developmentallinks.com

And more than half the people questioned use the same password for multiple accounts. Most people in the survey used only one (31 percent), two (31 percent) or three (16 percent) password(s) at work, and 43 percent rarely or never change their password. Half in the survey said they knew their colleagues’ passwords. And when asked if they would give their passwords to someone who phoned and said they were from the IT department, 58 percent said they would.

The survey was conducted among 576 office workers contacted outside the Liverpool Street Station in London. The good news is that, overall, just 21 percent of those questioned would give up their password, with 45 percent of women saying yes versus 10 percent of men. Last year, 64 percent of people surveyed said were prepared to give away their passwords for a chocolate bar.

What would it take to get you give up your office network password to a total stranger? In London, women were more likely than men to give over their password for a piece of chocolate, says researchers for Infosecurity Europe.

(Credit:
Eskenzi PR)

However, when the researchers also asked the office workers for their dates of birth to validate that they had participated in the survey, 61 percent complied with the request. “Our researchers also asked for workers names and telephone numbers so that they could be entered into a drawing to go to Paris. With this incentive 60 percent of men and 62 percent of women gave us their contact information”, said Claire Sellick, event director for Infosecurity Europe.

The report is conducted as part of the media campaign that precedes the annual Infosecurity Europe security conference, which takes place next week at the Grand Hall, Olympia, London, and runs from April 22 to 24, 2008.

Q: But are those cash cows monopolies?
Benioff: Well, I think one was ruled a monopoly.

But, if you listen to Ozzie carefully, he is sending clear signals that point to software services and synchronization across all devices, online and offline. It’s not a pure services model, because users do want to work offline at times. Even Salesforce.com and Google recognize the hybrid working model with their efforts to provide offline access.

Q: As the concept of the platform as a service becomes more of a reality over the next decade, do you think that Microsoft has an opportunity to be one of the big platforms?
Benioff: The evidence is that history, more or less, will repeat itself because there is no acknowledgment to some of the core tenants of this new paradigm. I think only in the cases where they will be dragged, kicking and screaming, and I think the best example probably is Gmail.

Microsoft’s oligarchs and other large software companies recognize that the shift to the cloud is a critical path. Benioff better run even faster, before the dinosaurs catch up a la Jurassic Park. You can bet that if the dinosaurs start to close in, he will run into the arms of one of the older dinosaurs, including Microsoft, or the new breed, such as Google.

Q: In 2005 you said that Microsoft was a dinosaur facing the obsolescence of a technology and a business model. Fast-forward to 2008 and Microsoft just had a big event in Las Vegas, where Chief Software Architect Ray Ozzie got up onstage and articulated a vision that had a lot of similarities to what you’re talking about vis a vis platform as a service, such as its SQL Server data services. So, has your opinion changed?
Benioff: No. If we had waited for Microsoft to create any of those, nothing would be created yet. Look at the whole software service phenomenon. Where are they? I think Microsoft is still a dinosaur.

Q: But what I’m asking today is whether you have changed your opinion. Do you think that Microsoft is still a dinosaur?
Benioff:I think Microsoft is still a dinosaur. More than ever, it tries to hold onto its monopolistic position around technology that they hold, whether it’s SQL Server, whether it’s NT, whether it’s Windows, whether it’s Office–these are their cash cows they don’t want slaughtered.

Q:Right, but we’re talking about SQL Server. We’re talking about their software-as-a-service strategy, and so on. Can we consider those monopolistic?
Benioff: Well, not in the same way, of course. But the point is that they’re trying to hold onto their past more than trying to create their future. This has been the great failing of Microsoft over the last 10 years. I haven’t seen the level of innovation from them that we see from other vendors.

Disparaging large competitors is part of Benioff’s marketing offensive. He has taken shots at SAP, Oracle, Siebel, and others, dismissing them as 20th century fossils who are making feeble attempts to adapt to Web and cloud computing.

Charlie Cooper and I interviewed Salesforce.com CEO Marc Benioff last week. Following is part of the exchange, where I asked Benioff for his thoughts on Microsoft. He has called Microsoft a dinosaur, incapable of innovation, and a monopolist.

Google is doing really well with Gmail. I think that’s why now you will see Microsoft have to respond with a multitenant e-mail solution. They have Hotmail, but not Hotmail for business per se. They’re definitely going to have to do that.

Publicly, Microsoft talks up the merits of its ’software-plus-services’ strategy. In my view, the message is bunkum, even though it reflects the reality of Microsoft’s business today: mostly software, with a few early-stage service offerings. But Microsoft has its message back-to-front. Until Microsoft reverses the software-plus-services mantra and puts services at the forefront of its vision, it will continue to disappoint.
I know many people want to believe Microsoft still remains in charge of its destiny and won’t let cloud rivals walk all over it. But time after time, history shows that it’s fresh startups, not incumbent giants, that gain leadership in new technologies and markets. I guess we’re just wired to expect those who wield power to stay in place. But the truth is that, at times of change, it takes a change of leader to adapt to the new circumstances.
Recent pronouncements by chief strategy officer Ray Ozzie suggest that, despite the public bluster, Microsoft’s top brass already secretly realize that they must put services, not software, at the center of their worldview (the world of the mesh, Ozzie calls it).

Microsoft has been slow to adopt the multitenant architecture. The company is prepping Dynamics CRM 4, also known as CRM Live, to go after Salesforce.com, as well as bringing other products in the Dynamics family into a hosted, multitenant environment. Phil Wainewright pointed out in his ZDNet blog post, Microsoft hasn’t publicly put services fully at the forefront of its strategy:

His braggadocio has garnered Salesforce.com loads of attention since its inception nine years ago. What’s somewhat mystifying is how competitors have stood by while Salesforce.com heads toward $1 billion in revenue for its next fiscal year, ending January 31, 2009.

During the interview Benioff said of Microsoft, “…there is no acknowledgment to some of the core tenets of this new paradigm.” He is not overly impressed by Microsoft’s newfound and aggressive focus on the Web as a platform, as driven by Chief Software Architect Ray Ozzie.

(Credit:
Dan Farber/CNET News)

Q: With Ozzie taking over as chief software architect, Microsoft is talking more about how to take the plunge in software services. So where do you see the chief obstacle preventing them from turning this into a success? They’ve got all the developers in the world.
Benioff: I am not the CEO of Microsoft so I don’t really know. You’d have to ask them why they haven’t delivered on the vision. We’re not unique in saying that it’s the end of software. That’s our phrase, but Microsoft has not delivered on the promise. They haven’t used their power to innovate in the way that others have.

Salesforce.com CEO Marc Benioff

Following is a portion of the full interview:

This week, your Intrepid Editor returns from vacation, just in time to catch a Hewlett-Packard laptop-news trifecta. First, the company announced that it had achieved a mobile-computing milestone by getting the HP EliteBook 6930p to operate continuously for 24 hours on a single battery charge. Then came word that the Voodoo Envy 133 laptop, introduced in June, started shipping to customers. And finally, the company brought a bit of geekiness to New York’s Fashion Week when a Vivienne Tam-designed HP mininote hit the runways.

Sony also initiated a multipronged attack on the headlines this week, first with its 18.4-inch media laptop, the Vaio AW, followed by two more Vaios on Friday.

Meanwhile, Lenovo dealt Linux fans a blow when it quietly stopped offering the OS as a preinstall option for its ThinkPads, IdeaPads, ThinkCenters, and IdeaCenters. But Linux had a win as well: the gang at CNET Asia found a $98 laptop from Chinese manufacturer HiVision with components that aren’t likely to run any OS but Linux.

This week’s rumor mill churned up news of a possible Samsung Netbook that just might hit the States; reports that Intel’s next-generation Atom processor, codenamed Pineview, will hit the market in the third quarter of 2009; and wishful thinking for cheaper MacBooks.

In other news, Asus released a 15-inch gaming laptop, the G50V; we admired the wooden Stiletto laptop stand; and the $849 Asus N10 has us wondering: at what point is a small laptop no longer a Netbook?.

And finally, watch what you surf in seat 12C: Flight attendants and management of the newly Wi-Fi-equipped American Airlines are debating whether they should filter their in-flight Wi-Fi networks to keep passengers from accessing “inappropriate” sites (read: porn).

Have a great weekend!

Peter Gabriel wants to save Internet users from drowning in information

(Credit:
Petergabriel.com)

Internet users are awash in information every time they search for new videos, music, or books online, says rocker Peter Gabriel.

One of the founders of the rock group Genesis and the creator of the iconic solo album So, is an investor in The Filter, a recommendation engine that now offers to help users cut through clutter on the Web and find the kind of content that will appeal to them.

Until now, The Filter has operated mostly in Europe as a music discovery service. A redesigned site is now offering to find a much wider array of content, Gabriel told CNET News.com on Monday. On Tuesday, the service is scheduled to begin allowing invitees to help test the site, which will be opened to the public sometime next month.

“When you drown people in an ocean of information, you’ve got to give them navigation tools,” Gabriel said. “I know that there is better stuff out there than what I generally am exposed to…So if I have a sort of intelligent ally working with me 24 hours a day, I think I have a much better chance of getting the stuff that will entertain, excite, and inspire me.”

“When you drown people in an ocean of information, you’ve got to give them navigation tools.” –Peter Gabriel

When it comes to improving the experience of searching the Web for music and other entertainment content, technology has mostly come up short. Despite a plethora of specially designed search engines, it’s still not easy to find material that appeals to you. Certainly, few search engines, if any, provide better results than Google.

According to Gabriel, The Filter’s system sizes up a lot of information before spitting out suggestions.

It runs a person’s past searches, purchases, and site visits through a new set of filters that may include the opinions of friends, favorite critics or reviewers–whatever the user wants. Executives at The Filter also say their algorithm can make recommendations that cut across different entertainment platforms.

Say, for example, you like film director Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner. The Filter can use that to suggest certain songs.

“At the moment, there is nothing in Google that I know of that allows me to put in my taste and get recommendations,” Gabriel said. “I can research and go quite deep in one direction. One great navigation tool is your taste. We allow you to integrate your taste and choices with your friend, your favorite musician, film director, or whatever.”

Freedom from choice

Gabriel isn’t slumming it in the tech sector.

Sure, the 58-year-old is famous for his stands on social issues, in addition to churning out hit songs for more than 40 years. (Ask yourself if we would love Lloyd Dobler or boom boxes as much without Gabriel’s help in the cult film Say Anything).

He co-founded On Demand Distribution, once the largest digital-music service in Europe, before selling it in 2000 to Loudeye, a company acquired by Nokia in 2006 that provided music delivery platforms. Gabriel also helped develop games on CD-ROM.

The son of an electrical engineer, Gabriel said he has never written any code, but he loves kicking ideas around with creative people.

“I inherited my father’s enthusiasm for technology, but not his skills,” he quipped.

Gabriel wants to combine his music and tech passions. He says being bombarded by data only serves to discourage people from hunting for what they want.

He remembers a conversation he had years ago with a friend about how much freedom the Internet provided. His friend said something that stuck with him: “Maybe there is a deeper yearning out there for freedom from choice.”

Talk–or speculation in this case–is cheap, but it’s a starting point. Only Apple knows what form the next MacBook Air will take but big hints are out there already.

MacBook Air chip package

(Credit:
Apple Computer)

Intel’s upcoming 45-nanometer Montevina mobile processors are strong candidates for the first refresh of the Air. Currently, the Air uses special 1.6- and 1.8-GHz “Merom” (65-nanometer) processors that use extra-small 22mm sq. packaging (see accompanying graphic) to yield a Thermal Design Power (TDP or thermal envelope) of 20 watts.

This class of small form factor (SFF) processors will also be part of the “Penryn” Montevina platform that will include the SP9400 (2.4GHz, 6MB L2 cache, 25 watts), SL9400 (1.86GHz, 6MB, 17W), and low-power SU9400 (1.4GHz, 3MB, 10W), according to a report in DigiTimes. The upshot: faster processors and better graphics–the latter also part of the Montevina platform.

Another piece of hardware that will likely be updated is the solid state drive (SSD). Samsung makes the Air’s current 64GB SSD, according to the System Profiler utility (part of
Mac OS X) which lists the model as “MCCOE64GEMPP.” Samsung is already on the record saying it will bring out a 128GB SSD in the third quarter. It would not be surprising to see this become a part of a future MacBook Air configuration.

Intel’s Montevina processors are due in May.

I was in a pinch a few weeks ago, and Google’s Picasa software saved my skin. But now my warm glow of gratitude has begun wearing off, replaced by a simmering annoyance with camera makers for their profusion of proprietary raw formats.

Let me explain. I was covering the Photo Marketing Association trade show in Las Vegas, toting my Canon EOS Rebel XT camera to photograph products and people. For my personal photography I usually shoot in raw format to maximize the detail and flexibility, but for work purposes I use JPEG because it’s faster to process and CNET News.com graphics are too small to require top resolution.

This screenshot shows a raw image from an Olympus E-3 SLR in Google's Picasa software. At right is the low-resolution JPEG preview, at left the garbled view after an incorrect decoding Google’s support for the E-3 is on the way.

(Credit:
Stephen Shankland/CNET Networks)

But I had a brief moment of panic when I discovered, on a tight deadline, that I’d photographed a Sony full-frame SLR press conference and accompanying photo gallery in raw only. I wasn’t happy, because I hadn’t installed any software for processing raw images on my laptop. I briefly considered downloading a trial version of Adobe Systems’ Photoshop Lightroom, which I use at home, but dreaded the time it would take to get myself to a network connection and install the software.

Then I remembered that Picasa supports some raw formats. Sure enough, it did the trick–after I made my usual end run around Canon, which annoyingly doesn’t include a mass storage driver on its cameras, requiring me to retrieve raw files using a separate flash card reader.

Picasa lacked some editing tools I like in Lightroom (and now Apple’s Aperture 2.0, too), but I wasn’t about to complain.

Until Wednesday.

That’s when I received an Olympus E-3 that I’ll be testing on an upcoming vacation.
The camera has been out since November, but Picasa still doesn’t support its raw images.

Raw-support challenges
Picasa showed the low-resolution JPEG preview fine, but as soon as I clicked on the thumbnail, the photo became a speckly mess of pixel gibberish.

For its part, Google said Thursday that E-3 raw support is coming. “We’re in the process of testing it and plan to support it soon,” the company said in a statement. Picasa uses Dave Coffin’s freely available dcraw software, which supports the E-3, but Google said it makes its own modifications “to make it run faster.”

It’s no surprise Google employs outside software for the complicated task. Olympus told me it leaves programmers on their own to reverse-engineer raw formats: “When asked, we will provide sample raw files to companies, but it is up to them to figure out what to do with them. Our raw format is not difficult, and anyone with any experience with graphic file formats will figure it out in a matter of seconds.”

For photographers, there are unpleasant consequences of camera makers’ opacity and non-standardization. Programmers from Adobe Systems, Apple, and other companies must toil constantly to support new cameras, and camera makers must develop and support their own software. And the obstreperous nature of raw can curtail the innovation of other programmers, too.

For example, software that can embed location data known as geotags in raw files is much rarer than software that supports JPEGs. Adding metadata such as titles, captions, ratings, and tags is another risky operation;
Microsoft Vista can do this, but relies on camera makers to supply software to support their various raw formats.

A programmer’s plight
Sachin Garg, a programmer in India, is another example. He’s been working on software that can compress raw files more efficiently–about 20 percent to 60 percent more than those already compressed by the camera.

Programmer Sachin Garg

(Credit:
Sachin Garg)

That’s work that conceivably could be useful for those of us with vast archives of raw images, but Garg said the difficulties of working with raw files makes it tough.

“I have started with Nikon’s NEF (raw format), and it’s a mess. What makes it worse is that even for this single format, there are variations based on each camera, and camera’s firmware version,” Garg said. “I have managed to read and compress the file, but re-creating the original file again is giving me nightmares.”

And that’s just one popular format. There are also cameras from Canon, Olympus, Fujifilm, Pentax, Sony, Panasonic, Samsung, Hasselblad, and others to contend with.

“It’s a much different ball game to write an algorithm (than just) trying to put it in a practically usable application,” Garg said. He understands the camera makers’ situation, though. “Looking at each format, one can see the technical reasons why different camera makers are doing things differently and that adopting a common standard can possibly limit the innovations they introduce in newer cameras.”

One possible alternative to the raw plight could be HD Photo, which Microsoft is trying to standardize as JPEG XR, a higher-end alternative to conventional JPEG. My guess is that this file format stands a reasonable chance of catching on–especially given the warm response from Adobe and more recently Canon–but even then it’s more likely only to intercept photographers just moving beyond JPEG rather than replacing raw.

That’s because HD Photo/JPEG XR requires the camera to process the image for de-mosaicking, noise reduction, sharpening, and white balance, all of which are “baked” into the image. For the folks who want total flexibility, they’ll stick with raw.

DNG to the rescue?
A more likely alternative is Adobe Digital Negative (DNG) format, a raw format whose specifications are openly shared if not a neutral industry standard. Adobe explicitly created DNG to deal with the raw format “tower of Babel.”

But larger camera makers have been reluctant to embrace DNG. It’s hard to get firm answers on exactly why not; I’d imagine a variety of factors are involved, ranging from not wanting to be reliant on Adobe or a fixed format to inadequacies of DNG to fully represent raw images. And Pentax, whose SLRs support both DNG and its own PEF raw format, told me that most customers shooting raw use PEF, so users apparently need more convincing, too.

Maybe Adobe just needs to do a little more marketing, standardize DNG, or come up with an improved version 2.0. But for now, the raw format mess shows no signs of being tidied up.

If you’re one of the few who downloaded music from MSN Music, which Microsoft shuttered shortly after launching its
Zune initiative, then you have until Aug. 31 to get that music onto the five devices you’re allowed to put it on. After that date, Microsoft is shuttering the DRM servers used with the service, and any further transfers will render the songs unplayable.

Know your rights. They are your rights.

This is the inevitable last step in a transition that began when Microsoft killed its old PlaysForSure initiative. Why keep paying to maintain a service that’s no longer offered, and runs counter to the current strategy? And I believe MSN manager Rob Bennett when he says that Microsoft was compelled to add DRM to songs on MSN Music–that’s what labels demanded from legal download services at that time.

At the same time, Microsoft isn’t totally innocent here. DRM was a big part of Microsoft’s pitch for the Windows Media platform, and the company had a whole product team devoted to researching, developing, and updating DRM. Microsoft tried to sell content owners on the idea that Windows Media DRM was much more flexible than its competitors, allowing business scenarios like subscription-based content being transferred to devices (stop paying, the songs stop working on all your devices) and various rental models (like content expiring after a certain time period or number of plays). The laughable part: Microsoft tried to portray these scenarios as offering more consumer choice.

No. DRM is and always has been about about restricting choice. In fact, the whole notion of having “rights” to music you purchase is completely backwards–digital rights management should have been called digital restriction management. So for all of you buying restricted content from iTunes or the Zune Marketplace or anywhere else, let this serve as a warning: the provider or distributor of that content can unilaterally change your “rights” to it at any time. If you’ve invested a lot in DRM-protected music, burn it to audio CDs and then re-rip those CDs into MP3 files. Better yet, buy it in a non-protected format–like vinyl, audio CD, or MP3–in the first place.

The LG Dare may seem like just any other touch-screen phone, but I’m here to tell you that it has quite a few surprising features that made us sit up and take notice. First, it has one of the more innovative interface layouts I’ve seen, where you can drag and drop shortcut icons directly to the home screen. Also, there’s a drawing pad application that lets you sketch out little doodles and maps and then send them to your friends via MMS. As for text input, you can choose from a T9 keypad, a full QWERTY keyboard when you rotate the phone 90 degrees counterclockwise, plus a handwriting recognition option for those who want to try out their Graffiti skills. That said, the touch interface isn’t the most intuitive, and the text input isn’t smart enough to auto-correct words and sentences (It doesn’t even automatically capitalize a word after a period, for example).

The most interesting feature by far, however, is the 3.2-megapixel camera that has fancy features such as face detection, noise reduction, panorama photo stitching, and a SmartPic technology that corrects face color distortion and low light situations. It also has a built-in camcorder that can record high-speed video and play it back in slow motion, which is the first of its kind for a phone in the U.S. Other features include EV-DO Rev. A speeds, access to Verizon’s 3G services such as V Cast video and V Cast Music (including the new Rhapsody service), a 3.5 mm headset jack, GPS, Bluetooth (A2DP capabilities, as well as the capability to use the Dare as a modem), and more. It’s not quite the
iPhone killer because of the less than satisfactory Web browsing, lack of Wi-Fi, and touchy interface, but it has a lot of interesting features that will satisfy Verizon customers looking for an alternative. It’s priced very competitively at $199 with a two-year service agreement. Check out our review for the full details.

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A Pittsburgh couple is suing Google because photographs of their home are appearing on the company’s street view service.

The lawsuit, filed in Allegheny County court on April 2, claims there was a private road sign on their street that Google should have honored. It claims that Google’s “reckless conduct” has “exposed plaintiff’s private information to the public.”

Looking at the turnoff to Pittsburgh’s Oakridge Lane on Google Street View, though, shows a street sign but no obvious private road warning–meaning that, perhaps, any sign didn’t exist when the Google van drove by.

In addition, photographs of the house appear on the county’s Web site, as well as the assessed value of Aaron and Christine Boring’s home and the lot size.

In general, of course, photographs taken of homes from the public street (or the air) are perfectly legal and protected by the First Amendment’s freedom of the press. Barbra Streisand learned this when she sued a California aerial-mapping site–but was forced instead to write a check to the defendants for $177,107.54 in legal fees and court costs. I wouldn’t be too surprised if this lawsuit turns out much the same way.

Don sits down with Mahalo CEO Jason Calacanis to discuss why AMD is in deep trouble and an
iPhone will be coming soon in the first segment and talks with Linux about their feelings about the OS industry and especially Microsoft! After that, Don rants about why anti-video game political resolutions are totally ridiculous and much more! Listen now:

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