Computer researchers warn of net attacks

A new variety of unusually powerful internet attacks can overwhelm popular web sites and disrupt e-mails by exploiting the computers that help manage global internet traffic, according to security researchers.

The Associated Press reports in The New York Times (16 March) that, first detected late last year, the new attacks direct such massive amounts of spurious data against victim computers that even flagship technology companies could not cope. In one of the early cases examined, the unknown assailant apparently seized control of an internet name server in South Africa and deliberately corrupted its contents.

Name servers are specialised computers that help direct internet traffic to its destinations.

The AP report says that the attacker then sent falsified requests to the compromised directory computer, which unleashed overwhelming floods of amplified data aimed wherever the attacker wanted.

AP says that experts traced at least 1,500 attacks that briefly shut down commercial web sites, large internet providers and leading internet infrastructure companies during a period of weeks. The attacks were so targeted that most internet users did not notice widespread effects.

According to AP.,Ken Silva, the chief security officer for VeriSign, compared the scale of attacks to the damage caused in October 2002 when nine of the 13 computer ''root'' servers that manage global internet traffic were crippled by a powerful electronic attack. VeriSign operates two of the 13 root server computers, but its machines were unaffected.

Silva said the attacks earlier this year used only about 6 percent of the more than 1 million name servers across the internet to flood victim networks. Still, the attacks in some cases exceeded 8 gigabits per second, indicating a remarkably powerful electronic assault.

{mospagebreaktitle=Gates vision for the future}Gates vision for the future

Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates sketched out a vision for the future Wednesday in which a cell phone will become a ''digital wallet,'' able to receive e-mail and even scan business cards, while computers and TVs will merge.

The Associated Press reports in The New York Times (16 March) that Microsoft, the world's largest software maker, also wants to ''redefine the way that citizens think about how they work with government and how efficient communication takes place,'' Gates told about 300 political, business and academic leaders from Canada, Latin America and the United States at the company's Government Leaders Forum.

AP says that the two-day event is intended to explore ways to improve government use of computers, as well as the transition to what Gates called the ''knowledge economy.''

The report says that Gates also showed off the company's newest gadget, a computer that's about the size of a large paperback book but runs a full version of the Windows XP operating system. Microsoft unveiled the new ultra-mobile personal computer at a technology trade show in Germany last week.

{mospagebreaktitle=Judge to order Google to turn over records}Judge to order Google to turn over records

Google's legal showdown with the Bush administration over the right to protect the privacy of its audience and trade secrets appears to be tilting in the internet search engine's favor, even though a federal judge has signaled he will order the company to turn over some records to the government, according to a report by The Associated Press in The New York Times (15 March).

According to AP., US District Court Judge James Ware repeatedly emphasised his sensitivity to Google's concerns during a Tuesday court hearing. It concluded with Ware saying he intends to give the US Justice Department a peek at a sliver of the online search engine leader's vast database.

Just how much information Google will be required to share won't be known until Ware issues his written ruling, which he said he intends to do very quickly, says AP.

But, comments AP., the government won't get anything close to what it initially sought last summer when it served Google a subpoena demanding billions of search requests and Web site addresses as part of the Bush administration's effort to revive a law meant to shield children from online pornography.

With Google's staunch resistance to that request attracting widespread attention, the Justice Department scaled back its demand to a random sampling of 5,000 random search requests and 50,000 web site addresses contained in its search engine.

AP says that those concessions, spelled out during Tuesday's hearing, lessened Google's concerns about its information becoming part of a public court record, but didn't ease the company's engine's worries that supplying the government with a list of actual search requests might scare off some of its audience.

{mospagebrektitle=CeBIT visitors slide for fifth Year in row}CeBIT visitors slide for fifth Year in row

Visitor numbers at CeBIT fell for the fifth year in a row, organisers said on Wednesday, as the world's biggest technology and telecoms trade fair loses ground to German rival IFA.

Reuters reports in The New York Times (15 march) that CeBIT organisers blamed the weather for a 6 percent drop in the number of people attending the week-long fair, now in its 20th year, to 450,000. They had expected a similar number to last year before the show began.

According to Reuters, the number of visitors to CeBIT has been falling since the heady days of the internet and telecoms bubble in 2001, and many consumer electronics makers have decided to focus instead on IFA, the world's biggest consumer electronics fair.

Organisers of IFA, which is held in September in Berlin, 200 km (125 miles) east of Hanover, decided late last year to turn it into an annual event rather than being held once every two years as before. It attracted a quarter of a million visitors in 2005.

Reuters report that CeBIT organiers declared themselves unfazed by the move, saying CeBIT's more international character meant the two shows were not in direct competition.

This year, CeBIT said it attracted 6,262 exhibitors from 71 countries -- comparable with last year's 6,270 -- of whom 3,300 came from abroad.

According to Reuters, organiers said 20 percent more contracts had been concluded at the show than last year, some worth millions of euros. They did not give an overall volume for deals done at CeBIT.

{mospagebreaktitle=Bill Gates mocks MIT's US$100 Laptop Project:Report}Bill Gates mocks MIT's US$100 Laptop Project:Report

Microsoft Chairman and Chief Software Architect Bill Gates on Wednesday mocked a US$100 laptop computer for developing countries being developed with the backing of rival Google at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Reuters rerports in The New York Times (15 March) that the $100 laptop project seeks to provide inexpensive computers to people in developing countries. The computers lack many features found on a typical personal computer, such as a hard disk and software.

``The last thing you want to do for a shared use computer is have it be something without a disk ... and with a tiny little screen,'' Gates said at the Microsoft Government Leaders Forum in suburban Washington.

``Hardware is a small part of the cost'' of providing computing capabilities, he said, adding that the big costs come from network connectivity, applications and support, reports Reuters.

Reuters says that before his critique, Gates showed off a new ``ultra-mobile computer'' which runs Microsoft Windows on a seven-inch (17.78-centimeter) touch screen. Those machines are expected to sell for between US$599 and US$999, Microsoft said at the product launch last week.

{mospagebreaktitle=Group: Online content spending hits US$2b}Group: Online content spending hits US$2b

Music sales helped propel US spending on online content to a record US$2 billion last year, a 15 percent increase from 2004, the Online Publishers Association reports.

The Associated Press reports in The New York Times (15 March) that the entertainment/lifestyle category, which in 2005 surpassed personals/dating to become the leading category of paid content, will likely get an even bigger boost this year with the availability of more video online. Apple Computer opened its iTunes Music Store to video late in the year, while Google did not begin offering paid video until January 2006.

However, AP reports that a few categories saw declines: sports, by 3 percent; user-generated content sites, such as classmates.com and IMDB.com, by 7 percent; and general news, by 11 percent.

A spokewoman for the association said that consumers have plenty of sources for free news, so publishers may ultimately find that an advertisement-based business model works best.

{mospagebreaktitle=South Koreans clearly see mobile tv}South Koreans clearly see mobile tv

The internet's key oversight agency has outlined a plan for testing domain names entirely in non-English characters, bringing closer to reality a change highly sought by Asian and Arabic internet users.

The Associated Press reports in The New York Times (15 March) that the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers has announced a tentative timetable that calls for tests to begin in the second half of the year. The tests would help ensure that introducing non-English suffixes wouldn't wreck a global addressing system that millions of internet users rely upon every day.

The Internet's main traffic directories know only 37 characters: the 26 letters of the Latin script used in English, the 10 numerals and a hyphen.

AP says that constraining non-English speakers to those characters is akin to forcing all English-speakers to type domains in Chinese. As a result, ICANN has faced pressures to adopt technical tricks that let the directories understand other languages.

In fact, according to AP., some aren't waiting. China already has set up its own ''.com'' in Chinese within its borders. AP comments that such efforts risk fracturing the internet, such that the same address could reach two different sites depending on a user's location.

{mospagebreaktitle=South Koreans clearly see mobile tv}South Koreans clearly see mobile tv

Since January, cellphone users in Seoul have been able to watch television on their cellphones through a government-subsidised technology called Digital Multimedia Broadcasting, or DMB

The New York Times reports (16 March) that South Koreans have become the first to be able to watch '” free '” mobile TV around the clock. While Americans and Japanese consumers can also watch TV on their cellphones, the images are not as clear.

So far, the first consumer reviews in Seoul suggest that the images are free of jerky motion, and experts say that the screen technology makes the images actually look sharper on screens that are smaller than seven inches.

According to the newspaper, while a paid satellite-based D.M.B. service has been available nationwide since last May, the new free land-based version is currently available only in the Seoul area.

But, reports the NYT., the government plans to improve reception and expand the service to other regions and to the subways. The Electronic Technology Research Institute, a government-financed organisation, expects that two million Koreans will use mobile TV this year, with the number growing to nearly 15 million, or about 30 percent of the population, by 2010. Strategic Analytics, a research company based in Boston, forecasts that TV phone revenues worldwide may exceed US$30 billion a year by 2010.

The newspaper says that so far since January, there are only 40,000 land-based phone users, but since May, about 440,000 subscribers have signed up for satellite-based D.M.B. phone service.

{mospagebreaktitle=PlayStation 3 Pushed Back for Delivery in November}PlayStation 3 Pushed Back for Delivery in November

After postponing the release of its next-generation PlayStation video game console until November, Sony tried to put a good face on the move Wednesday by portraying it as a marketing decision, reports The new York Times (16 March).

But, says the NYT., analysts called it a potentially costly step that reflected delays in critical components and difficulties in containing prices.

The newspaper reports that the delay of the new console, PlayStation 3, analysts said, was a setback for the turnaround efforts of Sony's chief executive, Sir Howard Stringer, at a time when the company badly needed a new hit product.

Sony, once a high-flying electronics maker and still perhaps the biggest name in the industry, has fallen on hard times as cheap competition from China has eroded earnings of bread-and-butter consumer electronics products like televisions, comments the newspaper.

{mospagebreaktitle=HDTV slow take-up in Europe}HDTV slow take-up in Europe

Reuters reports in The New York Times (16 March) that World Cup soccer is supposed to showcase the next generation of television to millions of prospective buyers, but with the tournament in Germany only three months away, that marketing plan is quickly fading.

According to the news service, only about 100,000 households across Europe are likely to watch the world's biggest sporting event on sharper, more vivid high-definition television (HDTV) because of delays developing the technology needed for TV set-top boxes, said an analyst who issued a new study on the subject on Thursday.

The Reuters report says that Screen Digest is forecasting that by 2010 there will be about 50 million HD-ready TV sets and about 11 million European households watching TV in high-definition quality. Approximately that many people were already watching HDTV in the United States at the end of 2005, according to the study.