Q&A search site Quora opens to everyone

A new search site is hoping it has the winning answer.Launched to the public on Monday, Quora is a Q&A site where people can ask and answer questions among a community of fellow users. The site falls into the broad category of "social search," relying directly on other people for information rather than database-generated search results.The goal of the site is to help users grab information they can't easily locate through a traditional search engine such as Google. Users will find not only direct answers to questions but also opinions, advice, and recommendations.

(Credit: Quora)

Started by former Facebook employees, including Adam D'Angelo, who left the social network two years ago after serving as chief technology officer, Quora has been going through a gradual rollout since last winter. The site had been available on a limited basis to users who requested access by filling out a membership form or to those invited by an existing user. But now Quora is freely available to anyone just by registering at the site.Quora founder D'Angelo announced the full launch in Q&A style by answering the question, "Who can register for Quora?""We've gotten to the point where we are confident that we can integrate new users as they sign up and maintain the quality of the site, and so we are opening up registration today," he wrote. "However, we put quality ahead of growth as a priority, and so we will change plans and limit registration as necessary to achieve that goal."You register at Quora through your existing Facebook or Twitter account, which connects you with friends and followers already using the site and verifies your identity as a real person.From there, you can search for a topic or question, and then simply click on the result that best matches your query. If you don't find an answer waiting, you can type your specific question and wait for someone with the right expertise to answer it. As a registered user, you can also answer questions posed by other people.Staffed by just nine employees, Quora is receiving backing in the amount of $14 million from a group of investors led by Benchmark Capital, according to people cited by The Wall Street Journal. It's still unclear how Quora intends to make a profit, but the Journal quotes D'Angelo as saying that "it would probably involve some kind of advertising at some point."Quora joins several other companies attempting to launch their own Q&A sites to give search results more of a human touch. Facebook and Google are among those eyeing this territory, while Yahoo already offers its own brand of Q&A through its Yahoo Answers service.
Source: CNET News (http://cnet.com/)

Road Trip Pic of the Day, 6/22: What is this?

If you know what these mountains are and where the picture was taken from, you could win a prize in the Road Trip Picture of the Day challenge.(Credit: Daniel Terdiman/CNET)

These are some amazing mountains, some of the most visited in the United States. In some ways, they may look quite normal. But don't doubt how special they are. Have you been there? If so, you'll surely recognize them. But even if you've never been there, you may still recognize them. Either way, I want to know what mountains you think these are and just as importantly, where this photo was taken from. If you're right, you could win a prize in the CNET Road Trip Picture of the Day challenge. So if you have those answers, please e-mail them to me no later than 6 p.m. Pacific time Tuesday (at daniel--dot--terdiman--at--cnet--dot--com, including "Picture of the Day" in the subject line). I'll choose a winner at random from among everyone who sends in both pieces of the correct answer. Please forgive me if you don't hear from me if you're not the winner. I get dozens of responses each day. Also, I've turned off comments because some people have been posting the correct answers there. I hate to shut down discussion, but I want you to figure out the answer on your own. One caveat: no individual can win more than two prizes. But at the end of the trip, I'll be drawing a name from among all the daily challenge winners and giving out something a little more substantial. On June 24, Geek Gestalt will kick off Road Trip 2010. After driving more than 18,000 miles in the Rocky Mountains, the Pacific Northwest, the Southwest and the Southeast over the last four years, I'll be looking for the best in technology, science, military, nature, aviation and more throughout the American northeast. If you have a suggestion for someplace to visit, drop me a line. In the meantime, you can follow my preparations for the project on Twitter @GreeterDan and @RoadTrip and find the project on Facebook.
Source: CNET News (http://cnet.com/)

Dyson delivers two larger blade-free fans

Inventor James Dyson with his two new Air Multiplier models, the AM02 Tower and AM03 Pedestal.(Credit: Dyson)

Last year, Dyson attracted a lot of attention with a couple of blade-free fans that used something called Air Multiplier technology to blow a nice, even stream of air to cool you down. Those 10 and 12-inch models aren't exactly cheap, costing $299.99 and $329. But instead of making more affordable fans, Dyson is coming out with two larger higher-end models that will cost $450. The AM02 Tower (pictured left), available in iron, blue and silver, or just silver, stands 1m tall and measures 19cm wide, whereas the AM03 Pedestal fan is even larger and pumps out more air. The pedestal model, available in white or silver, is adjustable both in terms of height and angle (it stands up to 1.4m in height). Both models ship with a remote. (Via Gizmodo) Check out our video of Dyson Air Multiplier technology in action:

Source: CNET News (http://cnet.com/)

FTC says current privacy laws aren't working

Kathryn Ratte, a senior Federal Trade Commission attorney (far right), says current U.S. privacy laws aren't effective.

CALGARY, Alberta--A U.S. Federal Trade Commission representative delivered a stern indictment of current privacy laws on Monday, saying they fail to protect American consumers and instead place too much of a "burden" on them. The existing constellation of privacy laws, which relies heavily on disclosure of data collection and use practices and on informed consumer choice, "in some very basic sense isn't working," said Kathryn Ratte, a senior attorney in the FTC's consumer protection bureau. "We've put too much burden on the consumers to understand these policies," Ratte said here at an event organized by Canada's privacy commissioner. "To compare the privacy policies of two companies is an almost impossible task." These sentiments are likely to be reflected in a widely anticipated report that the agency plans to publish later this year. The report is expected to offer to Congress recommendations on new laws and may state that the FTC intends to expand its current authority around policing "deceptive" practices to address more Internet-related business practices. "One of the issues we've identified is...to encourage companies to have better data hygiene," Ratte said, through implementing policies such as "minimization and retention limits." In an area like cloud computing, which demonstrates "some of the limits of these traditional structures," the current "notice and choice model in some very basic sense isn't working," she said. "The goal of transparency clearly isn't being met by the way notice is being handled today." One type of law that has worked well is data breach notification, said Mike Hintze, Microsoft's associate general counsel, who also spoke at the Calgary event. It's one in a series of events that Canada's privacy commissioner, Jennifer Stoddart, has convened around the country. "Old data that you don't have a business purpose for is toxic waste," Hintze said. "There's now a new incentive to get rid of data that you don't need anymore." Last year, the U.S. House of Representatives approved H.R. 2221, a data breach notification bill, but the Senate has not acted. The measure states that anyone who "possesses data in electronic form containing personal information shall, following the discovery of a breach of security...notify each individual" who was affected by the security breach. (California already has such a law.) In drafting its yet-to-be-released report, the FTC organized three privacy roundtables. During the first one in December, FTC Chairman Jon Leibowitz offered some hints about what his agency was thinking: "Should we utilize more opt-in? Should we treat special categories of information, such as sensitive health or personal financial, differently? How about vulnerable consumers, such as children?" More hints have come in the form of an FTC document that suggests cloud computing services could be targeted for more regulation. The ability of these services "to collect and centrally store increasing amounts of consumer data, combined with the ease with which such centrally stored data may be shared with others, create a risk that larger amounts of data may be used by entities not originally intended or understood by consumers," it states.
Source: CNET News (http://cnet.com/)

Some iPhone 4 preorders coming a day early

Here's a nice surprise for early adopters who managed to successfully place an an iPhone 4 preorder on the first day it was possible to do so: at least some of you may receive your device a day early. According to an e-mail notification Apple broadcast to preorder customers iPhone 4 delivery "will occur on June 23rd." That's Wednesday--not the originally promised delivery date of Thursday.Here is Apple's e-mail:

Dear Apple Store Customer,You recently received a Shipment Notification email from Apple advising you that your iPhone has shipped.This email is to confirm that your delivery will occur on June 23rd. Although Apple and FedEx tracking information may currently indicate a later date, you can check the FedEx website the morning of the June 23rd to track your package to your doorstep.In the event that you will not be available to accept delivery on June 23rd, it may be more convenient to use our pre-sign delivery option by visiting our Order Status website at http://www.apple.com/orderstatus.Sincerely,The Apple Store Team

The reason for the change in delivery date isn't clear though it might be that the company is hoping to protect its servers from meltdown by staggering initial iPhone activations over two days.Story Copyright (c) 2010 AllThingsD. All rights reserved.
Source: CNET News (http://cnet.com/)

VirnetX gets thumbs-up in VPN patent review

In something of a postscript to the main legal action, VirnetX announced Tuesday that the two patents involved in its dispute with Microsoft have been confirmed by the U.S. Patent Office as valid.

The United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) confirmed VirnetX's U.S. Patent No. 6,502,135 and U.S. Patent No. 7,188,180 as patentable and valid on June 16, according to VirnetX. The two patents were the subject of lawsuits filed by VirnetX against Microsoft, alleging patent infringement over the use of VPN (virtual private network) technology in Windows.The settlement, reached May 17, calls for Microsoft to pay VirnetX $200 million and obtain a license to use VirnetX technology in Windows and Microsoft products."The validation of these two key patents and all the claims associated with each by the USPTO further validates the importance and strength of our patent portfolio," Kendall Larsen, VirnetX president and CEO, said in a statement. "Furthermore, this confirms that VirnetX has key patents related to one of the most ubiquitous and important security technologies, Virtual Private Networks."
Source: CNET News (http://cnet.com/)

Microsoft online store lists Kinect for $150

Microsoft Kinect for the Xbox 360.(Credit: Josh Lowensohn/CNET)

When Microsoft showed off Kinect--its motion-gaming answer to Nintendo's Wii and Sony's PlayStation Move--at E3 this month, one key detail was absent: price.Since then, many industry watchers have estimated that Microsoft will sell Kinect for $150 when it launches November 4. Even Best Buy, Amazon.com, and Wal-Mart, three major gaming retailers, have put the $150 price tag on Kinect listings on their respective Web sites. So far, though, Microsoft officially has been mum on Kinect's price tag.Realizing this, it is rather surprising to see that Microsoft's online store is now listing Kinect for $149.99. That said, the figure should be taken with a grain of salt. Microsoft has yet to publicly confirm Kinect's price and has not immediately responded to a request for price confirmation. There is also the possibility that the price will change before the peripheral is released.Stephen Toulouse, Microsoft's director of policy and enforcement for Xbox Live, said Monday in a tweet that "all prices now, no matter what the retail source, are placeholders."Regardless of the questionable price, if you're keen on Kinect, several online retail sites--including Microsoft's--are now accepting preorders.
Source: CNET News (http://cnet.com/)

DxO tests dig deep into camera lens performance

DxO Labs' detailed DxOMark scores now encompass lens-camera combinations.(Credit: Screenshot by Stephen Shankland/CNET)

For photography gearheads who want detailed tests of lens performance, a significant new option is joining the likes of SLRgear.com, Photozone.de, and Digital Photography Review. The new kid in town is from an established player in camera measurements: DxO Labs. The company, which performs detailed tests of cameras and sells software for editing raw photos, is revamping its DxOMark site to offer lens tests as well as the earlier image sensor tests. It's got some significant differences over established reviews sites. First, it adds a parameter the others lack, transmission, which measures how much light actually makes it through the lens. For example, Canon's EF 50mm f/1.8 II lens actually has an effective maximum aperture more like f2.1, DxO's tests show. Second--and this is the bigger difference--the tests show how each lens works on a wide range of camera bodies; existing lens sites typically run tests just on one or two bodies. Seeing how a lens works differently on different bodies can help inform prospective buyers whether a high-end lens is worth its premium on a lower-end camera, or how well an existing lens collection will work on a new camera body.

The top-ranked lens-camera combination, as measured by DxO Labs peak score, is the Nikon AF-S VR Zoom-Nikkor 70-200mm f/2.8G IF-ED mounted on a Nikon D3X camera, shooting at 70mm and f2.8.(Credit: Screenshot by Stephen Shankland/CNET)

For example of the differences, the Nikon AF Nikkor 85mm f/1.4D IF rates "excellent" for both peak performance and resolution on the top-end Nikon D3X camera, but that drops to middling performance on the midrange D300 or the low-end D5000 camera. To pick another example, the high-end Sony 70-200mm F2.8 G gets a solid peak performance score on the top-end, full-frame Alpha A900 camera, but its score drops considerably on lower-end cameras. There is, for now, a somewhat limited selection of lenses available--60 total, with 546 combinations with various cameras--but dozens more will be added monthly, said Nicolas Touchard, vice president of marketing for DxO's Image Quality Evaluation group. That will be a combination of existing data DxO already has and new data that will arrive as new cameras and lenses arrive. Also missing are Micro Four Thirds and related hybrid cameras and medium-format models. Along with transmission, the DxO tests also measure more familiar characteristics: chromatic aberration, a color-fringing problem that results from the fact that different colors of light travel through a lens on different paths; distortion, in which lines that should be parallel bow inward or outward; vignetting, which darkens corners of images; and resolution, which measures the sharpness of details captured. Each lens-camera combination shows a collection of such scores, with each single number a composite score based on overall performance at a variety of focal lengths, apertures, and positions across the image frame. The tests show results for a single copy of each lens, with serial number provided, but DxO factors in variability across multiple copies, Touchard said. Specifically, he said the score numbers are rounded to not show a misleading level precision. Lower-end lenses show more variability, he added, and typically only in resolution but not chromatic aberration, vignetting, and distortion. The tests are certainly not complete reviews. They don't tackle value, build quality, weatherproofing, or any number of other factors important to buyers. And it doesn't tackle some optical properties that are hard to quantify, such as contrast or ghosting. I've been digging around a beta version for a few days now, and find it takes some time to learn to use the complicated new site. But it's definitely useful. I'm less keen on DxO's ratings of a lens for particular uses--photojournalism, travel, portrait, sports, and landscape--and would rather just judge a lens based on what attributes matter to me. But the overall goal to boil down some of the numeric complexity is laudable. The ability to compare multiple lenses also is handy, but the site's inability to scale to larger monitors means you'll squint at the graphs. One hint: clicking on one of these miniature versions pops it up in an enlarged view. For data junkies, it's fun to look at the collective camera-lens pair ratings, which offers a chart that ranks various combinations by total price on the one hand and by peak score on the other. The large gaggle of lower-end products toward the lower left of the chart is too cluttered to be really useful, but it's more interesting poking around the high-scoring, lower-cost region toward the upper left. Just remember that peak score isn't a full measure of the lens. Peak score isn't a full reflection of a lens' optical quality boiled down into one number; instead it reflects the total amount of information gathered by a particular lens on a particular camera. It therefore can increase with improvements in resolution for either the camera or the lens or be held back with corresponding shortcomings in either. Helpfully, DxO shows you where the peak score was achieved, a useful guide to a lens sweet spot. For example, Canon's EF 16-35mm f/2.8L II USM mounted on a Canon 5D Mark II has a peak score at 20mm and wide open at f2.8. Again, don't consider the various scores a complete reflection of the products. But if you're curious about detailed lens performance, dive in.
Source: CNET News (http://cnet.com/)

Sears, Kmart to offer streaming movie service

Here's how you know streaming video has gone mainstream: when mass market retailers are getting in on the game. Scheduled for a holiday release is a new digital video service that will be available on TVs and Blu-ray players sold at Sears and Kmart. It's called Alphaline Entertainment, and will be available on devices from Sharp, LG, Sony, Samsung, Panasonic, and RCA by the end of the year. Customers will be walked through the set-up inside the store by customer service representatives so that they can just take it home and begin watching movie content at once.

The service is similar to what Best Buy and Wal-Mart have started offering. Sears and Kmart's service is powered by the same back-end technology as Best Buy's: Sonic Solutions' RoxioNow streaming and content architecture. There are about 5,000 new-release movies available on the service, according to Sonic. Wal-Mart went a different direction, and instead of partnering purchased Vudu, a streaming-video service in February with plans to make it accessible on every Web-connected consumer electronics device sold in its stores. That's in addition to the streaming services from Netflix and Amazon Video on Demand which have proliferated to be available on PCs via the Web, and across a wide range of living room devices. Sonic's streaming-media library is now available via Blockbuster's online service, Best Buy, and soon Sears and Kmart. According to Sonic, while manufacturers have been on board with the idea of Web-connected devices, retailers are relatively new to it, but are gradually coming around. "Moving from Blockbuster and Best Buy to Sears/Kmart shows that those retailers who reach a broad base of consumers are really wanting to embrace digital services," said Mark Ely, Sonic's head of strategy. One of the main reasons that retailers are suddenly interested? Physical media sales are going to drop off, and these retailers are preparing for the future. "We see the DVD business declining over the next couple years," said Elliot Becker, vice president of home electronics for Sears and Kmart. "We wanted to offer a service on all of the devices we sell, not just TVs, but Blu-ray (players), tablets, all the devices we're in or going to get into." Tablets are not in the plans for this year, but perhaps next year depending on how demand for them shapes up, Becker said.
Source: CNET News (http://cnet.com/)

Salesforce releases its Facebook for business

The home screen of Chatter looks a lot like a Facebook home screen with status updates, though in this case the updates come from co-workers, data, and documents.(Credit: Salesforce.com)

Salesforce.com hopes its new Chatter product will give businesses something to talk about. After beta testing the collaboration service since February, the company says the product is ready for mainstream use. Although it is designed to compete with Microsoft's SharePoint or IBM's Lotus Notes, Salesforce.com aptly describes Chatter as sort of a Facebook for businesses. Instead of following old high school classmates, though, Chatter allows workers to follow co-workers, specific business documents, or pieces of data. A sales rep, for example, could follow a pending deal and get updates whenever details on the transaction are updated, while a support worker could choose to follow a bug report to get updates when a solution is found. Chatter works behind the firewall, so company information stored on Chatter can't be seen outside of the company running it. "We feel very excited that we have a killer app on our hands with Chatter," said Salesforce.com Senior Vice President Kraig Swensrud. "Facebook has really trained the entire Internet on how to collaborate. No one has to go to a training class to figure out how to use Chatter. Chatter is now included at no extra charge for workers already subscribing to either Salesforce.com's own software or products that run on its Force.com platform, Swensrud said. Companies can also add Chatter for additional workers not using any of those products for $15 per user per month. The company is also pitching Chatter as a platform of its own, encouraging developers and software companies writing programs for Force.com to integrate Chatter into their own applications. The company said 35 new Chatter-enabled applications are being added to the company's collection, adding to the 20 that were already there. BMC Software and CA are among the companies whose products will tie into Chatter, Swensrud said. Chatter works on PCs, Macs, iPads, iPhones, and BlackBerry devices, with plans for an Android application later this year. Users can update their status messages for other followers to see, but for now, Salesforce.com isn't building in instant messaging. "That would be a natural extension that would be something we would do down the line," Swensrud said. Both Microsoft and Google have internal testing of Twitter-like programs that could be made available to businesses.
Source: CNET News (http://cnet.com/)

How Microsoft foresaw--and still missed--the iPad

The technology icon stands before a crowd, holding in his hands a prototype that embodies his vision for the future of computing. It's a touch-screen tablet that is thinner than a magazine, has all-day battery life, and sells for less than $800. But the icon wasn't Steve Jobs and the tablet wasn't the iPad. It was Bill Gates, speaking in 2005 to a crowd of Windows hardware makers in Seattle. The technology enabling such a device was still a few years off, Gates said, but it was time to start working toward that vision. A year later, Microsoft detailed Project Origami, an effort to commercialize Gates' vision by adding a touch interface on top of Windows XP. Yet, the technology still hadn't caught up with the vision.

A Samsung representative shows off the Q1 at its 2006 launch. The minitablet eventually reached store shelves, but fell short of the battery life and price targets Microsoft had for the Origami devices.(Credit: Andrea E. Reed/CNET)

A few devices, like Samsung's Q1 eventually found their way to the market, but they were a bust, offering terrible battery life and costing more than $1,000. Within a year, Microsoft and the partners had largely abandoned the effort. Fast forward four years and the Gates tablet vision is a reality, thanks to Apple. Despite a decade spent trying to sell Windows-based tablets and the prescience to see the hardware trends that would make it possible for a device like the iPad to exist, Microsoft has thus far missed the boat. The iPad is perhaps the best-received new consumer gadget since the game-changing iPhone. The Origami effort, meanwhile, is a footnote, just one of many in a string of failures in the mobile market. And while the PC market is still fast growing and dominated by Microsoft, the company's failures in the mobile market threaten Windows' long-term future. As Microsoft continues to struggle with new computing form factors such as smartphones and tablets, it might benefit from taking a look back at Origami. How exactly did Microsoft have such a keen grasp on the future and still let opportunity slip through its fingers? For starters, Origami probably came too soon. Although Gates could see a time when computers had all-day battery life, small Windows machines were still lucky to get a couple hours of battery life. And it would be another couple of years before multitouch would arrive on both Apple's iPhone and Microsoft's Surface. Microsoft also had a lot on its plate. It was in the process of developing Longhorn--a significant overhaul of Windows XP. Faced with challenges to create an all-new file system and other major changes, the company scaled back the project and created what became Vista. Vista, in addition its other well-documented shortcomings, had more intensive graphics that made Windows even less well suited to low-end hardware and more of a drain on battery life. Redmond also chose to squeeze Windows onto the devices rather than come up with a slimmer operating system that, while perhaps incompatible with past efforts, could have booted up more quickly and run on more power-efficient chips. The company also had to deal with a much more clear and present danger/opportunity: Netbooks. The arrival of the 7-inch, Linux-based EeePC in 2007 revealed a vulnerability in Microsoft's long history of dominating the PC market. Computer makers were finding ways to make PC hardware ever cheaper and smaller, but Windows remained designed for machines with large screens, big hard drive, and high price tags.

Steve Jobs shows off the iPad at its January 2010 introduction.(Credit: James Martin/CNET)

Microsoft responded effectively, offering lower priced versions of Windows and working to make XP run on machines with just a few gigabytes of flash memory storage. The company now boasts roughly the same 95 percent market share in Netbooks as it does for desktops and higher-end notebooks, according to IDC. However, the fact that Microsoft was able to foresee the hardware that would enable the iPad and yet not build the right software to seize the opportunity highlights several challenges that Microsoft still needs to address if it hopes to catch-up. Despite improvements to the Windows development process, Microsoft's flagship operating system still has relatively long product cycles. While Apple this week released the fourth version of its iPhone operating system in as many years, Microsoft has cranked out just three major versions of Windows in the past decade. The company also struggles with internal factions. Just recently, Microsoft canceled a tablet project of its own, code-named Courier. Some company watchers say that cancellation was part of a debate within the company over whether projects like Courier belong with the Windows team or whether the task was better suited to the devices unit, which makes the Zune, Xbox, and Windows Phones. Some say the departures of Entertainment and Devices unit head Robbie Bach and key lieutenant J. Allard can also be traced to that debate, though both cited other reasons for leaving Microsoft. Microsoft has also struggled to keep pace in the mobile phone market. Though it was making software to power cell phones long before Apple and Google, it now trails the iPhone and Android, along with Symbian and RIM's BlackBerry. That would be bad enough if the battle were confined to the phone business, but now both Apple's iOS and Android-based devices are moving up into the tablet business. Now, it's not necessarily gloom and doom time for the Windows team. The iPad--despite early success--is a relatively niche product and likely to remain so for the near future. IDC forecasts that 16.8 million media tablets will ship next year, including the iPad and its rivals, compared with nearly three times that many Netbook-style computers (47 million). Overall. the researcher expects more than 400 million PCs to be sold next year, with more than 95 percent of those running Windows. Nor has Microsoft given up on playing a role on consumer tablets. The company has talked about the suitability of Windows 7 and even Windows CE for such devices and showed some prototypes at this year's Computex trade show in Taiwan. Just this week, Toshiba unveiled a dual-screen Libretto tablet running Windows 7 that it says will ship in August. But as mobile operating systems are starting to make incursions into the PC market, so far the signs for Microsoft are somewhat ominous. At one point Hewlett-Packard was heavily touting a planned Windows 7 tablet, though it has since decided to acquire Palm and its WebOS operating system. The company now says it plans to take WebOS beyond the smartphone, including it on tablets and printers. HP, which at one time was committed to both Windows and Windows Phone, now refuses to talk at all about the Windows 7-based slate and there is plenty of suggestion that device will never see the light of day. Android is also gaining momentum and moving into the tablet arena. In Europe, Dell has started shipping the Streak, with plans to start selling the 5-inch minitablet in the U.S. by July. And of course, there's Apple, which is unlikely to stand still. Jobs last month predicted that, within a few years there will be more people using devices like a grown-up iPad than will be using a traditional Mac or PC. Jobs said the day is coming when only one out of every few people will need a traditional computer, saying that PCs are like trucks, while devices like the iPad are like passenger cars. "When we were an agrarian nation, all cars were trucks because that's what you needed on the farms." But, he said, as cities rose, and things like power steering and automatic transmission became a bigger draw than, say, hauling capacity. "PCs are going to be like trucks," Jobs said. "They are still going to be around." However, he said, only "one out of 'x' people will need them." Assuming this vision is even partially correct, it suggests that Microsoft needs to do more than just persuade hardware makers to build some Windows 7 tablets in order to get back in the ultra-mobile game. The addition of native multitouch support in Windows 7 was a good first step, but doesn't address the battery life challenges, or the complexity still inherent in Windows.

Although Windows 7-based consumer tablets have thus far proven more talk than reality, Toshiba said this week it plans in August to ship the dual-screen, Windows-based Libretto W100.(Credit: Toshiba)

Another option would be to approach the market with something other than full-blown Windows, but there too, Microsoft faces hurdles. Although Redmond has other products that are potentially suitable for a consumer tablet, each has significant drawbacks. At Computex, Microsoft showed a prototype from Asus running a version of Windows CE. Although the next version of that slimmed-down operating system boasts a better browser and support for Adobe Flash, Windows CE is sold as a fully customizable OS. That means that device makers have a lot of flexibility, but also means that any tablet dreamed up by one device maker would likely not run software written for another make. There's also Microsoft's forthcoming Windows Phone 7 operating system, but that effort is still very early and the company has a lot on its plate there just to get things working on phones in time for a holiday launch. All of that leaves Microsoft in an interesting position as it looks to respond to the iPad. There's another interesting question as well. Will Microsoft continue to pursue a software-only approach with tablets or might it yet build its own device?
Source: CNET News (http://cnet.com/)

Verizon readies home energy and security services

Verizon later this year plans to expand its offering with home energy management and security, a move that could signal a quicker route to delivering smart-grid services to consumers. The company is currently developing an "integrated home management system" that includes both energy and security services, according to spokesman Jim Smith. The intent is to add home management to the menu of options Verizon offers. Last year, Verizon first let out word of its home energy-management plans, but the company is now providing further details on how it could work for consumers.

A Verizon Fios router: gateway to smart grid?(Credit: Martin LaMonica/CNET)

The security and energy services would piggyback an existing home network and broadband connection, Smith explained. The goal is for Verizon to deliver the services via the cloud so that they are accessible from multiple devices, including TVs and phones. For example, a homeowner could receive a cell phone text when the doorbell rings and display what the front door camera sees, he explained. In energy, Verizon envisions using a home automation network where a touch-screen display allows a person to put the home into "night mode," in which all the lights are turned off and the thermostat reset. Overall, the expansion into energy and security is a play at capturing more consumer home spending with advanced services. "Our view is that home management has enormous potential when you consider how the focus on 'apps' can relieve the strain on individual services to be effective and profitable," Smith said. "As for the business model, we see home services as a fourth leg on the stool, joining phone, Internet, and entertainment as another essential, not a bolt-on." Better channel than utilities?
It remains to be seen how well Verizon's home management services will be received by consumers. But in the burgeoning smart-grid business, phone and cable TV service providers are a promising channel for automated energy conservation goods and services. Several companies have developed in-home energy dashboards and software to let people see how much energy they are using at home. With tools to better track electricity consumption and control appliances and electronics, consumers can cut their monthly utility bills by 5 to 15 percent, according to research and industry estimates. Many home energy companies are working through utilities, in part because smart meters can feed information to energy dashboards and energy portals. But utilities are notoriously slow to move on new technology and most smart-grid programs are still limited to trials.

Energy displays bring the smart grid home (photos)

By contrast, cable and phone companies are eager to provide more services with their existing broadband connections. And for many services, such as basic energy monitoring and some automation, a utility smart meter isn't required, said Seth Frader-Thompson, the CEO of home energy management start-up EnergyHub. EnergyHub is one of a handful of companies seeking out partnerships with cable and phone companies for its home energy management software and equipment, which includes an energy dashboard that could sit on a counter or hang on a wall. The New York-based company has existing deals with utilities to offer its gear as part of smart-grid programs. "For cable companies, (energy) is just another simple service that fits into your life. It makes your thermostat easier to program and gives you feedback and hopefully, it saves you money," he said. The technical model many companies are pursuing is to use an energy dashboard, or display, as a hub for connected devices in the home, such as a thermostat or appliances. Existing appliances or lights can be managed using plugs equipped with radios that connect them to the home automation network. Still early
Many other companies have taken a bundled approach when bringing home conservation tools to consumers. iControl, for example, is extending home security with energy automation tools. Tablet maker OpenPeak is building home energy management as one of the applications on its touch-screen tablet computers.

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Who'll do a better job delivering smart-grid services to your home?

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• My broadband provider
• Doesn't matter
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In the case of cable and telecom operators, though, the business models for offering energy services are not fully worked out. One possible approach is the cell phone model where the hardware cost is subsidized by a monthly fee, said Frader-Thompson. For consumers, that monthly fee for energy services should result in less wasted energy and trimmed bills. "If you live in a big suburban home that's 2,000 or 4,000 square feet in suburban Houston or a place that has brutal summers, you're probably paying $500 a month. That creates an opportunity to save $10, $50, or even $100 in the worst times," he said. A representative from the National Cable and Telecommunications Association (NCTA) said there aren't yet any high-profile trials involving cable companies and home energy and security, but she noted the cable companies provide Internet service to 41 million homes. If cable and telecom providers start offering energy services, they will still need to partner with utilities to get access to information that can be used for advanced applications, cable industry research company CableLabs said in a white paper published earlier this year. (Click for PDF.) For example, demand-response programs, where utilities give consumers a rebate to reduce energy use during peak times, require getting information from utilities to signal when connected appliances, such as clothes driers, go into energy-saving mode. The paper's authors argued for federal policies to clarify how energy usage data is handled and an open technical architecture. "If the public utility were to become the sole supplier of energy management services, there would be less competition and less innovation in energy management," they said.
Source: CNET News (http://cnet.com/)

Road Trip 2010 ready to roll through East Coast

Road Trip 2010 kicks off Thursday. This year, as he has for the last four summers, CNET reporter Daniel Terdiman will explore a region of the U.S. in search of the best geek-oriented destinations it has to offer.(Credit: Daniel Terdiman/CNET)

SAN FRANCISCO--Each summer for the last four years, I've been lucky enough to get to pick a region of the country and spend several weeks driving around, writing stories and taking photos of some of the best geek-oriented destinations I could find. In 2006, it was the Pacific Northwest. In 2007, the Southwest. In 2008, it was the Southeast. And in 2009, I traveled through almost the entire Rocky Mountain and Continental Divide region. Over the four years, I've covered 18,528 miles and visited dozens of the most interesting research labs, military bases, aviation facilities, NASA centers, technology companies and much, much more. Along the way, I've also gotten a chance to test out a great deal of the newest tech gear, and see how that gear works when carting it around the country, putting it through its paces, and trying to get the most out of it. On Road Trip 2009, I drove an Audi Q7 TDI 5,765 miles through Colorado, Utah, Idaho, Montana and Wyoming, crossing the Continental Divide at least 10 times, and stopped in on places like Cheyenne Mountain, the former home of NORAD; the U.S. Air Force Academy; Arches National Park; Robert Smithson's great earthwork, Spiral Jetty; the Air Force's Utah Test & Training Range; the U.S. Department of Energy's Idaho National Lab; the Craters of the Moon; Glacier National Park; a cutting edge wind farm in Wyoming; and more.

On Road Trip 2009, CNET reporter Daniel Terdiman drove this Audi Q7 TDI 5,765 miles around the Rocky Mountain region.

And this year, I'm happy to say, is no different. On Thursday, I'll be hitting the East Coast for Road Trip 2010. I'll fly into Washington, D.C., and spend the next few weeks driving a review Porsche Panamera 4S through Virginia, Maryland, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, New Hampshire, Maine, Vermont, and the District of Columbia. I may even make it across the border into Canada. I never like to give away the full itinerary, but I will give you a taste of what's in store. Each day, including most weekend days, I'll be stopping in somewhere and producing both a feature story and a photo gallery. When I can, I'll do video as well. Among the stops this year are places as diverse as Northrop Grumman's naval shipyard in Newport News, Va.; PostSecret.com creator Frank Warren's home--including his archive of many hundreds of thousand of secret-laden postcards; induction day at the U.S. Naval Academy; the U.S. Bureau of Engraving and Printing--makers of the country's paper money; the Harley-Davidson factory; Roomba maker iRobot's headquarters; IBM Research Labs; the high-tech New York City kitchen of French Laundry impresario Thomas Keller's Per Se resaurant; behind-the-scenes at Fenway Park; and Frank Lloyd Wright's Fallingwater. And, naturally I've left room on the calendar to add a few destinations suggested by readers, as it wouldn't be that much fun to do this trip if I can't get you involved. Those who are especially helpful will be rewarded with prizes from a fairly sizable goody bag I've got. Stay tuned for details on how to help. Of course, I'll also be getting you involved with my daily Picture of the Day challenge. Each day, I'll post a photograph and your job will be to identify what it's a picture of and where it was taken. At the end of each day, I'll pick a random person from among those who sent me the right answer, and that person will win a prize. This year, I've got a bunch of different things to give away, including books, DVD sets from HBO, video games; Porsche memorabilia; and even the chance to play with a state-of-the-art telepresence robot. To help promote Showtime's forthcoming season of "Weeds" and its new show starring Laura Linney, "The Big C," I'll also have a bunch of DVD sets from that network (which is owned by CNET parent CBS). Although anyone is welcome to participate in the Picture of the Day challenges, no one will be able to win more than twice. However, at the end of the trip, I'll put all the daily winners' names into a hat, as it were, and draw names for some additional prizes, including a couple of Flip video cameras, and some complete series of shows like "Extras" and "Dexter." I'll also be having a separate contest--details of which I'll announce soon--to give away a new Xbox 360 Slim. High tech gear
As in previous years, a big part of Road Trip 2010 will be my road tests of a number of different kinds of high-tech gear.

The gear of Road Trip 2010 (photos)

Among those products are Apple's latest MacBook Pro, its iPad 3G and, most likely, its iPhone 4; Nikon's 300S digital SLR; Sprint's Overdrive 4G mobile hot spot; a tripod from Joby; a wireless charging system from Powermat; EyeFi's wireless SD card; both the GoPro Hero and Vicon Revue wearable cameras; and Hewlett-Packard's ScanJet Professional 1000 mobile scanner. I'll be using all of that gear to document this trip in as many ways as I can--given my time constraints, of course. I'll also be trying an experiment once I hit the road to use the iPad for as many tasks as I can. There will, of course, be some things that I'll only be able to do on the MacBook Pro, but most Internet-based tasks will be possible on the iPad, and I intend to write regularly about the experience of trying to use Apple's tablet as much as possible. And, of course, I'll be posting everything I produce on the trip here, and on my Facebook fan page, as well as on Twitter, at both my @GreeterDan and @RoadTrip accounts. Please be sure to follow those accounts, as there will be some surprises there. It's always hard to know how these trips are going to go, but I know it will be interesting. I'm going to get to visit a great deal of interesting spots, often from a very behind-the-scenes perspective, and I intend to share as much of those experiences with you as I can. Either way, I do hope that you'll come along for the ride.
Source: CNET News (http://cnet.com/)

Transcend releasing SDXC memory card line

Signifying the gradual spread of a new generation of memory card technology for cameras and videocameras, Transcend on Tuesday announced its first SDXC card, a 64GB Class 10 model.

Transcend's 64GB SDXC card(Credit: Transcend)

The Secure Digital memory card family has a relatively long and prosperous lineage. Its second generation to today's prevailing SDHC incarnation comes with capacities of up to 32GB, but SDXC (Extended Capacity) starts there and goes to 2TB, offering faster data transfer speeds, too. Transcend didn't announce availability or a price, but don't expect it to be cheap. SanDisk's slower 64GB Class 4 SDXC card costs about $220 right now, and Panasonic's 64GB Class 10 SDXC card costs about $500. Another Transcend competitor for cost-conscious buyers, Kingston, announced its 64GB SDXC card earlier this month with a $500 price tag, too. Expect prices to drop gradually as more SDXC cards and more products that use SDXC arrive on the market. In earlier days, the SD Card industry consortium that oversees the Secure Digital technology defined Class 10 as able to write data at a rate of 10 megabytes per second, but now the organization has moved to a qualitative definition of SD card transfer speeds; Class 10 is fast enough to record full high-definition video and sequences of high-resolution still images. A separate, faster speed category rating called UHS (Ultra High Speed) also is arriving; it "defines bus-interface speeds up to 104 megabytes per second for greater device performance in SDXC and SDHC host products," SD Card said. For some real-world tests of many cards across a range of cameras, check Rob Galbraith's useful database of flash memory performance measurements. SDXC appears poised to at least match the dominance of SDHC, with early mainstream products such as Canon's Rebel T2i (aka 550D) camera employing the standard. One interesting question for the industry is whether SDXC will make incursions onto the CompactFlash format. CF has led SD when it comes to capacity and transfer speeds, but SD is catching up, has a cost advantage, and has gradually displaced CF first from point-and-shoot cameras and later many SLRs as well. One interesting data point will be the expected successor to Canon's flagship SLR, the 1Ds Mark III. It has memory slots for both SDHC and CompactFlash. It's not likely this device will ditch CompactFlash, given professional photographers' investment in the technology, but it seems likely any second slot would be SDXC for speed, capacity, and longevity reasons.
Source: CNET News (http://cnet.com/)

Why digital license plates are a great idea

As a tax-paying, sun-worshiping, tourist-tolerating resident of California, may I say how delighted I am to hear that my state is leading the way toward digital license plates?As a commercially caring, capitalism-believing, creatively challenging resident of California, may I say how delighted I am that these digital plates will have ads?There is nothing more dull than sitting behind another car on the Golden Gate Bridge and having to stare at a number plate that reads "5XYJ204."How could anyone have imagined that a random set of numbers and letters could make anyone happy? Well, anyone other than a Googlie.We bemoan the fate of our environment, yet we have allowed our Sacramentally myopic apparatchiks to vomit more and more of these inane license plates as if bureaucrat is best. Finally, the stinging sore of three lifetimes of debt has made California think about beautifying the backs of its cars. Alright, so they're doing it for money. But surely anyone would rather look at a license plate adorned with "Got Milk" rather than "5XYJ204."The sheer brilliance of the idea, coming from a San Francisco company called Smart Plate, is that if your car is halted for more than four seconds, it magically transforms itself into a billboard.

Creative license plates are in terribly short supply.(Credit: CC Apreche/Flickr)

Surely we are all tired of the sheer nondesriptness or, indeed, the preening vanity of so many current license plates. Yes, I am delighted you bought your car for Jane, but did you really have to underline this tedious morsel with the license plate "4JANE"? So please imagine how lovely it would be to be stopped in traffic and suddenly see an ad for BP (tagline: "Beyond Politics") appear on the car in front. Please consider the sheer uplifting nature of the Jag that cut you off just a few hundred yards back suddenly being adorned with, say, an ad for Greenpeace.And what could be more awe-inspiring than the BMW M5 that's blaring some very dated Jay-Z standing still and beaming up the message "How about a vacation in sunny Germany?!" The possibilities are without end. Commuters on their way to Google could be hit with the message: "Work at Yahoo. No traffic there."Drivers on their way to Los Angeles could be struck to life with this ad: "You look awful. Believe in Botox."And, should you be wafting on a trip north of San Francisco, the enterprising wineries of Sonoma could get together and suggest: "Don't drink and drive in Napa. Sonoma wine is much better."I would very much like to commend Democratic Sen. Curren Price who has championed this scheme. Finally, someone has found a way to use utterly useless real estate for the common good.Until now, the most entertaining license plate in California is on a Prius in Marin County. It reads "SMUGCAR." Although I did, this very Monday evening, see a Nissan 370Z with the license plate "POYZNER." Whether this referred to the Republican candidate defeated by the magnificence and munificence of Meg Whitman, or to the noxious emissions of the vehicle, I am not sure. I believe that the entry of the freest, most creative enterprise can only brighten our landscape and our people's psyches so that they might arrive at their destinations even more committed to the Californian economy.
Source: CNET News (http://cnet.com/)

Adobe moves mobile Flash from rhetoric to reality

After enduring months of scorn from Apple, Adobe Systems is set to begin a major effort to claim some of the mobile computing initiative for itself starting Monday night. That's when the company plans to issue an all-but-finished beta of Flash Player 10.1, moving from demos and rhetoric to a more concrete answer to those who question the technology's relevance. Flash for Android phones will become final with Google's imminent release of Android 2.2, aka Froyo, and over coming months Flash 10.1 will spread to many other mobile operating systems. "We're expecting really broad platform support over the next 12 to 18 months," said Anup Murarka, Adobe's director of technology strategy. "There may be a little bit of a slow start as these devices trickle out," he said, but a broader range expanding also to tablets, Netbooks, TVs, and set-top boxes will emerge for Christmas and at the Consumer Electronics Show in January. Also due to get Flash Player 10.1 are Palm's WebOS, Research in Motion's BlackBerry OS, Nokia's Symbian, the MeeGo version of Linux from Intel and Nokia, and Windows Phone 7--though not at that operating system's debut, Murarka said. Many companies will pre-install Flash Player 10.1 on their phones through deals Adobe is hammering out, but in the case of Google, those with Froyo phones will be able to download it directly from the Android Market. It's no surprise that Adobe's partner list omits one very important swath of the mobile device market: Apple's iOS, the operating system that powers not only the influential iPhone but also the new iPad and the iPod Touch. Adobe has been twice thwarted in its ambition to spread Flash there--first when Apple rejected it outright, and second when it blocked a more indirect Adobe effort to convert Flash applications into native iOS applications. Apple CEO Steve Jobs castigated Flash for being insecure, crash-inducing, and a relic from a bygone age of computing.

But the length of Adobe's list of supporters shows that the company still has a lot of clout. Adobe's ability to secure mobile device partners--and there are a number of chipmakers cooperating on Flash Player 10.1 for mobile, too--is reminiscent of an earlier age when Microsoft, not Apple, was the company whose power galvanized competitors. Then, Microsoft's rivals threw their collective weight behind Sun Microsystems' Java in the 1990s and behind Linux shortly afterward, in both cases helping to counterbalance if not vanquish Microsoft. Battle lost, war not over
Jobs' complaints, documented in a very public letter, helped spur those trying to build a better Flash competitor out of Web standards built into browsers without plug-ins. That effort, even though Adobe supports it to a degree, poses a major competitive threat to Flash. Adobe knows it lost the Apple battle, but it's not giving up the war. "We work with Apple on the desktop, but we're not making any progress on the mobile side," Murarka said. What that means for Flash programmers who want their software on iOS devices: "Developers will have to absorb additional cost to do development for that platform." The biggest point of counterattack against Apple will be simply support on other phones, a move Adobe believes will keep Flash relevant in the era in which smartphones are miniature general-purpose computers, albeit wimpier than your average laptop. Apple's objections undermines Adobe's "multiscreen" ambition to let Flash programmers create a single application that adapts to many different systems. But even without its presence, Flash Player 10.1 for mobile extends Flash programmers' reach--to Android phones including the Motorola Droid, Dell Streak, Google Nexus One, Motorola Milestone, Samsung Galaxy S, and HTC Evo, Incredible, and Desire, for starts. "There is still an issue for content providers and application developers in targeting multiple mobile platforms (RIM, Symbian, Android). With Flash 10.1, they will at least have a common solution to target multiple non-Apple platforms plus desktop environments with one code base, one project, one skill-set, etc.," said IDC analyst Al Hilwa. "They may still have to target Apple with a separate effort, but this is an improvement over the current much higher-cost situation, which is a different solution for each platform." Now it will be up to Adobe and its Flash allies to back up their claims of performance, compatibility, and desirability. Adobe claims notable performance for technology derided as a CPU hog on full-fledged computers: "We can watch over three hours of video on a Nexus One, streamed over 3G," Murarka said, and casual games will run for four hours. Adobe previously had offered a stripped down and not terribly successful Flash Lite for phones, but in November 2008 announced its intent to concentrate instead on a unified Flash Player for both computers and smartphones. The work was difficult, in part because Adobe had to rework Flash for devices lacking the relatively copious memory and processor power of a regular computer. One helpful side effect, though, is that Flash Player 10.1 should consume less memory and processing power on desktop computers, too. Getting Flash Player 10.1 onto phones
Even though the code base is the same, there are differences between Flash Player 10.1 for mobile phones and for personal computers. Here's a big one: with many phones, you can't just point your browser to a Web site and download the software you want. Flash Player 10.1 for phones, therefore, will rely in part on distribution deals by which the software is preinstalled on phones or distributed via over-the-air updates. "We are working with multiple OEMs [original equipment manufacturers] to ship it presintalled on new devices," said Murarka, though he he said it was up to the companies in charge of the phones to announce such deals.

Adobe has a considerable list of processor companies that provided engineering help with bringing Flash Player 10.1 to mobile devices.(Credit: Adobe Systems)

But don't be surprised to see them coming soon--the new Motorola Droid going on sale on Verizon's network, to be announced Wednesday, seems a likely candidate. "Expect additional news later this week with OEM-related news," Murarka said. And though there's no deal to announce, he said Adobe is in talks with Samsung about bringing Flash to its Bada operating system. Adobe likes the Android Market style of distribution, which helps Adobe manage Flash Player and doesn't require them to wait for a device manufacturing cycle. Also coming is a pop-up message that Web sites can show suggesting people install Flash, an experience drawn from personal computers. But Adobe will work with others, too; for example, Palm will distribute Flash Player 10.1 through a system update, he said. Programmers, too, will have to adjust to the new Flash Player 10.1. Many existing Web sites will work fine on mobile phones with Flash Player, Murarka said, but those that assume a person controls the application with a keyboard and mouse or that assume the user has a large screen could have troubles. Consequently, Adobe encourages programmers to consider touch interfaces and other newer developments. Flash Player 10.1 includes support for multitouch, but an application will work differently controlled that way compared to more traditional interfaces. To run on a phone, a relatively powerful processor is required. Adobe's official list includes ARM11, Cortex A8 and A9, Intel Atom, nVidia Tegra, and Qualcomm Snapdragon. The software can take advantage of processor sleep states to conserve power and of accelerometers to control screen orientation. Such engineering work is necessary and important for a good experience, and Adobe has Moore's Law on its side: new devices will come with more memory, better graphics, brawnier processors, better displays. But that's in the future. Today's challenge will be just getting Flash onto mobile devices and getting programmers to adjust their ways. With Flash Player 10.1, though, Adobe has something more than words to persuade others to sign up for Flash.
Source: CNET News (http://cnet.com/)

Intel, FTC in talks to settle antitrust claims

Intel and the Federal Trade Commission are in settlement talks, according to a statement released by Intel.

Intel made the following statement Monday afternoon: "Lawyers for the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and Intel Corporation today filed a joint motion to suspend administrative trial proceedings while the parties consider potential settlement of the case originally filed by the FTC on Dec. 16, 2009." The statement continued: "The motion opens a window through July 22, 2010, during which time the parties will review and discuss a proposed consent order. The terms of the proposed consent order are confidential and Intel will make no additional public comment on the matter at this time." If a settlement is reached with the FTC, it would obviate the need for a trial slated for September. Though Intel settled a longstanding antitrust legal dispute with Advanced Micro Devices last year, paying AMD $1.25 billion, the FTC proceeded with a case against the chip giant, filing a complaint in December that alleged that Intel used illegal tactics to strong-arm computer makers--including Dell, Hewlett-Packard, Acer, and IBM--from buying processors from rival AMD. Intel denied the allegations. The FTC had also begun to explore potentially fertile antitrust ground regarding Intel and graphics chip supplier Nvidia. Intel and Nvidia have been wrangling in court over chipsets. And, in related news, Dell said earlier this month that CEO Michael Dell and the Securities and Exchange Commission are discussing a settlement relating to Dell's relationship with Intel. Updated at 6:45 p.m. PDT throughout.
Source: CNET News (http://cnet.com/)

Apple advises users how location data can be used

Apple wants you to know that when you use location-based services, like Gowalla, your location will be shared.(Credit: Gowalla)

Apple updated its privacy policy to underscore that when you use location-based services on your iOS device, Apple will be sharing your location with that service. The update, which came on Monday, added this to the company's overall privacy policy:

To provide location-based services on Apple products, Apple and our partners and licensees may collect, use, and share precise location data, including the real-time geographic location of your Apple computer or device. This location data is collected anonymously in a form that does not personally identify you and is used by Apple and our partners and licensees to provide and improve location-based products and services. For example, we may share geographic location with application providers when you opt in to their location services. Some location-based services offered by Apple, such as the MobileMe "Find My iPhone" feature, require your personal information for the feature to work.

In other words, if you want to use, say, Foursquare, an application that allows users to "check in" to places and share that location with friends, Apple is making sure you know that it will be sharing your location with Foursquare for the app to do what it is designed to do. Google's policy on Android is worded almost exactly the same:

Google offers location-enabled services, such as Google Maps for mobile. If you use those services, Google may receive information about your actual location (such as GPS signals sent by a mobile device) or information that can be used to approximate a location (such as a cell ID).

Apple's policy update appears to be causing a small bit of alarm because of the phrase "real-time geographic location of your Apple computer or device," though Apple is clear about saying that the location data is collected in a way that does not identify the person who owns the device and that it is used expressly "to provide location-based services." We've followed up with Apple to find out which partners and licensees are allowed to collect that data, and what it means when those partners "share" that data. If the company gets back to us, we'll update this post accordingly. Apple has been more vocal lately about privacy when it comes to location, which could have prompted the update to the policy. Earlier this month, CEO Steve Jobs addressed this same topic when he was interviewed at the D: All Things Digital conference. He said Apple wants customers to always have to opt-in when they are sharing their location. "We worry a lot about location in phones," Jobs said. "We have rejected a lot of apps that want to take your personal data and suck it up into the cloud. A lot of people in the Valley think we are really old-fashioned about that, and maybe we are. Privacy means people know what they are signing up for in plain English...Some people want to share more data. Ask them. Ask them every time. Let them know precisely what you are going to do with their data."
Source: CNET News (http://cnet.com/)

Geeks threatened by Pork Board over unicorn meat

Sometimes lawyers don't always spend their time in the most productive ways. Indeed, one wonders whether the lawyers at the firm of Faegre and Benson spent their time productively in reportedly sending out a 12-page cease and desist letter to the japesters at ThinkGeek.com.I have no nag in this spat, as I can no more understand geeks than I can understand lawyers. Yet ThinkGeek.com is adamant that this cease and desist is heartily genuine and deeply critical of its attempt to sell unicorn meat. Specifically, canned unicorn meat.Should you be frustrated at missing the opportunity to obtain some of this unicorn meat, please believe me when I tell you that there is no such thing. Whatever your daddy may have told you in order to get you to sleep so that he could get himself to his barcalounger, unicorns do not exist.

Very good with french fries and broccoli, I understand.(Credit: CC: Eggybird/Flickr)

The fact that unicorns do not exist might have given some people a clue, even those at the National Pork Board, that ThinkGeek's sale of canned unicorn meat might be a joke. The other thing that might have sent a small smoke signal might have been the fact that this fine product was being offered on April 1.Still, the National Pork Board remained unamused--particularly with the thinking geeks' declaration that canned unicorn meat was "the new white meat."Perhaps some of you are aware that the National Pork Board has wanted you to know for quite a few years that its own porcine offering was "the other white meat." So the lawyers' letter was headlined: "Infringement and Dilution of Trademark Rights of National Pork Board."Perhaps some of you might be unaware, however, and I am grateful to my regular reading of Iowa Farmer Today for telling me this, that the National Pork Board is allegedly on the verge of replacing its long-trotting slogan.So why might the fine lawyers of Faegre and Benson have needed to pen such a piggishly long letter to the obviously well-meaning folks over at ThinkGeek.com?Feel free to offer your suggestions and, to the author of the best, I will send my exclusive recipe for deep-fried dragon wings.
Source: CNET News (http://cnet.com/)