: both are also vying for SanDisk, the largest maker of retail flash memory drives.

No pricing was given.

Toshiba is trying to keep pace with the 800-pound SSD gorilla, South Korea-based Samsung. Samsung is the largest flash memory chip supplier in the world and has stated in the past that it would sample a 256GB SSD in September. Toshiba is ranked No. 2.

The original iPhone was labeled “1,1″, while the iPhone 3G was model “1,2.” The iPod Touch has already advanced to a second-generation design, as the iPod Touch released at September’s music event received the “2,1″ label inside its firmware.

Before that, however, I still think there’s a solid chance Apple doubles the capacity of the iPhone and iPod Touch without making any other major changes, just as it did last February.

(Credit:
Apple)

MacRumors has discovered code inside the OS X 2.2.1 firmware released earlier this week that describes an “IPhone 2,1″ model. Previous discoveries have shown that Apple uses this labeling nomenclature for both the iPhone and the
iPod Touch.

Little else is known about iPhone “2,1.” It’s reasonable to assume that since the iPod Touch number changed significantly with the addition of a new processor, that such an upgrade might be coming to the next iPhone. P.A. Semi has been working on iPhone chips since last spring, and other evidence has surfaced indicating that Apple might be planning to upgrade the iPhone’s graphics sometime in the near future.

As might be expected, it doesn’t seem that the
iPhone 3G will be Apple’s last iPhone.

What will Apple's next iPhone look like? The only changes might be under the hood.

Apple marketing chief Phil Schiller seemed to imply earlier this year that Apple was locked into a June/July upgrade cycle with the iPhone, noting that Macworld’s January date conflicted with a number of Apple’s regular product cycles. So, perhaps another summer iPhone release is on tap.

The media is fond of calling out the
Mac’s rising fortunes against Windows, but many apparently forget that a little more than 11 years ago, Apple was on the ropes and had to humbly accept a $150 million investment from Microsoft. Microsoft, largely playing to the U.S. antitrust authorities, made a big deal of porting Office, Internet Explorer, and other applications to the Mac platform. This move would pave the way for Apple’s resurgence just a few short years later.

commentary

I suggested on Monday that Dell should acquire Red Hat to build its software business with open source. While there is a range of valid concerns about such a move, perhaps the biggest complaint was, “What if Microsoft doesn’t like it?”

And yet Apple fought. Slowly but surely, Apple began to make announcements that must have irked Microsoft, like the Safari browser in 2003, eventually taking its applications like iTunes and
Safari to Microsoft’s door by porting them to Windows in a bid to make Windows users comfortable with a Mac experience.

Microsoft is a big company, one that must grow by expanding into new markets, thereby competing with its one-time partners. Today, Dell serves a complementary market to Microsoft. Tomorrow? Well, everything is on the table for tomorrow’s competition.

For those who insist that Dell and others set themselves up with an umbilical existence to Microsoft’s whims, I suggest that you take a close look at Apple. Companies that try to placate Microsoft and avoid ruffling its feathers often find that Microsoft has no such compunctions about avoiding stepping on their toes.

Today, Microsoft continues to improve its applications for the Mac platform, announcing this week, for example, the Microsoft Document Collaboration Companion for Mac to improve the SharePoint experience for Mac users. Apple? Well, let’s just say that it continues to stick its finger in Microsoft’s eye.

Surely, if anyone was in a position to cater to Microsoft’s whims, it would have been Apple, whose very existence largely depended on the good graces of Microsoft. How many of us would have been able to switch to the Mac, had Office not run natively on it?

This concern seems to be all-conclusive for some, but I’m not sure why. In case no one has noticed, the days of kowtowing to Microsoft’s desktop dominance are, or should be, over. Apple is the best example as to why.

Apple did what few besides Google have dared to do: defy Microsoft. Apple, more than most, was dependent on Microsoft, and yet it still refused to pull any punches against its benefactor. Judging from the company’s market share gains, I’d call its strategy an unqualified success.

“Today, we learned that certain photos could be viewed by unauthorized users who employed a complicated hack,” a spokesman wrote in an e-mail. “Once we were notified of the issue, it was resolved within hours. These photos are no longer available to unauthorized users. We encourage security researchers examining Facebook to practice responsible disclosure.”

“This week’s hole is as good as the March 2008 thing, but easier to do,” said Byron Ng, a Vancouver, Canada-based computer technician who notified CNET News of the problem. “And it allows you to target anyone.”

Basically, someone who knew the serial number of a Facebook user, which is easy to get, and knew a trick for rejiggering the URL, could see private photos of that user. Small photos could also be changed to display in a larger size. The vulnerability only could be exploited with
Firefox browsers.

Facebook had a similar problem with photos being exposed to strangers in March, and has suspended third-party apps that violated the privacy of users who downloaded them. To minimize the risk, the company will soon be launching a program to verify the security of the outside apps.

Facebook has filled a hole that allowed strangers to view members’ photos through the mobile version of the site, a spokesman said Tuesday after being alerted to the problem by CNET News Monday night.

CNET News verified the hole before it was fixed and was able to see a private photo of Facebook Founder Mark Zuckerberg, among others.

Powerful software, low price, and no fuss. What’s not to like? If you’re an SMB customer, probably not much.

commentary

Pricing of JumpBox Open starts at $299 per year (for one persistently running JumpBox instance of each application), rising to $999 per year to run up to 15 simultaneous production instances of any JumpBox-enabled application. In other words, it’s dirt-cheap.

A rising number of companies offer virtualized instances of popular open-source applications, but JumpBox takes it a step further, deploying to the Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) service, almost completely obviating hardware and setup quandaries.

Disclosure: I work for Alfresco and advise several of the companies whose open-source applications JumpBox distributes.

With or without the vendors, however, this is a great service and suggests a bright future for enterprise software.

JumpBox offers small to midsize organizations a library of open-source applications packaged as pre-built, pre-configured virtual appliances through JumpBox Open, its annual subscription service. Public Amazon Machine Images (AMI) for 12 JumpBox applications, including Ruby on Rails, (Alfresco, Movable Type, Magento), Drupal, SugarCRM and more have been made available for free. AMIs for the full suite of 38 applications are available to plus and premium subscribers to JumpBox Open.

Installing an open-source enterprise application has never been easier. No hardware? No sophisticated IT department? No problem. At least, not if you use one of 38 JumpBox-enabled open-source applications, as it announced recently.

But if you’re an open-source application vendor, I suppose it’s still an open question how JumpBox will work with you to share revenue. In my conversations with the JumpBox founders, this potential conflict has come up, and I know the JumpBox team is working on it. How well it gets resolved may well determine how much emphasis open-source vendors will put on the JumpBox sales channel which, in turn, could decide the fate of JumpBox.

And now, after about an hour of throwing all kinds of pitches for the mo-cap cameras, he’s got a bat in his hands and, according to the script, it’s time for the long ball.

“Thanks,” Lincecum said sarcastically.

Lincecum prepares for the mo-cap session. His suit is covered in reflective markers used to create a skeletal image of the subject’s movement.

“He’s going to hit a home run, which is the first time in his life he’s ever done that, including Little League,” said Johnathan Rivera, an associate producer for 2K Sports, who was standing near the pitcher, explaining what he was about to do.

(Credit:
Daniel Terdiman/CNET News)

For me, this was my second trip to 2K’s mo-cap facility, after visiting in May for a similar session in which pro hockey star Rick Nash was filmed for NHL 2K9. But I’m actually a baseball fan and could pick out Lincecum from the crowd, whereas Nash had been an all-new face for me.

Lincecum, however, is tiny, at least as far as pro athletes go. If you didn’t know which one he was, you would not have been able to tell he was at the top of his sport.

The San Francisco Giants pitcher was here, at 2K Sports’ motion-capture studio on Tuesday, because he’s the cover athlete for the publisher’s forthcoming Major League Baseball 2K9 game, which is slated to be released in the spring, just before next year’s season begins.

To be sure, much of what went on here today was familiar to me, having been at the Nash mo-cap session. But according to several of the people involved in putting this session together, shooting mo-cap of baseball presents specific challenges that other sports don’t.

Of course, he’s not swinging at real pitching, but he takes his swing, and it looks good. It’s possible to imagine the ball soaring off Lincecum’s bat and clearing the fences, even though he’s a pitcher by profession.

NOVATO, Calif.–We’re about to see Tim Lincecum, the 2008 National League Cy Young award-winning pitcher, go deep.

But once he was covered in reflective markers and began throwing pitches in front of the mo-cap cameras, there was little doubt. The kid–he’s 24 years old–has a scary smooth pitching motion and throws heat (see the video below).

I’ll explain all of that in a full story I’ll post tomorrow, along with a photo gallery. So stay tuned for that.

San Francisco Giants pitcher Tim Lincecum throws a pitch during a motion-capture session for the 2K Sports video game, ‘Major League Baseball 2K9′. Lincecum is the cover athlete for the game and the 2008 National League Cy Young award winner.

(Credit:
Daniel Terdiman/CNET News)

Given that matters relating to commerce and the Internet are part of the oversight and legislative responsibilities of the Committee on Energy and Commerce, I asked minority committee staff to inquire into the Google-Yahoo search advertising agreement. Specifically, I am concerned about the adverse effects such a partnership could have on competition and pricing within the online search advertising industry.

As a result, PIRG has been particularly interested in acquisitions in the Internet industry and their affects on those competitors which are not part of the transactions.

With the companies having granted the Department of Justice two extensions to say yea or nay on the deal–one just last week–a new go-around of public commentary was to be expected.

Meanwhile, Sen. Joe Barton, who heads the congressional committee on energy and commerce, sent a letter on Tuesday to the head of the DOJ’s antitrust unit, Thomas Barnett.

Expressing similar concerns is the U.S. Public Interest Research Groups (PIRG), a consumer group that opposes the proposed partnership. PIRG, which does not accept any corporate donations, is sending opposition letters to both Barnett and U.S. Attorney General Michael Mukasey, said Amina Fazlullah, a PIRG spokeswoman.

Yahoo, however, contends its deal is misunderstood and would not result in less competition or higher prices for advertisers. The Internet search pioneer has previously said it has no plans to exit the search advertising market should the deal be implemented.

In the meantime, Yahoo’s shares Tuesday came within close range of falling into the $10 a share range, setting a new five-year low of $11.25 a share during intraday trading before ending the day at $12.36 per share. Yahoo’s shares closed Wednesday down 1.8 percent to $12.14 a share.

We estimate that Yahoo could gain an additional $725 million in annual OCF through a Microsoft search deal. In our estimates, outsourcing search to Microsoft could lead to $1.4 billion in cost savings which would more than offset our estimated revenue loss of $649 million resulting from affiliate revenue loss and the revenue split with Microsoft.

I am writing you to request that the Department of Justice (DOJ) thoroughly investigate issues of competition and privacy that Yahoo failed to address fully in responding to questions about the online search advertising partnership agreement between Google and Yahoo. I understand DOJ is reviewing the agreement, and I believe the issues in question are pertinent to DOJ’s review.

JPMorgan analyst Imran Khan issued a research note on Wednesday that re-examines the potential of Yahoo reviving a search-only deal with Microsoft, which the Internet search pioneer rejected back in July. Previously, Microsoft had offered to buy all of Yahoo for $33 a share, but then walked away from the table after Yahoo countered with $37 a share.

In his letter to Barnett, Barton writes:

Yahoo had previously noted it expected to generate $800 million in its first year of a Google search advertising agreement, in which it would allow Google to run its ads on the Yahoo search pages.

Yahoo would be more focused and nimble. Without its search business, Yahoo would be very clearly positioned as a content and display advertising entity, thereby clarifying and defining its purpose to advertisers and users. Additionally, the one time cash infusion of $1 billion (as was made in a previous offer) from the search asset purchase would allow the company to be nimble in buying back shares at depressed prices, making strategic acquisitions, and making more targeted headcount cuts.

Khan, noting the unlikelihood the Department of Justice will sign off on the Yahoo-Google partnership in its current form, said:

Update at 1:44 p.m. PDT, with Yahoo’s closing stock price and correction to the acronym for the U.S. Public Interest Research Groups (PIRG).

A consumer group, legislators, and Wall Street weighed in this week on Yahoo’s proposed search advertising deal with Google, as the partnership underwent another round of dishing.

She noted the organization is concerned that the deal could leave Yahoo in a weakened state. PIRG is concerned that companies in the Internet industry, when weakened, may take steps to regain a competitive edge by sharing an increasing amount of their users’ information, thereby, affecting their privacy.

More people with modest incomes are placing calls for iPhones, according to Comscore.

(Credit:
Apple)

The fact that they only have to spend $199 to acquire an iPhone these days–monthly fees aside–probably helps. There’s no guarantee that iPhone sales maintain their torrid pace as the way this economy is going, but last quarter, at least, people who might be struggling found the money for iPhones.

“Fastest-growing” is always one of my favorite research terms because it usually implies “smallest.” Comscore says 43 percent of iPhone owners make more than $100,000 a year, but thinks those Joe-Hockey-Sixpack-Moms out there are starting to realize they can get away with just an iPhone and pare down the multiple devices they used to use for making calls, listening to music, or playing games.

Comscore released data earlier this week indicating that while most iPhone users are in the $100,000-a-year income bracket, those earning between $25,000 a year and $75,000 a year are the fastest-growing segment of new iPhone customers. iPhone adoption among those making $25,000 to $50,000 a year has grown 48 percent since June, according to the report.

Apple and AT&T’s decision to subsidize the price of the
iPhone 3G is paying off with an increase in sales to lower-income folks.

Big Fish Games lets visitors play hundreds of titles from dozens of developers across a wide array of genres. The service lets users play online against other users or download them to their computers for offline gameplay. As of this writing, over 360,000 Big Fish players are currently online playing games.

I’m a victim of that myself. Because of that, I’ve compiled a list of some of the best online gaming sites across the Web where I waste the time away. I’m sure many of you know others–this isn’t an exhaustive list–so feel free to share them with us. You never know when your favorite site will bite the dust.

Another developer, Electronic Arts, is behind Pogo.com. The site attracts millions of visitors every day and offers dozens of free titles. Games range from basic card games to casino, puzzle, and arcade titles that offer a little something for anyone. Scores on each game are then translated into tokens, which can be used to purchases tickets for cash or prizes.

Big Fish Games

Although it’s relatively new–the site launched last week–PlaySega.com has already become one of my favorite online gaming destinations. Unlike Big Fish and others, which provide titles from a slew of developers, PlaySega.com comes from Sega Games, a highly-respected developer in console gaming. Each game is developed by Sega and requires registration to play.

Yahoo Games

Addicting Games currently offers hundreds of titles that offer anything you might be looking for. And although some of the games are a bit dull and still others don’t load, the vast majority are well worth taking a looking at.

Addicting Games

In terms of sheer quantity and quality, Yahoo Games is easily one of the best online gaming services on the Web. It doesn’t worry about exclusive memberships or trying to do too much. Instead, it offers solid titles to users who want them as quickly as possible. That may sound simple, but it works.

Big Fish isn’t the kind of site you’ll visit for just a few minutes before getting back to work. Instead, it offers more sophisticated titles, which require more time investment. That may be fine for some, but those who want a quick fix probably won’t find it here. That doesn’t mean it’s not addictive though–I spent two hours on the site earlier today wondering where the day had gone.

PlaySega.com

PlaySega.com sports the basics–puzzle games, arcade games, and quiz games–but it also offers Sonic at the Olympics and The Official Mini Game of the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games. That may entice some to sign up for the service, but you should be aware that only a few of the 30 titles offered provide the kind of fun factor found on competing services. But if you’re looking to invest more time in an online game and Sega still holds a special place in your heart, you might find something to like in Hot Air 2 or Space Hopper–two titles that offer an outstanding experience.

I would be remiss without mentioning Yahoo Games. Unlike the other services across the Web, Yahoo really doesn’t play any role in online gaming, other than finding titles on the Internet and keeping them on its own site. It has done a fine job so far, offering close to 800 titles in a wide array of genres from arcade and card games to board and puzzle games.

While it doesn’t offer the quick fix found on Addictinggames.com, there’s no debating the success of Pogo. The site’s main attractions–Scrabble and Word Whomp–have tens of thousands of players online at any time. That doesn’t mean Pogo is without simple games, though. Solitaire and a few other card games shouldn’t take too long to complete.

Pogo.com

Say what you will about Flash-based games, but Addicting Games is one of the best places on the Web to find the latest and greatest games. Though I’m a huge fan of Max Dirt Bike, the site’s second-most popular title of all-time, it offers a slew of other titles in every genre.

Related: Under the Radar: gaming in your browser

Much like Addicting Games, Yahoo Games’ top titles are simple ones that satisfy your addiction for a few minutes. Right now, Farm Mania and Pool hold the top two spots on the site, respectively, and they’re followed by a host of titles that offer simple, yet fun gameplay at no expense.

Have you ever had work piling up, a boss breathing down your neck wondering when it will get done, and the strongest urge to forget about it for a while and head to your favorite online gaming site to waste the hours away in a blaze of gaming glory?

Unlike Addicting Games, which offers a slew of “simple” (also known as “casual”) titles, Big Fish games provides visitors with in-depth titles that show off just how far online games have come graphically. Nancy Drew Dossier: Lights, Camera, Curses, is the current top title on the site and it’s trailed by a slew of well-known titles like Poker Superstars and Agatha Christie’s Death of the Nile.

Are you looking for something quick that doesn’t take itself too seriously? Check out Bowman 2. Want something extremely involved that’s worth investing your time in? Elite Forces: Clone Wars might be a good place to start. And just in case you’re looking for a 30-second break, The Helicopter Game will hit the spot.

Cisco System’s Security Monitoring for Threat Identification, Mitigation, and Compliance (aka MARS) product is the company’s offering for security and compliance management, competing with the likes of ArcSight, RSA Security, and Symantec. The MARS product came via Cisco’s acquisition of Protego for $65 million in December 2004.

Double down on MARS development. MARS 6.0 was released earlier this year and it did move the ball forward but the product remains way behind others in the market. Management software has always been a bit of an Achilles’ heel for Cisco.

This brings up a reasonable question: What should Cisco do with MARS? As I see it, Cisco has three choices:

The product languished behind competitive offerings, causing problems with the installed base. This opened the door for aggressive competitors: Enterasys, Juniper, and Nortel established partnerships with Q1 Labs in a direct attack on MARS. Log management vendors like LogLogic and LogRhythm out-flanked Cisco with incremental products. Worst of all, some Cisco sales executives and channel partners eschewed MARS in favor of more popular Cisco products. When you have a portfolio of hundreds of products, it is easy to lead with your best stuff and never mention those in the doghouse.

Admit defeat and get out. Cisco could bury MARS and partner with others in the industry. GE would take this route but I can’t imagine that Cisco will.

There may be some analysis paralysis going on within Cisco as this issue has been lingering for a while. With security one of the only IT bright spots for 2009, Cisco should probably address this issue soon.

Through 2005 and 2006, Cisco pushed this product into end-user accounts through an aggressive scorched-earth effort. Cisco intended to get the product out into the market quickly, establish a base, and then continually add product enhancements over time. This seems to be where the strategy hit a speed bump.

Replace MARS with another acquisition. There are plenty available at bargain prices. Cisco could bid on publicly traded ArcSight, grab a legacy Security Information Management vendor like Intellitactics or NetForensics, pick up a log management player, or take a chance on a wildcard like Nitro or Splunk.