News From Around The Industry:

• Microsoft gives Xbox 360's to USO's so soldiers can get their Halo3 fix - and oh yeah, chat with loved ones at home:
MS revealed it is in the process of equipping USO centers around the world with Xbox 360 consoles so that armed forces personnel can play games such as Halo 3 or Madden NFL 07 during time off. The soldiers also will be able to chat with loved ones back home using headsets linked to the Xbox Live online service. Microsoft also said it will make contributions to America Supports You, a Department of Defense organization that helps connect soldiers deployed in hot spots like Iraq and Afghanistan with support organizations in the United States.

• Mozilla announces plans to 'rock' Mobile Web:
There isn't a perfect mobile browser and there is plenty of room for competition in the space, which is why Mozilla is stepping up its efforts to improve the browsing experience on mobile phones, the company said this week. "People ask us all the time about what Mozilla's going to do about the mobile Web, and I'm very excited to announce that we plan to rock it. We are serious about bringing the Firefox experience and technology to mobile devices," wrote Mike Schroepfer, Mozilla's VP of engineering, in his blog. Mozilla's plans include adding mobile devices to the first class/tier-1 platform set for Mozilla 2, the company's all-in-one open source Internet application suite that comes with a Web browser, e-mail, and newsgroup client. The move will make mobile devices part of Mozilla's core platform, Schroepfer said. Mozilla also will roll out a version of Mobile Firefox, which can run Firefox extensions on mobile devices. Mozilla browsers are already available on Nokia N800 smartphones and Mozilla offers Minimo, its mini Firefox browser, to users with a variety of Windows Mobile-based smartphones. It also offers a service called "Joey," which brings Firefox Web content to mobile devices.

• Are non-PC devices really boosting hotspot usage?:
Market research firm In-Stat released a report entitled “More Than Just Laptops – Worldwide Hotspots are Impacted by Other Mobile Devices.” They sent out a release full of fluff — and light on facts.

What they are saying seems to be partially true. Using your WiFi-enabled phone, iPhone or some such device, you try to log into the Wi-Fi hotspot — say the T-Mobile HotSpot — except it almost never works. In reality, it’s more like a “give up after trying” scenario. While the device makers have started adding Wi-Fi to their gear, the user experience is still in the pre-historic times.

• Nothing can stop determined geeks:
Among the most popular attractions of this year's CAFECONF Linux conference down in Argentina, the "Buenos Aires Libre" group, is promoting its hobbyist, city-wide "community network". Unlike other Wi-Fi "projects" and "communities" like the (in)famous FON which mixes business objectives with grassroots participation, this one isn't about providing hotspots for public internet use, and it isn't commercial at all. B.A. Libre aims to run a network with its own backbone, capable of routing traffic between nodes even if the Internet goes down, it doesn't rely on the public internet for transportation. The project was kick-started by a handful users a long six years ago and after several iterations and change of structure and leadership, now seems to show steady progress. The BAL network spine uses point-to-point links and directional antennas along with inexpensive consumer Wi-Fi APs or in some instances full PCs in waterproof enclosures- loaded with their own customized Linux software, dubbed Obelisco - Spanish for 'obelisk' the city's landmark. Three years ago, at the time the local local loop monopoly covering the northern half of this country decided to charge for DSL traffic above a certain quota - a decision it later dropped - the company suddenly found itself uncomfortably in the public spotlight, and facing the heat of the angry users and ISPs who demanded local loop unbundling. One exec at the behemoth telco lost his composure and reportedly exclaimed at a congress hearing on the subject: "If you want traffic to be free on the network, then build your own". Well, ironically, that's precisely what these folks have been doing: building their own backbone.

• RIAA cast itself against world and tide - and a Yahoo exec's had enough:
The RIAA might have won $220,000 from a single mother in court last week, but it was a pyhrric victory, no matter how that case is finally decided, because it brought to light the RIAA's alienation from the artistic and technological ecosystems upon which it depends. David Rovics is a musician who's making a living without any involvement with the music companies. His essay is lengthy, but thoughtful and well argued. If you're interested in why and how musicians don't need the RIAA, you might want to read it. Ian Rogers is the general manager of Yahoo Music. He wrote in his blog about telling some music company executives that he's done with digital restrictions management (DRM). The digital genie's out of the bottle and the music company dinosaurs' days are numbered.

• Google's 'Gphone' said to be mobile OS:
New reports suggest search giant Google is believed to be working on a mobile operating system and not a handset device as previously speculated. Engineers at the company have been working on a secret mobile project for two years and observers had until now believed the project involved a mobile handset, which some had dubbed the "iPhone killer". However, according to latest reports, Google is now believed to be working on a Linux-based operating system for use on all makes of mobile phone, pitched not against Apple, but rather existing mobile OSs such as Symbian or Microsoft's Windows Mobile. Analysts believe Google wants to extend its dominance of online advertising to the rapidly growing mobile internet market and is hoping to persuade mobile providers and phone manufacturers to offer phones running its software. The cost of those phones may be partly subsidised by Google-managed advertising appearing on their screens. The company is also expected to integrate its full suite of applications into the new OS and develop its own mobile web browsing software. Google has not make any official comment on the rumours surrounding its mobile plans, but the company's chief executive Eric Schmidt has said several times that the mobile market represents the biggest potential growth area for the company.

• FCC faces Internet decision on AT&T, Qwest:
U.S. regulators are expected to decide on Thursday whether to grant a request by AT&T to lift some regulations that govern what it can charge rivals for access to the company's high-speed Internet lines. The FCC is facing a deadline of midnight on Thursday to rule on a petition by AT&T to scale back the regulations. Analysts have said the commission could rule at the same time on a similar petition by Qwest Communications International, whose request was put on hold by the agency last month. The FCC eased the same regulations on Verizon Communications last year. Verizon's petition was not approved by the agency, but went into effect when one of the commissioners was recused and the remaining four deadlocked. All the requests have been strongly opposed by smaller rivals such as Sprint Nextel, Time Warner Telecommunications and XO Communications.

• Is municipal Wi-Fi a technical failure or a business failure?:
Maury Wright, Editorial Director at EDN writes: "he consensus seems to be that deploying Wi-Fi in a mesh network that covers a significant amount of urban area is just too complex. But read between the lines, and you’ll find that the message is that no one will pay for the service. Wi-Fi certainly has technical limitations in a mesh deployment. The 2.4-GHz flavors have only three nonoverlapping channels. And as I’ve written repeatedly, Wi-Fi implementations don’t come close to their specified range. But those technical issues aren’t really behind the failure of municipal-Wi-Fi deployments. What is the problem? The cities and service providers behind the deployments completely misunderstand the potential user base. The potential user base for municipal Wi-Fi ranges from students to professionals that are on the move between meetings, classes, and other events. These users don’t need municipal Wi-Fi as a primary Internet service but rather as a secondary, supplemental service. The problem is that a number of Internet alternatives exist to buying a municipal-Wi-Fi subscription." This point pretty much echoes what I said in an earlier MBB blog post. And I still think its absolutely true. The failure, IMO, is much more from a business standpoint, even though technical issues do play a part. Everyone, from vendors down to cities, do not understand that you need to deploy where the service is really needed for it to succeed as they all planned. Deploying in areas that already have plenty of alternatives and expecting a big return is ridiculous and short-sighted. I still say it can succeed - and does succeed - in those areas with minimal broadband alternatives.

• Security Researcher warns about Citrix vulnerability:
GnuCitizen, which identifies itself as a "cutting-edge think tank" and a "creative hacker organization," has posted a warning about a cross-site request forgery attack that can be made in conjunction with a malicious Web site to trick a Citrix user into opening a specially crafted Citrix independent computer architecture (ICA) file that would compromise his or her system. If successful, the attacker could gain the ability to execute remote commands at the victim's access level. Petko D. Petkov, founder of GnuCitizen and its lead researcher, characterized the vulnerability as quite severe. "It is a remote command execution attack which cannot be easily fixed, mainly because it relies on features rather than bugs," he said. "If the attacker tricks a user from the targeted network into visiting a malicious Web site or opening a specially crafted ICA file, then they might be able to gain access to critical corporate assets. The attack is very simple and highly effective. Citrix is also a very popular platform. This makes this issue extremely problematic."

• Linus Torvalds releases new Linux Kernel update:
Linux developer Linus Torvalds has released the latest kernel update to the open source OS. In a posting on the Linux kernel mailing list, Torvalds wrote that the release was delayed slightly due to some minor bug fixes, "not because of any huge issues." Linux 2.6.23 includes a number of technical enhancements that will be of most interest to developers, including better support for Sun Microsystems' 64-bit Sparc chips and Analog Devices' embedded Blackfin processors. "Ignoring those arch updates, there's basically a number of mostly one-liners" related to drivers and networking support, Torvalds said. Torvalds' comments were strictly technical, and he did not address any of the political or legal questions that have been raised about Linux recently.

• Sprint's credit rating is under scrutiny:
Sprint Nextel is bracing for another hit, this time from Fitch Ratings, which rates companies' credit worthiness. In addition to Sprint's oft-cited challenge to deploy WiMax, Fitch indicated it is concerned about the mobile phone service provider's lagging effort to switch subscribers from Nextel's iDEN network to Sprint's CDMA network. Fitch also said Sprint's recent announcements highlight additional challenges faced by the mobile phone provider, including subscriber additions and churn. The credit rating operation noted some Sprint strengths, including its "considerable scale" and the fact that it "generates significant cash flow." Fitch added: "Sprint Nextel's liquidity position is sufficient given its cash position, free cash flow, and available draw under its credit facility." Fitch noted that Sprint had $1.7 billion in cash at the end of the second quarter of 2007.

• 'Storm worm' exploits YouTube:
Bradley Anstis, director of product management at security firm Marshal, said that spammers are taking advantage of the YouTube function that lets people invite friends to view videos that they have viewed or posted. The function allows someone to e-mail any address from an account. The scam on Google's video-sharing site is targeting Xbox owners, urging recipients to collect a prize version of the popular game Halo 3. Anstis said clicking on the link to "winhalo3" leads to a file containing a Storm trojan. To date, Marshal has tracked around 150,000 of the spam e-mail messages thought to have originated from YouTube accounts. Security vendor Sophos has also reported the YouTube spam problem. Senior technology consultant for the company, Graham Cluley, said this incident differs from the technique commonly associated with the Storm worm, which typically targets PCs for the job of sending spam. According to Cluley, the YouTube spamming marks a departure for the junk mailers--instead of using botnets to distribute spam, they can use a familiar Web site to pass on messages. Anstis said this scam could herald the rise of outsourced bot-herding whereby the botnet controller pays a third party to acquire further bots. "Now, you can rent time on a botnet network and have a tech support department."