Bluekat Magazine

Microsoft’s CEO Steve Ballmer has admitted his regrets over the lag in time before the company involved itself in internet search, but insisted that the software giant is more of an innovator than rival Google.

Ballmer – who will perhaps be the highest profile figure in the company when Bill Gates steps down on 30 June – told the Financial Times that he believes the long gestation period between versions of Windows was the major factor in Microsoft missing the boat on search.

“I think we have to keep agile,” said Ballmer. “I do fault us for the speed with which we dove (sic) into search, primarily because we didn’t see the business model.

“And I give Google credit for innovating in the business model around search. They did a nice job on that, and that’s why they won.

Windows blame

“I think one of the mistakes we made, and I think we’ve said this before, is having a five-year gap between Windows releases did calcify our ability to react to anything, because there was a five-year window basically where a big part of our R&D resources were fairly locked in.

“It doesn’t mean everything should be a six-month cycle, I don’t believe in that, but we’ve got to have more flexibility in our R&D commitments than that.

Ballmer appears to believe that Google’s innovation is overstated, adding: I haven’t seen speed out of Google really. I mean, come on.

“They have one product. It’s been the same for five years – and they have Gmail now, but they have one product that makes all their money, and it hasn’t changed in five years.”

Gestalt is gestalt

“I mean, they have a gestalt, but gestalt is gestalt. Let’s talk about the reality. The reality is one product makes 98 per cent of all of their money, search.

“…I’m not giving them a hard time, but we’ve got to learn – if you say, what have you learned, we try to learn from people’s successes, not from people’s gestalt.

“The gestalt is yet to be proven.”

Source: Tech Radar

The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) is set to vote on a motion that would allow generic top name domains to be opened up to a mass of alternatives.

ICANN is a not-for-profit organisation that looks after the internet’s naming conventions. As most readers will know, the letters of top domain names denote the country or origin of type, and these are currently limited to letters such as .org, .com or .co.uk.

They are also closely controlled, with countries such as Tuvala selling their .tv assigned addresses for colossal sums to businesses such as the UK broadcaster, Five.

However, ICANN will soon be voting on whether it will open up these top level domains to allow thousands of alternatives, with companies able to use their names as top level domains (such as .ebay, or .msn), cities such as Berlin and New York to have .berlin or .ny and the likes of .bank and .tech to also become available.

“We’re talking about introducing potentially thousands more names,” Paul Levins, executive officer of Icann, told the International Herald Tribune.

“The addressing system hasn’t fundamentally changed since its invention. These changes have the potential to have a huge impact on the way we express ourselves on the net.”

Source: Tech Radar

If you already have a Wii Wheel, such as the one Nintendo shipped with Mario Kart, and the Wii Balance Board shipped with Wii Fit, you’ll be glad to hear that an inventive coder has already figured out how to combine the two for the ultimate Wii racing game set-up.

It seems there might be quite a few more interesting ways in which gamers will be able to make use of their Wii Fit Balance Board, which is great news indeed for those gamers who consider Yoga to be more of a chore than a pleasurable pastime!

Break with tradition

Additionally, it’s also good news if you are not a great fan of those more traditional racing wheel and pedals set ups, which are invariably cumbersome and hard to control.

For eager amateur coders out there, you can get the full low-down (and see the accompanying YouTube video demo) over on Nintendo Wii Fanboy.

Source: Tech Radar

Somebody has already reported a serious security flaw with Mozilla’s latest version of Firefox that was released and downloaded by millions of users last week.

The security flaw was reported to TippingPoint’s Zero Day Initiative and Mozilla has been informed of the details, so we will no doubt see a fix for the problem in the next Firefox 3 update.

We are waiting to hear on more details on that from Mozilla, so will be sure to keep you informed.

Cashing in?

As the vulnerability also affects the older version of Mozilla’s Firefox 2, there is always the suspicion that the person who flagged the problem with TippingPoint was waiting until Firefox 3 launched with all the accompanying hype and fanfare last week to cash-in a little more on their discovery.

Bear in mind that The Zero Day Initiative Benefits lists the following factors in determining the value of a reported fault:

• Is the affected product widely deployed?
• Can exploiting the flaw lead to a server or client compromise? At what privilege level?
• Is the flaw exposed in default configurations/installations?
• Are the affected products high value (e.g. databases, e-commerce servers, DNS, routers, firewalls)?
• Does the attacker need to social engineer his victim? (e.g. clicking a link, visiting a site, connecting to a server, etc.)

Internet best practice

Details on the security breach are scarce. The Tipping Point blog merely notes that: “Successful exploitation of the vulnerability could allow an attacker to execute arbitrary code. Not unlike most browser based vulnerabilities that we see these days, user interaction is required such as clicking on a link in email or visiting a malicious web page.”

While we await further details on the manner of the security threat, we can only advise that you don’t click on any suspicious links in non-solicited emails or visit dodgy websites!

In the meantime, concerned Firefox 3 users might want to install the useful NoScript extension, just to be sure.

Source: Tech Radar

The principle behind noise-cancelling headphones is as elegant as it is simple – sample the noise to be cancelled out and use small speakers to create an equal, but opposite, sound that effectively erases the problem.

Now, Toyota has taken that concept and applied it to one of its high-end hybrid cars to reduce interior noise for the comfort of passengers.

Low frequencies

The company’s ‘Active Noise Control’ system appears in the new Toyota Crown Hybrid car and reduces the noise inside the vehicle by up to 8dB. It was implemented after the car’s engine was found to be noisier than expected as it rotates more slowly for better efficiency.

Toyota found that the low-frequency noises given off by the engine were more audible than in other cars with similar equipment under the bonnet and tackled it by first adding three interior microphones to listen in on cabin conditions.

Engineering challenge

Then, it installed three speakers – on the front doors and the rear shelf – to play back the cancelling signals. The car’s music system can still be used at the same time, of course.

Although describing the system like that is relatively simple, the acoustics inside a car made getting it right a challenge.

Unlike headphones, the in-car system has to deal with both direct noise and its echo when it bounces off interior walls. The result is a system that cancels out the engine sounds around head height – right where our ears are, in other words.

Source: Tech Radar

Microsoft have finaly found a commercial use for there new state-of-the-art touch screen interface in Vegas:

Source: Bluekat

The Wii has a lot to answer for. Apart from trouncing its rivals on the
sales front and spawning tales today of Microsoft creating Mii-like avatars for the Xbox 360, there’s mounting speculation that Sony is planning to launch a Wiimote-styled controller for the PS3.

The E3 show is just around the corner so the rumours are going to be
as numerous and annoying as midges until the show starts. According to
industry ‘Deep Throats’, the new control pad can be split into two,
with one half housing an accelerometer. They say it’s already built and
in testing with some games makers for compatibility with their games.

Source: Gizmodo

A survey by the music lobby group British Music Rights showsthat 95 per cent of teenagers and young people copy music in some way, with half the average 1770 tracks on an MP3 player being stolen.

The researchers found that 58 per cent of those surveyed have copied music from a friend’s hard drive to their own, 63 per cent download music using P2P file sharing networks, and 42 per cent allow P2P users toupload from their own computers.

However, 60 per cent of respondents said they would carry onbuying CDs, and the survey states that 80 per cent of current P2P users would be interested in a legal file-sharing service, and would even be willing to pay for it.

Teenage kicks

Feargal Sharkey, BMR’s chief executive and ex-lead singer ofpunk band The Undertones, said: “The music industry should draw great optimismfrom this groundbreaking survey. First and foremost, it is quite clear thatthis young and tech-savvy demographic is as crazy about and engaged with musicas any previous generation.

“Contrary to popular belief, they are also prepared to pay for it too. But only if offered the services they want,” he added.

Source: Tech Radar

They say necessity is the mother of all invention. Well, sometimesthe ‘completely unnecessary but very cool’ category lends a helping hand too.

Which is probably how the ‘Take A Seat’ design came intobeing. A chair, which has a motor and wheels as well as some robotics inside,can be activated by your RFID-enabled library card.

The chair then follows you around the library, allowing youto take a seat whenever the latest JK Rowling novel falls into your arms.

Dutch delight

Conceived by Dutch designer Jelte van Geest, theRFID-enabled robotic chair is designed for the Openbare Bibliotheek in Eindhoven, Holland.

The chair will be your little sitting buddy for the durationof your visit, then will return to its docking station to recharge once youcross the red line to exit the building.

The chairs will also arrange themselves in an auditoriumformation should they all be activated at once by a manager, and will form alovely little procession whilst doing so.

Source: Tech Radar

Samsung has become the latest mobile phone manufacturer tounveil an eco-friendly mobile…in fact it’s released two.

The w510 is made from bio-plastic, using materials from naturalcorn, which is obviously much nicer than dirty petrol-based plastics.

In making the model as well the environment was heavilyconsidered, so no lead, mercury or cadmium was used. The phone has also had awater-soluble coating applied, so we assume it’s not a device for the shower.

Charge alarm

The other phone on display, the f268, focused more on greenuse rather than eco-friendly construction.

The model does not contain Brominated Flame Retardants,which allegedly can contaminate the environment on disposal, nor does it usePVC.

The s268 also has an alarm to alert the user when the devicehas reached full charge, which surely would be annoying when your phone is puton charge while you sleep. (Everyone does that…come on, admit it.)

“Samsung is striving to continue to be a strong corporatecitizen that contributes to environmental sustainability,” said GeesungChoi, President of Samsung’s Telecommunication Business.

“Now we are trying not only to launch moreenvironmentally-conscious products with more renewable material and less energyconsuming, but also to expand proactively set up a phone recycling system.”

However, the w510 will be launched in Korea and the f268 in China later this month. Still, goodto see some companies are trying.

Source: Tech Radar