•Around the Industry:
Minneapolis goes Wi-Fi, with WiMAX to follow
Will Vista make Net 'slow and gooey'?
Silicon Valley set to receive free Wi-Fi
Russia and the Allofmp3.com conundrum
Commentary: China's internet addiction: a friendly 'invasion' gone bad?
•SecurityBits:
Microsoft confirms new Word zero-day attack
Symbian phones targeted as carriers for Windows worm
•TidBytes:
Firefox Gains Share, IE Loses
Apple hints at movie download service
Google to offer news archive going back 300 years
Pioneering desktop Linux project put on ice
•More news from around the industry, SecurityBits, and interesting Tidbytes inside!
Around The Industry:
•Minneapolis goes Wi-Fi, with WiMAX to follow:
Minneapolis is the latest large U.S. city to commit to building a citywide wireless network, but the city will hedge its bets by rolling out Wi-Fi initially and retaining the capability of upgrading to WiMAX and 3G at a later date. Suppliers BelAir Networks and US Internet said the deployment will cover a 54-squre-mile sector of the city. A one-mile-square Wi-Fi pilot network is already up-and-running. "Learning from the experiences and challenges faced by other cities, Minneapolis has chosen both a business model and a technology solution that ensure immediate, ongoing, and sustainable benefits," Minneapolis's Mayor said in a statement.
•Will Vista make Net 'slow and gooey'?:
Microsoft's launch of Windows Vista could slow down or stall traffic on the Net, said Paul Mockapetris, who is widely credited with inventing the Internet's Domain Name System (DNS). Mockapetris believes Vista's introduction will cause a surge in DNS traffic because the operating system supports two versions of the Internet Protocol: "You're going to see brownouts. All of a sudden, it is going to be mud season on the Internet, where things will just be kind of slow and gooey."
•Silicon Valley set to receive free Wi-Fi:
A consortium of technology companies, including I.B.M. and Cisco Systems, announced plans for a vast wireless network that would provide free Internet access to big portions of Silicon Valley and the surrounding region as early as next year. The project will cover 1,500 square miles in 38 cities in San Mateo, Santa Clara, Alameda and Santa Cruz Counties, an area of 2.4 million residents. Its builders, going by the name Silicon Valley Metro Connect, said the service would provide free basic wireless access at speeds up to 1mbps.
•Russia and the Allofmp3.com conundrum:
A year ago, Russian authorities investigated Allofmp3.com and found that the company was not violating local laws. However, as Russia tries to join the WTO, the US (and its friends in the entertainment industry) have made it clear they will block Russia's attempt to join unless they shut down Allofmp3 and similar sites. Luckily, just such a law went into effect last week. However, the recording industry continues to mistakenly focus on how Russian internet sales are way too low, rather than how it could learn from the site about how (a) people are willing to pay for un-protected MP3 files and (b) how they're much more willing to pay when the prices are a much more reasonable price than what the industry is charging (both of which counteract claims by the industry that there's no way to fight "piracy" and that DRM is necessary).
•Commentary: China's internet addiction: a friendly 'invasion' gone bad?:
"China is certainly among the principal players of the internet market; yet with recent contradictions and controversies regarding the country's usage of the Web, there is question as to where the industry is driving Chinese users - or more accurately, where they are allowing themselves to be taken: "Within the last ten years, China has become...the country with the most serious Internet addiction [and] it is becoming worse." It has been estimated that one in eight users in China is psychologically dependent on the internet, but statistics also show that young people are the primary constituents of this pool, with over 13% currently addicted to the online world."
•Vodafone tests 1.8Mbps HSDPA:
Forty Vodafone customers have been given an early taste of the telco's upgrade to its 3G service which will be officially launched later in the year. The upgrade of Vodafone's 3G mobile network to the HSDPA protocol will increase download speeds from 384Kbps to a peak of 1.8Mbps. The chosen few were hand-picked by Vodafone account managers to trial and provide feedback on the telco's new HSDPA network which will be marketed as "mobile broadband" to spare consumers from the cumbersome acronym.Vodafone would not reveal the official launch date of the service, but said it would be before the end of the year.
•HSDPA 'will fail in consumer market':
"HSDPA is not going to make the impact on the consumer market that the networks think," Sarian Systems said, even as they launched an HSDPA-compatible router. "3G has so far failed to drive growth and we can't see how HSDPA is going to fix that." Sarian suggested that the key market for HSDPA would be point-to-point wireless connectivity within organisations — which it dubs machine-to-machine (M2M) — due to the technology's ability to produce speeds comparable to that of broadband. The company said network operators "have yet to recognise this".
•Warning, 3G(SM) delays ahead:
Om Malik reports: "A few months ago, we had observed that carrier consolidation in the US will become a dangerous affliction for hardware makers, especially those who are tied closely into the incumbent ecosystem. The word on the street is a big carrier (take a guess) could be slowing down its 3G rollout, a move that could impact the 3G ecosystem. (It is unlikely to impact the US carriers that are using CDMA-based 3G technologies on their networks.)"
•Cingular brings HSDPA to Ohio:
Columbus residents are the first in Ohio to receive Cingular's HSDPA wireless network. Cingular's 3G network is the first widely available service in the world to use HSDPA technology. HSDPA is the high-speed evolution of GSM/EDGE (Global System for Mobile Communication/Enhanced Data Rates for Global Evolution), which shares a common core network. GSM is the world's most popular wireless technology, which is used by more than one billion people in 210 countries.
SecurityBits:
•Microsoft confirms new Word zero-day attack:
MS confirmed that malicious attackers are exploiting a new, undocumented flaw in Word 2000 to load back-door Trojans known as Win32/Wordjmp and Win32/Mofeir on Windows machines. The acknowledgment follows a warning from Symantec that the threat was detected in the wild targeting Windows 2000, Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows Me, Windows NT, Windows Server 2003 and Windows XP systems. A spokesman for MS said the company's security response team has investigated the report and concluded that the attack is limited to users of Word 2000.
•Symbian phones targeted as carriers for Windows worm:
F-Secure has posted details of a Windows virus which can use a Symbian handset to transport itself between systems. The Mobler worm infects a Windows system, hides the Windows folder and sets about copying itself into different directories and on to any removable media available. It also creates a Symbian installation file which, if executed by an unwary user, installs a copy of the virus onto any removable media on the handset. Once there it depends on a curious user to execute it when attached to another computer.
Hardware, Software, and other TidBytes:
•Firefox Gains Share, IE Loses
•Apple hints at movie download service
•Google to offer news archive going back 300 years
•Pioneering desktop Linux project put on ice
•Dynamic Video Game Ads Gain Support
•Intel Cuts 10,500 Jobs In Continuing Restructuring
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Facebook allows you to snoop on your friends; users getting creeped out